Purl of a job for Charlotte

Bernie Russell Media
Purl of a job for Charlotte
LSJ graduate [2008] Charlotte Moorby has got a job as a production assistant on  Future Publishing’s CrossStitcher magazine, published by .
http://www.crossstitchermagazine.co.uk/
Hard craft
It’s a tough job – she sources stories and images for the magazine, writes all the copy, and also manages the web site.
But it’s a labour of love for Charlotte, who told us:  “I love magazines and I love crafts so it’s perfect”.
CrossStitcher is the most successful crafts title on Future Publishing’s books, with a readership of more than 20,000.

LSJ graduate [2008] Charlotte Moorby has got a job as a production assistant on  Future Publishing’s CrossStitcher magazine. Continue reading →

Good news?

Bernie Russell Media
Good News?
What’s it like to be a religion correspondent? Is the religion beat still worth pounding?
To find out, listen to this excellent talk from The Times Religion  correspondent Ruth Gledhill about reporting on religion.
She  makes a very good case for its being central to any modern news organisation, and by implication, something we should be looking at with our journalism students.
Pressing the point
Pedagogy aside, the talk is entertaining and very thought-provoking. Her opening is brilliant:
“The only place the press is mentioned in the Bible is in Luke 19 when Zacchaeus the tax collector has to climb a tree to see Jesus because of the crowds. The King James Version renders this: ‘he couldn’t see because of the press’.”
Keeping the faith
And it did  make me think that maybe we’re missing something here. Too many of our debates are about how to deliver content, rather than about what content to deliver. So:
Are we neglecting this and other subjects?
Are we following an agenda that’s too narrow, driven by things like accreditation criteria?
Should we be trying to find space to bring issues like this to the curriculum?
Thoughts?
http://www.cumberlandlodge.ac.uk/Resources/Cumberland%20Lodge/Audio/Ruth%20Gledhill.mp3

What’s it like to be a religion correspondent? Is the religion beat still worth pounding? Continue reading →

iNews

Bernie Russell Media
iNews
The web has been awash for a while with rumours about the arrival of the Apple Tablet. When (if?) it comes, will it save the news business?
http://mashable.com/2009/09/30/apple-redefining-print/
iHear…
The latest – and most interesting – is that the NY Times may have struck a deal with Apple to provide content for the Tablet. New York Times’ executive editor Bill Keller talked about “delivering our best journalism in the form of Times Reader, iPhone apps, WAP, or the impending Apple slate…” in a recent off-the-record speech clocked by a blogger.
http://gawker.com/5389636/bill-keller-apple-tablet-impending
iBelieve
Apple is said to be signing deals with the NY Times and other news content providers – and may be about to do for news what the iPod and iTunes did for music.
iTold you so
And not a subsidy in sight…

The web has been awash for a while with rumours about the arrival of the Apple tablet. Now there’s speculation that, when (if?) it comes, it might save the news business. Continue reading →

Word from web 2.0.

Bernie Russell Media
Whither web 2.0?
Morgan Stanley analyst Mary Meeker has a regular slot at the Web 2.0 summit to present on internet developments and the economic context.
http://www.web2summit.com/web2009/
http://www.morganstanley.com/institutional/techresearch/internet_ad_trends102009.html
Key points from this year:
mobile internet is big, bigger, biggest thing
growth of Apple’s mobile share will surprise
social media will drive huge change in comms and commerce
regulation will be key to boosting/slowing mobile internet ( = government, just get out of the way?)
You can download the report here. As well as more on the above, it has key data on the global economy, and is very readable and approachable – so a great lesson on how to present data as well?
Follow the web 2.0 summit on Twitter
http://twitter.com/web2summit

Morgan Stanley analyst Mary Meeker has a regular slot at the Web 2.0 summit to present on internet developments and the economic context. Continue reading →

Make me rich: steal my content

Bernie Russell Media
Make me rich: steal my content
The more people download songs illegally, the more money publishers make, argues this post from the TorrentFreak blog.
Proof – if you need it – that you can’t buck the market, no matter how hard you try.
http://torrentfreak.com/illegal-downloads-150x-more-profitable-than-legal-sales-091009/

The more people download songs illegally, the more money publishers make, argues this post from the TorrentFreak blog.

Proof – if you needed it – that the market will find its own solutions.

Another digital champ steps into the ring

Bernie Russell Media
Another digital champ steps into the ring
Apologies for missing this, but it turns out that Martha Lane-Fox isn’t the only digital champion – the BBC has one as well: Seetha Kumar, current controller of BBC Online.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2009/04_april/17/champion.shtml
The BBC’s Chief Operating Officer Caroline Thomson told the Digital Britain summit that Seetha was to become the BBC’s first Online Access Champion.
Seetha won’t have a task force like Martha, but there will be an online access forum.
Go figure
But she’ll hace a much bugger job on her hands than Martha – the BBC has found 17 million adults still not using computers and the internet -seven million more than Martha tracked down.
Licenced premises
The BBC saya they are building on “existing BBC efforts to inspire and help people get online”, and claims that “nearly one in 10 internet users say that bbc.co.uk was one of the main reasons they first accessed the web”.
Of course, 10 in 10 licence fee payers fund bbc.co.uk.
Whether they’re online or not.

