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OK, our future is going to include citizen journalists in our communities contributing side by side with professional reporters, but sometimes well-meaning folks get stuff wrong or they're reporting unverified information. How do we separate rumor and myth from reliable, relevant content?

(Don't get your knickers in a knot. I'm not suggesting the pros always get it right. We are paid to make the effort, however.)

Dan Schultz, writing Sunday over at MediaShift Idea Lab, has a plan. He envisions a five-step process that pairs the critical thinking of the community collective with computer smarts. It looks like this:

"Technique 1: Purgatory - New articles of any type will start in a section of the site dedicated to unchecked information. This content will not be 'elevated' to the mainstream area until it has been collectively rated and categorized, and meets a certain quality threshold. By placing content here the users' critical abilities will be explicitly triggered, they will be reading the content specifically to judge it.

"Technique 2: Context - The system's tagging process will make it possible to display potentially related articles for curious readers. During article purgatory this will help inform critical ability; a lone report about a huge explosion in Montana might not be credible, but seeing that there are 500 of them alongside links to a breaking story from the AP would make the piece much more believable.

"Technique 3: User history - Has the user contributed anything in the past? What is the average quality of those contributions? Has the user tended to write opinion or report pieces? The system can provide this information to readers, once again in the name of empowering critical ability.

"Technique 4: Intelligent systems - Spam is automatically caught by mail and forum filters all the time. Although our situation will still require human input, the system could flag particularly suspicious-looking or particularly good-looking content in order to help guide purgatory readers.

"Technique 5: Targeted moderation - Since people will define topical and geographic interests, new articles can be targeted during the moderation process. This would mean that Philadelphians would have higher clout when judging a story that is relevant to Philadelphia and that those who like nanotechnology would be more trusted to review the latest report on the nano-bot 5000."

My first reaction was, wow, how time-consuming. Not necessarily, Schultz argues. "This probably all sounds like a lot to ask of Joe User, but it actually isn't so bad. It will just involve spending a minute or two reading an amusingly bad or refreshingly good article about a topic that is likely to have been targeted (i.e., of interest) to them."

A wiki-type interface for the ninja communities has been one option from the beginning. I believe Schultz's system just might work with a wiki. What say you?

Oh, and lest anyone think it's all doom and gloom in the journalism biz these days, Paul Bradshaw and his Online Journalism Team have started JollyJournalist.com, which celebrates all the reasons it's a great time to be a journalist.

Bradshaw and team even posted their Top 10 list of reasons on the blog. You can add your reasons at JollyJournalist. Go on. Spread the enthusiasm.

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Because I'm making up for the long holiday weekend, y'all get two posts today.

Last week, Paul Bradshaw, writing at the Online Journalism Blog, did the world a service by pulling together his diagram for "A Model of the 21st Century Newsroom" and author Charlie Beckett's "SuperMedia" diagram, which builds on Bradshaw's work.

What started as a p-ssing match between boys over giving credit where it's due has since been resolved amicably. And it wasn't the point anyway. What's important is what a good job these diagrams do of visually charting what so many of us have/are coming to realize is reporting's future.

Here we see how reporting will move from text alert to online draft to a contextual piece in tomorrow's newspaper, with plenty of public interaction along the way that builds context at a wiki and then a database. Read the comments on Bradshaw's original post, and you'll be struck by how revolutionary people find this, but it IS where we're going. I consider it a given even.

My one point of pushback is this. The diagrams chart "the big story." Beckett's example is a fire. It could be a-mile-and-a-half-wide tornado ripping through rural NE Iowa. OK, but news is maybe 3 percent big stories and 97 percent small stories. (The choice of terms is only to show the contrasting relationship and should not be construed to mean "small stories" have less worth. Quite the contrary, as a former features editor, I'd argue that the small stories and soft news are what differentiate newspapers and add the most value to the traditional product.)

It may not make sense to report the small stuff this way, too. Could the small stories bypass some steps, like analysis? Where does features reporting fit in this equation? Do features simply become the stuff of niche products, and news sites/newscasts/newspapers stick with big stories? And the small stories that fit neither mold live in company-sponsored online communities?

I don't have the answers. Check out the charts, and tell me what you think.

Comme le souligne Philippe Le Roux, président de la firme montréalaise de marketing interactif VDL2, sur le blogue de Nelson Dumais : « pour les internautes, la nouvelle est perçue comme étant gratuite; c’est l’information qui a de la valeur. Ils sont prêts à payer pour de la nouvelle traitée, celle mise en perspective ou contradictoire. La nouvelle brute, ils l’ont partout, à répétition, à longueur de journée ». Bref, dans ce nouvel environnement, les journalistes ne peuvent plus justifier leur rôle d’intermédiaire entre la source et le consommateur; pour survivre, le journaliste devra se réinventer.

La profession a déjà commencé à changer : de journalistes spécialisés dans une forme de communication, les employeurs exigent maintenant qu’ils deviennent des « journalistes multimédias » aussi bien capables de recueillir de l’information et de la communiquer sous forme écrite que de filmer et de monter des reportages. L’idée centrale est simple : la réutilisation du contenu dans un contexte « multiplateforme ». Or, on peut dire qu’il s’agit là d’une solution « quantitative » (produire plus) à un problème « qualitatif » (produire différemment) : le problème n’est pas la production journalistique, mais la fonction même du journaliste. En fait, le rôle du « nouveau » journaliste serait plutôt d’être « au-dessus » du contenu. Qu’est-ce que cela veut dire?

Pour Paul Bradshaw, professeur de journalisme à la Birmingham University, cela veut dire que le journaliste devra devenir un chef de pupitre, qu’il devra collationner (comparer des textes pour vérifier leur concordance), synthétiser et vérifier les textes qui lui sont transmis, où qui se trouvent sur la blogosphère. Il énumère quelques autres tâches que le nouveau journaliste (ou distributif, comme il l’appelle) devrait accomplir : interroger les sources de manière plus insistante, remettre en question plus souvent, et faire des enquêtes sur des histoires qui ne sont pas racontées. Par contre, ici, rien de nouveau en ce qui concerne la pratique journalistique.

Le propos de Michel Nadeau (ancien collaborateur du Devoir, il est aujourd’hui directeur général de l’Institut sur la gouvernance d’organisations privées et publiques) sur la question est beaucoup plus éclairant, même s’il rejoint la position de Bradshaw : selon lui, même si « les citoyens bâtissent eux-mêmes leurs médias et des réseaux à la hauteur de leurs intérêts; le web ne fournira jamais le jugement nécessaire pour évaluer et classifier cette mer d’information. Des experts seront nécessaires pour faire des liens entre des faits, pour apporter une solide crédibilité derrière certains propos ». Ainsi, même si les lecteurs peuvent produire de l’opinion, de l’analyse et même faire des reportages, ils auront toujours besoin d’experts pour valider les informations et les aider à naviguer à travers tout ce contenu.

