29 April
France:
Social Media Club Told Journalists to Create More Interactive Multimedia
The Social Media Club, a group of French journalists specialised in new
media, argued that journalists should produce more interactive multimedia in order to
attract audiences. They said journalists should look to movies and television
for ideas to present their news in a more attractive and interactive way.
28
April
Australia:
Nine Network to Become the First Broadcaster Offering 3D Live Programmes
The
Australian broadcaster Nine Network will roll out its 3-dimensional (3D) programmes in June offering 3D rugby
matches to audiences. It will become the first broadcaster in the world to
offer 3D live programmes. According to the management, the company wants to
take a lead in the 3D market as TV manufacturers started selling 3D capable TV
sets.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63R0MR20100428
Italy:Corriere
della SeraJoins European Network to Expand English Reporting
The
Italian daily newspaper, Corriere della Sera, announced plans to join
the European media including Spiegel, NRC Handelsblad and Politiken to increase its English reporting across Europe.
Partners of the project will collaborate to produce English-language online
coverage of European affairs. The collaborative project started in 2008 with
the aim of increasing English-language reporting and media diversity across Europe.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,691478,00.html
27 April
UK:
Times to Introduce Paid Online News Forum
The Times has announced plans to launch an
exclusive online news forum as part of its paid package to be introduced in
June. A new website with interactive features will be rolled out to
provide "multimedia information and entertainment" to readers
who will be able to interact with the Times’
journalists and columnists. Starting in June, the Times will charge readers £1 for a day pass and £2 for a weekly
subscription. Similar features have been introduced recently by the
Economist.com (MCJ 19April 10) and the US online paid forum “Civil Beat” (see
MCJ 22 April 10).
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=45358&c=1
23 April
US: Online
Newspapers Record High Traffic, Study Says
Online
newspapers have proven more and more popular. The Newspaper Association of
America (NAA) revealed that US online newspapers attracted an average of 74.4
million unique visitors a month in the first quarter of 2010. The figures also
show that local newspapers websites attract the most traffic. 57% respondents
said that local newspaper website is one of the top online sources for local
information.
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1004085805
22 April 2010
US: -
Paid Online News Forum Offers to”Save Journalism"
Successful
businessman and founder of eBay, Pierre Omidyar, is to lend his
entrepreneurship to "save the media industry" by launching a
paid online news forum in May. Readers have to pay $19.99-a-month for the
membership of the news forum. They will be able to interact with reporters who
host online discussions on heated topics that affect their communities. The
entrepreneur hopes the new business model will reinvent journalism and make
readers pay for content.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100421/ap_on_hi_te/us_ebay_founder_news
-
News Groups Form Collaborative Reporting on Climate Change
A
group of news organisations including Wired, the Atlantic,theCentre
for Investigative Reporting, Slate,Mother Jones,Reuters and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is to form a collaborative
project called Climate Desk on climate reporting. The project claims to
fill the gap of climate reporting when most news organisations face deep budget
cuts and lack resources to cover these issues. The project is manly funded
by the Surdna Foundation for journalism and the Park Foundation for
environmental policy in the US.
http://theclimatedesk.org/about
UK:
Reuters.uk Considers Charging Content After Revamp
Reuter is considering
charging ‘niche’ and ‘high-value’ content after its UK website undergoes a revamp. The
move came after Reuter received positive responses from advertisers for the
revamp of its website in the US.
However, Reuters is yet to decide if the paid model will be a sustainable
business strategy.
http://www.mediaweek.co.uk/news/997956/Reuters-overhaul-website-hints-charging-content/
20 April
US: Pioneer
Online Magazine Faces Closer Two Years after Launch
The online
magazine Flyp announced that it is closing its operation and laying
off a dozen of its staff as the company struggles to sustain the business. Flyp was first launched in 2008 offering readers multimedia content
incorporating texts, images, videos and animations. It has partnered with the
business magazine Fortune.com to produce interactive content. Recently,
it was nominated among the top five online magazines for a Webby award (the
international award honoring excellence on the Internet) along with the Economist,
National Geographic, the New Yorkers and Wired.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gTRDlrRYGgglqOzbROFDhmBpRclwD9F692IO1
UK:
Survey Says Media Consumption Increases But Spending Decreases
A recent survey
shows that people in the UK
are spending more time on media products (i.e. TV, music, video games,
newspapers and magazines) but are spending less money buying these products. In
particular, spending on traditional media such as newspapers and magazines
decreased by almost 20%, and spending on digital media has almost halved in the
last six months. Around 19% to 21% respondents in the survey said they paid
nothing for the magazines and newspapers. However, the survey shows that
younger consumers (aged 16 to 24) are more likely to pay for online digital
content than their older counterparts. Almost half of them said they would pay
for online television programmes, films and music but only 30% would pay for
online newspapers and magazines.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/apr/19/media-consumption-survey
19 April
The Netherlands: RNW to launch ‘Visual’ Radio
Programmes in the Middle East
The Radio
Netherlands Worldwide (RNW) announced the launch of its first
‘visual’ radio services providing live graphics, web content and interactive
SMS and Twitter feeds to radio audiences. In collaboration with the
international broadcast services company, the World Radio Network, the service
will first be broadcasted to the RNW’s audience in the Middle
East. According to the management of the RNW, the new
services can help traditional radio broadcasters to reach a wider audience
through 24-hour TV channel and to create potential new revenue streams.
http://blogs.rnw.nl/medianetwork/rnw-partners-with-wrn-to-launch-radio-with-pictures
UK:
Economist.com Launches ‘Conversation Cloud to Encourage Intellectual
Discussions’
The Economist launched a new
tool called ‘Conversation Cloud’ to aggregate comments on the site’s articles
to let users discover the most debated topics more easily. The idea of
Conversation Cloud is based on the research findings that people mostly read
the comments before an article to decide whether it is interesting. The
Conversation Cloud will allow users to search the most read and debated topics
on Economist.com. The Economist.com is also considering integrating its
activities on social media sites to attract younger readers.
http://www.nma.co.uk/news/economist-adds-tools-to-highlight-most-debated-content/3012228.article
15 April
France: France 24 Signed Deal to Expand Coverage in North America
France 24, the
French international news broadcaster signed a three-year deal with the global
broadcast services company, GlobeCast, to expand coverage of its
English-language channels in the United States and Canada. The deal will allow France 24 to reach 90% of the American cable
market, as well as to consolidate its development in Canada.
