Alfredo Covaleda,
Bogota, Colombia
Stephen Guerin,
Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
James A. Trostle,
Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, USA
We tend to comment more on analytic methods than news delivery techniques, but today we offer an interesting example of the latter. Ifra, the European-based newspaper training — and R&D — organization, publishes something called newspaper techniques ePaper. It is published IoP (ink-on-paper), but there is also an online version. Check it out at the link below. It is easier to read if you have a tablet PC with a vertical/portrait display mode. (Someday, every screen will have an easy-to-rotate mode, we hope.) Still, the quality of the delivered package here is better than anything we've seen coming out of the North American media or media association efforts.
By EditorsWeblog
De Tijd, the Antwerp based daily with Belgium's highest online readership, will be the world's first paper to launch a digital version, for a three month trial period beginning in April 2006. The paper will take the form of a portable electronic device; a paper thin screen the size of a newspaper page. Users will connect to the internet with the device and download their newspaper. Updates will be provided throughout the day. 200 subscribers to the newspaper will be able to take part in this initiative. The paper can be read indoors or outside. Based on an estimated use time of three hours per day, the device's battery would last for a week. The device has a storage capacity of 244 megabytes; the equivalent of a month's worth of newspapers, thirty books and office documents in different formats. E Ink, creators of the electronic ink technology integral to the initiative, are working on developing coloured ink; currently 16 different shades of grey are available. Added video and sound features could take up to 10 years to develop.Readers will be able to write comments and scribble on the paper by using a special marker. Interactive advertising will also be featured. Source: M&C Tech (through the IFRA newsletter)
Serious Games Initiative http://www.seriousgames.org/ The Serious Games Initiative is focused on uses for games in exploring management and leadership challenges facing the public sector. Part of its overall charter is to help forge productive links between the electronic game industry and projects involving the use of games in education, training, health, and public policy. Says information specialists Marylaine Block: “As one who believes nobody should be allowed to run for office until they have played Sim City for at least six months, I think such games have enormous potential for helping people explore complex social problems and possible solutions.”
Interesting announcement from Yahoo Maps this week. Seems as though Google, Yahoo and Amazon (with it's A9 entry) are starting to look like three NASCAR competitors on the backstretch of the lap before the finish line. Here's the latest from Yahoo: ==========================
In June of this year, we gave developers the ability to overlay geographic data on a Yahoo! Map. Since then, we've seen a lot of terrific maps mash-ups. But you wanted more. You wanted the ability to embed Yahoo! Maps on your own Web site. You wanted to programmatically convert addresses into geocoded longitude/latitude pairs. You wanted more data feeds, such as highway traffic and local data, to plot on a map. But most importantly, you wanted a user experience that's better than any online mapping product out there.
Today we build on the success of the Simple Maps API by adding several new APIs for Yahoo! Maps. These products enable developers to use Yahoo! Maps in exciting new ways — including embedding maps on your Web site.
With this release, we are providing:
Of course, the Simple Maps API we released in June is still there, giving developers and non-developers the ability to plot locations on Yahoo! Maps with no programming and no rate limits.
We're giddy with excitement about this release, and we can't wait to see how you use the new APIs. We know there's lot to digest here, so if you have questions, feedback, or just want to show off what you've done, please join us in the yws-maps group.
Jeffrey McManus Director, Yahoo! Developer Network
GIS software discount for IRE members Return to IRE Training
Members of Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc., qualify for discounts on geographic information system (GIS) software from ESRI, the publisher of ArcView. ESRI is offering ArcView GIS single use licenses at no charge to IRE members who agree to attend a GIS training event conducted by IRE and NICAR or ESRI. Purchasers must sign a three-year maintenance agreement with ESRI at a cost of $ 400 a year, with the first year's fee waived. ArcView, the GIS program most widely used by journalists, lists for $1,500. During the maintenance agreement period, purchasers will receive software upgrades and technical support.
IRE members must attend a qualifying training session within one year of entering the agreement with ESRI, which is based in Redlands Calif., and has been a regular exhibitor at the annual IRE and CAR conferences. Qualifying sessions are IRE and NICAR's Mapping Data for News Stories mini-boot camp, offered two times a year with the next scheduled for Jan. 6-8, 2006; an online ESRI Virtual Campus course, and ESRI classroom training.
For more information about IRE and NICAR training visit IRE Training . For more information about ESRI training see www.esri.com/training_events.html. IRE members can also purchase discounted extension programs, which expand the analytical capabilities of ArcView. The single-license cost for Spatial Analyst, 3D Analyst and Geostatistical Analyst is $1,500 each. That is a 40 percent discount off the list price of $2,500 each. To obtain an order form, please contact John Green, membership services coordinator for IRE, at jgreen@ire.org or 573-882-2772.
Posted: 2 August 2005 By: Jemima Kiss
Email: jemima@journalism.co.uk
A UK firm has developed a free, innovative tool that plots breaking news by location.
Developed by Birmingham-based technology firm Daden, NewsGlobe can combine Google's geographic search engine Google Earth with the user's favourite RSS news feeds to present stories on a local, regional or international map.