Le journalisme distributif
Ainsi, les journalistes devront alors développer des compétences de gestion de groupes, rassembler les meilleurs billets de blogueurs, trouver les sources, mettre en place listes de RSS à suivre, gérer les propositions de citoyens et les systèmes de collaboration. D’une certaine manière, cette idée de « journalisme distributif » de Bradshaw n’est qu’une extension du travail journalistique habituel. Par contre, l’Internet offre la possibilité au travailleur de l’information d’aller beaucoup plus loin. Voici comme se décompose son modèle

Le cerveau : il s’agit d’experts auxquels se réfèrent traditionnellement les journalistes. Par contre, il est possible de trouver des experts, même si ces derniers n’en ont pas le titre. Ils peuvent poser un regard original sur un événement et soulever des points importants. De plus, ils sont peut-être devenus experts en travaillant longtemps dans un domaine. Le nouveau journaliste doit rester en contact avec ces experts, s’abonner à leurs fils RSS, les citer lorsqu’ils interviennent de manière pertinente et leur passer des commandes lorsqu’une analyse est nécessaire.

De plus, comme ces gens ne sont pas nécessairement des universitaires avec un cadre de pensée particulier ou des experts directement affiliés à un groupe, leurs analyses se distingueront de celles des « experts » traditionnels. De plus, en sollicitant leur appui, en référant leurs internautes vers leurs blogues, ils les fidélisent et les rendent prompts à vous rendre la pareille.

La voix sait écrire, mais elle n’a pas d’expertise particulière. Elle peut rendre l’information attrayante à de vastes publics et donner une teinte particulière aux nouvelles. Il faut les identifier et, parfois, même les intégrer dans l’entreprise. Encore une fois, échanger régulièrement avec eux peut être intéressant parce qu’elle référera ses lecteurs à votre site.

L’oreille est celle qui sait ce qui se passe dans une communauté particulière ou dans un champ d’intérêt. De plus, souvent, ils ont des blogues ou des comptes Twitter. En s’abonnant à ceux-ci, il est possible d’avoir les scoops avant d’autres.

Dans un second temps, il peut être intéressant de mettre en place des systèmes permettant aux internautes (et autres types d’intervenants) de soumettre du matériel à l’entreprise.

Le journaliste accidentel est la personne qui « tombe sur une histoire ». Par exemple, un homme filme le ciel et soudainement deux avions entrent en collision. Pour que l’entreprise soit la première à recevoir les images, des systèmes de soumission sont de mise. De plus, des guides de rémunération pour les personnes soumettant des images ou des vidéos peuvent augmenter la probabilité que votre entreprise soit celle qui reçoit les images en premier. Aussi, il peut être intéressant d’entraîner la communauté à identifier les événements pouvant faire les nouvelles et leur apprendre à produire du contenu de qualité. Ainsi, ils penseront à votre organisation puisque c’est vous qui leur avez appris comment faire.

Le rehausseur est une personne qui est bonne en grammaire ou connaît beaucoup d’information factuelle. Il corrige les erreurs, annote et ajoute de l’information. En somme, il augmente la valeur de la nouvelle.

Ensuite, le technicien est celui qui prend les nouvelles et les classifie ou prend des informations brutes et réutilise de manière intéressante (par exemple, en les taguant sur Google Maps). Il crée une API pour Facebook, un RSS spécialisé ou fait des suggestions. Ainsi, il peut présenter l’information de manière créative et donner de la valeur à la nouvelle. Par contre, pour cela, il faut ouvrir le système pour qu’ils puissent faire des mash-up, rendre des attributs accessibles et leur fournir du support. Les « mash-up » requièrent une culture de l’ouverture et de la collaboration avec des personnes à l’extérieur de l’organisation en plus de la viabilité technique des RSS, APIs, etc. Par contre, les bénéfices potentiels en termes de nouveaux services, applications et lecteurs, sont énormes.

Finalement, la foule ou ce qu’on appelle en anglais le « crowdsourcing ». L’idée centrale est d’impliquer des utilisateurs dans le processus de collecte de données. Selon Bradshaw, il y a 2 types de « crowdsourcing » : celui qui essaie de tirer bénéfice d’expertise diverse (ingénieur, insider, comptable) ou de l’expérience de certains utilisateurs et celui qui veut aller chercher une force de travail énorme. Dans cette deuxième situation, chaque personne exécute une petite tâche comme passer au travers d’une masse d’information, faire des requêtes, etc. Leur aide permet au journaliste d’aller beaucoup plus loin dans l’analyse de certaines informations.

Le journalisme distributif implique donc de mettre de côté des concepts passéistes comme le contrôle et le contenu pour en mettre un autre de l’avant (la communauté) et de tirer les bénéfices de devenir le centre d’un « hub » Internet. C’est aussi comprendre que le web est un endroit, pas une destination.

Auteur : Alexandre Cayla

Paul Bradshaw fez um pequeno inquérito para saber como é que ter um blog afectou o trabalho dos jornalistas. Se quiserem participar respondam aqui.

Paul Bradshaw created a survey to find out how blogging has affected journalists' work. If you you want to participate go here.

As part of a book chapter on the subject I’m putting together some research on if and how blogging has changed our work as journalists. It would help me enormously if you could take a few minutes to complete this short survey on ‘Has blogging changed your journalism?’.

If you could pass on the link to other journalists who blog I’d be very grateful too.

Has blogging changed your journalism?

Below is a copy of the (unsubbed) version of my column that will go into The Birmingham Post tomorrow.

I wanted to put it here so that people could add comments to it and I could link to it in Del.icio.us before the article was published.

As was pointed out to me, 600 words is never enough, and there is a lot I've missed out. So please help me add to it!

There is something I want to share with you. Something that I don't think a lot of people know:

Journalists are people too.

They are. Honest!

But I doubt you'll believe me. I am, after all, a journalist.

As a collective body, we seem to be ranked in the public consciousness as something akin to pond life... except a little less trustworthy.

There are numerous surveys placing journalists amongst the ranks of used-car salesmen, estate agents and, heavens forfend, politicians when it comes to trust.

Yet there are many that joined journalism because they wanted to be the trusted, responsible champion of the people.

So what makes people so convinced that, at the drop of a hat, us reporters are willing to lie, cheat and sell our grandmothers for a story?

A straw poll of contacts and friends on micro-blogging service Twitter (an interesting platform that I will delve into more on in a future column) offered up a few explanations:

• “Because some of them are plain untrustworthy - remember Hillsborough and Viglen?”

• “Most who've had an article written about them can see how many mistakes get made.”

• “Because when you have a 600 word limit something always gets left out.”

• “Lack of accountability.”

• “Tabloid digging into private lives.”

These show, collectively, we journalists have a long way to go before we are considered even as trustworthy as the ordinary man on the street.

But it is the man on the street that journalists have to worry about in the shiny new world of digital media.

