Archive for the ‘journalism’ Category
Meeting Amadou Mahtar Ba
Amadou Mahtar Ba & Nick Kotch, originally uploaded by R Freeman.
Amadou is the first of the visiting speakers this week. He’s head of the African Media Initiative. They aim to improve media freedom, strengthen professional journalism standards and increase investment in African media.
Some of his main speaking themes:
The media are critical in shaping Africa by promoting democratic governance and economic growth.
A background into the development of AllAfrica.com – a need for Africa to tell its own stories, particularly at a time when many newspapers did not have their own websites.
The rise of mobile phones as a content creation device and a content distribution tool.
The need for journalists to act as facilitators and moderators of debate and constantly ask who their audience is and how they are best reached.
First visit to Nairobi
I’m in Kenya for the first time!
I’m with a group of journalists being hosted by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, at the Kenya School of Monetary Studies.
I’m hoping to add some pictures to this a bit later once I’ve got my camera hooked up and the internet speeds have got a bit faster come 5pm.
BP exert ‘chilling effect’ on oil slick reporting
Can’t control oil flow, but can control news
I don’t post very often (apologies, work commitments) but this needs wide dissemination.
Roy Greenslade summaries some of the reporting being done on the Mexican Gulf coast, and what seems like BP’s attempts to manage the news.
Check twice, publish once – the 4am curse
Don’t write it down, don’t even think it
For some reason at almost 4am on the 28th February I was surfing the Guardian. Right on the front page was a small link to ‘Chlie sausage’ with other links with earthquake coverage.
Intrigued, I clicked, and got this:
(click for the larger size)
Oh dear.
This is clearly a case of a mistaken button push. It came down fairly quickly, and it’s not in Google’s cache anymore, but a search brings up the leftover metadata.
I suppose the lesson here is don’t add anything into a news system which you don’t intend to be visible to the public. I can remember this being impressed upon me during early days at Radio New Zealand. Journalists were actively discouraged from adding private notes in the news system, for the amusement of the newsreaders or sub-editors.
It was pointed out that a court request for information could make the comedy slur of a hapless newsmaker very public indeed, and perhaps lead to legal proceedings! Not fun.
The recent addendum to the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines says much the same thing about personal web-presences for BBC staff: If you wouldn’t say it on air, don’t put it on the web.
TVTropes has a whole category of fictional and some real-life ‘Is this thing still on’ moments broadcast on television.
In the end, I’m reminded of the time I saw the Guardian’s mis-publish, nearly 4am. And surreal things happen in the wee small hours, as the poet, Rives, points out in this cleverly written piece at TED in 2007. Enjoy.


