19:01:2012

The Changing Role of a Journalist – a few thoughts

What is the role of the journalist in today’s world?

During the Birmingham riots, when a huge amount of rumour and speculation was being passed around the social networks (Riot rumours – Guardian), should the local media have also stepped in to set the records straight?

Many believe that journalists should only deal with news — a rumour is not news, and should be left alone.

This may have been the case before the era of social networks and citizen journalists – when the journalists had the monopoly on the information reaching the public, and to mention “rumour” was to give it credence.

However, today – thanks to the power of the online world, rumour has credence without the journalists being involved.

Consider this example: a station is evacuated due to a suspect package. Word breaks online and spreads quickly. Traditionally we would turn to our the established news outlets (local radio, local newspaper website etc) for confirmation or, at least, information. However, if they are saying nothing about it because nothing has been confirmed, then that organization will quickly lose its reputation. Concerned parties will instead continue to believe the information being passed around online.

Those local news outlets should be on Twitter and Facebook saying what they know about this situation. They should besaying that the station has been evacuated. They should also be passing on information as they receive it. Granted, it probably won’t make a story, but people are talking about it – hence it deserves attention.

Now we are left with a situation where minute-to-minute updates are handled by the sources themselves (police, Government, NHS) and an army of citizen journalists.

It is no wonder that local/regional news outlets are losing their grip on their regions – when there are other sources of information not concerned with filling pages, and maintaining exclusives.

04:01:2012

Uni applications drop off – but which subject area is hardest hit?

Thanks to a hike in tuition fees, there has been a drop off in the numbers of people applying to UK universities, compared to the 2011 figures.

Usefully, the Guardian has posted the numbers on their Datablog and I’m starting to munch through the data

Here’s the first set of findings – by subject area grouped into discipline, thanks to Wikipedia’s List of Academic Disciplines

03:01:2012

MP’s subsidized dining rooms

So MP’s are expected to pay the equivalent of “high street pub” prices when buying food in the subsidized restaurant in House of Commons are they? (Telegraph)

Let’s see if that’s the case.

Taking 5 dishes mentioned in the article above – I compared them to an equivalent TYPE of dish at Wetherspoons, Walkabout and All Bar One. (click for larger image)

Sources:

http://www.jdwetherspoon.co.uk/

http://www.allbarone.co.uk/

http://www.walkabout.eu.com/

And special thanks to @keridavies (http://www.keridavies.net)

02:01:2012

The embargo > a few thoughts

Embargo: a request by a source that the information or news provided by that source not be published until a certain date or certain conditions have been met News embargo – Wikipedia

A lot of talk recently about embargoes, after a journalist for the New Yorker posted a review of the new David Fincher film, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo ahead of an agreed embargo date.

You can read the email exchanges between the reporter – David Denham and Sony here but Denham’s points appear to be:

They were trying to spread reviews to avoid a “jam up” of articles featuring the large number of important movies released at the same time
His review was positive – he says he would not have broken an embargo with a “bad” review
“madness” of early publication dates in the run up to the Xmas period and a need for serious content for this particular edition.

Sony retaliated by accusing him of doing ”a deeply lousy and immoral thing“, that the glut of Xmas films is nothing new and that the needs of the magazine should not come ahead of an agreement.

—

Embargo’s are designed to structure the flow of information between a source and a journalist within an environment of trust and it is important that they are maintained. They not only offer an obvious benefit to the source (by controlling coverage) and the wider situation (e.g.protecting police operations, court cases etc) there are also definite benefits to the journalist.

A journalist who is given access to embargoed information is working within a privileged position. The source considers their, or their outlet’s reputation to warrant this trust and in return the that journalist is given time to absorb and develop the story.

With the online information-explosion thanks social networks and blogging, it is important for traditional news outlets to play to their strengths. Whilst many are excelling in breaking news in innovative ways, they still have a definite advantage when it comes to their access to information. This head-start gives the perfect opportunity to prepare a well-researched, in-depth piece ahead of time.

