Nieman Journalism Lab's New Free App

Harvard University's Nieman Journalism Lab released a new app this week (for iPhone/iPod/iPad) that it touts as "the best way to keep up with what's happening with the future of journalism. It brings you all the latest news from the Lab along with the best from around the web: new startups, innovation at established news organizations, and new ways to do great journalism online."

Here's what it features:

— In the Lab: The full text of all our stories here at the Lab, in mobile-friendly form. Scroll through what we’ve been writing, click through on our links — and when you’ve read a piece worth sharing, it’s easy to post it on Twitter, email it to a friend, or open it in Safari.

— On Twitter: Our Twitter feed, updated throughout the day, is an essential guide to the most interesting links on the traditional journalism world, new startups, advertising, marketing, and social media.

— Hot Links: We’re excited about this one. We’ve curated a list of the most influential corners of the future-of-news Twitterverse and, using the web service Hourly Press, scan through them for the links they’re talking about most. This list of 10 links, updated hourly, is the purest jolt of future-of-news talk online.

— Friends of the Lab: Here you’ll find the latest from our sister projects — Nieman Storyboard, Nieman Watchdog, and Nieman Reports — plus some of our other friends from Harvard. Plus, we give you quick and easy access to the public RSS feeds of some of the best sources of journalism news: The New York Times’ media coverage, paidContent, Poynter, MediaShift, Romenesko, Columbia Journalism Review, and Mashable. As always, tap on the headline to get the full story.

— Search: Curious what we’ve written about The Guardian, aggregation, Bill Keller, or MinnPost? We’ve got full-text search of the Lab’s archives, so you’re just a few taps away from finding out.

Download the free app here. And here's a video demo:

Nieman Journalism Lab iPhone app from Nieman Journalism Lab.

Weekend Roundup: Useful Stories & Links

Here's a compendium of recent notes, quotes, anecdotes and other info that's worthy of your attention.

These are only excerpts, so be sure to click on each title to view that entire report.

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Publishers see signs the iPad can restore ad money
By Andrew Vanacore (AP)

Good news for the news business: Companies are paying newspapers and magazines up to five times as much to place ads in their iPad applications as what similar advertising costs on regular websites.

This doesn't mean Apple's tablet computer will live up to its hype as a potential lifeline for the media industry. Online ads still generate a small fraction of news companies' advertising revenue, and it's an open question whether print ads will return to what they totaled before the recession.

But early evidence suggests the iPad is at least offering publishers a way to get more money out of advertisers. That bolsters the hope that portable touch-screen computers could start turning the economics of digital advertising in publishers' favor.

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How to Find Public Domain Video
By Angela Grant (NewsVideographer.com)

Videos in the public domain are no longer subject to copyright laws, and you may use them freely without permission and without fear of legal repercussions. You may remix public domain videos into new works. When a video creator’s copyright expires, that video automatically becomes part of the public domain. Also, anything produced by the U.S. government is automatically in the public domain. Sometimes videos become public when the original copyright holder fails to complete the necessary paperwork to renew the copyright. If you want to learn more about the public domain, ...

ALSO:
# Determining if a video is public domain
# Using videos with Creative Commons licenses
# Sites offering free video
# Sites offering paid video

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HTML5 and Web Standards
(Apple Website tutorial)

Every new Apple mobile device and every new Mac — along with the latest version of Apple’s Safari web browser — supports web standards including HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. These web standards are open, reliable, highly secure, and efficient. They allow web designers and developers to create advanced graphics, typography, animations, and transitions. Standards aren’t add-ons to the web. They are the web. And you can start using them today....

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Is J-school relevant? (#wjchat)
By Mindy McAdams (Teaching Online Journalism)

Last night I helped to moderate an organized Twitter chat. Robert Hernandez (aka @webjournalist) is the juggernaut behind #wjchat; he’s aided by a cheery posse including @killbutton, @kimbui, and @RobinJP.

SEE ALSO:

List of Twitter Chats
By Meryl K. Evans (Meryl's Notes Blog)

Twitter group chats offer a clever and effective way to meet people with like interests and to share insights into the topic of discussion. Chatters track their conversations using hashtags (#) followed by the name of the chat, i.e. #journchat....

SEE ALSO:

DIY and passion give birth to #wjchat
By Robert Hernandez (WebJournalist.org)

For me, it began with a snarky tweet: #journchat Bad name, good PR.

Apparently that tweet touched a nerve and prompted Web journalists to come out of the Twitterverse to express agreement.

