Joined Up Blogs

Later today there should be a guide to other blogs that I work on or at least a diagram as part of my learn9 website. This is about learning so one current idea is to make the blogs at least appear more coherent. I have tended to just start another one and then not continue.

Link to comment from Jeff Jarvis, (book is dead)

The book is dead, long live the book

Jeff seems to be moving on from journalism to writing of all kinds, from the same web experienced perspective.

"I write every day right here and get to learn more than I can learn writing a book. But blogs are, I can tell you, even lower on the scale of academic respect than TV shows and graffiti. (So maybe this is what I should write about in that book.)"

You know what? He may have a point.

Meanwhile in London the Bookseller reports that publishers are pleased to have escaped from east London and be back in Earl's Court. So that is alright then.

Copy of another comment for Jeff Jarvis

Today I posted this in the Jeff Jarvis section of Comment is Free.

Jeff also blogs at Buzzmachine but the Guardian site seems the best place for this topic

-----------------


Jeff, do you have any idea why the word 'citizen' seems to mean different things in the UK and US. This came to mind when Emily Bell stated recently that she thinks the term 'citizen journalism' is horrible and would like to find another word or words. My impression is that print journalists just don't like citizen journalism, in particular the idea that citizens have a 'voice'. The recent proposal for awards in the UK seems to be limited to 'witness contributions' where all editorial decision is safely with the professionals.

Linda Colley writes today about the idea of citizenship as something us British subjects could benefit from.

I notice she is working in the USA. Would a UK based Guardain writer make the samne point?

By the way I recently wrote another story for OhmyNews about the London Book Fair. As far as I can make it out the Guardian bookish reporting is a bit behind the curve on this one. On Saturday last they repeated a report from the Bookseller possibly written on a Thursday that there would be two bookfairs in London next year. On Friday in a sensational development of backtracking and doubledealing, Earl's Court cancelled the Frankfurt deal and the Brits cancelled ExCeL. This may become news for the Guardian this coming Saturday.

So online is a source for news, even for the world of books where occasionally something happens.

copy of comment on comment is free

Copy of post as a comment on Emily Bell's comment on "Comment is Free"

I have copied it here as the layout on the Guardian site looks horrible and the link to OhmyNews is not working. In many ways the 'Talk' site is still much better. The people who start a topic tend to stay with it. The comment site is still pretty much a dump from a print format. There is very little care taken in the design about how the public contributions are displayed.

=================================


Emily,

good to see you do read the comments and reply. I have wondered if some people understand what a blog is. I don't think there is anything like a 'closed topic'. This seems as good a place as any to continue a conversation about 'We Media'. The striking thing about your views on citizen journalism is that you don't like the word. "horrible term - anyone who has a better suggestion wins a prize" Who is this 'we' then. Most of what turns up on a Monday on the Media pages seems to be written for journalists assuming they are mostly not working online. At least by saying that citizen journalism is a horrible term you are implying that something like citizen journalism actually exists. Earlier this year the Guardian has stated as a new year prediction that citizen journalism is a hype bubble about to burst and that it is like the beast of Bodmin Moor, much talked about but rarely sighted.

Is it the word 'citizen' that is a problem? In the UK we are British subjects of course. If we do get asked to vote we turn to Polly Toynbee to advise us what to do. Sorry I am going off topic. In my opinion the word 'citizen journalism' is best thought of as a Korean word. OK it is in English but it is a translation used by OhmyNews. 'Ubiquitous' is another word that has been revived in Korea and is now spreading.

I do send in reports for the international version of OhmyNews published in English. People like me are called 'citizen reporters'. The editors / fact checkers are professionals. My take is that the 'citizen journalism' is the collective process. The point is that the citizen reporter has a 'voice'. Some editorial judgement is allowed in how the original story is written. As it happens my concerns overlap fairly well with most of what appears on the OhmyNews site. This sort of approach has some limits but presumably there could be other sites with different values. Maybe that is where the word 'citizen' comes in with ideas from France and the USA.

