Erkan's field diary

COMPANIES - EUROPE: Turkish media group's sale raises fears of partisan outlet

Journalists protest the social security reform

Journalists walked through Istiklal Street in the Beyoğlu district of Istanbul yesterday to protest the new regulations

Freedom of press in Turkey faces obstacles despite improvement

Incidents of violence against journalists and legal harassment of the media in Turkey have dropped significantly since the 1990s, but a recent study has revealed that there are still obstacles to

(Online-only) ombudsman: not a cost, a Web 2.0 necessity

By EditorsWeblog

The Web has entirely changed the journalist-reader relationship. Two-way reader interaction is gaining ground through email, comments, SMS, online chats and blog posts, 24/7. This would imply that news outlets increasingly need ombudsmen. Yet there are reportedly fewer than 40 ombudsmen in the US, and few papers are willing to hire one, at a time of general cost-cutting. Maybe they should think about the potential costs of not having an ombudsman, and figure that the readers’ editor is not (only) a guardrail against angry readers. He or she is a bridge into Web 2.0 journalism. The Editors Weblog interviewed Mario Vitor Santos, who since last June joined the iG (Internet Group, specialized in a variety of online services including a news site) to become an online-only ombudsman, one of the first of its kind.

2007 new media trends: Google, Facebook

By EditorsWeblog

In The Guardian’s review for new media, Jeff Jarvis calls 2007 “the year of Facebook,” as social networking and Facebook were discovered en masse by a wider international community. He also discusses the end of the paywall and the rise of Google. Facebook opened up to all users earlier this year, opened up to developers in May, and in October Microsoft invested a few hundred million (staking Facebook’s total value at about $15 billion).

Reconstructing Reporting::Revamping the Story Flow for Journalists

Every time I sit down to write an in-depth story for MediaShift, I start getting that same sinking feeling: I’m missing something. Did someone else already write this story? Did I talk to all the right people? Did those people tell me everything I should know? Are my assumptions and story angle sound? Did I get all sides of the story?

Radio Gets Social::Last.FM, Jango, Pandora Trounce Music Discovery via Radio

By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo

 Back before the Internet, listening to the radio was a one-sided experience. Beyond the occasional call-in request, music radio was about listening to whatever the DJs decided to play whenever they decided to play it. But a new breed of online music services are giving listeners access to music content on demand, and most are for free. Can these services compete with traditional radio? They can, and then some.

What is the real value of a free press in the Information Age?

Newspaper industry is ‘overly pessimistic’

By EditorsWeblog

Credit Suisse analyst John Klim has recently produced a report on the newspaper industry that explains things are not as bad as they seem to be. He made the point that the industry downturn is more cyclical than secular, having more to do with economic factors, like real estate softness, than anything inherent to the industry.

The future of online news sites

By EditorsWeblog

Paul Farhi, a Washington Post reporter says, “the online newspaper audience seems to have all but stopped growing.” “The number of unique visitors to newspaper Web sites was almost flat – up just 2.3 percent – between August 2006 and August 2007, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. The total number of pages viewed by this audience has plateaued, growing just 1.8 percent last year.

2008 media predictions

By EditorsWeblog

Jon Fine who writes for Media Centric of Business Week gives his predictions for the big stories that will come out of the media in 2008. Here are some of his predictions: Daily newspapers begin to redefine the word "daily." At least one U.S. newspaper in a top-100 market will stop taking "daily" literally and drop its (historically thin) Saturday print edition. Other papers in smaller markets also do so, in some cases going further by dropping print publication on another day as well.More than one famous band pulls a Radiohead.

Reuters reports on mobile journalism developments

By EditorsWeblog

Reuters' reporters have been experimenting for a few months now with mobile journalism toolkit, using a Nokia N95. They have mostly used it for TV reporters to shoot video for the Web, but now a text reporter will use a handset and a Bluetooth keyboard to file to the wire from L.A. and Las Vegas.Nokia has been working with Reuters to develop a better mobile device for reporting.

Problems with journalism: key points for editors

By EditorsWeblog

Mary Nesbit, director of The Readership Institute, examined the problems with journalism and came up with several points and pieces of advice that she thinks would be of help to editors try to “lead, not just keep things ticking over.” Here are some of her main points:Speed, distribution, multimedia, interactivity, networks, new business models

The future of media: networking

By EditorsWeblog

“The future of media is less about products - that is, controlling content and distribution - and more about networks,” Jeff Jarvis, a journalism professor at the City University of New York and a blogger said. Jarvis feels that the media industry needs to use the Internet to network. He gives the example of Glam.com as the best such network that he has seen yet. Glam.com has grown to the leading women’s brand online, with 23 million users. Glam attained this spot by creating a network.

Do reporters have a place in the future of journalism?

By EditorsWeblog

"Journalistic skills are not entirely wiped out in an online world, but they are eroded and, most importantly, they cannot be confined any longer to an exclusive elite group," said Roy Gleenslade in a recent blog.With the old way of media dying out, media companies will have fewer staff and their jobs will be to collect and produce information from freelances, bloggers, and citizen journalists.

Social Environmental Responsibility World Journalism Prize winners announced

By EditorsWeblog

The 2007 winners for the first edition of the Social Environmental Responsibility World Journalism Prize, jointly organized by the World Forum de Lille and the World Editors Forum, have been announced.

Winners:
Social and Environmental Responsibility Prize:
    Valérie Borde (Canada)
    “L’Actualité,” October 15th 2006 which title is “Quand vert rime avec affaires.”
Borde's article described the rise in green-friendly companies. Nowadays, many companies are churning decent profits, while not only respecting the environment, but even thanks to these eco-friendly policies.

Diversity and equal opportunity special prize:
    Savad Rahman (India)
“Madhayman Daily” October 15th 2006 which title is “Bant Singh The Lion of Mansa.”
This much more militant piece was a feature article about Bant Singh, who put up a heroic - and blood-stained - fight against the judiciary system, after his daughter was raped - an oft unpunished crime.

Prize specifically dedicated to the press in developing countries:
    Patrick Mayoyo (Kenya)
“The East African” March 2nd, 2007 which title is “Lamu oil drillings worries marine bodies.”
In the wake of this well-written, solidly researched journalistic piece, as well as a campaign against oil drilling in Lamu, a committee is investigating the environmental impact of the oil drilling operations, which were jeopardizing the ocean's ecosystem.

Facebook and newspapers: general interest vs. local

By EditorsWeblog

It may be the web's most popular phenomenon, but are huge social networks like Facebook all the surrounding hype makes them out to be? According to investors, probably not. But according to this newspaper blog, local is a rife opportunity when it comes to social networks.Two articles this week take a look inside the potential bubble that is brewing around (extremely) popular social network sites.