the mantelpiece - mark waddington blog

online news within traditional newsrooms

The following quotes are a response to the notion of one converged and combined newsroom from a document called Convergence calls: Multimedia storytelling at British news websites By Neil Thurman and Ben Lupton

“A website has to be constantly worked at ... If you have people who are in their heads in both places, the website doesn’t get the attention it needs.”  Anne Spackman Times Online Editor 

"A website needed a separate team—one whose role is to innovate. “We feel you need a small vanguard group who are learning new technology or thinking about new types of journalism”  FT.com editor James

Download pdf document

As an online editor myself I have found that the theatre and excitement of a live TV news show overshadows the web requirements. Partly because there are no dramatic deadlines and audiences are smaller.

TV Editors are sometimes reluctant to break news on the web because they don't fully accept it as a primary output. I also think there is a fear of interactivity and a feeling of being out of control.

Traditional journalists often see the online world as dangerous; Blogging particularly so because it involves opinion and is seen as a world populated by citizen journalists (a disputed term) and crackpots. There is also the real possibility that the public could start to dictate the agenda!  Heaven forbid.

So my feeling is that the two way, conversational, 'go with the flow' world of the Internet is at odds with the highly controlled world of the newsroom.  Let's see if we can loosen things up a bit

calendar news sound studio

gbitv-soundstudio
Originally uploaded by markwaddington.

A lot of people are leaving ITV right now as a result of the cutbacks. The three of us working on ITV Local in Leeds will eventually be disbanded but we don’t have dates yet. Many people working in ITV Local in other parts of the country have already gone. The expectation is that we’ll have more clarity on March the 4th.

The process of cutting back and rationalising ITV is leading to some technical changes and re-ordering of physical spaces. A proposal on the table is that the BBC and ITV should share some facilities and media. One reporter said that he could imagine we’d all be working out of a shared telephone box!

As this process moves forward I am taking some photos – along with other people – and thought it would be a good idea to upload some of them to a flickr group which I’ve called ITV Turnaround

through the viewfinder

Originally uploaded by ibecks.

I went out with seven other members of the ilkley flickr group last weekend. We met at costa coffee and then for a jaunt by the river. it was great to meet up with them and proves that internet groups can transform beyond the virtual.

Becks turned up with a long home made tube with an old camera taped to the end of it. She poked her SLR down the other end to capture the images from the viewfinder.

I just love this creative experimentation and it certainly led becks to see subjects in a completely different way - particularly some of the very close up subjects. The fact that the camera is on the end of a tube and looking at 90 degrees to your face leads to some unexpected discoveries.

12 ideas for blog posts

Here are some top tips for blogging from Paul Bradshaw of online journalism blog. I read the piece and decided to take the first piece of advice which is to respond to something elsewhere on the web.  The other ideas for gaining visibility are as follows:

suggest an idea
interview someone (i've not done that yet)
blog an event (yes, done that)
ask a question (?)
pick a fight (should do)
reflect on something (do too much of that)
do something visual (now you're talking)
review something (like this list)
make a list (indeed)
write a how to
let someone else post

on the how to suggestion they note that -  one of the most popular types of search query is ‘How do I..?’ or ‘Why do..?

For a more in-depth explanation here's a link to online journalism blog (if indeed you agree that blogging = journalism) and he's looking for more suggestions.

"one eyed scottish idiot"

Just done a search for the above and got 2,170 search results.  I'm also watching Sky News who are repeating the Jeremy Clarkson clip every few minutes. It just goes to show that whatever offence or damage is caused, the repetition of the event can be justified as a news story. The programmes of course will attempt to put alternative views, but it just goes to show how some outlets (and maybe this one) will see it as a marketing opportunity. 

I did like what the guy from the RNIB had to say about say about sight impairment not being an obstacle to success, but by and large it won't do them any harm.

oopsy daisy

James my brother put me onto this. he asked, had i seen the footage on the bbc website of people falling over on an icy pavement (50 seconds into the video).  it seems that the film crew found themselves a spot where people were falling over and staked it out.  presumably they saw one person falling over and then decided to see if more would follow.  not that they would have gone out with a watering can the night before, no, but it does seem a bit heartless.

i'm all for a bit of entertainment, but i would you have felt a tad uncomfortable about filming the old folk knowing they were about to come a cropper?   the daily mail also found an icy spot to run a disaster watch. 

daily mail

bbc london