Thayer, Williams plagiarism scandals highlight undefined standards for online attribution

Plagiarism allegations against Nate Thayer and Fox News pundit Juan Williams this week might suggest “a plague of online plagiarism,” but more importantly they underscore the need for the industry to establish standards for online attributions so that such errors are not repeated. Sure, Thayer said that “every reference in the story was properly cited,” but in this new territory, who’s to say what is proper? The scandals highlight how much experts disagree.

SXSW: Hacks/Hackers from Africa to Latin America

The founding idea behind Hacks/Hackers was simple: that the future of journalism is intricately tied to technology, explained co-founder Burt Herman, also a co-founder of Storify. The movement, which unites journalists and developers, relies on the fact that “people are keen to get away from their day jobs and experiment and innovate,” Herman said, speaking on a SXSW panel on Hacking the News Around the World.

Spain’s infoLibre offers new independent source of news

infoLibre, a new Spanish site partnered with French company Mediapart, launched last Thursday in an effort to create a free and independent news source in Spain. In addition to the website, a monthly magazine called Tinta Libre will premier this Friday.

‘Dark days for the Fourth Estate’ in Pakistan

These are dangerous times to be a journalist in Pakistan.The country ranks alongside Syria and Somalia in terms of journalists’ deaths. In six bloody weeks of 2013, six media workers died, bringing to 90 those who have lost their lives during the past five years, according to a tally by the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists.

Real-time social analytics: how editors become cyborgs

Successful online publishing relies on effective use of web analytics. In order to assess how a story will perform online and where it should be placed, most editors take input from Google Analytics or monitor trends in social media sharing. In many newsrooms there is a dedicated person who monitors statistics and makes recommendations to the editorial team on a frequent basis.

SXSW: Could the future of print be interactive?

“If by 2017 we could connect any piece of print to the internet at a low cost, with recycled material, what would that mean for journalism?” asked Tom Metcalfe, lead designer on Interactive Newsprint, during a panel at SXSW entitled Pitchforks and Printed Electronics.

SXSW: Survival techniques for nonprofit news organisations

As the traditional business model for news flounders, nonprofits have played an increasingly more significant role in maintaining news coverage, particularly in the US. A panel at South by South West Interactive on Nonprofit Journalism: Survival of the Scrappiest gave nonprofits concrete advice on how to tackle some of their key challenges.

SXSW: using sources in the social media age

There has been a fundamental shift in journalists’ relationship with social media, said panelists of the Sources in the Social Media Age session at South by South West Interactive. “Journalists used to apologise for being on Twitter at work,” said Greg Galant, CEO of Sawhorse Media, “now they apologise for not being on it.”

Meme raises questions of racist reporting: Does media have Missing White Woman Syndrome?

An annotated photo of a crime brief from Chicago Tribune’s RedEye spread virally Monday, leading to a barrage of questions about whether news outlets suffer from “Missing White Woman Syndrome (MWWS)”, the tendency to cast aside crime stories with minority victims and instead favor those that affect caucasian females.

Print media is a highly trustworthy advertising channel

A recent pan-European survey conducted by VTT, the Technical Research Centre of Finland, asked more than 700 consumers in 13 countries about their media usage and their attitude towards advertising. Print Power, an organisation dedicated to promoting print media (http://www.printpower.eu/en), presented this week the results that underline the strength of print media.