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I’ve picked out three points to look at in detail, they’re of particular relevance to new journalists:

1. targeting your content to a niche market
2. using technology to help you
3. why being ‘good enough’ isn’t good enough.

1. Target your content to a niche market

“Trust is central to it working” – Simon Perry, Ventnor Blog

Simon Perry from Ventnor blog set up a site to cover news of the Isle of Wight. It’s been going over five years, has won several Talk About Local awards and is fiercely supported by the community.

Simon’s experience shows that if you take the time to cater your content to the audience, they’ll stick with you. Ask them what they want. Accept criticism and try to make your site the most trusted place to be.

Learning point: Ask for feedback. Listen to what people say about your site and make changes if you need to.

2. Use technology to help you

“Journalists should always be mobile” – Ilicco Elia, Reuters

Ilicco Elia is the Head of Mobile at Reuters Media. He admits to owning a lot of mobile phones and being a technology nut. He shared a great story about an embedded war journalist using a mobile phone to record video, audio, take pictures and send them back to the UK after his ‘proper’ equipment was damaged.

Ilicco’s story shows how journalists use technology to help tell the story. You’re not out in the field telling the story because you have a smartphone – you’d be out there anyway. Technology helps you tell the story in pictures, sound and text.

Learning point: You’re a journalist, go out and get stories. Use simple technology to help you, not to take over the story. Sometimes just a pen and paper will do!

Hannah Waldram – works as a Cardiff Beatblogger for the Guardian and also set up a hyperlocal site for Bournville, Birmingham.

Hannah is a great example of an enterprising young journalist. After graduating she decided to set up her own website to cover news where she lived. She simply set up her site and off she went – on her bike as it happens. Her ability to get to grips with tools such as a smartphone, free image manipulation and web publishing software as well as a knack for using open data websites means she is able to report efficiently without an office.

How does Hannah work? Take a peek inside her roving reporter’s toolkit.

Learning point: You should be confident in several ways to tell a story – writing, pictures, video and audio. Aim to be fantastic in at least one of these areas to stand out.

“Oh. And it’s fun!” – Simon Perry, Ventnor Blog

What is obvious is that the people working in online journalism love it. They don’t use video because they have to – they use it because it helps to tell the story.

If you’re a student journalist or have recently graduated think about setting up a site to do with one of your interests. Whether you cover knitting, sport or hyperlocal news – you can use your phone to help you and you’ll be working with the same equipment as the professionals.

Be passionate about your subject and tell the story the best way you can. Passion breeds success and there’s never been a better time to get stuck in.

Technology

• Laptop
• Handheld video camera
• Smartphone
• Gorillapod

Wires

• Delicious
• Google reader and calendar
• Trendsmap
• Twitter

Live blogging/streaming

• Cover It Live
• Scribble Live
• Bambuser

Video

• YouTube
• Vimeo
• 12 Seconds
• Qik Video

Audio

• AudioBoo
• SoundCloud
• Audacity

Pictures

• Flickr
• Twitpic

Text

• Scribd

Open data

• My Society
• Many Eyes
• Help Me Investigate
• They Work For You
• What Do They Know?
• Zeemaps

Back to Three things new online journalists should know

Got any more? Add them in the comments below.

Health surveys have been around for a while, but what do they really tell us? We should ask a few simple questions:

• Who carried out the survey?
• Who did they carry out the survey for?
• Who is sponsoring this survey on garlic pills, sun cream or low fat diets?

More often than not it’s a company with something to sell. In which case you can bet your bottom dollar that so-called facts or findings may not be what they seem.

By printing an ‘independent’ survey, a publication is suggesting that there may be something in it, while remaining at arms’ length from any responsibility for the findings.

Could it be that one of its advertisers would benefit from any good PR from this survey?

How are samples collected?

Let’s look at the technical questions:

• How are samples selected?
• How are people approached and questioned?

This is before any data has been collected or analysed.

Sample selection

There is an immediate ’selection bias’ built in, particularly in postal surveys, where respondents are openly targeted according to income or a previous purchase made or by their address, postcodes being widely used to define the lifestyles or net worth of residents.

Most of those who respond to postal surveys do so because they have an interest in the subject. This is known as ‘ascertainment bias‘. When you read: ‘This survey shows,’ beware. What is not pointed out is that of 1,000 people questioned, only 13% replied and 87% did not.

Of the 13% who replied, more than half said one thing, while less the half said the other. By the time it is reported, ‘the survey shows that 62% of respondents said x,’ when the more truthful and mathematically correct interpretation should be, ‘only 8% of the total survey population said x’.

But who said statistics had anything to do with either truth or mathematics?

How should people react to being surveyed?

