MASTERCLASSES

Friday 19 November 2010

A guide to hyperlocal

The next MMJ masterclass at www.multimedia-journalism.co.uk is about hyperlocal journalism



Listen!

We’ll be talking to one person who is building a website for west London: West London Today.
His name is Bolaji and he’s something of a veteran in hyperlocal.
He created a hyperlocal print magazine, Brook Green, in 2001, and last year he decided to create an online site for a large area of London, with various hyperlocal presences under that big umbrella.
Bolaji is at a crossroads,;trying to decide whether to keep building what is at present a fledgling site on his own, or to partner with  one of the most successful names in the hyperlocal business, Neighbournet.
That’s a choice many who want to create hyperlocal sites face.
Another problem for many hyperlocal sites is how to get enough content on them.
Bolaji has been following the masterclasses in MMJ, and he asked if we could address this key problem.
So we do, looking at how to use Yahoo Pipes to create filtered streams of content; a range of closely targeted feeds that will help satisfy the information needs of his users, in each locality of west London that he covers.
And we look at how to embed such RSS feeds into your site
Also, at how to find those feeds.
And not just news feeds, but also feeds containing on a whole range of other information, such as school league tables, crime, what MPs are up to, and reporting street cleaning and other problems to the council.
There is a great deal of advice out there, and existing Yahoo Pipes that you can adapt for your own purposes, if you can find it. So we have gathered some of that.
Finally, what we cont cover in Masteclass17: your publishing platform. That’ll come next time, in Masterclass 18.

Friday 12 November 2010


This is sneak preview of Masterclass 16 on MMJ, which is the first in a series of loosely linked sessions about publishing platforms that will go live over the coming weeks. It'll be going live on Saturday November 13 here www.multimedia-journalism.co.uk/masterclasses

This one is about creating smart phone apps without having any knowledge of coding, and in future masterclases we’ll also cover website building for non-coders, platforms for hyperlocal projects, data-driven journalism, and look at what html and other coding you should learn, if you’d like to progress as a creator of mobile and static platforms for your journalism.

I’ve chosen the subjects partly because they are a logical progression from what we’ve covered so far in the book version of MMJ, and its supporting website, and also to build on what we’ve done in some previous masterclasses – particularly MC 11 on going mobile.

I’ve also chosen them because the MMJ community has been asking for more on these topics, and on such related things as creating RSS feeds and the use of Yahoo Pipes as a data-combining device.

RSS feed creation is something we dealt with briefly in MC 11 but we look at it in a lot more depth here. Because, with the use of Yahoo Pipes you can create tightly defined information streams, built from numerous sources, and use them to populate your mobile or static site.

It’s getting easier all the time for non-coders to create smartphone apps. While developers are charging anything from $2-3 thousand dollars up to $10 or even $15 thousand, it is now possible for you to create a professional looking app, which aggregates content either from your static site or from a range of sources chosen by you, and which includes text, stills audio and video, and which is listed in the Apple iTunes and Android market stores.

You can bring all your social presences together: your news feed if you have one, your blog, you Youtube channel, Twitter feed, Audioboo and the rest

I’ve chosen one from a handful of software companies that I think get us as close as we currently can to creating a truly professional multimedia smartphone app on our own.

It’s called iSites, and while it’s not yet perfect, and it will cost you from $9.99 a month  to publish with it, it seems to me to show the way forward.

I’ve had some glitches with it, but I’ve been impressed at how the guys there respond to problems raised and work to iron out bugs.

It means it’s perfectly possible for you as an individual, or for a team on a journalism course or who are creating a hyperlocal or other project, to amalgamate their multimedia content in one professional app.

You’ll also find information here on a number of other outfits that let you build your own app.

So, I hope you find this masterclass helpful. If there are questions it doesn’t answer, please get in touch. You can use any of the comment buttons on the MMJ site, or go on Twitter, Facebook, the blog or any of the other platforms you’ll find lined to on the site.
This is Masterclass 16 on MMJ and it’s the first in a series of loosely linked sessions about publishing platforms that will go live over the coming weeks.

