Posts filed under 'Websites'
Barak Obama claims that he is raising a $1m a day, mostly online and mostly in the form of relatively small donations from private individuals. This sort of political “micro-philanthropy” is a thoroughly modern affair (see Peter Deitz’ amazing slideshow on the phenomenon–one interesting point: in Apr ‘07 distributed fundraising sites more than $3m; see also ChipIn for a widget version). Or, at least, that is what I had always thought. Then this morning, I heard a piece on the Statue of Liberty on Radio 4 that revealed the true father of “micro-philanthropy” - Joseph Pulitzer.
In post Civil War America (postbellum?), newspapers were a genuinely powerful force. The invention of more efficient and cheaper printing presses and an increasingly urban demographic allowed newspapers to become a populist medium for the first time. As a result, papers had enormous influence on the issues of the day. One of the world’s great campaigning newspapers, Joseph Pulitzer’s The World (see page on left) is from this era and is at least partially responsible for bringing the France’s greatest gift (besides all that help with the pesky red coats), the Statue of Liberty, to New York. (There is also one in Tokyo - see photo above courtesy of Stefan on flickr and also one in Paris)
France generously offered the huge, 151 ft statue as a gift, leaving the United States to pay only for the plinth on which it would stand. Alas, most of the fat cats in the country thought of the statue as a New York momument that had nothing to do with the rest of the country and refused to stump for the plinth. But, then Pulitzer got on the case, haranguing both the rich for not caring about their country and poor for expecting the rich to do all the work. The result? Money literally poured in, a great deal of it from school children sending in pennys to see their name in print and to give to what was suddenly seen as a worthy cause. Today, of course, this sort of social movement would start and end on Facebook of Bebo.
This is a crucial lesson for today’s far less powerful newspapers. They need to go retro and engage, even uncover, issues people really care about. They need to become rallying points again.
February 14th, 2008
While the rest of us were enjoying the weirdly summer-ish sun this weekend, The Guardian web people were inside, no doubt monitor-tanning while perfecting the latest phase of their (slowly but surely) redesign of guardian.co.uk. Not any huge changes (if you don’t count the marketing decision to drop Guardian Unlimited in favor of the more sanguine and comprehensible guardian.co.uk–a good choice I say), mostly just extending the redesign introduced last year to new sections. Some areas are more successful than others (I am not sure about the new colorful section menu, its much harder to read) but it generally still looks good. I love the simplicity of it - it isn’t plagued with any of the clutter that web designers are often tempted by (see The Times).
Of course, any “clean” look is largely influenced by the number of ads on the page and, in The Guardian’s case that number is 0. This adlessness might simply be a product of the new look going through (though I don’t recall the site having many ads on a normal day) but even so, its a strange piece of strategy. The site is getting something on the order of 17 million users a month, not to monetize them just seems crazy. As a designer, though, its a dream come true. Ads are something you can’t control and, on a webpage, they are inevitably more colorful, dynamic and motionful than the necessarily staid news-design they sit next to.
Its an exciting time for newspaper websites (especially now they have recovered from their festive slump) what with The Indepedent relaunch and now rumors surrounding a new look The Telegraph site, allegedly based on the New York Post (!)…say it ain’t so Shane, say it ain’t so.
Also, a special word for guardian.co.uk editor-in-chief Emily Bell who admirably (and honestly) answered all comers to her blogpost on the changes. Very impressive.
February 11th, 2008
For the past two mornings in my rather cold but lovingly quaint flat (its those windows there above the dairy - shannylea at flickr) I have been struck with premonitions, small, dusty thoughts that emerge from nowhere. I am not ashamed to admit that they are the most important thoughts the world has ever seen. Today, for instance, I was struck with this doozie: WordPress is going to take over the world (yesterday’s portent, by the way, was far less important - John McCain is the next president of the United States. I am hoping it is more unconscious prediction/fear than unconscious desire).
My ghost thoughts are very demanding and declarative, aren’t they? But rightly so, I suppose, I do think, even now in the bright light of day, that WordPress, a blogging platform created by Automattic (who just got some investment from the New York Times), might actually be a world conquerer. What has swung me from dispassionate user (this blog is on WordPress) to faithful follower is the revelation that the platform is powerful and extensible enough to allow people like you and me (or even my little nephew) to create viable, modern and beautiful newspaper or magazine websites. From scratch. For free. And this isn’t just pie in the sky, its already being used by the Express and Star in Wolverhampton.
I admit that I am a tad late to this but I promise to make up for my tardiness with some good old-fasionhed zealotry. And I have a feeling both of the readers of this blog will have my back. Just look at the various themes that I discovered today. With a tweak here and there these could be just as good as The Guardian, The New York Times or the Telegraph. Amazing. And game changing. I just hope my little premonitions are always so right on.