In March, I was lucky enough to be part of a small team of young, West Midland “media types” sent to the SXSW Interactive conference in Austin, Texas, by Advantage West Midlands-funded project Digital Central.

The conference, which originally started as a music festival, is fast becoming known as a premier event attracting the top international talent in digital media.

My fellow attendees were all “early adopters”. Whether they be housewives, techies or students, they are the ones surfing the crest of the digital wave, the first to adopt all the new and shiny tools and applications that the web has to offer.

Many of them write blogs or produce their own videos, but what shocked me was the ability of some of them to command audiences in the thousands or tens of thousands.

When I asked them how they did it, the answer was pretty uniform: They were trusted and they were “part of a conversation”.

This conversation may be had through blogs, video or audio podcasts, but the fundamental idea is that their audience has redress and can correct and build upon the original work.

By opening up in this way, and by acknowledging their readers as real people, they show themselves to real too – something journalists have avoided in the pursuit of an ideal of objectivity, or a belief that their opinions and writing should command authority.

But these digital pioneers shaping a future for online media are demonstrating that, above all, trust is where it's at.

The old model of distance between journalist and reader is going to have to change.

It is something The Birmingham Post has been investigating over recent months with the launch of its blogs, its experimentation with social bookmarking service Del.icio.us and Twitter.

By realising that they are just one - hopefully well-researched, well-written and interesting - part of a bigger conversation, journalists have a chance of raising themselves out of the pond and – hopefully – becoming seen as the trusted champions they really should be.

To see some of the websites that helped to inform this column or to respond, please visit http://del.icio.us/joannageary/column2

Nosso amigo Paul Bradshaw fala sobre isso no capítulo de um livro sobre jornalismo investigativo a ser lançado em breve.

Eu mesmo já tinha manifestado minha contrariedade com a banalização da palavra blog e o desvirtuamento de suas características. A tribuna para a expressão do brilhante pensamento vivo, como escolhem alguns, está muito distante do diálogo com o público, da coleção de coisas legais e da solidariedade com a blogosfera, por onde enveredaram outros _estes sim, fazendo blogs jornalísticos.

Foi em 1999 que o surgimento de plataformas como o Blogger ajudaram as pessoas a superar a ignorância em HTML e se aventurar na publicação on-line. Desde então não houve, no Brasil, uma iniciativa convicente de jornalismo investigativo _se bem que o maior exemplo norte-americano, a denúncia de que o presidente Bill Clinton tinha tido um affair com uma estagiária da Casa Branca, foi obtida porque o blogueiro era dono de uma loja de conveniência numa rede de TV e ouviu o papo dos repórteres.

Se você conhecer bons exemplos de blogs jornalísticos no Brasil, me conte. Vamos voltar ao tema em breve.

I had put it online to get some feedback, but it was picked up by Paul Bradshaw, who then wrote an article on it for Poynter Online. Then the study was replicated in Romania!

Now the World Editors' Forum has contacted me and asked if I would let them publish it in their annual report!

Of course, I said yes but I want to wait to get my essay reviewed first before I give the final ok. Plus, I have changed the graph a bit and added another website (click on the graph to see the full-size version):

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Being slightly on the nervous side, and having never published anything like this before, I'd appreciate anyone willing to give it a quick squiz to see if they see any glaring mistakes

I have had suggestions that I should by grouping the online tools (e.g. subscriptions, comments) by colour, but I have tried and this seems to confuse the graph. I would, if I had more time, like to regroup the categories into those that encourage "short tail" repsonses from users and those that encourage a "long tail" response. (Read more about these concepts on Paul Bradshaw's description of the News Diamond).

Oh, and if people are more interested in the popularity of online tools amongst business news sites, this graph may be better (again, click to enlarge):

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I had the pleasure of meeting Nick Booth, aka podnosh - Podcaster, and blogger. We had an interesting discussion about improving Environmental News Online (ENO) as a brand, and improving its community - this is due to the fact that the level of content on the site is steadily declining - something which me and Rachael need to address.

Building an Online Community

The idea of building an online community, and in turn, increasing online presence, centres around a few key points.

1. Have clear policies, but invite users to build.
   This is a simple point really.  ENO should be making sure that it's policies are clear - which they are. ENO should also be doing more to invite more users to have more of a say with the website.
2. Actively recruit new members.
   I think that this is something that ENO could be doing a lot better. As an online community, when a unique user views content on the website, we should encourage comments, and also registration.
3. Welcome new people.
   Following on from the last point, new users should be made to feel welcome and part of the community instantly. Their online reputation will only increase once they start commenting on other stories, other blogs, and other websites - this will not only help the individual user, but it will also help with SEO, and driving traffic back to the website.
4. Provide a range of ways to participate.
   This is simple. Users should be able to have endless opportunities to contribute to the website. From filling out a simple 'contact' form to get in touch with the webmaster, to commenting on other content, and also being able to upload audio and video.
5. Highlight the good contributors and reward them.
   Registered users who use the website frequently, and deliver high quality content, as well as commenting on other content should be recognised by other users of the website as a quality source of information, and reliable too.
6. Anticipate problems.
   This simply means to be aware, and anticipate any problems that may arise so that proper procedures are in place for if/when they do happen. It also means to be aware of subjects or issues that are being discussed on the website that may be a potential minefield, such as high profile stories, or stories around race, or different cultures, etc - the wrong portrayal can lead to problems.
7. Go where the reader is.
   This involves me knowing what else interestes the users of ENO, and tailoring the website to suit those users needs, and giving them a more personalised experience.
8. Go offline!
   And finally, spend some time AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER! After all, we are only human - and spending so much time keeping track of what's going on online isn't really...healthy, is it?(Thanks to Paul Bradshaw for the resources to write the above points.)

Blogs and their Communities

The team of journalists that write for ENO already have a strong sense of community, with regular traffic coming to their blogs. When asked in the class how they think they could use this to create a more active community around ENO, this is how they responded:

So, where does the site go from here? - I'll blog soon about an update on how the Joomla! SEO is going, as well as improving the ENO online community.

Paul Bradshaw tells us on Journalism.co.uk how journalists can use Twitter.

Paul Bradshaw explica no Journalism.co.uk como os jornalistas podem usar o Twitter.

How to: master Twitter if you're a journalist

]]> http://drunner.wordpress.com/?p=26 Tue, 15 Apr 2008 18:28:06 +0000 drunner2 http://drunner.wordpress.com/?p=26 The Online Journalism Blog has put up an interesting series. It's entitled BASIC principals for online journalism and it covers every aspect a journalist should know for the online realm.

Here's an excerpt:

It shouldn’t have to be said that the web is different, but I’ll say it anyway: the web is different. It is not print, it is not television, it is not radio.

So why write content for the web in the same way that you might write for a newspaper or a news broadcast?

Organizations used to do this, and some still do. It was called ‘shovelware’, a process by which content created for another medium (generally print) was ‘shovelled’ onto the web with nary a care for whether that was appropriate or not.

It was not.

