Reporting on Ebola, safely

Doctors, nurses, family and friends are taking considerable risks to treat people infected by Ebola. As Professor Peter Piot, the head of the UN's Ebola response, said: "the smallest mistake can be fatal".
Reporting a health crisis is possibly equally dangerous, but very different from reporting on a conflict or war zone. How do reporters and their crews cope?

A unique BBC report takes us behind the scenes, to look at the precautions that one team is taking to interview professionals and families and attend funerals. Notably, despite the breathing masks, full body suits and rubber gloves, the BBC crew are still not going into the 'Red Zone' where patients with confirmed Ebola infections are present. Sadly, it is often the poorly-equipped local staff, with limited training and poor compensation, who are doing the riskiest work in this crisis.

See the story and video here: http://www.bbc.com/news/health-29581414
For a grim read about the realities of an Ebola clinic, read this report in the New York Times: A  Hospital From Hell, in a City Swamped by Ebola 

More women needed in the news media

A passionate call for greater representation, and protection, for women in the news media around the world, from Christiane Amanpour, CNN correspondent and presenter. Hopefully this will encourage more women to follow in her footsteps and others to hire, train and promote qualified women in equal numbers to men so that we get balanced news and media in future.

How to be an investigative journalist

How can a journalist get attention these days? Bloggers and the general public are swamping the breaking news cycle with tweets and photos from their mobile phones; companies are developing their own media content; and public relations practitioners outnumber reporters. It can be hard for a news reporter to get their head above the hype.
For the lucky few with the time, money and requisite skills, investigative journalism promises not only headlines but also infamy. But even if you have the time and inclination, how can you become an investigative journalist? UK newspaper The Guardian has put together a masterclass seminar with award-winning writers and professional snoops. They will explain how to find information and outfox the powers that want it hidden. This event occurs on November 30 in London and will cost £139, or £109 if you book early.

The Guardian hosts a series of other learning opportunities through the year. If you cannot make the introduction to investigative journalism, how about the digital journalism bootcamp? This costs a bit more, at £299, but is being held after work over four weeks in November (5, 12, 19 and 26 Nov.).

You can keep in touch with forthcoming learning opportunities by email, or follow @guardianclasses on Twitter.

The image above is from the London Journalism Centre, which offers a number of courses including politics, fashion and travel writing, among others.

8 things every journalist should learn

There are so many different types of journalists that defining the curricula for journalism students can be a hot topic. Journalism includes small-town, all-purpose reporters; multi-purpose, multi-media workers; interactive data journalists and researchers; and specialists in many subjects.

Olga Khazan, writing in The Atlantic, proposes several common-sense core topics that should be in the toolbox of any journalist. Here are the headlines, with some thoughts of my own

1. Statistics
2. Data
3. Experiments and sampling (i.e. how to interpret studies)
4. Marketing (not only pitching stories and understanding public interest and e.g. viral media, but also handling pushy PR people and separating story angles from spin)
5. Civic issues (human and civil rights and media law should also be part of this)
6. Online writing (add broadcasting, video, audio and photography) 
7. The internet - how it works and why (include privacy and research techniques)
8. Plus: how about some basics, like story construction (5Ws+H, story pyramid, human interest), note-taking, writing techniques, hygiene (spelling, grammar, house style) and maybe even basic computer skills (keyboard, software etc.); plus some broader issues such as how to build rapport with readers, an understanding of human rights and journalistic rights, and a sense of ethics and obligation to match with your potential impact as an authority figure, commentator, critic and - perhaps - advocate (for a recent debate on the difference and merits of each, read this piece in The Guardian).

What do you think should be in every journalist's toolkit?

Apply soon for UN journalism fellowships

The Dag Hammarskjöld Fund for Journalists is inviting applications for fellowships in 2013, from professional journalists in developing countries. The successful fellows get to join the reporters covering United Nations affairs. They will be flown to New York to report on the 67th session of the United Nations General Assembly in September. This will include the High Level Meeting on progress towards the Millennium Development Goals, which should be a particular interest to audiences back home.

Applicants should be quick: the deadline is April 5. 

Rread more here: http://bit.ly/ADuXHZ

Simple data journalism tools

The Guardian's Datablog continues to serve as a beacon to data-focused journalists and others trying to use numbers to help tell stories.

This interview by O'Reilly's Strata blog includes reference to several of the key tools that the Datablog uses; some of them disarmingly simple: Excel, TextEdit, Google Fusion Tables, Google Spreadsheets,Timetric, Many Eyes, Adobe Illustrator, and Tableau.

Link

Africans launch digital news contest

The first competition for digital news innovation in Africa has just been launched and closes in July. Winners will be announced on 10 November 2012.

Winners get cash prizes of up to $100,000 plus business, technical and marketing support. Finalists will be invited to a camp in Tanzania in August for workshops with mentors and industry experts.

