Category: Search

June 2, 2014 media notes: UGC use and media; how to handle a killer's manifesto; HuffPost on Google Search tips

6/2/2014

For Monday, June 2, 2014, here are some media stories of note:

Columbia University's Tow Center for Digital Journalism has examined user-generated content and draw some interesting conclusions. Among them: news agencies are the source of a lot of such content, news organizations don't credit UGC terribly well, and such content can generate a lot of content that organizations wouldn't typically produce. There is "vicarious trauma" among those who work with UGC at media outlets and there is a fear among organizations that a legal case might seriously affect the use of UGC in future.
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The shooter last week at a Californian university left a 141-page note that described his disillusionment and set the stage for his violence. News organizations are all too accustomed now to dealing with derangement, so there is some effort to think through the handling of the clues that led to the tragedies. In some cases, media de-emphasize names and backgrounds so as not to lend authority or glory to the killers. Poynter's Kelly McBride writes about the need to publish the tract but to add ontext and expertise to help understand what compelled him to kill, while Margaret Sullivan writes as the public editor of The New York Times that it is worth considering playing down the killer's manifesto. While it is necessary to identify him, it is not necessary to give him a platform, she writes.
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Carina Kolodny, writing for Huffington Post, identifies 14 great Google Search tricks that are of benefit to journalists researching and creating. Whether it's getting a quotation right, a definition, a story from an archive, or a search within a website, she identifies the tricks of search.

May 14, 2014 media notes: Abramson out at New York Times; newsrooms ignore digital tools; Google's grim court ruling

5/14/2014

For Wednesday, May 14, some media stories of note:

A change of the guard is coming at The New York Times. Jill Abramson has suddenly left as executive editor. Dean Baquet, the Times' managing editor and a Pulitzer Prize winner, replaces Abramson at what is arguably the top job in American newspapers.
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A change of the guard is harder to achieve elsewhere. Howard Finberg, writing for Poynter, examines the shortcomings of newsrooms in their use of readily available digital journalism tools. Finberg notes that a new report by Poynter, The Goat Must Be Fed, indicates newsrooms know there are digital alternatives to traditional tools, but that doesn't compel them.
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The European court ruling Tuesday that opens the door to the right to be forgotten online is a real pain point for Google. The Wall Street Journal examines the search engine's options, and even though Google is examining what it calls a disappointing ruling, nothing will change what is grim reading for the giant.

May 13, 2014 media notes: EU upholds right to be forgotten; FCC's net neutrality chaos; best and worst of journalism

5/13/2014

For Tuesday, May 13, 2014, here are some media stories of note:

The top European Union court has ruled there is a right to be forgotten on the Internet. It has upheld a Spanish man's request that Google delete an auction notice on his repossessed home. He viewed it as an invasion of privacy. The ruling suggests that people now may ask Google to delete sensitive information about them from search results.
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Time.com argues that Federal Communications Commission chair Tom Wheeler has seriously misjudged public sentiment about net neutrality by opening the door to differing rates of digital delivery of content. Sam Gustin writes that Wheeler is into damage control to reassure providers and the public that the regulator is not going to allow a multi-tiered Internet.
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Britain's Tony Harcup has written A Dictionary of Journalism. A companion piece involves the nine best, and nine worst, things about journalism. He likes the clarity of language, the courage, and the skepticism. He doesn't like the cynicism, nostalgia and chaos.

media notes 11.19.13

11/19/2013

Some media notes for Tuesday, November 19, 2013:

These have been more interesting times than not for Bloomberg News in recent months. Apart from the controversy involving misuse of client information via its powerful terminals, Bloomberg in recent weeks found itself accused of spiking stories in China for fear of offending its hosts. Then there was a report from Politico that the journalist responsible for those stories had left the firm.

Now comes the mess of layoffs at a once-bustling and bursting-at-the-seams organization. Editor-in-chief Matthew Winkler nevertheless assures staff Bloomberg will grow next year. Felix Salmon of Reuters, no small competitor of Bloomberg, examines the evolution of the outlet as it tries to fashion a newsroom as a means to an end and not an end in itself. Meantime, there are fears of impending cuts at Bloomberg TV.

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It is not just Bloomberg having issues with China. The New Yorker's Evan Osnos looks at the delicate, fraught relationship between journalists and the country. He specifically looks at the recent denial of a visa to journalist Paul Mooney but also notes that the new wave of reforms scheduled for China merit immense coverage that may not be easy to undertake.

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Twitter had in recent weeks permitted any follower to send a direct message to someone, a shift away from its requirement of mutual following. Well, the experiment is over. Now it's back to the old approach: If you want to send a direct message, that person has to be following you, too.
Some modifications of Twitter's apps are also permitting more handy search.

media notes 10.18.13

10/18/2013

Here are some media notes for Friday, October 18, 2013:

Josh Stearns, in a paper for Freepress, attempts to define the acts of journalism that law should shield. He argues journalism is rooted in our ethics, how we act, and how we serve, and he believes the debate needs to involve the audience as allies in the fight to protect journalism.

