The Guardian - 10,000 Words

New WikiLeaks Doc We Steal Secrets Examines the ‘Transparency Machine’

Karen Fratti — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 10:35:05 +0000

The saga of WikiLeaks and Bradley Manning presents many questions for digital journalists. We Steal Secrets, a documentary directed by Alex Gibney and set for release this May, deals with them all. You can watch a trailer here.

You should see the film — even if you think you’ve already heard all you need to know about Wikileaks, even if you’ve already made up your mind. It not only covers the creation of Wikileaks, the fall of Julian Assange as a hacker-god, but includes new interviews with Michael Hayden, former CIA director, and the woman who accused Assange of rape, among many other inside players. However, the most compelling part of the documentary is that it finally puts Bradley Manning in center stage and presents new questions about digital security, sources, and how we protect them.

I used to champion WikiLeaks, and I cringe to admit it, its founder. In a far off graduate school classroom, I even considered the idea that it was a sort of ‘journalistic’ enterprise. But now that Manning has been serving time as an enemy of the state and his trial approaches, I’m finding it hard to focus on anything but him, and the responsibilities publishers assume online, with information and with their sources. continued…

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MATTER: Returning to Long-Form Journalism

Maurice Cherry — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 11:44:24 +0000

Earlier this month, I talked about three enterprising Kickstarter campaigns — Outer Voices Podcast, Radio Ambulante, and The Independent Voice Project. Recently, another great journalism-focused project has started making news, and it’s called MATTER.

MATTER is the brain child of Jim Giles and Bobbie Johnson, two experienced reporters with a passion for making journalism better. Giles and Johnson have lined up a team of writers and editors to help push this vision forward, and according to the Kickstarter project page, MATTER will be for readers, not advertisers.

The “return to long-form journalism” is a phrase that has been bandied about for a few years now, and several websites currently exist around this premise (Longreads, The Atavist, Byliner, Longform, etc.) MATTER won’t be a curation service; rather, it will include original investigative reporting from their team of writers, some of which have contributed to publications such as The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Economist, The Guardian, The New York Times, National Geographic, Nature and Wired.

“The thing about long-form, in-depth journalism is that it’s expensive. There used to be many more newspapers and magazines that produced that sort of content, but journalism is in financial trouble and those outlets have cut back,” said Giles.

The Kickstarter campaign will help raise funds for MATTER to produce their first three pieces. By pledging at the $25 level, you can join their editorial board (powered by All Our Ideas) and lend your voice to the kind of reporting MATTER covers.

As of this article, the project is over 60% funded, but you can pledge until the campaign ends on March 24, 2012. For more information about MATTER, you can visit their website at readmatter.com. You can also follow the progress of MATTER on Facebook and Twitter.

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GigaOM and paidContent: Going Global

Mona Zhang — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 11:27:11 +0000

GigaOM, which announced its purchase of ContentNext Media yesterday, reportedly paid less than the $6.5 million Guardian News & Media spent on its 2008 acquisition of the company. The terms of the deal are undisclosed, but GigaOM is acquiring its flagship brand, paidContent, along with its other assets: mocoNews.net, contentSutra.com, and paidContent:UK.

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Is An Open News Approach The Way To Go?

Elana Zak — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 20:31:54 +0000

Last week, I blogged about the Guardian’s experimental decision to share part of its newslists with the public. The move was somewhat risky. Traditionally, newspapers keep their lists of upcoming stories close to the vest in an effort to scoop the competition.

A little more than a week in, and the Guardian’s experiment is going well, writes Dan Roberts, the paper’s national editor. So well, in fact, that they are extending the process and including more sections of the paper in the newslists made public.

“… the remarkable thing about our experiment publishing the Guardian’s list of upcoming stories is why newspapers have been so secretive about such information for so long,” Roberts comments in the blog post. “Whatever competitive advantage may have been lost by giving rivals a clue what we were up to was more than made up for by a growing range of ideas and tips from readers.”

This begs the question: Should more newspapers/news organizations consider an open news approach?

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The Guardian Shares Newslists with Readers

Elana Zak — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 05:23:42 +0000

In a new — and potentially risky — experiment, UK’s the Guardian will make its newslists public starting today in an effort to better engage readers in the editorial decision-making process.

A screenshot of part of the Guardian's national news newslist.

Newslists are the upcoming stories a news organization is looking into or plans to run. In an industry where being the first to break news is of the utmost importance, these lists can be extremely valuable. There have even been examples of reporters selling their story lists to rival publications.

“What if readers were able to help newsdesks work out which stories were worth investing precious reporting resources in?” writes Dan Roberts, the paper’s national news editor. “What if all those experts who delight in telling us what’s wrong with our stories after they’ve been published could be enlisted into giving us more clues beforehand? What if the process of working out what to investigate actually becomes part of the news itself?” continued…

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The Guardian Circa 1821

Elana Zak — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 15:59:52 +0000

Talk about being both innovative and retro. In honor of its 190th anniversary, the fine folks at The Guardian recently unveiled the 1821 Vintage Limited Edition. continued…

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Journalism, Social Media and PR: An Interview with Romey Louangvilay

Maurice Cherry — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 10:00:00 +0000

The context of social media in journalism today cannot be ignored. Several mainstream media organizations such as The Guardian, Slate, and The New York Times have realized this, and are using social media to tap into their audiences and deliver breaking news while maintaining an active and engaged audience. This has started to happen across the media spectrum, particularly in public relations.

Recently, I had the chance to talk with Romey Louangvilay, senior account executive for digital and social media at Euro RSCG Worldwide PR. Romey’s work with high profile brands involves an interesting mix of traditional journalism, public relations, and social media. In this interview, Romey explains how technology and social media play a pivotal role in the accessibility of news and information to the general public.

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