Journalism Topic
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Online Journalism
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The False Idol: Technology
Technology seems to offer a lifeline to the hypochondria afflicting the journalism industry, but the real cure may be something simpler. -
Online journalism still needs to learn
Day two of the Online News Association’s conference has had, at least for me a much more engaging set of panels and conversations, starting with Holovaty’s through to integrating interactives into the site (which featured a tremendously strong panel). The day closes with what is dubbed the “Superpanel;” after is the ONA awards. -
Holovaty at the ONA conference
Adrian Holovaty started the day with his session on evangelizing reporting and making data in news articles available for machine parsing (as evidenced in ChicagoCrimes.org). Although I arrived late (something about the Queen St. streetcar trying being diverged, and partly a result of a late night hunt to find a Gypsy jazz band and a Yahoo party), I’ve seen his talk on this before (and he is a good speaker), but it is heartening to see that it was incredibly well attended. -
Midday at ONA, Day 1
So far, Toronto Hydro is failing me, hotel rates are too high, but I do have a recharged laptop (I still can’t believe there’s no free WiFi at an online journalism conference). Thankfully, I’ve been able to catch-up with a lot of people, some of which live in my city, or I’ve just met. And that was one of my hopes in attending this conference. -
ONA conference starts
Arriving for an early start at the Online News Association’s conference here in Toronto, and I have, so far, have run into colleagues I’ve worked with, might have worked with, and could be working with. Apparently the rare, and heavy Toronto fog has closed the airport, preventing some from arriving, but still it is quite packed. -
Google News rewards original content
Over the North American long weekend, Google announced a deal it struck four of the top English-language newsfeeds that will see Google News hosting wire stories. -
Podcasting down, video up
One of the topics I’ve been speaking about over the past year has been online news trends, and there’s a few recent pointers from The Editors Weblog that speak a bit more in-depth about two of my themes: video and podcasting. -
CBC.ca’s down
Sadly, it sometimes takes an outside event to put things into perspective. So it was when I saw nothing but a server error on cbc.ca this afternoon. That error (or error message) stayed for at least a few hours, until they managed to create a simplified, yet attractive, homepage for the news. -
Weisblott blogs again
For a variety of reasons, not the least of which being I don’t want this to be a marketing blog, I try not to focus too often on my day job. However, when something happens that would warrant an entry were it at another media outlet, I will. -
Two Toronto online events
Lately the posts here have been more idea-based than anything else, this one is not; rather it’s plugging two Toronto-area events. -
Online news initiatives out-of-date
One of the problems with online newspapers is that great initiatives are left to rot once launched. A perfect example of this: the Toronto Star released a clever Google Map of murders in the Toronto area “2005 to date”; but it’s not up-to-date. -
Opening the media
Launching a new site can be a painful experience, especially for one visited by hundreds of thousands of people a day. When the Toronto Star launched its new design, there were a number of rough edges; but in the intervening weeks, the team there has worked hard to fix them. In fact, shortly after the site’s unveiling, the Star created a comment-enabled blog to discuss the online team’s experiences and ideas. -
Add a comment at The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail becomes the first mainstream media outlet in Canada to allow its regular readers to comment directly on the news presented on its Web site. -
The Globe and Mail: now comments-enabled
Just spent a lot of hours finishing up what has become the first comments-enabled manistream news Web site in Canada. Yes, The Globe and Mail is now taking comments on its news pages. For a full write-up, read the latest rant. -
They come in threes
What happens when the inevitable happens not once, but three times in four days? -
Pumping up the praise
Canada is without a feedback loop when it comes to online developments and this is an attempt to adjust that. -
Good news and bad news for Wikinews
Google offered to share its server-space to ease the hosting and bandwidth demands of Wikimedia, owners and operators of Wikipedia and Wikinews. Greg Linden points out although its not a entirely selfish act, its not evil. John C. Dvorak disagrees, citing the erosion of the Usenet database as an example. The geeks at Slashdot feed the fire.. -
News.com does TrackBack
For the uninitiated, TrackBacks and pingbacks are MovableType-popularized technology that lets one site know another is linking to its content. The TrackBacks appear as an excerpt of the what the linking site says about the other’s content. Like commenting, TrackBacks provide quick feedback on a particular post and allows for an ongoing, open dialog. Until now, blogs have made the most use of it, but now News.com is doing it and I must admit, I admire their moxyie. -
Dow Jones buys MarketWatch
One of the sites I work on was heavily modelled on MarketWatch; in part because the former site’s editor worked on the latter, but also because the latter’s approach to covering the markets works. -
Checklist for the ideal news Web sites
Need a checklist, part II: last month, Steve Outing dreamt of the ideal news Web site -
Participatory journalism in T.O.
