henrikharsbo.dk

Falling News

News reduced to icons. That is the main idea behind Falling Times which grabs headlines from news sources all over the world and translates them into icons.

It is a rather despondent experience to visit the site. The black background and the many icons associated with pain and death paints the picure of a news media focused on disaster and conflict. I know this to be somewhat true but cannot help thinking that the choice of iconography and colors also help twist things in that direction. But I guess this is okay since the site is an art project and not a journalistic endeavour.

What is interesting about the site is that users can contribute to the choice of icons by attaching their own key words to them. In that sense it should be possible for a collective audience to determine what icons will be shown with what headlines.

Newspaper Readers Are Shifting To The Web

It has been obvious for a very long time (in Denmark too). But now there's actually a statistic to back it up: American newspaper readers are moving from print to web.

Sales of American newspapers fell almost 3 percent over the spring and summer compared with the same period of the year before.

The drop is reported by Audit Bureau of Circulations and it reflects the growing shift of readers to the Internet, where newspaper readership has climbed.

According to The New York Times an analysis of 88 major papers shows that in the last two years, about half had seen no significant change in combined print and online readership, or showed an increase.

The newspaper industry now hopes that the shift in readership will make an impression on advertisers, who have been retreating from newspapers despite an expanding economy. Advertisers generally don't consider an online reader to be as valuable as a print reader. It still remains to be seen whether these latest umbers will change their perception.

News Site Without News

In the future Danish newspaper Politiken plans to focus mainly on background articles explaining and analyzing events in the printed paper while using its web site to actually report the news. The plan includes a reallocation of journalistic resources. A staff of eight working the web site today will be doubled to 16 journalists in the future!

But is this an example of a mainstream media adapting wisely to the reality of modern media consumption? Well, there's no doubt that removing the medium-long news articles from the daily paper is a pretty smart move. Articles that recount news that was reported by the electronic media yesterday have no place in a modern paper.

Also I like the idea of a daily newspaper focusing almost solely on carefully crafted, analytical background articles.

When it comes to the plans for the web site, I have my doubts though. Are readers really in need of yet another news site? There are already oodles of Danish and foreign web sites focusing on news. Making the room for qualitative improvement quite limited. Moreover sites like Inform.com and Google News have shown us that computers can edit and maintain news web sites almost as well as a any journalist! I honestly don't see where Politiken will be able to excel and stand out when it comes to online news.

But who says that a newspaper site has to deliver traditional news anyway? It would probably be wise of Politiken to follow the more social and inclusive direction that the web is taking and to stop thinking of itself as a mere sender of news. What about opening the site for citizen journalism and inviting users to write about what matters to them? This could still be done with seasoned journalists at the helm editing and helping stories along. Also, I think Politiken should use the web to fortify its traditional stronghold when it comes to covering debate and opinions. This could be done via both podcasts and blogs.

Meanwhile we're still waiting for a Danish mainstream media outlet to take the plunge and truly revolutionize its online communication. 

February 2, 2006: Danish magazine Journalisten yesterday reported this on the Politiken plans:

»Like many other nordic newpapers Politiken will focus heavily on blogs written by both employees and readers. An Interactive Editor is to create online communities for readers [...] At the same time a Web Enricher is hired to create activites on the site, pose questions to readers, make online tests [ ...]«

Looks like Politiken is really ready to do a bit more than merely delivering news on the web. Way to go!

Technorati: Journalism |News |Newspaper

Wake-Up Call To Mainstream Media

They create, they publish and they rule the web! Who, you might ask. The newspapers? The network stations? The ad agencies? Nope, I'm talking about American teenagers half of which today create and share their own media creations online.

According to a survey from Pew Internet Studies a mind-boggling 57 percent of US-teens who use the Internet have a blog or web page or have posted original artwork, photography, stories or video online.

»Teens are often much more enthusiastic authors and readers of blogs than their adult counterparts. Teen bloggers, led by older girls, are a major part of this tech-savvy cohort,« writes Pew on its web site.

Wake-up call to Mainstream Media: Hello, you're looking at your audience of the not to distant future! They wont be satisfied by web pages that read like a book. And forget about trying to tell them what to think. They want to form and communicate their own opinion. In short: They're not taking any non-interactive cr..

So get your act together and communicate in a fashion that appeals to this web savvy audience!

...End of wake-up call :-)

Technorati: Blogs |Media

Remix: Blogs And Journalism

A journalistic article accompanied by links to blogs about the very same article! It had to happen at some point and now Washingtonpost.com has introduced the thing on its pages.

The little sidebar box is entitled "Who's Blogging" and offers links to relevant blogs about the article at hand.

A cool feature powered by Technorati. Now I'm looking forward to seeing bloggers being able to offer links to relevant journalistic articles about their postings ;-)

Technorati: Blogs |Journalism

Advice For Paper Happy Communicators

Traditional newspaper journalists don't fully understand the importance of the web! This is the opinion of several Norwegian newspaper executives according to the Norwegian Organization for Journalists.

