Entries in Journalism (36)
How "the biggest waste of time" can break a story.
Interesting report here from Reuters how Twitter was used to break a story hours before the mainstream media got hold of it.
Dave Winer, a well known blogger, asked his Twitter ecosystem (people who subscribe to his updates) if they knew something about a possible explosion in Falls Church, Virginia. Soon other people on Twitter told what they had seen or felt in and around that area.
It was 90 minutes later when official media reported what actually happened - thereby confirming what several people reported already through Twitter.
Of course it helped that Dave has such a huge following on Twitter (more than 9000 people) but this is again a case of social media being faster than traditional media.
I have used microblogging for conferences and regular updates myself and while at first I didn't really see a use for Twitter or Jaiku I now see more and more practical business cases popping up.
Here's a good overview on how journalists can and are using microblogging tools. For corporations I can think of applying the principles to internal communications, urgent situation updates, crisis communications and more.
What do you think ? Still the biggest waste of time ever...?
Philippe Borremans
in Crisis Communications, Journalism, Citizen Journalism, Online Tools
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European Mainstream Media Dashboard on RSS fuel...
Imooty is an RSS driven dashboard of news updates from almost all major European mainstream media websites.
The site calls itself the first navigator for European news and looks like directory of news feeds updated in almost real-time through numerous RSS feeds.
Some features include search by keyword, by newspaper, quick tabbed results by topic (business, politics, society etc...), RSS feeds by topic etc... There's even a translation tool via the online Babelfish translation service.
Once you have decided what kind of news you want you can add it to your own personalized Imooty page together with your search results.
OJR has published a good interview with the founders on their website.
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Philippe Borremans
in Journalism, Citizen Journalism
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World Press Freedom Day - sad record...
Talk is cheap, free speech isn't... more than ever.
It is definitely not cheap; more than 100 members of the media were killed in 2006, a sad record.
Today is the World Press Freedom Day, let's take a moment and think about these man & women who do their job, defend free speech and take enormous risks in doing so.
If you're looking for a blogging platform, consider using the service from Reporters Without Borders, your small fee will help them carry on their important work. Or, alternatively, consider becoming a member or make a donation.
Philippe Borremans
in Journalism, Citizen Journalism
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Why we are the media
The first part of this excellent presentation by Alain Thys from Futurelab explains why "we are the media", the second one focuses on word of mouth marketing.
Via the ever up to date I-Wisdom blog.
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Philippe Borremans
in Journalism, Citizen Journalism, Events/Conferences, Corporate New Media
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Newspaper debates French elections in Second Life
Le Dauphiné Liberé, the so called "first" French newspaper with a presence in Second Life, has organised a debate about the French elections in the virtual world.
6 virtual politicians responded to questions from 2 reporters from the journal and about 40 people were invited to assist to the Q&A session. According to the Internet manager of the Dauphiné, Mr. Raphaël, "this is a project to see how far we can stretch the frontiers of our profession".
It must have worked because Le Dauphiné is setting up a second debate and will most probably continue. The transcripts of the debates can be read on their "elections" website here (in French).
On March 26, seven of the eleven presidential candidates in France had their political headquarters in Second Life, showing that they take 3D internet seriously and are actively using it to promote their campaign.
In Belgium, with the election taking place in June, only one politician has opened a presence in Second Life.
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Philippe Borremans
in Journalism
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Article: Don't talk back to me !
Joel Stein, a columnist of the LA Times wrote a great rant about not wanting to enter in a conversation with his readers.
Or has he writes: "I don't want to talk to you; I want to talk at you."
Totally un-social media like behavior, wittingly written and shocking for those who believe markets are conversations.
Check out the reactions as well.
Philippe Borremans
in Media Relations, Interesting Blog Posts, Journalism
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How fiction becomes international news
This morning the Belgian media were talking about only one thing: the "fake news" which was aired yesterday evening on the RTBF announcing that Flanders had split up from Belgium.
Now to my US/UK based readers this might not mean a lot but when you know that Belgium is a federal country, with huge political issues between the 3 biggest regions; Brussels, Flanders and Wallonia then you might start to imagine what a shock it was for most of us Belgians to see a special bulletin on national TV announcing the split up of the country.
The thing is, it was all fake and fiction. The coverage of this "news" was part of a series on the history of Belgium and the RTBF (our public, French language TV station) decided that it would be "Orwellian" to only announce that "this is fiction" 30 minutes into the show.
According to people who saw it, it was very well done with live interventions from reporters, interviews with politicians and even rumors of His Majesty the King fleeing the country.