There is less voice in 'witness contributions' which may be why the recently announced award show seems to have taken a narrow and mistaken view of what it is claiming to judge. Yes, I really do think that the UK professional journalists are taking a divided approach, to misrepresent citizen journalism in reporting it and to adapt the techniques into their own operations.

I don't think that citizen reporters have to be amateur or uninformed. They can write as and when something is worth reporting. South Korea has had broadband for a while now so I find the context is helpful in writing about the social consequences of technology. I also write in blogs and for websites but these are not picked up by Google News.

OhmyNews recently published my report about the London Bookfair. As far as I know the Guardian has not updated a report on this story since the Bookseller section in the back of the Saturday Review last week. As this was based on the Bookseller copy from Thursday it misses out the key events from Friday. These are sensational developments in the normally calm world of books. Words like 'backtracking' and 'doubledealing' could be used. DJTaylor is puzzled (today page 30) why some people get their info online rather than just from print. Maybe there will be more in the Guardian before Saturday on the story around bookfairs. And somewhere something a bit more positive about citizen journalism might turn up as well.

Offensive? Unsuitable? Email Emily Bell

New lens at Squidoo on Citizen Journalism

I have started a lens on "citizen journalism" at Squidoo. I think this blog is where I will follow this up day to day. The Guardian is aware of "citizen journalism" but I think they dont like it or else are trying to work out how to use bits for themselves while not reporting what else is going on. They started the year saying it was a craze that would soon end.

Now there is an award proposed for this area but it seems to be restricted to sending in a photo or video. More on this later.

By the way, the Review today has the normal Bookseller report but I think it is copied out from the magazine a few days previously so actual news can be out of date. The London Book Fair has moved back west from ExCeL just to louse up competition from Frankfurt. Apparently the publishers did not like being so far from their favourite eating places. The Guardain had the Frankfurt move but not the Earls Court switch. This was on the web yesterday and may be in the Guardian next week. Things move slowly in print, it seems.

I don't seem to have updated this for a while now. I have posted a lot on Guardain Talk though, and now 'Comment is Free'. The new problems are that some comment writers don't seem to understand what a blog is. Also The Guardian is sometimes less than polite about citizen journalism in general. Could be two parts of a response that don't actually hang together too well.

This next week is IPEX in the UK, a print show. The Guardain spent quite a lot on MAN Roland kit last year but my guess is there will not be an actual newspaper machine on show as the list of possible buyers is not that long.

I will put more about the Guardian in the IPEX blog. They are beginning to write about newspapers, not just music and TV in a digital context.

I have been invited to a forum for Citizen Reporters organised by OhmyNews in Seoul.

This blog may be updated over the next few days but more likely will be a short report at Guardian talk

http://mediatalk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?50@ohmynews@.7747ecc2

My hope is that the Guardian reports this event and makes some connections.

Acrobat 7 exists

I now look at the Guardian differently. I think Acrobat 7 will have a wide influence on how people think about information, print and the web. So far the print version of the Guardian has a long way to go to reflect this. I spend more time on the website and find the hard copy is of interest as such rather than a source of content. I contribute to the Talk pages and benefit from feedback. I did write a letter once but it was not published. An article about rural web access referred to 'villages' such as Appleby. Surely some mistake. Appleby was once a county town.

Education Guardian still seems to assume that there is nothing worth reporting from universities in continental Europe. This is not plausible. My impression is that there is genuine work on quality and elearning. This will be reflected in results and reputation.

see talk and ipex 2002

I have been putting more stuff on the Talk pages of the Guardian web site, media - press and publishing. Topics on PDF Guardian still and also Printweek. There have been recent articles on the printing industry and also Emily Bell on 'denial' - her word - as an explanation for media attitudes to the web.

Last week Guy Kewney made a definite statement on a future for e-books. Things will move on from just PDF versions of print design. I can't see why the Guardian is waiting to write about the 'digital editions'. It makes their media coverage seem a bit strange.

