Media Law videos on UK courts - useful for journalism students

The news that Supreme Court Judgements are now available on youtube led me to revisit the video of the UK's first ever televised sentencing.  

But it also had me thinking about some of the videos around the web that might be of use to journalism students who want to understand the basics about how the court system works. So here are a few quick links:

Criminal courts:

• 4min video on who’s who in magistrates’ court  from the University of Derby
• Ministry of justice video aimed at new jurors, but has good basic info about how courts work at 4mins.15 and from 7mins.45 to 11mins.45
• What types of sentence can offenders get? Video lasts 1.38. By The Sentencing Council.
• The You be the judge site has a reasonable explanation of a criminal case at crown court in case on burglary. But there are others to choose from.
• What the CPS does and what happens in court  Viewers might want to watch a short clip  from the middle of this video.

Civil cases:

• A 2.5 minute Minustry of Justice video on what happens when a county court hearing takes place in court… 
• …and one on hearings in chambers

Plus some nice old BBC newsreel-type footage on the famous Liberace libel case

What you need to know about journalism work experience

Photo: Bisgovuk

Work experience is in the minds of some of the journalism students I've been working with so here's a quick look at some of the info and advice I found after a bit of web trawling.

The journalism.co.uk tip of the day section is an obvious first stop. It's a fantastic resource for all manner of info, including Catherine May's account of finding work experience via Twitter

There's also a guest post by journalism.co.uk's John Thompson on Sun trainee journalist Andy Hall's blog offers some work experience tips from the employer's point of view.

Andy also lists eight tips to make the most of work experience based on what he found out on his own placements.

Over at Fleet Street Blues the advice includes be prepared by reading the site/magazine/paper and be aware of what it covers and who reads it. Other tips include 'don't be shy' and, importantly, 'make the tea'.

There's also more general advice and tips on internships and getting into journalism in the Guardian careers section from Wannabehacks' Alice Vincent. And on the Wannabe blog itself you'll find some handy insights from journalists and journalism students.

A colleague I used to work with always recommends buying the first round down the pub too. That's because the student or wannabe journalist who can do the job and who also fits in well is the one who might get the call if a permanent job comes up.

Any other advice you want to offer here for new journalists is warmly welcomed.

Carrying out vox pops: where to find some tips

Photo: sskennel

I've been having a think about running some vox pop exercises for student journalists I'm working with, so I've been trawling for some ideas and material.
  Unsurprisingly Wannabehacks have some thoughts from their own experience.
  They also have some tips and comments on how to get perfect vox pops.
  There's even a guide to vox pops on e-how plus some general interviewing tips from journalism.co.uk. 
  Among the various examples of the craft are the regional daily reporter who carried out vox pops in her pyjamas after Tesco banned PJ wearers from a local store.
  And Newsphobia gets upset about Twitter being used as a lazy journalist's replacement for vox pops.

How techie do journalists need to be?

I noticed a fair bit of retweeting, yammering and +1-ing of Seven things you should know if you're starting out programming, a post by Jonathan Richards, a journalist who's had to learn a bit about coding. Thanks to  Simon Robinson for tweeting it in my direction.

Which begs the question, how much of a techie does a journalist these days? Well, the answer is, it depends what you want to do.

For example, if you want to play around with spreadsheets, scrape some data and produce visualisations, it might help to have an interest in some of the tools that Kevin Anderson refers to in this data journalism presentation. And knowledge of some basic coding won't do you any harm.

But for many of us it's about getting our heads around some of the simple tools such as dipity, audacity or basic video editing software. There's plenty of online guides and videos out there to help, such as the Google Maps one at the top of this post.

Of course, you still need to be able to write good stuff and supply content that grabs your readers and users. It also helps these days to be able to take simple digital images.

But, if you're not a geek, it's not a barrier - you just need to do what your good at and be willing to try new things out.

Link round-up for news:rewired and forthcoming journalism events

One of the great things about all the change that's going on in journalism at the moment is that there are plenty of people getting together at conferences, seminars and informal gatherings to share thoughts and ideas on a variety of subjects.

I didn't manage to get to the latest news:rewired event 'Connected Journalism', which is a pity because it sounds like there was plenty of thought-provoking stuff. Here's where to find some interesting thoughts from the day, followed by some links to journalism talks and meetings taking place in the near future.

News:rewired
There's plenty of info at the news: rewired site, including 10 lessons from the day.

Storify is a popular tool at the moment and inevitably got some mentions on the day, so here's a couple of versions: 

• news: rewired's own Storify round-up of the event featuring some of the advice, slides, discussion and tweets from around the conference 

• and Hannah Waldram's version of the day

There's also a copy of the Storify presentation on Slideshare

John Thompson has posted some videos of speakers talking about online communities including Guardian community editor Laura Oliver and Citizenside's Philip Trippenbach

There's also some Coveritlive material from the event including this one from the final session: The future of collaboration in digital journalism

Forthcoming events
For anyone in and around London over the next few days, a few journalism-related events might be worth a look:

On Monday 10th October there's a discussion on libel reform hosted by the NUJ freelance branch. Speakers will include libel lawyer Robert Dougans,who took part in the Simon Singh case and Index on Censorship news editor Padraig Reidy.

Meanwhile, City University have two interesting lectures on consecutive evenings - and they're free to attend:

• On Tuesday 11th October Heather Brooke will speak on Civic journalism: What it is and why it matters

• The following night, Wednesday 12th October, will see former PCC chair Baroness Buscombe talking about Changing times and changing media regulation.