Apart from the "hot topic" this covered I wonder what the RTBF was thinking when they decided to hold back on transparency for 30 minutes ? And what to think of the fact that this "show" was taken seriously by the BBC (covered on their website at the time) & by foreign Ambassadors ? Do reporters not check sources ? Do Ambassadors not get intel from their secret services anymore ?
Here's more coverage on the fake news from yesterday evening. Too bad I missed the show. I do hope they rerun it.
Philippe Borremans
The BUB, the only unionist party in Belgium, will organise a demonstration this Sunday as a reaction to the fake RTBF report about the split up of the country. This "support to Belgium" march will start around 11H00 at the Royal Palace in Brussels.
Transparency notice: I am not a member of this party although I support their ideas.
Philippe Borremans
in Journalism
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Video New Releases... fake news ?
Video News Releases (VNR); video clips created by companies and organisation and then distributed to the media, are being labelled as "fake news" by the Center for Media & Democracy in the US.
They published a report back in April 2006 which I just read. Very interesting to see how the use of these VNRs happens without any form of transparency. Here's a recent update published yesterday.
"Over a ten-month period, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) documented television newsrooms' use of 36 video news releases (VNRs)-a small sample of the thousands produced each year.
CMD identified 77 television stations, from those in the largest to the smallest markets, that aired these VNRs or related satellite media tours (SMTs) in 98 separate instances, without disclosure to viewers."
New media thrive on transparency, but is this always the case ? Are there VNR type videos on YouTube ? Do they disclose who made them and if they are promo material or real news ?
I just did a very quick scan for YouTube clips about mobile phones and found these about Siemens phones. The person who makes these only seems to cover phones from this specific brand. Maybe someone in PR or marketing you might think...
But even then, new media are all about 2 way communications and so is YouTube - look at the comments below the demo clips of certain models... People give their feedback and it is not always positive.
Maybe we should do the same with "un-transparent" VNRs ? But then, if you do not look closely enough, you would think they are part of the real news... A European research on this would be good.
Philippe Borremans
in Media Relations, Journalism, Citizen Journalism, PR Agencies, Corporate New Media
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80 years of "spoken newspaper" in Belgium and 50 years of TV news.
In these times of tabloids covering virtual worlds like Second Life and Google entering the radio industry it is good to stop and celebrate 2 important historical events in the Belgian media landscape:
80 years ago, on the 1st of November in 1926, Belgium had it's first news item on the radio. Funny to see that we still call it "journal parlé" in French which means "spoken newspaper".
The first radio news program was something described as "all the news of the world and of the day in 30 minutes". This was a European first and the guys from the BBC even came over to see how we Belgians did it...
I also read that the newspaper industry was not happy at all at the time that "their" news was going to be read on the radio...
50 years ago, November 4, 1956 we had our first news on television. Black & white of course...
Look at where we are now in these times of podcasting, videocasting and so called citizen journalism... Times have changed but on the other hand, we still read newspapers and watch the news on TV.
The biggest change for me is the "personalization of news". I decide what I see/read when and where I want to.
And this change should be considered as an enormous opportunity for traditional media, not as a threat.
Philippe Borremans
in Journalism
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Google versus Mainstream Media in Belgium
Google & the Belgian media are in a legal fight with regards to copyright.
On September 18 a Belgian court ruled that Google is not respecting the copyright of French and German language newspapers in Belgium. The court ruled that Google News is not a search engine but a news portal and as such needs to respect the local copyright rules that apply to mainstream media. You can read the official court document here.
The court was not lenient and ordered Google
"to withdraw the articles, photographs and graphic representations of Belgian publishers of the French - and German-speaking daily press, [...] from all their sites, Google News and "cache" Google or any other name within 10 days of the notification of the intervening order, under penalty of a daily fine of 1,000,000.- € per day of delay".
Today Google reacted quite drastically and simply "deleted" all search results that could lead to the sites of the newspapers in question.
Copyright of traditional newspapers is a very serious topic here in Belgium....
For instance, with regards to media monitoring; a company can hire an agency which will then scan the Belgian press and send the client a PDF document with the article. But the limitation of distribution of this PDF copy is very strict. You couldn't put it in a central database for instance and if you wanted to publish the article on your intranet then you would need to pay a good amount of money, depending on how many people could potentially read the article.
It definitely doesn't help that different publishers across the country (and language communities) have also a different approach to what they consider copyright. Next to that, this ruling and the reaction of Google has an impact on my media monitoring efforts through Google News RSS feed results...
I wonder what these newspapers think about the syndication of their content on other websites through full text RSS feeds ? Would that be considered as infringing their copyright ?
Philippe Borremans
in Journalism
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