My thoughts on www.journalism.co.uk

While flicking through the blog section on http://www.journalism.co.uk/, I stumbled across a post with the title “Times of India: US Newspapers May Opt for Outsourcing”.

Alarm bells started ringing in my head. I have heard of outsourcing telecommunication and IT jobs to distant shores but I began to instantly question how somebody could accurately commentate on something from a distance.

Unfortunately, the article doesn’t really explain how it can be done. However, it does highlight how the proposal can be good for business. According to a study, the offshore opportunity from newspaper publishers is estimated to be worth around $3.5 billion. Furthermore, it is expected to reach $12 billion by 2012.

It's all about money. Shrinking circulations, rising newsprint prices and a drop in advertising has troubled magazine and newspaper outlets around the world. The recent sacking of editorial staff at The Age is a local example of how newspapers are struggling in the digital age. Matthew Ricketson blames cheap and easy-to-run online websites for usurping the advertising dollar that was traditionally reserved for newspaper classifieds.

I agree that it would be practical to scale down newspaper operations in favour of the online platform but I did find it surprising that The Age chose to do this after announcing an annual profit. After all, a week had only passed since The Age made it public that revenue for 2007-08 had increased 34% to 2.92 billion.

I wouldn’t call that “struggling”.

Here's my mojo

According to Global Community Editor Mark Jones, Reuters have devised a community strategy to facilitate the development of the organisation in the 21st century. Some of the objectives include generating greater identity around their people, being more open to the audience and building networks.

Mobile journalism has been identified as the means to achieve this and there are a variety of examples where "mojo" has proven itself as a capable media tool. Click back to a previous post and take a look at the visual evidence.

Most people own mobile phones and as they become more sophisticated the video, audio and picture capabilities are being used more frequently for both professional and personal use.

I find the camera on my phone very convenient because it is always with me whenever a photo opportunity beckons (like when I took the above picture!). The video capability came in handy when I went on a holiday over Christmas. I took a short clip of my family in Malta saying hello to everybody back home so without having to invest in a camcorder I was able to make short videos that I could enjoy long after my holiday had ended.

However there is enormous scope for this technology to further develop. The camera on my phone is only two megapixels so the pictures are not of high quality. However it is inevitable that time will improve this.

I choose not to access the internet on my phone because the cost of downloading content is too high (about $70 a month for 8MB of data). For the same cost, a user in America or Europe can get unlimited data!

The launch of the Apple iPhone is a step in the right direction and websites such as You Witness are trying to encourage people to use mobile phones as a journalism device.

Only time will tell…

But while you're waiting, click here to read more on how mobile journalism is on the move.

And so a star is born...

I decided to give vblogging a go by using the recording function on my digital camera. It was so much fun to make so I hope you enjoy it :)

Edit: Unfortunately my team lost on the weekend, much to my disappointment. This means that I no longer have to fork out large amounts of my hard earnt cash to see my team play. However, I have to admit that I would have paid through the roof to see my dogs win on the last day in September. Shattered.

The rise of the vblogger

Video blogs are becoming a common addition to multimedia websites due to the rise of affordable and easy to use equipment. One of my favourite websites on the internet is Youtube and the popularity of this site has provided world wide exposure to both media and citizen generated vblogs.

I believe that the vblog has a genuine place in multimedia journalism. You only have to think about how much communication you are missing out on when only working with written communication....the tone of voice, facial expressions and live action.

A good illustrative example of effective vblogging is the political website Alive in Baghdad. This website employs Iraqi journalists to produce video packages each week about daily life in war torn Iraq, as experienced by ordinary citizens. While there are thousands of very ordinary videoblogs in cyberspace, Alive in Iraq covers unique content that is both newsworthy and visually interesting. Each video is also complemented by a written explanation. Most importantly, our normal television news has seldom reported the war from the point of view of an Iraqi citizen, so Alive in Bagdad effectively fills a gap in war reporting.

Click on the below video for an example of how vblogging can be newsworthy:

But vblogs aren't always about news. The video below, though not of the same professional quality, illustrates how vblogs can effectively be used for personal communication:

Not everybody is good at telling their story and some people aren't very good at determining whether their story is interesting to tell. Others are not very skilled in multimedia technology or don't have quality equipment. But there is also some quality stuff out there and I imagine that as video blogs become more popular and technology improves, so will the content.

STOMPing for Attention

Just like in South Korea, the Singaporean people are fanatical about participating in news media.

In 2005 The Straits Times, a daily newspaper in Singapore, celebrated its 160th birthday. In the same year the executives thought very hard about its future as there were growing concerns that changes would need to be made to secure the newspaper’s longevity in the media industry.

The following year saw the creation of STOMP, Straits Times Online Mobile and Print, which is a website that promotes user-generated content. Similar to Korea’s Ohmynews, the site regularly receives news, video footage and photos captured by the mobile phones of every day people out on the street.

However, while both websites operate to engage audiences, STOMP is run differently to Ohmynews. STOMP encourages people to email their account of a news story and it is then narrated by a staff member of The Strait Times (See post five, "Oh my gosh, Ohmynews" to compare this process to that of Ohmynews in South Korea). Hence, the case studies are an illustration of how citizen journalism websites can be managed differently, yet still achieve the same outcome of participatory media.

Nevertheless, similarly to Ohmynews there are a range of fun and interactive features on the STOMP website. This includes celebrity blogs, podcasts, competitions, video and photo galleries. In addition to this, it is not uncommon for news features on the website to be printed in The Straits Times newspaper.
Check out this explanation of Stomp by the editor of the website, Jennifer Lewis:




Or click here to read a news article on STOMP’s popularity.