Notes From The Field

Better get your mojo working

"News Quoyle, news. Better get your mojo working."
                         - Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

A draft of this post has been loitering in my documents folder for a while. But six months on from when I gave some mojo apps a workout in Nigeria and in Georgia I've got a few more points to share about what a mobile phone offers journalists for field reporting.

The Business of the Baron

German media got itself into a little bit of muddle over the past week covering the appointment of Karl-Theodor von und zu Guttenberg as Germany's new Minister of Economics, following the surprise resignation of Michael Glos.

The media all seemed to be asking themselves: who is this 37 year old Freiherr (Baron) from Bavaria, and does he have the right stuff to help guide the German economy at a time of global financial crisis?

Germany's tabloid newspaper Bild got down to business poking fun at Minister zu Guttenberg's given names.

(www,bildblog.de)

        "Must we remember this man's name?"

As you can see, the Minister has quite a few names, ten in fact. Karl-Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jakob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester.

Unfortunately for Bild, and plenty of other strapped-for-time journalists at publications including Spiegel Online, the Wikipedia entry for the Minister had been edited as a joke, and Dr zu Guttenberg acquired an eleventh name, Wilhelm.

Meanwhile, the new minister's track record for anything relating to business experience was also under scrutiny.

A number of newspapers described Herr zu Guttenberg as having run his family's business - widely quoted as being a certain 'von Guttenberg GmbH' - a supplier of insulation and building materials.

It all seemed a little vague, and for the NDR TV media watchdog programme ZAPP, just plain wrong.

With a little old fashioned systematic research (like contacting sources), ZAPP neatly dangled the correct facts in front of their learned colleagues. Not only that, they also revealed how functionaries at zu Guttenberg's party, Christian Social Union (CSU), and in his new ministry, had little idea about the exact employment history of their boss.

Dr zu Guttenberg never worked at von Guttenberg GmbH, nor is it his family's business. Von Guttenberg GmbH has also tried to set the record straight on its website. Perhaps the preposition 'von' added to confusion among journalists?

Moreover, ZAPP found records showing that yes, Minister zu Guttenberg was involved with his family's business, but it's a small concern, employing just three people to manage the zu Guttenberg estate.

The firm ceased to operate five years ago.

As ZAPP put it:

"Die Suche nach der Wirtschaftskompetenz des neuen Wirtschaftsministers geht weiter."

"The search for the economic competence of the new Minister of Economics continues."

Following #bushfires

Last weekend's devastating bushfires in Victoria are another example of how social media and online/multimedia journalism are shaping news consumption and distribution.

Bushfire Emergency is the special coverage produced by ABC online. In fact you could say Aunty is waging war on two online fronts. Click onto ABC News online and you'll see special coverage also devoted to floods in Queensland.

First impressions - perhaps a model for reporting disasters?

Bushfire Emergency opens with a flash slideshow loop of large photographs of the bushfires from contributors. It immediately arrests your attention. A horizontal menu bar also makes navigation quite easy. Scrolling down, the clean layout leads towards text stories plus audio and video clips from embedded players. Among them are some remarkable stories and heart wrenching interviews with survivors.

An interactive map at the bottom of the page embeds more information. One layer marks the death toll - orange pins over towns list the number of fatalities. Other layers let you click through to reports about individual towns and fire fronts.

ABC's Bushfire Emergency may not have full blown multimedia packages, perhaps that's to come, but the ABC's online efforts could well serve as a template or starting point for quickly pulling together media in a coherent way for reporting natural disasters as well as providing clear emergency services information.

#bushfires

On Sunday afternoon (European time), no sooner had I posted a tweet about checking ABC online for bushfire updates, my tweet had been re-tweeted (RT) by a fellow twitterer. Sure enough when I hit search on Tweetdeck #bushfires, and tracking of the word 'bushfires', were well and truly providing a river of human filtered information.

Flicking between ABC online and twitter not only provided a broad overview of the bushfires but link-rich tweets pointed towards stories, images and audio/video on other Australian news sites.

This rough but absolutely in the moment fire-frontline video from Fairfax photographer Nick Moir stood out. As did journalist Gary Hughes' account of his family's narrow escape. Twitter links also took me to some gripping audio clips of callers contacting Melbourne commercial radio station 3AW - a talkback station I've never tuned into.

A retweet from Andrew Davies @awrd of Radio National alerted me to how Melbourne's ABC 774 local radio station was using twitter for fire updates. 774 ABC Melbourne's twitter stream is delivering clear messages/updates/warnings from fire authorities and news reports. Again, another good model to take note of - 'old' media (and yes, the most agile of traditional mass media) harnessing the distribution of social media and helping a community.

My new internet "radio" is more than just a "wireless"

If I want to listen to English language radio programmes in Germany, I either use a shortwave radio to pull in a signal from BBC Radio 4 LW, the BBC World Service or I listen to stations via the internet or download podcasts.

