Journalism in the modern age

Bill Thompson writing for the BBC, discusses teaching journalism and studying news consumption in the modern age.

A worrying/challenging/exciting time depending on how you look at it.

"The writing is on the wall for journalism and journalists says regular columnist Bill Thompson."

Meanwhile Paul Bradshaw lists tools and resources for the modern journalist to source and keep tabs on news online, including RSS readers, social networks, news alerts and related content.

"Here are a few tools and tricks that might improve your hunt for stories."

Meanwhile Jeff Jarvis talks about how the press itself is portrayed in reported news.

"One problem I’ve had with much discussion about the future of news lately is that it’s too press-centric."

Also worth checking out: The Telegraph Tech blog scans Ofcom's findings on how we use the media:

"the Government Office of Communications, began its review of the future of public service broadcasting today with the publication of Ofcom’s Second Public Service Broadcasting Review."

Where's all the videos then?

I opened a new tab in Firefox to check out a video on YouTube, but it didn't react quick enough, so I end up on utube.com.

I wonder how much traffic they get from mistyped searches?

"Dear Utube.com,

Where all the videos then? Everybody's always talking about all the great and funny things but I cannot find anything on your site...

yours foolishly"

Multimedia news content tips

Steve Outing at editorandpublisher.com discusses ways to use news content online, but not just on originating sites. We have to move away from thinking of a newspapers output as a two-dimensional nailed down format, particularly in terms of multimedia content.

Apologies for using the whole passage en masse, but it all makes great sense to me at this current stage of newspaper evolution:

Newspaper companies increasingly are moving resources into producing video. Early adopters like WashingtonPost.com have been doing it for years, but now even small newspaper companies are trying their hand at video and going toe-to-toe with local news broadcasters -- or experimenting with new forms of video journalism.

If you're going to the trouble and expense of getting into video news, then make sure you spread it around; don't horde it on your own website and expect that to be enough.

Unlike some of the TV networks these days -- which send out the lawyers when one of their clips gets uploaded to YouTube by zealous fans -- newspaper companies should jump for joy that their video work can be distributed and seen by Youtube's huge audience. Think about getting your video work on multiple video services (there are lots of them).

Important, of course, is effectively incorporating your branding onto the videos. In caption fields, include the URL to get viewers to your website. Include a watermark logo in the video, and an intro that covers who produced this video, and perhaps sponsors.

Just as with newsworthy photos and Flickr, major news video can attract a significant audience on Youtube, et al. Newspaper companies should take advantage of what these online video services can offer in terms of exposure. And don't just tolerate your video work showing up on such services -- actively encourage and promote it!