Paul Bradshaw does an excellent job outlining what should be done and why. Give it a read. Now.

Eu aqui apregoando o fim da home page, e gente como o webdesigner Wilbert Baan, do jornal holandês Volkskrant, pensando em soluções para a página inicial do veículo na Internet.

As novidades começam no topo, com o que Baan apelidou de "rio de notícias": uma linha do tempo das últimas 24 horas mostrando a quantidade de notas publicadas pelo site.

Na coluna do lado direito, as notícias mais recentes. No pé, fotos recentes, links para redes sociais e listas de mais lidas e mais enviadas por e-mail.

E, viva, dane-se o Padrão F de Jakob Nielsen.

Quem analisa a novidade tim-tim por tim-tim é nosso amigo Paul Bradshaw.

E esquenta a discussão. Eu não disse, mas pensei: tava faltando webdesigner nessa conversa...

Quotes.

If I was Paul or Charlie or Adrian or anyone of those boys entrusted with the education of the next generation of journalists, I would start my first term with a lesson on the treatment of quotes.

Given that in all likelihood we are now always going to be talking about quotes in their sound clip form - ie as held on a digital voice recorder not as an ineligble scribble on an reporter's notebook - in a sense the classic meaning of the 'treatment of quotes' has changed.

You don't 'treat' them at all; you have a perfect record of the conversation, of the interview; one that you could - and I'm not sure as to the argument why we don't - simply attach the sound clip of the interview as a 'source material' link beneath your article.

It's there in all it's dropped 'aitch, no sentence glory. But it's fresh, it's original, it's untreated and, above all else, it's yours.

And that's key; that's a fundamental. That possession of quotes is nine-tenths of our digital law.

And when we talk of the digital treatment of quotes, that's what has changed - we don't 'treat' them in the sense of smoothing out the grammar; applying the right tense to the passage - and we're back to the whole 'Who needs a sub?' line here - instead we treat them as you would the family silver. Never let them out of your sight.

Every quote is a prisoner, there we go. Theme for the day. Every quote is a prisoner...

If you give them away, you only do so for a very good reason. Cash, ideally.

And if that fails, then it is a credit. 'Blah, blah, blah...' told MyFootballWriter.com.

And that's your fall-back position; you don't budge from that line.

Clearly it depends on the occasion of the interview. If it's open season and the world and his media wife are there, then the argument shifts; then perhaps it is more a case of who's first, who's got the best analysis, the best intro...

But - as all locals do - if you know it's the same old faces attending the same police calls, the same pre-match Press conference, etc, etc and, by the same token, you then know where those same quotes are head next - onto BBC Radio, the morning provincial paper 24 hours late(r) - then you have a fair chance of 'tracking' your babies. And watch where they go like a hawk.

And here's another trick that we should all learn - insert the odd, quirky punctuation. Bit like an individual stone mason used to leave his mark.

Because in this age of cut and paste, that's your 'finger print' - mine tends to be over-use of the semi-colon; I like a liberal dash of hyphens - anything that will lure some unsuspecting cut-and-paste clown into nicking your quotes complete with your punctuation... cos that's so much harder for any news desk to defend; that not only are the quotes the same, so is the punctuation...

And it's hugely important. If there are just two of us who have got off our arses to talk to a single football player in the West Country rain and you know who the other 'local' face is... then you know where those quotes are going; and where they shouldn't be.

Or at least, not without either a cheque or a credit attached. Because a credit is a marketing device; it proves that you had the quote first; you were the one that got your hands dirty at the coalface; that you're the one with the fresh, organic stuff - you don't re-package and re-use for a living.

Back to the Piece Hall. By all means let people feel the quality of the cloth; that's why you've built a communal space in the first-place; for people to see, to feel and - ideally - to trade.

But you don't let people wander off with your hand-woven 'pieces' and then re-sell from the back of the dirty white van parked round the corner.

Value; you delivered value by sourcing those quotes yourself. And if you are selling your wares to a passionate, niche audience for whom those fresh quotes have a real value and interest, do not give them away.

Guard them with your life because, with a fair wind, they may just save yours...

Because, to my mind, Paul's spot-on. Journalism has every chance of returning to a cottage industry as the next generation of local journalists finally find their feet in this ever-shifting digital landscape.

After all, there are three of us here in East Anglia who sit at our kitchen tables and churn out professional copy for a living; whether the coffee shop in Tesco's counts as a 'cottage' might be a moot point as Mark looks for the best place to file his Portman Road Press conference pieces, but the fact of the matter is we all travel light these days.

A lap-top, a 3G data card and a digital voice recorder and we're away.

And, for me, it is a case of 'returning' to a cottage industry. For way back when, 'journalism' could be achieved by writing your proclamations on a scrap piece of parchment and nailing them to the nearest church door. Ask Mr Luther.

OK, so in every likelihood it was only the print press that then allowed the word to spread, but - in essence - you could still publish from home. There was, then, no other means of production.

Until the print press, of course. Which changed the world for ever. And as said presses got bigger and better, so they became more expensive and that control of the means of production slipped out of an individual journalist's hands for the better part of 500 years.

Just as the weavers that weaved cloth for a living found themselves enslaved to the mills, so those that weaved words for a living found themselves with a print press strapped to their back. Dark, satanic press halls and all that. The cloth barons and the Press barons; peas from the same pod. Both made fortunes from the industrialisation of wool and news.

The Internet, of course, changes everything.

For I now control my own means of production.

What I don't, yet, control is my own means of making a living. And, for me, if we all don't pull together soon, there is a very real danger that having shrugged that press monkey off our backs, we will find another one in its place. Its name is Google.

Hence the need to crack this advertising nut.

But the analogy with the weavers and the mills still holds true. Because for as long as a journalist continues to produce something of value - be it fetching out football quotes from a dressing room or making either a head or a tail out of a West 14th St planning application - then we have a chance.

All we have to do is organise ourselves; to build ourselves a 'market place' where we can, collectively and elegantly, display our wares. Most will just feel the quality of the cloth and move on; others might be tempted to buy. In bulk; en masse. From our journalistic co-operative.

And, for me, that's what 'mother' does; that's what www.myfootballwriter.com is - a market place for our home-produced wares.

Here you go; from Wikipedia. It's a Sunday night; I'm self-subbing, so I'll trust it's right...

The Halifax Piece Hall is a building in the town centre of Halifax, England, originally built as a sales centre for woollen handloom weavers. It opened on January 1, 1779, with over 300 separate rooms arranged around a central courtyard. The term piece refers to pieces of wool that were sold. As factories started up in the early nineteenth century the trade in handwoven wool declined...

No different to MFW; it's just that our 'piece hall' has - thus far - just three seperate rooms; just three hand-weavers. But we're still producing pieces - two a day; sticky, 1,000-word pieces, to be precise. The 'central courtyard' - the place where people come to read and, potentially, buy - is the mother hub, www.myfootballwriter.com.

