Puffbox

Following rapidly from my musings about a ‘breaking news’ blog, BBC News 24 morning editor Simon Waldman (no, not that one) spent the morning posting one or two line updates through the 10am to 1pm shift. Always good to see experiments, but this was too much:

11:41 – Just slipping out of the gallery for a moment, back soon,.

11:46 – I’m back…

It also seemed to be written, assuming people were watching and reading the blog live. Hardly likely, given the time of day. All in all, an interesting one-off, giving an insight into the life of a producer – but not the ‘breaking news blog’ it might have been.

I’ve never hidden my adoration of WordPress. I don’t come across many small-scale websites which couldn’t be done at least as well, or probably better, in WordPress. And now they’re introducing a proper workflow element, the middle market may be up for grabs too.

Starting with WordPress 2.3… contributors will now have a new button. It acts as a counterpart to the “Publish” button that Authors (and above) get. The button says “Submit for Review.” It leverages a new post_status called “pending.” Pending posts show up as links above the Write Post screen for Editors and Administrators, along with the “nags” for your own drafts and others’ drafts.

Do you really need any more? The only possible glitch is that the WordPress interface has always been optimised for one-person usage, and doesn’t look like a ‘proper’ CMS. In many respects, though, that’s a good thing.

The new partnership between Five News and website Friction.tv could be interesting. It basically takes the ‘Your News’ segment from Five’s news presentation, and adds a YouTube-style dimension.

It’s a bit much for Friction to claim it’s ahead of YouTube, on the basis of user registration numbers at equivalent stages of development (as in this Times piece from June). YouTube was revolutionary, doing something completely original, and starting from zero. But to its credit, Friction does have decent-looking audience numbers, and a decent-looking site to boot.

Its YouTube-with-a-purpose concept could have mileage, and the Five tie-up gives it some mainstream credibility… although in truth, I’m not sure what credibility Five News has to give. I don’t think I’ve ever consciously tuned into a Five news bulletin: why should I? If I wanted the latest from the Sky News studios, I’d switch to Sky News. Plus, I’m told the staircase and balcony which is the Five studio’s defining feature aren’t actually too stable… which is why you never see presenters going more than half-way up.

I spotted this whilst catching up on my RSS feeds via my mobile, and couldn’t wait to get back to my desk to see it. Quite a startling reaction to an ‘infomercial’, really.

[youtube=http://youtube.com/w/?v=qg1ckCkm8YI]

I’ve blogged elsewhere about Blendtec’s amazing YouTube-based approach to marketing. They’ve really excelled themselves with this one. Close on 100,000 views in 14 hours, too.

One of my interesting chats today was with someone whose identity I won’t divulge just yet. He made a very valid point: when it comes to political blogging, there’s a gaping hole in the UK blogosphere. Ask anyone with any interest in politics which blogs they read, and you’ll hear the same answers: Guido Fawkes and Iain Dale. Me included.

I’m actually enjoying Guido’s stuff at the moment. I detect a slightly different tone of late: still stirring of course, but not so cynically. Maybe the criticism of late last year, and early this, hit home. It has always been essential reading, purely for the extent of its influence, but I no longer object to the fact that I feel I have to read it.

But I continue to read Iain Dale’s blog because I feel it’s important that I should, not because I agree with him on much (if anything). That isn’t meant to be a criticism of the guy: in many respects, I admire what he’s doing – but I don’t just consider myself to belong to the same camp. (I’m still keeping an open mind on Cameron, though, but that’s not the point.)

He’s currently conducting a readership survey, to find out more about what his readership wants – but underlying the questions is an assumption of sympathy with his pro-Tory, pro-Cameron stance. None of the multiple choice options allow for the ‘outsider’ readership. For example, he asks if you agree or disagree with the statement that ‘Iain is a disruptive influence on the Conservative Party and he should be more loyal’. I agree with the first part, and probably disagree with the second – although I wouldn’t feel it’s my place, as a non-Tory, to comment.

Where is the anti-Iain Dale – a well-produced blog by someone who clearly ‘gets it’, and has an ear to the ground in SW1, but from a centre-left perspective? And if he/she existed, I wonder would I continue to read Iain’s stuff?

Eighteen months ago I wrote the following: ‘News doesn’t roll; it lurches. But that’s for another time.’ And then I never quite got round to explaining what I meant.

I only remembered it thanks to a comment from Charlie Beckett, director of Polis on my piece about ‘breaking news blogs’. Charlie wrote, with some justification:

I don’t disagree at all. When I said ‘don’t be shy about getting it wrong’, that wasn’t an endorsement of shoddy, unsubstantiated speculation. By ‘vague’, I meant you shouldn’t wait until all the elements were in before publishing. On reflection, I probably should have phrased it all better. But the idea was ‘hot’, and I wanted to get it down and out quickly. Which, in a roundabout way, proves the point I was trying to make… I think.

