Thinking I would make a minor change to the comments.php file last week, I have somehow managed to block out the most visited post on the site. It’s still there, you just can’t see it, and I haven’t worked out how to fix it.
I’ve already tried reposting, only to see the same effect. I’m convinced the problem is in the paged comments part of the code, but have either not restored to the original, or have but to no effect.
In the interim…
In other news, I’ve been catching up on some podcasts and just listened to a great Pods and Blogs episode from April 7. One of the things mentiond in the podcast was a live streaming news centre that was set up by some students to cover G20.
This week Jamillah talks to the students who created a news streaming page from the middle of the G20 protests when many reporters were unable to get in, or out, of the thick of it.
Some of what they did sounds awesome but I was put off, and disagree completely, with one of the students interviewed. They suggested what they had done could not necessarily be done by members of the public, that they were trained in the technology, and knew how to speak to the camera as a journalist.
As I said, I completely disagree. There are plenty of people all over the world who are better trained (and self-trained), who could do a better job of framing the story on video. Or with their voice, or a still image, a piece of art, a song, or a line of code that generates a visualisation.
People tell stories every day in different ways, to all sorts of other people
I’ve also been catching up on Dave Winer and Jay Rosen’s regular fireside chat, which they’ve named Rebooting the News. I’ve started from the beginning and only made it to about number four, but there has already been some good listening. Check it out.
I had an interview request about mobile journalism, or mojo, from Air Force News of all places.
The editor, Simone Liebelt, is a former student of Deakin University academic and mobile journalism expert Stephen Quinn, who recommended me as “one of the pioneers in Australia” for the story on Mobile Journalism trends. The following are some of the answers I was going to email in, but we ended up talking over the phone.
Read on for my ideas about using mobile phones for news gathering.
AIRFORCE NEWS: When did you start using mobile phones for news gathering and did you introduce it to your colleagues?
earleyedtion: In my first week as an intern at The Courier-Mail in February 2007, I took a PDA phone to an interview at the International Airport. The interview was with Wayne Bennett as the Broncos were leaving for England and the World Club Challenge. After the interview, I emailed the audio file back to the office, and the online editors were able to edit and put it online before I even arrived back from the airport.
In June 2007 I made the first stilted attempts at using a mobile phone for following (not gathering) the news, when I joined Twitter. Twitter still offered 250 free SMS updates a week, and I was only following a few news accounts, so started receiving “breaking” news to my mobile phone. It was news already being reported by mainstream media, but it was immediate alerts to things I might not have already been aware of. I wouldn’t say I introduced my colleagues to it, but did tell them about potential stories, especially the online subs if it was an interesting story we didn’t yet know about or have online.
Beyond that, I wasn’t really using a mobile phone for news gathering (eg images or video). Since then I have made some attempts at live streaming video from a news scene, and taking my own images and video, but generally on a point and shoot camera, rather than a mobile phone.
Did the trend catch on quickly and what has the reaction been from your fellow journos?
It was The Courier Mail online news room who suggested I record and send back the audio. Unbelievably, that was two years ago now. I say unbelievably because that was an example of how we could start using mobiles to break news, but it’s now two years later and that sort of newsgathering has still not progressed to be standard industry practice.
Fellow journos are open to trying things like that, using mobiles in the field, but it either hasn’t been encouraged or pushed enough. We’ve had people send in video from the field on a mobile phone. But again, I can only think of one occasion where that has happened. It takes a change of mindset. People have to be thinking of it, have it on their mind
What inspired you, i.e. overseas media agencies using the technology or Prof Quinn’s work?
A bit of both. The first thing that got my interest was the Reuters MoJo program. They were testing Nokia N95s to report, including in Africa. What was unique was that they were using only the N95. They got a little bit of help rigging up an external microphone connection that usually wouldn’t be possible, but the results were great.
I also tutored for a semester at the University of Queensland in web production, trying to help get a bit more online production into the curriculum. While I was there Professor Quinn came to talk to UQ SJC staff about some of the work he was doing with Fairfax. Fairfax were starting to roll out and use the iMate JasJam phone as their multimedia reporting device – using hard foldout keyboards for typing on the go. I wanted to try that.
