Posts tagged The Guardian

I’ve never stopped loving Andy. He’s my son. He made a terrible mistake, which he will be paying for for the rest of his life, but that doesn’t make me stop loving him.

People often ask - why did you want to be a journalist? My answer has frequently been, “because I want to tell people’s stories. The stories of people who are rarely heard.” 

I think one excellent example of how journalism can tell open us to such worlds is  this Guardian feature about the parents of murderers. I found it a powerful, intense and personal read, and one that I would highly recommended to anyone …

My child, the murderer
What is it like to have a child who is a killer? Three parents tell their stories
Interviews by Christopher Goodwin and Simon Hattenstone
Read the full article here

Nobody will pick them from the doormat wondering how the world has changed from the day before. They will be badges, evidence of their readers’ cultural or political tastes, with an artisanal-cheese kind of price that turns them from a habit into a hobby.

This quote, by veteran British newspaper man Ian Jack, is, of course, about newspapers. Much has been written about the possible demise of the print medium, which has been the source of some of the best journalism in the history of the news industry.

Jack’s op-ed in The Guardian is worth a read. It’s well-written and honest, and reflects on some of the strengths of newspapers - which will be lost if and when they die. 

He brings up some good points, for example about distribution:

“If one big publisher, say News International, withdrew from the pooled distribution arrangements then the increased cost for the rest could be fatal.”

And also about the possible demise of serious, especially investigative, journalism:

“Serious reporting could be the most serious casualty, because it’s expensive and present estimates of digital income won’t cover the costs of foreign correspondents and a well-staffed newsroom; philanthropic owners or a drastic reconfiguring of editorial budgets will certainly be required.”

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

20 plays

Journalism - does it have a future?

I have to say I really liked this year’s Andrew Olle Lecture by The Guardian’s editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger. 

It was titled “The splintering of the fourth estate” and if you don’t feel like listening to it (above), you can read it in full here.

So what was it about? Rusbridger himself summed it up on Twitter as “Before you decide whether, as a news organisation, to beat or join social media, first make sure you understand it.”

He made this observation, which I have to say is true of many in the industry: 

But first we have to understand what we’re up against. It is constantly surprising to me how people in positions of influence in the media find it difficult to look outside the frame of their own medium and look at what this animal called social, or open, media does. How it currently behaves, what it is capable of doing in the future.

So how does one understand social media?

Firstly, I think, journalists have to go beyond being fearful of it, slamming it as the irrelevant playground of the unwashed masses, and reacting to it rather than being proactive and having a bit of fun with it.

As Rusbridger said:

But a failure to experiment is more dangerous than trying new things.

I do think there’re lots of problems with today’s media - and that will be the subject of another blog post when I finish reading Nick Davies’ excellent book Flat Earth News - and of course, The Guardian, unlike other newspapers that have to answer to shareholders, can experiment more as it owned by the Scott Trust.

But there’s no harm being optimistic about the future of the news media industry and trying to figure out how to make it financially viable while remaining true to its ideals.

Note: True to the spirit of the lecture, The Guardian has posted the text on its “Comment is free” online opinion section, where it has attracted more than 100 comments. A fair few of them are critical but well-written and worth a read too.

Life as a foreign correspondent

kigaliwireroughbook:

Former Guardian Foreign Editor Harriet Sherwood writes about her new life as a foreign correspondent three months into the job. Previously, she wrote about her thoughts before heading overseas,

a correspondent’s role is surely to go beyond that, to dig out the stories that aren’t immediate “news”, to provide context and analysis, to allow those whose voices are routinely drowned out by the big “players” to be heard…

Providing fast, accurate and regularly updated reports on a breaking news story is an important part of the job. But there are occasions when it feels as if I spend too much time chained to my laptop and phone, and not enough out there pursuing original and distinctive reporting. Finding the right balance is not easy – and it can’t be judged on a daily basis but only over a period of time..

So, four months in, here are some of the things I have learned. The job is exhilarating, challenging, terrifying – and sometimes lonely and very occasionally boring. It’s easy to become anxious, bordering on paranoid, about whether you are producing the “right” material and whether anyone is reading it. You quickly realise your limits of knowledge and understanding about a very complex situation, and you feel you will never “catch up” with more experienced colleagues. Some things are easier than anticipated; some – unexpected – things are more difficult. The job is with you 24 hours a day; switching off requires determined effort (and more anxiety in case you miss something). I miss my family, friends and foreign desk team much more than I expected. And it’s harder to make new friends as you get older. READ MORE

kigaliwireroughbook

'Towards a mutualised news organisation'

This looks very promising. Hopefully it’ll be replicated for other topics and at other news websites.

carlosmonteiro:

The Guardian gives external bloggers the power to publish with a 50/50 ad revenue split. It sells ads against the bloggers’ pages; the bloggers, in turn, get half the revenue from the exchange.

and an interesting observation:

You would not know it from general media coverage but, on the web, science is alive with remarkable debate. According to the Pew Research Centre, science accounts for 10% of all stories on blogs but only 1% of the stories in mainstream media coverage.

carlosmonteiro

Pakistan floods: 20 million affected and counting

This is just a wee post on some of the information about the Pakistan floods I’ve come across online.

