Will Salon survive?

Media Shift have a great interview with Salon's new CEO, Richard Gingras about whether the extremely economically troubled indy media site can be saved. The interview also looks at the redesign Salon is going through in an attempt to integrate the new technologies, and practices, that are seeing social media sites like Twitter take off. To increase profits, Salon is also launching an e-store, as well adding new categories to the site, for example next month they will introduce a food section. It's just a really good interview that leaves you wanting Salon to survive even more.

The power of home video blogs

A Russian police officer has used YouTube to expose police corruption in Russia. The video has become a media sensation in Russia, where the police force is constantly being accused of being crooked. To read more about it click through to the Guardian's article.

Or alternatively for all those fluent Russian speakers out there, watch the YouTube clip

The News Corp sites that 'steal' content

Here I go again, a post about Murdoch, well he is everywhere at the moment. Anyway there is a great post on Tech Dirt about all the sites owned by Murdoch that 'steal' content from other sites. The article shows examples of the Wall Street Journal and Fox News' Buzztracker, which links to The New York Times and The Washington Post, all linking to other sources. These are just two of the many News Corp sites listed in the Tech Dirt article that, in Murdoch's words, are 'stealing.' Click through to see who else is guilty.

Interview with Gawker's Richard Rushfield

Media Bistro have an interesting interview with Gawker's Richard Rushfield about why he left the LA Times to become a blogger. I like Rushfield's answer about the switch from old to new media. He says, "the switch is invigorating. This is where the conversation is."

I think it illustrates two important points we have covered in class. One being that working for an independent media outlet is more than just a job, it can be a saisfying, rewarding career that you actually enjoy doing. The other is that new media is about a two-way flow of information, not just about feeding people the news.

Rushfield adds:

"here were so many times when you'd write a wonderful article for the LATimes, or break some news and it would just be met by the sound of crickets. When you are at the LAT you're at a place where even the website isn't in the central flow of the nation's cultural conversation. But at Gawker one is very much in and a part of that conversation and as one who is writing, in part at least to communicate, that's where you want to be."

Rushfield also talks about his new book, Don't Follow Me I'm Lost. To read the rest of the interview click here.

Murdoch sits down to discusss charging for online news

Ol' Rupert seems to be everywhere at the moment, banging on about charging for online content. In an interview with Sky, who of course he owns, he discusses why he will be charging for online news. This media mogal's arguments don't even make any sense. Asked about Google's argument that they drive traffic to News Corp sites, he says yes but only the one page. And when asked if he is losing money with his online sites, Murdoch says no but they aren't making millions. No surprises here, Murdoch's main concern isn't his journalists' hard work getting ripped off, its about the amount of money going in his wallet. Then he goes on to defend Fox news saying they are the only "fair and balanced" news. It's quite interesting to here how he describes Fox new programs, such as Glen Beck's, to an Australian audience. It's an interesting video, even if it just shows how out of touch Murdoch is with modern media and its audience.

Independence, satire and press freedom

Australian media commentator and comedian Julian Morrow delivers a speech on independent media, censorship and media ownership at the annual Andrew Olle lecture. Andrew Olle was a respected Australian journalist.

e-Palestine

Time has an interesting article on the "e-Palestine" movement that started after the second intifada erupted, in 2000. Instead of using violence, an increasing number of Palestinians are using online activism.

Saif Abukeshek who is from the West Bank city of Nablus but now lives in Madrid says, "It's a way to achieve effective non-violent resistance."Abukeshek helps run Pal-youth.org, an online internet portal connecting Palestinians around the world. He says that their reduced mobility, along with growing internet access, has seen a serge of young Palestinians joining online communities, a movement that sociologists are calling "e-Palestine."Starting out mainly as a way for youths to socialize, young Palestinians are now using chats to discuss the news and politics with one another. To read the article click here.

Google Dashboard, friend or foe?