And if MFW can, eventually, be a 72-room hall as we cascade down the Football League ladder, www.MyLocalWriter.com can, of course, be a piece hall of many, many rooms.

At the end of next month, Rupert Murdoch opens a new, state-of-the-art print press facility at Broxbourne. It is likely to be the mill to end all mills - literally, if you're a provincial newspaper group trying to compete in that contract print market.

Speaking in the City of London back in 2006, Murdoch all but admitted that the control of the means of production was slipping from his hands - http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2006/mar/13/news.rupertmurdoch1

"Societies or companies that expect a glorious past to shield them from the forces of change driven by advancing technology will fail and fall," he said.

"Power is moving away from the old elite in our industry - the editors, the chief executives and, let's face it, the proprietors.

"A new generation of media consumers has risen demanding content delivered when they want it, how they want it, and very much as they want it...

The mill owners are in full retreat. Time to build our piece halls, people...

JEEcamp - three videos by the European Journalism Centre

Entrevista com Paul Bradshaw | Paul Bradshaw interview

Did JEECamp lived up to your expectations?

Mostly, yes. People seemed to find it very useful, contacts were made, and a lot of exchange of ideas and experience. I was disappointed we didn’t get a broader representation from mainstream media, but on the flip side surprised at how many entrepreneurs we got. I hear there’s nothing like this in America either so I’m pleased we’re providing an alternative platform for this cottage industry. I wish I’d had a chance to enjoy it more myself but spent a lot of time making sure it and coverage was running smoothly.

That there is a need for JEEcamp. There are similar events aimed at the corporate MSM but nothing for indie journo startups. That there is a cottage industry we don’t often hear about, and that that industry has the potential to creep up on the larger news organizations. That even the most cutting edge people at mainstream news orgs are behind the people launching startups.

There were no easy answers, and there were raised new tough questions too. How much an event like this was needed to put in touch all of these different people and their ideas?

Enormously. For the reasons mentioned above.

Will the questions in next JEECamp be the same, or the challenges will be different? Are things moving that fast?

I think it will be very different. Things are moving very fast indeed – if we’d done this last year the questions would have been around video and blogging. This year Twitter and mobile obviously dominated. Next year – who knows? I’m considering making it about enterprise and experimentation so that a broader audience attends.

I’m hoping to do one in January 2009, but I’d also like to see if anyone wants to do a US JEEcamp or Europe JEEcamp before then.

JEECamp Digest

And it was the same when I graduated to my local evening paper; the advertising department was something that you wandered through en route to the accounts dept; it was another world; one that we journalists never knew anything about. Like I say, we'd try to build bridges come Christmas time - for the rest of the year, we went our way; they went their's.

And I guess that's true of 90 per cent of old newspaper institutions; more, probably. Even now, I don't think habits and perceptions have changed.

But they need to. In fact, given what most reporters can - in theory - do with a digital camera these days, I'd ditch the old reporter-photographer combo altogether and send the reporter out into battle locally with an ad person at their side - you get the story, I'll get an ad... and they'd sit next to each other in the office.

And swap contacts books. One would gut the other's battered little black book for stories and leads; the other would likewise gut the list for ad leads... this parish councillor, doesn't he run a garage...?

It's funny, but doing what we've done of late you tend to bump into more academics than newspaper executives. Don't know why... perhaps it's something we've said.

Anyway, you listen to what the likes of Paul, Adrian, Charlie, Roy, Jeff and people are all up to with their students and they all seem to be grappling with the same big issue - what do we actually teach our J-School kids these days that's going to be of relevance to their digitally-based journalistic lives?

What do you teach the next generation of journalists? Simple.

Advertising.

In fact, I'll even get the ball rolling with a simple, multiple-choice question for their Fall '08 module on 'Enterprise and journalism; making ends meet when the local newspaper goes t*ts up...'

Johnny Smith's family furniture store half-way up the Sprowston Road was one of your early launch advertisers. You join your ad-man for what you presume to be a straight-forward re-booking. Johnny Smith, however, has had a re-think. 'To be honest, we're going to give it a miss this quarter," he says. "We're just not seeing any response..."

Do you...

(a) say: 'How the f*ck do you know that? What, do you ask everyone who walks through the door where they heard of you? What about them over there, you asked them?'

or (b) say: 'Look I know you've only had six click-throughs this month, but how many f*cking click-throughs have you had off that ridiculous taxi you had painted last month? Who's 'clicking through' on that, twat? And while we're on the subject, how many people have clicked through that half-page newspaper ad you've been running for the last 30 years... eh?'

or (c) say: 'Johnny, that's fine. We're just grateful for all your initial support; maybe we can pop back in again in a couple of months when you've got your new autumn cane furniture range in...?'

If you answer either (a) or (b) you are a journalist.

If you answer (c) you're our Kev.

But if, as a journalist, you can learn and/or be taught to answer (c) then you've got a chance.

Even if you still think (a) and (b). You've got a chance.

Teach the kids how to sell; at a local level certainly. They sell, they survive.

It started with a tweet. This one:

And then the whole thing snowballed, with my editor, Marc Reeves, publicly stating that he wanted The Birmingham Post to be the first UK newsroom fully signed up to Twitter:

Of course, such a statement wasn't going to be ignored by those with an interest in online journalism: namely Paul Bradshaw from Birmingham City University and author of the Online Journalism Blog and Martin Stabe from the Press Gazette. There were two other tweets that I couldn't find. One was Paul Bradshaw saying: "@marcreeves, can I quote you on that?" and another was a response from Marc: "@paulbradshaw gulp. go on then":

So... from one tweet from me, The Birmingham Post has developed a policy to be the first UK newspaper to have all its journalists sign up to Twitter and decided to embark on a training programme for its journalists.

Then... after a little while... the policy was signed off by Editorial Director of Trinity Mirror's regionals, Neil Benson (who, it appears, was also having a spot of bother with his iPhone):

From tweet to twittevolution. All in a day's work off sick!!

Both of them. It should have been three, but Tom was down with flu.

Mark does Ipswich, Nick does Colchester; both do MFW like a dream.

There was a time when we thought we might go the franchise route with MFW; build a football reporter starter-pack and let people take the 'kit' off the shelf and off they go; it's where we think MLW might be able to go.

But go down the franchise route and, as far as I could ever work out, I'd have spent the last six months slaving night and day writing a training manual.

So instead when first Mark and then Nick joined the party, their 'kit' was a 3G data card, one of those digital voice recorders with the UBS thing that makes them a radio station and a decent, second-hand motor off Col's Cars in Acle. £120 a month over three years; works out OK.

Like most 20-somethings, they come with a lap-top attached.

A quick chat about remembering they're a local; that it's great to get a headline one day; not so great if that same headline doesn't talk to you the next... and that was about it, I think.

I showed them once how to upload the Action Images stuff off the CMS; Neil bunged them the link to their site stats to keep track of their hourly circulation figures and neither of them have missed a trick. Or a deadline.

