online journalism

The stringent social media policies adapted by some Western newsrooms indicate an inflexibility in adapting to a changed information and news environment. This has left the door open for journalists in developing economies to step up and drive adoption of social media tools in journalism. Important US-based papers such as the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal are choosing to restrict use of social networks by journalists. These are papers with proud journalistic traditions which have helped define modern journalism. An ...

What happens when a government moves to clamp down on media freedom? It might simply force journalists in that country to adopt the WikiLeaks model when it comes to publishing sensitive information.  Here's an example: The South African government recently announced a triple play to clamp down on media freedom in that country, a move which may force journalists to a model akin to WikiLeaks. Concern is mounting over the country's proposed apartheid-inspired Protection of Information Bill, which will give government ...

The Oriella PR network, an alliance of 17 communications agencies in 20 countries around the world, has recently concluded its third annual survey of journalists. This year the survey was expanded beyond Western Europe to Eastern Europe, the US and Brazil. More than 770 journalists in 21 countries responded. Here are some key findings: Nearly half of the respondents (46 percent) to this year’s study said they are expected to produce more content than before. One in three (30 percent) are working longer hours. Nearly ...

Newspaper paywalls have been criticised by many people in geek communities across the world and also by popular journalism bloggers such as Clay Shirky, Jeff Jarvis and Jay Rosen -- but they follow the best practices of "Freemium" business models used by thousands of tech startups. Freemium has been a successful strategy used by many tech companies. Please see: Emergence Capital: Profitable Lessons From Freemium Business Models - SVW. And: Case Studies in Freemium: Pandora, Dropbox, Evernote, Automattic and MailChimp Freemium is ...

Last week CNN fired one of its senior editors, Octavia Nasr, after she paid her respects in a tweet following the death of a controversial Lebanese Shia cleric. The cleric in question, Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, has been associated with Hezbollah, which is deemed a terrorist organisation by most Western governments. The tweet that cost Nasr her job read "Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah.. One of Hezbollah's giants I respect a lot.. #Lebanon." She ...

Why are some people conservative and some liberal? Is there a connection between political perspective and intelligence, as new ‘evidence’ seems to suggest? And why do some kids seem to come out the womb extroverted while others are markedly more serious and shy by age two? And why, related to all this, in a digital age when everyone can be a reporter, news photographer, pundit, wiki contributor, twittering observer of the passing parade, do only a tiny minority of people participate ...

A recent story in AdAge, entitled "The 'Craigslist Effect’ Spreads to Content as Free Work Fills Supply”, is getting quite a lot of attention. If you’re pathologically allergic to reading any more of these “OMFG! New Media is SOOOOO going to kick Traditional Media’s ASS because now we can totally CROWDSOURCE everything from awesome writers who do it for the LOVE of it” stories, stop reading now and head over to cracked.com for something worthwhile. If you hate these kind of stories ...

Twitter's value to breaking news quickly and efficiently is beyond doubt, but the accuracy of the news being reported is far from perfect. This weekend, Twitter was abuzz with the news that South Africa’s former national police commissioner, Jackie Selebi, was found guilty of both charges he was facing. But the initial buzz on Twitter was wrong, or at least not 100% accurate. At first it was reported on Twitter that he was found guilty on charges of corruption and obstruction of justice. What happened ...

Google has been quietly testing a new paywall system for publishers it is calling “Newspass”. According to Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Google has been piloting the service with publishers in Italy. The search giant will apparently launch "an integrated payment system" allowing users to buy news content with just "one click". Newspass would allow publishers to use a single infrastructure for Web, mobile and tablet computers to monetise their content. Importantly, La Repubblica reports that consumers will have a single log-in across ...

Every year hundreds of journalism graduates enter the market looking for work, and these are bad times to find a job in the newspaper business. Newspapers are seeing falls annually in advertising and subscriber revenues. With most of their content, or at least similar content, available on the web for free, why even bother buying or subscribing to a newspaper these days? It is clear: newspapers are going the way of the Rotary Phone, and they are in desperate need ...