Ideas for Online News, Or What’s Next for the Information Business
Someone once said the first rule of blogging is to do it regularly. The second is not to begin with an apology if you go silent without a heads up.
Screw the rules.
For the last few weeks, I’ve been asking a lot of people how news organizations can do a better job of providing and being a conduit for information and discussion while making enough money to sustain a business.
That last part is probably the most difficult question to answer. Most recently, media consultant Michael Rosenblum urged media companies to come up with a new business model for the realities of today.
Apparently, media CEOs were stymied. But there are examples out there:
David Cohn has proposed community-funded reporting and runs Spot.us, the live test. ProPublica uses the non-profit model to pay for investigative reporting. The Guardian in Britain is set up as a public trust.
So I ask you: what should we be doing to ensure there will be money to pay for the labor-intensive craft of news gathering?
Leave a comment below or send me your ideas. If the CEOs don’t know where to start, maybe we, the online collective can show the way.
I’ve been talking with people in social media, information visualization, grassroots reporting and news companies. I’ve wanted to talk with media buyers as well, but don’t have contacts. Do you?
Not related, but possibly useful to you: Thanks to the organizers of Capitolbeat, I was a conference panelist on a session about online fact checking with UNC assistant professor Andy Bechtel and staff reporter Taft Wireback of the News & Record in Greensboro, N.C. (You’ll find the links on my Delicious page.)
Photo: The (South Africa) Times newsroom by Gregor Rohrig/Flickr
Obama Claims Victory
America made history tonight, electing its first African American president.
Where and How to Watch Election Day Results Online
As news organizations, watchdogs and voters prepare for the Super Bowl of politics, it seemed like a good idea to survey what will be online for Nov. 4.
Some sites will start their coverage early. Already, the massive, all-volunteer Twitter Vote Report has been logging and mapping voting problems and good experiences.
Most complaints so far have been about long wait times and registration confusion. To participate, send a tweet with the #votereport hashtag.
New to Twitter? Not on Twitter? There are other ways to send a report. Developer Nathan Freitas has come up with some additional ways to look through the data.
At 6 a.m. ET on Election Day, the Washington Post will begin tracking voter experiences and related national news on their Vote Monitor page. To participate and to send news tips, post a Twitter message to PostVoteMonitor.
In addition, WaPo has interactive maps, live discussions, blogging and articles peppered around its site and on their politics page. Be sure to have a look at the very cool TimeSpace map and timeline mashup.
The New York Times just announced a slew of goodies for election coverage. A very handy tool for those who want to jockey returns is the pop-up dashboard, which will include live election returns beginning at 6 p.m. ET, as well as electoral vote tallies from network news, CNN and the Associated Press.
The Grey Lady is also trying to create the largest online archive of polling place photographs taken by voters. Add your photo to the mix under a Creative Commons license on the Polling Places page.
Addicted to Flickr? Editors at Yahoo News will be culling election-related photos from the site and posting them on yahoo.com and news.yahoo.com. Put the word “election” somewhere in the title, comment or tag to be part of the search.
If you’re going to be out and about, bookmark the Online NewsHour’s mobile site. In addition to updates on the election, there’s a handy list of poll closing times and electoral votes.
NPR political analyst Ken Rudin has predicted Obama will win the race, but as we know, it ain’t over till it’s over. Want to map your own hypothetical outcome? Check out the You Predict map. The NewsHour will begin its TV broadcast at 9 p.m. ET, but you can follow developing coverage online now.
The Star-News may create the longest CoverItLive transcript ever with its Election Day live blog, which begins at 6:30 a.m. ET. The Wilmington, N.C., news organization reports record early voting returns in several counties. Thousands more are expected at the polls tomorrow.
STLToday.com, the website of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, will have their reporters and photographers out in force, documenting any polling problems that may occur. In addition, they’ll be streaming Qik video from separate Democratic and Republican election parties, blogging and posting staff and reader photos. The content will go live Tuesday afternoon. Keep tabs on the coverage at www.stltoday.com/news/politics.
On the West Coast, the popular L.A. Times blogs Top of the Ticket and L.A. Now will be posting updates throughout the day. Around 4 p.m. PT, the homepage will flip from the usual center art surrounded by story links to an electoral map that will track returns for the presidential race as well as 12 hotly contested propositions. Sometime after, the site will launch a separate section on California.
MSNBC will be revamping its homepage for elections coverage. Before then, you can embed a customizable live results widget like the one below on your site.
Photo by Hilary McHone/Flickr
Another Kind of Election-Related Analysis
The political satire site 23/6 has been watching the campaign carefully — so carefully they’ve discovered the presidential debates have a lot of repetition.
While you may have thought you recognized familiar phrases, you can’t beat the evidence shown in this side-by-side-by-side edit from the broadcasts.
