Politico's 2014 'journalists to watch' list doesn't have a single person of color

Politico's 2014 'journalists to watch' list doesn't have a single person of colour.

A few months ago, I wrote a commentary for the Guardian about how unpaid internships create an unfair funnel system to media outlets. They create a homogenous voice that excludes those who don't have the money or privilege to work for free. This, to me, is the biggest challenge facing the media. Cities like New Orleans, Chicago's South Side or Gary, Indiana are underrepresented or misrepresented in the media because there aren't enough journalists who come from those or similar areas to tell the stories.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/29/politico-journalists-to-watch-no-person-of-color

Digital journalism: Standout news stories of 2013

Digital journalism: Standout news stories of 2013

In terms of high-impact news stories, 2013 had its fair share. But how were these stories covered online by leading news outlets and what lessons were learned, and noted for the future?

Journalism.co.uk asked digital news experts to define the stories of 2013 which were particularly significant in terms of digital journalism.

http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/digital-journalism-standout-news-stories-of-2013/s2/a555476/

The BBC's best practices for verifying user-generated content

The BBC's best practices for verifying user-generated content

Social media have set the stage for newsrooms to tap into user-generated content for their breaking news coverage. But the easier it becomes to gather content from users, the harder it can be to verify, especially on deadline.

The BBC's UGC Hub has been sourcing, checking and verifying, and distributing content since its inception in 2005, and has had to shift its approach over the years. Some of the latest BBC stories to include UGC content were Typhoon Haiyan, Nelson Mandela's death and the use of chemical weapons in Syria.

http://ijnet.org/blog/bbcs-best-practices-verifying-user-generated-content

The perils of journalism in the online age

The perils of journalism in the online age

Now, before I get into this, let me first acknowledge that I am not a Buzzfeed-hater. Their political coverage, for example, rocks. So this isn't a "we hate Buzzfeed" story. It is, however, a story about my growing concerns about online journalism.

Buzzfeed's account documented the previous week's contest between Idaho and New Mexico State, devoting over a thousand words to a meaningless game with no competitive interest (both teams were a godawful 1-10 entering the contest). If the post had a point, it's that it had no point: Neither university has a large or marketable fan base, none of the players had particularly good or bad performances, and the teams aren't even rivals.

The writer didn't even go so far as to ironically suggest that the game was interesting due to the sheer magnitude of its irrelevance, which the title more or less suggests. It's almost as if he wrote the title and then found a thousands words to substantiate it, with little regard for whether or not there was any value in writing the piece at all.

So why do I care, aside from the letdown I'm feeling after getting my hopes up over an article that I thought might be funny?

http://americablog.com/2013/12/saying-first-becomes-important-getting-right.html

Top 10 Investigative Journalism Books of 2013

Top 10 Investigative Journalism Books of 2013

Contrary to the conventional wisdom, investigative reporting is plentiful within American journalism. That is especially true in the realm of books, despite the much decried conglomeratization of publishers.

Following the economic meltdown of 2008, a pile of financial whodunits was published examining various aspects of the collapse. There's no such readily identifiable trend this year so let me simply present my list of the top 10 investigative journalism books of 2013.

http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/article/103039/Top-10-Investigative-Journalism-Books-of-2013.aspx

Do journalists need Photoshop skills?

Do journalists need Photoshop skills?

A couple of weeks ago I was sat at my desk trying to produce a front cover for a magazine that I'm making for my final year degree project. The first thing I wanted to do was source an image for the cover, and subsequently get rid of its background so that the person was merely a figure in the middle of the page. I soon realised that this wasn't as easy as I thought it was going to be, and after an hour or so playing around with the 'Instant Alpha' tool on my MacBook, I wanted to know if there was a quicker way – and one that didn't require forking out for the latest version of Adobe Photoshop with money I just don't have.

http://wannabehacks.co.uk/2013/12/06/do-journalists-need-photoshop-skills/

How to: get started in investigative journalism

How to: get started in investigative journalism

"Do not be captivated by the idea that you're going to be doing undercover filming or spending a lot of your time being given secret documents or working with whistleblowers," warns Christopher Hird, editor of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ), speaking to Journalism.co.uk.

For those just starting out, such a romanticised image of the investigative reporter as a hard-bitten, film noir icon – what the Guardian's Paul Lewis describes as "a reporter in a long mac, slightly dishevelled-looking and obsessive" – is one of many misconceptions that can stand in the way of getting the job done properly. The topic under discussion may be clandestine but the graft put into researching and uncovering the story rarely is.

http://www.journalism.co.uk/skills/how-to-get-started-in-investigative-journalism/s7/a555318/

5 Reasons Vice And BuzzFeed Are The New Face Of Journalism

5 Reasons Vice And BuzzFeed Are The New Face Of Journalism

There's still a misapprehension that young people aren't interested in news. That's not true; they're just not interested in the way it's been told over the past decade. Bar a few exceptions, newspapers were broadly slow to adapt to digital - relying too much on sustaining loyalty from their existing readerships, rather than targeting the tech-savvy generation that succeeds it.

"There's a lot of nonsense talked about young people not being interested in news," says Vice's UK MD Matt O'Mara, talking at the CMA summit in London. "They are."

http://digitalmedia.strategyeye.com/article/GztcKyCkPM/2013/12/05/insight_vice_buzzfeed_and_the_phoenix_of_new_media/

A glimpse into a very frightening future ... if politicians get to meddle in our Press

A glimpse into a very frightening future ... if politicians get to meddle in our Press

Today, however, we saw a glimpse of the future – if politicians and Hacked Off get their way and give MPs a legal foothold in the way the Press is run.

