Of Pinterest and pastures new....

WalesOnline's Pinterest presence has been steadily growing in the two months since we set it up, with 16 boards now covering everything from music to sport and interior design. 

It's a great resource and we've hooked it up to Facebook and Twitter to enable cross-promotion of what we're up to, so as an experiment I'm happy to see it progressing well. 

Anyway, digital journalist Gareth Rogers has been using it to great effect for the Bluebirds Banter blog, but today he showed me an ingenious way of displaying photo content well on our site, via Pinterest.

One of the limitations of our current CMS is that it doesn't allow you to really showcase great photos well - as a user, you can't click on an image to enlarge it, for example. 

It may seem like a small thing, but when you've got images that the reader would want to see in more detail (or an infographic, for example) it can be somewhat restrictive.

Anyway, Gareth came up with a clever workaround (necessity really is the mother of invention) to show off a series of fashion photos from the Aintree race meet - he pinned the images to our Piinterest news board, and then embedded them back on the site. Now , when you click on the image, it opens, large-scale, in a new tab.
I love Gareth's solution. And I love the fact I work* with clever people who don't let system limitations get in the way of story-telling.

On the site it looks like this (full story here):

and when you click on the image, you see it like this (or click here):

Source: Uploaded by user via WalesOnline on Pinterest

I think it's very nice; take a bow, Mr Rogers. 

* On the subject of work, I have a new job - I'm heading to North Wales to edit the Daily Post, starting on Monday. 

I've loved my time with WalesOnline and Wales on Sunday - it's been hugely educational and I got to work with some great people - but (despite being a committed worshiper at the Church of Digital) I'm massively excited to be given the chance of editing a daily newspaper, and working with the DP team in print and online.

However, first I have to persuade two cats into travel baskets and brave the A470 to North Wales. Compared to that, editing is a doddle...

Related articles

• Joining the Pinterest revolution (alisongow.com)
• So You're on Pinterest. Now What? (blogs.constantcontact.com)
• Pinterest now supports YouTube and Vimeo videos (agbeat.com)

Finding the value in media disruption

The ever-popular media game of Media Buzzword Bingo continues apace; most recently, Curation has been shouldered aside in favour of Disruption (used in a 'go, team!' way, rather than the less-upbeat dictionary definition as found here).

The latest person to lament the lack of disruption being carried out by the media is Ross Levinsohn, EVP of Yahoo!’s Americas region. 

Speaking on a panel he complained that “in the traditional media, there aren’t disruptors anymore", adding that media leaders were “fearful, not fearless. Who’s taking those chances? Google, Apple. Silicon Valley is fearless when it comes to disrupting." 

Levinsohn made this plea for more disruption ('innovation' would be a more appropriate term, I think) on March 26; nine days later, Yahoo announced it was cutting 2,000 jobs (14% of its staff) as part of multi-million cost saving exercise.
Frankly, that's pretty disruptive from the corporate and individual perspective.

And, speaking from, if not inside the belly of the beast then at least from a nearby vantage point, I would further suggest fighting disruption with disruption isn't the solution. We're mostly just trying to hit on something that works. 

There's the vexed question of free content. The Guardian and The Times are the high-profile names slugging it out in the Battle of the Paywall, but they aren't alone in such explorations. 
Trinity Mirror (my employer) says ubiquitous content will not be placed behind a paywall, but consumers would be charged to access ‘high-value” unique content of its national titles.

Johnston Press also ruled out a paywall for web and mobile content, although its strategy does include charging for tablet apps. 

Midlands News Association - which placed its content behind a paywall in April 2011- scrapped that strategy after nine months and opted instead for paid-for tablet apps.
Another of the regional press companies, Newsquest, has placed its Scottish titles’ content behind metered paywalls. 

 The common factor is... well, the common factor is everyone is trying something different. I don't think this meets the dictionary or Levinsohn definition of Disruption, and I'm not even saying qualifies as innovation - experimentation is probably a better description for what's being tried out. 

Robert Picard  says the “fundamental problem for media firms” is that of selling 19th and 20th century products in the 21st century, often without altering the value of what is offered, or the relationships with customers.   

