More free tsunami satellite photos
December 31, 2004
DigitalGlobe is making more high-resolution satellite images available to media for free; this set is from the Banda Aceh shore in Indonesia….
Tsunami home videos, photos
December 31, 2004
There’s a seemingly endless amount of amazing home videos and photos of the deadly tsunami and aftermath.
Collections of video on waveofdestruction.org
Scores of photos on Flickr
Know of more collection sites? Post here.
Technology defines tsunami coverage
December 31, 2004
More on how technology, the Net, tourists with cameras and mobile phones are defining how the tsunami and aftermath are being covered. “The new technology is making the old journalistic saw about one tragic death at home being worth as much coverage as hundreds of deaths overseas increasingly obsolete,” said Louis Boccardi, former chief executive of The Associated Press.
CyberJournalist.net in the News: 2004
December 31, 2004
Washington Post, Nov. 2, 2004, "Your Own Election Night Newsroom"
Some good spots to check past election statistics: a chart on election
turnout by state from the
2000 election and
a tally of historical
election results from the Office of the Federal Register. Jonathan Dube of
Cyberjournalist.net and MSNBC.com pointed readers to these links too, and a lot
of other interesting election links in his own
tip sheet.
– Cynthia L. Webb
Information Today, Nov. 1, 2004, "Throughout the Blogosphere"
Whether or not bloggers are luring people away from words on paper is
debatable, but there is strong evidence that bloggers are, in other ways, having
a genuine impact on the world.
Blogs brought former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott’s endorsement of Strom
Thurmond’s 1948 pro-segregation platform to the attention of the traditional
media. Blogs raised the first questions concerning documents about President
George W. Bush’s Air National Guam service aired by CBS News and sparked the
media firestorm that led to the network’s admission that the documents were, in
fact, questionable.
"Bloggers are not threatening traditional media, nor replacing it–bloggers are
enhancing it, adding additional voices, another check and balance. Bloggers are
part of the media now," said CyberJournalist.net blogger Jonathan Dube.
Cincinnati Enquirer, Aug. 30, 2004 "Convention blog watch"
The American Press Institute again offers a list of convention bloggers with
links (www.cyberjournalist.net).
Denver Post, Aug. 29, 2004, "New eyes on politics"
For commentary on and links to political blogs, go to
www.cyberjournalist.net/cyberpolitics_blog/.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch, Aug, 29, 2004
Cyberjournalist.net published a list of 20 Web bloggers, including Alan
Nelson of Command-post.org and Oxblog.com as among those ready to give ‘yet
another set of perspectives from the convention.’
The writers include independent bloggers, media types and delegates. More
than 120 bloggers wrote during last month’s Democrat Party convention.
Kansas City Star, Aug. 22, 2004, "Political conventions"
www.cyberjournalist.net: Convention watchers who keep online, often
interactive, diaries known as blogs are providing a type of coverage of this
year’s conventions that no one has seen before.
Investor’s Business Daily, Aug 25, 2004, "GOP blog ranks fairly thin"
Cyberjournalist.net published a list of 20 Web bloggers, including Alan
Nelson of Command-post.org and Oxblog.com as among those ready to give "yet
another set of perspectives from the convention."
The writers include independent bloggers, media types and delegates. More than
120 bloggers wrote during last month’s Democrat Party convention.
Chicago Tribune, Aug. 19, 2004, "Lessons learned in year since blog
blastoff "
Jonathan Dube, who tracks big-media blogging at cyberjournalist.net,
says the number of blogs added by traditional media outlets has more than
doubled in the past year to "well over 200," with additional growth in
temporary, event-related blogs such as those generated at the political
conventions by my Tribune colleagues Ellen Warren and Charles Madigan.
– Eric Zorn
Online Journalism Review, July 31, 2004, "Big Media Try to Steal Bloggers’
Thunder at DNC"
The gatekeeper efforts to collate political blogs were a mixed bag. Jonathan
Dube had a nice
comprehensive list of bloggers at Cyberjournalist.net.
? Mark Glaser
Charleston Post and Courier, July 30, 2004, "Good Morning Lowcountry."
If you want to know who is blogging the convention, the American Press
Institute is keeping track at www.cyberjournalist.net/news/001461.php.
