Online Journalism Blog

THIS BLOG IS MOVING

2007-02-02T15:05:00.000Z

I've bowed to the inevitable and decided to move the Online Journalism Blog to Wordpress. I've had a few good years with Blogger but the relationship never felt like it was going anywhere, and, to be honest, on occasion I even felt ashamed to be seen in public together.

I admit, I was starstruck by the prospect of better Google rankings, but the indie appeal of Wordpress has finally won me over. Oh, and the fact that when Blogger went over to a Google sign-in I couldn't log on at work (I'm sure it's something to do with cookie settings and I could sort it out if I had the time, but no, I'd rather spend endless hours configuring Wordpress to work the same way).

So, if you want to carry on reading my clippings, comments and very occasional flash of insightful analysis, add http://onlinejournalismblog.wordpress.com/ to your Favourites and http://onlinejournalismblog.wordpress.com/feed/ to your RSS feed.

I may occasionally still post to Blogger while I figure Wordpress out, but don't hold your breath.

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Integrated Newsrooms part 1: The new Telegraph model

2007-01-27T17:05:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism]. In the first of a promised three-part series, Editors Weblog looks at the new 'multimedia hub' newsroom of the Daily Telegraph. Unfortunately, it reads a bit fluffy, complete with a riding-into-the-sunset final paragraph:

"[Rhidian Wynn Davies, Consulting Editor of The Telegraph] says simply “we couldn’t do what we do now in the old structure”. [Edward Roussel, Digital Editor at The Telegraph] explains a little further “Everyone is on one floor and no-one can hide away in their office – there aren’t any. It improves communication. I don’t think anyone would want to go back to how it was. It’s such a dynamic environment now, we have short sharp meetings where decisions are made quickly rather than hour long arranged meetings. Before people didn’t communicate. Now those that aren’t good at communicating are forced to. There is no question that it works a lot better and the quality of the content is higher”"

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Newspaper Video: Editing and apps

2007-01-27T16:57:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism]. Andy Dickinson presents his summary of what newspaper video producers need, in terms of software. A second part is also promised which covers freeware/shareware options.

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Online journalism discussion

2007-01-27T16:29:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism]. The OJR have launched a discussion board on their website around online journalism - looks like a great space to contribute to.

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Students make mobile phone news

2007-01-27T13:37:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. News editors, meet the graduate journalists of 2017 (caveat/shameless plug: students on the journalism degree I teach on will have these skills too when they graduate in 2008, but judging from what I hear of online journalism education I'm assuming they're the exception rather than the rule. Controversial? Well, the beauty of a blog is, you can pull me up if this isn't the case. So, if you teach on a journalism degree please let me know - via comments - what new media/multimedia skills your students gain. Conversely, if you're a journalism student, I'd also like to hear what skills you're gaining and what you think you should be learning. Parenthesis over.)

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Futurology

2007-01-27T13:18:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism]. I've only just caught up with Shane Richmond's post on the future (or proposed death) of newspapers, following a seminar which suggested in the year 2012 "a typical media group will have a stable of publications: a daily premium news magazine, a free daily paper, a portfolio of websites, an internet television channel and a hyperlocal publishing network."

Richmond disagrees with the magazine element because "people are less and less inclined to pay for bundles of content" and the RSS-fuelled Daily Me (Frighteningly, Negroponte's idea is over a decade old) is a "model of media consumption that leads me to believe that media delivery to portable devices (phones, PDAs, electronic readers, flexible displays etc) will, at some stage in the future, supersede ink-on-paper media. I think so, others in the room disagreed."

I'm of the mind to agree that portable devices and the My Google-style personalised news page will come to dominate news consumption, but that paper will continue to have an important role for the reason that RSS still requires you to select what interests you, whereas paper presents a browsing experience different to the 'search-and-scan' approach online. Research shows people are very task-oriented when they go online; a paper is an opportunity to come across stories you wouldn't otherwise find; and in a local paper context, get an overall picture of what's happening.

Now, two things may change this: first, social recommendation. When those whose judgement we trust begin to drive our news consumption in a mainstream way, the editor's role becomes, if not redundant, at least transplanted. Second: screen resolution. When reading a story online or on a portable device becomes as comfortable as reading paper, we may drop the search-and-scan approach.

As for magazines, as I've written elsewhere, I think one future for them is as facilitators of virtual communities - a forward thinking magazine publisher will be investing in social recommendation software, forums, reader-editors and expert bloggers right now...

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Trinity Mirror head speaks of "garlic bread moment"

2007-01-27T11:08:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging].