Proposals can be submitted by news pioneers anywhere in the world, though they must have an African media partner to help develop and test the innovation.

This innovation challenge focuses on journalism and the news media. The organizers are looking for disruptive digital ideas for improving the way that news is collected and disseminated. This includes tools or strategies that use the Internet, mobile platforms, data driven journalism, computer assisted reporting, digitally augmented reality, or other electronic means to improve the relevance and impact of news media. 

Winning ideas should be focused on providing pragmatic solutions to real challenges facing African media.

Innovations are being sought in four broad categories: news gathering; story telling; audience engagement; or the business of news. Within these categories, the judges will look for ideas with the following goals:

1. Strengthen existing media platforms, or harness new digital platforms for engaging audiences and transmitting news other journalistic content.
2. Improve the way news reaches audiences, from traditional circulation / airtime management to newer disruptive ‘cross platform’ channels.
3. Amplify the relevance and usefulness of news by improving the immediacy, depth and accuracy of journalistic content.
4. Enhance the impact and ‘shelf life’ of news by extending its influence and intrinsic value for both audiences and content services.
5. Deepen media’s understanding of its audiences and markets by improving user analytics, audience profiling and market segmentation.
6. Boost the media’s resource base by diversifying business models, developing new revenue streams or improving operational efficiencies.

Finalists will be invited to the OpenNews Camp in Zanzibar, Tanzania, in August for one-on-one workshop sessions with business development mentors and other industry experts. Finalists will use these sessions to refine and strengthen their proposals, as well as develop implementation plans and budgets ahead of final judging.

Winners will receive cash grants of between $12,000 and $100,000, plus additional business development support, technical mentorship, and marketing support. Winners may also be offered opportunities to pilot their projects in AMI member newsrooms and showcase the results at international conferences or to venture capital funds.

All entries have to be made on the competition website: http://africannewschallenge.org

The African News Innovation Challenge (ANIC), is a pan-African contest designed to support digital innovation and experimentation that improves the quality and impact of African journalism. It that aims to accelerate innovation in news organisations by funding transformational ideas and then continuing to support them through a network of peers and advisors. It encourages new digital tools and techniques for ‘making’ news, new ways for audiences to engage with news, and new models for media organisations to sustain themselves. The idea is that the contest will support new media experiments and digital news startups in data driven journalism and investigative reporting, newsroom management, audience engagement, digital convergence and media business models.

ANIC is modelled on the Knight News Challenge in the USA, customised to address the challenges facing African media.

ANIC is run by The African Media Initiative (AMI), the industry association that is Africa’s largest umbrella body of media owners and executives.  AMI’s mandate is to serve as a catalyst for strengthening African media by building the tools, knowledge, and technical capacity for the media to play an effective  ‘public interest’ role in African society. This includes assisting with the development of professional standards, financial sustainability, technological adaptability, and civic engagement.  AMI believes that democracy thrives when people and communities are informed and engaged.  

ANIC funds news experiments and digital media startups in order to help cover the costs of developing, testing and scaling a new digital news venture or product.

Good luck!

Journalism vs social media

The impact of social media on commercial journalism is often overestimated, and the audience size is still limited compared with mainstream news media. Yet the impact is real enough and likely to grow: job losses at CNN in 2011 were just one example, as the company makes greater use of public-sourced videos and photos in its iReports.

There is still a role for professional journalists, and for good reason. Most are trained, experienced and bound by professional principles and laws. They typically pride themselves for sifting the 'truth' or at least verifying facts before publishing. That includes not taking tweets at face value and seeking out balanced, expert opinions. Most journalists also know how to tell a good story, and some have a large personal following.

Of course not all journalists are up to this standard, and some bloggers have huge followings and some maintain very high standards of accuracy and balance. Hearing directly from a law maker or a scientist can be more powerful and detailed than traditional journalism allows.

Social media is now having a big impact in modern journalism, as this report by Paul Sawers of The Next Web attests. Based on discussions at the Social Media Week in London in February 2012, he quoted Paul Lewis, Special Projects Editor at the Guardian, on four key ways that social media is shaking things up:

1. Finding people (crowdsourcing information, witnesses or other key figures in a story);
2. Creating personalities from activists, bloggers and others who would otherwise not be given a voice;
3. Major events like the London riots e.g. following leads and chasing stories via Twitter, and keeping readers informed ahead of a formal publishing schedule;
4. Small actions making a big impact (the 'butterfly effect') e.g. a tweet containing very valuable information that sets off a big story.

There are many millions of people using Google+, Twitter, Facebook and other social media. Yet these channels do not fully represent public opinion. The tweets and posts will continue to represent special interests until social media is accessible to the urban poor, rural communities, the illiterate, the oppressed and people living and working in every country of the world. Until then, social media offers activists and other special interests the opportunity of a higher profile than they otherwise might get in a crowded media environment.

Social media is a growing communication channel, but there remains an important role for professional journalists to filter and validate that information.