Hvorfor har ikke NRK dette for lengst? Kjempesmart fra NPR:
On almost every story from NPR news and music you now have the ability to take the audio with you and enjoy it anywhere. While online you can download and save your favorite interviews, reports, performances and more. Then add the audio to your mp3 player, phone, laptop or netbook to take with you and listen offline wherever you go. It’s one more way NPR is making it easier for you to listen and share.
(via journalism.co.uk.)
US newspaper leaders are holding a more or less secret emergency summit where they discuss (again!) fun topics such as how to charge for news online and demand money from Google. James Warren chooses historical summit analogies carefully:
One hopes it displays the same sense of purpose as, say, troubled world leaders did at Yalta in 1945 or, in a rather less respectable sector of the economy, beleaguered mob bosses did at a legendary Apalachin, New York, confab in 1957.
Mediebransjen virrer rundt i forretningsmodelltåka. Det pustes liv i steindøde ideer om å “ta betalt for nettutgaven”. Man utvikler en plutselig, usunn interesse for opphavsrett. Kall det vollgravmentalitet. Kvalitetsjournalistikken og demokratiet er visst truet. Og midt oppe i det hele søker NRK en skokk nye medarbeidere og opplever en “søknadsboom” (VG i dag).
Hvis de største pessimistene får rett og det går lang tid før en god forretningsmodell for digital journalistikk får etablert seg — da kan vi stå overfor NRK-scenariet. Hvis, altså; jeg tror ikke det vil gå slik, men la oss godta premisset for eksemplets skyld. Premiss nr. 2 er at lisensavgiften beholdes som finansieringsmodell for NRK i overskuelig framtid. I dette scenariet er det snart bare NRK som har ressurser til å drive arbeids- og kostnadskrevende journalistikk. Det er bare NRK som har råd til å drive redaksjonelt utviklingsarbeid på nett. Dermed tar NRK.no i løpet av få år over som det største norske redaksjonelle nettstedet. Mer og mer av NRKs allmennkringkastingstilbud distribueres via websidene. Etter hvert som både nasjonale og lokale aviser forsvinner eller blir skygger av seg selv, blir NRK den suverent viktigste nyhetsformidleren i store deler av landet.
Hvis det skulle gå slik, eller noe i nærheten av dette, blir det enda mer nødvendig å finne svar på allerede relevante spørsmål til utviklingen av konseptet for allmennkringkasting (allmennmedievirksomhet):
Hvis scenariet høres fjernt ut, kan man jo ta en titt på hva som har skjedd med National Public Radio i USA de siste årene:
NPR’s listenership has nearly doubled since 1999, even as newspaper circulation dropped off a cliff. Its programming now reaches 26.4 million listeners weekly — far more than USA Today’s 2.3 million daily circ or Fox News’ 2.8 million prime-time audience. When newspapers were closing bureaus, NPR was opening them, and now runs 38 around the world, better than CNN. It has 860 member stations — “boots on the ground in every town” that no newspaper or TV network can claim. It has moved boldly into new media as well: 14 million monthly podcast downloads, 8 million Web visitors, NPR Mobile, an open platform, a social network, even crowdsourcing. And although the nonprofit has been hit by the downturn like everyone else, its multiple revenue streams look far healthier long term than the ad-driven model of commercial media.
Amerikanere betaler ikke lisens, selvsagt, men det er likevel paralleller til NRK-scenariet her. NPRs “lisens” er frivillige donasjoner. Mange små, men også noen gigantiske, som gaven på 200 millioner dollar fra.. en McDonald’s-arving!
Tim Berners-Lee: Demand raw data. For science, but also for journalism.
Det er helg, og godt å se på andre arbeide!
(Foto: George Eastman Houses samling på Flickr Commons. Ingen kjente opphavsrettsrestriksjoner.)
Se alle brekksaker.
Aviser som er med i Yahoos annonsenettverk selger nettannonser som varmt hvetebrød, melder AdAge — sånn omtrent. En av de sjeldne gode nyhetene fra mediene på den andre siden av dammen. Noe av det mest interessante for meg er bruken av atferdsdata:
One is a new ad system from Yahoo, currently installed at about 100 newspapers, that allows them to sell graphical ads on their sites that are aimed at specific audiences, like car buyers or sports enthusiasts. The system puts users into those groups based on the pages they visit online, a technique known as behavioral targeting.