Would you say you are a Mojo pioneer in Australia, and if so, why?
I wouldn’t say I am a mojo pioneer in Australia. In truth I rarely get the opportunity to do things that are truly “mobile” in their use.
not sure how much I’m actually doing as mojo. It certainly isn’t my job description, just something I’d like to make happen.
I have not particularly seen journalists who would specifically describe themselves as “mobile”. The closest is perhaps fully multimedia journalists who do everything. For example there are some ABC multimedia journalists who use a high def digital video camera to take stills, audio and video. But I’m not sure if they are then mobile in their editing and sending content, or if they then return to a studio.
The only way I might be pioneering is that I’m actively looking for applications and accessories that would facilitate the mobile journalist. So whether that’s using an iPhone, a Nokia, or a phone running Windows Mobile, I’ve been trying to find things specifically created for the mobile journalist. There aren’t many that I’ve found.
What do you see as the advantages and disadvantages of the Mojo, and are you a big advocate?
I expanded more on this answer when Simone interviewed me on the phone…
Advantages: mobile. Go anywhere.
Disadvantages: Quality. I don’t think it’s much of an issue, but it holds people back who are constrained by a misconception about “broadcast quality”. There’s a possible lack of resources…maybe a feeling of disconnectedness from the newsroom, or the perception of a lack of support in news decision making… but I don’t really believe those things would be a problem.
If you’re equipped with a lightweight but powerful laptop, and an internet connection, which obviously thanks to 3G wireless networks means you can be connected almost anywhere, I really don’t see many disadvantages. When you know you’re going to be truly remote without any net connection, maybe you’ll have a satellite phone…
Do you think it will replace professional camera equipment in the future, and will it promote members of the general public to become field reporters?
When you start talking about “mobile journalist”, you’re starting to blur the lines between the professional and the public journalist, which I’m not against. People all over the world are on the ground in places a journalist might not be able to get to for a long period of time.
Again, when you say “it” in regards to MOJO, are you talking about phones, or compact DV cams? I think everything will get smaller and more compact. There will always be professional quality and consumer quality products, but I do think professional camera equipment will change in the future. In the same way that it has changed over the years, it will catch up with technology. As someone once said, so-called “broadcast quality” in the 70s or 80s was horrendous, compared to so-called “broadcast quality” now. And if a cheap DV-cam can now produce better quality than what was considered “broadcast quality” in the 80s, then I think it has, and could have, replaced that earlier professional camera equipment.
Do you think it will become standard practice, and how soon?
I’m not sure it will become a standard practice. I also expanded on this question on the phone. Generally, I think that I’ve seen little to no movement in the past two years about mobile journalism moving towards standard practice, so don’t hold out much hope of it speeding up unless there are people in positions of influence who are serious about making it happen.
Can you give me any recent examples of where only Mojos have captured events (i.e. no standard methods used)?
No standard methods? No, I can’t think of any! What do you mean by no standard methods? Like no office involved at all? Completely done on the road?
Anything else you would like to mention?
Something I’ve been thinking about over the last week is how do you actually define the MoJo? Perhaps this is where academics like Stephen Quinn come in, as people who probably can apply a theoretical or academic approach to it as well. So is it someone who does things ONLY with a mobile phone? Or is it someone who is able to do things, “from the road”? Because “from the road” can expand quite a bit to include massive cameras and equipment… You don’t want to limit the possibilities with a restrictive definition, so to me it’s more something along the lines of “nimble”. Able to be as mobile or as nimble as possible. To edit audio or video you need a laptop, so does that remove it from being MoJo, because you’ve gone outside the mobile phone?
I don’t think that should remove it from the realms of MoJo. If you’re expected to edit audio or video before sending it back to the newsroom, you’ll need a laptop. Then to send it you might have to use your mobile’s 3G connection, so I think it’s difficult to limit MoJo to the mobile phone exclusively.
