Kathlyn Clore

Reuters has recently released a report: “What’s Happening to Our News: An investigation into the likely impact of the digital revolution on the economics of news publishing in the UK”.

I’ve seen it mentioned a few places, including on Paul Bradshaw’s site in an interview about kitemarks.

My colleague and I have over the past year-and-a-half bantered about a “nonprofit newsroom” idea which would include a loose network of reporters whose works would be sent out via a “nonprofit newswire” with a kitemark. Only we were not until now familiar with this term. It’s a useful one, particularly when it includes the notion of online metadata.

Terms like this are essential because they create a language with which we can discuss the future of the industry.

Flickr photo from user jovike

Today I spent 15 whole Internet minutes (You know how they say “dog years” are longer than “human years”? I believe Internet minutes are longer than real-life minutes.) at the singularly-themed blog Daily Routines.

I quickly found and appreciated (again) Ernest Hemmingway’s advice on writing routines, circa his years in Europe. I read his book A Movable Feast before visiting Paris in December, in which he discusses his routine. I like his idea of quitting while you still know what will happen next.

This website got me wondering if I will ever manage to be a “routine” person. It seems to be one of those habits of highly successful people which I am always striving for yet never attaining. There are some semblances of a routine I catch myself in sometimes, when I am allowed to set my own schedule more or less: I like to have a long breakfast (being quiet in the beginning but chatting over whatever I’m reading by the end), do a little work, do some fitness. Then I like to listen to the news (via TV or radio, lately I listen to WBWR, an NPR station out of Boston) while I shower and get dressed. Then I go to any appointments and then finally to the office. I like to work until well after dark, after which I like to either have dinner at home or go out for the evening. I like to end my day with a quick stroll around the Internet.

Someday I’d really like to improve my ability to wake up early in the morning. I have improved this ability quite a bit in the last six months, but it’s not really “there”.

Flickr photo from user mollygolightly

The divergent attitudes in two articles published this week - one from Time, one from Newsweek - on the future of newspaper business models and content strategies couldn’t paint a clearer picture of the radically

Time Magazine

different outlooks of newsgatherers in the United States and Europe.

Yesterday’s Newsweek article Dubious New Models for News concludes that American newspapers are destined to muddled business models.

It finishes on this sentence:

“Capitalists in the news business are having to become even more creative. But they won’t find the grail of a new economic model for journalism because there wasn’t an old one.”

Gee, wow. I’m fired up. Really.

Basically, no new clarity or exciting ways forward will soon emerge… Because the old ways weren’t any good. Tre optimistic!

On the other hand, Time Magazine’s article Turning the Page: The News on Europe’s Newspapers, is bursting with examples of innovative products and practices from the Netherlands, Norway and England.

It concludes with a quote from Max Armanet, the editor of the French daily,

” ‘It’s my job to make people desire us — I am the editor in charge of Love. I can’t tell you whether we’ll be here in five years, but I can tell you it’s a passionate undertaking.’ Passion probably isn’t a bad place to start.”

Much better. Maybe what the Americans call the “old college try” is becoming more of “the old… University Try”?

I think Al Jazeera’s campaign to find a US or Canadian carrier to broadcast it is a great idea.

And props to Tony Burman for formally trying to bring this station to Canada. It will be about 30 days before the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission decides if it will approve.

I find it completely frustrating that some people in North America - especially, from what I can tell, people who don’t have a great command of media literacy - think this channel is anti-American. From what I’ve seen, anyone who has actually watched it finds the journalism to be top-quality.

Funny too that I see this story today after last night reading that:

“… But after 9/11 and the war in Iraq, Al Jazeera became Washington’s least favorite broadcaster. Its Kabul bureau was destroyed by an American missile in an attack that has yet to be fully investigated or officially explained to Quatar. Nor has the Pentagon ever satisfied Al Jazeera with its explanation of how on 8 April, the US Air Force fired a missile that wiped out the channel’s Baghdad offices and killed its correspondent Tariq Ayoub, who was on the roof filing live reports.”

- From the book Internaitonal News Reporting: Frontlines and Deadlines, Edited by John Owen and Heather Purdey.

Makes you realize they’re really up against it.

