JEEcamp

Adding an eighth to Paul Bradshaw’s seven challenges to journalists in his City University lecture “Is Ice Cream Strawberry”

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 19:51:33 -0500

Adding an eighth to Paul Bradshaw’s seven challenges to journalists in his City University lecture “Is Ice Cream Strawberry”:

I liked the pace and imagery of Paul Bradshaw’s lecture “ Is Ice Cream Strawberry?“ at City University last week. But I liked even more his seven challenges to journalists. I would add one more….

Quotes of the Year: 'Don't tell Mum I'm a journalist'

Fri, 31 Dec 2010 06:47:27 -0500

Quotes of the Year: 'Don't tell Mum I'm a journalist':

Adopting the Piers Morgan approach: Kelvin MacKenzie on publishing a picture of himslf and pop sensations Jedward in his Sun column: “I have decided, late in life, that I too wish to adopt the Piers…

Journalism Degrees. A failed experiment? Looking back a decade on.

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 22:08:24 -0400

Journalism Degrees. A failed experiment? Looking back a decade on.:

(Image: Prebends Bridge in Durham, by BigBadsWorld on Flickr) Much maligned: media studies. One week and one day before 11 September 2001, Michael Hann, who is now Film and Music Editor at the…

JEEcamp 2010: Interview with Paul Bradshaw of Online Journalism Blog. By Matt Wardman

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 12:58:07 -0400

JEEcamp 2010: Interview with Paul Bradshaw of Online Journalism Blog. By Matt Wardman:

Paul Bradshaw has run a conference ” Journalism, Enterprise and Entrepreneurship” for independent and mainstream journalists interested in “making a living from journalism in the era of free…

Metamedia: JEEcamp thoughts on data journalism

Sun, 30 May 2010 05:13:07 -0400

Metamedia: JEEcamp thoughts on data journalism:

“Regional journalists work on hundreds of stories that could be made vastly easier or more beautiful or more accessible through a touch of computer work (spreadsheets, maps, things that aren’t quite…

Habla otro oráculo de la industria

Fri, 28 May 2010 06:55:05 -0400

Habla otro oráculo de la industria:

Simon Waldman, hasta hace poco uno de los masterminds de The Guardian Media, es de los que pueden ver la botella medio llena y medio vacía al mismo tiempo. Como conferenciante en el JEEcamp de…

links for 2010-05-27

Thu, 27 May 2010 20:41:14 -0400

links for 2010-05-27:

FT.com / Brussels / Business regulation - EU says search engines flout data rules “Privacy chiefs from the EU’s 27 countries are worried that an individual’s search history – the list of all the…

BE BASIC: A digital lesson from business to hyperlocals and local government

Thu, 27 May 2010 15:39:11 -0400

BE BASIC: A digital lesson from business to hyperlocals and local government:

“We are the news supertanker,” an editor who shall remain nameless recently said. “And these bloggers will be swept aside.” It’s not a view of hyperlocal sites shared by Marc Reeves who quit as…

Future of web design: "Play, Destroy, Create" by Brendan Dawes

Wed, 26 May 2010 09:09:13 -0400

Future of web design: "Play, Destroy, Create" by Brendan Dawes:

Last week, as well as #jeecamp and the Open Platform commercial launch, I spent two days at the ’ Future of web design’ conference in London. I’ve already blogged an overview of the event on the…

My analogue #jeecamp doodle

Tue, 25 May 2010 06:58:28 -0400

My analogue #jeecamp doodle:

On Friday I had a lovely relaxed analogue #jeecamp where I spent the majority of the day making notes on paper and talking to people, instead of having my nose in my laptop. Well not entirely. As I…

Remote hacking - joining in the Open Platform commercial launch from #jeecamp

Mon, 24 May 2010 20:55:00 -0400

Remote hacking - joining in the Open Platform commercial launch from #jeecamp:

I was spreading myself a little thin at the end of last week, trying to take part in both #jeecamp in Birmingham and The Guardian’s Open Platform commercial launch hack day in London. In the end I…

How Deep In Data Should We Dive?

Mon, 24 May 2010 15:56:36 -0400

How Deep In Data Should We Dive?:

Nice summation of data journalism, and how much the average hack should know: Journalism is about asking the right questions. We research stories before we interview subjects so that we can ask…

Apple – iPad – App – Keynote

Sat, 22 May 2010 07:04:33 -0400

Apple – iPad – App – Keynote:

Make a big impression with the Keynote app on iPad. Watch this video and see it lets you create incredible animated presentations using just your fingers. And then show it off on the beautiful…

#JEEcamp: What does the election result mean for publishers and start-ups? – Journalism.co.uk (blog)

Fri, 21 May 2010 20:56:40 -0400

#JEEcamp: What does the election result mean for publishers and start-ups? – Journalism.co.uk (blog):

#JEEcamp: What does the election result mean for publishers and start-ups ? Continued here: #JEEcamp: What does the election result mean for publishers and start-ups? – Journalism.co.uk (blog)

#JEEcamp: What does the election result mean for publishers and start-ups? – Journalism.co.uk (blog)

Fri, 21 May 2010 20:56:40 -0400

#JEEcamp: What does the election result mean for publishers and start-ups? – Journalism.co.uk (blog):

#JEEcamp: What does the election result mean for publishers and start-ups ? See the article here: #JEEcamp: What does the election result mean for publishers and start-ups? – Journalism.co.uk (blog)

#jeecamp part 2; the breakout group and law, ethics and regulation.