After Google announcing Dashboard, a new program that allows you to manage all your information associated with Google, Andrew Heining of The Christian Science Monitor asks, is having all your personal data accessible in one place a good thing?

While Heining points out that the most basic concern is how easy Dashboard makes it for someone to get find all your private information in one place, his biggest fear is Google having, and accessing, all of our information. Heining writes,

"Another unintended feature of Google Dashboard? Its ability to freak us out. Yes, the concerns have been there from the beginning: ‘Give Google access to every email I send?’ ‘Tell Google where I am?’ ‘Let Google record and transcribe my phone conversations?’ But now, with Dashboard aggregating all of the aspects of our lives that we’ve signed away to Google, it’s hard to just shrug off those concerns as “privacy wonk stuff.”"

To read the rest of the article click here

Ariana Huffington

Lets just bypass how late she was. I thought Arianna Huffington was such an inspiring person. Given how hard hitting her columns are, I was surprised by how sweet she came across. To be honest I was expecting Huffington to be very matter of fact, but it seemed like she was generally pleased to be here and answer our questions. For me, coming from Australia means I don't always have the opportunity of meet such influential people, so it was an amazing experience. The intimate setting and being able to ask her questions one on one was a fantastic opportunity.

So all the praise aside, lets discuss some of the things she spoke about. With so much criticism from traditional media outlets, I really appreciated Huffington's optimism for newspapers. Rather than saying they are doomed, Huffington stressed that journalism will only become stronger with new and old media coming together, sharing their best qualities. While online offers amazing opportunities for multimedia, reach and audience participation, traditional media can offer experience with investigative reporting and other news values.

I really agree with Huffington's answer to the question about whether balance is important. She said not all stories are balanced, and giving equal space to two unequal sides actually skews facts and mislead the audience. I do believe in objectivity in hard news, and I stress the difference between it and balance, I see objectivity as trying to keep your opinion out, but I thought her point that "facts are sacred" was spot on for opinion pieces.

I also thought it was great how Huffington talked about how young journalists are succeeding because of their skills online. It is extremely daunting knowing I will be entering the work force in a few months, so it's nice to know that I still have things to offer when competing with experienced journalists.

But most of all, just hearing and seeing Huffington's passion was of most value. And I'll end on a quote from her, "failure is not the opposite to success. It's the stepping stone to success" - a line I think young journalists should remind themselves of.

It’s 2012 and news is no longer free

Simon Dumenco predicts the future in the article “Life After the Pay Wall: Ignorance Ain't Bliss After All” for the Advertising Age.

It’s 2012 and news is no longer free. Michael Wolff, founder of the news-aggregation site Newser, is in prison, the first high-profile casualty of the 2011 anti-aggregation law. To avoid punishment the Huffington Post has turned into an Arianna Huffington fan-fiction site – and has better traffic than ever. It’s an era where news is luxury, where a yearly subscription to the New York Times cost $7,000. Mobsters are now trafficking pay-wall passwords because it’s more lucrative than counterfeit handbags. All paid-news consumers have to agree to a "Premium Content Code of Honor" that prohibits them from sharing news with non-subscribers. And shock horror, Fox News is now The Glenn Beck Channel.

Times publisher compares the newspaper to the Titanic

New York Magazine recently asked the New York Times publisher, Arthur Sulzberger, his advice for young people wanting to get into journalism. Here is his response:

"Um, what I would tell them is the industry is in the midst of a massive transition. But the core of the fundamental job is critical. We have to re-create ourselves, but the heart of what we're going to re-create is still journalism. The way people get information is changing, but the need for information will remain constant."

I think his response is spot on. Instead of going into the "bloggers are ruining traditional media," poor us, territory, Sulzberger acknowledges that it is traditional media that needs to change to please consumers. I also like that he points out that the need for information isn't changing, that the public aren't just simply giving up on reading the news.