They've had to change; to adapt. We all work Sundays. For until the provincial newspaper industry start producing Sunday newspapers - or flooding out the post-match quotes and copy ahead of their Monday print editions - we've got that day to ourselves; but they don't seem to be bothered.

Write the piece on a Saturday night before you go out; time the piece on the CMS to go up at 10am on Sunday morning and these boys can still be sleeping off the night before as they publish to the waiting world.

During the week, minus deadlines we have this deal that they aim for the whole 'My first coffee break...' market sometime around the mid-morning; then hit the 'One last look before I log off...' brigade some time around 5; 5.30pm. And all the time, you're about to roll out stuff as and when anything breaks.

Because these days punters call the shots; they access their news when they want to - and where they want to. Not when we tell them. It's on your door mat at 4.40pm. Take it or leave it...

And we're not going to get everything first; ask most football reporters these days and they get sweet FA first - not 'news' wise. News belongs to the clubs; that's why they run their own TV stations; hire 'club journalists'... the rest of us just mop up afterwards.

That's why we run the RSS feeds from elsewhere; look here's the news from the local newspaper, Sky, BBC, Telegraph football... just get it off our site while you're here... And look, before anyone starts to complain, here's your branding on our site...

News is everywhere; me, Mark and Nick can't be. So we link.

And this is the thing; they get all of this; the fact that all we can ever do now is aim at this 'When I get a mo...' market; the fact that they need to work slightly different days; be slightly more flexible in their thinking.

But they've been flexible in their thinking since the first time they set a finger on a keyboard. When they were five, probably. In school.

This generation of young journalists embraced the web years ago; they know what it can deliver; they don't need a training manual; it's in their DNA.

Podcasts? Yeh, fine... Upload pictures? Whatever...

We got 72 CVs through for the Colchester gig; good CVs; nigh-on all were the same age, same background; journalism courses, year or so on a local weekly; a good few on an evening sports desk. All can clearly see the writing on the wall.

So you go back and say: 'Right, given a choice.... given your contacts, location... what club would you like to do?' And they're all there; the six for Watford, four for Preston, eight for Palace. Cos they all get it; like I still don't most of the time.

Twitter? Me? Behave.

But my boys will. Stand in front of that JEECamp and listen to Paul talk about what his kids are up to and, boy, are they going to have fun.

Someone, somewhere, just needs to set them free. That's why we want to beta MyLocalWriter through the J-Schools, the colleges, the universities. Cos the kids know what they're doing; they know where their world is going.

Most of the time, we haven't got a clue.

Anyway, welcome to Out With A Bang.

For which you need to blame-stroke-thank Paul Bradshaw, Pete Ashton and Banks' Brewery who - quite correctly, with hindsight - pointed out a gaping hole in MFW's armoury, a blog in the beery aftermath of last Friday's JEECamp.

But one early word of warning, Out With A Bang is not going to touch on all things football. Or not much, anyway. That's the day job; this is the late-at-night musings bit.

This is bit where we work out - in public - what on earth we're ever going to do with MFW's new big sister, www.mylocalwriter.com; how we can spread the gospel of www.addiply.com and, how, in short we can ever hope to make a difference when it comes to the survival of quality local journalism.

Hence the title. Cos if we are all engaged 'in a race to the bottom' as I was cheerily told by some BlogAds lad at Jeff Jarvis' NewsInnovation.com bash in New York last autumn, let's at least go down kicking and screaming; let's not walk quietly into the night.

Let's ask some awkward questions of our former lords and masters now that - perhaps - we've got one or two answers.

Or rather, got one or two answers as to what doesn't work. As for what does, let's just say that that, for now, remains very much a work in progress.

Doing the day job I do, you get to see an awful lot of the A14; hence you turn the music up loud. And on Thursday as I headed off to Paul's JEECamp, it was The Smiths banging out of the dashboard. 'Typical me, typical me... I've started something... and now I'm not so sure...'

Which probably is a good a theme tune for Out With A Bang as any.

That said, me and Martin Stabe agreed on one thing way back when - that if there is a message for our troubled times, then it comes from the lips of Clay Shirky.

And probably it is worth quoting in full as we go out with a bang. Because it changed my life. Whether it was the fact that I read it on my 40th birthday; whether it was because, at the time, there was a one-in-three redundancy process going through the sports and subs desks at Archant; whether I was just over-due a mid-life crisis... I don't know.

But I know, one way or another - be it commercially or physically - Shirky's words will follow me to my grave...

"In the same way that there's a split between the music industry and the recording industry, there's a split between writers and the newspaper industry.

"The recording industry is in trouble but the music industry is not, because musicians still make music and people still care about music enormously. The people who sell plastic circles with the music on it, on the other hand, are in real trouble.

"So if you base your business model on producing plastic circles, or, by analogy, staining wood with ink, you're going to be in trouble.

"Do people care about good writing? Of course they do, and it's the writers who can adapt to the new technologies. The only technological innovation that the newspaper industry is waiting for is a time machine so that it can turn back the clock."

That's it. That's the straw we all need to cling to; that's why I look at all the numbers we're churned out at MFW over the last couple of years and cling to 436 seconds like you wouldn't believe.

Why? Cos that's the average visit time to www.myfootballwriter.com/norwichcity in the month of January '08. We had 33,000 of them; on average visiting three and a bit times. And every time they visited they stayed for over 7 minutes.

Why are they staying for that long? It ain't rocket science; we're giving them a good read. About a subject that they love. A passionate niche that commands their attention for at least seven minutes of their frantic lives.

Because we deliver it to where they want it. On their office lap-top, their home PC and, above all, into the palm of their hand. Onto their mobile.

We don't ask them to waste seven minutes of their lives going to find a newspaper...

Crass advertising slogan, but as you will come to know, I suspect, I've got an eight-year-old boy.

I look at him and you just know it's not in his genes with a 'g' to read a local newspaper; what's in his jeans with a 'j' is a mobile phone.

Or rather, will be. When his Mum says yes...

The trick that we've all got to pull as professional journalists is to get our words and our news to his mobile phone by a means that can earn us all a living.

But if there's one first thought to cling to, it is to take Shirky's words to heart. It's not us that's in danger of becoming an endangered species... it's newspapers.

Sure our own reticence, our own conservatism is part of the problem, but some way down the line we will still be part of the solution. We just won't need those who still insist on staining wood with ink.

EDIT: Tom Scotney already has - see what he took from JEEcamp here.

A success

There is no doubt in my mind that yesterday's event was a success. I personally took a lot of information, and insight from it (more later in the post), and others will have taken their own opinions away from it.

I was part of the blog team, along with a few other students, who were relaying the day's events to the viewers of a live blog, (via CoverItLive), and others were twittering away as the speakers delivered their speeches and pitches.

An RSS feed of all of the attendees twitter accounts, and anything tagged 'JEEcamp', can be found here - some of it makes for some very interesting reading.