When people are questioned face to face, how do we know that they do not just give the answers they think the interviewer wants to hear, rather than forcefully express their opinion? Do we know what questions were asked, how they were framed, whether they were leading questions?

Few surveys list the questions asked in appendices. Because of their personal nature, health surveys can also reveal people’s biases or social sensitivities, particularly if the questions are poorly framed.

For example, advertising campaigns in the mid-80s associated the consumption of animal fat with coronary risk so that spreading margarine suddenly became socially acceptable and even an indication of a prestigious (because stressful) life. Yet not long before the same margarine was regarded as an indication of lower class poverty and it was difficult to get housewives to admit that they used it instead of butter.

The reason behind the new consumer attitude was the subtle changes made to the survey questions being put.

So did the consumers change from butter to margarine for health or social reasons?

We never find out.

The real driver behind any survey is cost

A sample should yield enough individuals in each critical group for us to be confident that they are truly representative – but each interview costs money.

Add to this the more comprehensive a questionnaire becomes, the more it puts off respondents, demoralises interviewers and wastes time and money.

Given this context it is worth determining what, if any, value health surveys really bring and how much they are pawns in the publication price or brand wars. It could be argued that they tend to have a health bias – ‘Joining the local health/sports/fitness club can improve your performance’.

The implication here is that x% of people surveyed felt fitter or had more energy because they joined a club. But did it also capture the opinions of those who did not join?

• How many did not join for economic reasons but worked out on their own, at no cost?
• Were they less fit?
• Was there a comparison between the groups?

We never find out.

More people fear public speaking than death

In a 1993 study of human fears done by the polling firm Bruskin-Goldring in the United States, 30% of those surveyed said they feared death while 45% said they feared public-speaking.

It is comforting to know there are worse things than death.

Whatever health surveys you read in future, take them with a pinch of salt – just how much depends on what survey you last read.

Bob Mathers writes regularly for Hospital Doctor online on ’soft’ management skills such as communication and time management. This article first appeared in 2001 and has been re-edited for this guest blog post. If you enjoy it, why not read his other guest post in this blog: No Bad Thing on how the English language changes.

On election night 2010, one student at the Department of Journalism at the University of Sheffield discovered a story. Through a combination of speed, contacts and Twitter we made her story go national – and this is how we did it.

Let me set the scene

The journalism postgraduates at Sheffield University work together for one week in the second semester to produce news output of the highest standard possible. I help the web MAs with the website – how to populate with content and organise it, how to attract an audience and keep the site fresh. What I love about this week is that the adrenaline is flowing, stress levels skyrocket and the output is absolutely top drawer.

Output from the students

Print: Two editions of a newspaper (Thursday and Friday)
Broadcast: Hourly radio news bulletins plus an extended final show and two TV bulletins (Thursday and Friday)
Magazine: Work for several weeks beforehand to produce a 60-page magazine
Web: Liaise with all the groups to put the best content online on the JUS News website, as well as populating the site with local, national and sport news. The website is also able to stream the news bulletins and showcase the TV packages.

Spotting the story

Print student Anna Macnaughton noticed a friend’s tweet saying she’d been waiting in a queue for two hours to vote. Anna decided to head over to the polling station to investigate. She had her journalistic instincts firmly engaged:

• Is this new?
• Is it interesting?
• Do I want to know more – and are there several points of view I can gather?

Anna popped into the multimedia newsroom (where the web team were stationed) to pick up a camera and tell us where she was going. We decided to run the story and Joey Close (the day’s web editor) started writing it up from tweets he found using the search function. Anna promised to call us with more details once she was at the polling station and rushed off, tiny kodak video camera in hand.

Just a few minutes later, Anna called up with more details and to let us know she had pictures and video. Joey was able to file the first version of the story, which he pushed out to Twitter using the @JUS_News account.

Knowing who to look for on Twitter

Neal Mann, Sky News journalist, had been in the department the day before to help out. Neal graduated from the department a few years ago and we’d spent a few minutes catching up. We talked about how Twitter is today’s essential tool for journalists and how helpful it is to him as a journalist as Sky strive to be first with the news.

Knowing Neal (and Sky) would be interested in the story, I sent a tweet that we would have video from Ranmoor polling station shortly and were they interested? (Incidentally, I’d seen Neal say he was going to get some sleep as he was on shift in the early hours of the morning, so Broadcast Course leader Marie Kinsey suggested we tweet Sky journalist Niall Paterson.)

A few minutes later we had a message from Hazel, Sky News online journalist/producer asking for video/pictures.

Bingo. Once we had uploaded our fresh pictures and video we sent the information to Hazel. And once Sky were running our stuff, other news agencies saw it and wanted it!

