Filed under: Media | Tags: bad science, ben goldacre, Journalism, paul drayson, scidebate
Yes, if you’re to believe journalist, doctor, crusader and Bad Science blogger Ben Goldacre.
There are some good write-ups of the debate between Science Minister Lord Drayson – who (quite cannily, given he was in a room full of science journalists) took the position that science coverage was getting better – and Ben Goldacre. A couple to check out are Zoe Corbyn’s at Times Higher Education and Basheera Khan’s over at Telegraph Blogs.
Better still, you can read my write up at journalism.co.uk – and have a look at my Flickr photos if you weren’t there.
Filed under: Media
Hats off. What a great headline and standfirst on that second lead. Enough to make any sub’s heart melt.
Filed under: Media
City University was recently blessed (or tarnished, depending on your viewpoint) with the frontrunners of online journalism, with Guido Fawkes, Slugger O’Toole, Turi Munthe (Demotix) and Potkin Azarmehr (a blogger for a secular Iran) all taking questions on the political blog.
Both Slugger and Guido were keen to point out they are no replacement for the mainstream media. But where Guido still saw value in newspapers to spread his political stories, Slugger seemed to think passionate bloggers might be the best source for niche information.
Guido said…
If you want to break a big story, you have to broadcast it. Sometimes I have to get a newspaper [in] and I work with a journalist to make a maximum impact. If I just did it myself, I find it gets picked up later. That’s one strategy; you do have to incorporate a broadcaster.
Mick Fealty/Slugger O’Toole said…
[We and the mainstream media] go about our business in a rather different way. Three or four years ago a Belfast news editor said, do you realise that Slugger sets the news agenda every morning? I didn’t want that kind of responsibility, but if that’s the case, that’s fine. I take an interest in stories which interest me.
Filed under: Media, Politics | Tags: expenses, freedom of information, heather brooke, MPs, telegraph
Weeks like this make me remember why I want to be a journalist. The British press has outdone itself in the MP’s expenses coverage. The Telegraph not only nailed the splash but provided a nice gallery of objects claimed on expenses, from iced gem biscuits to multiple houses.
The political response is hilarious, at first glance. Tragic, at the second. The immediate response to the leaks has been ‘whodunnit?’ because, rather conveniently, revealing whether Phil Woolas bought his wife a shirt with public money is information ‘held in confidence’. You can see the letter hinting at a police investigation at Guido Fawkes’ blog.
Publicly, MP’s sought to defend themselves over individual claims while spectacularly missing the point. It’s no longer about the details, but the disillusioning whole. It’s the snouts-in-the-trough mentality while the rest of us are being lectured to cut down our costs of living.
Meanwhile, the opposition has remained strangely quiet because…well, they’re all in on it. David Cameron has been quick to issue a general condemnation and assure the public the Tories’ expenses will surface sooner or later, but it’s not going to be pretty either.
Stuff to read and listen to:
8/5 - Telegraph: the original splash and follow-up material.
BBC Today programme: Harriet Harman floundering. Unfortunately I can’t find a clip of presenter Evan Davis reading the watery Tory response, saying that it was a ‘live issue’ and they wanted to see ‘how it would play out’, but that was gold too.
BBC online – MPs bite back, in a classic example of missing the point, and a nice summary of what is actually within the rules.
And finally…
Major kudos to journalist/Freedom of Information campaigner/superhero Heather Brooke. Tireless in her efforts to achieve greater political openness, including MPs expenses, she has been credited by Guido Fawkes for her part in this. She even inspired this humble FOI request….
Update: Even my ethics tutor Roy Greenslade acknowledges what a total legend she is.
