Archives for category: Journalism

‘Mediatwits #86: Social Media vs. CNN in Breaking News; Rise of The Guardian’

July 17, 2013 //

When news happens, where do you turn first? A recent Gallup poll says most people still turn to TV, but if you followed the recent airplane crash at SFO or the military coup in Egypt, you know the action was on social media. We’ll discuss the role that social media plays in breaking news, how journalists are using social media, and what they can do better with special guests Vadim Lavrusik of Facebook and Yumi Wilson of LinkedIn. Next, we’ll talk about the rise of The Guardian, a British newspaper that has pushed hard online into the U.S., and how its recent scoops with Edward Snowden over the NSA snooping have brought it head-to-head with NYTimes.com. MediaShift’s Mark Glaser hosts, along with former paidContent editor Staci Kramer.

Get the back story on all of this news, plus bios of our guests.

Tags breaking news, cnn, facebook, guardian, linkedin, mediatwits, social media

Categories Clips, Journalism, PBS

”Are you studying IT?”

July 5, 2013 //

That’s what one passenger asked me on my most recent interstate bus trip. I don’t consider myself an IT specialist, but I’m honored by the misunderstanding.

Read the rest of the post here.

Tags au career center, code, html, idea lab, internships, IT, journalism, pbs, tech

Categories AU Career Center, Clips, Journalism, PBS

‘Knight News Challenge ‘Finished’? Knight CEO Muses as #OpenGov Winners Unveiled’

June 26, 2013 //

The Knight Foundation continues to fund the latest projects in news and technology, but the format of the Knight News Challenge might be near an end.

In announcing the latest recipients of the Knight News Challenge grants, Knight Foundation CEO Alberto Ibargüen slipped in that the grants “may be finished” and “it may be that, as a device for doing something, it may be that we’ve gone as far as we can take it.”

In the meantime though, the new round of grantees are specializing in making government more open and effective.

Read the rest of the story here, with tons of interviews with the winners and all of their grant proposals in their entirety.

Tags aaron ogle, adam becker, Alberto Ibarguen, Alex Pandel, Amir Reavis-Bey, andy cochran, blaine whited, Civic Insight, clay johnson, demond drummer, department of better technology, dionne baux, Eddie Tejeda, elizabeth rosas-landa, ellen mcdermott, erik hazzard, frank hebbert, gitmachines, greg elin, ikjae park, itt chicago kent school of law, jeremy blalock, jerry goldman, joel mahoney, john lancaster, Knight, lisc chicago, MIT, mjumbe poe, News Challenge, nikita bier, openplans, outline, oyez, peter koht, plan in a box, procure.io, ray kluender, rodney cobb, screendoor, susana vasquez, techstars, terence rose

Categories Clips, Journalism, PBS

‘Mediatwits #84: Instagram to Launch Video; BuzzFeed Sued for Photo Use; Middle East Mobile Use Booms’

June 21, 2013 //

Do you love photo and video sharing? Then this episode is for you. First, Facebook announced that popular photo sharing and filtering service Instagram will add video to compete with the popularity of Vine, owned by Twitter. Meanwhile, a photographer has sued BuzzFeed for just that kind of sharing, claiming $3.6 million in damages for using his photo of a soccer player — and enabling sharing on other sites. We’ll talk to copyright lawyer Richard Stim of Nolo on the validity of the case and the role of copyright in digital journalism. Then, we’ll talk to Northwestern University in Qatar’s Dean Everette Dennis about his new study on media use in the Middle East, and the growing use of mobile phones for news there. MediaShift’s Mark Glaser hosts, along with Mónica Guzmán from the Seattle Times and GeekWire.

Meet the guests and get the facts here.

My take on Instagram’s new video capability:

What I’m most actually interested in is this Cinema app that they have attached to Instagram video, which basically lets you in post-production stabilize a really shaky video. And in my mind that has a lot of really great implications for citizen journalism, right? If you’re at a breaking news event and you’re trying to catch video, but you’re running around and it gets all shaky and it kind of lowers the quality of it. And I really like what the CEO said during the big press conference yesterday, where he said, “you know, we shouldn’t have to accept bad video.” So I really like where Instagram’s going in improving that aspect of it.

Tags ana marie cox, andrew lih, arab world, buzzfeed, copyright, everette dennis, instagram, mediatwits, middle east, monica guzman, northwestern university, photography, richard stim

Categories Clips, Journalism, PBS

“Vourno: A Crowdfunding Platform for Video Journalism”

June 17, 2013 //

NEW YORK — Joe Verdirame has a background at J.P. Morgan and funding startups.

Now he hopes to reshape funding for independent video journalism.

Verdirame, 39, is the founder of Vourno, a new publishing platform to help crowdfund video journalism.

The site launched on May 20 and is largely a blank slate. So far there has been one project that was completely funded in 24 hours. Verdirame hopes that, once the site builds some momentum, the concept of building multiple revenue streams for journalists (donations, advertising, licensing, etc.) will be enticing to freelancers.

Read the rest of the story here on PBS MediaShift’s sister site, Idea Lab.

Categories Clips, Journalism, PBS

Peruvian president promises infrastructure investment, international cooperation

June 14, 2013 //

Tags center for american progress, infrastructure, latin america, lima, obama, ollanta humala, peru, president, public transportation

Categories Clips, Journalism, Latin Pulse

Personal Democracy Forum 2013

June 13, 2013 //

All of my reporting on the Personal Democracy Forum in New York City last weekend.

A full story for PBS MediaShift:

With reports that the National Security Agency is amassing data from Internet and phone companies, jokes abounded at the 10th annual Personal Democracy Forum (PDF) in New York City on June 6 and 7, especially when the list of sponsors for PDF sounded like a tally of NSA’s tech titan collaborators — Google, Facebook, Yahoo, etc.

But against the backdrop of Silicon Valley and government snooping on citizens, speakers held “big data” in high regard and pointed to a number of technologies that had the potential to amass tons of raw data for analysis and democratization.

A bunch of photos:

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A dispatch on “Mediatwits”

And a reflective essay for the American University Career Center on how I was able to go:

Interning can be expensive. Living, eating, transportation. It makes it hard for people of limited resources to have the opportunity to intern. That’s why a federal judge on June 11 ruled, with potential implications for the intern market, that, in one case, interns should have been paid for doing work.

I’m lucky to be supported financially during my internships. But transportation, especially to conferences, turned out to be the most expensive part for me.

Tags american university career center, mediatwits, PBS MediaShift, personal democracy forum, personal democracy media

Categories AU Career Center, Clips, Journalism, PBS

Honored to be a Gridiron Fellow

June 12, 2013 //

Zach Cohen at National Press Club in Washington, D.C. June 11, right after being honored as a Gridiron Fellow.

Cohen at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. June 11, right after being honored as a Gridiron Fellow.

It’s a real honor to say that the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation of Washington, D.C., the nonprofit, education arm of the Washington, D. C. Professional Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, has named me a Gridiron Fellow, based on the famous Gridiron Club, D.C.’s oldest journalism club, that funded part of the scholarship.

I was officially recognized for receiving the scholarship June 11 at the annual Dateline Awards Dinner and Hall of Fame Ceremony at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

Read the rest of this entry »