US: Increasing
News Sites Run by Think Tanks Raises Concerns over Ethical Journalism
As traditional
media organisations struggle to survive, the
number of news organisations run by think tanks is growing.
These news organisations are sponsored by resourceful think tanks that often
offer better pay to their ‘journalists’ than traditional media organizations. However, their news
coverage mostly focuses on government and politics with a specific agenda. This
phenomenon, which shows that partial reporting is
becoming increasingly popular, has led to growing concerns
among journalists, civil society groups and the public as most of these news
organisations lack transparency and their biased coverage often presents a
conflict of interest.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100413/ap_on_re_us/us_think_tank_journalism
14 April
Global: Twitter Offers Guidelines to News
Organisations
The popular
social networking site, Twitter, launched a new guideline for news
organisations on how to better use the site to ‘transform media, entertainment
and journalism’. The site offers tips and case studies to both journalists and
news organisations on how to better connect twitter fans.
13 April
US: Online News Sites Awarded Pulitzer Prizes
Mark Fiore of
the San Francisco Chronicle’s website, the online investigative news
portal, ProPublica and the New York Times magazine won a Pulitzer Prize for their collaborative
reporting. This is the first time the internet-only based work is recognised by
the Pulitzer Prize, one of the prominent journalism prizes to award the best in
US
literature, journalism and music. As news organisations face tougher financial
situations, online news websites are becoming mainstream. The administrator of
the Prizes said they will expect more collaboration between traditional and new
media organisations in the future.
12 April
UK: New
Tool Launched for User
Generated Content
Media
organisations can now use the online platform, Civicboom, to call on users to contribute content to their
news stories. Civicboom can be added to a news organisation’s website
and used to request news and information from readers and audiences. Readers
can send their news updates (including articles, photos and videos) to the news
organisation. These contents will then be approved by the site editors and used
online. News organisations can also sell these contents to third parties but
users can enjoy "part
of the revenues ", according
to Civicboom .
US: Print and
Broadcast Journalists Feel Pessimistic about the Future of Journalism
In another poll conducted
by the Pew Research Centre, a majority of print and broadcasting journalists
said they feel pessimistic about the future of journalism. 48% of editors
surveyed in the poll said that their organisations will go out of business in
10 years if they cannot find new revenue streams to sustain the business. Only 18% of print media have already started
the process of charging content online but
more than half of it have plans to do so in the future.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/business/media/12pew.html?ref=media
9 April
US: Huffington Post Blurres Further Distintions
Between Media and Social Network With Upcoming All-Twitter Edition
The
Huffington Post, the popular news site based in the US
announced the launch of an all-twitter edition for its news content. All
19 news sections of the site, including its most popular sections on
politics and technology, will use Twitter lists and update popular
posts in real time. According to the Post, the move aims at fully integrating social networking into its news coverage to
engage readers with live reporting. According to management, the site
is "partly a social network and partly a news content site".
8 April
US: Top Journalism
School to
Integrate "Computer Science" in Journalism Course
One of the top journalism schools in the US, the Columbia University,
announced plans to integrate "computer science" in its
journalism course offering prospective students a dual master degree in
journalism and computer science. According to the school, journalism education
has to respond to the fast changing media landscape to prepare a new generation
of professional journalists with the technical knowledge needed ‘to create new
and exciting digital media technologies that could redefine journalism’.
Students will be able to enroll on the course in autumn.
7 April
UK & US: Social Media Only Diverts 1% Traffic to
News sites
A recent survey shows that media organisations and professions might
have over-estimated the power of social media to disseminate news. The
survey shows that Twitter drives less than 1% traffic to major US newspaper
and magazine sites while Facebook only drives 1% to these sites. In the UK, Twitter diverts less than 1% traffic to
major UK
newspaper websites like the Mail, the Telegraph and the Guardian.
http://www.editorsweblog.org/web_20/2010/04/twitter_drives_less_than_1_of_traffic_to.php
2 April
US & Canada: ‘Longer
Hours, Heavier Workloads Persist’, Media Survey Says
A recent survey conducted
by PRNewswire, a global PR company based in the US, shows that a majority of
journalists and public relation workers in the US and Canada suffer from
increasingly long working hours and greater workloads as a result of the
converging media landscape. The survey results show that journalists in the US and Canada are expected to contribute
to online news sites such as the publications’ blogs, Twitter feeds and
Facebook pages. These extra responsibilities add an increasing amount of
workload on most journalists. Thus, journalists are doing more with less
content as much of online content is merely repeating offline publications.
http://multivu.prnewswire.com/mnr/prnewswire/43321/
US: AP Creates Regional
Investigative Teams
Following many
lay-offs worldwide last year, the Associated Press (AP) announced plans to set
up four regional investigative teams that will serve as a resource for AP
journalists across the country. The investigative teams will
contain "multimedia specialists" who will incorporate different
media formats for investigative journalism. In a memo to its staff, the
management particularly stressed the importance of multimedia in its reporting.
It said that the company will pour more resources to develop multimedia skills
among its staff in the coming years.
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1004080616