436

Rick Waghorn, founder of myfootballwriter.com, began the day's proceedings with a keynote speech about how his business came to be, amongst other things.

Rick said that his site attracted 33,000 unique visitors in January - and whilst that may be down to the transfer window opening, it is certainly impressive.

The more interesting figures that Rick mentioned are 436 - the average number of seconds that a single user spends on the site, and 3.5 - the average number of visits his site will get in a month.

Laura Oliver of journalism.co.uk has written more about Rick's keynote speech, which can be found here.

Funding

Once the speech was over, the conference split up into its discussion groups, which included Online News Models, Communities, Legals, Fundings, and Business Models. I covered funding, which was hosted by Rick Waghorn.

Alex Gamela has given a brief overview of the other discussions, and key points to come out of yesterdays events.

The main things to come out of this discussion, other than a sustained attack on Google's advertising models were:

• To be successful, you need a five year financial forecast. Rick uses iReport, for which CNN bought the domain without even giving it a thought, or doing anything with it. Rick hasn't an idea what his domain is worth. (He paid £16 for his site.)
• Why doesn't the Trinity Mirror set up a fund like the Knight Foundation for smaller companies?
• Some local papers panic and put everything online, in an effort to keep up with the nationals.
• You have to earn over $50 with Adsense before you can claim your money
  How many sites must there be UNDER that threshold?
• Demographically, if you took out everybody over the age of 60 in local newspaper circulation, where would you be?
• The fundamental challenge is to persuade potential investors to invest in your product/site, without OVERspending or releasing too much equity into the project.

Pitches

The most well recieved of the day's pitches was Nigel Eccles' project Hubdub - a news prediction website where users bet on the outcome of certain news stories using 'play' money. This clearly has the potential to grow very quickly and Nigel was a man who was most definitely in demand after his speech. (It had 42,000 unique visitors in its first week!)

However, a key point raised during his pitch was 'Should Hubdub place ethical restrictions on its questions?' - because currently, a user is able to sign up and pose ethically incorrect questions, such as something regarding a missing child. We posed this question to the viewers of the live blog - 42% agreed that it should, while 58% didn't).

This was the most well recieved of the three pitches (Which included scribblesheet, and qotz - a project still in development).

Panel Discussion

The day ended with an informal Q&A session with Mark Comerford, Martin Stabe, Kyle MacRae, and Sarah Hartley.

This was definitely where I picked up most of the key points from the day.

The panel believed that advances in technologies, such as mobile, RSS, and broadband - just make people use what was originally present more often. Mark believed that traditional media have no real strategy for utilising output on mobile phones, and as a result "Newspapers aren't dying - we're committing suicide".

The panel then went on to discuss Qik - software for mobile phones that allows users to stream video directly from their mobile phones. They believed that such software changes everything, and anybody can now walk around with a live TV camera in their pocket.

Such advances allow journalists to change the way they tell their stories - and it allows the public to tell their stories back to journalists. Mark believed that journalists are tired of being seen as 'the voice of the people', when they are simply A voice IN the field (of journalism).

This raised the age old debate of 'Do we need Journalists?' which was quickly answered with 'Who is a journalist may not be as important as "What is Journalism?'. The panel agreed that it was an issue of trust - and if journalism isn't transparent, the public will go to a news source that is - which may not neccessarily be a journalist.

If journalists want people to engage with them, they need to bring the stories TO the public, rather than waiting for the public to go to the press. Most news organisations clearly try to get UGC (user generated content) for free, which is detrimental to the medium. What they should be doing is working together to become part of a 'sharing partnership' - which would benefit both freelancers and news organisations.

Young Journalists - The future?

Mark's final point was the one that really drove home with me.

He mentioned that young Journalists are more technically skilled than their older superiors, but they are being put into difficult positions - where they have the neccessary journalistic skills, but not the power or the experience needed.

"It's the same as leaving a bunch of kids in a car park for long enough and then expecting them to know how to drive."

Referring to my final year project, and a discussion that I had with Pete Ashton at the end of the event - Initially I was worried that I had to design and run a website and a CMS - and that was my biggest stumbling block.

I realised by the end of the event that I shouldn't have been worried about how the website might look or how and where I was going to get it online - I should instead place more of an emphasis on how I'm going to drive traffic to the website and keep users coming back to it.

The very last point from JEEcamp was also VERY relevant:

"Now is the best time to be a journalist. The demand is for journalists who WANT to tell a story. All of the contacts, features, etc, are in place to become a great journalist. This is THE time to be a journalist. It doesnt get much better than this."

And that is pretty much that, roll on next year!

PS - I also gave a video interview to the European Journalism Centre - I'll link to it once they get it online.

But there's one thing that particularly caught my attention. I went along today without any particular agenda. I'm not an entrepreneurial journalist, and doubt I'll become one one any time soon. But as a dedicated reporter who loves the business of reporting, I wanted to learn about the future of reporting from people much cleverer than myself.

And something really stuck out. The idea of a reporter as a brand, and of creating a community around oneself as a reporter. This isn't original thinking by any means, I'm sure, but certainly struck home with me. Particularly with the idea of the news gathering process being transparent to improve readers' access to; and views of; the journalists they read.

Well it was both terrifying, in that it involved me thinking quite how much things are changing, and also slightly reassuring. I'd like to think I was open with the way I do my job, with blog posts like this and this about the way I go about my business and the things I do. I'd also like to think I was approachable as a reporter, and please let me know if I'm not!

Finally, after I stumbled back to my flat I was presented with this post by Steve Dyson, the editor of the Birmingham Mail. What a fantastic example of making the journalistic process available to readers. I'd like to think that any internet reader now has a good idea how the Mail works, and hopefully a warm glow and feeling of ownership of their paper...

Anyway, more tomorrow, I hope. If there's anyone reading this from JEECamp, was great to meet you!

The wiki set up for the event describes it as:

"an opportunity for a range of people to get together to talk about how on earth journalists and publishers can make a living from journalism in the era of free information, what the challenges are, and what we've learned so far.

"It is also an opportunity for people with different skills and experiences to network, share those experiences, and perhaps suggest partnerships or new projects."

Keynote speaker is Rick Waghorn, founder of the MyFootballWriter website.

Despite having the technical title of Enterprise Editor at the Birmingham Post, I'm not a particularly enterprising person, happy to be a cog in the machine. So I'm not going to have a lot to bring to the table, but it's going to be fascinating hopefully meeting some people with the skills and drive o make it - enterprise is the future in erms of Journalism seems to be the line.

I'm not going to be doing any video blogging or anything clever like that (see earlier post), but will hopefully be twittering, and for anyone interested, there's video coverage going to be put up here.

Anyway, now I've written this I'm running late! Later everyone.

