Twitter has attracted quite a bit of attention, as people share what they are doing right now. As with so many Web 2.0 ideas, it new and untested. But Amy Gahran from Poynter has come up with an interesting use for it. Like myself, she is a speaker at the Knight New Media Election ’08 seminar. Instead of live blogging the event, she is ‘twittering’ the discussions. It reads a

How can politicians use online video to reach voters? Not by using it as a platform for traditional political message, argued Micah Sifry, co-founder of Personal Democracy Forum. Speaking at the Knight New Media Center seminar on Election ’08, Sifry contrasted the approaches of Hillary Clinton to UK Conservative Party leader David Cameron. In his view, the Clinton campaign is using online video as it would be conventional TV –

I am at a four-day seminar on Election ’08: Covering Politics in Cyberspace organised by the Knight New Media Center at USC Annenberg. The event kicked off with a keynote by political scientist Michael Cornfield. His message to the journalists in the room – interview the donors. In particular he highlighted how the number of small donors has doubled between 2003 and 2007. In a wide-ranging talk, Cornfield explored the

Soon after news broke of the shootings at Virginia Tech, I received an e-mail from a friend at CBC. She’s noticed that as reports were still coming in the scale of the tragedy, CNN had already posted a cellphone video from a student, which captured some of the gun shots. Over at the BBC, e-mails were coming in from students on campus, who had rushed to the internet to find

One of the debates in the media is often about the willingness of readers to take a more active role. This can range from leaving comments on stories to sending in their own photos or videos on news events. Figures from USAToday.com seem to suggest that there is an appetite for greater participation. Since the newspaper relaunched its website last month to focus on creating a community around news, registrations

The WashingtonPost.com seems to introduce a new feature every day, or sometimes it can just feel that way. As I was clicking around the site on Tuesday, I stumbled upon another new service – high definition video podcasts specifically created for Apple TV. This is an interesting move for the Post. Apple TV has only been in the shops for a few weeks, but the newspaper is already betting on

A week later, I am still digesting the panels from the International Online Journalism Symposium at the University of Texas in Austin. Just about every panel was made up of interesting and engaging speakers and the presentations are now up to download. One issue that was touched upon by a couple of speakers was blogging. Dean Betz, online editor of the Houston Chronicle, talked about how his newspaper was using

The folks at Multimedia Shooter have put together a useful guide for journalists dipping their toes into the world of multiplatform reporting. The starter kit offers advice on audio and video equipment, as well as on software tools, with links to guides. It is a must-read for any journalist who is interested in taking advantage of the many ways stories can be told across media

What would happen if you apply the design ideas of social media to news? This is exactly what my friends over at Hop Studios in Vancouver have done in a project they call Flickring the News. The idea is a deceptively simple one – “What if,” they asked, “news sites were built for sharing instead of for telling?” Social media sites like MySpace, Flickr, Blogger etc are sites where someone’s

Kate Marymont of The News-Press in Fort Myers provided some valuable insights in two new journalism terms at the International Online Journalism Symposium. The News-Press, part of the Gannett chain, is becoming a lab for innovation in journalism, experimenting with mojos and crowdsourcing. Marymont explained how the paper started with a handful of mojos, mobile journalists, and now it has 52 reporters who are mobile. What this means is that