David Akin is blogging (and moderating) a Toronto conference on participatory journalism that is going on all day today. Although I missed the registration deadline, some of my co-workers are attending; it should be interesting to see how views of Dan Gillmour, Warren Kinsella, and Jay Rosen will affect them -
Forbes’ dumb contextual ads
So Forbes.com, thanks to Vibrant Media’s IntelliTXT system, is going where even Microsoft feared to tread. Like the software company’s ill-fated SmartTags, Forbes.com highlights individual keywords in a story. These words are then sold to advertisers. -
Selling Slate
Is Microsoft retrenching? Rumour has it that the company wants to sell Slate, possibly to the New York Times or the Washington Post -
Blogging success may endanger the indie Web
Thanks to the American political conventions’ decision to accredit some bloggers (which in turn was helped by a leadership campaign by Dean Edwards), the mainstream media (and the Internet Explorer development team) has finally accepted the format. (The media also seem to recognize blogging will force them to improve the online efforts.) Although pundits might herald CNN’s partnership with Technorati, the network’s founder offers a warning. Ted Turner wrote a lengthy article in Washington Monthly decrying how big media. The article argues the consideration has crushed independent voices in the broadcast world, and although the online world still seems free, we’d be wise to watch for similar indicators. -
Saving BBC Online
Although some British Internet companies are happy about reducing BBC Online’s presence, many in that country’s online media industry are not as pieces in the Guardian and Digital Media Europe indicate. I wonder if the BBC is still a bit timid after the suicide of Dr. David Kelly. -
Registering the Star
As promised, the Toronto Star is encouraging its users to register — in method sadly reminiscent of another paper’s attempts -
Big BBC Online cuts
A few weeks ago, when talking with someone who worked at the BBC Online, I was stunned to learn the massive scale of its operation. Now the government is ordering the broadcaster to shut down some of those reported 20,000 Web sites. The BBC is shutting five down, and is promising to limit its online budget to about �21-million-a-year, down from a �73 million this year. A cut that size will have a dramatic affect on the services offered by BBC Online, but still leaves them with an budget many Canadian sites would envy. -
Love-ing new media journalism
Mr. Holovaty points to a days-old site from Gary Love on new media journalism. The site looks to be the kind I was first hoping to create with this one; that is a content-rich resource on the unrealized potential in online journalism. Love has a lot of experience in the field, but has decided not to tie his name to the project (depsite using his personal’s site design). The result is a site whose pseudo-anonymity weakens the integrity of the well-thought out articles. Still worth a bookmark, though -
Man knows news (from blogs)
One Steve recently went on a news diet and restricted himself to the blogosphere. Later, another Steve tested the first’s news knowledge of that period. The results indicated you can get the news from just blogs. Of course, the same positive results would likely be obtained if the diet was restricted to discussions with friends at bars and cafes, too -
Do’s and don’ts for online newspapers
MediaSavvy continues its survey on why a newspaper can’t be more like a blog, this time discussing why so few of online newspapers have ability to track stories and add comments. Barry Parr also mentions Jonathan Dube’s list of 101 things to improve a news site. “We” have done at least nine on the list -
TodaysPapers: a new news aggregator
TodaysPaper merges GoogleNews with a community-blog-like interface. Though it’s still in its infancy (tracking only 100 feeds), TodaysPapers is the second project from BlogLabs — Cam Barrett’s personal business incubator. Barrett knows the medium, and it should be very interesting to see if how the users editorializing (via comments) will effect how readers digest the news as the site grows. -
Catching-up with the news
In the weeks since I’ve posted anything substantial here, it seems almost every notable blog has redesigned. (Where’s this one’s? Still sitting, unfinished on a test server.) There’s also been an election called in Canada, and a number of interesting developments in the news world. With my dad’s recovery progressing quite nicely, it’s about time to kick this blog back into gear and start covering these events. -