Meanwhile a free DVD of Cinema Paradiso is no bad thing.

Victor Keegan writes about media

In the Guardian today Victor Keegan points out that Samsungs new mobile phone has a 1.3 magapixel camera, as available in South Korea. He suggests that phones will influence everything, even newspapers. China Women Daily now has a mobile version.

The only problem with this article is that it appears on a Thursday, tucked in the inside back page. Will such stuff ever appear on a Monday somewhere near the front where UK media syudents might find it?

text continues at Ohmynews International

I have written a longer piece for Ohmynews and this has been accepted.

Last week Jack Schofield wrote about Ohmynews in the Online section. The combination of editorial staff and 'citizen reporters' has worked in Korea where broadband is widespread. The international message board is a start on extending the idea.

The idea of a 'joined-up Guardian' is intended to link the content in Online with the coverage of newspapers in media. So far there is not much in print about the PDF option and the digital edition. My guess is that there is more happening with web media than is reported at the moment. The ABC figures for web subscriptions may change this.

Direct linking is difficult as the reference seems to change with each quibble, a term for comments. Try the main site, then the talkboard

http://english.ohmynews.com

Correction to previous post

I failed to read the listing of 100 media people carefully enough.

http://mediatalk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?50@bbcweb@.774726fc/1

The Guardian Talk helped me realise this when I raised a similar point.

Lurkbot pointed out that Ashley Highfield is at no 33. There is quite a lot of information also on how the BBC is approaching the web.

I still think there might be more web activity covered as part of the media.

Back pages missing for 100 media stars

Today's MediaGuardian has nothing at all at the back where there ought to be stuff on 'new media'.

Instead there is a listing of 100 inluential people in media, from Rupert Murdoch to Terry Wogan.

There is almost nothing about the web. Emily Bell is one of the panel so it is not surprising she is not included. I would think the Guardian web site is one of the main UK sites that register on global charts. The outstanding one is the BBC, the only global media brand based in the UK. I might have missed it but I can't find any mention of anyone working on this within the Guardian pages. They often find space for some independent writer arguing that a commercial website would find life easier if the BBC stopped doing anything much. I'm not sure they realise how world wide the web is. The BBC is the main chance for the UK to appear on a global search result.

I wonder who the people are who edit the BBC web sites? They don't get much attention.

Web scare stories start a silly summer

The Guardian seems to have gone back in time to write up the web as full of danger.

Front page about how easy it is to get fake degrees. Roy Greenslade on how the Telegraph includes links to gambling web sites. This is the kind of stuff that appeared about the web when it first reached print journalists around the late '90s.

Maybe later there will be an article about how the web impacts on the world of journals and libraries. Is the credibility of universities much the same as ever, even with genuine certificates? How sensible is the Telegraph web policy in general? These kind of issues tend not to be covered. Plenty on music downloads though.

Couple of messages

I have put a comment in about the UK e-university. The Guardian wrote it up as a problem but I don't think they looked at why UK academics have not gone further with this. My opinion is that there could have been more attention some time ago.

See 'part time job in ICT'

and

UK universities world-class?


Meanwhile there is some comment in a topic on 'fear and web culture'. This started with why digital / web animation is marginal for festivals. There is an Australian view on visual culture. There also seems to be quite a lot of Australian interest in e-learning. Not sure why the UK could not be similar.

Links follow

There is more interest in the education part in quality. The Business section are not into talk it seems. Having said that, most of the education people don't really like the idea of a quality system. Also IT is not seen as central. So much to rave on about here.

The Guardian print edition has very little about the PDF version available on subscription. My posts to talk contain more reporting than has appeared in print. So I will continue this but try to write online on sites for Acrobat Services as well. As journalism the story unfolds very slowly. Blog style is to write about what you don't know and hope some better information turns up.

I have some very old copies of the Guardian so some of this blog will be retro.

The Saturday Review is the only bit that is well printed. It has a total book culture bias. The web just sneaks in there. Meanwhile 'little things we like' has almost no space for graphics.