The election debates…live: ‘Is Nick Clegg the Susan Boyle of British politics?’

Posted by Rebecca Cassar on 16 April 2010 at 13:25
Tags: Journalism, National Newspapers, New Media, Newspapers, Online

Some snapshots from national press online coverage of the party leader debates last night:

At the Guardian Andrew Sparrow’s Live Blog reported throughout the debate and recieved text message updates from a correspondant live in the studio: “Question 5 verdict: I thought this was Brown’s best answer, although I see the Guardian worm has just given a spike to Clegg.”

The Financial Times live blog is very comprhensive and provided full coverage; posts include straight reporting as well as comment such as: “9.49pm One colleague says she is already planning a drinking game for the next two debates. It’s one to for every time Cam mentions ‘13 years’ and another every time Clegg talks about ‘the other two not being straight with you’. She can’t think of a Gordon one, which is telling.”

The Telegraph live blog reported what was going on live as well as what key twitterers and other bloggers were posting. It reports: “07.42 Krishnan Guru-Murthy of Channel 4 News on Twitter: ‘Is Nick Clegg the Susan Boyle of British politics?’”

The New Statesmen teamed up with Left Foot Forward, Labour List and Liberal Conspiracy to report via live web chat. Conservative Home was also reporting live as the debate took place. with their Tory Diary .

The Daily Mail had a live account blog , you could follow the debates on the Mirror’s micro site and the Spectator’s Coffee House blog.

The Sun has a micro site dedicated to the election and live blogging about last night’s debate.

Last night they brought in Frank Luntz the man Sir David Frost called “the nostrodamus of pollsters” , the creator of instant response technique of rating politicians, who gave his view as the Sun Panel used his system to judge the TV debate. There is a graph of the results on the Sun Election 2010 site.

Even the Americans took an interest with the Wall Street Journal hosting a live blog.

Meanwhile, the BBC College of Journalism has journalism experts to debating the debate.

Twitter feathers its nest with 105 million registered users

Posted by Rebecca Cassar on 15 April 2010 at 15:38
Tags: Journalism, New Media, Online

Biz Stone, the founder of Twitter has announced that the social networking site now has 105 million registered users.

Brand Republic reports that talking to an audience at Chirp the first ever Twitter development conference he mentioned that the site’s registered users had risen to 105 million. No indication was given as to how many were active users, but the 105 million figure is substantially larger than the 75 million reported by Computer World in January.

BBC just beaten by New York Times in Webby award nominations

Posted by Rebecca Cassar on 14 April 2010 at 13:45
Tags: BBC, International, Journalism, Mobile, New Media, Online

The BBC has managed nine nominations in the 14th annual Webby Awards, coming in just behind The New York Times, which received 15. (Full list of nominations here).

Other UK nominations for the US-based online publishing awards include www.guardian.co.uk which was shortlisted for “news” and ”best practices” as well as in the religion and spirituality section for the Belief section of its blog Comment Is Free.

Other multiple nominees include US satirical news website Onion  with six, Funny or die with five nominations and National Public Radio which also received five nominations. (more…)

No Pulitzer for the Enquirer, but not-for-profit ProPublica recognised

Posted by Rebecca Cassar on 13 April 2010 at 12:18
Tags: International, Journalism, Newspapers, Online, People

Not-for-profit journalism outlet ProPublica is celebrating after last night scooping the Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism.

Sheri Fink’s report on doctors at a New Orleans hospital in the days immediately after Hurricane Katrina, made for the New York Times Magazine, became the first ever collaborative story to win a Pulitzer.

The award was shared with Barbara Laer and Wendy Ruderman from the Philadelphia Daily News for their exposé of a rogue police narcotics squad that resulted in an FBI probe and the review of hundreds of criminal cases. (more…)

Sky News to survey 6,000-strong panel in real-time on reaction to party leaders’ debates

Posted by Rebecca Cassar on 12 April 2010 at 16:06
Tags: Broadcast, Journalism, Mobile, New Media, Online, Television

Sky News will report voter reactions to the party leaders’ performance in the TV debates instantly online after joining forces with two specialist research companies.

Sky has partnered with ‘real-time’ research technology company Fizzback and research agency Futuresight to capture the results of a panel of voters as Gordon Brown, Nick Clegg and David Cameron debate key issues at stake in the election.

The survey will provide the fastest possible insight into voters’ responses to the leaders’ performances when they are surveyed via mobile phone text message as they watch the debates live on the TV. A panel of more than 6,000 voters has been selected to represent the whole of the UK and will be questioned prior to, during and after the shows. The questions polled will include who they believe the winners and losers to be and why.

The information provided will be collated and the results will power a live widget on www. skynews.com and graphics on Sky News, which will track the popularity of each leader.

John Ryley, head of Sky News, said: “This service will give Sky News the edge on accurate reporting of the Leaders’ Debates using insight direct from the people that matter – the voters. The results will provide an unrivalled level of real-time insight into how the voters are reacting towards the three leaders.”

Read the press release from Sky News here.

Tweeting in the money

Posted by Rebecca Cassar on 12 April 2010 at 12:16
Tags: Advertising, Media Business, Mobile, New Media, Online

The Financial Times reports this morning on the race to make the micro-blogging site Twitter a profitable venture.

As of next Monday Twitter will launch a bidding system, by which Tweeters can pay to have their tweet appear at the top of the internal twitter search engine. This formula of search engine advertising is similar to the system used by Google. (more…)