How to stop internet trolls (infographic)

If you manage online communities, this infographic by community102.com will no doubt strike a chord.

When does a story become a story?

When does a story become a story? Could it be when it comes to the attention of the London media?
The stick rattling my cage is an Observer article where the interviewer has discovered - in a style akin to a 13-year-old girl meeting The Biebmeister - Richard Parks.

Now, Parks is someone I've learned a lot about in a short time since moving to Wales, as everyone here thinks he sits on the left hand of whatever their particular chosen deity is. To find out more about what he's done, visit the 737 Challenge website although most people in Wales are not only aware of what he's done, they are extremely - vocally - proud of him.

Last week he came into Media Wales to do a Q&A liveblog and the response was phenomenal, with people logging on from all over the world to pass on congratulations.
But you wouldn't realise that it was well-told story if you read the Observer piece, which you can do  here. The points that particularly irked me (especially as I only heard about Richard Parks when I moved to Wales in January, and found everyone was in awe of him) were this....

and this...

Reader, I disagree with him.
Richard Parks' exploits have been reported on in near-forensic detail by Welsh MSM (and highlighted in the blogosphere, message boards and non-MSM, for that matter).
Many of the Welsh papers have followed his achievements at least week-by-week; reporters from TV and print checked in with Richard or his pr representative daily, because there was huge appetite from readers to know how he was faring, when he was setting off again, if The Toe had succumbed to frostbite forever.... it was the most comprehensively reported case of frostbitten appendage in the history of such things, I suspect.

Don't take my word for it; you can see it on this page on WalesOnline,  this page on thisisgwent.co.uk or just run his name through the internal searches for BBC Wales and ITV Wales for video reports . There are others, I'm sure, and I'll update this as necessary. 
 
I don't often get defensive but it's unfair that the work of so many of Parks' supporters (within the media and the wider public) is dismissed by a writer who dashed off some words about the lack of interest in Parks' exploits without checking facts.
Off the top of my head, these are some of the mainstream media in Wales who have followed Richard Parks' 737 Challenge from the very beginning: BBC Wales - tv, online and radio - ITV Wales - online and tv - the Western Mail (the national newspaper of Wales, WalesOnline* (national news site), Wales on Sunday* (Sunday newspaper covering Wales) The South Wales Echo (regional evening newspaper), the South Wales Argus (regional evening newspaper) and its companion website, the Gwent Gazette (weekly newspaper) and the Pontypridd and Llantrisant Observer.
 
This is not "frankly derisory" media coverage. London-based press and broadcast media may not have paid much attention until Richard Parks finally scaled his last peak but that doesn't mean it didn't exist. I can't remember the last time I wrote a 'check your facts' blog post but the Observer is seriously wide of the mark with this claim and it deserves redressing.
I may work for Media Wales but I still consider myself outside-looking-in on the Richard Parks story; it started before I got here and everything I know about the challenge, I've learned from talking to people in the office, reading articles in the Welsh press, watching the excellent documentary on BBC One Wales, and following the 737 Challenge blog and tweets. 

Local press (and local tv and radio) are frequently in at the sharp end long before London shows up to let us see how it should be done; I guess local bloggers and microbloggers are there before all of us. It would be good if the foodchain (in both directions) got a little more acknowledgement.

Here are two examples of the coverage:
South Wales Echo front page

Western Mail front page


And, just out of curiosity, I ran an internal search on guardian.co.uk to see the level of coverage afforded the same story. I know internal searches are tricksy beasts and I'm sure a more judicious search would have turned up more. Nevertheless:

 **Disclosure: I'm editor of WoS and WalesOnline

Related articles

• Congratulations to Richard Parks on Completing the 737 Challenge (taffchat.wordpress.com)
• Richard Parks: Risking life and limb to hit heights for cancer charity (independent.co.uk)
• Ex-player Parks at top of Everest (bbc.co.uk)

A brief moment of newsroom nostalgia

Serendipity is a wonderful thing. I was talking to a colleague recently who mentioned the days of "pots of Gloy"and suddenly, for the first time in years, I recalled watching newspapers being literally pasted together, while trying to avoid being walked into by men wielding scalpels.


Then I rediscovered a link Adrian McEwen sent me some time ago to the All On Paper experiment, where pre-computer technology was being used to produce a student newspaper.


And when I stopped to consider those two separate occurances - a conversation about how things were, and a student experiment of recreating the old, while learning the new - I realised any argument about people's inability to adapt to a shifting newsroom culture collapses to nothing.


Writing a story used to involve a typewriter and carbon paper. It evolved into an boxy word processor (possibly resembling this):

Subbing a story used to involve physically cutting up hard copy and shifting paragraphs around, or inserting new ones (hence the pots of Gloy).
I did barely any page design, and was a true roving hack, but even I had a protractor.
Now, we're designing data visualisations that allow readers to interact, to take the data and reuse, and (if we're wise) to share our creations on their own publishing platforms.
Truly, the past is another country.