February 5th, 2008
(Link to today’s important FoxNews exclusive on the Super Bowl here)
Jack Shafer writes today about the burgeoning tabloid tendencies of American websites in a piece on Slate aptly entitled “Fishermen Beat Rare Dolphin to Death“. American’s are particularly responsive (and, it has to be said, its media critics particularly sensitive) to the ways of the tabloid press but it’s not our fault - I promise - we just haven’t had much time to build up an immunity to the charms of humorous sensationalism. In fact, tabloids and their huge black punny headlines are alien to most of the country. Hardly anyone outside of New York reads or cares about the Murdoch’s NY Post - not that you would ever know that living in London. The British media tends to see their own tabloid-tainted reflection in American media and thus over-report and over-emphasize the influence of tabloid media in the States (the Post’s pithy headlines inevitably get disproportionate amounts of coverage on this side of the Atlantic…see here and here).
But, as Shafer notes, American websites have begun to bravely spread the tab-gospel to the rest of the country. And its no surprise, especially on the web where sites can easily fill many niches at once. CNN can be the desitination of choice for both 45 year old professional policy-junkies and 14 year old casual surfers. Unlike newspapers who have a limited number of pages or TV stations who only have so many minutes a day, websites have virtually infinite storage space and so can offer headlines like Watch that hot drink! Airline offers naked flights or Dog Disfigures Boy; Mom Blames Son, Vows To Keep It beside the latest news on the US elections or the violence in Kenya. It also interesting, as an aside, to look at Jonathan Puckey’s amazing website The Quick Brown which tracks headline changes on the FoxNews website. Its incredibly edifying to follow the life of a story as it progresses from a lowly wire pickup with a long, explanatory headline (Major Names in MLB Steriods Report) to a front page phenomenon with a three word shocker (BOYS OF BUMMER). All in real time!
January 31st, 2008
I had to fight my way in with 10 emails spread across the leadership of the NUJ but I did finally luck into a seat (and thank god, there was a twenty person strong rock-concert-like line outside the venue–poor souls) at Saturday’s conference on New Threats to Media Freedom sponsored by and hosted by the National Union of Journalists on Gray’s Inn Road. Let me just say thanks to the NUJ for putting it on, it was a great morning/afternoon, even if it was mighty early for a Saturday. (It was also a chance for me to put my new digital SLR to the test, see photo above and full gallery below for the results…pretty nice camera if I do say so myself).
The highlight was, unsurprisingly, Alan Johnston’s words on his detainment and censorship on war reporting in general. Its hard to pin down but he just sounds so genuine that he is instantly likeable. He betrays no trace of bitterness about his ordeal, and you get no sense of exploitation or that he is ‘cashing in’ on his newfound celebrity. More importantly, he is just plain charming: after the panel, an audience member asked Johnston if he had prayed during his kidnapping, here is how he responded to a question that felt for me too intrusive and not in the spirit of the morning:
I wasn’t praying at the time so I didn’t feel right starting because of the situation. I’m sure God would have understood but….
Its not an answer anyone expected but it was much appreciated, and genuinely funny.
Other Issues Explored:
- Campaigning vs. Informing - where do journalists draw the line? Is journalism meant to crusade for specific policy changes or is its role to reach for ‘truth’ and ‘objectivity’
- Churnalism - a new(ish) term used to describe the plight of jobbing hacks forced to churn out 15 stories a day giving them no time to check facts or develop sources
- Power of Editors - Peter Wilby (who, incidently, was most dynamic speaker of the entire conference) says editors don’t have enough power, that in any editorial meeting, its the head of marketing that holds all of the cards
- Murdoch - Wilby, as the resident Murdoch expert, also gave a little report on his burgeoning influence on the world’s media saying basically that Murdoch is bad (and that no one really believes Rebekah Wade) but not as bad as some. In fact, he would be mid-table in a league table of media owners.
January 29th, 2008
A long time ago now, we did a presentation at Charlie Beckett’s LSE journalism thinktank POLIS about the future of journalism on the web (take a look at our funny little Powerpoint presentation comparing new media and Moses). During this presentation, I advocated quite strongly for an all in one device, a sort of mash-up of all the things that we carry around today (phone, mp3 players, newspapers, magazines, notebooks, pens, etc). Back then, in the PI era (pre-Iphone) it seemed sort of radical and my prediction didn’t go down very well, possibly because the technology I was talking about seemed a little far-fetched for non-gadget followers. Now, with the release of the first consumer product that takes real advantage of thin, flexible electronic paper, I hope my future seems a little more possible. Sure, its a year late (here’s a link to the slightly cooler prototype) but the Phillips Readius is slick, small, a mobile phone and, crucially, has a very very legible screen that is bigger than the device itself (5″). The guy who made it thinks it he can increase the screen size by almost 50% and make it color in 5 years. Of course, its probably about 10 years down the road (these things always are) but I am sure it will be worth the wait. Also, see Richard’s posting on e-paper last week.
January 22nd, 2008
I am still not sure what I think of Salon’s feisty political blogger Glenn Greenwald but there is no denying that he has a way of punching just the right buttons with just the right amount of vim (plus a little vigor for good measure). Greenwald’s most recent target, CNN’s John King, has risen foolishly to the bait and has made himself look quite silly. Its a lesson for journalists everywhere (and people for that matter) on how not to reply to criticism, and it makes for an entertaining read. And the comments (502 at last count) are just as good.
