Together with many others passionate about online journalism, I’m heading off to San Francisco for the annual conference of the Online News Association. There is a big focus on practical sessions this year, such as learning about SEO, metrics and, of course, Twitter. One major issue is the dominance of US panelists. While many of these have much to contribute, the ONA is doing its members a disservice by not
It should come as no surprise that online journalists are more optimistic about the future of news than their counterparts in traditional media outlets. But this optimism is tempered with a healthy dose of concerns about where journalism is going, according to the survey (PDF) of select members of the Online News Association (ONA) produced by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. The online professionals believe that
Robert Scoble streamed his keynote at last week’s Online News Association annual conference in DC live via a mobile phone. It was a powerful demonstration of the new tools of communication he talked about. [kyte.tv appKey=MarbachViewerEmbedded&uri=channels/6118/220081&embedId
Spain made a big impresson at the Online News Association awards, picking up the two awards that non-English websites were eligible for. Elpais.com took the newly created award for general excellence by a large non-English site. Its compatriot, Soitu.es, won the general excellence title for small site. One is an example of how a print newspaper is reinventing itself online. The other is a an independent, web-only new site, just
This year, the ONA annual conference has provided a platform for academics to share their research with the industry. Leslie-Jean Thornton from the Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University and Susan Keith at Rutgers [initially I incorrectly said she was at ASU] looked at how newspapers and TV stations were adapting to the web. Broadly, what they found was that newspapers were far more dynamic in using the
Image via Wikipedia Amy Webb races through 10 tech trends at the ONA annual conference. Fortunately, she also has posted the list online. First up are 2D, or QR, barcodes and how mobile phones can be used to scan these. The codes are already used in promotional ads but also in magazine ads. Webb talks about how a news outlet could use these point readers to resources online. The easy
Image via CrunchBase, source unknown Robert Scoble sets the theme for his keynote at the Online News Association conference in DC by doing something that wasn’t possible a year ago – video streaming his talk live via a mobile phone. This changes journalism, he argues, as people can send questions as an interview takes place live. Scoble says this takes advantage of the audience, who is smarter, richer, more educated
A piece on J-Source lays into NowPublic for reproducing content from mainstream media. Enticingly titled, The Revolution will be Plagarised, it argues that the citizens are failing us at NowPublic. As of 2 p.m., Sept. 11, nearly 60 per cent of the stories in the citizen-journalism site’s Canadian Election section consist of quoted material from other, largely traditional media outlets. The problem with this article is that it misunderstands what
The ONA session on merging newsrooms, managing drama at the ONA 08 is packed, perhaps a sign this is an issue facing every news organisation. Or as the panel moderator Lee Banville, editor of the Online Newshour, describes it, a group therapy session Peter Horrocks, head of the Multimedia Newsroom at the BBC kicks off the discussion by picking up on the therapy theme by describing his role as the
In his opening remarks at the Online News Association annual conference in Washington DC, ONA president Jonathan Dube described online as a growing, innovative medium, at a time when other mediums are struggling. As the association heads into its 10th year, Dube outlines the priorities – money and members. Attracting more funding and more members is an obvious aim for any professional group. But more significantly, the ONA wants to