citizenxpress.com is a new ( at least to me) CJ undertaking in India. I plan to do a detailed head to head to comparison in the next few days with one of the first such efforts in India, merinews.
While I initially was excited at the prospect of Merinews, I was a little disappointed in its response to last summer's Mumbai train bombings, as I detailed in this post at the time. That post also details some bold experiments in user-geenerated content by mainstream Indian papers.
I had a chance to relay some of our experiences here with a journalism class in Bangalore last year, at the Indian Institute of Journalism & New Media. And though I dont teach much, invariably - whether in music or in the case of all these bright , committed young minds - invariably, I learn more from them, than they do from me:
A missing element when I was looking at CJ in India was that while even some of the smaller regional papers had comments on articles, I didnt see a lot of activity. I asked the students their opinion on this , and they all agreed: people were not getting their news from the web, or much social networking either, they told me: its all about texting on your mobile.
Armed with this bit of info, a news outlet's next step should be pretty self-evident.
Despite this, India's larger mainstream papers seemed to have developed a web relationship with the public voice well ahead of most of their American counterparts.
I'll check those latest efforts and look in detail at the two CJ initiatives soon. I'll also take a closer look at another interesting citzen journalism site in India called mouthshut, an enormous compendium of user-generated product reviews (you can upload your review as a video also).
In the meantime, an extremely belated hello and best wishes to the new media students at IIJNM. Hope all is well there, and I'll be in touch soon.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
E&P editorial stresses value of international news
Another one of my longtime soapboxes, and its interesting to see E&P support the idea that foreign events matter to your local readers:, in this excerpt from a Dec 1 2006 editorial:
Newspapers are transfixed by the notion that their many and varied problems will surely fade away if their printed and digital pages fill up with content that is "local, local, local" — always repeated three times, as if it were a Rosicrucian invocation.
There's a real logic behind this latest industry fad, of course. Newspapers beyond all doubt own the local news franchise, and no other medium can easily take it away. It is an invaluable strategic advantage.
But, as usual, newspapers desperate for The Answer to their woes are in danger of taking the local-news imperative too far. Reporting of international events is jettisoned to make room for Wednesday's lunch menu at Grover Cleveland Junior High. David Geffen, the entertainment billionaire who along with the supermarket billionaire Ron Burkle thinks it would be really cool to own the Los Angeles Times, intends, as the online media site The First Post put it, "to dump the international pretensions of the newspaper and focus on L.A. Basin affairs."
That's so totally an awesome plan.
Never mind that readers in L.A., and New York, and Nebraska live in a globalized world where Windows help calls are answered in Bangalore. Shiny-faced Ohioans with new engineering degrees find work in the Celtic Tiger economy of Ireland, the land their families left four generations ago. Mothers sob in Brooklyn when family news arrives from such once-exotic datelines as Mosul or Basra or Tikrit.
Once upon a time, newspapers of all sizes knew their duties included explaining the world at large to their readers. Even now, some of the most active participants in global press-freedom organizations publish family newspapers in Somerset, Pa., and Manhattan, Kan.
Certainly, not every newspaper needs to field a corps of correspondents abroad. But they should understand that "foreign" these days is local. Immigrants populate not just in the traditional neighborhoods of big cities, but the hog-butchering small towns of Iowa and the textile-spinning mills of Dixie. Global markets and fierce global competition are payday issues for local readers.
Newspapers are transfixed by the notion that their many and varied problems will surely fade away if their printed and digital pages fill up with content that is "local, local, local" — always repeated three times, as if it were a Rosicrucian invocation.
There's a real logic behind this latest industry fad, of course. Newspapers beyond all doubt own the local news franchise, and no other medium can easily take it away. It is an invaluable strategic advantage.
But, as usual, newspapers desperate for The Answer to their woes are in danger of taking the local-news imperative too far. Reporting of international events is jettisoned to make room for Wednesday's lunch menu at Grover Cleveland Junior High. David Geffen, the entertainment billionaire who along with the supermarket billionaire Ron Burkle thinks it would be really cool to own the Los Angeles Times, intends, as the online media site The First Post put it, "to dump the international pretensions of the newspaper and focus on L.A. Basin affairs."
That's so totally an awesome plan.
Never mind that readers in L.A., and New York, and Nebraska live in a globalized world where Windows help calls are answered in Bangalore. Shiny-faced Ohioans with new engineering degrees find work in the Celtic Tiger economy of Ireland, the land their families left four generations ago. Mothers sob in Brooklyn when family news arrives from such once-exotic datelines as Mosul or Basra or Tikrit.
Once upon a time, newspapers of all sizes knew their duties included explaining the world at large to their readers. Even now, some of the most active participants in global press-freedom organizations publish family newspapers in Somerset, Pa., and Manhattan, Kan.
Certainly, not every newspaper needs to field a corps of correspondents abroad. But they should understand that "foreign" these days is local. Immigrants populate not just in the traditional neighborhoods of big cities, but the hog-butchering small towns of Iowa and the textile-spinning mills of Dixie. Global markets and fierce global competition are payday issues for local readers.
while you weren't watching
This incident at Lake Wales, where the paper's online guest book got hit with porn links - and it took a week for this to get noticed - prompted me to post on the New Media list ( I'll edit most of it here, as I've already stated these views and the DWI example elsewhere in the blog):
Its similar in a way to the Wapo's flap last year with the ombudsman, they were a little slow to respond to the feedback they were getting.