I think a breaking news blog could, and probably even should, be like a rolling news channel. But I think it’s actually better suited to the objective – because fundamentally, news doesn’t roll. When we talk about a rolling news channel, it’s the channel which rolls, not the news.

Let’s take the example of Sky News. At the top of each hour, the cycle begins again. There’s a constant pressure to make the top story fresh. It’s a familiar mantra: ‘what’s the new top line?’, when all too often, there isn’t one. And sometimes, it’s embarrassingly obvious that they’re trying to make a new story out of old knowledge.

But developments don’t emerge gradually, they explode – and the story lurches from one development to the next.

A blog (or blog-style presentation) could actually play this ‘developing story’ role more naturally than a 24-7 TV channel – because it’s not only ‘news on demand’, it’s also ‘news on supply’. If there’s nothing new to say, you aren’t really under any pressure to say it. (Particularly in an RSS context, where new items are either read or unread.)

Today reminds me precisely why I went down the consultancy route. A few informal chats with some influential people, none of it strictly pitching for business – but inspirational nonetheless. A reminder that there are good people out there, with good ideas, and a willingness to run them by each other. Even just a chat over coffee left me buzzing with thoughts I hadn’t had before. It’s a great feeling.

Thanks to the Telegraph’s Marcus Warren for pointing out a story on the Online Journalism Review: ‘If you don’t have a breaking news blog ready to go on your website, you should.’ I agree entirely – although I think I disagree on what a ‘breaking news blog’ actually is.

The underlying idea is one I’ve discussed with one major UK ‘news breaker’ already. And in truth, it’s a no-brainer. News homepages and stories are produced on the basis of prioritisation: the most important story or fact comes first. But once you’ve read it, you’re more interested in updates – and it’s immediacy rather than importance which dictates your degree of interest.

But the examples quoted – such as the LA Times ‘breaking news blog’ – just aren’t what I had in mind. Most of the entries read like extracts or sidebars from a fuller (and typically stuffy) newspaper story. The definition of ‘breaking’ appears to cover developments over several months.

A ‘breaking news blog’, in my book, should look and feel more like Twitter. Activate it when a huge story breaks – maybe only a couple of times a year, maybe a couple of times a month. Short snaps of maybe only a couple of lines, written in an informal tone. Pretend you’re MSN-ing a friend. Be prepared to be vague – read between the lines if necessary, and don’t be shy about getting it wrong. Stream of consciousness, if you like, and proud of it. I haven’t yet seen any news organisation doing this systematically… but if they have any business in breaking news, then they should be.

(I’ve also got an early idea for a ‘news jockey’ role, writing a running commentary on the day’s news blog-style. The USA Today thing is probably the closest comparison, but I’m thinking of something slightly different. It calls for a certain style of writing, and a certain style of writer, but I think it could be a winner.)

Where is the Telegraph going with its Making News blog? Hard to tell at the minute. They’re asking the right question, but based on these admittedly early signs, I’m not sure they’re answering it the way I would myself.

Tucked away in BBC News director Helen Boaden’s speech to today’s big Future Of News conference: a return to the concept of personalised news. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? 🙂

Truly personalised news, down to ultra-local level, takes huge resources. If you’re going to offer news about my town, even my suburb, you need an organisation with someone in my town or suburb to report on it. With its local radio network, the BBC is the only organisation that comes close to this depth of coverage on a national scale. Curiously, the only possible rival is the audience itself..?

Great to see Pete Clifton at the BBC recognising the single biggest problem with video footage on news websites.

What irritates the hell out of people is if they click a story which says ‘Britain buys 100 new tanks for the war in Afghanistan’ they then click on the video and it’s just a bloke standing in Whitehall saying ‘they’re going to buy 100 new tanks for the war in Afghanistan’. The viewer could say ‘you’ve wasted my time’.

The same comments add some research weight to Sky’s decision to put embedded Flash video players inside article pages, rather than relying on popups or external players. Pete says it took traffic levels to video content from 2% to 40%. All very well, but the content has to be worth the bother.

I can see two approaches to online video. The first, and more obvious one, is where moving pictures give extra impact: a big explosion perhaps, or a dramatic rescue. But more exciting to me is the ‘gimme all you’ve got’ approach. The full interview, from ‘go’ to ‘cut’. The entire speech. The full ceremony. Not just your chosen ten seconds worth of edited highlights.

When I click on a video link, I’m telling you that I really care about a subject. It’s a more considered – and arguably more valuable – click than just reading a text story, or looking at a picture gallery. It says ‘detail, please’. So why not give it to them? It’s not as if the broadcasters haven’t got the full thing recorded.