The World Service on 648 MW has its good days and bad days. At least a radio is portable and sometimes I can get a good signal on a Tivoli PAL.

Tuning in via wifi means setting up my laptop, establishing a place to listen in the flat and hooking the laptop to the aux input on the PAL to boost the audio. In short, it's not too portable. 

I was looking into portable wifi radio receivers and adapators last week in a department store and thought that might be the way to go. I then saw the tiny Asus Eee PC. The screen icon just happened to say "Internet Radio".

Having a little play with it, the sound was OK for two small speakers - better than my 12" PowerBook, so I thought: why not? It's portable, light, no bigger than a novel and the sort of thing I can have on a bedside table. Its price was also on par with buying a wifi receiver.

Now, obviously if I want better sound that means hooking it up to the trusty PAL, but its small size makes that an easier proposition for the balcony and hammock.

The Eee PC is running on Linux - an OS I have no idea about, but I'd rather stick with it than install Windows.

So far I'm mostly using the BBC Player via the pre-installed Firefox browser to use the EeePC as a radio.

When you hit the "Internet Radio" icon on the Eee PC it launches MediaU- MediaU works fine (though the interface is a little awkward in my opinion - too busy). Once you login, you can type in any station and within 30 seconds it's playing.

However another cool "radio" application to run is of course LastFM. 

All of which is making radio, in all its forms, a medium to adore. Long live radio!

Having said all that, it's quite obvious that I'm plotting other uses for the little Eee PC. Stay tuned as they say. I'd be keen to hear from anyone using the Eee PC for mobile journalism, blogging, broadcast or multimedia work on the run.

For now, Tivoli's Networks receiver will have to wait.

 

Aunty's blogs

I've been visiting the ABC website a little more of late during the recent election campaign and the blogs are really worth checking out - particularly Unleashed.

I also stumbled upon Dispatches updated by the foreign correspondents - great to see some video and audio linked on it too. It reads a little like a blog version of Correspondent's Report or the Beeb's From Our Own Correspondent - very much the story behind the story.

This post from Stephen McDonell on filming the funeral for the academic Bao Zunxin gives a great insight into press freedom for foreign correspondents in China and the sensitivities authorities still have about those who supported the 1989 student protests Tiananmen Square.

One drawback about Dispatches, some posts have the option for comments others don't.

BTW, listening to Mark Colvin's live broadcasting of election results last weekend made great radio - particularly when crossing to Maxine McKew addressing her supporters in the electorate of Bennelong. Clear and vivid descriptions but giving listeners a sense of suspense as well. Who needed a telly? (Colvin also popped up recently on one my favourite Radio 4 programmes, Broadcasting House, talking about the rough and tumble of sledging in the Australian parliament.)

NewsXchange '07

Back in Bonn after attending the NewsXchange Conference in Berlin and there's much to distill.

All of the major presentations were strong and well produced. However, sometimes you could see delegates holding back and only offering their public voice in discussions and perhaps it's to be expected in a competitive field such as media. By far the most interesting was the discussion on Journalism Held Hostage. To hear the BBC's Alan Johnston tell of his ordeal in Gaza was quite remarkable.

Sobering to consider not only how many journalists have been killed this year but there are many that are still held hostage. Thankfully there are media industry advocates such as the International News Saftey Institute . I hope they work on some sort of industry wide network that might offer assistance when journalists are kidnapped - particularly to offer help for freelance journalists.

Richard Gizbert from Al Jazeera's The Listening Post probed Youtube and the Impact of Internet Video on Global Politics. Here we saw some strong ideas on where user generated content is going for broadcasters and how internet video is influencing politics. I interviewed Andrew Keen of Cult of the Amateur fame earlier this month and it was interesting to see him tackle Peter Walker from Google/Youtube during the panel discussion. France 24 seem to be quite working quite diligently on verifying video they track down from various sources on the web too.

On a more general level, I got the sense that adapting to the developments in multimedia journalism, and  understanding how people are turning to new forms of internet/mobile distributed video, is a struggle for some of the big media players. Agility is not their strong point, and some execs (and TV journalists) still having trouble 'logging in'.

Gadget of the conference was Telcast/Earth TV's double cam. This video via What Caught My Eye.

Welcome

Welcome to Notes From The Field. The aim of the blog is quite simple. It's a space to experiment using the internet and various digital tools for multimedia reporting.

For journalists, the question of how to best use the internet and the available digital technology for their work is very much up in the air.

It's interesting to see the work of the BBC's Ben Hammersley and his colleagues in action during their recent reporting trip to Turkey. Hopefully we'll see more of this type of work. Can journalists working on their own achieve similar results? And can freelance journalists skilled in several mediums take advantage of multimedia reporting?