The application scans headlines for keywords that identify the location of the story, and then presents them by headline with the location pinpointed. A summary of the story appears when the user hovers over the text and they can click through to the full story on the original news site.
The popularity of RSS news feeds and projects such as BBC Backstage has triggered a wave of creative RSS-based tools from the web developing community, said Daden's managing director David Burden.
BBC Backstage was launched in May and encourages developers to use selected BBC content and software to create new applications. Recent contributions to the project have been a Flash-based news reader program and traffic maps.
“There has been an explosion of activity in the past four to five months driven by RSS,” said Mr Burden.
“Developers are exploring the possibilities of moving information from one format to another; this application simply uses Google Earth as a news aggregator.”
As well as providing a geographical view of breaking news, the application has interesting commercial possibilities for companies with specific or wide ranging regional interests such as estate agents or billboard advertisers.
To use NewsGlobe, web users must have Google Earth installed. More information is available on Daden's website.
We agree, there can be many reasons not to run a map in the IoP (Ink-on-Paper) version of a newspaper. And maps are sometimes run more as a graphic element in the page design than as a tool to tell a story in a better way. (Although this seems to happen less as “design and information consciousness” has percolated through journalism thanks to organizations like the Society for News Design.) Still, if a decision is made to use a map, then that graphic should add to the readers' understanding of usually complex data. Last week, the Palm Beach [Florida] Post carried a map showing the home county of U.S. troops killed in Iraq. The problem is, the KIA map shows the number killed without taking into account the size of the population from which those troops were recruited. Is there a better way? Of course, and the folks in the newsroom trenches had produced one: a map showing the KIA's relative to the population of the county where the soldiers were from. This one, of course, supplies some of the appropriate context. The problem was, the editors decided to publish the traditional-but-misleading map. Sigh.
Here is another on the same topic: * http://www.obleek.com/iraq/index.html
Steven Roth was one of those guys who could see farther than most of us and, even more rare, make that vision a reality. He died in his sleep this past weekend in his home near Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette obit sub-hed: “One of the pioneers in field of 'information visualization' a 'reluctant manager' http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05165/521102.stm Roth was a founder of Maya Viz Ldt., one of the more interesting firms to emerge from the Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute in the 1990s. Maya Viz took infographics to higher levels of graphic clarity and data interaction.
“Described as 'dreamer,' a 'visionary' and most often, 'incredibly passionate' by his colleagues, Mr. Roth was probably best known for his oft-spoken desire to 'change the world' by developing software that allowed complex data and numerical information to be represented graphically, and in a way that humans could better see, use and manipulate it.”
Here's one of those online sites that will keep us browsing for hours. “Information Aesthetics” weblog says it's about “form follows data – towards creative information visualiztion.” Indeed so. How about links to:
The principles are here showing how creative journalism might deliver pertinent data/information to the people. Information Aesthetics is updated often.
It can.
The NYT this morning tells us that “Big News Media Join in Push to Limit Use of Unidentified Sources.” Readers are told:
“Concerned that they may have become too free in granting anonymity to sources, news organizations including USA Today, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, NBC News and The New York Times are trying to throttle back their use. “But some journalists worry that these efforts could hamper them from doing their jobs – coming in a hothouse atmosphere where mistrust of the news media is rampant, hordes of newly minted media critics attack every misstep on the Web, and legal cases jeopardize their ability to keep unnamed news sources confidential…. “Last year, The New York Times adopted a more stringent approach to its treatment of confidential sources, including a provision that the identity of every unidentified source must be known to at least one editor. A committee of the paper's journalists recently recommended that the top editors put in place new editing mechanisms to ensure that current policies are enforced more fully and energetically.”
We look forward to these “new editing mechanisms.”
Yes, policies on unnamed sources should be made, those policies should be clear and everyone in the newsroom should know what they are. But more often (as in “every day”), editors must know the sources — indeed, all sources — are for a story, how to reach those souces and how to verify what the reporter wrote, even if the reporter is out-of-pocket.
This is not difficult if journalists recognize that a PC-based word processing application already has the tools to assist in this “Who Are The Sources” mission. (If the publication is still using something like the old Coyote terminals, sorry, we probably can't help you.)
The tool is the “comment” function in the word processor. While the newsroom is making policies about sourcing, add this one: “Every paragraph of every story will end with an embedded comment. That comment will show editors exactly how the reporter knows what he or she just wrote.” The comment might include a source's name, phone number and date-time-place of interview. The comment might include a URL or a bibliographic citation. It might include reference to the specific reporter's notebook. But in the end, the comments should be sufficient that an editor can “walk the cat backward” to determine exactly how the reporter knows what he/she just wrote. Doing so helps prevent unwarranted assumptions and errors of fact, if not interpretation.
There will be those of the Burn-Your-Notes School of libel defense who will contend this is comment thing is suicidal. We would suggest, first, that very few stories ever become court cases. Secondly remember that truth is the first defense in libel actions, and it is our responsibility to deliver that truth.
