Students at the Faculty of Land and Food Systems at UBC are trying out something different. Instead of doing an essay as part of a course in agroecology, they are producing a 12 to 15 minute podcast. It follows a larger interdisciplinary project on podcasting at the university I was involved with last year, which brought together students from journalism and agroecology to create a new kind of academic podcast,

The newspaper watchdog in the UK, the Press Complaints Commission, is stepping into the debate over the use of material from social networking sites. The head of the body, Tim Toulmin, told the BBC that the organisation has commissioned research to find out if people are aware that material they upload could be used by journalists. It follows complaints to the PCC from people about material used by the press

The CBC is facing a period of upheaval and uncertainty as it pushes ahead with plans to integrate its television, radio and online operations. The Tea Makers blog, run by an anonymous CBC staffer, raises some big questions about the process of bringing together the three mediums. It argues that while the idea may make sense on paper, it overlooks the differences between TV, radio and online in Canada: Radio

Le Monde.fr : Réseaux sociaux : des audiences différentes selon les continents The global differences between social networking sites (tags: networks social_software socialmedia) Digg, Wikipedia, and the myth of Web 2.0 democracy – Slate Magazine The same undemocratic underpinnings of Web 2.0 are on display at Digg.com. (tags: innovation internet) Trolls – Paul Graham Some useful thoughts on how to combat web trolls (tags: communication community socialmedia internet) Multimedia bag-of-tricks

Letting the public into the hallowed halls of journalism is a divisive issue among editors. A study by my friend and colleague, Neil Thurman of City University, revealed just how divided the UK news media is over user-generated content. His paper, “Forums for citizen journalists? Adoption of user generated content initiatives by online news media”, published in New Media & Society, examines attitudes to letting audiences contribute to professionally edited

Our Cells, Ourselves The Washington Post on the revolution happening in our hands – the cellphone (tags: networks technology) Comment is free: Freedom of information Dan Gillmor on the futility of trying to control information once it is published online (tags: internet privacy) MediaShift Idea Lab . Journalists and technologists: an uneasy courtship How a meeting of technologists and journalists is like a first date (tags: journalism multimedia innovation)

The BBC’s Darren Waters has written about the pros and cons of using a mobile phone as a reporting tool on the dot.life blog. He has been using a Nokia N95 during a reporting trip to California to test the limits of what is possible with these kind of devices. Overall, as I too have found, the video quality of the N95 is impressive, especially in a well-lit environment. The

How to make your audio slideshows better « Mastering Multimedia Great advice for all journalists (tags: audio convergence editing multimedia Soundslides tutorial) 94 ultimate networking, interviewing, negotiating, resume and job board resources find a better gig | Will Sullivan’s Journerdism Everything you need to know to get that job in journalism (tags: journalism jobs tips)

Washington Post: One Mission, Two Newsrooms A detailed look at how the print side of the Post is fighting for control with the online team (tags: journalism newmedia newspapers online washingtonpost)

While I was in Boston at the Future of Science Journalism symposium at MIT, I dropped in to see my friend, Clark Boyd, technology correspondent on The World radio show and did a short video interview with him using an Nokia N95. That was after he interviewed me for his weekly technology podcast during which we talked about the Internet was changing the media landscape. The interview is available in