He's right; the economic model of the modern Press typically follows this pattern: 
1. Create content with assumed commercial value - news, ads, photos, whatever. Some paying customers (advertisers) have a degree of control over the content they've funded; others (readers) do not.
2. Attempt to sell content via one very expensively produced platform
3. Distribute said platform via extremely expensive methods
4. Make the same content freely available on a separate, inexpensive, easily distributed platform, which also allows real-time interaction with users, feedback and sharing
 
Alan Mutter's excellent post 'Four ways newspapers are failing at digital'  looks at similar issues, citing week digital product portfolios (including the shovelware issue), an ageing audience and lack of diversity, limited revenue opportunities, and feeble competitive response. (If that sounds too depressing, he does also have a series of suggestions for what to do next.)

I think there's another way newspapers are failing at digital, and that harks back to Picard as well. I think we've lost track of what's valuable.
With regards to value and relationships, most news executives would admit the brands are not the essential part of their customer's world they once were. 
People who say there's no money in digital (yes, there are still people who actually do say that) overlook the fact there is a Googolplex of cash in digital.
Google and the Apple are making money hand over fist, packaging up other people's content, distributing it on their platforms, and selling either data, or consumer insights, or advertising around that.
Meanwhile, the Huffington Post's packaging up and distribution of others' content led to a very profitable outcome for Arianna.

That content is searchable (and findable - two things that are mutually exclusive on many regional news sites), it can be shared easily, consumed quickly, works effectively, can be consumed or discarded without consequence. 
But mostly the content offered by Google and Apple is wanted, because the user has selected it (the app, the link, the social tool etc). 

I was talking to our new(ish) YourCardiff reporter today, Jessica Best, who told me the most popular article she'd written since starting was about local activities for Easter. On WalesOnline, a broader article about things to do nationally for Easter garnered 2,000 hits in a couple of hours. 
No one in the newsroom would have considered Things To Do At Easter great journalism, because it's not. It is, however, a great, searchable (and findable) resource for families looking to do a mix of free and paid-for things in Wales over the bank holiday. It was also well-shared socially. 

Great journalism has to be supported financially, and if we're going to do that through building audience, then we have to know what the audience wants - by asking, listening, responding, experimenting, and refining. It's not disruptive but it is a break from the norm, and it adds value.

Related articles

• The future of media = many small pieces, loosely joined (gigaom.com)
• Google Partners With Publishers on a New Kind of Paywall (mashable.com)
• The NYT Paywall Hums Along (cjr.org)

What is journalism? What are journalists? (a post J-leaders ramble)

My poor neglected blog. It's been weeks since I've had the head-space to sit down and write out some thoughts.
But I have been saving items that made me think a lot, for when I did have some time. Things like this tweet...  

Oh god. We have entered into the "what is a citizen journalist" black hole. Someone wake me up in 10 years when we won't care anymore.
— ilicco elia (@ilicco) March 7, 2012

which sums up my exact same feelings on the subject of citizen journalism definitions and made me recall there was an interesting set of notes in my Google Docs I should take a look at. 

In February I was at UCLan as part of the Journalism Leaders course residential week, slogging towards my MA (hence not having the headspace to blog) which included a discussion of what is a journalist, during a session led by Megan Knight. 
I made copious notes as it's a Moibus Strip of a theme in which the multiple definitions are conveniently twisted to fit one's own view. 
These are some of the jottings I made during and after the session; I kept thinking about it for days afterwards and I'm still intrigued by it, particularly Pierre Borudieu aspect, of which more later. 

The question of who is a journalist comes back to what is journalism. 
Defining these two aspects needs to examine the fundamental principles of the industry, the skill and the individual. It is far more than platform v platform and is probably the definitive response to Are Bloggers Journalists?
It's a cyclical question that looks like this:

How do you identify someone who is a Journalist?