South Florida Sun-Sentinel and Knight-Ridder and Tribune newspapers, July
27, 2004, "Bloggers take aim at media bias."
A list of many of the Web sites with convention blogs is available at http://www.cyberjournalist.net/news/001461.php.
Providence Journal-Bulletin, July 27, 2004, "Citizen journalists find
their place at ‘Bloggers Boulevard"
For more, visit conventionbloggers.com and technorati. com/politics, which are
both collecting posts from the convention bloggers. Cyberjournalist.net lists
the bloggers, as well as the delegates and journalists who are known to be
blogging.
Cincinnati Enquirer, July 27, 2004, "Un-conventional coverage in Beantown"
According to the American Press Institute, at least 37 individual bloggers have
received press credentials for the Democrats’ bash. Check out the institute’s
site, www.cyberjournalist.net, for a list and links.
Waterloo Cedar-Falls Courier, July 27, 2004
A complete list of bloggers who are attending the convention and frequently
posting updates, visit www.cyberjournalist.net/news/001461.php.
The Wall Street Journal, July 26, 2004, "Meet the bloggers"
CyberJournalist.net has been compiling a list of bloggers who say they have
credentials.
The (Newark, N.J.) Star-Ledger, July 25, 2004, Web offers solace for
political junkies
And where do you find these Webloggers? A special politics page at
CyberJournalist.net (www.cyberjournalist.net/cyberpolitics_blog/) lists the
Webloggers given credentials by the Democrats.
Los Angeles Times, July 25, 2004, "Meta-blogs surf convention blogs"
The Democratic National Convention is the first time a major party has issued
press credentials to a large group of bloggers. At least 68 people will blog
from Boston, according to this list from
Cyberjournalist.net.
Many of them are already in Boston, updating their websites.
? Lisa Stone
CBSNEWS.com, July 26, 2004, "Blogging it in Boston"
Links to the convention bloggers can be found at
CyberJournalist.net.
? Larry Magdid
Ventura County Star, July 20, 2004, "TV abdicates news
duties"
You can see which bloggers have been credentialed at
CyberJournalist.net
http://www.cyberjournalist.net/news/001461.php.
Wired News, July 22, 2004,
"Open Arms for Open-Source News"
Jonathan Dube, the publisher of
CyberJournalist.net, agreed that increasingly easy-to-use technology is
encouraging a new generation of community journalists.
"Participatory journalism, or citizen journalism — the idea of people in the
community actually gathering and porting information to other people — is a new
and evolving concept that increasingly is becoming more common with the rise of
the Internet and, in particular, the rise of tools like weblogs."
….everyone seems to agree that the Web version offers the true glimpse into
the future of community journalism. That’s because of the immediacy of the
medium and the fact that any content that fits a publication’s standards can be
published, unlike in the paper edition.
"The website is key to this," said Dube, who
wrote about the
Voice project on CyberJournalist.net. "You could not possibly do
something like this that involves the community without the Internet. It makes
it extremely efficient to get all this information from these citizen
reporters."
Meanwhile, some may be surprised that such a groundbreaking project is coming
out of a rural area of Bakersfield and not, say, San Francisco or New York. But
not Dube, who thinks that large cities are not ready for such projects — and
may never be.
"The whole idea of using the Internet to interact with the community better
and to tap people as journalistic resources probably has the most potential not
on the national level or even the regional level, but on the hyper-local level,"
he said. "Because there’s such a keen interest among people who live in a small
community for information about very, very local events, such as small school
news, church news (and) youth sports scores. And those types of things are
rarely covered well by mainstream media, primarily because mainstream media’s
aiming at a much wider market."
The Voice’s coverage is very much as Dube describes.
? Daniel Terdiman
Poynter Online, June 4, "Ideas From the Idea King"
At the recent Online Leaders Seminar at Poynter, one of the sessions was "60
Ideas in 60 Minutes," which featured creative ideas for website news leaders
from a variety of Poynter employees and friends. One of the contributors was
more prolific than most — Jon Dube of MSNBC.com and Cyberjournalist.net. Now
Dube has published his full list of "101 ways to improve your news site." Plenty
of great ideas are on that list. One of my favorites: Buy a TiVo for your
newsroom so that reporters can pause and rewind anytime there’s breaking news on
TV ?- or a live press briefing ?- and get exact quotes.
