Wednesday Wrap

The latest in our occasionally regular wrap of the best of the web from the last week.

It’s a big week for anyone interested in supporting investigative journalism online. First eBay founder Pierre Omidyar announced (or rather had leaked) news of a new investment in an online news venture with Glenn Greenwald – the Guardian reporter who broke the Edward Snowden NSA leaks story. Omidyar told The New York Times: “We want to do a better job bringing important investigative stories or deep human stories that tend to be overlooked to a broader audience and we can use technology to figure out how to do that.”
If that wasn’t enough for digital sleuths, Buzzfeed – home of the listicle – also announced it had appointed a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist as Investigations Editor. Mark Schoofs, formerly of ProPublica, said: “We plan to mix BuzzFeed’s energy, ambition and grasp of the social web with the best traditions of American investigative reporting to expose wrongdoing, hold people accountable and tell stories that need to be told.”

Entertainment supporting serious journalism? Sounds like the Daily Mirror of Hugh Cudlipp – whose story was told on Radio 4 by JOMEC Professor Ian Hargreaves.

Meanwhile, “Content Farms” – those commoditised homes of battery-farmed journalism seem to be going through a tough time. It seems quality – and understanding your reader – may count for more than quantity after all. Hooray!

The growing influence of China is highlighted in two new reports. The Center for International Media Assistance has published a report on CCTV’s major international expansion as part of China’s grand strategy for media. CCTV’s biggest impact may be in regions where China is directing its international investments. The Nairobi operations complement extensive investments in African infrastructure, many of them in communications; China is also pursuing critical investment in Latin America and Southeast Asia. And CIMA also looks at The Long Shadow of Chinese Censorship: how the communist party’s media restrictions affect news outlets around the world. The East is rising…

Finally, a new paper from Scott Wallsten of the Technology Policy Institute asks if we are spending more time online – what are we doing less of? The answer seems to be work, sleep and TV.

And that’s a wrap for this week.