* From employment? (what about the freelance/unemployed who worked in media)

* From education? (Journalists who find citizen journalism threatening are focusing on the lack of education. The type of education that people have access to can also be a class issue)

* From outputs? (what are the outputs? Is a film reviewer a journalist? Eg. I believe my blog contains writing about journalism rather than journalism itself. But as my posts contain information I've investigated, or data I've interrogated others might define that as journalism)

* From self-identification or association with a body Eg. The NUJ? (In China, journalists have to be registered. People writing about their communities and local news are not termed journalists in any way).

So, journalism is not a profession but most journalists would say it is. Journalism also creates journalism in its own image . 

Those are some of my verbatim notes. Questions I also noted down during the session included: Do people become what their industry needs them to be? Do they subsume their own personality traits, inclinations and/or ethics to become what the identity of their employer needs them to be?  
The answer to all of the above is yes, I would suggest. And by ethics I don't mean phone hacking, I mean things like being sent out on a death knock - an occasion when you know you aren't exactly adding to anyone's sum of joy - and doing it anyway.
 
The identity of the journalism product is more important than the identity of the person - such as the editor - associated with it. 
The personalities change all the time, but the product has been a constant (although that is changing now, of course. Consider the Liverpool Daily Post's shift to a weekly) 

During the session we discussed the idea that as journalism dis-aggregates and digital disruption becomes more commonplace, editing becomes more about the human function - getting the right people in the right jobs; becoming more responsible for the commercial aspects of the business. (This is probably going to form part of my MA research topic). 

All this led to the introduction of Pierre Bourdieu's theories and the idea of Social Capital. 
I'd never heard of Bourdieu before this, but I really connect with his idea that a person has social capital within their Field and their Habitus is designed to increase that social capital. 
Most of us are far more focused on the Field, because it increases the social capital among our peers. We go after stories (we become active and visible on social media too, I would contend) partly to maintain our status in society. 
And as well as the idea of social captial, I think online social networks have allowed journalists to change their Field as well - it's provided a huge opportunity for people to break out of the 'journalists writing for journalists' trap we've all fallen into at one time or another.

What do online networks mean for the Tribe of Journalists and peer pressure? Your peers may be sat next to you, but they may also be on the other side of the world, sharing their views with you. 
If people have a different Habitus as a result of no longer being inside their Field as much, where do their loyalties lie?

I think that would mean journalists adept at using social tools are less likely to fall into the trap of writing for other journalists. 
I suspect they are closer to their audience not just because they talk to them online but because their online spaces are now their Habitus, and their Field - the group they are writing for - is significantly larger and more disparate.

A final thought. As we were debating what is a journalist the news broke that Marie Colvin had been killed in Syria. So, perhaps the short answer to What is a Journalist is: She was.

* The photo illustrating this article is a Turner Prize contender from 2008, and was found on flickrhivemind.net, taken by Billy Fallows

  Related articles

• #jpod - Dying for the story: Citizen journalism and the Arab spring (blogs.journalism.co.uk)
• Collaboration is key: professional and citizen journalism after WikiLeaks (editorsweblog.org)
• People's journalism isn't 'citizen journalism' (yelvington.com)
• What Journalists Can Learn About Collaboration From Improv Comedy (pbs.org)

Tweeting court cases - the case for the defence

Technology and court reporting - it's the debate that keeps on giving.
In March 2009, after the Palm Beach Post won the right for a reporter to leave the courtroom to tweet an update (seriously, this happened) I wrote that the UK needed to get the courtroom press bench online and networked, and you suddenly really do start to have open justice.   
I wasn’t especially hopeful though. 
However, just a few years later we were given right to tweet updates from court without shuffling apologetically out of the room; journalists can sit with an laptop and tweet from the press bench (assuming we remembered to bring a dongle).

This is an amazing and wonderful thing that we must not take for granted; re-reading my old post and seeing the excuses I made as to why the justice system in England and Wales might not change was illuminating; to be honest, I am surprised the Twitter ruling was achieved in such a short space of time.  

However, there is a problem, as highlighted in Press Gazette today: Tweeting from court: ‘It’s multi-skilling gone mad’ was the headline and the article pointed out the pitfalls.
Chris Johnson, from Mercury, highlighted the obvious issue of prejudicial tweets (just last month a reporter named a juror while live-tweeting the Harry Redknapp trial) but there were also two unnamed reporters complaining about the demands of covering the case and tweeting it.
One said: “While you’re fiddling around with your 140 characters, you may miss a key bit of evidence, or might not have the time to take a good shorthand note of something. It’s going to end in tears.”