? Steve Outing
Editor & Publisher, May 21, 2004, "The Google News EPpy Controversy"
One frequent suggestion was to create a new award for the likes of Google News.
"I think the idea of having an Internet Service or News Aggregator category has
value," said Jonathan Dube, managing producer for MSNBC.com and editor of
CyberJournalist.net.
? Carl Sullivan
Dan Gillmor’s E-Journal, May 20, 2004, "Kramer: Google News Not
Journalism"
From Cyberjournalist.net: Larry Kramer, head of CBS Marketwatch, says Google
News — however valuable in its own way — should not be confused with
journalism. I agree. Aggregation by robots of other people’s work is not
journalism.
? Dan Gillmor
Interactive Media Associates report, May 13, 2004, "Google News: Is It
Worthy of News Site Designation?"
Whether or not the average Web reader even knows - much less cares about - the
difference between Google?s software-driven news packages and the edited
packages of most news Web sites was never adequately addressed at the
conference. But one of the best sessions on content included a demonstration of
rich media editorial by MSNBC?s Jonathan Dube.
Dube took the audience on a tour of truly interactive, game-like applications
that have undeniable news value. The best of those was a game that demonstrated
the pressure and difficulty of being an airport baggage inspector by simulating
the conveyor belt X-ray system and challenging the player to make the right
decisions inspecting the baggage, complete with unruly passengers complaining
about the inconvenience.
That?s one that a Google robot will never be able to re-create.
? Len Muscarella, E&P Conference Chair
Editor & Publisher, May 12, 2004, "Online Publishers Struggle With
Competitors, Ad Technology"
On the content side, MSNBC.com Managing Producer Jonathan Dube warned that news
sites that don’t get interactive and engage their audiences risk losing their
audiences for good. Several speakers throughout the day mentioned the increasing
amount of time that young people are spending with very untraditional media
devices, including cell phones, other wireless devices, and even video games….
Another major theme of the day was the preparation for the next wave of
technology. The industry must figure out how to effectively publish in the
mobile environment, Dube said. There are more cell phones today than there are
land lines or PCs, he said, so why aren’t we formatting our content for phones?
? Carl Sullivan
BusinessJournalism.org, May 11, 2004, "Accuracy Trumps Timeliness in
Online Business Journalism"
Many sites make the mistake of placing emphasis on ?immediacy overriding
everything.? To avoid such a trap, online articles should adhere to certain
guidelines, suggests Jonathan Dube, managing producer for MSNBC.com. Dube
recommends that facts be be double-checked and stories focus on content. ?Just
because online journalists can publish information immediately doesn’t mean they
should,? Dube says. ?Information should be verified before publishing, or else
we risk losing our credibility and potentially influencing the markets and
people’s lives if we print misleading information.?
… As always, use all of your site’s exclusive resources to make the experience
a truly unique one. Doing so will bring the audience back time and time again.
?One of the best things sites can do is to offer robust, compelling content that
readers won’t find elsewhere online,? Dube observes. ?So much similar
information is available from so many sources online that the sites that offer
exclusive information, and do so in an easy-to-read and engaging manner, are
more likely to attract and keep readers.?
? Kevin Sweeney
Poynter Online, May 5, 2004, "Al’s Morning Meeting"
My Poynter Online colleague
Jonathan Dube
alerted me to a
collection of fallen soldier sites he has pulled together on
CyberJournalist.net. Jon’s collection includes
the War Memorial on The Seattle Times’ website, which includes several
elements:
A memorial guestbook for readers to post their thoughts — a great idea,
though it would be even better if people were able to post thoughts linked
directly to the biographies of specific victims.
? Al Tompkins
Poynter Online, May 4, 2004, "The World Wide Resume"
Jonathan Dube is a pioneer of what I think of as the World Wide Resume.
