The hung media: why Apple gets to call the shots in this coalition *May not contain nudity*

Image representing iPad as depicted in CrunchBase
Image via CrunchBase

Fascinating discussions going on at the moment about the iPad and its implications for the distribution of media content.

Apologies for the tenuous election link – but it is ironic that the media is thinking about a distribution-sharing deal with Apple and is finding that like David Cameron and Gordon Brown whoever Labour get as their boss, things aren’t always that simple.

So is this device the saviour of the media or a chance for Apple to take over the fanboy/girl/tech consumer world?

On one hand, we have the legendary Jakob Nielsen telling us about the implications of the interface and what that means for anyone designing content and on the other there’s a running conversation about self-censorship by the media in order to get your content in the Apple Store.

Bruce Tognazzini, of the Nielsen Norman Group, believes Apple’s stance is similar to printers telling the media what can go on their product

At this point, tens of millions of people are living under significant press restrictions engineered by Apple and Steven P. Jobs.

Uniquely, Apple, in this case, is not even the press. It is the paper company. If the press wants to print its material on Apple’s fine, white vellum, it will do it Apple’s way. And the press, as Dan Gillmor has elsewhere pointed out, is stampeding to do just that, handing over traditional freedoms it normally guards so zealously in the process.

Apple’s rules for its App store, changed back in February after complaints about content. But interestingly the implications of this are that it might not just be those wanting to sell us skin apps, or sex games, that get hit.

There’s an interesting post on Shiny Shiny about the implications Apple’s no-nipples policy means fashion mags are censoring their iPad editions

It’s even more ironic because the iPad has been billed as the saviour of the magazine industry and also given Apple’s reputation as a mainstay of the creative industries.

Side note: have a look at the list of “rude” apps that haven’t been banned – including Playboy

And there was an interesting list of “conditions for acceptance” published on the Techcrunch about the rules introduced in February

1. No images of women in bikinis (Ice skating tights are not OK either)

2. No images of men in bikinis! (I didn’t ask about Ice Skating tights for men)

3. No skin (he seriously said this) (I asked if a Burqa was OK, and the Apple guy got angry)

4. No silhouettes that indicate that Wobble can be used for wobbling boobs (yes – I am serious, we have to remove the silhouette in this pic)

5. No sexual connotations or innuendo: boobs, babes, booty, sex – all banned

6. Nothing that can be sexually arousing!! (I doubt many people could get aroused with the pic above but those puritanical guys at Apple must get off on pretty mundane things to find Wobble “overtly sexual!)

7. No apps will be approved that in any way imply sexual content (not sure how Playboy is still in the store, but …)

So, still some way to go before we know if this coalition will really be as big as some people believe it will be.

BTW, anyone know if Hollywood has to do the “no nips and bits” thing with its movies that are distributed via iTunes?

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May 11, 2010 | Filed Under Journalism | Comments 

The utility belt approach to journalism and development

Ever since I’ve been involved with the ideas of online/digital/data (delete as appropriate) journalism – I’ve been using the metaphor of Batman’s utility belt as a way of thinking about a journalist’s skillet and how it can evolve over time.

Rather than a rucksack full of tools, the Caped Crusader was able to easily change items in and out of his belt pouches to solve the issue at hand.

The constant debates about the skills required to operate in a mediasphere that has rapidly change and will continue to do so for some time to come (unless the departures of Simon Waldman and Will Lewis should have all of us involved in paid journalism worried) have brought me back to this idea.

A while ago some 79 people kindly helped answer a mini survey around this core idea of what skills journalists need. I posted up quick graphs of the responses in a Flickr set, but haven’t had a chance to get to grips with the full responses… yet. (If you fancy getting in on the act, I’ve not closed the survey.)

But one question I asked was: how important do you feel programming and development are? Read more

May 10, 2010 | Filed Under Hacking for hacks, Journalism, elearning | Comments 

When you look at NSFW pics beware the camera crew

An Aussie bank worker is probably in line for some serious grief from his boss after he was seen looking at naughty pictures of women with very little in the way of clothing, while a colleague was being interviewed by a TV crew from Channel 7.

Sit back and gawp as the camerman zooms in before yer man realises what is happening. (The zoom in is from the Youtube vid as other versions don’t do it)

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February 3, 2010 | Filed Under Journalism | Comments 

How to report the news

Just in case you missed it this week, or on all he other sites.

