J-Topics
Feb 09, 2010
- Posted by Regan
Ray
It looks like paywalls are going to be a fact of life, writes Ira Basen, after The New York Times announced plans to raise a "metered paywall" on its website. But not all readers should be treated equally.
It looks like paywalls are going to be a fact of life, writes Ira Basen, after The New York Times announced plans to raise a "metered paywall" on its website. But not all readers should be treated equally.
Feb 05, 2010
- Posted by Regan
Ray
"A few years ago, Arianna Huffington, a 59-year-old immigrant from Greece, secured millions of dollars of other people's money to launch an internet newspaper modestly called the Huffington Post," writes Ira Basen in his most recent CBC Media Watch column. "Now, nearly five years later, with the mainstream media reeling, the one fact about Arianna Huffington that is not in dispute is that she and her Huffington Post are clearly bucking the trend." Will her model help save newspapers or will it have precisely the opposite effect?
Feb 03, 2010
- Posted by Regan
Ray
When magazine writer Paige Williams self-published a 6,000-word profile that "had no other home," readers contributed money online. In this case, Ira Basen writes, crowd funding worked, but what drives readers to donate?
Jan 12, 2010
- Posted by Regan
Ray
There's no such thing as free news, according to Rupert Murdoch, and he's prepared to go to great lengths to prove it. Ira Basen, the new contributing editor for J-Source's Future of News area, examines the paid content debate.
There's no such thing as free news, according to Rupert Murdoch, and he's prepared to go to great lengths to prove it. Ira Basen, the new contributing editor for J-Source's Future of News area, examines the paid content debate.
Jan 06, 2010
- Posted by Regan
Ray
As the hype surrounding the rumoured unveiling of an e-reader tablet from Apple Inc. grows, New York Times columnist David Carr jumped into the conversation and suggested the new device could be a saviour for journalism. In a Jan. 3 column titled "A saviour in the form of a tablet,"
Carr asks, "So, is the Apple tablet a figment of so much Web-borne
pixie dust or is it the second coming of the iPhone, a so-called Jesus
tablet that can do anything, including saving some embattled print
providers from doom?" While the existence of such a device from Apple is still only rumoured...
Dec 08, 2009
- Posted by Regan
Ray
In his final editorial, J-Source's outgoing editor-in-chief, Ivor Shapiro,
has a message for fellow members of his generation: Whining about the good old
days isn't just boring; it's blinkered. The golden age of journalism may have
just begun.
In his final editorial, J-Source's outgoing editor-in-chief, Ivor Shapiro,
has a message for fellow members of his generation: Whining about the good old
days isn't just boring; it's blinkered. The golden age of journalism may have
just begun.
Nov 24, 2009
- Posted by Ira
Basen
We all know that in an age of social media, news is consumed in many
different ways. The days of waiting until the newspaper drops on your
front steps to find out what has happened, or having a news anchor
inform you "that’s the kind of day it's been," are long gone.
But you may not have realized just how much audiences can now control the gathering and distributing of news, until you've read this fascinating post in TechCrunch. The author...
But you may not have realized just how much audiences can now control the gathering and distributing of news, until you've read this fascinating post in TechCrunch. The author...
Nov 24, 2009
- Posted by Ira
Basen
It is now widely accepted that the first stories and images to emerge
from natural or main made disasters are more likely to come from
citizen journalists using social media tools than from professional
journalists. After all, there are more than a billion people in the
world who now have the capability to shoot videos, take pictures, write
stories and share them with the world.
Sometimes, the product produced by amateur journalists can make history. The murder of Neda Agha Soltan by Iranian police was recorded on a camera phone during anti-government demonstrations in Tehran last June, and quickly became a symbol of the brutality of the Iranian regime.
Her story has now become the subject of a documentary broadcast on the PBS series Frontline, but without that original cellphone video, her death would have passed unnoticed outside of Iran.
So it is not surprising that when a U.S. Army Major opened fire on his fellow soldiers in Fort Hood Texas earlier this month...
Sometimes, the product produced by amateur journalists can make history. The murder of Neda Agha Soltan by Iranian police was recorded on a camera phone during anti-government demonstrations in Tehran last June, and quickly became a symbol of the brutality of the Iranian regime.
Her story has now become the subject of a documentary broadcast on the PBS series Frontline, but without that original cellphone video, her death would have passed unnoticed outside of Iran.
So it is not surprising that when a U.S. Army Major opened fire on his fellow soldiers in Fort Hood Texas earlier this month...
Nov 24, 2009
- Posted by Ira
Basen
Send us your videos!"
That's the plea that now regularly goes out from mainstream media outlets to their online audiences. Everyone is looking for user generated video content. The reasons are not hard to decipher. Those videos can help forge a tighter bond between mainstream media outlets and their audiences, and that can potentially put them on the receiving end of the first images to come from a bombing, earthquake, or nasty weather event somewhere in the world.
But so far, most mainstream outlets are finding those pleas have largely gone unanswered. Sure, they get plenty of online comments, and lots of photographs, but for videos, the pickings have been pretty slim. And one of the reasons why, is that when it comes to uploading videos to the web, most people think no further than YouTube. More than 20 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, more than a billion videos every day. Why go anywhere else?
But now YouTube has come to the rescue of those video-starved media outlets.Last week, it launched a new service called YouTube Direct, which allows media outlets to...
That's the plea that now regularly goes out from mainstream media outlets to their online audiences. Everyone is looking for user generated video content. The reasons are not hard to decipher. Those videos can help forge a tighter bond between mainstream media outlets and their audiences, and that can potentially put them on the receiving end of the first images to come from a bombing, earthquake, or nasty weather event somewhere in the world.
But so far, most mainstream outlets are finding those pleas have largely gone unanswered. Sure, they get plenty of online comments, and lots of photographs, but for videos, the pickings have been pretty slim. And one of the reasons why, is that when it comes to uploading videos to the web, most people think no further than YouTube. More than 20 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, more than a billion videos every day. Why go anywhere else?
But now YouTube has come to the rescue of those video-starved media outlets.Last week, it launched a new service called YouTube Direct, which allows media outlets to...
Nov 18, 2009
- Posted by Regan
Ray
Amazon's Kindle e-book reader is now available in Canada and the National Post and The Globe and Mail are the first Canadian newspapers that are available for purchase through the Kindle store, CBC News reports. The Kindle will cost...
The Future of News
In a world where billions of people now have the ability to distribute pictures, videos and stories instantaneously around the world, questions about what is journalism and who is a journalist have never been more relevant, and the answers never more elusive. This section will explore the future of journalism in an age of social media. Ira Basen is a journalist, author and educator. He teaches at Ryerson University.
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