The pressures of tweeting a high profile case are obvious, and can take some planning to surmount.
The South Wales Argus recently overcame the difficulty of meeting real time demand with detailed court reporting by assigning two staff to the key days of a murder trial - one to liveblog via Twitter, and one to take notes for print.
That’s a big commitment for a regional newsroom to make, and fair play to the Argus for seeing the issue and understanding the differing needs of its reporters and audience.
But such an undertaking it’s not a sustainable use of resources in most over-stretched newsrooms - and it’s also not necessary in most cases.
Evidence is repeated... and repeated, some witnesses add nothing to the story, other than the line ‘the court also heard from Joe Bloggs who said he had seen the defendant walking along Any Street, Any Town, shortly before [insert nefarious deed here]’, and the quotable newsy stuff, are easily picked out of the warp and weft of the evidence by a hack with an ear for interesting copy.

I’ve little sympathy for the anonymous reporter quoted in Press Gazette who claims tweeting in court is too hard; please don't blame the lifting of restrictions enable you to do your job more effectively (hint: Your job is telling people what's happening) when what you mean is you've not been properly equipped by your organisation. 
Also, anonymous reporter, have you told your newsdesk what kit you need to do live court reporting adequately? Ten years ago your kit would have been a notepad, pen and a mobile phone. Twenty years ago it would have been your notepad, pen, and access to a public telephone. What do you need now? I'd imagine a laptop, smartphone, notepad, pen and connectivity. 
These are not exactly hostage-taking demands.
Journalism is hard - every day difficulties have to be overcome, whether it’s tweeting from court or knocking on the door of a newly-bereaved parent, or dashing out of a council meeting and filing 500 words off the top of your head to meet the  Late City edition deadline (On reflection, Late City edition deadlines don’t exist any more - let’s say for the website instead).
There may be live tweeting happening from other sources - media or in the public gallery (assuming they’ve sought and received permission) but that’s not a reason to stop.
Taking notes on a laptop and cut and pasting summaries into Twitter as appropriate is achievable, and shifts the problem of tweeting in court from manpower to having the correct kit.

But ultimately, this is just a workaround isn't it?
Tweeting from court, being allowed to operate a laptop from the press bench - these are issues that detract from the main problem. If we were to have real open justice then our courts need to be live-streamed, with subtitles - and screens, voice replacement technology and other protection methods for cases where identity is an issue - and with embeddable players so the distribution of judicial process is as wide as possible.
The Leveson hearings have allowed more people than ever before follow significant evidence in real time. 
I’d love to see our criminal courts follow suit.

Related articles

• Livetweeting a murder trial and decision on whether to admit online comments (daveburdick.com)
• UK Lord Chief Justice relaxes guidelines on journalists tweeting in court (editorsweblog.org)
• From Press Gazette - legal issue) Twitter ban at Redknapp trial after reporter names juror (bruneljournalism.wordpress.com)

Rebekah Brooks and Horsegate: There but for the grace of God go I...

I have few things in common with Rebekah Brooks beyond the fact that we're both women and both in the media (ish - it's not like she's gone into Engineering or anything since quitting the Day Job).  

But now it turns out we have two other things in common - we're both horsewomen, and we've both been offered the gift of all creatures great and small by Plod. 

When the revelation exploded on Twitter today, courtesy of the Leveson Inquiry, that Rebekah Brooks had been loaned a police horse by the Metropolitan Police, it was truly astonishing. 

I was reading the latest evidence regarding murdered Private Detective Daniel Morgan, a case I know from my South Wales Argus days and more lately through Media Wales, when Horsegate broke, and I can understand the outpouring of rage, disbelief and - inevitably - humour that followed. 

But people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. I too had the prospect of animal husbandry dangled before me by Her Majesty's Finest, although it wasn't quite a quarter tonne of horseflesh; it was a cockerel. 

