Nicomedia

The Australian’s Media Diary blogged about Dateline journalist Sophie McNeill winning YEN magazine’s Young Woman of the Year award.

McNeill is currently based in Lebanon and her work as a video journalist is a great encouragement for other (aspiring) journalists to take action and find stories rather than maintaining a passive outlook.

Here is a post McNeill wrote for the Dateline blog in May 2008, after visiting Iraq and Kurdistan.

Innovations in Newspapers is a blog written by Juan Antonio Giner (fouder and director of Innovation International Media). Giner clearly stills get excited about print – a rare spark of hope amongst current media commentary – and in his blog lauds innovation caviar while remonstrating with those responsible for what he considers rubbish.

Giner is a prolific poster. While his posts are brief – often photos with a comment or material quoted from other sources – he manages to post numerous times daily.

Giner has a sharp eye for design, and plenty of his posts highlight good front covers and pages, and at times he is not afraid to be critical.

The US Election kept Giner busy – understandably considering what a major media event it was. Lots of posts at Innovations in Newspapers showed Obama front pages from around the world and photos illustrating the spike in demand for newspapers following Obama’s win. This huge interest in election newspapers Giner followed keenly. It was a boost to those arguing for newspapers continued relevance – The Australian reported that Nov 5 editions were selling for upwards of $600 on Ebay.

So what would Giner say about innovation in Australia’s newspapers? While The Age has some great slideshows and multimedia (like the Art Deco piece) and The Australian makes the occasional video, our best broadsheet papers seem to treat innovative content as an aside. The multimedia sections of the the papers’ websites are not adequately signposted. 

Giner uses photos to good effect in his blog – illustrating for example voter turn-out at the election. This photo I think is great (see here for the original post).

Those savvy with the wiles of the world wide web are wary, I would suggest, of paying for the privilege of accessing content on the Internet. Or, as ShosOn, commenting on Mark Day’s blog at The Australian, put it: “Charge money for a podcast!? HAHAHAHAHAHHA [sic] Meanwhile, back in the real world…” 

There are good examples of Internet users being beneficiaries of the largesse and altruism of various organisations all over the web, as well as instances of content providers finding ways to stay afloat while at the same time securing an audience.

Since 2006 Google has provided the 70000 residents of Mountain View, California (in Silicon Valley) with free WiFi Internet. It’s one way of keeping the neighbours happy.

Skype is another freebie available on the net. Computer-to-computer chat is free, while costs are attached to computer-to-phone calls.

All of the Australian magazine The Monthly’s articles are published on the Internet. Free important selected content is available for anyone to read on the website, while other material is restricted to online subscribers. 

*find Free! Why $0.00 is the future of business at www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-03/ff_free<