It bleeds, but doesn’t lead
A North Korean disaster gets buried by online news sites. -
Bleeding, but not leading
Did you know about the massize train disaster that occured in Norh Korea this morning? Given the treatment of the story online, it wouldn’t be surprising if you didn’t -
EPpys and eyes
The finalists for Editor & Publisher’s annual EPpy Awards have been announced. There’s nothing too surprising in the list of all-American nominees (except maybe Google’s nod). -
Rating the news
Newsknife claims to rate news sites, but the interesting thing is how it does just that: it partly relies on Google’s relevance ranking -
Digital librarians
Online journalists as we once imagined them may never appear, but Robin Good imagines an alternative: the digital librarian -
Online-news evolution
Although I know it’s true, I still find it hard to believe I’ve playing with this medium for ten years. Steve Yelvington, though, has been working in it for that same period (for me, it’s only eight). His look back is also a call to arms, challenging online journalism to live up to the potential we once saw in this “new media.” -
National Newspaper Awards nominees; CP goes wireless
The 2003 National Newspaper Awards nominees were announced last Friday, with my employer taking 13 of 60, and the Toronto Star a close second at 12. The National Post got three nods. -
Pre-rot link dump
I’ve been burning the candles at both ends trying to persuade Web servers to behave and tame Netscape 4. The resulting production is a bit less valid and accessible than I’d like, but is a big step forward for the sites in question. Any way, there’s been a lot of good pieces online lately, and before the links rot, I’ll dump them here. (Things should return to normal in April.) -
Saving online newspapers
Another community — the online news one — is buzzing about an article written by Vin Crosbie about “what newspapers and their Web sites must do to survive.” Most who know the industry say Crosbie has nailed it, and I’d generally agree -
Dayparting
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer divides the day up just right. -
Black resigns; OJA winners
Former-Canadian newspaper magnate (and author of a very well-reviewed biography on FDR) Conrad Black has resigned as CEO of his own company. Something about $32-million in unauthorized payments to he and his co-executivess… -
Safari 1.1 released; more XAML; BMO redesigns; Gore and the CBC
Thanks to Simon for picking up on the news about Safari 1.1 — a release I’d yet to hear about — and the fact that it is starting to support XUL (as well as opacity, through -khtml-opacity). -
Aspers’ hobby horse
An unsanctioned attempt to make Mozilla’s Web site support standards, has devolved into a sadly typical debate. A new, sanctioned, design should be appear in a couple of weeks (probably along with Mozilla 1.5, Firebird 0.7, and Thunderbird 0.3). -
Election day in Ontario
It’s election day here in the fine province of Ontario; if you are a resident, please get out and vote. Maybe, just maybe, the new government won’t be as callous as the last. -
Definitive essay on abbreviations; online news initiatives
Lars Holst has written what may be the definitive essay on the use of abbr and acronym. The well-researched piece concludes: -
The Walrus launches, the Red Herring relaunches; Google News creator
The Walrus has launched (look for a longer rant on this, probably later today) — haven’t seen a copy yet, but I have subscribed — and the buzz is good. -
Cutting the new media fund; best bloggin practices; Opera 7.20 out; P2P to the rescue;
As if the new media industry (when does it — i.e., the Internet, interactive television, wireless devices — stop being “new media”) isn’t hurting enough, the CRTC has a made a seemingly inconsequential ruling that will cut 40 percent from the fund that capitalizes many projects for Canada’s small digital media shops. -
Building fans online
Here’s an idea that hasn’t surfaced for a while (and runs counter to some recent predictions): build a publication then move it to print. This time round, though, it’s a national newspaper. A Canadian national newspaper. -
From Web to print
Just as one of Canada's national papers is on its deathbed, another begins online with its eye on a paper product -
Is the Web not enough?