Filed under: Internet, Media | Tags: bbc, datastore, dreamgrove, factcheck, fail blog, guardian, huffington post, Internet, jackson pollock, jason nelson, new york times, webby, webby awards, wordle
The Webby Awards winners are in, with relatively few surprises I think. You can view the full list here, though this year’s 5 word speeches will have to wait til the awards ceremony which isn’t actually held until June. You’ll be able to watch it on YouTube though. Big ‘of the year’ wins were NIN frontman Trent Reznor for artist (woo!), comedian Jimmy Fallon for person, Twitter for breakout and Sarah Silverman for best actress. Would’ve picked Tina Fey myself, but whatever.
Worth checking out is the beautiful net-art category winner, Dreamgrove. Users are invited to ‘plant’ their dreams in a virtual field, while visitors can viewers these dreams categorised by mood, colour, name, word or date. People’s choice winner was the slightly sillier JacksonPollock.org, which can only be described as SPLAT.
Another art project, Jason Nelson’s Digital Oddities, topped the ‘weird’ category. I haven’t finished exploring it yet and I’ve yet to decide whether it’s beautiful or just odd. New media artist Jason Nelson assembles a patchwork collection of…well, new media art. Think of those Guardian Datablog visualisations but to the power of 100. There’s something for gamers, surrealists and amateur YouTubers. If that’s too taxing on the brain, there’s always the delightfully snarky FAIL blog.
In politics, the HuffPost took the main prize, while US political journalism site FactCheck was popular among the people. Wordle nabbed best use of typography after ridiculous overusage by the global press (including me). Just to remind you, here were my predictions:
Best newspaper
I predicted….New York Times to pip Guardian.
Winner Guardian
People’s choice New York Times (so half a point, surely)
Best news
I predicted…The Huffington Post
Winner BBC Worldwide
People’s choice BBC Worldwide
Podcast
I predicted…Guardian
Winner Guardian
People’s choice NPR Podcasts. No, no idea who they are either.
Jason Nelson’s award winner for weird.
Filed under: Internet, Media | Tags: bbc, daily beast, guardian, huffington post, new york times, postsecret, sad guys on trading floors, webby awards
Webby Award winners will be announced tomorrow, with hundreds of techies nominees jostling to win accolades across the categories of ‘website’, ‘interative advertising’, ‘mobile’ and ‘online film & video’. Obviously website is the biggie, and site categories range from ‘activism’ to ‘youth’. Two awards are available in each site category; the panel’s choice and the people’s choice.
Mostly no one really cares about the Webbies, but they’re an excellent way of discovering new sites. Look out for the ones favoured by the great unwashed people’s choice rather than the judge panel. I only discovered PostSecret after last year’s awards, and Sad Guys on Trading Floors is an excellent piss-take this year. Take a look at the rest of the Weird section by way of example.
British websites are doing reasonably well with 58 nominations, with the Beeb vying for eight and the Guardian for six. A few of my own media-related predictions. I’ll be posting on the winners tomorrow:
Best newspaper: New York Times. Tough call, but it’s consistently one step ahead of the Guardian when it comes to innovating news content.
Best news: The Huffington Post. Daily Beast has been gaining momentum, but isn’t quite there yet.
Podcast: The Guardian. Maybe because of my own particular attachment to the nice producers there who let me mess about in the control room on work experience.
Perhaps to compensate for the fact that really, it should be a cloud-based ceremony, techie histrionics are limited to a 5 word acceptance speech. Corkers include ‘Can someone fix my computer?’ from 2007′s top artist Beastie Boys and ‘Shit, I only get five words? Shit, that was five. Four more there. That’s three. Two’ from David Bowie accepting a lifetime achievement award.
Here’s a pick of the best from last year:
Top 5 5-worders, 2008
“Thank you for this Pulitzer.” Onion News Network, News & Politics: Series
“We enjoy sleeping with you.” Ikea Mattress, Retail
“Get your money for nothing.” Mint.com, Banking
“And your mint for free.” Mint.com, Financial Services
“Thanks, in 72 point Helvetica.” Veer, Best Use of Typography
You can view the rest here, and you can submit your own #5words speech to @thewebbyawards.