Before I continue, let me define two things:

#journchat is a Twitter chat that is “an ongoing conversation between journalists, bloggers and PR folks” held weekly on Twitter. Created by @PRsarahevans, the first Twitter chat was held Monday, November 24, 2008. While it has “journalism” in the name, it skews heavily toward public relations.

A Twitter chat essentially is a regularly held chat, usually weekly, on a specific topic… tied together through a hashtag. A group of Titterers gather and talk about whatever… blogging, book editing, etc.
Moments after that snarky tweet went out the hunger for Web journalists to network and learn from each other was apparent.

It makes sense.

We’re a community that is constantly evolving, struggling to find the “right” solution for our unique situations… from inside our newsrooms… often alone. Many of us have met at conferences or through social networking, but never regularly.

It was that passionate need mixed with the DIY-spirit of the web that got @lilgirlbigvoice @killbutton @kimbui and myself together to create #jchat within five hours from meeting each other the first time....

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TypeWith.me

A Google Docs-like Web-based utility for collaboratively composing rich text documents.

The document text is synchronized as you type, so that everyone viewing your communal page sees the same text. This allows you to collaborate seamlessly on documents in your Web browser.

Just send the link of your page to a friend, colleague, or co-worker and "watch the magic unfold!"

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The Future of VJs
By Deborah Potter (AdvancingTheStory.com)

We’ve all read the stories about the sea change in television news. From the ABC network news division to local stations from coast to coast, VJs are taking over, the stories say. The “one man band” reporter who shoots and edits once was found primarily in small markets but is now common in the top 10. Right? Maybe not.

Research by RTDNA and Hofstra University finds the use of VJs has indeed gone up for the past several years but it hasn’t skyrocketed. About a third of local stations now say they mostly use VJs. Three years ago, it was a little over one in five. And the number of stations that don’t use any VJs has gone down sharply, from 29% in 2006 to 18% today.

But researcher Bob Papper says the real surprise came in answer to this question: Did you use VJs more or less in the past year? Only 12% of news directors said they used them more, while 29% said less. Those numbers aren’t at all what you’d expect in current economic conditions, and even less so given that the survey was in the field during the depths of the recession. Yes, almost half of the news directors who responded said they expected to use VJs more in 2010, but that’s what they always say. “Every year, expected use of more goes up way faster than the actual use,” said Papper.

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iPhone flips the Flip
By Deborah Potter (NewsLab.org)

Idiot-proof, lightweight and compact–the Flip camera appeared poised to revolutionize online video when it was introduced a few years ago. Reporters and photographers quickly took to using Flips or similar point-and-shoot cameras to produce Web-only video blogs and interviews. Sometimes, Flip video even showed up on TV newscasts. But now, it appears the Flip may be flopping.

Smart phones, especially Apple’s iPhone, can shoot decent video as well and they have a big advantage over the Flip. Files can be emailed and posted directly from the device, so you don’t have to download the video to a laptop before sending it. With UStream or similar software, smart phones can be used to stream live video as well, giving them another leg up on the Flip.

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This Week in Review: The FTC’s ideas for news, Apple’s paid-news pitch, and the de-linking debate
By Mark Coddington (Nieman Journalism Lab)

The FTC’s ideas for journalism:

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has spent much of the last year listening to suggestions about how they might change antitrust, copyright, and tax laws in order to create the best possible climate for good journalism, and this weekend it posted its “discussion draft” of policy proposals to “support the reinvention of journalism.” It’s a 47-page document, so here’s a quick summary of their ideas...

Steve Jobs’ proposal for paid news:

The folks from the Wall Street Journal’s All Things Digital interviewed Apple chief Steve Jobs on stage this week as part of their D8 conference, and Jobs had a few words for the news industry: Yes, he wants to help save journalism, because, as he put it, “I don’t want to see us descend into a nation of bloggers.” But if they’re going to survive, news organizations should be more aggressive about getting people to pay for content, Jobs said, like Apple did in helping raise e-book prices earlier this year.

As it turned out, there was something for everybody to pick apart in that exchange...

Video Dominates Globe's Kennedy Package

Even before Ted Kennedy died, the Boston Globe assembled an ambitious seven-part multimedia biographical series on its home-state Senator that first appeared in February.

Harvard's Nieman Journalism Lab couldn't help but notice how video dominates the series. Bennie DiNardo, Globe deputy managing editor for multimedia, confirmed that "people were heavily consuming the video," contributing to the Website's huge surge in traffic especially after Kennedy died.