Thanks to brother Jonathan for the link.
January 17th, 2008
Richard and I are in the midst of relaunching the leading independent newspaper in Uganda, the Daily Monitor (motto: Truth Every Day) so we are probably unusual in that we are currently die-hard followers of the news that comes out of Kampala. Uganda is a haven for good, hard-hitting political journalism. Partially of course, this is because extraordinary events happen in East African with an unfortunate frequency (in the course of the three days that we were there last month Ebola was discovered and the opposition leader’s brother died of mysterious causes) but its mostly down to considered, serious-minded reporting that makes the most of relatively limited resources.
When I read the “exclusive” PLOT TO KILL QUEEN FOILED splash in the Sunday Express yesterday I recognised a story that was originally broken — on December 1st — in Uganda by one of the many talented reporters at the Monitor.
What surprised me about this wasn’t that it was in The Express, given their obsession with royalty but that it took all of six weeks to percolate through the web to the Express newroom and that when they did get the story they didn’t do it better.
Once this was understandable: there simply weren’t the resources (or the patience) to wade through the reams of newsprint produced all over the world. But now the internet makes it simple to get a local perspective and to take advantage of experienced reporters on the ground.
If you read the Monitor’s version, it is filled with detail and context that the Express story misses. Its also instructive to know, given Uganda’s worsening media freedoms (see Roy Greenslade’s post), that the Monitor’s rival, New Vision, which is majority-owned but not run by government, didn’t (as far as I can see) print the story until yesterday following the Express’ lead.
Australian Sky News and the Herald Sun have both picked up the story as has the Telegraph website this morning.
Not one has credited the Daily Monitor.
January 14th, 2008
At 6.00am this morning in London if you wanted to find out what happened in the Iowa caucuses, the natural place to go was the web. I wanted to see how the serious news organisations compared. Here was an event whose timing and significance had been known for months and months. There were no good excuses for not covering it well.
The BBC looked silly since the scrolling news ticker at the top of the page was still announcing that Obama “looked set to win according to media predictions” when its own news story below said that he had already won convincingly. The Beeb’s single story was okay, adequate, but like much BBC reporting it was blandly superficial. You didn’t get a sense of what was really going on. There was no analysis and no detailed count of results.
Andrew Ward for the FT in Iowa produced a straight news story leading FT.com’s world page by 6.00am but again I was surprised not to read any analysis or comment by the FT’s army of wise and opinionated staff both in the US and UK. Nor was there a full list of the results which, by that time, was easily available. For a serious international paper that brands itself as the leading global authority on business and politics and for a paper with the biggest US staff of any London paper it was disappointing.
It was odd to find the international edition of The Times online still leading on Kenya, though there was a photo of Obama saying “follow the latest from Iowa” but without indicating the result. And this despite the fact that The Times has one of the most experienced US correspondents of them all, Gerard Baker, in Iowa. The last entry of his blog did have a rather breathless account of the result as it had appeared at 3.52am - and then all was silence.
The Independent website was still leading on their splash about the true cost of cheap chicken. The Obama story was second but although it seemed to be a 6.00am version by Leonard Doyle in Des Moines, it clearly wasn’t since it was obviously written yesterday and had no news of the result or even a hint of a result. (It was quite a good piece by the way).
The Telegraph online did an excellent job. Will Lewis can give a pat on the back to Toby Harnden and Alex Spillius in Des Moines. Jointly they produced a sharp and authoritative lead story, far better than the Beeb’s, and by 6.00am there were two separate pieces of analysis, one written by each, on where the result left the Republicans and Democrats. This was exactly the stuff that one wanted to read. There was pretty good video. And although it was the obvious way to do it, someone had thought about it in advance, made a plan and carried it off well. The story was presented online as the splash and as breaking news. It all felt highly competent.
But I guess The Guardian, by a narrow squeak, was best. Why? Suzanne Goldenberg and Ewen MacAskill’s lead story was very good, marrying the colour, the drama and the facts. And Michael Tomasky, the editor of Guardian America, produced a good commentary on the spot about the Obama campaign. There was video for those who wanted it. And I think what pipped them to the post was that their US election blog was already gathering reaction and comment from around the world.
However just in case anyone thinks we Brits couldn’t have done an even better job, I took a look at the New York Times online. There, at 6.00am, were five stories on every conceivable angle of the result, all updated within 10 minutes and each written with considerable inside knowledge. There was plenty of video and there was live blogging going on. The full results were presented on a table on the home page.
Does any of this matter much? Wait a couple of hours and there will be more to read about Iowa than anyone can reasonably want or digest. I think it matters in this one key respect: in one of the most competitive marketplaces in the world (the British press) the people who are trying hardest are the ones to watch. How you deal with an event like the Iowa result is a sign of how hard you are trying.
January 4th, 2008