Nearing graduation from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in
1996, he created a website that allowed interested editors to read his resume
and browse through his stories without leaving their terminals. Here’s what
Jonathan had to say about the pluses and minuses of an online resume in my
textbook, "Reporting and Writing: Basics for the 21st Century":
Obviously someone looking for a new media job would want to
create an online website. But I think it could be useful for others as well. An
online resume also has the advantage of demonstrating to an employer that you
have multimedia skills. I think it’s also a particularly good way to go if
you’re looking for a computer-assisted reporting job.By now there are dozens of online employment sites where you
can list a link to your resume, enabling employers to quickly scan your
qualifications and clips. Although most newspapers probably don’t look to these
sites for journalists, the American Journalism Review does have a
pretty good one on its NewsLink site, and
I imagine posting your resume there would get a decent response. In general,
I’ll guess that if you made a good online resume and did a thorough job of
listing it around the Web, you’d get good response.I think the best advantage of the online resume is its
permanence. Even after I got my job, I kept my resume online and have kept
updating it (when I’m not too busy with my job!). As a result, folks who want to
follow my career can do so easily by looking at the website every so often and
seeing what work I’m producing. Also, if I decide to look for a job, my resume
is already put together. And if I can’t find old clips, I can just print them
out off my website.Another advantage of having an online resume is that you can
e-mail the address to editors and recruiters. Although there’s no guarantee
they’ll click on the links and read your stuff, they may be more likely to
notice it than if it’s just one of hundreds of letters they get every day. And
if they see you have an online resume, that could also impress them and make it
more likely they’ll read your clips when you send them. The point being that I
wouldn’t recommend relying solely on the online resume, but it certainly can’t
hurt to use one in addition to the old paper application process.
Jon moved in 1999 from a job as a reporter with The Charlotte Observer
to ABCNews.com as a senior associate producer. Since Jon shared those insights,
his award-winning online journalism helped him move in 2000 to MSNBC.com where
he’s now managing producer, with front page oversight of one of the largest
Internet news sites in the world.
He also created
CyberJournalist.net, an online resource which became a publication of The
Media Center at the American Press Institute. Jon also writes a weekly Web
Tips column for Poynter Online.
His latest resume and portfolio demonstrate the reach and flexibility of the
online resume and clip file. Check them out at
http://www.jondube.com/resume/index.htm.
I contacted Jon to see if his views on online portfolios had changed at all
since he wrote the above. Here’s what he had to say:
I’m even more bullish on the online resume for journalists
now. I’ve gotten a number of job offers in the past five years — including the
ones at ABCNews.com and MSNBC.com — without ever mailing a single piece of
paper.Aside from job hunting, I’ve also learned it’s a great way to
build the confidence of potential sources. At times when trying to persuade
people to let me interview them, I was able to point them to my work online and
earn their trust.A few tips:
- In much the same way that online writing should be concise
and to the point — even though you have an unlimited newshole on the Web –
your online resume should be as well. You may want to post all of your work
online, but even if you do, I recommend highlighting your best work so hiring
editors don’t have to weed through everything you’ve ever written and are more
likely to read what you want them to see.- Creating a website now is a piece of cake. Software like
Dreamweaver is easy to learn, but you can even make basic Web pages in Microsoft
Word. And you can get your own site for as little as $4 a month. (I use
TotalChoiceHosting.com,
and there are dozens of other inexpensive companies.)- Your website is a reflection of you, so make sure to apply
the same level of professionalism to it. That doesn’t mean it needs to be flashy
– in fact, simpler is often better — but it should be easy to navigate and
free of errors.
? Chip Scanlan
ShopTalk, March 17, 2004, "Sree’s Smarter Surfing Tip: Cyberjournalist.net"
Broadcasters should bookmark this site focusing on "how the Internet, media
convergence and new technologies are changing journalism." Lots of tips and
ideas from TV and radio websites, as well as other news outlets. The site, run
by the American Press Institute and edited by MSNBC.com’s Jonathan Dube, has
been recently redesigned - for the better. My favorite section is the "great
work gallery," available at
http://www.cyberjournalist.net/great_work_gallery/
– Sreenath Sreenivasan
Poynter Online, March 10, 2004 "It’s Your WeatherBug"
I admire the chances that WeatherBug takes. It’s practically on its own with its
smart approach of asking users of its free service to "pick a sponsor" to run
for 30-day stretches. The company also has been paying attention to the chatter
here and elsewhere in the world of new media about "participatory journalism."