Henry Farrell, a political scientist at George Washington University, argues that the new journalism venture financed by Pierre Omidyar could change the relationship between information, knowledge and politics. The serious investment, which has already lured Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras into the fold, stands to be a serious player, he concludes.

Eric Newton, a senior advisor to the Knight Foundation, argues that journalism education isn't shifting quickly enough to keep pace with technological change. Newton writes for the Nieman Journalism Lab that journalism continues to acquire new techniques through innovation while retaining such basics as hard work, reaching audiences their way, and staying current, honest and factual. He suggests many journalism students aren't receiving the education they need and they need to pull their schools into the digital age.

Ricardo Bilton, writing for VentureBeat, examines the demise of the keyword and the rise of so-called "dark search" in which higher-quality content is recognized and ranked more highly by Google. The implications for publishers are significant: no longer will keyword-stuffed content succeed, but better work might.

media notes 05.31.13

5/31/2013

Some media stores of note for Friday, May 31, 2013:

Jeff Jarvis, posting to Medium, argues the case against sponsored content. (The New York Times is reported considering more such content, Bloomberg reports.) Jarvis asserts that the trend in sponsored material diminishes the news brand, gives rise to conflicts of interest, and confuses the audience with inconsistency. He also argues that news organizations ought to focus on being in the relationship business, more so than the content business, and that marketers should recognize that sponsored content won't benefit from the sponsored content business, either.

The U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder, met a handful of news organizations Thursday (another handful declined his invitation) and acknowledged mistakes had been made in spying on media that were evincing leaks from government. Politico reports that Holder told organizations he understood what had been done wrongly. Meantime, National Journal argues there were good reasons why journalists shouldn't have met Holder.

The largest media owner is Google. That is the finding of the ZenithOptimedia report. Press Gazette says the report suggests Google's holdings total 65 of all Internet searches and 82 per cent of all Internet paid search advertising. The value is an estimated $37.9 billion.

media notes 02-03.02.13

2/3/2013

Media notes for Saturday-Sunday:

Jay Rosen, the journalism scholar at New York University, publishes on his Pressthink blog a succinct yet wide-ranging argument about the climate in traditional journalism --- what it is right about (among other things, overload), what it is wrong about (among other things, business ignorance) --- that summarizes the challenges of the craft.

Jay Kirsch, the president of AOL's business, technology and entertainment group, weighs in on the recent controversy involving CBS' involvement in its subsidiary CNET's decision to recognize a CBS rival and litigant with an award (the award was rescinded and CNET was restrained from writing about the rival Dish Network product). Kirsch writes at TechCrunch (one of AOL's holdings) such involvement in the so-called church and state relationship doesn't hurt the church --- it hurts the state.

David Gelernter, the Yale computer science professor widely credited for his foresight about the web, writes for Wired on the emergence of information timeline streams and how they will create the end of the web, the reorienting of search, and the shift of computers to devices that "tune in" to the latest information.

Google introduces Twitter archive search

4/14/2010

Today Google introduced a feature to search archival material from Twitter. As a news tool it has exceptional implications for research of the public record --- what the conversation was at a particular time on a topic and what resources were mounted as that conversation proceeded.

In playing with the limited tool today --- Google is rolling it out in stages, with the first one going back to February, but soon to date back to 2006 --- it offered a great library of data.

The tool shows the velocity of a topic and permits you to isolate a time to explore what was Tweeted.

"All of us are just beginning to understand the many ways real-time information and short-form web content will be useful in the future, and we think being able to make use of historical information is an important part of that," writes Dylan Casey, the product manager for real-time search on Google on the company's official blog.

Google's news pet, Flipper, gets into the water

6/19/2009

Google is developing Flipper, a new reader for Google News that visually displays results.

From the beta screen-grabs assembled at Techcrunch, it's an obvious step up from the plain-text results on Google News. Search can be conducted by words, phrases, most-popular and recommended, so there is greater flexibility.

The implications could be significant for the news business, in that Flipper is bound to make more attractive the results of search. The search flexibility yields some interesting pages, so in the hands of news consumers, Flipper might be very handy.

Will Facebook overtake Google?

3/19/2009

A new report from RBC Capital Markets suggests Facebook will overake Google in garnering unique visitors in 2011.

The sites currently drive traffic to one another, but RBC analyst Ross Sandler notes that the harmonious relationship could easily change as Facebook strives for a business model. Google's compound growth rate is 20 per cent, while Facebook's is 85 per cent.

Sandler sees Facebook as a larger starting point for people online, that it is directing more people to other sites than Google, and as a result could become a more formidable entity.

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