At yesterday's Citizen Journalism conference Trinity Mirror Head of Multimedia Michael Hill spoke of this being the "garlic bread moment" for the local press - the realisation that new media and citizen journalism "is the future".

At the same time "Local papers have been doing citizen journalism for over a hundred years - it's always been about local people." The battle now is to convince hearts and minds that local people want to consume - and take part in - their news in a different way. This is the "man on the Clapham Omnibus 2.0" who checks the news on their mobile phone, picks up a free newspaper but walks past the newsagent, searches for items of interest online, and relies on bloggers as much as journalists.

"We have to accept that breaking news online has to come first," he said, a process he intimated some journalists were finding hard to swallow. One had protested: "Why kill the goose that laid the golden egg?" His response? "The goose has got bird flu".

The process of persuasion has already begun, with 'Back to Basics' presentations to Trinity Mirror staff around the country. In the process the company has discovered latent talent in some staff - web savvy journalists; writers who can also edit video - but there is a conscious attempt not to "create islands" of 'new media teams' or 'digital teams'. Hill described the process as being "like turning round an oil tank," and that some staff would never get it, "but they'll do what they're told to do."

The group have a number of plans for the future. Hill argues that "Local is Web 2.1," and work is already under way on the first five of a planned 35 'micro-sites' around the country, created by key local people. Blogs are already integral to the newspaper sites, with 34,000 pages being read across the group in the last week alone, and will become more so, as the group looks to tap into the niche publishing of 'Long Tail' economics, illustrated most vividly (and to some attendees' consternation) by the 'Geordie Dreamer'.

The group are also working on technology to rank stories by the number of people viewing them. "Newsworthiness used to be a judgement of what would sell copies," he explained, but for the website it is a judgement of what will generate page views.

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

/discuss... How?

2007-01-27T10:34:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism]. What's happened to the Press Gazette /discuss section? I was just about to comment on the latest piece in the print paper ('Mainstream media must show respect for the new kid on the blog') only to find the link at Press Gazette now goes straight to the AOL homepage.

So, no copying and pasting, no linking, and because I have other stories to blog (and a bathroom to strip) Press Gazette (and AOL) lose the opportunity to get a few more hits.

The piece in a nutshell focuses on Daily Mail columnist Keith Waterhouse's "distaste for bloggers" but that this changes "when it comes to photo bloggers. Citizen journalism suddenly becomes worthwhile, even respectable, if the blogger has a camera."

Interestingly, given that the issue was debated at yesterday's Citizen Journalism conference, Waterhouse is quoted as saying

"This Damascus U-turn took place in the aftermath of Saddam Hussein's
execution, when the pictures began to come in.
"You will recall that the reports originally had it that the death sentence was carried out with as much decorum and dignity as such gruesome rituals allow.
"No Western reporters were present - the BBC's John Simpson was asked along to the necktie party by the Iraqi leader himself, but was turned away.
"The bloggers were there, though, armed with picture-snatching mobile phone cameras. The official photo coverage, taken to convince the world that the monster had indeed paid the price, were grisly enough.
"The bloggers' contribution - grabbed at the gallows either by a mini-mob of gleeful Shia interlopers or by the condemned prisoner's guards themselves - shocked all right-thinking people."

Thankfully, because Waterhouse's piece is available online, I can quote at length.

Well, you may not be able to discuss it at Press Gazette, but feel free to discuss it here.

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Sky and social networking?

2007-01-27T10:24:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, social networking]. Journalism.co.uk is reporting on plans by Sky for "a video-based social networking website with Google":

"Asked if it will have a creative or news-based focus, Mr Wright said it could be a 'combination of those things'. However, he added that the site would not follow either the MySpace or Bebo social network formulas - thus offering the possibility of something wholly unique."

But possibly more interesting is the note that "Google also agreed to provide search and targeted search advertising, email, messenger and VoIP telephony." While social networking is relatively new and difficult to get right, facilities such as these could make a difference to the user experience and, more importantly, advertisers.

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Citizen Journalism conference blog

2007-01-26T17:36:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. Well, the Citizen Journalism 2007 conference finally took place today. Michael Hill, Trinity Mirror's Head of Multimedia, spoke of the group's "garlic bread moment" in converting to the new media age, while blogger Tom Reynolds talked of the power of the blogosphere, as well as its self-regulating nature. Vicky Taylor, the BBC's Head of Interactivity, outlined the organisation's approach to user generated content, and the whole was riddled with extensive questioning and debate.

You'll find some coverage already at Journalism.co.uk (Trinity Mirror launches ultra-local citizen journalism sites), but for more on the speeches take a look at the conference blog at http://citizenjournalism.wordpress.com/ - which I'll be adding to later - and there's a conference wiki at http://citizenjournalism.xwiki.com/xwiki/bin/view/Main/WebHome which anyone can contribute to.