Apologies for missing this, but it turns out that Martha Lane-Fox isn’t the only digital champion – the BBC has one as well: Seetha Kumar, current controller of BBC Online. Continue reading →

Shields up…new govt IT campaign launched

Bernie Russell Media
Shields up…new govt IT campaign launched
Ex-internet entrepreneur Martha Lane-Fox has been made British Digital Champion, charged with getting the UK’s estimated ten million internet refuseniks online.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/oct/12/digital-inclusion-martha-lane-fox
She has a new Digital Inclusion Task Force to run the campaign, and a posh office in Soho to run it from.
Sounds familiar…
I wonder – is this anything like the campaign announced in April 2008 at the National Digital Inclusion Conference in London?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7373970.stm
Martha wasn’t champion then, but there was a minister for digital inclusion – some Labour type called Paul Murphy.
Murphy’s bore
He said that a government strategy to bring the last third of offline UK citizens into the digital age could be in place by summer.
He wasn’t the most convincing digital advocate –  he admitted, he’s “not a technical person”
But he had been studying what was involved in the role since prime minister Gordon Brown appointed him in January 2008.
And he said: “The more I thought about it, the more I realised that I didn’t need to be technical at all”.
Fair point, I suppose.
You say inclusion, I say exclusion
The BBC reported at the time that  delegates “welcomed the appointment of the first cabinet minister to have responsibility for digital exclusion”.
The report didn’t say whether that was the same minister as the minister for digital inclusion. It wouldn’t surprise me if it wasn’t.
Been there, not done that
The thing is, I was just wondering if Martha’s 2009 wheeze will be as successful as Murphy’s 2008 wheeze was.
It’s certainly got off to a great start.
It has a web site where people who aren’t online can … er …
http://raceonline2012.org/

Ex-internet entrepreneur Martha Lane-Fox has been made British Digital Champion, charged with getting the UK’s estimated ten million internet refuseniks online. Continue reading →

AP app appears

Bernie Russell Media
AP app appears
The Associated Press has released an iPhone app of its style guide.
http://www.ap.org/pages/about/pressreleases/pr_092809a.html
It’s pricey, though – £17.99 – and the first reviews aren’t exactly complimentary.
No thanks
So I won’t be buying it myself.
I only wrote it up because I liked my headline.

The Associated Press has released an iPhone app of its style guide.

It’s pricey, though – £17.99 – and the first reviews aren’t exactly complimentary.

No thanks
So I won’t be buying it myself.

I only wrote it up because I liked my headline.

Could universities host local news?

Bernie Russell Media
Could universities host local news?
Good question from BJTC secretary Jim Latham at the  Westminster Media Forum on October 14 (from jourbalism.co.uk):
http://blogs.journalism.co.uk/editors/2009/10/15/wmf-could-unversities-provide-facilities-for-new-local-news-networks/
Could journalism schools at UK universities offer equipment, facilities and trainee reporters in the form of students to local media groups and proposed independently funded news consortia (IFNC)?
What’s an IFNC?
That’s another good question. They are meant to be the “long-term replacement to ITV regional news”. They were proposed by Ofcom in September 2008, and are explained in slightly more detail in this Ofcom statement.
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/media/speeches/2009/apr/consortia
Who’s in charge?
There are three suggestions about who would award the contracts:
the BBC Trust (Gawd ‘elp us…)
Ofcom’s Content Board (odd role for a regulator?)
a new body (another quango … excellent)
separate regional or national bodies (no idea. See above)
Who pays?
Where is the ‘independent’ funding (the consortia could cost about £100m) to come from? The statement sets out a few options.
From the taxpayer? “A very, very difficult case to make”, says Ofcom. Nicely put…
From an industry levy? “Nor is an industry levy likely to be an attractive proposition in the middle of a recession.” Spot on again.
The licence fee switchover surplus? The strongest candidate, though lots of  people have their eyes on this pot of gold. (Of course, this also came from the taxpayers, who might just like it back…)
All these seem to stretching the meaning of the word, ‘independent’ to breaking point.
And no-one seems to have considered that the consortia could be paid for by investors willing to fund news outlets that will provide content people want at a price they’re prepared to pay; and that the state and its hangers-on should stop trying to find people to chuck our money at.
I mean, there is a recession on.

Good question from BJTC secretary Jim Latham at the  Westminster Media Forum on October 14 (reported by journalism.co.uk):

Could journalism schools at UK universities offer equipment, facilities and trainee reporters in the form of students to local media groups and proposed independently funded news consortia (IFNC)? Continue reading →