He also uses a great analogy for the fate of physical newspaper:

"What was the critical flaw to the Titanic?," he asked NY Magazine. "Even if the Titanic came in safely to New York Harbor, it was still doomed. Twelve years earlier, two brothers invented the airplane."

The Washington Post is in for some competition

The Huffington Post got hold of a memo from Politico's publisher, Robert Allbritton, announcing to Politico staff that he is launching a local DC news site that is hoping to compete with the Washington Post. I wonder how the Post will feel about the new competitor being run by former Washingtonpost.com editor Jim Brady?

The memo says that they will be merging "the current WJLA.com and News8.net websites into a site whose aim is to set a new standard for media coverage of local news, with a staff of more than 50 people."

Read the rest of the memo on the Huffington Post here.

"the age of the amafessional" - Wall Street Journal

Despite using the questionable term "amafessional," this article on bloggers for the Wall Street Journal is surprisingly positive. While acknowledging the threat they pose to almost all professions, the writer says that bloggers, with their talents, are providing trained professionals with some strong competition. The article ends on this note:

"In recent years we've experienced the growth of the professional class as the nature of work and American aspirations have shifted. But now come the amafessionals, who could produce even greater growth."

Side note: The article quotes a recent op-ed in the New York Times saying that the "shuttering of Gourmet [magazine] reminds us that in a click-or-die advertising marketplace, one ruled by a million instant pundits, where an anonymous Twitter comment might be seen to pack more resonance and useful content than an article that reflects a lifetime of experience, experts are not created from the top down but from the bottom up." - Harsh

Censoring Twitter?

In keeping with today's discussion on censorship, check out this article on Mickey Kaus's blog, Kausfiles, for Slate. In the article, Kaus wonders why Twitter searches on celebrities almost always turn up positive "tweets". Is there absolutely no criticism against celebrities on Twitter?, he asks. Infact, insulting "tweets" against celebrities are dissapearing from search results. Kaus argues that, perhaps, Twitter "curates" the comments (deletes negative tweets) to look after the celebrities.

Why?

Well Kaus, citing Nicole LaPorte's article in The Daily Beast, points out that celebrity publicists have connections at Twitter HQ, and suggests that:

"Celebrity Twitterers like Milano, Moore and Kutcher have been very important to Twitter's growth. They take care of Twitter. Twitter takes care of them. At least that would be the equation"

While this could just be Kaus' own conspiracy, I wouldn't be suprised if it turned out to be true...

Mother Jones, Slate, The Atlantic, Wired, Propublic to join forces for investigative reporting into climate change

Mother Jones editor Clara Jeffery has revealed in an interview for Advertising Age that she is negotiating with Slate, Grist, The Atlantic, Wired, Pro Publica and others to collaborate on investigative reporting into climate change.

Jeffery reveals that the outlets are hoping to delve into bigger, ongoing climate change coverage coverage - more than they could individually pull off.

25 of the best undderated bloggers

Mediaite has put together a list of 25 of the best underrated bloggers that readers should know about.

The site says:

"If they aren’t themselves household names in a few years, the odds are good that they will continue to smartly analyze the news, break stories, serve as role models for others, and put their stamps on the flow of information far beyond the Internet."

The article explains why Mediaite has chosen each blog. This is definitely an article Indy Media students should check out.

Authors — once an elite minority — will soon be a majority.

An article on Seed Magazine discusses the finding of a recent study on authorship. The study, which claims to be the first of its kind, compared the number of published authors since 1400 to now.

To be considered published, an author’s text (book, magazine, journal and now more recent social media – blogs, Facebook, and Twitter), must have been read by at least 100 people.

The two researchers, Denis G. Pelli and Charles Bigelow, found the number of published authors per year increased nearly tenfold every century for six centuries, and that by 2000 there were 1 million book authors per year.

But now authorship, with the advent of new media, is growing nearly tenfold each year. The graph predicts that by next year 1 percent of the world’s population will by publishing and that nearly 10 percent will be the following year. If the “twitter-author curve” proves to be accurate, every person will publish by 2013.