Other news agencies come running

Soon enough we had spotted our story (and several incoming links) on the Times Online, the BBC, Channel4 and the New Statesman (see the screengrabs below).

By this time, a couple more student journalists had gone to join Anna with a stills camera and video camera to get better quality content. Reuters paid the student who took the camera footage £150 for using her video and picture agency Picture It Now used the images taken by Colin Shek.

So, how DO you break a national news story?

Assuming you are in the right place at the right time:

• Have a smartphone that can take pictures, video, audio, even type up text
• Be quick! Others might be doing as you do so your aim is to file first
• Be connected – follow journalists. Who will want your story? Is it local, national or special interest?
• Use Twitter to tap into the contacts in your network quickly
• Be trustworthy: Report the facts, don’t omit anything – and did I mention checking your facts?

We also hashtagged all our tweets (whether from our own accounts or the @JUS_News one) with #jusnews to help others following us see what new content we were putting live and also to cross promote the other output the students were producing. See the #jusnews tweets.

Further reading: In the students’ own words:

Anna Macnaughton: Blog: Getting the story at Hallam polling station

Gemma Kappala-Ramsamy: People denied the right to vote at Sheffield Hallam polling station: link round-up

The first thing I’ve learned is that although a huge and growing number of people get their news primarily online, most I’ve spoken to don’t have a clear idea of what “web journalism” actually is. When I tell people what course I’m doing, I generally get a reaction along the lines of, “So, is that, like, blogging?”

So the second thing I’ve had to learn on this course is how to respond to that question gracefully. I used to say, “No, anybody with an opinion and an internet connection can blog. Why would I pay thousands of pounds to learn how?” True and succinct, but not the politest way to say it.

Then I started responding, “No, like journalism… only on a website.” This tended to be met with a blank stare. “Like the BBC news website or the [insert name of newspaper here] online.” Faint glimmer of understanding.

And then there was the rant. “No, blogging is mainly people’s opinions and anyone can write a blog. Web journalism is much more specialised. It’s like any kind of journalism in the newsgathering sense, but it’s written differently, specifically for websites. There are all kinds of things like search engine optimisation that you use when you’re writing for a real website. Plus web journalists are trained in media law, which most bloggers aren’t. A web journalist might also blog, but it’s not the same thing and they’re not interchangeable terms.”

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against blogs as a rule. Obviously I’m writing for one now. And there are many excellent blogs, some of them even journalistic. What irks me is the attitude of many people I’ve met, including some other journalists, that web writing is inferior to print or broadcast in some way.

It’s particularly troublesome as the market is headed more and more towards online content. But really, I’ll have the last laugh because of the specialised skills I’m learning. Like search engine optimisation, making sure relevant keywords are in appropriate places on the page so it ranks well in search engines. How to structure a story that engages the reader and makes them click through to other pages on the site. How to use photos and teaser text to the best advantage.

So now I smile and say, “No, not really. We build websites and then we write news stories to put on them using specific web techniques.”

What do you think? How do you describe web journalism?

We love pictures. Photos. Images. They capture expressions lost in movement and help fix memories and feelings forever. If you’re a website owner, you’ll already know that your users love pictures.

Using images on your website can do a number of jobs:
• Show your products
• Help make a point
• Grab attention.

But you can’t just use any old snap. Oh no. Nobody likes blurred outlines or out-of-focus faces. Your picture has to be appropriately framed, well lit, sharp. Your picture has to get across what you’re trying to say. And quickly.

Say you sell phones. You need your user to visualise a 3D object from flat pictures – that’s quite a job. Make it easy by providing lots of images from different angles. Answer questions before they’re asked:
• How big is the phone? Show someone holding it to their ear
• What does the screen look like? Use a close-up image of the screen
• Where are the features located? Include a diagram.

Images of products sold online should be taken by a professional photographer. The cost is easily worth it for the impact it will have with users.

What if you’re not selling a product but a service?

This is a situation where you might consider using stock imagery, for example, a couple smiling. However, these images can look ‘fake’ and not match your brand if you talk about a ‘personal touch’.

During my work on the homepages at Yahoo! and Aol I’ve seen that images related to a news story will get far more clicks than the headline. The area is larger, sure, but there’s something compelling about a photo. Touching it with your mouse can be impossible to resist. Try it next time you’re looking at a picture of a delicious meal!

Of course, cracking copy will complement attention-grabbing images – the two go together like ham and eggs. Don’t disappoint your users by giving garbled sentences and confusing messages. The pictures should grab attention and the copy should keep it there. If you have a website that needs sprucing up, call your dream team of professional photographer and copywriter.

