Media News - Friday, April 27, 2012

Free handbook helps journalists use data to improve the news

The Data Journalism Handbook is a free, open-source book that aims to help journalists to use data to improve the news. It will be launched on Saturday 28th April, at Italy’s leading journalism event, the International Journalism Festival in Perugia, which attracts thousands of journalists from around the world for a week of talks and workshops. The book is an international, collaborative effort involving dozens of data journalism’s leading advocates and best practitioners - including from Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the BBC, the Chicago Tribune, Deutsche Welle, the Guardian, the Financial Times, Helsingin Sanomat, La Nacion, the New York Times, Pro Publica, the Washington Post, the Texas Tribune, Verdens Gang, Wales Online, Zeit Online and many others. The Data Journalism Handbook is an initiative of the European Journalism Centre and the Open Knowledge Foundation. The book will be freely available at datajournalismhandbook.org under a Creative Commons Attribution Sharealike License. Additionally a printed version and an e-book will be published by O’Reilly Media. (Data Journalism Handbook)

New York Times launches social media ad program

News media outlets are increasingly realizing that online readers are finding their websites’ content through people sharing stories on social media. Finding a way to sell advertising against those readers has been a challenge. The New York Times Co. unveiled Thursday a new social-media advertising program that attempts to address that quandary. Called Ricochet, the program lets marketers pick a select number of stories from Times Co. properties, such as the Times or Boston Globe, that are relevant to their social media audiences and create special links for sharing those stories. Anyone clicking on the social media links will see the marketer’s ads next to the stories for a specified period of time. To keep a dividing line between editorial and advertising, advertisers won’t be able to pick stories that mention their brands for at least a week after the stories have run. The program’s launch client is SAP, the business software company, which is picking Times stories about topics like big data and cloud computing. It will share these stories with its 127,000 Facebook friends, 47,000 Twitter followers, 113,000 LinkedIn followers and 2,000 YouTube followers. Anyone of those people clicking on the stories will see ads from a new SAP ad campaign that rolled out last week. (Washington Post)

American University launches history project retracing 60 years of investigative journalism

American University’s Investigative Reporting Workshop is launching a visual history project online to retrace some of the most significant moments in the history of investigative reporting. The website, “Investigating Power,” was launched Wednesday night at the National Press Club. Professor Charles Lewis, a former producer for CBS’s “60 Minutes” and for ABC News, is leading the project. Contributors include Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, former Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, Post reporter Dana Priest and Seymour Hersh. Lewis also interviewed journalists Mike Wallace and Daniel Schorr before they died about how they did their work. Organizers say the project examines six areas where journalism brought “truth to power.” They include the McCarthy era, Civil Rights, the Vietnam war, the Watergate scandal, post-9/11 America and corporate power. (Washington Post)

Press freedom group launches Journalist Security Guide

The Committee to Protect Journalists has launched a Journalist Security Guide, to help freelance journalists stay safe while working on stories. The guide, published online on Thursday, provides advice on how to handle dangerous situations, including issues of digital security, natural disasters and organised crime. In a statement, primary author Frank Smyth, senior advisor for journalist security to CPJ and executive director of Global Journalist Security, said: "Today's journalist is covering an increasingly dangerous world, operating in a climate where journalists are not only frequently killed, but murdered with impunity." "Investigating corruption or abuse of power can be more dangerous in many nations than covering combat. In this climate, journalists need to know how to protect their information, their sources, themselves and their families." (Journalism.co.uk)

Nigeria: 7 killed in newspaper office bombings

A suicide bomber and a man armed with explosives attacked two Nigerian newspaper offices on Thursday, killing seven people and wounding at least 26. The radical Islamic sect Boko Haram claimed responsibility. Boko Haram said it coordinated the attacks on Nigeria's major daily newspaper ThisDay in the capital, Abuja, and an office building it shares with two other newspapers in the city of Kaduna. It threatened to target other journalists in the future. In a statement published Thursday night by the Premium Times website, a spokesman for Boko Haram said it would attack media again over what the group felt was inaccurate media coverage. The sect is blamed for killing more than 440 people this year alone in its growing sectarian fight against Nigeria's weak central government, according to an Associated Press count. The sect spokesman particularly blamed ThisDay for publishing stories the group found inaccurate. The newspaper is owned by media mogul Nduka Obaigbena, whose flashy events in Nigeria have drawn celebrities from former U.S. President Bill Clinton to rapper Jay-Z. Obaigbena also has strong ties to the country's elite and the ruling People's Democratic Party. (AP)

Germany to at last publish Hitler’s memoir

After being unavailable for many decades, Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” will finally be published in Germany. Until now, the state of Bavaria has used its copyright over the book to prevent it from appearing. That copyright is finally set to expire in 2015, 70 years after Hitler’s death. According to the BBC, Bavaria is publishing the work before the expiration date in order to “demystify” it and make it commercially unattractive for private publishers. The book, which translates as “My Struggle”, combines biography with a description of Hitler’s emerging ideology. The book has been frequently described as boring and unreadable. The book is not illegal in Germany but is effectively unavailable because of the Bavarian copyright. It has long been available in other countries. Amazon has a dozen editions of Mein Kampf for sale. Bavaria’s decision to publish not only raises questions about public policy but also about the practicality of banning books in the digital age. While school districts in America have often tried to ban works like Catcher in the Rye, such books are now in easy reach of anyone with a keyboard or an e-reader. (Paid Content)

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