Google, apparently prodded by the ground covered by twitter news, has introduced a feature on its Google News search results that indicates what one might call the ‘heat’ of a story—how many sources are covering it over time: As with Google Search Trends, the stories below the chart are linked to the graph via letters … Read more
Reuters has just published its handbook online. A smart move (declaration of interest: I’ve done some training work for Reuters. I’ve got my old dog-eared copy on a shelf nearby.) I posted (approvingly, but without comment) a retweet from Nieman pointing out that Reuters generally forbids quoting from Wikipedia: Online information sources which rely on … Read more
This is a piece for my weekly Loose Wire Service column. I’m posting it here because it’s timely. That’s why there are no internal links in it. Michael Jackson is dead. You’ve probably heard that already. But where did you hear it? Chances are you read about it on twitter. Or more or less anywhere … Read more
I’m a big fan of The Guardian, but their auto-linking software needs some tweaking. It’s a classic example of trying to provide that extra value to data on the cheap. My argument for a while has been that the only lasting way for traditional media to make itself competitive again is not to create more, … Read more
Paul Lamb over at MediaShift asks: Is there still a need for vetting and fact checking of stories. Absolutely. But isn’t that something a machine, building off our collective intelligence, could be trained to do far better than any one human or editorial staff? Of course this ignores the fact that machines aren’t good at … Read more