But considering the monotony and endless echo chambers on the 24-hour stations of CNN, Fox and MSNBC, I don’t understand why Americans are so resisitant. Why are we so closed to experiencing a different point of view - particularly when the journalism of Al Jazeera is lauded around the world? And particularly when our military is so busy with this part of the world. Don’t we want to at least see what’s up there? See their perspective?

Here is an interview done last year with the editor-in-chief of web and new media from Al Jazeera International:

It continues here:

This is proof that railing against “the man” (even if he does have the face of a 12-year-old) can make a difference, at least online.

And that Internet users who use social networking are not free slave labor.

Indeed, massive web platforms should not be allowed to so lightly steal content.

Smart move, Facebook.

I just read through this article, which I found via IFRA.

I think Steve Rubel’s example of a multi-tasking reporter covering Spring Training is a good one. But I’d take issue with three things:

1. The dude portrayed here is indeed a newspaper reporter already. So he’s got the credentials to get him the access he needs to do all these things with Cover It Live, etc. So this is still a case of the newspaper coming first, before the new media stuff. But, OK, this post is surely titled “The newspaper reporter of the future…”

And right there, we run into the problem that newspapers won’t always look as they do today (or at least, how they looked yesterday). So which body will be employing the guy in this post? Could he do what he’s doing if he did not work for an established media outlet? Having covered sports myself, I say no. He would not have the access.

This is where I think English-speaking (esp. Americans) media people need to find a better word than “Newspapers”. Let’s stop using a word that contains the medium of paper. I think most other languages avoid this. “Periodista”, for example, would be the Spanish word for a female journalist. The word contains the idea of a periodical, but not newsprint.

If we use that word, we’d be enabled to talk about this guy working for a periodical without him working for a newspaper. Because he might not always work for a newspaper, but he will likely always work for a periodical. That’s where he’ll get access.

I think these nuances are important because we need a change in mentality, a shift away from reliance upon newspapers for access and credibility.

1A. I think it’s rather unfortunate reporters everywhere have gotten co-opted into doing all these extra jobs, acquiring all these extra skills, but don’t see their pay or job security rise. But that’s the reality.

2. I take issue with the last sentance of this post:

“What Abraham is doing represents not only the future of journalism but also what PR professionals themselves need to do to build connections in the years ahead.”

This sentance prompts the question: “What’s the difference then, between the future journalist and the future PR person?” This line is going to become extremely blurred, I think, because both parties are going to be in the business of building audiences. So how will the public know who is the journalist and who is the PR person?

Yesterday I edited a synopsis of a most disturbing bill working its way through the Italian legislature.

A center-right Italian senator from Sicily is backing a bill that would give the country’s Ministry

Italian map inside the Museo del Vaticano

of the Interior the power to demand ISPs in Italy block sites which host content seen to incite or condone crime.

Facebook seems to be the primary target. The American social networking platform allows registered users to form fan groups around just about any idea. Among the most offending groups to these Italian lawmakers are groups honoring big-name Mafia bosses.

Unless Facebook would agree to take those groups down - and the Ministry of the Interior would indeed have to give sites like Facebook time to take down the offending content - the entire site would be blocked inside Italy.

Deleting entire websites because of a bit of offensive material seems an entirely arcane practice for 2009.

"Search engine Ask.com buys advertising on public transport to protest against people choosing to use Google for internet searching."

But the situation does for me beg the question: In today’s linked-up world, should multinational sites like Facebook (and, to be clear, while all websites have the potential to be multinational, few truly are) have to abide by the laws of countries other than the nation in which their servers sit? Which is to say,should a website based in the United States, like Facebook, have to regulate its content with Italian law in mind?

I’m reminded of a November, 2008, New York Times article about censorship at Google.

In the Republic of Turkey, a nation of 71 million people, it is illegal to insult Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. He is the founder of modern Turkey.

Google, apparently, has dedicated the hours of many staffers to screening the contents of YouTube videos that are reported to violate Turkish law. The videos which Google decides are in clear violation of Turkish law are then blocked in Turkey.

The article chronicles similar cases in Europe. In France and Germany, for example, Google blocks Holocaust denial sites because it is illegal to deny the Shoah in those countries.

But is a California-based company like Google - or a Ministry of the Interior in Italy - the best body to decide what to censor?

