“Collaborative election monitoring via social media” – notes from a panel about Electionland at #ijf17

I’ve been at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia, and here are my notes from a session about “Electionland”, billed as the largest collaborative journalistic exercise to monitor an election ever. The panel featured Scott Klein of ProPublica, Fergus Bell…

“Not just cool graphs: data journalism for investigations” – notes from the panel session at #ijf17

“Not just cool graphs: data journalism for investigations” – notes from the panel session at #ijf17

I’m at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia, and here are my notes from a panel about data journalism featuring my colleague Caelainn Barr alongside Mar Cabra, Daniele Grasso and Paula Guisado. Daniele Grasso, El Confidencial Daniele Grasso works at…

When the White House itself is spreading #FakeNews, how can journalists respond?

I wrote a piece for the Guardian’s opinion section yesterday about how the media must adapt to the tactics that Donald Trump and his White House team are employing. “What the Trump administration’s error-strewn list does is push journalists on…

Asking people to submit stories is not the local newspocalypse

Asking people to submit stories is not the local newspocalypse

Lots of attention on social media today to this story: “Newsquest title asks readers to write and publish stories as part of ‘simplified’ news sharing process” Another nail in the cofffin for local news etc etc But is it? This…

What Chris Moran learned from seven years as the Guardian’s audience editor

Every journalist should read every word of this: “What I learned from seven years as the Guardian’s audience editor“

Journalists need systems and training to help them fight online abuse

This is worth a read from my colleague Olivia Solon about being on the receiving end of abuse as a journalist: “A normalization of violence: how cyberbullying began and how to fight it” One of the things that fundamentally irks…

Yes, Trump’s tweets are a distraction – but one people clearly want to read

Yes, Trump’s tweets are a distraction – but one people clearly want to read

I have some sympathy with the view that Donald Trump uses his Twitter account to the do the “dead cat strategy” of distracting people and the media from more important issues. I think it is important that the media hold…

Tech Weekly podcast about the future of mobile news

Tech Weekly podcast about the future of mobile news

Just a short note that this week I have appeared on the Guardian’s Tech Weekly podcast, talking about mobile apps and the future of news.

Brian Sewell (1931-2015)

Way back in the mists of time I used to blog a lot about what annoyed me in the Evening Standard. And one of the things that used to annoy me most in the paper in the 90s and early…

So long, Contributoria

So long, Contributoria

Sad news today that Contributoria, the crowd-funded journalism site, is to close. I always rather loved the idea of trying to bring together a community that would fund the best journalism that they wanted to see written, and I also…