Thinking Digital: from newspapers to blogging to Twitter - and back again

SPEAKERS at the Thinking Digital conference in Newcastle this week have covered a diverse range of subjects: from Twitter to how to save the world's problems via technology.
One panel covered the blogging phenomenon - where former blogger Stowe Boyd deemed blogging outdated - and another was from Newsweek writer Dan Lyons, who shared some controversial opinions on newspapers, "I don't see the point. They are dead. They are in denial."
Lyons was singing the praises of blogging during his panel, as he met with success whilst blogging as 'Fake Steve Jobs'. However Boyd, during the panel on blogging, stated that the "heat and dyanmism of blogging is gone", and pointed towards the rise of social networks - citing Twitter as a prime example. Conversely, although there were pro-Twitter panelists during the Twitter session, Lyons was cynical about its "pre-revenue" status and labeled it as one of the first companies to be hurt by the economic downturn.
There seemed to be a circle of opinions going around during these three panels. Perhaps the best conclusion to come to is that it is too early to write off newspapers, blogs or Twitter? Or maybe it is time to question the idea that they are mutually exclusive? Could the way forward for newspapers be further along the road many have begun to take, combining the new technologies with their traditional journalism and moving forward after the troubles of the economic crisis are gone?

Source: editorsweblog.org

Nick Jones: Newspapers’ approach to video gives them exclusive edge

NICK Jones, former BBC political correspondent, joined panellists Iain Dale and Paul Staines (aka Guido Fawkes) at the Foregin Press Association yesterday, where the impact of new media on newsgathering and reporting was discussed.
Further to Dale’s comments on blogging and political journalism, Jones added that audio and video material appearing on newspaper websites is ’stretching journalism in the way it should be stretched’.
“Newspapers are making money out of video and audio. They are buying up exclusive material obtained in dubious circumstances - but it is getting good ratings,” said Jones.
Thanks to video evidence The Guardian, for example, was first with exclusives about police involvement in the death of G20 protestor Ian Tomlinson, he said.
“The Guardian was prepared to take risks the BBC would not have contemplated,” said Jones, who claimed the BBC would have had to apply a ‘whole host’ of tests to the video evidence.
The code for newspapers is much simpler, he suggested: “They just need to ask, is it in the public interest?”

Source: journalism.co.uk