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Journalism stories: A multimedia approach

2007-01-25T09:03:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. Great series of articles from Mindy McAdams on how to approach interactive storytelling - well worth spending some time on:

Journalism stories: A multimedia approach (Part 1)...

Journalism stories: A multimedia approach (Part 2)...

Journalism stories: A multimedia approach (Part 3)...

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Labels: interactive storytelling, Mindy McAdams, journalism, online journalism

List of guidelines for the BBC's Web 2.0 project

2007-01-25T08:59:00.000Z

For some reason I am unable to log in to my Blogger account from work, and so am having to post this via email. So, forgive me if this doesn't read as smoothly as it could:

Quick link for today: Tomski's list of guidelines for the BBC's Web 2.0 project. My favourite guideline: "5. Treat the entire web as a creative canvas: don't restrict your creativity to your own site."

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Labels: citizen journalism, danny sanchez, journalism, online journalism

Web sites for citizen journalism techniques, tutorials

2007-01-23T11:05:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. A list of resources from Danny Sanchez that's worth browsing if you're interested in the CJ arena - particularly OurMedia Personal Media Learning Center: "A great resource containing interviews with citizen media pioneers, summaries of media law and more."

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

PCC to regulate newspaper audio and video

2007-01-23T11:00:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism]. Journalism.co.uk reports on the move by the PCC to extend its regulation to cover newspaper audio and video, with chairman Sir Christopher Meyer quoted as saying: "We have now persuaded the newspaper and magazine industry of the United Kingdom to agree also the principle of our regulating moving pictures and sound on newspaper's websites [...] we are going to make an announcement, I hope, pretty soon in the next few weeks about exactly what that entails - there are some definitions to be sorted out - but it's a major step forward, and it's the first time, I think, that newspapers have voluntarily agreed without outside pressure to extend the remit of regulation through the PCC."

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

A glossary of online news terms

2007-01-19T19:02:00.001Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism]. The Online Journalism Review have started a potentially very useful glossary of online news terms on their site - and in admirable fashion, have made it a wiki that registered users can edit.

I've been in there and said my bit, adding user generated content, crowdsourcing, podcast, vodcast, vlogs, moblogs, photoblogs, CMS, and 'wiki' itself - and just to be a pedant, I've changed the headings from being simply bold (meaningless), to actually using heading tags (h3, if you must know). I'll be claiming my percentage when the OJR's search engine rankings improve.

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

The most popular news video clips online

2007-01-19T19:01:00.001Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, video journalism.] How have I missed this before? The Guardian have been featuring a chart of viral news videos since November, with weekly commentary by Jemima Kiss. Well worth bookmarking.

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Newspaper group to train its 1,500 journalists in online skills

2007-01-19T16:36:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism]. As if proof were needed of the need for online journalism skills in today's jobs market, HoldTheFrontPage reports that:

"Every journalist working on a Northcliffe newspaper is to be trained to update its accompanying website, putting stories online themselves and learning how to "add value" to articles.
"The group says fully integrated multi-media newsrooms will soon be in operation across its titles, with all of its 1,500 journalists writing for both print and online."

What's particularly notable here is the fact that "Sub-editors are also able to rewrite headlines for online stories." The punny, cryptic headlines that work in print are not always suitable for search engine-optimised, scannable online consumption - but is this what they mean?

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Last chance to book a place on Citizen Journalism 2007

2007-01-18T11:31:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. If you want to listen to the BBC's Head of Interactivity Vicky Taylor, best-selling blogger Tom Reynolds and Trinity Mirror's Head of Multimedia Michael Hill, you'd better get a move on: booking closes tomorrow for the Citizen Journalism 2007 conference in Birmingham on January 26.

You can book online at MediaSkills.org's page on the Citizen Journalism conference which will take place next Friday (January 26).

Hope to see you there.

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

CNET, journalists and the whole social net thing

2007-01-17T13:47:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism]. OK, this is getting eerie. Or perhaps my presentation at the AJE conference in Huddersfield on Friday just happens to take in too many things, but also on my list of Things To Talk About is the vague term of 'social media'. Hey presto, Jemima Kiss writes a thorough piece on the subject at CommentUnlimited following a forum held by the Association of Online Publishers:

"Daniels outlined CNET's move towards what Tim O'Reilly (the Web 2.0 guy) described as architected participation. She said CNET's core mission was to interpret and filter content and that that will remain the same, but that the public have different expectations about the media they use and expect to be able to find and use their voice to participate in the community around it.
"Daniels said: "It may not necessarily be that many people but what they say is incredibly valuable. We want to enable those thought-leading people to engage with the site and give them a platform equal with our editorial team. And if we can get our thought leaders to contribute, the lurkers will benefit more."
"Daniels was referring to CNET's new-ish "My CNET" type feature, where users can set up their own profile page, add comments to stories, write their own blog and so on. The most frequent contributors can even get their byline on the front page - which CNET's own journalists can't."