Salon has run a monster of an article refuting one of my long standing-beliefs. The piece argues the Web isn’t capable of countering the growing media concentration (and it’s conclusions imply the South Korean experience may remain the exception). Of course, the article is set against the back-drop of loosening regulations down south where they don’t have a strong public broadcaster. -
Relaunches out of style; multimedia journalism; patent policy for the W3C
I was just thinking about this: “The Quiet Death of the Major Re-Launch.” The whole concept now seems as much a part of the bubble-era as Aeron chairs and brick-and-beam loft offices. (Via Digital Web.) -
Google News hits the world;XUL-based Internet desktop; Composer++
When Google News launched its latest beta, there was a lot of buzzing happening in the online news community. Today, the service localized, and has subsites for Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, the U.K., and of course, the U.S.. More prominence is given to local sources and stories, which is quite obvious in the non-North American editions. At Google News Canada—my new bookmark—there’s a “Canada” section, and a better focus on Canadian business news. -
The paradox of Stephen Williams
This is a situation I haven’t decided on. On the one hand, I support Stephen Williams right to publish work that is available in the public domain, but his decision to publish all of his research online on the Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka case leaves me with an uncomfortable feeling. I’ve long said online journalists should make their research available along with stories to improve the readers understanding, but this time I just don’t know -
Slate makes money; 50+ Headings; the next IE
Slate has become one of the few online publications to make money, and is the only big one to do so that’s not related to a traditional media outlet. (Yes, it is owned by Microsoft, but many print financed by deep-pocketed organizations, too). -
Interviewed on warblogging; blocking spam
Anna Czerny interviewed me for a small feature on blogs and the war for this year’s last issue of one of my alma mater’s newspapers. First time in a while I’ve been interviewed, and I forgot how easily details can be erroneously simplified (e.g., the origins of warblogging). But that just show’s the advantages of this medium in that I, as an interview subject, can use it to clarify any points I choose. Despite that minor quibble and my questionable grammar, it is a good overview (then again, I’m likely biased as I’m quoted liberally). -
Flush borders with Netscape 4; Nando Times closes
I think I’ve found a solution to a problem that’s been bugging me for a long time: adding a border flush with the background in Netscape 4.x. Although it requires an extra element, it’s worth it: -
New Position Is Everything layout; blogging as reporting; Fast Company does CSS
Big John has released another template hosted on his new-ish site, Position Is Everything. The latest layout has three columns, which are all the same height no matter which is the longest. Although I couldn't load it in IE 5.5, it apparently works with IE 5+, Opera, and Gecko-based browsers. -
War coverage
Want to know the price of lay-offs? The Globe and Mail’s Crisis in Iraq section still has a large graphic suggesting the war is still to come (it reads “Countdown to war”) and the latest news story is from March 15, 2003. Although breaking news is appearing on the homepage, what’s the point of having a special section and linking to it, if it is not being updated? At least the site is fast loading (as are most news sites). -
Nemesis Project; CBC Home Delivery
Gary Bland’s “Nemesis Project” is up and running offering a good collection of links to CSS and XHTML resources. -
NewsQuakes
NewsQuakes has a cool little news interface using an interesting visual metaphor. Concentric circles, that indicate news headlines, are basically situated over the country the story is based out of. As it exists now, there are number of shortcomings (circles overlap and spill over geographic boundaries) but the possibilities are intriguing -
CBC Radio 3 a masterpiece; W3C goes tableless
Not sure how I missed this, given my status as an unofficial CBC groupie, but its Web network has relaunched as weekly magazine gorgeously designed in, ahem, Flash. CBC Radio 3: Music and Modern Media looks to be what Shift once was — but with the design of a hip Wallpaper*. -
Outliner menus; CBC.ca excellence
Over the past few weeks, a number of people have commented on the outliner-style navigation menu most of you see at the left. I told a couple of them I was considering releasing the script for it to the public. -