The video seems to support the notion that the debates were stump speeches that revealed little original and on-the-spot thought from either candidate. It’s disturbing to think our election process amounts to an overly long opportunity to sling mud and drum slogans into our heads.
(Link crossposted on Twitter)
Who Won the McCain-Obama Debate?
By most reported accounts, Barack Obama won Wednesday’s faceoff by not losing to John McCain.
The unfortunate thing about these televised events it that they sounded a lot like stump speeches and talking points, rather than any real discussion of plans and intentions.
Impressions are all the voting public is left with, so I thought I’d publish a poll:
Breaking Conventions in Video Journalism
When it comes to video journalism, most news organizations have a rule: Do not use any sound or music that didn’t occur while you were filming the story. Audio holds powerful sway over our emotion and therefore, can distort our perception of facts and events. If you’re skeptical, check out the trailer for “Sleepless in Seattle” and this remix.
But what about when you’re not filming something on the scene? What about using video to tell a text and infographics story in a different way?
One of my favorite sources for this storytelling style is Good magazine, which I’ve subscribed to since its inception.
Have a look at the video below and see what you think. The camera motion and music draw you in, while the text and graphics give you a better grasp of how and why certain countries excel at certain Olympic sports.
R.I.P. Paul Newman
There are probably dozens of obituaries and rememberances of Paul Newman out today from news sources big and small all over the world.
The actor, race car driver and philanthropist died Friday at his home in Westport, Conn., at the age of 83 after battling lung cancer.
Perhaps the most touching tribute comes from Newman’s Own, the food company founded by the actor and his author friend, A.E. Hotchner. While a journalistic approach would forbid the use of music, there’s a lot to be learned from the structure, simplicity and craft in the four-minute video below.
Get Google to Fund Your Big Idea for Journalism
Search giant Google announced Project 10 to the 100th today. If you thought the money for the Knight News Challenge was big, this could be even bigger.
Project 10 to the 100th is a $10 million grant to fund up to five ideas that will “change the world by helping as many people as possible.”
They’re looking for proposals in eight categories, including some in which news-related projects would fit very well: community, education, and the catch-all, “everything else.”
As Google prides itself on encouraging creativity, the company has only the broadest of evaluation criteria:
Reach: How many people would this idea affect?
Depth: How deeply are people impacted? How urgent is the need?
Attainability: Can this idea be implemented within a year or two?
Efficiency: How simple and cost-effective is your idea?
Longevity: How long will the idea’s impact last?
Proposals are due Oct. 20, and I’d encourage people interested in furthering and reshaping the mission of news to apply. Public voting begins Jan. 27.
Creating Community, Connecting Industry at the ONA Conference
ONA08, the Online News Association’s national conference, has launched several sites online, where you can connect with others who will be in Washington, in person or in avatar, next week.
There’s:
- A Twitter feed that’s the “control tower” for all things ONA08 online
- An embeddable Twitter widget that collects all tweets tagged @ONA08 and #ONA08
- A pre-conference podcast series (RSS feed | iTunes subscription)
- A public bulletin board for discussing panels and workshops, arranging meetings, and making last-minute announcements
- A conference-focused Facebook group
- And the ONA08 conference homepage, where you’ll find on-the-scene reports about ONA08 produced by the very talented student newsroom.
My team, the ONA08 Social Media Subcommittee, wants to make ONA08 as much about community as it is about industry. I hope you’ll join the conference online and in person. And if you want to get a hold of me, send me a message or reach me on Twitter.
The Subcommittee members are Mary Ann Chick Whiteside, who will be among those liveblogging the conference; Paul Hyland, who’s been a creative sounding board and instrumental in gathering volunteers for on-site help; and Steven Lubetkin, who’s putting in a tremendous effort producing the podcasts. This conference is made possible in no small part because of them.
Pitch Perfect: Learning How to Craft a Magazine Story Proposal
Most freelancers will tell you when it comes to deciding who to write for, choose magazines. The pay better. And there’s something nice about seeing your name, your photos, your work on glossy — or if it’s a “green” publication, matte — textweight stock.
They’ll also tell you it’s good to develop relationships with editors. After all, getting assignments is as much about who you know as it is about your story idea.
But what if you’ve never pitched before? Writer’s Market and Writer’s Digest are two sources for beginners’ guidance. Freelance Success has morphed into a dynamic community of newish and experienced guns for hire. And MediaBistro’s popular writing classes provide in-person and online experience with feedback from working professionals.
There’s a lot you can learn online as well. Jason Tanz is posting a step-by-step blogged article about how landing a profile of “Adaptation” screenwriter Charlie Kaufman in Wired magazine. If you’re curious about the pitch process, check it out.
And to show you how quickly word spreads online, check out the Google search.