Simone mentioned she had also talked to Miguel de Souza from AAP about MoJo. His opinion will carry more authority than mine.
In January I experimented with a little mobile journalism, or MoJo, on a small story. Using Qik on a Dopod mobile phone, I live streamed video from the scene of a unit fire on Brisbane’s south side.
This was by no means an experiment in mobile journalism that even basically covered how MoJo could be done, it was simply a spur of the moment decision to give it a go. These are my thoughts on the process.
One of the videos watching fire fighters go about their work after they had already put the fire out.
Interview with the fire officer in charge
This video was taken with a TV cameraman alongside me. The use of his light was crucial. I had earlier interviewed the officer in charge using my point and shoot camera, but the footage was very poor without a light on the subject.
Each time I started a new video stream an update was sent to Twitter. While I was live streaming to the internet several people used Qik’s inbuilt comment facility to send me comments asking where I was, who I was with, and what was going on.
Pro: There is the potential for community or viewer input during a live interview. The journalist could invite questions from the audience, choosing one or several to ask directly if appropriate. Con: None really. The comments don’t create a notification sound or show in the video. The only issue is if a journalist thinks they might be distracted, but this is easily overcome by turning off comments.
The vision is streaming live to the internet. Pro: No editing required before original content can be viewed. Gives audience the very real sense of “being there”, and participating in the event or interview. Con: For mainstream media, there could be the paralysing fear of loss of control. What might someone say or do? Not just say in terms of “offensive” language, but saying something that could present a serious legal problem, like accusing someone of being responsible for a crime. The fear is not irrational, but TV do live crosses all the time.
Another loss of control is the ability to embed the video anywhere. That means competitors could simply put the embed code on their own site. This isn’t a problem if there is a way of appropriately branding the video because viewers will still know who created the content, no matter where they see it.
Apart from live streaming to the internet, I also took images and video on my Sony Cybershot DSC-W110. In some cases this was concurrent, simply holding the camera under the phone while one streamed and the other recorded.
The most compelling footage of the fire was shot on a mobile phone by a neighbour, not a member of the media. Connecting our phones via Bluetooth, he was able to give me the footage of flames shooting from the window. That phone footage was used on TV news the following day and can be seen embedded in the Courier Mail story here.
The videos above are in a live emergency services situation, but standard interviews are of course also possible. I’ve been experimenting with Qik, but UStream and other services are available as well.
People need to remember that MSM (mainstream media) need instant photos for online. MSM need to remember they should not just acknowledge the public for these pics, but remunerate where appropriate (exclusive/first). In this example, photos taken on an iPhone (remember, only a 2 megapixel camera) were paid for at the same rate as ‘pro’ photos.
“After I sent another couple of photos, I [...] found messages from the editor of philly.com [...]. She had seen my Twitter posts and Twitpics, and was interested in getting them.
I let her know that there were other pros working hard on the scene, but the Internet wants breaking news asap and – in a nutshell – she bought my pictures and posted one right away.
I was compensated roughly on the scale that freelancers in this town are paid in traditional scenarios: for responding and shooting with pro-level Nikons or Canons, and delivering their photos via laptops with cell modems.”
Originally from my auto-posting daily Delicious links, I have cut this back to just the link I have added comment to. This is in preparation for a blog redesign, where I no longer want posts titled “links for YYYY-MM-DD”. A live stream of Delicious links will also always be available in a sidebar widget and/or stand-alone page.
Deconstructing the “real journalism” argument
Terry Heaton takes a shot at the unending “woe, the internetz!” cries of mainstream media.
“we’d get a lot further in the reinvention of professional journalism if we could get away from the belief that its an entitlement, one that’s necessary for the survival of the species [...]
“Who do we think we are? Surely our hubris has blinded us, for professional journalism never was God’s gift to culture [...] We have done some good things, but our arrogance was our undoing. That arrogance is behind the notions that ‘real journalism’ can’t be practiced outside the paradigm of contemporary professional news.”