A journalist who breaks an embargo is often punished in the future by missing out on information – it would be a shame if this becomes a habit and more journalists ignore this agreement that is there for the greater good.

15:12:2011

Dataviz – Junior Schools by Religious Denomination

Click to interact …

24:11:2011

Wave Goodbye

Just received this Email from the Google Wave guys … Despite my ups and downs with Wave, it’s still sad but good for Google for giving it a go!

——-

Dear Wavers,

More than a year ago, we announced that Google Wave would no longer be developed as a separate product. At the time, we committed to maintaining the site at least through to the end of 2010. Today, we are sharing the specific dates for ending this maintenance period and shutting down Wave. As of January 31, 2012, all waves will be read-only, and the Wave service will be turned off on April 30, 2012. You will be able to continue exporting individual waves using the existing PDF export feature until the Google Wave service is turned off. We encourage you to export any important data before April 30, 2012.

If you would like to continue using Wave, there are a number of open source projects, including Apache Wave. There is also an open source project called Walkaround that includes an experimental feature that lets you import all your Waves from Google. This feature will also work until the Wave service is turned off on April 30, 2012.

For more details, please see our help center.

Yours sincerely,

The Wave Team

17:11:2011

Become Master of your Email Inbox

Is your email inbox bursting at the seams? Overrun with nonsense,? Drowning in newsletters?

Here are a few easy tips to get your wayward email inbox whipped into shape.

The idea here is to reduce the number of emails in your inbox, so the important ones aren’t forgotten about.

Before you clear out your inbox (we’ll do that later), LOOK at the emails in there – they should fall into one of four categories:

EASY TO DEAL WITH EMAILS

Deal with them … right now. Sounds silly, but the rush you’ll get by just getting it down will be worth it

Alternatively, if you’d prefer and have the facility – convert the email to a task

UNWANTED EMAILS:

Unsubscribe from them. There should be an unsubscribe option at the bottom. It seems like a hassle now, but think – how many of these emails do you delete every week? Trust me – it’s worth it.
If you are receiving unwanted emails from individuals simply ask to stop receiving them. A polite email explaining why (i.e. your job role has changed, your interests have changed, or you get the information from other sources etc.) should do the job. This also applies to chain email that at some point applied to you, but don’t now.
You could also set up a filter to delete unwanted mailouts before they even enter your inbox BUT be warned: in the future you may want to resubscribe to this service, so you will need to remove the filter if so. Also, the more specific you cna be with your filter, the less chance of other emails being caught.

“NEED LATER” EMAILS

These re messages you don’t need to see now, but will need later.

The answer here is to FILTER. If you use a free-mail service, like GMail or Hotmail, or Outlook, make use of the filtering / archiving process which skips the inbox and moves the emails directly into a folder.

Examples:

newsletters from fashion stores / vouchers etc. can be hidden away until your next shopping trip
work documents that I will need for a future task but don’t need reviewing now
job alerts – I file these away, and set myself a calendar reminder to check that folder every couple of days so I don’t miss anything important

PESKY EMAILS (aka All the rest …)

These emails will annoy the hell out of you, and make you feel bad about yourself until you can deal with them. Often these depend on other people/situations. My solution is to remove it from your inbox but set up a reminder to deal with it, when you know you’ll be able to.

In order to do this – think – what’s stopping you from answering it immediately?

You need to consider your response / it’s not urgent and you’re busy right now – Sometimes you’re just not in the mood, right? Sometimes it’s just not a priority. Sometimes that difficult email needs an extra cup of coffee / lunchbreak or an entire day before you feel up to dealing with it. First, be honest – are you just procrastinating, or does this really need some thought? If so, allocate yourself a time of the day/week to deal with emails like this. End of the day perhaps? Start of the day – before things get to hectic? Set yourself a timed reminder, or a morning todo list, archive the email and forget about it until then.
Are you waiting for a specific date? – either archive and set yourself an calendar reminder, or - if it’s an email that needs sending – does your email system have a DELAY email function? (you could also give ifttt.com a go – this allows you to schedule emails to a specific person through your Google Calendar – very geeky and very clever). There are other email schedulers available - these seem to allow a small number of free emails (eg 10 a month) but for larger amounts you will need to pay.
Are you waiting for an email from someone else? – if so, archive the email currently in your inbox – the email from them will remind you to deal with this
Do you need to have a phone call/conversation/meeting with someone else first? - do you know when this will be? If so, you could either set yourself a calendar reminder for the date you will find out the information, or a reminder for the deadline when it has to be dealt with.