Jon Dube over at Cyberjournalist.net has conducted an interview with
WeatherBug’s product director about this initiative, who says that the service
receives hundreds of images a day from its users. Photos are all screened before
going online. Very smart. Many news sites seem to shy away from such innovation
– waiting, perhaps, for concepts like citizen reporting to be proven by others.
They’d be smart to watch WeatherBug’s experiments.
? Steve Outing
Editor & Publisher, March 3, 2004, "Newsplex Starts Convergence
Newsletter"
CyberJournalist.net at the American Press Institute publishes the Convergence
Chronicle, a blog of tips and articles on the topic.
Billings Gazzette, March 3, 2004, "Sombody Else Found Us"
Check it out: On cyberjournalist.net, a listing of "professional
journalists’ Web logs" maintained by the American Press Institute’s Media
Center, your local newsrag blog is in pretty good company. You’ll find City
Lights sandwiched between The Christian Science Monitor’s blog and The Corner,
the blog of The National Review. I’ve just begun checking out some of these
sites, but there appears to be a lot of good stuff.
– Ed Kemmick
Village Voice, Feb. 18, 2004, "Blog of Fear"
If you don’t believe that the mainstream media are plotting to co-opt the
blogosphere, consider how The New York Times is hyping its new political
blog, Times on
the Trail. In a
recent Q&A, nytimes.com editor Len Apcar described the product as "edited,"
"authoritative," and better than the rest. "I’m not calling it a blog," he said,
"because I don’t think it’s a blog. It’s an updated news service." — Cynthia
Cotts
Online Journalism Review,
February 12, 2004, "MSNBC freshens up"
For Jonathan Dube, MSNBC.com’s managing producer, "the new design really shows
how valuable flexibility and the ability to react quickly is in a news site
design." Instead of having just one front page template to work with, producers
now have six to choose from. "From a reader perspective, all of these changes
mean people are now getting breaking news faster on our site, and they’re
getting a much better presentation of the main elements of the story," said
Dube, who also runs
Cyberjournalist.net.
– Staci Kramer
Dan Gillmor’s eJournal,
February 12, 2004, "NY
Times Political Blog Explained"
Jonathan Dube
interviews Len Apcar of NYTimes.com about the paper’s new and quite good
political blog,
Times on the Trail. For some reason Apcar says it’s not a blog: "I looked at
many blogs and I came away thinking I was not interested in creating a blog, but
I was interested in creating something completely different." No, it’s a blog.
Romenesko,
February 12, 2004
NYTer: "I don’t think
it’s a blog, it’s an updated news service"
CyberJournalist.net
Jonathan Dube chats with NYTimes.com editor-in-chief Len Apcar about his site’s
new blog-like political feature, Times on the Trail.
Online Journalism.com,
Feb. 12, 2004, "If you digitize it, will they come?"
CyberJournalist.net keyed in on an anonymous tip buried deep inside a Sunday New
York Times feature about the "coming search wars" between Google and Microsoft.
Apparently Google plans to digitize every post-1923 text within the Stanford
University Library, creating an enormous copyright-free resource available
solely to Google users. The ambitious operation is codenamed Project Ocean,
according to The Times’ unnamed source.
– - Joseph V. Cook
E-Media Tidbits, January
30, 2004, "Select a Candidate Via Web Quiz"
I think every news website (that covers politics) this year should have a blind
candidate quiz. You’ve probably seen them. The idea is that the prospective
voter answers a bunch of questions about their views on a variety of
public-policy issues, then the quiz application reveals which candidate(s) best
match the voter’s preferences. This is a wonderful public service and a way for
your news organization to enhance democracy by creating better-informed voters.
Jon Dube at Cyberjournalist.net reviews four candidate selectors at American
news sites.
– Steve Outing
E-Media Tidbits, Jan. 6,
2004, "Biggest Online-News Stories"
What were the biggest stories in our little world of online media in 2003? Jon
Dube of Cyberjournalist.net has produced his annual list of the top 10. Go be
nostalgic.