Some of the data suggests that video is the better entry point for long-form content. Certainly, the Globe designed its Kennedy package to give the videos more prominence than the articles. “This was the first time we tried to really produce documentary-quality video,” DiNardo told me. He said finding and making arrangements to use archival footage was particularly difficult: “It was just a whole world that us newspaper folks aren’t used to.”

Once again, proof that there's ample reason for newspaper folks to start getting used to that whole video world.

Boston.com Kennedy package here. Videos only here.

New York Times University?

For the first time, New York Times columnists are participating in the newspaper's three-year-old "Knowledge Network," an adult-education program operated in partnership with local universities.

Can this become a legitimate revenue source for newspapers?

According to Harvard's Nieman Journalism Lab:

The courses taught by Nicholas Kristof and Gail Collins, both op-ed columnists, include a “live, interactive Webcast,” three written lessons, and a message board where students can interact with their big-name instructors. For that, the Times is asking $185. Kristof’s course is on the exploitation of women in developing nations; Collins’s deals with the history of American women’s rights since 1960. Wine columnist Eric Asimov’s course, for $125, is a single session that students can attend in person or online. (Booze not included.)

The participation of Kristof, Collins, and Asimov could be a precursor to the membership model the Times is considering in its search for new revenue streams on the web.

Naturally we're wondering how online video technology and storytelling can be incorporated into these lessons.

List of all courses here.

Journalism courses here.

Dream Job Opening: Reporting About Journalism

Harvard's Nieman Journalism Lab is looking for a full-time reporter and editor:

This person would do the kinds of things we do around here: tracking innovation in new and established newsrooms; investigating business models that can sustain quality journalism; and profiling people doing new things with technology and news.

What a dream assignment!

Official job posting is here. Good luck!

Is News Aggregation a 'Fair Use' Issue?

Intellectual Property Colloquium is a series of one-hour online audio programs that aim to discuss conversationally -- without lecture nor debate -- issues pertaining to copyright and patent law.

To shed light on the controversial "fair use" doctrine, host Doug Lichtman, a UCLA Law prof, recently convened the lawyers in the Shepard Fairey v. Associated Press case, along with a New York Times attorney for "some outside perspective."

For a panel of lawyers, the dialog was surprisingly non-contentious, and even shed light on the tangential issue of whether news aggregation constitutes infringement.

Give a listen here.

SEE ALSO: Excellent commentary (and transcript) from Zachary M. Seward at Nieman Journalism Lab: "NYT Co.’s top lawyer doubts that aggregation is a copyright issue."

We're bracing ourselves for the inevitable next step: video aggregation.

Moving Movie Posters, Living Mag Covers, Frame Grabs, and the Big Red One

The Red One digital cinema camera, which costs as much as a car, enables you to grab crisp high-resolution still frames from video, blurring the distinction between moments and motion. Its 24-frames-per-second 9.4-megapixel capability eclipses even the fastest motor drives.

Alexx Henry created a series of living movie posters with one, and documented the process (below).

"I really believe this is the future and I’m super thrilled to be a part of the revolution. If you haven’t seen this yet, it’s very cool if it’s done right. What begins as a still image suddenly comes alive when the characters move, perform an action, and then resolve back to the poster frame. If you thought the portraits and newspapers from Harry Potter were the future, then look no further."

... and here are the results of that shoot:

“Teacher’s Pet”

“Diplomacy!”

“Students Have No Class”

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Though the Red One is (at least for now) too big, not to mention too expensive, for in-the-field videojournalists, Canon, Nikon and Panasonic have all developed hybrid cameras that enable you to shoot both high-quality stills and video. A camcorder's ability to produce high-res frame grabs are an important consideration, since it cuts in half the amount of equipment you need to shlep to bring back video and stills from an assignment. But it carries with it ethical, aesthetic and philosophical considerations.

Henri Cartier-Bresson's "decisive moment" is no longer frozen in time, but now one of a series of points on a timeline. This may sound inconsequential, but in fact relates directly to the contrasting considerations of a video and a still shooter. At the most basic level, when you're shooting video, you're not trying to find just the right image, but rather the right sequence of movements, events, interactions. You want to follow your subject from point A, through B, to C. If you get lucky, one of those thousands of frames will distill the essence of your story -- but not necessarily!

We probably know better than most how infrequently even the best videos contain even a single still image that embodies the whole, since for every video story we post on KobreGuide, we actively search for one image that best represents it. And yet how elusive those single images are!

For "Turtle Man," to use but one small example, we wanted so badly to show you a still that encompassed both the subject's big toothless grin AND a closeup of a snapping turtle he's caught. The videographer did a terrific job by showing both -- but, except for long shots, never in the same frame! Ditto for other video stories we've showcased about dual subjects -- teachers and students, doctors and patients, and so on. A still photographer would have captured both in the same frame, but a videographer is more likely to pan or cut from one to the other, and is not looking for that one quintessential, balanced, harmonious microsecond.