CSS3 releases; the Content Provider’s Manifesto
The CSS3 modules are being churned out at a furious pace recently. Last calls were issued for the text and box-model Working Drafts. A second draft was published for lists and and a first one for borders. The latter has some interesting visual additions including implementations for drop shadows (which would render my CSS trick obsolete), rounded corners (which would render another CSS trick obsolete) and creating borders using images. -
25dates.com; Cashets; Guerilla News
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The butterfly effect
If you’re using Internet Explorer, and visiting any non-AOL-owned site today, you’ll likely see the MSN “butterfly” ads. Adrian Holovaty expands on a topic raised on online-news: a story on MSN and AOL running at The New York Times’s technology section also has those MSN ads. -
OJA surprise; accessibility and the law
The winners of the 2002 Online Journalism Awards were announced on October 18, 2002. Unfortunately, I had to search out the results myself. Despite being a screener for the Awards, I received no notice (granted, it could have been lost). -
Fixing Dreamweaver; the blog beat; DevEdge Sidebar
LIFT NN/g is an interesting attempt to solve accessibility problems at the source (i.e., the Web editor) — problem is Dreamweaver is rarely used to complete large Web projects. For those places that do use Dreamweaver all the way through the process, the price could be a little too steep. -
Google News relaunches
Google News has relaunched its service, and, as holovaty.com found out in an early preview, it does a pretty good impersonation of a traditional news portal. But this one is created automatically, using Google’s algorithms. -
Accessibility tests, OJA finalists
Last Wednesday, Yahoo greyed-out its homepage to commemorate the events of last September 11. On the MACCAWS list, a discussion began about how easy it would have been to do this using CSS. Others commented how this was a good way to see the Web as the colour blind do (yes, it was also mentioned that most people who are colour blind can see some colour). -
Better online journalism
I’ve long bemoaned the dearth of original (commercial) content online, but it looks as though AOL might start doing just that in an effort to “creat[e] online communities around content.” Of course, it is an effort to create a more “sticky” AOL to drive up CPM rates, but still… -
thenewforum.ca; news front pages
So you know about Monday, yesterday I had a brutal headache, and today I wish I just stayed in bed. Looking forward to the rest of the week… -
Uncle Sam wants your email
Canada Post’s epost offers every Canadian a free, secure, spam-free email account. Unfortunately the system is a one-to-many service for sending bills and catalogs from less than 60 organizations to the 210,000 people who have signed up. (An early review of the service by Chuck McKinnon offers a good description of the service and some its usability problems.) -
Deep-linking
Venting: people, especially journalists, who oppose deep-linking confound me -
Best of Europe; TechStuff.ca
Europe has picked its best in online journalism. Although BBC News Online did quite well, a number of independent and non-English services won as well. The justification for the awards should be read by every one of the so-called “big, traditional media institutions.” -
July 1st; Salon, CNET bleeding
Going into a long weekend here in Canada (despite May 24, I still consider the July 1st weekend the first long weekend of the summer — as it official is) and I’m awaiting my shipment of an “employee”-discounted copy of Windows XP. -
Impressive online journalism
The big bugbear of this site is the current state of online journalism. Lest I give the impression all is lost, I thought I’d point you to some excellent examples. -
online journalism as photojournalism
Poynter’s online-news list has been debating the future of online-news industry for a while. But it was a recent posting by Clyde Bentley of the Missouri School of Journalism that crystallized an internal debate I’ve been having for a while. -
Blogging as journalism
A while back, I sketched out what was to be a piece for the Web Journalism section on “blogging as journalism.” -
Wired vs. Shift; rich media
Lynn Crosbie’s latest Globe column is a nice, lay-person’s introduction to two magazines that seemingly cover the same topics—Wired> and Shift. -
McKinsey on the online industry
Though the writing style is often dry, and the focus can be a bit to business, the McKinsey Quarterly usually has some excellent pieces about the Information Economy and online industry. For example: -
Long-form journalism not Web-friendly?