January 29, 2010 | Filed Under Journalism | Comments 

A picture of journalism skills

I recently asked for help from anyone interested in the future (actually that should probably be futures) of journalism to lend a hand with a mini survey on journalism skills. This was prompted by a number of posts and conversations (you can see a couple of them by following the link above).

In total 75 kind people volunteered their time and effort to answer the questions. I’m going to get to grips with it and add my two pence/cents worth on it over the next few days.

But rather than just sit on it until marking hell becomes a little easier, I’ve screen grabbed the graphs returned by the googledocs form and share them here as a slideshow (in no particular order).

(Just in case you have an issue with Flash widgets, here is the Flickr set of the images)

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January 26, 2010 | Filed Under Journalism | Comments 

Data mashing presentation from @psychemedia at News:Rewired

Haven’t had time to do much with it yet – so thought I’d share rather than wait – but here is the audio from Tony Hirst , aka @psychemedia, who made a presentation on in-browser data mashing at the News:Rewired conference. (again I’ve set it to download, pls link back to this page if you use it etc)

Tony Hirst (@psychemedia) on data mashing by egrommet

And here’s the presentation.

News Rewired Data Mashhttp://egrommet.net/blog/wp-admin/post-new.php

View more presentations from Tony Hirst.

Apologies to the brilliant Francis Irving from MySociety – who gave a great session – my audio recorder cut out and I didn’t know until the end of the session!

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January 20, 2010 | Filed Under Journalism | Comments 

Problem solving the web – news:rewired style

I’m still in the process of thinking about all the great ideas I heard from speakers at News:Rewired last week (and busily catching up on other people’s blogs/tweets/videos for the sessions I couldn’t make).

I managed to record the session on Troubleshooting in Online Journalism with Adam Tinworth, Jon Bernstein, Robin Goad and Malcolm Coles.

News:rewired on troubleshooting online journalism by egrommet

The audio should be downloadable, so if you want to download and hack it about please do – just tell me where you’ve put it and link back to the page pls.

Adam has posted his slideshow from the session, and I’ve embedded it here so you can try and sync the two manually. (I’ll post the start time in due course, as this should be the full session. The audio is a little noisy, but I’ve not had a chance to properly clean it yet.)

This was a pretty interesting session and well worth a listen if you were unable to make it or in a different session.

Five Things I know about journalism (news:rewired)

View more presentations from Adam Tinworth.
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January 19, 2010 | Filed Under Journalism | Comments 

Training the next journalists

One of the things that constantly interests me is the range of skills which are being suggested for the next generation of journalists.

There have been a lot of great posts talking about what skills should be taught, what developments there are at j-schools and trying to prepare people for a future very different from the one I trained for.

Patrick Smith posted on Online journalism education in the UK: the trouble with adapting to an online age. Other people that got me thinking along these lines recently were Steve Buttry with his post on curriculum advice for journalism schools and The Changing Newsroom’s My “Dare to Dream” Journalism Curriculum.

We are in the situation where everyone has different spins on the skill set. The core is there and recognisable but everyone has their own favourites – and then there is the whole issue of what platforms.

So, as an interested party I’d like to ask you this – what do you think journalists should know? What skills do you think they need? Can you help by filling out a short(ish) survey?
Read more

January 11, 2010 | Filed Under Journalism, Training/education | Comments 

Thought for the day: stardate#291109

Thinking thoughts about skill sets required for new journalists, levels of competence and how to support journalists who will not all be required to sell or have business acumen as a core skillset (though not knocking these things by any stretch – part of the bigger picture).

More on this as the thinking develops (or the good links get auto-posted from my del.icio.us account).

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November 29, 2009 | Filed Under Journalism | Comments 

Riding the Wave of journalism

A little while ago, Alison Gow set up a public Wave relating to journalism. Alison and I are both Noobs when it comes to Waving – but I just found a WP plugin that allows you to embed Waves into the blog – so here goes… If you want to play, please just come and join us.

[wave id="googlewave.com!w%252BnlY35RVaH" fontcolor="#000000", bgcolor="#ffffff"]

UPDATED: 29/11/09

After a fair amount of messing and then reinstalling the plug-in – the embed seems to work, but only in Firefox.

Can anyone else see it? Let me know?

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November 27, 2009 | Filed Under Journalism | Comments 

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