The researchers state that even if they were to change the criteria for publishing to texts that were read by 1,000 readers, it would only delay the predicted 100 percent participation by a year under their model.

While many of you might cringe at all this data, the study shows how media participation is becoming an everyday part of society. It is evidence to support, in the authors words, “[that] our society is changing from consumers to creators.”

Interview with Paul Krassner of the Realist

Image courtesy of The Rag

For my research into alternative newspapers of the '60s counterculture I stumbled across an interview with Paul Krassner, the creator of the Realist. The interview is from February this year in The Sun Magazine. It's great to hear what he has to say about his experiences of the underground press, and also just to see what he is up to these days. The interviewer asks some good questions about being an editor and publisher and maintaining credibility.

Political bloggers

With the popular political blogs backed major media outlets, Michah L. Sifty from Tech President asks if the days of independent political bloggers is over. Read the article here.

A bit of Monday narcissism

Here is an article I wrote about fashion and culture bloggers for an independent fashion site, Melbourne Street Fashion.

There is nothing wrong with getting a bit of online lovin’. But as tempting as Matchmaker and RSVP can be on a lonely winter’s night, it’s not the various seedy online dating sites that we’re all falling for – it’s our great Australian fashion bloggers.

You stumble across them after hours of browsing the tedious copycats or egocentric duds. You judge them on what they have to offer, go back for some more, and, the next thing you know, you’re getting all anxious when you haven’t heard from them in a few days.

With the newspaper in its deathbed, the magazine has been given the all clear. But so often when picking up the latest issue of your favourite glossy, you may notice that 80 percent of it is ads, that there are runway reports from shows that were months ago, and that all the trends seem outdated. And it’s this which seems to make the newest phenomenon of fashion blogging make all the more logical sense.

To read the rest of the article click here

Get some articles published!

Again, this post is for people in Indy Media interested in writing for an independent fashion website. I just stumbled across Style Sample Magazine whose main focus is to give fashion bloggers an opportunity to get published. As well as writing for them, you can be featured in the magazine, which profiles up-and-coming bloggers. Check it out and hopefully you will get a chance to build up your portfolio or get exposure.

About Style Sample Magazine

"Style Sample Magazine is a free digital magazine for and about fashion bloggers. The magazine contains articles and editorial stories featuring a diverse array of well known and up-and-coming fashion bloggers and independent online entrepreneurs in the fashion and beauty space.You'll also find tips and information about technology, promotion, marketing, design, content creation, and networking communities as they relate to the needs of fashion bloggers.All content--editorial contributions, design and layout, graphics and illustration, etc.--is created by fellow fashion bloggers. Interested in contributing? Fill out the information form or contact the editor!"

Splice Today says Politico has reached a sensational low

Has the Politico turned tabloid? asks Splice Today writer Andrew Sargus Klein.

The mainstream media and gay marriage

Australian independent media website, Crikey, has an article about how the British mainstream media are not referring to a to the partner of a boyband singer who died this week as his husband. The gay couple married in 2006, yet the media refers to them as being 'partners'. The British tabloid, The Mirror, didn't even mention that he was at a gay bar when he chocked on his vomit and died. The article questions what language the media should use when the law does recognises the union as a 'civil ceremony' rather than marriage.

When assignments are due, the posts get shorter

Researching The Rag, the publication I'm profiling for our next assignment, I stumbled across a link to this article on their blog. The article, published in the the New Yorker last month, looks at whether a man was wrongly executed in Texas over arson. I just thought it was a fantastic piece of investigative feature writing if people have spare time for a read (it's quite long).

But of course he isn't an entertainer...

In an interview for the Today Show, conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh perfectly captured the need, and the reason for, alternative media. Limbaugh says:

"I'm doing my show for ratings. I want the largest audience I can get because that's how I can charge the highest advertising rates, which means what else do I want? Money."