A few more things you can do …

Turn off social network notifications – if you are on Twitter / Facebook all day anyway (or have an app on your smartphone) do you really need an email alert as well? If you’re like me you are signed up to a lot of accounts, so the notifications are endless!! Also think – what’s the point of getting a Facebook alert if you’re at work and can’t do anything about it? Turn them off, save yourself the frustration!
Preview setting on mobile email readers – I miss important emails because I review them on my mobile, but can’t deal with them. Now I use the “PREVIEW 5 lines” function (IPhone) so I can get an idea of what the email is about, without having to open it (which marks it as read). It will then remain in your inbox unread, until you get to office/home etc.
Similarly, review your the “mark as read” setting on your desktop email – change this from “mark as read as soon as open” to something that means you have really processed with it. It means emails will stay as unread until dealt with.
Reduce the time you spend receiving emails. This takes self-control and is definitely not suited to every role. Decide how often you will check your email (2/3 times a day) and set an autoresponder (out of office reply) explaining this fact. Also spell out WHEN you will be replying to the email, if one is required. This will cut down on email “ping pong” – when an email turns into an entire conversation as senders will be a LOT more concise and it won’t turn into a conversation.
Mailing Lists – consider changing the settings of these. Do you really need to receive ever update of an email list – or would a daily / weekly email be enough?

NOW ITS TIME TO BE RUTHLESS

Go through your emails and decide – are they:

dealt with – then delete
contain important information – archive or remove info (ie contact details) and delete
pending – process as above … archive and setting dated/timed calender reminders

Also – depending on your workflow, I would say bulk archiving emails before a certain date is a good move. Think about it, they’ve probably been resolved now anyway.

NEED MORE ROOM?

All of this archiving can put a strain on your email account size – even giant accounts like Gmail have a limit, and corporate accounts are very limiting when it comes to how much you can archive Consider an archiving / filing service like Evernote / Springpad (useful list here).

These are cloud based and will store your files, emails etc. so you can retrieve them from in different ways (i.e. computer, smart phone, tablet etc.).

I use Evernote, and as it comes with an email address, I now forward a lot of emails to this automatically, and also manually when they arrive. (using Gmail filters) but there are others available (both free and paid for) – find the one that suits you the best!

08:11:2011

6 Tips for Using Evernote

If you’ve ever had a conversation with me about workload, computers, tech etc -then there’s a *very* good chance that I’ve mentioned Evernote.

If you’re not aware of it – it’s equivalent to an external hard drive, on the cloud – so you can archive important / interesting information – read more here (http://www.evernote.com/)

There are hundreds of different ways you can use Evernote – here are my top 6 tips:

1. A DESKTOP FOLDER

In Evernote open Tools > Import Folders

Here you can specify ANY folder, and files within that folder will be automatically imported into Evernote

I decided to create a folder called “For Evernote”. This sits on the C Drive but by creating a shortcut on your desktop, you now have a place where you can drag files for quick importing.

I also specified this folder as a FAVOURITE so it is easy to find when I am saving a file from another program.

NOTE: When I set up this folder, I set SOURCE to DELETE – which removes files once they have been imported into Evernote.

I had been hoping to specify a Dropbox folder as an import folder, but this is not possible – hence, Tip #2

2. GOODSYNC

Goodsync – a very useful desktop tool anyway for backing up files/moving etc, but great for syncing Dropbox with Evernote.

I wanted to use this to automatically backup my portfolio as I develop it, but it could be used for anything (images, documents etc).