This one is about creating smart phone apps without having any knowledge of coding, and in future masterclases we’ll also cover website building for non-coders, platforms for hyperlocal projects, data-driven journalism and look at what html and other coding you should learn, if you’d like to progress as a creator of mobile and static platforms for your journalism.

I’ve chosen the subjects partly because they are a logical progression of what we’ve covered so far in the book version of MMJ, and its supporting website, and also to build on what we’ve done in some previous masterclasses – particularly MC 11 on going mobile.

I’ve also chosen them because the MMJ community has been asking for more on these topics, and on such related things as creating RSS feeds and the use of Yahoo Pipes as a data-combinig device.

RSS feed creation is something we dealt with briefly in MC 11 but we look at it in a lot more depth here. Because, with the use of Yahoo Pipes you can create tightly defined information streams, built from numerous sources and use them to populate your mobile or static site.

It’s getting easier all the time for non-coders to create smartphone apps. While developers are charging anything from $2-3thousand dollars up to $10 or even $15 thousand, it is now possible for you to create a professional looking app, which aggregates content either from your static site or from a range of sources chosen by you, and which includes text, stills audio and video, and which is listed in the Apple iTunes and Android market stores.

You can bring all your social presences together: your news feed if you have one, your blog, you Youtube channel, Twitter feed, Audioboo and the rest

I’ve chosen one from a handful of software companies that I think get us as close as we currently can to creating a truly professional multimedia smartphone app on our own.

It’s called iSites, and while it’s not yet perfect, and it will cost you $9 a month minimum to publish with it, it seems to me to show the way forward.

I’ve had some glitches with it, but I’ve been impressed at how the guys there respond to problems raised and work to iron out bugs.

It means it’s perfectly possible for you as an individual, or for a team on a journalism course or who are creating a hyperlocal or other project, to amalgamate their multimedia content in one professional app.

You’ll also find information here on a number of other outfits that let you build your own app.

So, I hope you find this masterclass helpful. If there are questions it doesn’t answer, please get in touch. You can use any of the comment buttons on the MMJ site, or go on Twitter, Facebook, the blog or any of the other platforms you’ll find lined to on the site.

Friday 5 November 2010

MMJ 15: Media law update


Law textbooks go out of date fast

One area the law is moving too fast for those textbooks is that of privacy.

The latest masterclass at www.multimedia-journalism.co.uk/masterclasses offers journalists an essential update, delivered by the prominent media lawyer Duncan Lamont. 

The masterclass is ongoing, and the elements published so far are linked to below:
Introducing Duncan Lamont: http://www.multimedia-journalism.co.uk/node/1097
Privacy backgrounder: What the PCC and Ofcom say: http://www.multimedia-journalism.co.uk/node/1098
Privacy law is new: key points in its development: http://www.multimedia-journalism.co.uk/node/1099
How case law has shaped the develoment of privacy: http://www.multimedia-journalism.co.uk/node/1100
Is pregnancy a private matter? http://www.multimedia-journalism.co.uk/node/1101
Why can you say more about some people than others? http://www.multimedia-journalism.co.uk/node/1102
Wayne Rooney and data protection: http://www.multimedia-journalism.co.uk/node/1103
Prince Charles and breach of confidence: http://www.multimedia-journalism.co.uk/node/1103
John Terry and the rise of the super-injunction: http://www.multimedia-journalism.co.uk/node/1105
More modules to come each day





Privacy: John Terry, and the rise of the super-injunction

Super-injunctions are gagging orders taken out when one media company has a story that, the subject believes, infringes their privacy, in order to gag all media outlets.
Publications can't even say that a super-injunction is in place.

