Monthly Archives: June 2008

How to kill a country (in 10 steps)

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Looking for background to the ongoing Zimbabwe tragedy? Try Samantha Power’s 2003 article How to kill a country, which holds up very well five years later. Here’s Power’s prediction — if these are the alternatives, Zimbabwe is still on the brink:

If he [Mugabe] hangs on, and if other African leaders don’t force him out, Zimbabwe may go in one of two directions. Its destitute citizens might be so preoccupied with finding food and staying alive that they will increasingly tune politics out. Over time their memory of-and sense of entitlement to-a better life will give way, and they will docilely submit to authorities whose power will only increase as the crisis deepens. Or the country’s appalling conditions might stir a domestic revolution, a fourth chimurenga [war of liberation], which will bring down Mugabe and his ruling party.

UPDATE (for Norwegian readers): A good report (text and video) about Zimbabwean refugees in South Africa at Dagbladet.no.

Alt for alle, alltid?

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NRK eksperimenterer med så mangt, også nettsamfunn i Møre og Romsdal. Sammenlignet med situasjonen i mange andre europeiske land har skiftende regjeringer bevilget vår allmennkringkaster stor bevegelsesfrihet. Hvordan NRK forvalter denne friheten kan få en hel del å si for institusjonens framtid. Det behøver ikke gå så glatt som det har gjort til nå. Forhåpentlig følger NRK-folk med på tysk mediedebatt. Der presser de kommersielle mediene hardt på, hjulpet av EU-kommisjonen, for å begrense ARD og ZDFs handlingsrom på nettet. Dette har lyktes, i hvert fall delvis. I en foreløpig mediepolitisk avklaring avskjæres de tyske allmennkringkasternes mulighet til å lage noe tyskerne har kalt “elektronisk presse”, altså nettavis-aktig journalistikk. Man ønsker ikke en lisensfinansiert direkte konkurrent til det de kommersielle mediehusene gjør på nettet. ARD og ZDFs nettaktiviteter må ha direkte sammenheng med det de sender i TV. De tyske mediepolitikerne har altså en rørende tro på at TV vil forbli TV og web bare et supplement — i overskuelig framtid. Denne del-“seieren” for medieselskapene trekkes imidlertid i tvil av lederen for det største mediekonsernet, Springer. Mathias Döpfner gir isteden en gammel tysk debatt ny aktualitet: Hvis ARD og ZDF ikke lenger får selge TV-reklame, bør de belønnes med frihet til å utvikle sine nett-tilbud. Kontrollorganer og advarsler kan ikke være veien å gå for allmennkringkastingen, mener han. For den som ikke vet det — de lisensfinansierte ARD og ZDF er delfinansiert med reklame som de får selge under klare begrensninger (f.eks. ingen reklame etter kl. 20). På nettet får de derimot ikke ha reklame, altså den motsatte modellen av NRK. Döpfner har en sterk egeninteresse i reformen han foreslår; Springer kan jo sikre seg noen av reklamepengene som nå går til ARD og ZDF. Forslaget hans er ikke dårlig av den grunn, og argumentasjonen ligner på den som er brukt mot nettreklamen på NRKs sider. Det var en runde med debatt om dette i fjor, og Jan Omdahl i Dagbladet.no tok opp tråden igjen nylig. Prinsippet om allmennkringkasting og lisensfinansiering beskyttes best hvis NRK, ARD og ZDF utgjør et reelt alternativ i mediebildet. Finansieringen er her sentral. Det blir vanskelig å argumentere for stor frihet for allmennkringkasterne hvis de konkurrerer om de samme annonsekronene (som Omdahl skriver, dette vil i seg selv trolig påvirke innholdet også). NRKs nettmodell er i dag basert på et uuttalt premiss om at allmennkringkastingen og lisensfinansieringen ikke har noen uvenner. Det er mildt sagt naivt.

Et PS: Debatten går hos britene også. Les Stephen Frys artikkel (egentlig en tale) The BBC and the future of broadcasting..

