Journalism Goes 3G with New BBC App for Mobile News Reporting | Mobile Marketing Watch

The BBC is going mobile.

The venerable British news organization is actively developing a smartphone app that, according to published reports, will enable BBC reporters in the field to upload video, photos and audio clips directly into the BBC system from an Apple iPhone or iPad.

The new app, due to be in use within a month or so, is also intended to allow reporters to broadcast live from an iPhone using only 3G signal.

Journalism.co.uk recently caught up with Martin Turner, head of operations for newsgathering at BBC. Turner told the British news site that the app’s development represents the future of field newsreporting and is very much “a logical extension of what the BBC can do already.”

“Reporters have been using smartphones for a while now but it was never good quality. You might do it when there was a really important story,” Turner revealed. “Now it is beginning to be a realistic possibility to use iPhones and other devices for live reporting, and in the end if you’ve got someone on the scene then you want to be able to use them. That capability is a really important one.”

Although the app is for internal use and not for the general public to access and play amateur reporter at home, the number of breaking news stories caught by amateurs on the smartphones around the globe must have provided some inspiration for the mobile efforts being made by the BBC.

via Journalism Goes 3G with New BBC App for Mobile News Reporting | Mobile Marketing Watch.

No, Twitter Is Not a Replacement For Journalism Tech News and Analysis

Updated: In the wake of a number of events, including the use of Twitter as a real-time reporting tool by New York Times writer Brian Stelter during the aftermath of the recent tornado in Missouri, media theorist and journalism professor Jeff Jarvis has written a post about how the “article” or traditional news story may no longer be necessary. With so much real-time reporting via social networks, he argues that the standard news article has become a “value-added luxury.” But I disagree — while real-time reporting is very powerful, we still need someone to make sense of those streams and put them in context. In fact, we arguably need that even more.

As anyone who has read my posts on social media and the future of media knows by now, I am a big fan of the way that social tools such as Twitter and Facebook and Flickr and YouTube have democratized the production of content of all kinds — journalism and non-journalism. The fact that those on the ground in Tahrir Square and in Libya can tell their own stories to some extent instead of relying on reporters from mainstream media outlets is hugely powerful. And so is the kind of journalism that Brian Stelter did from Joplin, and the way that Andy Carvin of NPR has been using Twitter as a live news-curation tool.

via No, Twitter Is Not a Replacement For Journalism Tech News and Analysis.

NYT Editor Says It’s Only Journalism When He Does It

Here’s a thought on journalism, professionalism and digital media by Matthew Ingran in Gigaom, right here. Join the discussion everybody.

Stickis

Have you ever come to your room and looked at your monitor? How many stickis were, more or less randomly ordered, stuck on the screen? Quite a way of starting the day, huh?
A colleague of mine, Jelke de Boer, who’s experiencing the same problem, sent me a link with the answer, stickis.com.  This it what it does.

You download the little tool and start posting stickis on blogs, sites, you name it. Depending on your settings, the owner of a site can read and or delete the little virtual yellow sticky paper. Otherwise, if you set the sitcki to be public, everyone can read your little post. You may add a link, a picture, viseo, sound, whatever. I think it is ingenious. It could even change the entire blogosphere as it is.

All of a sudden we have a new and powerful little tool to relate (communicate). Just imagine. You go to the homepage of your favorite news paper and stick a comment. I bet the editor is not going to be that happy. After all, it is his paper, you should only read it. Right? And then, if you want to contribute your remark, there’s always the paper’s forum. Right?

Sure. But why? Professional journalists don’t like to be criticized in public and on the spot. Their job is serious. Mass amateurism will only lead to shallowness. It takes a professional to tell us what has happened and how we should interpret that news. Right?

If a site is public, in my opinion it is the reader’s right to respond, react, revolt. Informing others almost always leads to reaction. Action – reaction. Fair enough. So now there’s this little tool that facilitates us to react and I think it’s great.