(tags: onlinemediaindustryjournalismmedia)
Why media companies are hosed
“Wal-Mart is a media site in that it sells its reach to advertisers, a reach that vastly exceeds two of the top newspaper sites in the world. This is why I keep harping on everybody that the future for local media companies lies beyond their own walled garden websites, and those who refuse to hear that (like, everybody) are sprinting to the tar pits.”
And an interesting viewpoint in the comments, suggesting QR codes could be the way of the future for cut-sized newspapers, providing direct mobile links to the full content.
“Sooner or later, some newspaper people are going to figure out that the way to go is a 16- 24 page paper that mostly serves as a table of contents for info on the web.”
(tags: mediaindustryfuturemobileqrcodes)
Tools for News
A huge collection of “Tool kits” for everything you need for online content creation, whether you call yourself a digital journalist, online journalist, or you create content for family, friends or any other community you’re a part of.
Check it out and get creative.
(tags: digitalhowtonewmediatoolsreportingtutorial)
Originally from my auto-posting daily Delicious links, I have cut this back to just a few links I have added comment to and that I think particularly useful. I have also retitled the post. This is in preparation for a blog redesign, where I no longer want posts titled “links for YYYY-MM-DD”. A live stream of Delicious links will also always be available in a sidebar widget and/or stand-alone page.
Today the Columbia Journalism Review has posed the question, How should journalists use Twitter? The question comes out of yet another emergency of global significance where the news spread rapidly on Twitter – this time the Mumbai terror attacks
Go to CJR to read their brief introduction to what is more of a newsroom discussion being conducted in the comments. There are some good points made.
This is my initial reaction…
Online news has been in various places (including the recent MEAA Future of Journalism report) described as more “event-driven”, with a lack of analysis that has formerly balanced out the print edition. I disagree that all news has been balanced in that way.
“a reporter showed up from an outlet thatshall remain nameless asking about an incident that happened 20 minutes earlier and four blocks away. …Local MSM: either figure itout or die trying.”
The nightly broadcast TV news has always been event-driven, as has the hourly bulletin radio news. Deeper analysis has been left to long-form programs with a focus on investigation. With that in mind I say that yes, like other forms of news, Twitter is event-driven. It conveys the immediacy of what is happening in the form of live text updates but it is just that, one form, one medium of choice to convey information. It is a form that is useful in lieu of other forms that may be preferable, like live vision (via TV or web streaming), or at length descriptions of events that have unfolded so far, and explanations of the circumstances surrounding an event.
In the comments at CJR, many people are worried about the face value with which Twitter updates might influence a reporter’s understanding of an event, while others rightly say it should be treated much the same as a member of the public calling something in – it needs to be able to be verified. Just like local contacts, however, a journalist can also be building up trusted social networking contacts, whose news tips or inside word a journalist might be willing to accept at face value.
Journalists have never underestimated the value of sources, and social networking sources should be treated the same. Digital media may have created a different world to one most journalists are familiar with, but some things remain the same – journalists have contacts they regularly communicate with, with whom they build relationships. There may be casual contacts who only occasionally pass on an interesting bit of news, and then others with more clout who are an immense help to getting an inside story. With a vast array of experts and contacts available online, particularly through social networks, Twitter is just one of those essential tools.
But I digress.
Journalists should use Twitter:
to find contacts
to maintain and communicate with contacts and their audience
to monitor keywords relevant to their round (their beat, for my American friends)
to monitor updates around a specific geographic location.
A journalist might want to monitor Twitter updates by location to be aware of anything significant mentioned in their local area (like an emergency), or because a significant event will be taking place in a specific location, like the Republican National Convention.
I mention that because one of the best things I read recently about the possible use of Twitter as an “event-driven” source was its use at the RNC, and how mainstream media was left far behind.
Albert Maruggi observed: “[Twitter is] the police scanner of 21st century newsroom. This from a guy that used to rewrite AP copy for 11pm newscast.”
Currently assigned to the enviable police desk reporting round, I enjoyed this analogy. Like a scanner, Twitter is a non-stop flow of information; if your ear isn’t attuned, or you’re not listening to the right frequency, you could easily miss a big story in all the static.