OPPDATERING 27. juni: Ting skjer i Frankrike også. Der vil Sarkozy gradvis fjerne all reklame fra allmennkringkastingskanalene. Fra desember 2011 skal de lisensfinansierte kanalene være helt reklamefrie. I dag har de franske allmennkringkasterne en tredel av sine inntekter fra reklame, resten fra lisens. Inntektsbortfallet skal der kompenseres med økte skatter på mobilselskaper og internettleverandører.

OPPDATERING 30. juni: En ny utredning om allmennkringkasting presenteres i Sverige i dag. Den inneholder bl.a. et forslag om å begrense SVTs anledning til å selge sponsorplakater.

Smale temablogger er framtiden!

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En blogg om drivstofføkonomisk bilkjøring, såkalt ecomodding, har tatt av siden starten i desember. Etter tre måneder hadde ecomodder.com 45.000 daglige lesere, ifølge edmunds.com. Ecomodderne er opptatt av å presse flest mulig kilometer ut av de stadig dyrere bensindråpene, ved å eksperimentere med kjøreteknikker, modifisere bilene og så videre. Det er ingen nyhet for lesere av Undercurrent at jeg alltid har etterlyst norske blogger av denne typen — slike såkalte smale blogger som treffer tidsånden kan raskt bygge et hyperlojalt og kunnskapsrikt publikum. Noen eksempler er jo kommet i Norge, særlig innen uteliv/mote, og lola er enda et motekonsept. Men det bør gå an å takle et langt større mangfold av temaer. Send meg gjerne tips om lovende norske temablogger. (tips: FP Passport).

Writer/editor for Crimes of War website

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This job opening might be interesting for some Undercurrent readers. I just received it via email, and thought it relevant to post it in its entirety here (extended entry). The Crimes of War book and website is an indispensable resource and deserves more attention. The writer/editor could be based in the UK or US and will be responsible for the day-to-day work on the website.

Continue reading →

Football in the streets

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Two years ago during the World Cup Germany discovered itself as a friendly, upbeat, hospitable society. I remember the man in his 50’s who was sunbathing along the Spree only wearing tanga bathing shorts, a gold chain and a beer belly. From out of the blue he left his chair and started to chat in his broad Berliner dialect about the superb weather, the World Cup, where we were from, isn’t this fantastic, let me show you where the border was in the times of the Wall, etc. Totally unheard of, this generally good mood, and this June everyone has tried to make the Euro 2008 into a repetition of 2006. Great weather again, great football and the German team blossoming in the quarter final has made that possible, and tonight when Germany meets Turkey in the semifinal Berlin will be boiling over. One of the things that have changed since 2006 is the price of flatscreen TVs and projectors. Now the tiniest Kneipe or bar has at least one huge TV in the window or on wobbly, improvised stands out on the sidewalk. In some areas, such as the one above in Friedrichshain, you can watch games almost without missing a kick while walking slowly down the street. But of course it’s even better to sit down and enjoy the matches and the great atmosphere with a Weizenbier or three. Just be careful tonight, no matter who wins, fireworks will be launched from balconies and happy/sad Turks, Germans and Turks-Germans will be ignoring all traffic rules…

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Back to the future with Murdoch

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From an analysis in The Atlantic of Rupert Murdoch’s plans for the Wall Street Journal:

One of the first strong messages Journal reporters and editors received from their new owners was that Murdoch wants scoops. He wants his reporters out in front of every competitor on the planet. This means that, at a time when every big newspaper is tinkering with futuristic business models, Murdoch is doing so with both feet planted firmly in the past. His strategy for success in 2008 is to behave as though the year is 1908. So while his competitors retrench, Murdoch is going to war-by challenging The New York Times, in particular, to an old-fashioned newspaper battle. Except this time the stakes aren’t nickels in Times Square, but dominance in America, and the world.

Web video, a journalism hub

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The Washington Post has trained 185 of its staff in using video, writes journalism.co.uk. This is a good occasion as I’ll ever find to finally blog some notes I took when videojournalist Travis Fox of that newspaper visited a media conference in Bergen in May. The session with Fox was by far the most interesting I attended, and so much more rewarding than those boring debate panels (they are a waste of time, really). Fox, a few years ago more or less all alone doing video for the big paper’s website, shared experiences and tips. At least for a writing journalist, there was much to learn. Fox works a lot like a newspaper reporter, doing shooting and editing on his own (using a Sony HDV camera and editing on a Mac), not with a cameraman or crew. This gives him full control and allows him to produce “handwritten” stories such as this one from the Katrina disaster. A reason this story stands out is that it is shot from the victims’ point of view. Suddenly their decisions to stay at home sounds reasonable; a perspective you certainly did not get from TV stories shot from helicopters. Fox often works in team with a newspaper reporter, though; sometimes the reporter then does a more traditional stand-up as part of the story.