Germany has a government agency whose responsibility it is to gather URLs of sites that host illegal content (content including hate speech, for example, would be illegal in Deutschland). Is this a better way to go? Why not get a judicial system involved? Or would that take too long, particularly when considering the warp speed that dominates the World Wide Web?

These questions become even more difficult - or perhaps just less relevant? - when considering the many initiatives to circumvent censorship. One of the best initiatives is the Tor project, which helps Internet users surf the web anonymously.

I can’t say I’ve ever done anything particularly romantic for Valentine’s Day.

Dutch Valentines

When I was a child, my parents would give my sister and I small presents at breakfast. In the afternoon my dad usually sent my mom, along with my sisters and I, roses. In later years my younger sister’s cat used to eat the petals off of these roses. Then at night we’d have heart-shaped hamburgers. I have a particularly strong memory of one icy Valentine’s Day in Aurora, Illinois, when I came home from a Girl Scouts meeting to my mom making the heart-shaped hamburgers. I remember we were worrying about if my dad would make it home from work in time for dinner.

None of the boyfriends I’ve had were really romantics. So I can for sure say I find Valentine’s Day more of a holiday for friends and family. It’s a day for elementary school class parties (and bringing Valentines for everyone, even the weird kids). It’s a day to do cute things like making heart-shaped hamburgers for your kids.

But, mainly for my curious American friends, here are some links to give you an insight into Valentines Day around the world.

Here in the Netherlands and parts of Belgium it’s Valentijns Dag.

It seems people in Brussels have been preparing. This video gives you a good idea about how freely people in this part of the world talk about parts of the body (especially compared with Americans): http://www.deredactie.be/cm/de.redactie.english/mediatheek_en/1.465817?mode=popupplayer

But apparently the Dutch are not too excited: http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2009/02/dutch_least_impressed_by_valen.php

But as you can see in this video they are helping get flowers into the Gaza Strip: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7885412.stm?lss

and for more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-allows-valentine-carnations-out-of-gaza-1608231.html.

There are a lack of flower sales from Ecuador to the United States this year, though, leaving flower providers in that South American nation feeling the pinch: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gitbksInb0Bllrj_7KlAErlK9GEgD969FLO00

In fact, perhaps Americans are looking at the holiday through a more clinical lens, using it as a chance to study the physiology behind kissing: http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/1430844,CST-NWS-kiss14.article

Regardless, they’re still celebrating in San Francisco. But on the cheap: http://www.tinynibbles.com/blogarchives/2009/02/a-sexy-valentines-takedown-meal-for-under-20.html

People in the Caribbean are, like the Dutch, not especially psyched for the day: http://globalvoicesonline.org/2009/02/14/caribbean-lets-talk-about-love/

In colder climbs, Russians are perhaps using the day as one of protest: http://www.russiatoday.com/features/news/37287

This could be in part because Russians don’t have a strong attachment to the supposedly Christian holiday: http://www.russiatoday.com/features/news/37287

Anyway, regardless of how you experience the day - with a burlesque show in Paris (http://www.france24.com/en/20090213-entertainment-revival-burlesque-dita-von-teese-paris-crazy-horse-striptease) or a simple heart-shaped hamburger in Illinois… Enjoy 14 February!

Bernd and I produced this video for Crossroads, an online magazine the EJC publishes for expatriates living in Limburg. I’ve wanted to make a video about this ever since my boyfriend and I took some shoes to this guy’s shop a few months ago. He just looks like a shoemaker. I love it.

Also, the poshy Maastricht woman we interviewed was great… I love watching these kind of ladies walk around Maastricht.

One thing I realized while doing this video is how easily we could have done it in different ways. I like that about reporting: You can make so many products out of the same material. It’s like a puzzle with no real correct answer (especially when it’s a feature story, like this).

I really wanted to get some comments from the local municipality about why we have these stones. How do they maintain the quality of the stones? I’ve heard they have to bring people in from all over Europe to maintain the stones. And why are the stones a good idea when they wreak havoc on everyone’s shoes?

But that will have to be a different video, because we just were not getting our calls returned and wanted to get this off to the Crossroads editor. So mainly it’s just a sweet shoemaker story. Enjoy!

I collaborated (content wise, not technically) with Bernd to make this video. It highlights a super creative project we’re (and by we I mean my groovy colleague Ruth) working on in the office.

Enjoy… And note the rights-free music