“…Every local media outlet needs to do what the Pioneer Press is doing. By using their Twitter account as a place to post links to stories and place them in context, it gives me a credible local source AND they are looked upon favorably by the Twitterverse.
[...snip...]
I will leave you with one anecdotal piece of evidence: As I was at a street corner downtown Saint Paul checking my feed to see where the next hotspot was, a reporter showed up from an outlet thatshall remain nameless asking about an incident that happened 20 minutes earlier and four blocks away. …Local MSM: either figure itout or die trying.”
In future posts I plan to expand on some of the ways I use social networking – particularly Twitter – as a journalist, and some of the tools that help in that use.
What I worry about is when an over-enthusiastic marketer, or just someone out to wreak havoc, executes a coordinated “Twitter attack” designed to play the mainstream media for a fool. How long till we see the first fake emergency or breaking news scam go worldwide in a matter of minutes through Twitter?
I’m not going to go into the Future of Journalism conference last Saturday in any great detail.
There is a post on the Future of Journalism’s Wired Scribe blog with a roundup of several good links to posts by people who were observers and panelists on the day. Interested people can read a roundup there.
What I’m providing here is just a quick video of a question I asked of news.com.au editor David Higgins about the use of social networking tools for newsgathering.
About the conference itself, there wasn’t really a great deal suggested in the way of what the future might actually hold for ‘journalism’. Although for newspapers, a comment by David Higgins is worth noting. He said that more morning commuters were moving to mobile phones for their news instead of newspapers, and suggested the future of the weekday paper in physical form could be in doubt.
“Monday to Friday, I don’t think the outlook’s very good,” he said.
In the process of asking a question from the floor earlier David said that, since they started promoting news.com.au as an iPhone optimised site, traffic was up by more than 50,000 hits per month.
This blog has not been updated in almost two months. I would always prefer that were not the case and, as I’ve said before, I hope to remedy that with more frequent posting. For some reason my daily Delicious links haven’t been posting, but my Twitter updates in the sidebar have been flying along at an increasing pace.
On Monday I hit 700 Twitter updates since signing up to Twitter just over 12 months ago. Since Monday I have posted another 125+ updates, reaching nearly 300 updates in the first 11 days of September. Excessive?
From my Twitter graph it’s obvious I reached the Twitter tipping point towards the end of August, when I first actually engaged with Twitter – entering the conversation, and the community. Since then it has taken off. At first I followed the people I thought most influential in new media, but my Twitter use increased as I discovered more people in the ICT field in general, particularly in Australia and Brisbane. Twitter uptake in the Brisbane region has grown quite a bit recently – 1400+ who have entered Brisbane as their location – although actual Twitter use is, for the most part, infrequent. By grown, I have only my memory to compare that number against the last time I searched ‘Brisbane’ in Twitter.
So while blog posts and updates have been slow here on the webpage, I have not disappeared off the face of the earth, perhaps just into the murk of the Twitterverse. It’s not a bad place to be though – very good for keeping up, in real time, with the happenings of your industry (if you follow the updates of people and topics you are interested in).
I don’t use Twitter to communicate with family and friends, because most of them have never heard of it and, even of those that have, none of them use it.
As a journalist, Twitter has helped me not just in finding a few stories from people I follow, but has also started to help me find stories on certain topics using searches. I’ll go into that a little more in a later post.
In the meantime, I do have a few other blog posts in the works, and I hope they’ll spruce up this drab page in the very near future.
If you’re from Brisbane and use Twitter, @btub will let you know when there are Brisbane Twitter user meetups. As of this writing I haven’t been to the one that happened since I became active on Twitter, but there is one happening this weekend.
On Twitter I am @earleyedition, and you can see some of my recent Twitter posts in the right sidebar.
I’m all for mobile news-particularly as it relates to providing information in developing countries-but at this early stage I would say mobile is going to be part of a resurrection of local news providers.Uptake could be too slow to save the paper
Help Dave Cohn take “Journalism” out of his blog description.
“I don’t care about that word ["Journalism"] persay. What I care about is the open and honest exchange of information, as I believe THAT’S what is needed to keep a democracy strong.”