Read the rest of the article, and watch the videos, at the Huffington Post

Murdoch's internet war

There is an article by Michael Wolff on Vanity Fair's website about how Rupert Mordoch insists readers should have to pay for his online news. With more and more people going online for news why would anyone pay for content when they can get it for free? Hopefully, this would mean readers would look for alternative news sources, and maybe increase the readership of independent media sites.

Nestle's disastrous attempt to win over influencial parenting bloggers

In an article for the Australian broadsheet newspaper the Age, Asher Moses writes about a Nestle' PR stunt to sway public opinion by way of citizen bloggers has ended up in more people than ever knowing and joining the anti-Nestle campaign.

Read how they managed to screw up so badly here.

Would Murdoch really fire Glenn Beck?

There is a great opinion piece in the Huffington Post on how Rupert Murdoch could fire Glenn Beck. The writer, Ben Cohen, suggests that Murdoch doesn't necessarily care about politics, using examples of how he has backed different political parties based on their popularity in the past, he cares about money. With advertisers ditching Fox after Beck's allegations that Barack Obama is racist, Murdoch needs to weigh up if Beck brings enough viewers to counter the loss of advertising. My thoughts are that Murdoch will see that yes he does. In the unlikely event Beck were fired, I'm left wondering what is worse? Supporting an opinionated, and generally uninformed "journalist," or selecting content and opinion to keep advertisers happy?

Google's moral responsibility

After being called a "vampire" and undermining democracy by newspapers, Google wants to help the newspaper industry. Read Google CEO Eric Schmidt's comments on newspapers and Google's “moral responsibility” to help the industry here.

For those interested in indy fashion media

I know that a lot of students in Indy Media said that they were interested in fashion journalism. I recently did an interview with an Australian fashion blogger and I thought her answers really applied to the goals of alternative media outlets. The blogger made an interesting point that we only ever got to hear about designers that magazines deemed important, but now through blogs we are able to access everything that is out there and decide for ourselves what we like etc.

Here is a grab from the interview :

Answering the question, what inspired you to start a blog she wrote:

"I think I pretty much started it out of frustration. I was sick of reading about yet another it-girl I didn't identify with or pictures of clothes I had seen five millions times in every magazine I picked up. I knew there was a lot more out there than what magazine just "made us" read, and I wanted to show a different angle: my angle. Write about what I liked, find more great designers no one seemed to talk about but that I personally appreciated, etc.."

The other side...

If you want to hear some of the arguments against independent media outlets read this article on Slate. In the article, Jack Shafer questions alternative media outlets' business models, asks whether independent outlets are inclined to cover the interests of their "donors", and says that the
students working for free at the Area News Project Berkeley is "slave labor." Whether you agree or not it's interesting to read arguments out there which question just how moral independent media outlets really are.

The future of photojournalism

Photograph: David Dare Parker, guest speaker at the conference

The future of print journalism is often discussed in the media, but what about the future for photojournalists? Is there still a career opportunity here? Are photojournalists still needed when citizen journalists providing video and still images of news events that would be near impossible for journalists to have gotten? At a recent conference in Sydney, Australia, photojournalists gathered to hear about their possible fate. Photojournalists were told about the importance of having multimedia skills and freelancing so that they could be where the citizen journalists are. There is a good summary of the event on the Walkley Foundation's website here.

"no way for readers to tell"

There is a good article on The Washington Post's website about how the New York Times ran three big stories that all relied mainly on unnamed sources. It's a good example of how online independent news sites can seem more credible than traditional media outlet, allowing the reader to investigate the journalist's claims and judge for themselves. If these stories ran on a blog it is likely that most readers would doubt their credibility, and the sources motives, straight away.

Sketchbook Magazine is a new British quarterly print magazine. It uses sketches rather than photography to accompany its articles. The magazines first ever issue was dedicated entirely to citizen fashion bloggers. It is quite uncommon for a print publication to honor the influence of citizen journalists. While it is said that magazine's are more likely to succeed than newspapers, blogger's are increasing saying that by the time a print issue of a magazine comes out they have already read and seen everything on blogs.