Ironically, Michael Kinsley, ex-editor of Slate, has been saying in various exit interviews, that at Slate they were unable to successfully do long-form journalism à la The New Yorker. (Ironically, The New York Times published a story claiming even magazines were abandoning this style of journalism.) -
Salon’s former quality seen in Mozilla article
Salon.com was once the example of intelligent online journalism. In my mind, they slipped from that pedestal shortly after doing to the American Republicans exactly what they’d been criticizing that party of doing to the Clinton and his Democrats. -
Attacking the messenger
Despite the old adage, it really isn’t a good idea to kill (or hit, in this case) the messenger if you want to generate any level of sympathy from the general public. -
WSJ’s US$28 million redesign
Last month, The Wall Street Journal Online unveiled its US$28 million redesign, which was about a tenth of the print edition’s redesign costs. OJR has an interesting interview with the online editon’s publisher about the redesign process, as well as reaction to the new site. -
Olympic hurdles; layout thanks
While in Ireland a year and a half ago, I went to one of the most western parts of Europe, Valentia Island. The early radio operators there were one of the only points of contact for ocean going vessels, thanks greatly to the work of Guglielmo Marconi. -
The buzz on Shift.com
With the dearth of original, Canadian content online, I have to remind myself to go to Shift.com more—after all, I’m now receiving its email newsletters. -
New Tecumseth Free Press Online; Gzowski has died
J.D. Lasica’s latest OJR piece is out, and this one focuses on one-person consumer and community reporting, done with the help of the Web. For online journalism, niche reporting is where it’s at and its nice to see some light being shed on the topic, too. -
AdCritic.com, DrKoop.com gone as independent content comes back
This week we bid adieu to: -
CBC.ca redesigns
Yikes. You know things are bad when DoubleClick shuts down its Canadian ad sales arm. -
The sincerest form of flattery
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Simcoe.com must really like the globeandmail.com. According to a senior producer at globeandmail.com, that site launched its design in June—a time when, according to the Internet Archive, Simcoe.com still liked bevelled graphics. -
Dot-com mania hangover
This dot-com mania hangover truly is brutal. -
Online Journalism Awards; Web standards
A little while ago, I mentioned that a couple of Canadian sites were nominated in the Online Journalism Awards, unfortunately, when the winners were chosen this past Friday, neither the globeandmail.com nor CTVNEWS.com won in their category. For the record, BBC Online and Slate were the big winners of the night, each capturing the relevant General Excellence award. -
Ems and awards
Anyone who has ever wondered why ' is not ’, and how using -- could infuriate people, should read the “The Trouble With EM’n EN.” -
Canadian traffic boast
Further example of how misrepresentative Media Metrix’ numbers can be: -
Surging traffic for online news
September’s Web traffic numbers are out, and — not surprisingly — online news sites fared impressively well. On average, the general news sites had a 32 percent boost in traffic. Despite being U.S.-only numbers, anecdotal evidence suggests Canadian sites (like CBC.ca and CANOE) experienced similar growth. -
Bigger ads ands distracting text
Two unrelated notes today, one was actually meant for yesterday but between grading assignments for the online journalism class I teach, and being interviewed by an reporter for an Israeli newspaper, I never got a chance to post it. -
Hackers threaten news sites’ integrity
Online news sites face risks with Web site defacements. -
Crisis coverage in online news
This page offers a series of screen captures from online-news sites taken shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. -
canada.com launches
A new Canadian portal (of sorts) appeared this week even as another faces an uncertain future. -
Teaching online journalism
There two schools of thought when it comes to teaching online journalism: teach students the languages of the Web or don’t. -
Wired News on journalism
I’ve been reading Wired News religiously for the almost five years (long enough to remember its white on black with red look). Yesterday I didn’t. Yesterday, there were three web journalism stories (kindly posted to the caj-list by Bill Doskoch). -
Credibility of online journalism
The Online News Association is doing a study into the credibility of online journalism. The online survey (which takes less than ten minutes to complete) is targetted either to journalists or "media consumers" depending on how you answer the first few questions. If you read or create online news, fill out the survey and watch for the results in late October. -
Salon as syndicator
Egad. The plan behind the rumoured hostile takeover bid for Salon.com seems downright loopy. The 24-year-old spearheading the plan (who ran his own syndication company for two years until it folded last year) believes he can make Salon (SALN:Nasdaq) profitable in 30 days thanks to its brand and traffic. -
Coverage of the Olympic announcement
In the spirit of my little test of sites during the elections, I checked at some of Canada's big ones for coverage of the Olympic announcement between about 10:05 a.m. and 10:20 a.m.: -
A tale of two redesigns
A look at the redesigns of the latimes.com and The Globe and Mail.