UPDATE: Deleted, due to being ill-thought through and probably detrimental to future career.
Filed under: Media, News | Tags: bbc, comedy, never mind the buzzcocks, simon amstell
Comedian Simon Amstell announced in his newsletter last night that he will be stepping down from hosting BBC TV pop quiz Never Mind the Buzzcocks to concentrate on his live work. Here’s the statement in full, sent at 10pm last night to fans signed up to his website
Hello.
I am Simon Amstell. Here is some news, should you be interested in this sort of thing. I will not be hosting another series of the fun pop quiz, ‘Never Mind the Buzzcocks’.
When I first took on the role of hosting ‘Never Mind the Buzzcocks’, my only hope was to bring joy and laughter to the world and if I was lucky, put an end to war, disease and poverty. Now that I have achieved that, I plan to concentrate on my live work.
Thank you.
Please now continue to enjoy your life as best you can.
Filed under: Internet, Media | Tags: bill thompson, budget, charles arthuer, darren waters, g20, guardian, Journalism, justin williams, shane richmond, Social media, telegraph, twitter, twitterbitching, twitterfail, twitterfall, website
Ah, sweet proof that even the best of us are prone to the occasional FAIL, troll and snarkfest. First up in the Twitterbitching ring -
Charles Arthur v …the entire Telegraph web team
The Guardian was rubbing its liberal hands with glee after the Telegraph’s Budget homepage was spammed by Twitter-users merrily taking advantage of the #budget tag to appear on the site’s Twitterfall feed. The Guardian then went on to list its favourite spammers before the feed was eventually taken down….
….and then put back up. Rumour has it that the Telegraph now has monkeys (in fact, quite possibly my City colleagues who are currently working there) frantically filtering the tweets before they’re actually allowed onto the live feed – unsubstantiated as yet. Certainly the feed appears to have slowed down, which has not gone unnoticed by Guardian Tech editor Charles Arthur, who tweeted:
50 tweets with #budget for the past hour. I could do this faster than the Telegraph. I could *automate* this better than them. Guys, give up
You can read the response from Telegraph assistant web editor Justin Williams below. Miaow! The sniping played itself out over Twitter until BBC tech heavyweights Darren Waters and Bill Thompson eventually weighed in on Charles’ side. Rather sweetly, Telegraph communities editor Shane Richmond tweets, “It’s a snapshot of the conversation that’s going on around the Budget. Why is that so hard to figure out?” Because it’s “undirected and pointless” says Charles.
There is an interesting underlying debate here – Shane, Justin and co. seem to be entirely in favour of unfiltered conversation. Except when they have monkeys filtering it (hm). Charles and the Guardian crew lean towards using social media for journalistic purposes, but favouring ‘authoratative’ voices. Have a look at their G20 Twitterfall-style feed (actually using Scribblelive) by way of example. Rather than allowing all and sundry through with a #G20 tag, the Guardian only showed tweets from its own journalists and bloggers. Elitism, or a sensible way to avoid spam?
The Twitter fight, read from the bottom up.
UPDATE: A quick glance back at the Budget homepage shows the Twitterfall feed has been pulled off again. You can see a screenshot on the Guardian’s article, however. Ding ding ding!
Filed under: Media | Tags: azwar majeed, media downturn, multimedia journalism, newswires. baltimore sun, PA, press association, southwark crown court, traineeships, work experience
No, not that Wire. Although given the cutbacks at the fictionalised Baltimore Sun, it does kind of feel like it.
I mean the newswire provided by the Press Association, where I’m mopping floors doing work experience this week. I know, I know. Everyone hates work experience columns, but hear me out.
The wire provides a feed of news copy to subscribers. Namely nationals, locals, broadcasters and…Teletext. And a steady stream of copy means constant ‘filing’ of stories on the part of the journalists. Deadlines don’t, as such, exist because it’s taken as read that you will be the first to file the story.