– Steve Outing
Tsunami disaster reporting tips
December 31, 2004
The South Asian Journalists Association has compiled an excellent, continuously updated site with experts and journalists in South Asia, news & opinion links and ways you can help: saja.org/tsunami.html
Top CyberJournalist stories of 2004
December 29, 2004
Here is CyberJournalist.net’s annual list of the top online journalism stories of the year. Unlike past years, this year’s list is chosen by the readers, based on the most popular entries on CyberJournalist.net in 2004.
Top CyberJournalist.net Stories of 2004
1. Bloggers cover political conventions (Multiple related entries)
2. Blogs post exit polls
3. Sites create great presidential campaign interactives (Specifically: Great presidential candidate selectors and The best campaign interactives
4. Few newspaper readers visit papers’ sites
5. NYTimes.com launches blog-like features
(Also see this entry in which Times reporter Andrew Revkin discusses his blog-like diary.)
6. California paper undertakes ambitious participatory journalism project
7. Blogs still rare, but foster community
8. Could Google News be sued for libel?
9. CNN.com: More than 6 million paid video subscribers
10. NakedNews, porn goes wireless
Interestingly, the Net’s role in helping uncover the CBS News document fraud didn’t even make the top 100.
Several of the top 10 most popular entries of the year were non-news stories that are worth mentioning, as their popularity is an encouraging sign about the continuing interest in improving online journalism.
The third overall most-popular entry of the year was “101 ways to improve your news site,” not surprising since it rose to the top of the Daypop Top 40 earlier this year.
Two other CyberJournalist.net classics - originally posted about 4 years ago — also continue to be among the site’s most popular posts:
• Online Storytelling Forms
• A dozen online writing tips
• A Blogger’s Code of Ethics
Related:
• Top CyberJournalist.net Stories of 2003
• Top CyberJournalist.net Stories of 2002
• Top CyberJournalist.net Stories of 2001
Networks air amateur video
December 29, 2004
The massive scope of the disaster touched on more than six different countries, many of which have the kind of technological infrastructure that allowed vivid imagery to be transmitted before the dimensions of the disaster were actually known.
Video compression technology, fed by digital cameras and enabled by satellite and videophones, along with laptops with uplink capabilities, meant that people all over the world saw the deadly aftermath of the earthquake just hours after it ended. And by yesterday morning, real-time video footage of the tidal wave striking the shores, much of it taken by tourists on or near the beaches in Thailand began showing up on network broadcasts.
Free tsunami satellite photos
December 28, 2004
DigitalGlobe is making a number of QuickBird satellite images available to media. “Showing 60-centimeter resolution, the satellite images offer the world’s highest resolution available to the commercial industry.” This photo shows the southwestern coast of Sri Lanka slightly less than four hours after the 6:28 a.m. (local Sri Lanka time) earthquake and shortly after the moment of tsunami impact.
Powerful stuff.
View Tsunami Image
View Before Tsunami Image
View Beach Image
View Before Beach Image
View Beach 2 Image
View Before Beach 2 Image
View Large Overview Image
View Large Before Overview Image
Here is an explanation and analysis of the images.
Quake, tsunami blogger roundup
December 28, 2004
Scores of bloggers have produced compelling reports, photos and more about the earthquake and tsunami that hit Asia this weekend. Here’s a roundup of some of those reporting from Asia on their blogs (in no particularly order).
If you know of others, please post them here.
• tsunamihelp.blogspot.com
• sumankumar.com
• worldchanging.com
• petalingstreet.org
• lilianchan.blogspot.com
• lonestar9.blogspot.com
• petertan.com
• jogalong.blogspot.com
• alwayswow.blogspot.com
• 2bangkok.com
• thiswayplease.com
• blog.ceneus.com
• livejournal.com/users/ernestswhirrled
• hitme.at/muringwien
• rezwanul.blogspot.com
• bobjots.org
• applechicken.blogspot.com
• livejournal.com/users/prema
• unforseeable.blogspot.com
Bloggers launch Asia tragedy blog
December 27, 2004
A dozen Indian bloggers launched an excellent group blog today called The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami Blog, posting news tidbits and information about resources, aid, donations and volunteer efforts. The updates are frequent, and the info very useful.
These are bloggers. This is journalism. Raw, unedited, but still journalism.