A fighting cockerel that was taken into custody - along with its sparring partner - by Pembroke Dock Constabulary, acting on a tip off that illegal bird fighting was happening at Catshole Quarry. 

Given that more than two decades have now passed, and everyone involved has retired, I can't imagine there's too much at stake to say that my morning trip to the local nick to go through the crime book was disturbed by much ruckus from the back yard, home to the police cars and seized dog pens. 

Walking round I met the then-licensing officer (a character I knew from court and council, and who had boomeranged between sergeant and constable at least twice) bent double wheezing with laughter while two constables attempted to separate a couple of shrieking cockerels who were busy clawing ten bells of crap out of each other. 

Eventually I learned the birds had been confiscated the previous night, kept in separate cat transporter boxes and then, with morning, the idea of putting them in a dog pen occurred. Unfortunately, they were put in the same dog pen and did what fighting chickens (which are essentially Velociraptors with feathers and a smaller brain) do best, until the nearest junior ranking staff were sent in to restore order.

Once the birds were in different pens the problem of long-term care emerged. As I was still involved in the discussion (this happens on regional papers - you find yourself sucked in to the weirdest situations) and was known to be of Farming Stock, I was asked whether I'd be interesting in caring for them til something more permanent could be worked out. 

I assume that meant an RSPCA rehoming but, equally, it could have meant until a special occasion meriting a roast fowl, say a really good drugs bust, presented itself. 

As there was no way I was taking in a psychotic rooster or two I declined, but volunteered a farming friend who lived a few miles away. He had large pens to keep the birds apart or, failing that, shotguns and a pragmatic approach to life and death. 

And that was that - the birds were taken into foster care and housed on separate farms owned by the same family. Their fostering never ended, and they had a free range life that was probably longer than the average chicken's due to their self-defence abilities. I think the RSPCA did prosecute but as I didn't cover the case there is no satisfactory judicial outcome to report. 

But still, like Rebekah, I was tempted although my moral fibre proved tougher. Still, if they'd offered me a pony, who knows what the answer might have been...

Related articles

• #Horsegate: Rebekah Brooks loaned a HORSE by Scotland Yard (mirror.co.uk)
• Brooks and Coulson 'warned about widespread phone hacking in 2006' (guardian.co.uk)

Bild's UGC success story

Reading Maria Purdy Young's take on UGC (Citizen Journalism: Something for Nothing Won't Last Long) recently I remembered Bild's 2008 intiative to pebbledash basic digital cameras around it's potential audience, to try and boost the photographic network. 

According to Bild's picture editor the newspaper now receives something like 4,000 photographs a day, and  has led to nearly 1,000 lead stories. (more here, courtesy of Google Translate). 

 The mind boggles as to how they process all that content pouring in, or whether they respond to everyone who makes a submission (I doubt it's possible)  but it really is the whole River of UGC idea that the regional press has been so intrigued by in recent years.

Bild is, of course, huge - 2.2m copies a day - with a vast audience and the amount of photos, tips and more it receives are correspondingly vast; but when Bild and Lidl announced their plans I thought how wonderful it would be if only my company could give free or peppercorn cost Flip cameras to people. 

Because like Maria Purdy Young says, something for nothing won't last. In fact, something for nothing shouldn't last -  ethically it's a concept we should be uneasy with.

There should be an exchange - it doesn't mean that it always has to be a financial one as people see value and reward in various ways, but an acknowledgement that both sides are benefiting in some way and an exchange has taken place is crucial.
 

Flickr photo: Dnunez_za

The problem with engagement? It involves other people

There have been several social media conferences recently where, from hashtag evidence, person after person stood up and urged listeners to "go where the conversation is",  "be part of the conversation" and "if your brand isn't engaging on Facebook, ask yourself if YOU aren't engaging on Facebook".

Which is all very right (although possibly repetitive) but quite often you see brands attempting to engage, and then getting caught up in a social media storm for striking the wrong note.

Remember the admittedly-baffling Greater Manchester Police tweet 'there are no excuses!' (now deleted) around the riots sentencing last year?
It saw GMP go from the Darling of Twitter for its commitment to engagement and social media to a pariah within moments and was quickly followed by...