Apresentado como unconference, este encontro pretende ser uma oportunidade informal para uma troca de ideias sobre o jornalismo nos nossos dias, e para o futuro. Paul Bradshaw , organizador do evento, explica-nos o que é o JEECamp: "É uma oportunidade para um grupo diverso de pessoas se juntar para falar sobre o que funciona no jornalismo online, como é que jornalistas e editores podem ganhar a vida com o jornalismo na era da informação gratuita, que desafios existem, e o que é que aprendemos até agora." E quem é que participa? "Os participantes podem ter lançado o seu próprio projecto de jornalismo- ou trabalhado num pertencente a uma organização mainstream. Ou podem apenas ter muitas boas ideias ou conhecimentos sobre o assunto."

Apesar de se realizar em Birmingham, quem quiser pode seguir o evento, através do site journalismenterprise.com, onde também podem deixar as vossas questões. "Eu também gostaria se pudéssemos ter algumas contribuições das pessoas que estão a seguir o evento ao vivo online."

As expectativas de Paul Bradshaw são "dependendo da altura, terrivelmente optimistas, paranóicas, neuróticas e idealistas. No conjunto creio que isto vai ser uma oportunidade excitante para algumas pessoas se juntarem, o que de outra forma não teriam essa oportunidade. É um fórum para muitas boas ideias, e algumas ideias espertalhonas. Acho que temos algumas das mentes mais criativas, inovadoras e bem informadas do jornalismo online assim como algumas pessoas como uma bela experiência em diversas áreas."

E depois, o que acontece? "Depois vamos todos para o pub."

Aqui no Lago vamos seguir com especial atenção este encontro. Pelo menos até eles irem todos para os copos.

JEECamp Info: Participantes e tópicos| Attendees and Topics

Cobertura Online | Online Coverage

sign up on the JEEcamp event page on Facebook

Ordem de trabalhos | Running Order

Promoted as an unconference, this meeting aims to be an informal opportunity to exchange ideas about journalism nowadays and for the future. Paul Bradshaw , the man behind this event, explains us what JEECamp is: "An opportunity for a range of people to get together to talk about what works in online journalism, how on earth journalists and publishers can make a living from journalism in the era of free information, what the challenges are, and what we've learned so far." And who's attending? "Attendees might have launched their own journalism project - or worked on one within a mainstream organisation. Or they might just have lots of great ideas, or knowledge about the area."

Although this meeting is held at Birmingham, anyone can follow the event at journalismenterprise.com, where you can leave your questions: "I would also love it if we could have some contributions from people who are following the event live online."

Paul Bradshaw's expectations are "at various times wildly optimistic, paranoid, neurotic and idealistic. On the whole I think this is going to be a very exciting opportunity for people to get together who otherwise might not have that opportunity. It's a forum for lots of great ideas, and some dodgy ones. I think we have some of the most creative, innovative and well informed minds in online journalism here, as well as some people with wonderful experience in a range of areas."

And what will happen afterwards? "Then we'll go to the pub."

Here at the Lake we'll be following this event with special attention. Well, at least until they all go for some drinks.

JEECamp Info: Attendees and Topics

Online Coverage

sign up on the JEEcamp event page on Facebook

Running Order

Firstly, Paul Bradshaw's extended piece on how local news is changing[1], which nicely sums up the challenges facing all media, but especially local media. There's an especially pertinent point when he mentions Google's Super Tuesday election mashup with Twitter and YouTube.

News, and news innovations, are no longer the sole preserve of traditional media companies and anybody going into the traditional end of the media, be it print or broadcast, needs to recognise the landscape has changed. The online startups and established brands may not always get their experiments right but it'll only take one of them to hit upon an easy and popular idea and the whole industry could be playing catch up.

It doesn't hurt to experiment with mapping, mashups, wikis, widgets, vodcasts, podcasts and, yes, even online video content and bulletins. The important part is remember not to do them for the sake of being able to do them, but thinking about how this will resonate with regular users of the website as well as drawing in new users and strengthening the brand online.

Getting it right isn't an easy science and not every experiment will work. But in any media, be a national magazine or broadcaster, or a local paper or radio station, it's vital to have somebody on board who is naturally interested in keeping track of Web 2.0 developments, like the Google/Twitter/YouTube mashup, and going: "Hey. We could adapt this for our readership."

All of which brings me nicely to Roy Greenslade's response to Bradshaw's post, who also emphasises the need for investment and experimentation. His conclusions are spot on:

"Journalism is being reborn online and it requires total dedication.

It's the failure of owners to recognise this fact that is holding back development. I applaud all the regional groups that have spent money on new kit. I am less willing to cheer them for viewing investment in kit as a substitute for investment in human beings. In this transitory stage, with papers being published on separate platforms, more staff are required.

If we want reporters to be innovative, to push the boundaries by finding new ways of engaging online audiences, then they must be given the time and space to experiment. Unless owners catch on, they may find people drifting off to non-newspaper websites."

Finally, a slight tangent [2] from teacher Will Patterson aka J. Arthur McNumpty on teaching blogging in schools, but one that I'll misappropriate towards journalistic endeavours.

Patterson's main points - that blogging is a difficult thing to teach and there's a danger of turning it into a chore; a weekly exercise - could just as easily be applied to teaching blogging to journalists or journalists-in-training.

There's no question that journalism courses or training should include a significant element on utilising online journalism but it shouldn't be taught as a series of tick boxes.

Most places I've worked, I've been an evangelist for blogging, encouraging colleagues to get online and get blogging. Similarly, during my postgraduate training we were required to set up a blog and update it at least every week.

The same problem quickly became apparent in both my evangelising and on the course. You got those who, for want of a better word, 'got' blogging and started posting on a regular basis. You got those who didn't see the point and ended up posting nothing at all. And you got those who kind of understood that it was something they needed to know about but weren't quite sure what to do with it, so ended up posting in a very formal structure, ticking all the boxes that were required but not saying anything very much and, ultimately and through no real fault of their own, not creating particularly interesting content. Many probably got fed up and joined the not bothered category.

Conclusion: You can take a journalist to a keyboard but you can't make them blog.

I'm not going to pull out some wonder-solution to teaching blogging, or at least understanding blogging, because I'm not entirely sure how I'd go about it myself. Blogging's partly about finding your own voice and in formalised settings its not always easy to do this.

The only way that immediately springs to mind, is a bit of coaxing towards storytelling behind the story by tapping into the enthusiasm for what the would-be-blogger was originally employed to do - journalism.

Some of the best posts I've seen have been from infrequent bloggers who've been out to a story or event and want to share what they've been to or seen, but are restricted by space in their traditional outlet. Hence turning to blogging to add depth and context to the story from a personal perspective - a little like an online version of From Our Own Correspondent.

If you've got somebody who's genuinely excited by an aspect of their work, then employers should give them the online means to do this - it works much better than the formal: "This is a blog and this is how to blog." It's still probably nowhere near the best way to push media people into the Web 2.0 world, but it's as good a starting point as any.

[1] A shorter version can be found at journalism.co.uk

[2] Via this week's Britblog Roundup.