Category Archives: _t

Nieman Journalism Lab: Writing the novel, then the CliffsNotes

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Gawker posts a bullet-point version of a 2,000-word piece: "the full story has generated 480,000 pageviews and 189 comments. But the CliffsNotes version has generated another 39,193 pageviews and 83 comments on its own ... there’s real value in taking the longer pieces we journalists love to write — and defend — and creating parallel versions that less dedicated readers can more easily take in."

Wikipedia: Streisand effect

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Already amended with references to Trafigura and Carter-Ruck: "The Streisand effect is an Internet phenomenon where an attempt to censor or remove a piece of information backfires, causing the information to be widely publicized. ... Mike Masnick originally coined the term Streisand effect in reference to a 2003 incident where Barbra Streisand sued photographer Kenneth Adelman and Pictopia.com for US$50 million in an attempt to have the aerial photo of her house removed from the publicly available collection of 12,000 California coastline photographs, citing privacy concerns."

BBC News: When is a secret not a secret?

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Nick Higham: "No injunction has been served on the BBC, but ever since the Spycatcher case in the 1980s, news organisations which knowingly breach an injunction served on others are in contempt of court - so the corporation too is bound by the Guardian injunction. But the lawyers in this case clearly reckoned without the blogosphere. In the anarchic, anything-goes world of the internet, where freedom of speech is a frequently heard rallying cry, injunctions banning publication of anything are unpopular. This one seems to have acted like a red rag to a bull."

ZDNet UK: Twitter, Trafigura, trends and treason

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Rupert Goodwins: "Over the past 24 hours, the news about the injunction and the injuncted material was more effectively distributed across the planet than any army of PR merchants and marketing gurus could have hoped to have achieved ... It will be a while before the implications of the Trafigura affair are fully absorbed: if nothing else, it will make litigous parties think twice before issuing the sort of absolute injunctions which have been growing in popularity even as their powers to hide from scrutiny have increased. "

Wired UK: Imagining a future without journalists

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Peter Kirwan: "At its most basic, business journalism involves interpreting the dynamics of an industry. Yet if these shifting dynamics can be reduced to data points, and if those data points can be sold in digital format to subscribers, the value of external interpretation – and journalism – inevitably declines."

The Content Makers: Note to Reporters: Let MSM Control Your Social Network, and You Disappear

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Margaret Simons "I have some clear advice to journalists. Do not allow your employer to prevent you from having access to Twitter, Facebook and the like. Be very cautious indeed about signing anything that restricts your ability to network online. ... We all know, as journalists, that our reputations are the foundations for our career. Our reputations belong to us, not our employers."

Observer: James Murdoch’s club offers few real plusses

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Peter Preston: "in print, singling out your devotees in this way also shucks off engaged readers who want to buy two or three different papers a day, as millions still do – or would do if they could be bothered to operate via the myriad different, and mutually exclusive, subscription schemes now sprouting. That hurts sales in the industry as a whole. It also introduces market rigidities that hamper what the trade calls 'promiscuous' purchase, usually sparked by a belting front page."

Independent: Murdoch will pay for the end of free news

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Jimmy Leach: "Murdoch has never shown any real understanding of the attention economy of the web, of the promiscuity of news consumers who cares more for the subject matter than the logo at the top. There is no brand loyalty on the web – especially not if you make your content difficult to find, and you charge people to read it when they’ve done so."