I could go on quoting, but you may as well read the article...

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Wikis will be the new blogs

2007-01-17T12:57:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, wikis]. More perfect timing - as I prepare to talk about using wikis in teaching online journalism, The Telegraph's Shane Richmond posts on how vandalism is the biggest threat to wikis' widespread adoption (it's a response to Bambi Francisco's post 'Why media will embrace wikis'). He promises to write more tomorrow.

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Note to journalism schools: give us new heroes

2007-01-17T12:41:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism. Martin Stabe may well be able to add curriculum design to his CV after his latest post, which bemoans the fact that journalism students still seem to be unaware that the 'print-only hack' is not a viable career option any more. "Teach some new heroes," suggests:

"You know, the people out there doing impressive stuff with new technologies right now. The war reporters traveling the world doing solo multimedia reporting; the investigative reporters using sophisticated software to take on the CIA, the laid-off print hacks going it alone to build successful online publications, the people bringing software development skills into journalism.
"Need a recent journalism film to dislodge Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford? Try Shattered Glass — a story where the fraudulent titular hack is found out by an online journalist. The hero there is Adam Penenberg, then of Forbes.com. A key part of the story is Penenberg’s scepticism about the phoney website the technologically-unsophisticated Glass had set up to disguise his made-up stories for the New Republic, er, magazine."

I'll certainly be passing on these examples in my Online Journalism module this coming semester, as well as suggesting that we communicate these career options during Induction Week (the first week of a student's university course).

And as I happen to be speaking at the Association of Journalism Educators conference this Friday on a very similar subject, the timing of Stabe's post couldn't be better. Bring on the new breed of journalists!

PS: Mindy McAdams once had some similar thoughts at her blog.
PPS: Looks like this is a hot topic, with Andrew-Grant Adamson posting on the same topic here.

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Promoting computer-assisted reporting in Britain

2007-01-05T09:34:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, CAR]. More from Martin Stabe, this time on the oft-overlooked skill of Computer Assisted Reporting. He and Heather Brooke are talking about setting up an organisation similar to the US's National Institute for Computer Assisted Reporting (NICAR) to promote the development of computer-assisted reporting in Britain.

If you’re a UK-based journalist interested in this, he asks you to join their “BICAR” listserve.

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

A wiki for leaking secrets

2007-01-05T09:27:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism]. Martin Stabe reports on Wikileaks:

"A new service which claims to offer “an uncensorable version of WikiPedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis”. The site’s creators told Secrecy News that it is aimed primarily at those working in repressive regimes, but could also be used by those in government or corporations in democratic states."
Stabe notes, however, that this is "a project that carries a high risk of being used irresponsibly and seems to abdicate all responsibility for the actions of its users."

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

The silliest, and most destructive, debate in journalism

2007-01-05T09:24:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. More about the divisive debate about 'mainstream' versus 'citizen' journalism - including an example of a story that would have benefited from a bit of crowdsourcing.

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media

Pocket journalism

2007-01-02T08:17:00.000Z

[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. Normally in internet journalism, the world looks to the US to see how the medium is likely to take shape, but Clyde Bentley's piece about mobile phone journalism (cellphones to the Americans) on the Online Journalism Review shows one area where European news operations could pioneer:

"We are still installing a 3G network in the United States and it will be some time until it is ubiquitous. Japan and Korea are so far ahead they are looking at 4G and the European cell system upgraded to that level some time ago.
"People here can buy 3G telephones at any of the Orange, Carphone Warehouse, O2 or T-mobile shops that occupy every other doorway on High Street. As you watch the world go by from the second deck of a bus, the people around you check their e-mail or text messages, share photos, find a map to a restaurant or listen to music."

So why hasn't it happened already? In a way, it has, as the public have taken advantage of the multimedia devices in their pockets to film, photograph and text news events. September 11 was the first major news event where those involved were able to use mobile phones to call while it happened; July 7 and Buncefield introduced mobile phone images and video; while the hanging of Saddam Hussein has already thrown up footage apparently filmed by mobile phone. Sadly, news operations have been slow to do the same - really, every journalist should be given a cutting edge mobile phone as part of the job, but how likely is it that that is going to happen?

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Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media