Point Goodsync at the source file, and again at your Evernote desktop shortcut, and viola! (you can also alter the settings - so you can have a 2 way sync (not useful here), backup or move (ie delete file from source location)

I have also used this to move a host of images from my IPhone and IPad (before I upgraded to IOS5) to Evernote.

By installing the Dropbox App I uploaded ALL my images to my Dropbox > Evernote folder, and they are - one by one – moved (and then deleted) from Dropbox to Evernote Import (by Goodsync) then moved (and deleted form source) into Evernote automatically. (I currently use this to move my IPad screen captures into Evernote)

3. SYNC ICLOUD to EVERNOTE

(Disclaimer: I’m not entirely sure HOW I’ve achieved this. I set up a LOT of different syncing techniques and I’m now unable to find out which one works .. but I think this is it – but apologies if it doesn’t work for you)

ICloud is Apple’s latest product to sync items on all of your kit – Ipad, IPhone, Mac etc.

I used Goodsync (above) to link your C:\Users\sony\Pictures\Photo Stream\Uploads folder to my Evernote import folder (as set up above)

Now this only works when my laptop is on, but that works for me: Goodsync moves all the images that appear in my photostream into Evernote

This is useful for keeping track of snaps I take, but ALSO, more importantly for me, screen captures I take on my Iphone (and soon IPad)

4. Filtering and moving with IFTTT.com

Ifttt is a very useful website (a little clunky in places) but great tool for moving pretty much any online content, to somewhere else.

I currently have it sorting certain GMmail messages. Pro: You can specify the Evernote folder in which the item will be moved Con: 1. Sometimes it cuts off the body of the text 2. It does not delete the original message. For some emails now I have reverted to Gmail Filters – see next tip)
I have it moving anything I post to my Tumblr images account (http://www.carolinebeavon.tumblr.com) as an image into Evernote
Articles I “star” in Google Reader are now moved to Evernote – this does not copy the body, just the title so this is not perfect for reading but useful to a degree
Messages I “favourite” on Twitter are sent to Evenote
Anything I send to Instapaper (I have a magazine reader on my Ipad that does not have an Evernote link) i import to Evernote.

5. GMAIL FILTERS

> using a filter to forward / move certain emails into Evernote

As stated above – the con of this system is that you cannot specify which Evernote folder the email goes into but it is a trustworthy system.

Find your Evernote email address – within Evernote
Set up a filter to forward and keep (or forward and delete) emails into Evernote
When you log into Evernote you will have to deal with them in your default folder

6. GOOGLE CHROME EVERNOTE PLUGIN

Such a useful tool and I’m sure IE and Firefox have a similar thing.

It’s a button that sits in your toolbar, that lets you grab webpage and send it to Evernote – allowing you to grab bits of pages, entire pages or URL’s of the page you are looking at. You can also specify the destination folder AND add tags as you go.

11:10:2011

Where’s Werritty?

18:09:2011

And so it begins …

Having put my MA in Online Journalism to bed on Friday with the submission of my final assignment cbviz (plus support blog here) I now have the task of getting out there and finding a job.

There’s certainly not a lack of jobs in the digital field, but the trick will be finding one that suits my editorial background.

Having worked in broadcast news for 10 years I can certainly tick “communication” as a skill. Thanks to my studies I can now also add a dizzying number of technical skills.

So the hunt begins. I’ve seen a very interesting digital editor role going (local too)… I’ll most certainly be throwing my hat into the ring for that one.

In the meantime I’ll be boosting my CV by teaching myself some more key skills:

- I’d definitely like to get to grips with Scraperwiki
- adding to my experience with Illustrator would be great
- design : I’m no artist so I will definitely want to learn some of those design basics.

Any more suggestions of good CV additions feel free to comment below.

I’ll be posting my current CV up very soon … So if you are in the market for a digital content person with a fetish for visualisations, data and general social media goodness, feel free to drop me a line via Twitter @carolinebeavon or carolinebeavon@gmail.com

Over and out