Fri, 21 May 2010 20:56:40 -0400

#jeecamp part 2; the breakout group and law, ethics and regulation.:

There will never be a shortage of discussion when you bundle 10 or so journalists from various different walks of … journalistic life…. and ask them to talk about law. Well, after they’ve introduced…

#Jeecamp, Simon Waldman and the Opening Keynote. Internet has returned.

Fri, 21 May 2010 20:56:40 -0400

#Jeecamp, Simon Waldman and the Opening Keynote. Internet has returned.:

As Paul states it, the punk-rock ethic stays strong, and “In the spirit of Jeecamp” the internet rebelled. Regardless, I write from beyond the internet barrier in an attempt to update you on the…

JeeCamp: Stuart Kirkpatrick - setting up an online newspaper

Fri, 21 May 2010 13:56:48 -0400

Stuart Kirkpatrick is the founder of the Caledonian Mercury.

Stuart brought together a team of experience journalists, who are freelance, to form the Caledonian Mercury, published on WordPress MU, which launched in January as Scotland’s first online-only daily news site.

Its aims are:

To be innovative and inventive
Make money from journalism - he was hoping it could appeal to the many Caledonians living around the world.
Last more than three months!

He calls his model ‘the Economist meets the Huffington Post drinking Irn Bru’. He said he felt it was important to be unique and go for depth coverage in profitable niches.

The paper has already had over one million page impressions, over 5000,000 visitors and 8,000 plus intelligent comments. CM also got a Highly Commended’ in the Newspaper Awards.

User Interaction

While UI is key to the website’s success, Stuart said he’s spent a lot of time dealing with the results of less well considered remarks on the site. he pointed out that it’s legally better, oddly, not to monitor comments.

Stuart said that his chief challenge is advertising, since its the core of his business. Particularly difficult, he said, was learning to be nice to them.

There are other issues, including - the site, hosting and legal (which keeps him awake at night). Stuart also pointed out that it was essential to spend money in order to find audience, including traditional advertising, which poses problems, partly obviously financial.

What’s coming

They have gone from 10 to 14 reporters and are more engaged in multimedia production now. There will at some point be a publicaton, probably quarterly.

Stuart, kindly, finished on a positive note, albeit rounding it off with a caveat: there’s never been a better time to be a journalist… And there’s never been a worse time to get a job as one.

He also argued that the future of journalism isn’t the future of print. It’s about journalists coming together to form their own projects - cutting out the machinery of newspaper publishers.

Afterwards said some intersting things during the questions:

Stuart said that his main revenue streams are relationship-based sales to advertisers. Enquiries to the site and network sales, such as Google. Stuart said that nobody is going to get rich off.
He also said that he was hoping for between 20 and 30,000 unique visitors a day by the end of the year.
He said his background helped in opening doors, partly because Scotland is a relatively small media environment. He also said he expected that more startups would follow the Calie Merc route. While some would fail, he said he believed that others, too, would be successful.

JeeCamp: panel discussion: What does the election result mean for publishers and startups?

Fri, 21 May 2010 13:54:40 -0400

After lunch there was a panel session titled: What does the election result mean for publishers and startups?

Dave Harte, who chaired the discussion, started off by talking about the change in government.

Sion Simon, the former MP and government minister, said that he expexted the change in government would have a negative impact on journalism. While he said that the broad picture would ‘not be a million miles away from what it was,’ it would still be worse. He said there would be less govt money avaialbe. ‘If you thought the previous govt didn’t seem that interested, believe me, the present one won’t be at all interested,’ he said.

There was a lot of work by the last govt. done on open data started by Tom Watson, he said, which the civil service had absorbed. ‘There were really serious plans to open up data massively in the second half of the coalition. I can’t see any reason why that won’t continue.’

Mark Pack said that one of the impacts will be that there’ll be a huge amount of information that anyone can start to make sense of.

Stuart Kirkpatrick: From a commercial point of view is over the Independently Funded News Consortia. He said he was heartened that the Conservatives would be getting rid of them. STV, having heard it will miss out on £7m funding as a result of that cut, is employing 10 new journalists.

Sion Simon: The bill dealed with the pilots - for which contracts haven’t been signed. The The Tories have said the full national roll out won’t happen. Whether the regional pilots will go ahead is not clear.

