The fragmentation of audiences presents new challenges for news editors. Content is now consumed by different audiences through different media, presenting all sorts of editorial dilemmas. In the past, you could be fairly sure who your readers were. But as Edward Roussel, the online editorial director of UK’s Telegraph newspaper, explained in a speech on Thursday, this is no longer the case. “Groups like ours that are used to having

This could be the shape of things to come for media companies. The BBC has hooked up with Microsoft to “to explore ways of developing its digital services.” You can understand why an organisation like the BBC is trying to tap into development work at the software giant. As BBC boss Mark Thompson says in the BBC press release: “We are currently witnessing unprecedented rates of change in technology and

How about this for a newspaper front page? This is what happened to The Independent newspaper in the UK when it had Giorgio Armani edit for a day. The Innovation International Media consultancy poses a series of good questions in its blog post on this. “Do we need celebrities to improve the sales of newspapers?” “What if we replace current editors not justy one day but a full week?” “What

How about this for a clear sign of how media is converging? On Monday night, The Washington Post won its first national Emmy. The award was for its video coverage of Hurricane Katrina, which was produced by the WashingtonPost.com’s senior videojournalist Travis Fox. Here are the award-winning videos: Living in Flooded New Orleans More Pressure on Residents to Leave New Orleans Returning to Jefferson Parish Living in the French Quarter:

Newspapers are going through an intense period of soul-searching, with articles appearing just about every day about whether print will survive in an internet age. One of the more balanced pieces is in this week’s Time magazine by US commentator Michael Kinsley. In the article, he makes a difference between the future of newspapers and the future of journalism. “The “me to you” model of news gathering – a professional

Some interesting ideas of what the newspaper of tomorrow might look like from a speech by Earl Wilkinson, the Executive Director of the International Newspaper Maketing Association. At a meeting of the association in Barcelona, he outlined his vision of what a newspaper in a digital age would look like. Essentially he argued that the newspaper as we know it would be deconstructed into multiple and varied products, both online

What gear do you need if you want to be your own TV reporter? You should have a look at the equipment that Kevin Sites carries with him when on assignment for Yahoo. The list of equipment is surprising compact and reflects how technology can help a journalist to tell a story. This is how Yahoo explains the concept: “Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone is news reporting for the

The idea of a video journalist working for a newspaper may sound like a contradiction in terms. But as newspapers offer increasing amount of video on their websites, there is a growing need for journalists with broadcast skills. The Online Journalism Review has an illuminating interview with Travis Fox, one of the seven video journalists employed by the Washington Post. When Fox started producing video for the Post’s website in

The New York Times has a good write-up of portable recorders for all you budding podcasters. The article reviews the Edirol by Roland R-09 (US$399), the M-Audio MicroTrack 24/96 (US$350) and the Marantz PMD 660 (US$499). They are all pretty compact and offer good quality recordings. At the UBC School of Journalism, we use the M-Audio MicroTrack. It is light and easy to use and the quality is very good.

An experiment in citizen reporting has received a major boost from Reuters. The news agency has given US$100,000 to NewAssignment.net. The project is the brainchild of Jay Rosen who teaches journalism at New York University. It aims to bring together amateur and professional journalists to produce investigative reports. Announcing the grant on his blog, PressThink, Rosen said the money from Reuters would underwrite the costs of hiring the project’s first