His productions are usually longer than a typical news piece on the traditional TV news. Do people watch videos that are more than two minutes, sometimes a lot longer? Yes, and if they don’t watch all of it at once, it’s not so bad, Fox explained – usually they will then just move to another part of the website, not disappear from the site altogether. Fox compared this to how people read newspapers – scanning, reading only some of the stories from beginning to end, only the first paragraphs of others, etc.

The stories function as evergreens on the website. Over time, they can attract a sizable number of users. The presentations on the web can have several parts: the video will often focus on characters to tell the story. Panorama photos will provide the visual overview. And they sometimes add blogs to “extend” stories by updating with new information about the characters and allow for interaction with users. Fox warned that starting seriously with video is a big step; post-production takes a lot of time and effort.

One of Fox’s most intriguing points: web video can function as a kind of hub for the media company’s content, and not just for the web:

  • A text version for web and print can be produced with the video reporter’s raw material as source
  • Still photos from the video can be used online and in print (one reason why HD is important)
  • Sound can be used in audio versions for radio
  • The web video can be sold/distributed as podcasts. More people watch the Washington Post videos via iTunes than on the website itself. In fact, Fox said, the internet is increasingly used as a distribution tool to move content _off_ the web!

There is also room for productions that are more like classical documentary, and here Fox showed excerpts from his story about a man who lost his son in the 9/11 Pentagon attack. Recommended.

Pro Publica launched

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Pro Publica, the philanthropic journalism project with the subtitle “Journalism in the public interest”, have recruited people and launched their website (tip: Media Storm blog). So we wait for their first stories:

Soon, the Web site will also feature our own investigations, some of them in short-form, some much more ambitious. Our longer “deep dive” stories will most often be published in cooperation with one or more partners. These stories will usually debut on our partners’ sites, but we’ll link to their treatment of the stories, and often supplement them with additional materials for the web.

UPDATE June 25: Pro Publica’s first story is about the US government’s investment in the Arab language TV and radio station Alhurra. A joint production with CBS 60 Minutes.

Efficient browsing?

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Yes, we need that. From The Economist, links added:

But now a Norwegian computer scientist named Frode Hegland has cooked up a new sort of navigation. His free software, a browser add-on called Hyperwords, makes every single word or phrase on a page into a hyperlink-not just those chosen by a website’s authors. Click on any word, number or phrase, and menus and sub-menus pop up. With a second click, it is possible to translate text into many languages, obtain currency or measurement conversions, and retrieve related photos, videos, academic papers, maps, Wikipedia entries and web pages fetched by Google, among other things. All that information, of course, can already be accessed by web users willing to root around, opening a series of new browser windows or tabs. The goal of Hyperwords, Mr Hegland says, is “reducing the threshold” of satisfying curiosity, by making the quest faster and easier. Later this year he will release a new version that extends this trick beyond the web browser, turning any word in any window into a clickable “hyperword”.

The story also profiles Cooliris, among other developments.

Underanalyzed?

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Though the US presidential primaries have been covered more extensively than ever before in Europe — or so it seems, at least — the case can be made that important “campaign-technical” aspects have been less analyzed or commented on. This might have to do with the fascination of the duel between Obama and Clinton; a story that can be covered in the old-fashioned way, like a horserace. The connection described in the Slate video above between the Santos candidate in the West Wing series and Obama is entertaining stuff. But there are more substantial topics too tackle, as Martin Jönsson does by looking at the social media aspects (in Swedish). Some I have touched on also: Obama’s use of technology, his network’s fundraising and the “bittergate” story (in Norwegian).

2008 definitely is the first real web election, the first time we can really begin to appreciate how web-based services and behaviour is woven into society at so many levels. This doesn’t mean that all old-fashioned skills become obsolete — just look at the enduring importance of the political speech. To be continued!