Slik målgruppe-finsikting er kontroversielt. Jeg husker fra tidligere at det ikke er så mye i bruk i Norge, men at det er aktører som tilbyr det. Noen der ute som kan oppklare dette, og si om Yahoo-konseptet er noe for det norske markedet?
Du bist Terrorist from lexela on Vimeo.
This is very impressive work. As Robin Meyer-Lucht says, why don’t we see more such use of videos by professional news organizations?
But I also think the narrator comes close to demagoguery here. For example, the EU data retention directive, which is targeted in the first part, is restricted to traffic data. That can be bad enough in itself, but does not mean that data on which web pages you visited will be potentially available to the police. That’s a difference, and a very important one. The video also moves seamlessly from that directive to the German BKA law about online surveillance, which is not exactly the same. Activists should get their facts right as well. There’s a discussion about this over at Spreeblick.
To be fair, the Du bist Terrorist website does have links to media stories where the facts are presented correctly.
Monday next week, editors and journalists meet in Hamburg to agree on (they use “ratify” in the press release, ok) a new European charter for press freedom:
The charter formulates principles for the freedom of the press/media from government interference – in particular for their right to safety from surveillance, electronic eavesdropping and searches of editorial departments and computers, and unimpeded access for journalists and citizens to all domestic and foreign sources of information.
After having researched various national and European plans for online surveillance and data retention lately, I have to support this — though I think the media should fight for all citizens’ rights at the same time.
Journalists have to start taking encryption techniques and anonymity online seriously, to protect themselves and above all their sources. I wonder how many media people and news organizations have even thought about this yet.
Andrew DeVigal (photo: Gaute Singstad, Nordiske Mediedager).
Before it gets way too old, the rest of my notes from last week’s Bergen media conference (note to self: stop taking paper notes, buy that mini laptop you’ve been thinking about for a long time). About multimedia at the NYT, a journalist using blogging as a tool in a Danish business scandal, and Adrian Holovaty on EveryBlock.
Siden jeg har fulgt denne saken her før gjennom dens mange merkelige etapper: I dag vedtok den franske nasjonalforsamlingen (underhuset) Hadopi-loven, der et av elementene er den beryktede “3 strikes” eller digital dødsstraff for ulovlig fildeling:
Under the bill, a state agency will be set up to track and punish those who pirate music and movies on the Internet, serving as a go-between for content providers and Internet service providers. It will set up a “three-strikes” system for offenders who first receive an email warning, then a letter and finally lose their Internet account for up to a year if they are caught a third time.
Sarkozy har svingt partipisken etter fadesen ved forrige gangs forsøk på å få loven vedtatt.
Den svenske bloggeren Anais har fulgt den svært opphetede debatten i Frankrike tett i hele perioden. Hun skriver i dag:
Dagen D. Idag röstar Nationalförsamlingen om hadopi-lagen, den lag som orsakat den livligaste och bittraste samhällsdebatten hittills under Sarkozys presidentperiod. De Öppna Breven – med stöd eller avståndstaganden från olika grupper – korsar varandra som replikerna i ett hetsigt gräl. Hadopi-lagen splittrar såväl höger som vänster, men framför allt vänstern inom kulturvärlden som traditionellt alltid sympatiserat med den parlamentariska vänstern.
De siste månedene har diverse mediesjefer og -moguler raslet stadig mer høylytt med opphavsrettssablene. Helt klart en internasjonal trend, og nå har den også nådd Norge. DN-Djuve hevder at siteringspraksisen til E24 er tyveri, og avisen hans følger så klart opp med en skråsikker jussprofessor (de vokser som kjent på trær).
