wake up and smell the copy
Posted in internet, online journalism, technology on Aug 20th, 2008
It’s embedded YouTube videos and embraced social bookmarking, but in one particular area BBC News Online has always remained a little old fashioned: related links have remained fenced in the right-hand navigation pane. Earlier, DanG spotted that the Beeb is trialling bringing links in from the cold; placing them in the body copy where they [...]
Posted in internet, online journalism on Aug 8th, 2008
How’s this for a paper trail? Dave writes a blog post bemoaning the distance between him and Marmite, I take a photo of my breakfast and post it on Flickr, somebody writing about whether wholemeal bread is healthy asks to use it to illustrate their post, I end up blogging about the whole thing. Correct: [...]
Posted in online journalism on Aug 1st, 2008
As regular reader(s) will know, I read BBC News Online a fair bit. Even so, I’ve never noticed this before. I’m slightly embarrassed that it’s in such a story of prurient interest, but there you go. So, searching the Beeb for Newstracker reveals that, at least in theory, this has been running since 2004. It’s [...]
Posted in internet, journalism, online journalism on Jun 7th, 2008
I expect I’m not alone in noticing some entertaining needling between the Guardian and Telegraph in recent months, as the two scrap for first loser when it comes to web views – the BBC leads by a mile, The Mail snaps at their heels. No doubt it’s driven by valid concerns and genuine differences, the [...]
Posted in blog, online journalism on May 29th, 2008
Or: Why newspapers should wake up and smell the link etiquette. Been meaning to post on this for a while… now Mark Higginson has gawn done it, with this incisive observation on how annoying it is when websites insist on treating themselves as a final destination rather than one point on a journey. He takes [...]
Posted in internet, online journalism on May 22nd, 2008
There’s been a bit of Twitter-bashing around the office recently – mainly by those who haven’t tried it. Some of the carping might as well be saying that ‘conversation’ is pointless because a lot of folk spend all day talking about Amy and Britney. It’s not about the most popular content of the medium, it’s [...]
Posted in digression, online journalism on May 7th, 2008
Sorry, I know, I know, it’s about the BBC again, but I’ve just realised that there’s an increasing vogue on BBC News for bunging up a bit of video without sound, or without any commentary, detail or analysis. Hell, even I can do that (I wouldn’t bother watching this, incidentally: it’s not that interesting) And, [...]
Posted in blog, online journalism, technology, work on Apr 12th, 2008
I’ve come to a mini-realisation. There is no getting away from IT. Let me fill you in – I used to work in tech support, which was OK, but there’s only so many progress meters a man can take. If you laid mine end to end they’d probably reach Belgium. My plan was to begin [...]
Posted in online journalism on Apr 4th, 2008
OK, let’s see if you can spot the flaw in this particular child-protection idea simply by reading the following standfirst: Sex offenders’ e-mail addresses are to be passed to social networking sites like Facebook and Bebo to prevent them contacting children. Any inkling why that might not work? Frankly, I find it astounding that anyone [...]
Posted in online journalism on Mar 31st, 2008
I’m particularly bleary-eyed this morning, so I’d read half a story before I noticed, but the BBC seems to have changed the layout of its stories. Interestingly, they haven’t changed the front page (yet?), so the two don’t match particularly well. UPDATE: Ah, must have caught them mid-change, here’s the new front page. I like [...]
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