For a single subject, however, there are instances when frame grabs do have an advantage.

That photo portrait of actress Megan Fox on the cover of this month's Esquire isn't a photo at all, but rather a video frame -- courtesy of shooter Greg Williams and a technique he's dubbed "Motos" (moving photos), again using that magical Red One.

According to the magazine:

"It allowed her to act," Williams says. "She could run scenes without being reminded by the sound of a shutter every four seconds that I was taking a picture. As in still photography, a lot of it is capturing unexpected moments. This takes that one step further." He then went back and pulled out the best images, which you can see in Esquire's June issue. Plus, there's a fantastic by-product: Even though we made the film to get the stills, we were left with ten bewitching minutes of footage of a beautiful woman. We edited it down to a mini movie, which is now available right here.

(Caveat: Be forewarned, this is not strictly videojournalism, but rather "loosely scripted footage with Fox — getting out of bed, rolling around on a pool chair, eating BBQ." You get the idea.)

On a more serious note, Harvard's Nieman Labs incisively analyzes the "frame-grabbing" trend, and offers these helpful considerations (with underlying explanations):

+ Frame grabbing works better on a camcorder with a “progressive” shooting option.

+ Frame grabbing works better at higher shutter speeds than would be used for shooting video.

+ Frame grabbing might require a video light rather than a strobe in low light

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We've come a long way technologically since David Leeson (who recently left the Dallas Morning News) returned from Hurricane Katrina extolling the virtues of frame grabs from a HDV camera, but his subsequent observations were prescient:

Today, we still call them frame grabs. Tomorrow we will call them what they really are – photographs. The end result is that we do not have to sacrifice our legacy of still photojournalism simply because the medium has changed. We can move forward to a new era of storytelling where the demands of rich content in a digital age do not subjugate the decisive moments of life to obtain the "extended moments" waiting for us in motion and sound.

5 Newsrooms that Mencken Wouldn't Recognize

Talking Points Memo, Gawker Media, Daily Telegraph, Spokesman Review, and the (two-person) Valley Independent Sentinel.

Take a guided video tour of each with Nieman Journalism Lab.

Secrets of the N.Y. Times R&D Lab

Here's a tantalizing look deep inside the research and development group of The New York Times, courtesy of Harvard's Nieman Journalism Lab.

This series of five wondrous videos (all shot on May 4) collectively show how the Times is staying way ahead of the technological curve. Watch carefully -- this may be what the future of news looks like:

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Part 1: The New York Times envisions version 2.0 of the newspaper...



Nick Bilton is design integration editor in the Research and Development Group at The New York Times. More info (and transcript) here.

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Part 2: The New York Times prepares for a future across all platforms ...



Michael Young is lead creative technologist in the Research and Development Group at The New York Times. More info (and transcript) here.

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Part 3: The New York Times would like to join you in the living room ...



Alexis Lloyd is a creative technologist in the Research and Development Group at The New York Times. More info (and transcript) here.

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Part 4: If the New York Times were mounted on your wall, it might look like this...



Ted Roden is a creative technologist in the Research and Development Group at The New York Times. More info (and transcript) here.

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Part 5: In the New York Times R&D lab, the future of news is the future of advertising...



Nick Bilton, Alexis Lloyd, Michael Young, and Ted Roden are members of the Research and Development Group at The New York Times. More info (and transcript) here.

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Impressed?

The Ethics of Mixing Music and Videojournalism

Regina McCombs, a Poynter Institute visual journalism instructor, has created a powerful illustration of how soundtracks can affect a video story -- illuminating the debate as to whether they have a proper place in videojournalism.

In her article, "See How Music Changes a Story," she shows three versions of the same video story, "Mom Goes to War" (featuring a pilot preparing for her second Iraq deployment and her young son). The first is with natural sound. The second adds a slow, somber keyboard track. The third features an upbeat guitar/percussion track. (Both scores are GarageBand loops -- demonstrating how easy and accessible it is for even someone with a tin ear to provide professional sounding music background.)

McCombs poses the all-important question: how do the alternate versions change the way you react to, and feel about, the story?

The ethics of adding music to a nonfiction video story has long intrigued us. Is objectivity compromised? Is reality warped? Are emotions being artificially manipulated? We've posed these questions previously. It seems to be a gray area: "60 Minutes" would never do it, but the New York Times has.

