For this month’s Carnival of Journalism, Michael Rosenblum asks if a good journalist can be a good capitalist? The question is timely, given the raft of new entrepreneurial programs at journalism schools. There has always been an entrepreneurial streak in journalism, typified in the freelance journalist who makes a living by pitching and selling their work to a range of clients. Journalists, by necessity, have to be entrepreneurial in finding
PDF The news that mainstream media organisations use Twitter as a broadcast channel is hardly surprising. The study of Twitter feeds from 13 major news outlets in the US by the Pew Research Center’s Project in Excellence in Journalism is in line with earlier academic studies. The Pew study, in collaboration with the George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs, found that Twitter was mainly used to distribute news and boost
The latest survey of Canadian online habits offers some interesting reading for the news industry. The Stats Canada survey found that more than two-thirds of Internet users (68%), read or watch the news online. Keeping up with events is one of the top online activities, following e-mail (93%), browsing for goods or services (74%) and electronic banking (68%). The figures also point to rapid uptake of social media in Canada,
Congratulations to all the winners and finalists in the Online Journalism Awards. The General Excellence Awards went to BBC News, The Globe and Mail, Voice of San Diego, NJ Spotlight, OWNI and La Nacion in their respective categories. The UBC Graduate School of Journalism was a runner-up in the Online Video Journalism (small site category). Here is the full list of winners: Knight Award for Public Service Barnegat Bay Under Stress –
David Cameron’s statement on social media and the riots in England risks stirring a moral panic about social networking. Speaking in parliament, Cameron said: Everyone watching these horrific actions will be stuck by how they were organised via social media. Free flow of information can be used for good. But it can also be used for ill. And when people are using social media for violence we need to stop
BBC News political correspondent Laura Kuenssberg built up a large following on Twitter with her mix of news, commentary and colour. Her move to ITV News in September has raised questions over who “owns” the almost 60,000 people who follow @BBCLauraK. The Guardian suggests that “rather than handing her old account login back to the BBC to start from scratch with a new ITV account, the sensible thing to do is to
Jim Brady, former editor of TBD.com and WashingtonPost.com, set the tone for a professional panel on engaging the audience at #ISOJ by saying they were going to stick to time and leave plenty of time for questions. First up was Espen Egil Hansen, editor-in-chief of VG Multimedia, Norway. He started by stating that he tells his journalists to spend a minimum of 10% of time interacting and engaging with readers. Three-quarters of
In the session on paywalls at the ISOJ, Jorge Meléndez, vice president for new media, Grupo Reforma (Mexico), explained how the newspapers have had paywalls since 2002. The newspaper sites were free for the first two years. But they realised there was a very small online advertising market so the group just did it. Part of this involved an active strategy to convert newspaper subscribers online. The impact of the paywall was
Figuring out how and whether you want to get into journalism can be a challenge for students as they embark on their college education. We had several questions around this topic in the first-year undergraduate course at UBC in new media and journalism that I teach with my colleague Candis Callison. In particular, students wanted to know about promising, emerging journalists in Canada who they could look to as role
Earlier I took part in a live blog discussion with Global News on the role of social media in the protests in Egypt. Here are my initial thoughts on what is happening in Egypt and the significance of social media. I used to be based in Cairo in the early 1990s for the BBC. In countries like Egypt, part of the government’s power comes from controlling the media. What social