Alan Rusbridger, the editor of the Guardian – the newspaper which, along with the New York Times, did much of the digging to uncover the phone hacking scandal which led to the Leveson Inquiry and the current real threats to Press freedom which followed the conclusion of the inquiry – was before the Home Affairs Select Committee in Westminster.

http://davidhiggerson.wordpress.com/2013/12/03/a-glimpse-into-a-very-frightening-future-if-politicians-get-to-meddle-in-our-press/

A glimpse into a very frightening future ... if politicians get to meddle in our Press

A glimpse into a very frightening future ... if politicians get to meddle in our Press

Today, however, we saw a glimpse of the future – if politicians and Hacked Off get their way and give MPs a legal foothold in the way the Press is run.

Alan Rusbridger, the editor of the Guardian – the newspaper which, along with the New York Times, did much of the digging to uncover the phone hacking scandal which led to the Leveson Inquiry and the current real threats to Press freedom which followed the conclusion of the inquiry – was before the Home Affairs Select Committee in Westminster.

http://davidhiggerson.wordpress.com/2013/12/03/a-glimpse-into-a-very-frightening-future-if-politicians-get-to-meddle-in-our-press/

This Law of Economics Shows Why Print Journalism Is Doomed

This Law of Economics Shows Why Print Journalism Is Doomed

Yesterday's announcement that New York Magazine, which pioneered the new journalism, will now be coming out biweekly rather than weekly is the latest indication that high quality print magazines and newspapers are slowly but surely passing from the scene. New York's abandonment of weekly publication comes on the heels of Newsweek's closing, Time being spun off from its corporate parent (as a prelude, perhaps, to its moving entirely to the web), U.S. News and World Report devolving into a consumer guide, and the closing or shifting onto the web of a score of major daily newspapers.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115798/new-york-magazines-biweekly-move-explained-baumols-law

The Future of News in the Dark Ages of 2003

The Future of News in the Dark Ages of 2003

Pull up a chair and let me tell you about a primitive era in media history: the world of 2003.

People who were unfortunate enough to live—if you can call it living—through this backwards time had no YouTube, no iPhone, no tweets, and very few blogs to choose from. In fact, "blog" or "Web log" was still written in quotes most of the time.

Many Americans had internet access (54% of U.S. households), but if you were lucky enough to get it on your phone it looked pretty damn ugly. And the idea of your average person contributing to the national dialogue was pretty much out of the question. Dan Rather didn't mention his Twitter handle during the evening news broadcast. He didn't want to hear your opinion on his latest story. Why would he?

http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/the-future-of-news-in-the-dark-ages-of-2003-1475196269/@ericlimer

Michael Gillard scoops Journalist of the Year at second annual British Journalism Awards

Michael Gillard scoops Journalist of the Year at second annual British Journalism Awards

Michael Gillard of The Sunday Times has been awarded the prestigious Journalist of the Year award at the second annual British Journalism Awards.

More than 200 people attended the celebration of the best of British journalism at the Stationers' Hall in London.

The judges unanimously voted for Gillard's 11-year investigation into gangster David Hunt which even led to a High Court victory.

http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/michael-gillard-scoops-journalist-year-award-second-annual-british-journalism-awards

New beats: where do redundant journalists go?

New beats: where do redundant journalists go?

You've probably heard the news: the Australian media is experiencing the most serious contraction in its history.

The rise of online and mobile media has led to the collapse of the classified advertising business model that has long sustained media companies, especially in print, and this, in turn has affected their ability to fund the journalism that has long informed us.

http://theconversation.com/new-beats-where-do-redundant-journalists-go-20710

NY Times, AFP photographers among at least 30 journalists injured in clashes with police

NY Times, AFP photographers among at least 30 journalists injured in clashes with police

When baton-wielding riot police outside the presidential offices began to charge, Denys Danko held up the only shield he knows -- his journalist's identification card.

"I'm a reporter," said the award-winning journalist from 1+1 channel.

"I don't give a [expletive]," was the last thing he heard before he fell down.

A column of riot police charged around 5 p.m. on Dec. 1 at a crowd of protestors, some of whom had been attacked with rocks and a digger.

As the police charged, they beat everything in their path. Danko was among several dozen people who hid in the courtyard of the Writers' Union building on Bankova Street.

"Every officer running by me hit me with a club. I was hit 30 times all together. They kicked me in the head, chest, hands," said Danko, who now has seven stitches on his head.

http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/at-least-30-journalists-injured-in-clashes-with-police-332782.html

Ian Burrell: The women of Fleet Street are on the march to claim their place at journalism’s top table. It’s about time, too

Ian Burrell: The women of Fleet Street are on the march to claim their place at journalism's top table. It's about time, too.

Few could argue that the press has kept pace with other media sectors in offering equal opportunities. You look at Cilla Snowball, running Britain's biggest advertising agency (AMV/BBDO), Lisa Thomas, chief executive of M&C Saatchi Group, Nicola Mendelsohn, in charge of Facebook in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Roisin Donnelly, marketing head at Procter & Gamble, and there aren't too many similar figures in Fleet Street.

It's the British Journalism Awards tonight. Over the years, newspaper industry nights have been noticeably more macho affairs – marked by cat-calling, flying bread rolls and the odd fist fight – compared with equivalent events in television.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/opinion/ian-burrell-the-women-of-fleet-street-are-on-the-march-to-claim-their-place-at-journalisms-top-table-its-about-time-too-8976311.html

Writing for the web

Writing for the web

When writing for the web, tell the story upfront. For it to work across all possible platforms and devices, it needs to be told in essence in the first four paragraphs, around 70 words:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/journalism/skills/writing/article/art20130702112133610