McCombs advice is to use it sparingly, not as a crutch. In her helpful guidelines, she proposes that "music should be used to enhance or further the narrative, not to compensate for incomplete reporting." Further, she notes that "music is not a universal language. A breathtaking aria to one person is grating noise to another." And she makes an excellent point by noting that the art of scoring is an esteemed professional pursuit that should not be undertaken by amateurs, no matter how simple the software.

McCombs has gone the extra mile and researched and provided a set of ethics policies regarding music in news stories that have been adopted by leading media institutions, including the New York Times, National Press Photographers Association, CBC, Radio-TV News Directors Association, and American Press Institute.

Amy O’Leary, a multimedia producer at The New York Times, offers an in-depth look at how that newspaper got past those issues to mix music and journalism in two notable video projects: “Choosing a President,” and “Choking on Growth."

(Full video and transcript on Harvard's Nieman Journalism Lab.)

O'Leary says she learned everything she knows about journalism soundtracks during her stint as a producer at radio's "This American Life," but acknowledges the difference between that show's subjective first-person perspective and the Times' quest for objectivity: "The Times has long traditions and standards that they’re trying to figure out how to apply to the new media landscape. Music is one of those tricky areas."

Also from Nieman Journalism Lab, these invaluable basic audio tips from O'Leary, including what equipment to use when conducting interviews, and the proper way to use it.

Top 15 Newspaper Websites: More Readers

The Nielsen web ratings for 2008 are in, and here are the most visited U.S. newspaper sites, as analyzed by Harvard's Nieman Journalism Lab. (Note that the top-rated New York Times still has about half the visitors of non-newspaper news sites such as MSNBC, Yahoo! News, and CNN, according to Editor & Publisher.)

Here's the good news. Newspapers may be dying financially, but the number of people reading them online is increasing dramatically. (Click on image at right to zoom in.)

1. The New York Times
19,503,667 average monthly uniques
Increase of 33% from 2007

2. USA Today
10,845,000 average monthly uniques
Increase of 12% from 2007

3. The Washington Post
10,260,167 average monthly uniques
Increase of 19% from 2007

4. The Los Angeles Times
7,886,250 average monthly uniques
Increase of 54% from 2007

5. The Wall Street Journal
7,169,333 average monthly uniques
Increase of 60% from 2007

6. The Boston Globe
5,211,083 average monthly uniques
Increase of 22% from 2007

7. New York Post
4,335,583 average monthly uniques
Increase of 30% from 2007

8. Chicago Tribune
4,271,833 average monthly uniques
Increase of 34% from 2007

9. New York Daily News
4,226,083 average monthly uniques
Increase of 68% from 2007

10. San Francisco Chronicle
4,158,000 average monthly uniques
Increase of 10% from 2007

11. Newsday
3,163,000 average monthly uniques
Increase of 7% from 2007

12. Politico
3,113,000 average monthly uniques
Increase of 132% from 2007

13. Chicago Sun-Times
2,884,417 average monthly uniques
Increase of 26% from 2007

14. The Houston Chronicle
2,808,750 average monthly uniques
Decrease of 10% from 2007

15. The Dallas Morning News
2,647,500 average monthly uniques
Increase of 52% from 2007

We’re only looking at the websites of news organizations that also print a newspaper here, because they face a special challenge in transitioning from print to the web. And while it seems clear that increasing traffic alone won’t solve the business problems of newspapers, it’s all they’ve got right now. (Politico makes our list because it distributes a small-circulation print edition when Congress is in session.)

Also keep in mind that Nielsen’s web stats, like its television ratings, are frequently disputed estimates that may be more valid in relative terms such as comparing a site’s traffic to its competitors. Fortunately, that’s what we’re doing here. And finally, we’re looking at monthly unique visitors, which advertisers prefer, while ignoring time spent per visitor because that data is all over the place and difficult to compare.

Nieman Journalism Lab goes on to note:

The New York Times’ victory isn’t surprising, but its margin of victory is stunning. NYTimes.com garnered 8,658,667 more visitors per month than its closest newspaper competitor, USAToday.com, or a difference of 80%. In 2007, the Times led USA Today by 5,033,534 or 52%.

Also notable among the national newspaper sites were year-over-year traffic increases of 54% and 60% at The Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal, respectively. The Journal’s rise could vindicate Rupert Murdoch’s decision a year ago to keep charging for the newspaper’s website despite complaints that its paywall was hindering traffic.

Now we'd like to see some stats on videojournalism viewership. We can't help but wonder to what extent the New York Times' admirable commitment to excellent videojournalism has boosted its online ratings.