Its similar in a way to the Wapo's flap last year with the ombudsman, they were a little slow to respond to the feedback they were getting.
As one of the first papers to really capitalize on user comments, the upside to monitoring comments is what opportunities it offers that you can build on.
Opening up forums and then abandoning them is hardly interactive in my view; readers can have that conversation without you. Close the gap between you and your readership, reconnect and engage with the community you serve. Expand your concept of authority, ownership, information, and source.
Steve Yelvington agreed (bolds are mine):
" the upside to monitoring comments is what opportunities it offers that you can build on."
This should be tattoed on the forearm of every print editor who is struggling to understand the Internet.
The tragedy is the missed opportunity to listen, to hear, to get leads, to discover. A newspaper that isn't listening has a much bigger problem than a couple of porn links.
Comment threads do not need to be "monitored." They need to be joined. Participative listening is an active process. If you're doing it right, you won't need to worry about managing spammers, because that will be handled as part of the course.
Steve Yelvington agreed (bolds are mine):
" the upside to monitoring comments is what opportunities it offers that you can build on."
This should be tattoed on the forearm of every print editor who is struggling to understand the Internet.
The tragedy is the missed opportunity to listen, to hear, to get leads, to discover. A newspaper that isn't listening has a much bigger problem than a couple of porn links.
Comment threads do not need to be "monitored." They need to be joined. Participative listening is an active process. If you're doing it right, you won't need to worry about managing spammers, because that will be handled as part of the course.
User media goes mainstream, part 2
and look at the NYTimes:
(from Editor and Publisher)
NEW YORK Beginning this week, the Web site of the New York Times will be inviting readers to submit videos for online publication in its "Weddings and Celebrations" section, accordign to Beet.tv.
This is the first time that the site has allowed users to upload video clips. Those clips accepted will be of engaged couples, and will go along with their wedding announcement and photographs; the paper will only post videos of couples whose announcements are accepted for the print edition.
For the past year, the paper has been publishing video segments of engaged couples on the page, but all were professionally produced by Times staffers.
NYTimes is far behind the curve in reader involvement, so this is a welcome development.
(from Editor and Publisher)
NEW YORK Beginning this week, the Web site of the New York Times will be inviting readers to submit videos for online publication in its "Weddings and Celebrations" section, accordign to Beet.tv.
This is the first time that the site has allowed users to upload video clips. Those clips accepted will be of engaged couples, and will go along with their wedding announcement and photographs; the paper will only post videos of couples whose announcements are accepted for the print edition.
For the past year, the paper has been publishing video segments of engaged couples on the page, but all were professionally produced by Times staffers.
NYTimes is far behind the curve in reader involvement, so this is a welcome development.
CJ goes mainstream
A belated new year (more or less), and some new happenings:
i can't really say new trends, but it sems that whta was new teo years ago is becoming more and more mainstream: When AP adopts Citiizen Journalism, its harldy out of the box anymore:
AP Joins Partner in New 'Citizen Journalist' Effort
Published: February 10, 2007 8:25 AM ET
NEW YORK The Associated Press and NowPublic.com said Friday they had agreed to a partnership to let AP to use photographs, video and news from "citizen journalists" in its newsgathering operation.
NowPublic.com, a Vancouver, Canada-based startup, posts citizens' images and news accounts on its Web site, along with links to mainstream news organizations.
The company is part of a growing citizen-journalism movement, comprised of blogs and news sites that rely on small armies of amateur reporters and eyewitnesses with cell phone cameras to deliver news online.
The AP said that in the first phase of the partnership, news and photo editors on its national news desks in New York will have the option of using selected content from NowPublic.com to supplement the work of AP journalists.
AP editors will work with NowPublic.com staff and contributors to ensure the content is real and accurate, said Jim Kennedy, AP's vice president and director of strategic planning.
"We're not just going to take content directly from the contributors and put it on the wire," he said. "We're going to edit and verify it just like we would any other contribution."
He added that while many details of the partnership are still being worked out, the AP may use certain NowPublic.com contributors to help gather news on "anything from a major storm to even some Iraq angle."
i can't really say new trends, but it sems that whta was new teo years ago is becoming more and more mainstream: When AP adopts Citiizen Journalism, its harldy out of the box anymore:
AP Joins Partner in New 'Citizen Journalist' Effort
Published: February 10, 2007 8:25 AM ET
NEW YORK The Associated Press and NowPublic.com said Friday they had agreed to a partnership to let AP to use photographs, video and news from "citizen journalists" in its newsgathering operation.
NowPublic.com, a Vancouver, Canada-based startup, posts citizens' images and news accounts on its Web site, along with links to mainstream news organizations.
The company is part of a growing citizen-journalism movement, comprised of blogs and news sites that rely on small armies of amateur reporters and eyewitnesses with cell phone cameras to deliver news online.
The AP said that in the first phase of the partnership, news and photo editors on its national news desks in New York will have the option of using selected content from NowPublic.com to supplement the work of AP journalists.
AP editors will work with NowPublic.com staff and contributors to ensure the content is real and accurate, said Jim Kennedy, AP's vice president and director of strategic planning.
"We're not just going to take content directly from the contributors and put it on the wire," he said. "We're going to edit and verify it just like we would any other contribution."
He added that while many details of the partnership are still being worked out, the AP may use certain NowPublic.com contributors to help gather news on "anything from a major storm to even some Iraq angle."
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