»Every year 60.000 new teenagers enter the news market in Norway and 99 percent of them head straight for the web. It is important that executives and journalists understand this development and don't underestimate the pace of change,« says editor at VG Nett Torry Pedersen.

He thinks newspaper journalists are much too geared towards the paper edition and don't think enough about working bi-medially.

»Journalists simply have to understand that the future entails working for more than one platform,« says editor in chief at Dagbladet Thor Gjermund Erikson.

The point of the Norwegian editors is so obvious that it almost seems trite. All the same I think it is still an important point to make. Personally I have heard more than one journalists downplay the role of the Internet pointing at their paper edition going: "Why all the fuss about the net? My readers still prefer paper over web."

True as that may be I think the argument is somewhat similar to peeing in your pants to keep yourself warm. News on the web has gained so much momentum over the years and as technology gets better this development will only accelerate.

So take heed you paper happy communicators, web journalism will not go away. It will be massive :-)

Technorati: Media |Journalism

SMS From Crashing Plane A Lie

A Greek man has been arrested for lying about receiving a phone text mesage (a sms) from relatives aboard the Cypriot plane that crashed in Greece Sunday killing 121 people.

The man went on national television saying he had received a message from relatives on the plane minutes before it crashed. The message was to have been: "We're cold. The pilot has turned blue. We are going to die. Goodbye."

Today the man was arrested and officially charged by police in Thessaloniki.

The faulty information has been a major lead in the investigation so far. How sad that someone would try to gain their 15 minutes of fame off such a tragedy.

Even more sad that mainstream media around the world is readily supplying airtime for such a hoax. A story like that is just to good to spend a day fact checking or what?

via www.dr.dk (Danish news site)

Technorati: Media |Journalism

Another Odd Choice From WikiNews

Friday was another terrible and violent day on planet earth. More than 80 people died in a blast at an Egyptian holiday resort, London police shot and killed a man suspected of being connected to the Underground bombings and on the streets of Beirut a bomb went off near a restaurant.

All of those stories were published by the main stream media news sites of the world - and by WikiNews. However on a day like this WikiNews also found the following story worthy of front page mentioning: Many horses in Sweden lack passport.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: if WikiNews wants to be taken seriously as a credible news source it has to find a way to prioritize the news. Odd stories like this one may be important (who am I to argue about the validity of a story about horse passports) - but there's no way it should make it to the top of the front page of any international news site.

Don't get me wrong. I'm all for a site like WikiNews. As a matter of fact I want it to succeed. I simply don't believe in the "everybody-write-everybody-decide" system for a news site. In my opinion WikiNews could be a much better site with a few editors in charge.

Technorati: Media |Journalism

The Grim Writer

What are the most widely read stories in a newspaper? Which genre of journalism produces articles that are treasured by families for generations? If you ask journalist Alana Baranick the answer is clear: Obituaries! As author of the handbook for obituary writers "Life on the Death Beat" and with a long career as an obituary writer herself she admits she is proud of her job:

»Although obit writing is among the least coveted jobs in the newsroom, I love the death beat. I don't have to go out looking for a story. People are always dying to get on the obit page,« she writes on her web site.

To Alana Baranick obituaries are more than just texts about deceased persons: »If we're lucky, an obituary will inspire the living to be good to their neighbors, strive for success and keep hope alive,« she writes.

Once a year she and other obituary writers from around the world meet up at a conference under the auspices of the International Association of Obituarists. According to Baranick the attendants share tips on summing up lives, learn about different ways of presenting obituaries, laugh about experiences peculiar to their trade and rub elbows with funeral directors.

The writers even have fans attending their conference, the so called "Fobits" which is short for Friends of Obits. These are people who love obituaries and follow the work of their favorite writers.

»Fobits make us obit writers feel like rock stars,« writes Baranick.

Want to read more about obits, fobits and the conference? vistit BBC News

Technorati tag: Media |Journalism

Gutsy Journalism

What the heck is citizen journalism, anyway? Steve Outing offers a pretty good definition with his 11 Layers of Citizen Journalism.

Outing's 11 layers outline a continuum spanning from main stream media opening up to public comment at one end and the radical no-editors-only-citizen-reporters approach at the other end (seen at sites like WikiNews ).

Personally I think layer no. 10 is both the most viable and interesting one. Here Outing presents the idea of a news site comprised of reports by professional journalists directly alongside submissions from everyday citizens.

»It's this vision of citizen journalism complementing and adding to professional journalism that is so compelling -- at least in theory. Few news organizations have the staff manpower to cover everything that their readers are interested in, but by tapping the volunteer (or cheap) resources of the citizenry, a news organization can potentially provide coverage down to the Little League team and church-group level, as well as offer better and more diverse coverage of larger issues by bringing in more voices and perspectives,« Steve Outing writes.

Unfortunately no news organization has yet had the guts to test this approach. One of the reasons probably being that professional journalists find it difficult accepting reporting from ordinary citizens alongside pro writing.

Nevertheless, I think this combination of pro and citizen-writing is where web journalism will be heading in the future.

Technorati tag: Media |Journalism