From the floor Chris Taggart said that the new governments’ ideas of allowing the public to take control of some public institutions, such as schools, could be very significant for journalism and could be helped by the new open data movement.

Coalition

Mark said that it might help to make journalism easier. It, he said, exposed how narrow some Westminster journalists’ frame of reference was, because there was so little reference to Scotland, where coalition governments have existed since 1999.

Sion said that he didn’t think it would make much difference. He pointed out that every government has a honeymoon. He said the first few months of Tony blair’s government was like ‘living in a pink candyfloss cloud’.

He said the notion of a coalition is one that there is an immediate sympathy among the public. Newspapers, Sion said, attempt to reflect their readers. Over time, he said, it would give way to the fact that the whole of journalism is propelled by the desire to bring down the political class - the tension between the fourth and elected state. ‘When the honeymoon is over that dynamic will reassert itself,’ he said.

Openess

Anna Blackaby of the Birmingham Post asked about the difficulty of getting information out of commercial, but public organisations.

Matt said that he tried to ensure that openess was there as a principle before other things got in the way. He said it was important to be as open as possible.

Sion said the ‘micro level’ problem will be solved by the trend of open data, because he believed that the civil service culture had now been changed so significantly that it could not be reversed. He said ‘They now know the game is up,’ referring to the senior civil servants in Whitehall.

Stuart Kirkpatrick pointed out that there may have been a change in the public mood, as a result of the expenses scandal.

Chris Taggart said he didn’t think there’d be a move as a whole in the public sector. The tendering process had not helped and there are still too many incentives to do big, slow projects.

Philip John said there could be a risk that the open data movement might be undermined by the Big Society, because these services might not be controlled by private or voluntary organisations.

Matt said he was wary of a trade-off between cuts in services and open data. He pointed out that open data could be used to improve services.

Mark talked about the Office of the Public Guardian, which due to the bureaucracy and cost involved meant it was effectively a service only available to the middle classes. The foundation of the organisation had effectively shifted accountability from the government to the office.

Was it an internet election?

Sion talked about Jon Bound’s point that the difference between our recent election and the US election was one of access. Instead of using new media to engage and to give them ownership, British parties used it in an old-media way, effectively as a means to broadcast.

The power of social media is in finding people, identifying where they are and what they’re interested in.

Mark said the potential for any political party that hits controversy will find grassroots members much more power.

#JEECamp (fringe group) MA courses at Birmingham City Uni

Fri, 21 May 2010 11:15:00 -0400

Dave Harte, Sue Heseltine and Paul Bradshaw hosted the fringe group on MA courses at Birmingham City University; Social Media, Online Journalism and Freelance Journalism and Enterprise. The courses are open to those who have either completed undergraduate courses or those who have worked or have experience in the industry.

The basic structure of the courses was explained. Dave, who leads the Social Media course said that students have the chance to manage a ‘micro’ project to begin with and then work on a bigger second project, having developed the skills and knowledge from the previous. The courses are largely driven by students and their interests, capabilities and skills. Sue adds that the courses are also very much about networking and creating relationships with organisations and projects outside of the university.

Paul, leader of the MA Online Journalism course at BCU said that some of his teaching was done at the local coffee lounge; ‘it gets students away from the classroom environment and helps conversation and interaction.’

Two other university lecturers from Sheffield University attended the session and asked how best to teach the core skills of journalism but using the tools of online. Sue and Dave said that most of the students on the MA courses already have the core skills or experience to apply them to new projects. Paul: ‘The most interesting thing is how students learn from each other, those with web skills help those who aren’t so skilled.’

Another group member asked the kind of backgrounds students come from and what they go on to do. Dave said that some of the current Social Media students come from undergrad courses, communications/PR and also public services and local government. He said they go on to do various things; one lady has gone out to Strasbourg to work with the European Union for example. Some students have had some form of short/long-term career and others have no experience of Social Media at all.

Dave said the project aspect of the MA allows students to see how organisations like West Midlands Police are using social media and manage their own projects as part of the program. He also thinks the peer-to-peer learning is important and helps students develop skills and share knowledge.

The use of uni intranets as learning resources was briefly discussed - BCU students use a system called Moodle which allows lecturers and students to post resources, links, assignment briefs etc and use forums to discuss projects. There was also talk of experiments with Google Wave but several people admitted that students often don’t see the point or don’t engage as fully as they could. This is an area for improvement it seems.

Finally, the question was asked whether those who have come to the MA as undergrads get more or less out of the course than those who have the experience of industry. Generally, it was agreed that it depends on what the individual wants to get out of the course. Paul thinks that it helps to have some experience of the industry but largely the benefits are there for anyone who wants to learn more and widen their skills base.

For more information on any of the MA media courses at Birmingham City University visit www.mediacourses.com