Thanks to all for feedback messages - all your comments have been noted. You are right, it is not our place to comment on sentences.
— G M Police (@gmpolice) August 13, 2011

That made it into the Guardian, no less. And yes, it was a stupid editorial to add to a tweet about a sentencing, but feeds are run by people, and people make mistakes.
This week it was London Midland having to apologise for tweets about a suicide on the line causing delays.
Among the tweets complained about was:

@louhaffner Go to the pub - things will be rubbish for at least the next hour.
— London Midland (@LondonMidland) February 12, 2012

Hmm. Maybe I'm being insensitive but I can't get exercised about that. And having looked at the London Midland Twitter page, which responds not just to @messages but also to tweets generally referencing the company, I think it's pretty exemplary and the result of decent training and, possibly, some harsh lessons.
Whoever helps run it (assuming it's a team effort) has a good line in engagement and conversation, understands hashtags, doesn't overdo the emoticons and generally sounds, well, human. All in the face of people tweeting intelligent responses such as

@LondonMidland yes you can,stop hiking the fares,have the trains on time & you would have no one jumping in front of trains. #frustration
— PIEnMASHgeezer (@PIEnMASHgeezer) February 12, 2012

Tweeting as a brand is a hard balance to strike. You need personality, but not too much, and a degree of familiarity might work some of the time but not always - or at least not always with everyone.
Some people are apparently keen to be offended, some people will respond in inappropriate ways, but expect you to remain respectful and informative.

Engaging as a news brand is an even bigger minefield. You ask a question around, say, what people would be interested in reading about and get a "Why should I do your job?" tweet back from someone.
At which point, you can either shrug and respond to those who do want to engage, or try to strike some common ground with those who prefer to complain.
The benefit of the latter could be very real... it could also end up being a mutually dissatisfying time-suck.

I've got some personal rules about responding to people who are in full fighting plumage - usually on Twitter rather than Facebook - as a brand (ie. tweeting as WalesOnline or WalesonSunday)...

1. Are they simply grandstanding? (Generally, they don't want a response, they want a reaction)
2. If they are grandstanding, who follows them? (If you're broadcasting to 3 pornbots and a couple of mates, fill your boots)
3. On Twitter, do they have an avatar or are they an egg? (Often indicative of whether they're likely to engage or not)
4. Does their tweet make any sense or are they swearing? (I won't talk to you on the phone if you swear at me, I'm not making an exception in digital life)
5. Are they agent provocateurs? (if their Twitter stream comprises complaints, whinges and attacks then there's a good chance they just enjoy annoying people)
6. Am I responding simply because the person is bone-crushingly stupid, and I'd quite enjoy smashing their point out of the park? (If yes, it's generally not worth it)

Four years ago I would have said it was wrong to have a criteria for responding to anyone online, but now I'm not so certain.
I've closed two online forums because in both cases my overstretched digital teams were intervening in rows not only between users of those communities, but with some of the community-appointed moderators. The horse hadn't just bolted, it was accelerating into the next county.
Shutting them down wasn't a decision lightly-taken - the page views were advertiser-friendly (100k+ in one case) but the spite and fighting weren't.
Getting those channels back on track might have been possible with concerted, full-time community management. Ergo, from a team manager point of view, it wasn't practical or desirable. Putting new efforts into Facebook, Twitter and site users elsewhere proved far more beneficial, and led to lessons learned and better engagement.

The beauty of social media for brands is that it brings a connection with other people.The drawback is that other people will be, well, people. Add a little anonymity, distance and the opportunity for some manufactured outrage, and the results can be illuminating.

* Update: The subject of engagement and brands has also prompted a blog post from David Higgerson. Recommended reading: SOCIAL MEDIA: THE PERILS OF GOING TOO FAR WHEN TRYING TO MAKE A BRAND INTERACTIVE

Related articles

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• Terrace abuse on Twitter? (bbc.co.uk)
• Dealing with Negative Social Media Comments (roundpeg.biz)
• Here's why all Twitter users should tweet with accountability and without the delete button (thenextweb.com)