The days of people lighting a cigarette with one hand while taking a shorthand note, with the phone cradled somewhere between shoulder and ear, are gone. 
The passage of typewriters means the noise has gone too. 
Sometimes, when people are working flat out, the only real sound is of muted phone rings and the air conditioning. When the presses moved out of the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo, the familiar rumble and shake from the bowels of the building ended forever, and another soundtrack to the industry was lost.


But media goes on. People keep making news, journalists keep reporting it, albeit in smaller numbers, and with vastly different tools. 
No old stager of a hack would leave the office without their mobile phone now any more than they  would their notebook - a small adaption but a significant one. My phone is an indispensable tool, just like the internet.


A co-worker once warned me not to try and change X, because X had done it that way forever and wouldn't change. Frankly, I can't imagine many more insulting things to say about a colleague - especially a journalist. We change all the time, sometimes through choice, sometimes through circumstances; when we say someone else can't change, we're projecting our own fears and obstinacy on to them - quite wrongly in most instances, I'd imagine.
I enjoyed my little moment of newspaper nostalgia, courtesy of Gloy, but I couldn't imagine going back to making news like that.

Related articles

• Evening grumpiness and nostalgia (onemanandhisblog.com)
• Where have all the flowers gone? (bhumikasboudoir.wordpress.com)

The New Zealand earthquake and the (amazing) Christchurch Press

How do you spot a journalist in the chaos surrounding a disaster? As a general rule of thumb I'd suggest they'll be the ones running in the opposite direction to the rest of the crowd.

I guess most journos have experienced different degrees of this - heading towards something that they'd prefer not to, either because of natural curiosity or because they are more fearful of their news editor than whatever lies ahead.

But very few have experienced anything like that in the video below, where Christchurch Press, NZ, staff, headed out to report on an earthquake measuring 50 on the Richter Scale. I felt very privileged to be able to see how they reacted - both in the immediate aftermath and in the ensuing days and weeks - and the insight came thanks to Gareth Codd, who is general manager for sister publication the Southland Times.

Gareth was drafted in to help the Christchurch Press staff organise themselves and continue reporting and publishing immediately after the quake - he was chosen as he hadn't been involved and had no family in Christchurch. That meant he could think about the immediate problems without having the personal issues to deal with as well.
Gareth was back home in the UK last month, and gave me permission to use a version of an internal Fairfax Media Powerpoint presentation on this blog. It's uploaded here as a video.*




Listening to Gareth's account of the organisation needed to produce an edition of the paper - cobbled together by reporters on laptops and mobile devices as they sat al fresco amid the wreckage - and the logistics of delivering to news agents and homes on streets they had no idea even existed any more, was fascinating.

Digitally, there was no network - anyone trying to log on to find out what was happening couldn't get online and the paper became many people's touchstone (although sales rose in the days after the quake, they have fallen back again - how soon readers lapse back into indifference!) Emergency services also used the paper (and probably other media) to get information out fast.

The Press is still being produced out of portable buildings although its offices have since been rebuilt, and the teams are preparing to move back into them. One colleague died and several were seriously injured in the quake, many were badly shocked but still elected to work that day... and kept coming back to work in the following days to get the news out.

Gareth explained one of the biggest problems managers faced was convincing people to stop working, to go home and let someone else take up the story.
I wonder if that's partly because journalists see and experience things you wouldn't expect to in many other professions (this has obviously changed a lot in recent years - I guess the days of journos ducking under the crime scene tape for a quick chat are gone forever) and maybe putting on the 'journalist' persona helps you process that. It's when you go back to being Joe Public, and take off the facade that things hit home.

Anyway, I think the video is also a reminder that, beyond the UK's grubby Phone-hacking scandal with all its accusations of back-handings and worse, mainstream media can and should be a vital part of any community, and provide a valued, valuable service.

In New Zealand it was it writ on a grand scale, with terrible destruction and tragic loss of life, but the journalists in Christchurch played a fundamental role in helping people understand what happened to their community, by sharing information and stories (some were their own, of course).  
I admire them hugely.

* The video has been edited for legal reasons and I disabled embedding after some thought as it's not mine to share.

Have you taken the #ukjournopay study yet?

Image by Nils Geylen via Flickr





The topic of pay is a thorny one in any profession, and in journalism it can also be somewhat disparate. 

The wages I've pulled for getting my face in other people's and asking them annoying questions has zoomed around the scale during the course of my career, without any real across-the-industry structure seeming to apply. 

For instance, when I moved from a weekly to a daily I was given a hefty pay rise - thanks, Gloucester Citizen (Northcliffe). There was another decent jump in my salary when I left the Southern Daily Echo (Newsquest) as assistant news editor for a deputy news editor's role at The News, Portsmouth (Johnson Press) several years ago. And there was a pay cut when I went from news editor of The South Wales Argus (Newsquest) to news editor of the Liverpool Echo (Trinity Mirror) several years later. 

