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.
