The Wednesday Wrap
Posted by Prof. Richard Sambrook
Here is this week’s selection of the best of the web from the last seven days…
1) Brand Journalism is a growing phenomenon where brands pay for content. Monocle Magazine, launched and led by Tyler Brule, has been one of the most successful global niche magazine launches of the last decade. Key to its commercial success is their approach to combining editorial and advertising. Brule says “don’t call it native advertising” but Rafat Ali, who launched PaidContent, pays tribute to Monocle’s groundbreaking success. Meanwhile Poynter looks at what a “brand newsroom” should look like and what non-media companies need to consider as they move into content.
2) Twitter came in for criticism for not responding swiftly or appropriately to online abuse. When a woman campaigner for women on banknotes was threatened with rape, and MP Stella Creasey who came to her aid suffered similar threats, the question of whether social media is a publisher, with responsibility for content, or just a platform, like a phone line, was thrown into stark relief. The Guardian asks what can be done about online abuse.
3) Harvard’s Nieman Lab looks at the intersection between journalism and computer science and the need for more cross discipline education. Journalists will increasingly need to understand data and know how to manipulate it. It’s an area we are developing at Cardiff hopefully for the launch of a new course next year.
4) Peter Preston in The Guardian explains why the dog days of August may be the time when the future regulation of the British Press is decided. The ground seems to be shifting in favour of the newspaper publishers’ proposals.
5) FInally, Scott Simon, from National Public Radio in the US, used Twitter to report the final moments of his mother’s life and his reaction to the loss of a parent. His moving and frank messages produced an outpouring of sympathy – they are a moving testament to family love. As Poynter reported, “his tweets speak to universal truths we can all relate to — loss, love and the pain of having to let go. They remind us that losing your parents is difficult, no matter how old you are or how you lose them.”
And that’s the wrap for this week.