And data journalists should have a bit of fun at the AOP and Mozilla Hack Day on Thursday 13th October.

Some other major conferences and events are listed in journalism.co.uk's journalism events diary, while the Frontline Club stages talks and other events club that might also be worth a look.

Johann Hari apology: A brief round-up of views

Johann Hari has finally issued an apology in the Independent web site after being caught up in a plagiarism row over sections of his work.

It's been all over Twitter etc but, in case you missed it, he originally issued an apology on his own blog back in June.  This journalism.co.uk story gives all the background.

Alongside yesterday's apology he's also returned his 2008 Orwell Prize for Journalism and will not go back to the Independent until he's taken some journalism training.

Some commentators, of course, have their own opinions about this latest apology:

• It's no surprise that Toby Young has a view.
• And several tweeters link to Jeremy Dunn's blog where he's also taken a closer look at some of Hari's past work.
• Press Gazette links the Hari case to press regulation and the culture of British journalism.
• Meanwhile while Love and Garbage has its own Impersonal apology.
• Fleet Street Blues, on the other hand, finds a tip on using quotes courtesy of The Wire.

Using Twitter more effectively

 I ran a short session on 'using Twitter more effectively' with a B2B editorial team recently. Here are some of the the ideas and thoughts we shared on everything from Twitter basics and what to tweet about, to filtering columns in Tweetdeck.

Where can I find how to carry out various functions using Twitter?

•         Have a look at the Mashable Twitter guidebook to find out more about making the most of Twitter.

•          Or just Google what you're looking for...

•          Or look at Youtube to see how to do something using Twitter, Tweetdeck etc.

For example, here’s a video showing how to set up lists in Tweetdeck  

Here’s a general Tweetdeck tutorial 

Or an ‘advanced’ tutorial

And an introduction to Hootsuite.com

 How can I search more effectively?

•          Search on keywords, people or keywords preceded by a ‘hashtag’ eg #medialaw.

•          Twitter.com has its own search function. However, ‘clients’ such as Tweetdeck and Hootsuite allow you to open a search in a separate column on a specific term or hashtag. 

      You can keep that column visible or delete it then return to it later from your list of recent searches.

How can I filter the 'noise' so I can find stuff I'm really interested in?

•          Set up columns on specific subjects in Tweetdeck or Hootsuite.

•          Build lists of users you follow on individual subjects.

•          Use the ‘filter column’ button in Tweetdeck to filter keywords or names

•          Use the search tips and tutorials above.

How can I find more people to follow?

•          Find a Twitter user who’s important to you – or an active Twitter user in your team. Look at who they’re following and follow some of them yourself.

•          If someone gets re-tweeted and they look interesting to you, follow them.

•          Search using subject-related hashtags eg #journalism and follow interesting people who’ve used that hashtag recently

•          Look at Twitter lists built by influential Twitter users in your area(s) of interest. You can click on individual people in lists to follow them.

Or, in Tweetdeck, for example, you can go to user's profile, open a list they've made and copy and save the whole thing. You can also edit the list.

•          Use Twitter directories such as: 

http://wefollow.com/

http://listorious.com/

http://www.twellow.com/

How can I build my own following?

•          Follow others, sometimes they follow back.

•          Post interesting links. If they get re-tweeted you will probably get some new followers.

•          Engage in conversations with other users. Active and interesting Twitter users get better quality followings.

•          Ask a question or request an opinion.

•          Put re-tweet buttons on your blog or site, put your twitter username in your e-mail signature and on other published print and online material where relevant.

What should I tweet about?

• Post links to interesting stuff

•          Look at some examples of Twitter streams in your areas of interest eg for online journalism, see what @paulbradshaw does.

•          Tweet about things related to your 'beat' or the subjects you write about. Even if much of your own material is behind some form of paywall you don’t have to give away exclusive information or essential data:

- link to a ’what’s new’ item on the free part of your site

- mention a story and say ‘have you seen our site's view on this?’ with a link.

- re-tweet a national news story or blogpost that’s relevant to your area, perhaps with a 

comment

- tweet links to your blog/other blogs from your team

- re-tweet other tweeters in your team

- build interest in some of your material by briefly mentioning that it’s coming out a week or so before publication

- click on the ‘re-tweet’ button on blogs and stories of interest to those in your sector

- Set up a Google Reader account to request info on subjects that interest you from around the web. Link to interesting articles and use topic-specific hashtags.  

What if I want to allow more than one person to Tweet under the same username?

•          Investigate setting up team accounts. You can do this in the Pro version of Hootsuite.

Using simple video

I did some work with communitycare.co.uk recently, aided by RBI web guru Adam Tinworth, looking at how to get the best out of simple video .

Here's a few conclusions we came up with about video:

• Is it visual? There's no point in shooting video if there's nothing to look at.
• It's not TV. Don't try to be the BBC News, it won't work
• Keep it brief. Community Care users are interested in seeing and hearing the interviewee speaking in the video at the top of this post, but not the whole video.
• What's in the background?  'Talking head' videos aren't ideal but if you do use them, interview your subject in front of an interesting background - as long as it's not distracting.
• Don't get hung-up on technology. You can get decent HD from fairly simple kit these days. But don't try to shoot Panorama on a flip camera
• Chunk it up.  It's better to play a short chunk of video - or a series of chunks. 
• Show it off. Don’t bury videos at the bottom of the article page.
• What if the video goes wrong? Maybe you can just the audio track instead.
• Get feedback. Look at your metrics to see what’s working.