Nowadays, between the pressures of the industry and the economy, I guess it's hard to know what scales apply where - which is why it was a surprise to learn that an editor for one Johnson Press title was earning £25,000 a year - £1,000 a year more than his assistant editors. Full story is here. 

So the #ukjournopay survey launched today by Francois Nel should make fascinating reading. Francois is always several thoughts ahead of the rest of us, and I'm looking forward to seeing what he discovers as a result of this study. 

You can take his survey here. 

Sir Ray's empire keeps growing

BIRTHS: Tindle/The Media: Sir Ray Tindle and the UK regional press are relieved delighted to announce the safe arrival of a newspaper, the Pembroke and Pembroke Dock Observer; a sister title for Tenby, and Narberth&Whitland. Born July 1, zero pounds and 50 pence.

There's a new kid on the Tindle block (there's two actually - he's opened another the Chingford Times, in London) and Sir Ray's being praised by industry commentators for his entrepreneurial ways.

I'm a Tindle old girl, from the Tenby Observer and I covered Pembroke Dock for the county broadsheet weekly, the Western Telegraph. 

At that time, other media with a decent foothold in the south of the county included a robust BBC Wales, the South Wales Guardian, the Tenby and Narberth&Whitland Observer series and, to a smaller extent, the Stoddart family's startup the Milford Mercury. 

The Guardian is long gone -bought and closed by Newsquest (it also bought the Merc but that still exists) and I'm told BBC coverage of Pembrokeshire has dwindled but there are more hyperlocal set ups including Radio Pembrokeshire, recently a force for good in the hunt for Small Niece's missing kitten. 

I hope the Pembroke Dock Observer succeeds (even though I guess it's essentially a competitor of mine now). Hyperlocal content is a Tindle forte, as is UGC - grassroots events like whist drives and church notices can take up a spread in the Tenby Observer. 
I still don't think hyperlocal is the financial answer for regional newspapers but the Observer brand is so strong in Pembrokeshire that I'm sure this will be a profitable little addition to Sir Ray's stable. 

Related articles

• Tireless Tindle talks up local papers despite falling revenue (guardian.co.uk)

* image via of bbc.co.uk

O tempora o mores!

I guess most of us were stunned by the News of the World announcement on Thursday. Of course it was a calculated move and, considering it now, I imagine it was business cased some considerable time ago, and placed in the 'In Case of Emergency, Break Glass' box. 

After all, multinational corporations don't just have Plan Bs, they have an entire alphabet of contingencies. 

After Clive Goodman was jailed, Andy Coulson walked, increasing numbers of public figures came forward to complain about hacking, it's hard to imagine there wasn't a very frank discussion of just how dark this particular tunnel could turn out to be. The answer, of course, was pitch black.

So, shocking and yet unsurprising in equal measures. But Newspaper DeathWatch got very irate about the decision: 

"In a stunning example of corporate overreaction, News Corp. today announced that it will shut down Britain’s largest Sunday newspaper amid a growing scandal over voicemail hacking"

It went on 

"Whatever the motives, the decision strikes us as a massive overreaction. Scandals like this are usually addressed by a few high-level resignations and some corporate self-flagellation. It could be that the timing was simply bad for News Corp., but depriving 200 people of their livelihoods – and a couple of million Brits of their weekly celebrity scandals – strikes us as a bit over the top."

I sympathise deeply with the journalists who have lost their jobs - just a look at the state of the industry in 2011 should make anyone think 'there but for the grace...' - but calling the closure 'a bit over the top' is to underestimate the mood of the British public. 
Hard to see how there could be any redemption once the names of Millie Dowler and the Soham families (and others) had been dragged into it.

David Higgerson has written a superb post on the role social media played in this drama - and it did play a significant one, as an angry Roger Alton told Channel 4 news earlier tonight:

"the comfortable middle-class mothers of MumsNet sitting down to their fair-trade tea and organic shortbread biscuits I hope are very pleased with the Twitter campaign they organised, getting advertisers not to advertise in the News of The World. They’ve done as much as anybody to close this paper and put 200 reporters, photographers, editors and young people just starting their careers out of work.. These yummy mummies have done as much as anybody to put them out of work. I hope they’re feeling pleased with themselves"

It wasn't the most finely judged thing to say, and it isn't likely to endear NI to those 'yummy mummies' - target readers of quality newspapers or online news sites? - Alton singled out. 
Maybe it should have been a case of least said, soonest mended. 

Related articles

• Timeline: New hacking revelations hit News Corp. (theglobeandmail.com)
• End of the News of the World (slog.thestranger.com)
• The paper that died of shame: As 250 lose their jobs on the News of the World, the woman who led it to disaster remains defiant and in place (salesmarketingessentials.wordpress.com)