Screen shot of Sky News story on 10 March 2010

Do you, as I did, look at the image first then let your eye travel up to the headline? How many people don’t look at the headline? You could easily think this chap is Jon Venables – when the entire point of the article is to say he isn’t.

Words are important but visually they’re not as strong as a photo or image on the page.

It’s an obvious choice to put these two photos together but it doesn’t tell the user what the story is. In fact, it actually leads the user to an assumption that is completely wrong.

I think I would have kept the two images apart and had the image of David Calvert first, then further down the page had the image of Jon Venables. Would you place them differently? I’d be interested to think if you think I’m being over-sensitive or I’m right to be on my high horse on this one.

I wasn’t aware of this when I was employed full time. I thought I was at work to do the job my boss told me to do and they took responsibility for the time management. All of it. Project delayed? Train late? Teabag in too long? Boss’ fault. Now I charge my time to my clients I know I must give value for money with no room for procrastination.

I work at home in my office and am the source of amusement to friends when they see my hours hanging on the door. Hey if I’ve ever worked these exact hours I’ll give myself the day off, the point is that I have work to do and it’s in my best interests to get it done so I can relax come ‘home time’.

When I work with other people I think – yippee – a bit of banter, a few laughs, then get down to work. It doesn’t always pan out like this. I was in a meeting yesterday in a messenger window (which is another dimension of hell entirely) wondering what was going on. No one in the meeting knew what the purpose of it was – why were we here? What must we leave this meeting knowing?

Today I gave some feedback along the lines of – great idea to have a meeting but could we be more clear on the purpose? I wasn’t sure what was going on yesterday. The reply – I kid ye not – ‘the purpose will become clear as we have more meetings’.

To save you the pain I am about to experience, I thought I’d draw up a list of points to consider when you schedule or attend your next meeting:

1. Have a purpose
   What must you leave the meeting knowing/having?
2. Write down points to be discussed
   If you know what you need to know, follow the logical steps to get there
3. Know what you’ll say
   Prepare your thoughts and take some notes if you need. And speak clearly!
4. Don’t ‘dress up’ the issues
   Get to the point, assume people know the background. If they don’t – they’ll ask
5. Time yourselves
   Start promptly, divide the number of points by the minutes you have and finish on time.

Next time you have a brisk and efficient meeting, do think of me languishing in my phone conference/messenger window.

Bob writes regularly for Hospital Doctor online on communication and time management and by special request he’s writing a series of blogs for the Crocstar website on the English language. Take it away Bob…

Did you know the game of football was played at Eton School before 1750? Ten years later they were playing similar games at Westminster, Charterhouse and Harrow. It wasn’t until the early 20th century that most of the rules we understand today came into operation. Crucially, while all this developing and changing was going on, schools couldn’t play each other because they didn’t have a common set of rules. For example, Rugby and Marlborough used hands and feet whereas Winchester and Shrewsbury allowed ‘dribbling’.

So it is with language. We know language develops and changes all the time but, hey, we still need a recognisable structure and a set of rules otherwise some of us will keep putting our feet into our mouths while others will be ‘drivelling’. Let’s agree that grammar rules are not a bad thing dreamed up by teachers to bore us. There is a fashion these days to decry grammar and ‘correct’ usage. It cuts across the grain of our freedom to do anything we want. As we see with the football example, you can do your own thing if you want but it limits you in the end.

The next question is ‘Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?’ or, to paraphrase who is in charge of protecting the language and its structure, if not our teachers? It’s down to all of us to try to use it in ways that help us understand and be understood. Now there’s a revolutionary idea. That, I think, is its greatest protection. You can change it, maul it to pieces and create all the secret little exclusive languages you like but if fewer and fewer people understand you, you’ll have shot yourself in the foot – to use yet another footballing analogy.

So what linguistic misdemeanors are annoying me this week? How about tautology – the pointless use of words or phrases that say the same thing, e.g, ‘Let’s re-do that again once more’. It’s tiring having to read or listen to it. And it’s not just people who didn’t study grammar who come out with it.

How about this, heard last December from someone described as an expert on the Afghan situation on radio: “…this governing council, the composition of which is made up of different elements…” Uhm, why don’t you try ‘composed of different elements’? It saves six of your ten words and doesn’t make you sound inexpert (or stupid).

And here’s a little gem from a politics lecturer at St. John’s Oxford in a Radio 5 interview earlier this month: “Let’s not overblow that too much.” You don’t have to be a fascist to detest poor language skills. You just need to love language and dislike people pretending to be clever while demonstrating that their thought processes don’t quite match up to their self-publicity. It’s like lying on your CV; good people don’t do it.

Now before I escalate this matter upwards I’m just going to return back to where we were in the first place before this happened…