The front cover Sketchbook Magazine is of 'Susie Bubble' a well-known fashion blogger who started blogging merely with an interest in fashion. But through her talent and dedication to the blog (maintaining daily posts) she now works at the popular magazine Dazed and Confused. Her career shows how important it is to put your work out there with the potential job opportunities that could come from it.

Twitter ruins NASA's big day

If you haven't heard by now the moon has water on it. This may come as a surprise because you would think the media would be all over it, fighting for who can upload the big news to the website the quickest. But instead it slowly drizzled out media outlet after media outlet. The Times got the story out Wednesday 23 September but most of the other news outlets didn't until the next day. So how did this happen? The journal, Science, who was doing the research put out an embargo on the story, and instead the plan was that the news would be announced at a NASA press conference. However, the blogging world got news of the embargo and once they saw what the study was investigating they put two and two together. With the rumours making waves across the Net India's mainstream press reported the story. The Times' Delhi correspondent then picks up the story and it makes the top of their website as an exclusive. As David Gregory writes on the BBC:

Eventually the journal Science sees the cat is out of the bag, drop the embargo at 22.57 our time last night and all the British science journalists who've obeyed the embargo wake up to find they've missed one of the biggest days for the moon since we walked on it.

Gregory goes on to make a valid point. The internet makes embargoes designed to keep a story a surprise are nearly impossible. All it does is inhibit mainstream news organizations that have agreed to abide by it. Gregory writes:

But in these days of a global, 24-hour news media the process appears to be broken. You can't shut up bloggers and you can't shut down Twitter. The only thing that can go is the embargo system itself.

The Washington Post Restricts Tweets

As print newspapers continue to lose profit many are starting to embrace the internet and Web 2.0 programs. This to me seems logical. With more and more citizen journalists breaking news on Twitter you would think traditional media outlets would be encouraging staff to use the program to show readers that they are still relevant. Not the Washington Post which has put out a new set of guidelines for staff using Facebook, Twitter and other online social networks. The Post's main worry is that readers will mistake a journalists personal opinion for the papers. With an ever growing number of journalists also blogging this seems a bit pointless. I would be very suprised if any readers did not recognise an objective opinion from hard news. Here a bit of what the Post has to say:

“When using these networks, nothing we do must call into question the impartiality of our news judgment. We never abandon the guidelines that govern the separation of news from opinion, the importance of fact and objectivity, the appropriate use of language and tone, and other hallmarks of our brand of journalism.”

The Chaser's APEC stunt.

After watching the ACORN video I was reminded about a stunt during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation 2007 summit in Sydney. Leading up to the week-long event for the 21 members of the Cooperation, there was a lot of media attention about how much the Australian government was spending on the security. A lot of this attention had to do with the fact that George W. Bush was attending the meetings and the press was questioning whether this highly expensive operation was just for Bush. Many of Sydney's road were closed for the event and the government later revealed that security measures cost over AU$170 million.

The Chaser's War on Everything is a comedy show that usually plays stunts on politicians. The show is broadcast on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, a state owned, but very liberal, channel. For the APEC stunt eight members of the team (including five runners dressed as bodyguards) and three hired chauffeurs manned a fake Canadian motorcade consisting of two motorcycles, two black four-wheel drive vehicles, and a black sedan. One of the Chaser team was dressed as Osama bin Laden. While the team made it obvious it was a joke, with security passes marked "JOKE", they were able to get passed the check points. The team didn't think they would get passed the first check point, but when they realised that they could get through they ended up getting out of the car in front of the building. While the Chaser isn't an independent media program, it shows how these stunts are able to challenge, or test, what the government is doing in ways that traditional media outlets aren't. The YouTube clip spread all over the Internet, showing the world the failings of the very expensive security measures put in place for the meeting.