...was gotten by at b2b reporter. This is really worth researching, as Obama had said his mobile-using supporters would get the news of his VP pick first via text message. The message did go out, and the method was widely heralded as "breakthrough," but the media had already go Biden's nom out.
Paul Conley posted his take, with relevant links.
Daniel Libit of Politico on the relationship between blogs, journalists and audience engagement.
"Behold the Commentocracy, where big ideas and rough remarks sit shoulder to shoulder, altogether transforming the nature of the Web and of journalism...Writers and editors have become obsessed with comment tallies (even if many don’t deign to read the comments themselves), which have become a favored, albeit unreliable, barometer for determining editorial success and tapping into the political zeitgeist."
Pardon me for barfing up a whole press release, but as this is a research blog (and not really a reporting site), you can live with it.
Poynter Receives Boost to Transform Journalism Education Through E-Learning
$1.4 million grant from Knight Foundation to NewsU e-learning program adds digital transformation modules and multiple languages
St. Petersburg, Fla. - July 8, 2008 - The Poynter Institute announced today that it will use a $1.4 million, five-year grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to help transform journalism education by expanding the world's most successful and innovative journalism e-learning site. Launched in 2005 with a prior Knight Foundation grant, NewsU provides interactive, inexpensive courses to journalists at all levels of experience and in all types of media.
The grant will help NewsU expand in four key areas:
. Enhance the skills and digital abilities of journalists,
. Find new ways to teach and inspire journalists as well as those without access to formal journalism training,
. Increase news literacy, and
. Use the Internet to deliver training in innovative and effective ways.
Specifically, NewsU plans to offer new courses to help journalists and others make the transition to a digital world, shift its current content management system to a Web 2.0 platform, deliver course content in multiple languages, and create e-learning modules on news literacy for the general public.
"More than 73,000 participants have enrolled in NewsU courses since its introduction, vastly exceeding initial expectations and making NewsU the top e-learning destination for journalists and others interested in journalism," said Howard Finberg, director of interactive learning at The Poynter Institute. "We are excited about taking NewsU to the next level and reaching journalists around the world."
"This second Knight grant is a major vote of confidence in the work of our faculty and staff, our partners and our diverse and expansive user base," said Karen Dunlap, president of The Poynter Institute.
"New technology is transforming journalism," said Gary Kebbel, Director of Journalism programs at Knight Foundation. "Journalism education cannot meet the training needs of today's journalist without using that same technology. We hope this grant helps anyone learn to use new platforms to pursue the fair, accurate, contextual search for truth." He added, "Every community in this democracy has a core need for information that creates shared experiences that unite us."
NewsU was launched in 2005 to help journalists understand and adapt to the digital revolution. Through partnerships with more than 25 journalism organizations, the online site has developed and introduced more than 65 interactive learning modules that can be taken anytime and anywhere.
About The Poynter Institute
Founded in 1975 in St. Petersburg, Fla., The Poynter Institute (www.poynter.org) is one of the nation's top schools for professional journalists and media leaders, future journalists and journalism educators. Poynter offers training throughout the year in online and multimedia; reporting, writing and editing; leadership and management; TV and radio; ethics and diversity; visual journalism; and journalism education. Poynter's News University (www.newsu.org) offers training to journalists, journalism students and others through interactive e-learning modules and links to other journalism education and training opportunities.
About the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation promotes journalism excellence worldwide and invests in the vitality of the U.S. communities where the Knight brothers owned newspapers. Since 1950 the foundation has granted more than $300 million to advance journalism quality and freedom of expression. Knight Foundation focuses on ideas and projects that create transformational change. To learn more, visit www.knightfoundation.org.
Contacts:
News University/The Poynter Institute
Howard Finberg, Director, Interactive Learning
Phone: 1.727.553.4371
E-mail: hfinberg@poynter.org
Marc Fest, Vice President of Communications
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
Phone: 1.305.908.2677
Email: fest@knightfoundation.org
Zainab Zakari has penned This article is 1,689 words long for the New York Review of Magazines, reporting on the various theories concerning how long articles should be online. Mentions various studies on attention spans and anecdotal evidence of why 1,000 words is an arbitrary and incorrect benchmark.
"Weisberg chose 1,000 words arbitrarily, but he and Nielsen are echoing the prevailing wisdom that, on the web, shorter is always better. If you don’t keep it short, you’ll lose the reader’s attention—and once a reader is bored, all it takes is one mouse click to kill an article.
Are these assumptions justified? Based on my personal experience, an informal survey of the literature in the field and conversations with various social psychologists and social scientists, I believe they are not."
The Torontoist outlines this story fairly well, with a little blogger editorializing thrown in to get the conversation rolling.
The gist:
-photographer finds man breaking into his house, burglar jumps from window, breaks leg
-photog takes pics of injured burglar below his window, posts them to Flickr
-CP24 covers incident, asks for photos, does not get permission, but runs them anyway without attribution after accessing them on Flickr
It's a fair use issue which is fleshed out nicely in the comments section of the original post.
Interesting. An online journalism school for rookies and those looking to brush up a bit.
Most interesting to me? The Be A Reporter Video Game. Seriously.
HP (Hewlett-Packard), already in a lot of trouble for spying on some of its board members, is being sued by five reporters that, allegedly, were also spied on.
Here is CBS's story on the issue.
An interesting post from a PR-guy's blog about Google's decision to allow news subjects to comment or respond to news stories about them.
Oh, the possibilities for burned PR folk. Oh the flak that will fly.
Here is Google News Blog's explanation.
Edit, August 8: Here is Ars Technica's post on the subject.
BoingBoing amalgamates a bunch of links in this post about a scholarship for programmers who want to train as journalists. The goal, the post says, is to find ways to combine the two fields. Definitely worth following.