What’s happening now?
The news is that the Pakistani government says 20 million people have been affected by the floods, higher than the UN estimates of 14 million. For a quick analysis on the Pakistan government and military response, this is a short piece in The Guardian by Owen Bennett Jones of the BBC.

Latest news
Besides the main online news outlets like the BBC, I also follow some excellent Twitter users from Pakistan. I’ve compiled a basic Twitter list, but I’m sure if you have a look at their followers, you’ll find a few more good ones. My favourite so far is @pakistanpolicy. The BBC’s Lyse Doucet, who I believe is also in Pakistan, has been tweeting frequently on what’s she has been seeing and hearing during her reporting there.

Where and what
Here’s a map from AlertNet, a humanitarian website run by the Thomas Reuters Foundation, on where the floods are, and what the donation shortfall is. Here, they give a good summary on which aid agencies are working where. 

Scenes of devastation
I’ve come across some good galleries: this one, compiled by the Boston Globe, has some of the best wire photos from the flooded areas. This has been put together by The Guardian, and this is from Reuters.

What you can do to help
There are many aid agencies working in Pakistan, as the AlertNet list above sounds, but here are a handful of the Australian branches of aid agencies you can donate to, including the UNHCR, Oxfam, Médecins Sans Frontières, and Save the Children. SBS has also put together a good list online.

To end, just a thought:
The Pakistan floods are worse that the Boxing Day tsunami, the UN says, but yet the amount of aid raised is far lower. Why? 

17/8 update:
The BBC website now has a Special Report page. The Guardian have also tapped into their excellent database journalism skills to put together a page on aid donations etc. 

20/8 update:
A good site from BBC Dimensions showing the size of the floods. Type in your area code and see how big they are. 

Great to see The Guardian placing a long-form video in its front-page image slot.

It’s not often that you get to see an in-depth piece on the front-page of news websites, as many are more focused on quick-turnover, here-today-gone-tomorrow stories.

frontpages: Jeremy Paxman shunned by Gordon Brown and David Cameron David Cameron: public sector chiefs will be forced to take pay cut I came across this on one of Tumblr’s recommended-blogs sidebars. It’s a quick way to get a sense of the top news stories of the day across a few major papers (it’s quite US-centric unfortunately, would have been great if it linked to Le Monde, Le Figaro, Asahi Shimbun etc too). One of the things about online news is that sometimes sites turn over so often that it’s hard to know what was the main news stories of the day. I still do think, in my experience in editing the frontpage of a major news website, that the most important news stories of the day still have to be up in the, to use a newspaper term, top fold of the website. For some sites, looking at the “most read” stories list is one good day to get an idea of what are/were some of the big news of the day, though celebrity and crime (and for websites like The Guardian, sport) stories are much more likely to feature near the top, reflecting tabloid rather than broadsheet tastes. A couple of sites also have “what’s in today’s paper” links, where you have links to all the main stories in the paper for that day. But if you’re still a fan of newspapers, are interested in design and love the way in with the subs lay out the page, write witty headlines, choose just the right photo for a story, then blogs like this or this Newseum site is made for you.

frontpages:

  1. Jeremy Paxman shunned by Gordon Brown and David Cameron
  2. David Cameron: public sector chiefs will be forced to take pay cut

I came across this on one of Tumblr’s recommended-blogs sidebars. It’s a quick way to get a sense of the top news stories of the day across a few major papers (it’s quite US-centric unfortunately, would have been great if it linked to Le Monde, Le Figaro, Asahi Shimbun etc too).

One of the things about online news is that sometimes sites turn over so often that it’s hard to know what was the main news stories of the day. I still do think, in my experience in editing the frontpage of a major news website, that the most important news stories of the day still have to be up in the, to use a newspaper term, top fold of the website.

For some sites, looking at the “most read” stories list is one good day to get an idea of what are/were some of the big news of the day, though celebrity and crime (and for websites like The Guardian, sport) stories are much more likely to feature near the top, reflecting tabloid rather than broadsheet tastes.

A couple of sites also have “what’s in today’s paper” links, where you have links to all the main stories in the paper for that day. But if you’re still a fan of newspapers, are interested in design and love the way in with the subs lay out the page, write witty headlines, choose just the right photo for a story, then blogs like this or this Newseum site is made for you.

frontpages

Some online reading for today

Interview: Richard Sambrook

A global revolution
The director of BBC Global News on the challenge of transforming the archaic World Service and loss-making BBC World into a united news force.
Owen Gibson, The Guardian, Monday September 15 2008

I first saw an excerpt of The Guardian’s Sean Smith’s work in Iraq on BBC’s Newsnight. This clip is a really good look at the morale of US troops serving there. Some of the cynicism of the troops is surprising, though it shouldn’t be. It’s a good reminder that Iraq and Afghanistan still have a long way to go. (Click on the image to watch the film)

I first saw an excerpt of The Guardian’s Sean Smith’s work in Iraq on BBC’s Newsnight. This clip is a really good look at the morale of US troops serving there. Some of the cynicism of the troops is surprising, though it shouldn’t be. It’s a good reminder that Iraq and Afghanistan still have a long way to go.

(Click on the image to watch the film)