I somewhat agree-I just can’t see chiefs of staff seeing it as anything other than a waste of time – could also be legal issues.
“Each reporter should take responsibility for the comments on[their]stories and[.]be encouraged to actively participate[.]“
Training then needs implementation.
“The best multimedia journalists are sometimes those who take it upon themselves to learn [...] The online revolution[.]will never happen unless [...] organizations make a financial commitment to training their existing staff”
Video has archive value too-don’t hide it!
“archive video to create a long-tail business[.]Broadcasting is so accustomed to the idea of instant obsolescence (what we do today doesn’t matter tomorrow) that we miss opportunities for niche videos”
Originally from my auto-posting daily Delicious links, I have cut this back to just a few links I have added comment to or that I think particularly useful. I have also retitled the post. This is in preparation for a blog redesign, where I no longer want posts titled “links for YYYY-MM-DD”. A live stream of Delicious links will also always be available in a sidebar widget and/or stand-alone page.
“we MUST understand and then embrace the notion that print is no longer our primary focus.
..reporters chained to desks working with large desktop computers..so last century..Transition them to laptops..get them out of the newsroom and into the community”
How important is comprehensible data presentation to new journalism?
“visualisation is a way to turn usually a lot of numbers into images, so you can look at all the data that you have at the same time and try to see patterns – or interesting trends…”
Originally from my auto-posting daily Delicious links, I have cut this back to just a few links I have added comment to and that I think particularly useful. I have also retitled the post. This is in preparation for a blog redesign, where I no longer want posts titled “links for YYYY-MM-DD”. A live stream of Delicious links will also always be available in a sidebar widget and/or stand-alone page.
What makes the journalist? Will the rise of ‘citizen journalists’ deplete the number of voices with the access and ability to scrutinise the dishonest bastards?
Virtual worlds could be the classroom, newsroom, place of work and community square of the future – especially when we can’t drive our cars because fuel has become either prohibitively expensive or non-existent.
Everyone’s touting mobile as the future of the internet – with the iPhone said to be pushing phone providers to actually make that happen.
I’ve been thinking the mobile web is the most likely way developing countries can join the global community
Originally from my auto-posting daily Delicious links, I have cut this back to just a few links I have added comment to and those I think particularly useful. I have also retitled the post. This is in preparation for a blog redesign, where I no longer want posts titled “links for YYYY-MM-DD”. A live stream of Delicious links will also always be available in a sidebar widget and/or stand-alone page.
How’s this for awesome? I am of course buying into the hype that is everything Apple, particularly the iPhone, which is yet to be released in Australia.
Vodafone announced today they have signed a deal to sell the iPhone in ten of its global markets, including Australia, ‘later this year’.
Tuesday 6 May 2008
Vodafone to offer Apple’s iPhone in ten markets
Vodafone today announced it has signed an agreement with Apple to sell the iPhone in ten of its markets around the globe. Later this year, Vodafone customers in Australia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Italy, India, Portugal, New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey will be able to purchase the iPhone for use on the Vodafone network.
You have plenty of other multi-purpose phones – smart phone, PDA phone, Pocket PC phone – all of which do lots of good things. Is the iPhone the best? How does it rate against the others?
The mobile world is advancing towards that mythical ‘all-in-one’ device that can not only effectively meet the demand for multimedia use of phone, video, audio, image and web, but also realistically meet the needs of those publishing content on the go.
It’s a mobile revolution. The Nokia N95 can’t be bad if it’s the mobile platform of choice for the Reuters Mojo team, so does the iPhone live up to the hype?
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I’m not going to go into the Future of Journalism conference last Saturday in any great detail.
On Monday I hit 700 Twitter updates since signing up to Twitter just over 12 months ago. Since Monday I have posted another 125+ updates, reaching nearly 300 updates in the first 11 days of September. Excessive?
Image by mushon via Flickr
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How’s this for awesome? I am of course buying into the hype that is everything Apple, particularly the iPhone, which is yet to be released in Australia.