In this module of our law masterclass, which you can find in full at www.multimedia-journalism.co.uk/masterclasses, Duncan Lamont says: “The law was you couldn’t get an injunction, an order to prevent publication, with libel, so it was publish and be damned. Editors got used to not facing injunctions because they could say 'I believe what I am going to publish is true'.
“However, with the development  of privacy, and that aspect of confidentiality, the fact that a story is true and libelous, or made up and therefore incapable of being libelous but still private, meant that celebrities started going to the courts in increasing numbers to get injunctions.
"Now, that's not a super-injunction, that’s a mere injunction to stop publication of a particular story.
“A super-injunction stops anyone ever saying there was even an injunction. That there even is a reason that we should be interested in footballer X or politician Y.

The John Terry super-injunction case

The most prominent super-injunction was the one initially granted to then England football captain John Terry when he  heard rumours that a Sunday newspaper was intending to publish details of an alleged extra-marital affair.
The super-injunction was soon removed when, as The Telegraph reported: “Mr Justice Tugendhat decided he should lift a temporary gagging order he had granted which prevented the media from reporting that the £150,000-a-week footballer had conducted an extra-marital affair with the ex-girlfriend of his England team-mate Wayne Bridge.
“The injunction ... had been heavily criticised as the latest example of the courts bringing in a privacy law by the back door.”
As Duncan says in the clips, the granting of super-injunctions " many people believe, led to injustices."
But super-injunctions continue to be granted. Stephen Glover, in his Independent column wrote on October 4 2010:

"More injunctions to shield the famous and wealthy

"Two more secret injunctions have been handed down. The first involves a fabulously wealthy married man who is a well-known public figure. He has won a gagging order to prevent details of an affair being made public because he says it would distress his family. A second case concerns a television star, who has obtained an order preventing his ex-wife publishing an account of their relationship, which includes an allegation that they had an affair after he remarried.
"I know the names of the two gentlemen, but am not allowed to tell you. Would it be in the public interest for their names to be known? That is a judgement you cannot make without knowing the facts. Judges have decided for you. In the second case I would have thought that the television star's new wife might like to be put in the picture."
Roy Greenslade, in his Guardian blog, took up the story, saying:

"Why no campaign against super-injunctions?

"Rightly, Stephen Glover points today to the fact that "two more secret injunctions have been handed down... to shield the famous and wealthy."
"He is, like the rest of the British-based journalistic community, unable to tell the public their names even though he knows them.
"I agree that people should be able to prevent publication about their private lives if they can convince a judge that there is no justifiable public interest.
The details of the claims should also remain secret (of course). But the fact of a person taking legal action should not be concealed from the public.
"I wonder why more newspapers are not kicking up a great fuss about these super-injunctions this time around.
"For example, why is The Sun - which loves to hold aloft the banner of press freedom - not campaigning against the gag that prevents us knowing the identity of a television star who has prevented his ex-wife publishing an account of their relationship?"




Listen!
For more from Duncan Lamont on super-injunctions, go here:multimedia-journalism.co.uk/​node/​1105
For the full Law Update Masterclass, go here: multimedia-journalism.co.uk/​node/​1096

Monday 1 November 2010

Is it an intrusion on privacy to report Peter Crouch's girlfriend's pregnancy?

Here are some quick questions for you:

* Could you be intruding on privacy by reporting that Peter Crouch’s girlfriend was pregnant?
* What does the PCC say about reporting a pregnancy?
* If Crouch sued, would he win?

You can listen to Duncan Lamont’s view in the video or audio clips below:

Here's some more on the question of reporting pregnancy

There was a controversy over the reporting of Abbey Clancey's pregnancy. Here’s what Press gazette said about the story:

“England footballer Peter Crouch has accused journalists from The Sun of intruding on his privacy by revealing that his girlfriend was pregnant before members of their family were told.

“The Sun broke the story yesterday in advance of an official announcement.

“According to Abbey Clancy ‘intrusive Sun reporters’ followed her to a private clinic and then recorded a private conversation in a restaurant.

“Press Gazette understands that The Sun received a tip that Clancy was going to the clinic, and then overheard her talking loudly in a restaurant that she had just had her 12-week pregnancy scan and that everything appeared to be ok.

“Crouch told the Daily Mirror: ‘Abbey told me on 25 July that she was pregnant but we agreed to keep it private until she was ready to make an announcement.’”