Monday, June 22nd, 2009

Why journalism may become software development

There’s an interesting comment from Soilman on my post on whether a donation model can fund web content. It’s worth a closer look. He argues that the three things users may pay for are: Data Services Software/apps  If you’re a business mag/website, you create a software programme that helps professionals in your industry do their […]

Thursday, June 4th, 2009

One journalist understands the new media reality

To celebrate a tiny milestone in the progress of Freelance Unbound – the 100th post – here’s an item by a journalist who has gone over to the dark side and set up a site whose purpose is – gasp! – to make money from web media. Julia Scott left a newspaper job to set […]

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009

Will people without web access be denied news?

From the Twitterfeed: #media140 question from audience: if journalism goes online what happens to needs of those citizens who not got web? It’s an interesting (if slightly garbled) question, especially given yesterday’s story about people without web access being denied cheap rail fares. It seems around 25% of UK citizens don’t have web access at home, a […]

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

Web identity and old media thinking

I posted earlier about my run-in with the Centre for Journalism at the University of Kent.  I had commented on a blog post by professor Tim Luckhurst on the need for journalists (particularly students) always to use the phone and nothing but the phone when sourcing stories. In the comments to his blog, I argued his underlying […]

Wednesday, April 29th, 2009

How newspapers failed to invent the internet

This fascinating piece in Slate from early this year describes how newspaper publishers were actually ahead of the curve when it came to trying to handle the impact of digital media.  One publisher, Knight Ridder, even tried out its own digital distribution service in 1980, though you had to buy a pricey digital terminal to […]

Monday, March 23rd, 2009

Young people aren't quite the web experts you think they are

Just finished my first teaching session at Solent University – giving first year journalism students an introduction to web audio. It all went fine – certainly I had no trouble from the IT, unlike other teaching experiences I’ve had [*cough* UCA], and the students were, in the way of all the journalism students I’ve taught […]

Tuesday, March 17th, 2009

Journalists still don't understand that everything is changing

As the news hits that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer goes web-only, one of its columnists blames bad management rather than, say, revolutionary social and technological change for the looming death of the American newspaper. Instead of using the Internet as a complement to its print product, the industry went chasing after the Web and offering its […]

Friday, March 13th, 2009

Journalism.co.uk listing

On the day that Freelance Unbound is included on the Journalism.co.uk blogroll for the first time (and in the top slot no less! Though only as it’s the most recent) I checked out the WordPress web statistics to find – today’s was the lowest traffic since the start of March. Hmm.  Well, I sort of […]

Thursday, March 12th, 2009

Quick slideshow guide to online journalism

Via Richard Kendall: From Paul Bradshaw’s Online Journalism Blog comes this quite useful slideshow on producing web content. He can’t spell scanability, mind, and forgets that when quick is used as an adverb it needs an “ly” at the end.  But some useful pointers on the need for clarity, brevity and, crucially, interactivity.

Saturday, March 7th, 2009

Investigative journalism? Not really…

Regional magazine Leeds Guide flags up a “major investigation” into the death of print newspapers.  Well – it’s 1,250 words, which is hardly the Sunday Times Insight exposé of Israel’s secret nuclear programme we saw in 1986 (around 3,250 – and, you know, I think it probably took longer to research). Also, while it’s nice […]