Før dette bærer helt galt av gårde, kan vi være enige om dette: At det er fint å ta et oppgjør med klipp- og lim-journalistikken, men at en innskjerpet håndheving av opphavsrett med påfølgende jakt på kolleger og brukere aldri i livet er det som vil redde papiraviser og kvalitetsjournalistikk (de neste til å fanges i søkelyset blir vel siterende bloggere?). Det er neppe heller i journalisters interesse å uthule sitatretten, enn si begynne å rote med retten til å lenke, slik det utrolig nok også trues med i DN-saken.
Siden den ny-populære kritikken av Google uunngåelig nok er nevnt i artikkelen også, tar jeg med at søkemotorens Marissa Meyer i går talte under det amerikanske senatets høring om journalistikkens framtid (de også!). Og se om ikke Marissa sa noe klokt:
The Web by definition changes and updates constantly throughout the day. Because of its ability to operate in real-time, it offers an opportunity for news publishers to publish on changing and evolving stories as they happen. Web addresses (known as URLs — uniform resource locators such as http://www.google.com) were designed to refer to unique pieces of content, and those URLs were intended to persist over time. Today, in online news, publishers frequently publish several articles on the same topic, sometimes with identical or closely related content, each at their own URL. The result is parallel Web pages that compete against each other in terms of authority, and in terms of placement in links and search results. Consider instead how the authoritativeness of news articles might grow if an evolving story were published under a permanent, single URL as a living, changing, updating entity. We see this practice today in Wikipedia’s entries and in the topic pages at NYTimes.com. The result is a single authoritative page with a consistent reference point that gains clout and a following of users over time.
When I studied political science, the four quadrant chart was used so much that it became always laughable, you made jokes with them. But it’s a simple, powerful, ockhamesque tool, something Josh Young demonstrates in a blog post about different kinds of structuring information in journalism (via Jay Rosen’s flying seminar). Taking Josh Marshall and Talking Points Memo as a case study in how a subject can be treated broadly in shallow “containers”, Young to me comes up with an excellent description on how the blog can be used to produce high quality journalism — efficiently:
Each dispatch isn’t comprehensive. They catch the reader up on past reporting with a few links to previous posts. Or they start off with a link or two to others’ posts or articles, promising to pick up the issue where they left off. Then they take a deep look at a small set of questions, teasing out contradictions, and end up with a set of conclusions or a new, more pointed set of questions for the next post. The point is that the containers are small-shallow in the sense that they’re often only exposing a few dots at a time and not necessarily always trying to connect them all up as they go along. These posts don’t feign omniscience the way some, though certainly not all, traditional journalistic pieces do; they admit doubt and highlight confusion. The goal is to isolate facts, issues, and relationships, not always synthesize them. But a critical characteristic of the form is that Josh Marshall’s dispatches on fired USAs compose a series. Each post extends previous ones or adds more to the same canvas. They’re all part of some bigger picture; they’re cumulative. And that is why, taken together, they amount to journalism that’s broad in subject.
Bonus link: A profile of Josh Marshall contains this gem on blog-based journalism’s business model:
Begin as a tiny operation. Manage to gain a following. As the audience grows, ask readers for donations and accept advertising. As the advertising and donations grow, add reporters and features. Repeat as often as needed.
This is something I would like to copy. Maybe here.
Some links and things noted during sessions at a media conference in Bergen today:
The Guardian’s editor Alan Rusbridger aimed to dissolve the dichotomy between old and new school journalism. The investigative reporter, the roving reporter are still needed, but get crucial assistance from the knowledgeable & networked public. Examples: The coverage of complex tax evasion strategies by big corporations, where experts helped interpret and leak essential information. And the Ian Tomlinson story during the G20 summit protests was a good example of crowdsourcing. The tech department got help creating a list of IT mergers & acquisitions. Rusbridger also outed himself as a Twitter fan, showing one of The Guardian’s own reporters as an ultra-twitterer with over 11.000 followers. Each reporter should build their own community, he said. Finally he mentioned impressive traffic growth for the Comment is free subsite.
Espen Andersen from the NRK talked about computer-assisted journalism. He has created a tutorial (in Norwegian) on how to use screenscraping software (here RoboMaker). There is some movement and growing interest around this type of innovative journalism in Norway now.
Several people are microblogging from Bergen. Watch for #nmd.
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