The Sun clearly excelling in its framing of Gadaffi’s death…
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PhD Studentship: News, the Internet and the Arab Spring
Bournemouth University has just announced a series of fully-funded PhD scholarships.
One of the projects that has been awarded funding will be under my supervision, entitled: “News, the Internet and Political Protest: Al-Jazeera, BBC and Reuters Reporting of the Arab Spring and its Aftermath”
Using WordPress as a news website v2 (list of 32 useful plugins)
William Davis and Lauren Rabaino’s posts about how Bangor Daily News adopted WordPress (and indeed Google Docs*) as part of their publishing workflow (it even feeds InDesign) has inspired me to revisit my own post about using WordPress as a news website. That was a slightly crude list of plugins that might be useful in adding functionality to WordPress required to implement important features for journalism and effective newsroom routines.
We are currently embarking on a redevelopment of a news website for our postgraduate journalism programmes at Bournemouth University, so I welcome any thoughts and suggestions on experiences with the below plugins – or indeed how you have implemented WordPress as a news website in your organisation.
* I remain unconvinced by using Google Docs as part of an online news workflow since it removes the writing process from the hypertext environment of the story (read: digital storytelling). There are other benefits, for sure, including better ability for real-time collaboration and subediting, but I’m not certain those outweigh the negatives.
‘There was never an average day’: James Ball on being WikiLeaks’ in-house journalist
James Ball on being WikiLeaks’ in-house journalist:
What I think gets forgotten is that five of the world’s biggest newspapers – and WikiLeaks – held a shared timetable for three weeks. That’s an unprecedented level of collaboration, and I think everyone involved will look back on it more favourably than perhaps they do at the moment.
While I think the duty exists to an extent, WikiLeaks wants to be seen by media outlets as a partner organisation, receiving due credit as the source of the material, being free to release its own stories and take on the subject matter, and to co-publish. I think that’s a more activist and more controlling position than a typical source, and so perhaps means outlets have less duty of care than otherwise.
WikiLeaks is a conduit which exists to protect the people who are directly taking the risks to get powerful material to the public. They are the sources that most deserve, and need, protection.
Books on WikiLeaks
The Guardian has published a book on WikiLeaks today, with The New York Times and Der Speigel also presenting their version of events in book format – perhaps they’re all just trying to get in before Julian Assange publishes his chronicle?
I will update this post with order details and other books as they become available. If you come across any that are not listed, please do let me know.
The Guardian:
Wikileaks, by David Leigh & Luke Harding, £6.99
Inside Wikileaks, by Daniel Domscheit-Berg, £7.99
WikiLeaks Versus the World [Hardback], by Julian Assange, £16.00
The New York Times:
Open Secrets: Wikileaks, War and American Diplomacy [ebook], by Alexander Star (ed) Bill Keller (intro), £4.30
Der Spiegel:
WikiLeaks: Public Enemy No. 1, by Marcel Rosenbach and Holger Stark [not found link to translated version yet]
Bloggers:
The Age of Wikileaks: From Collateral Murder to Cablegate (and Beyond), By Greg Mitchell, £7.61