This is a magazine project from Scandinavia which has one of the best records on democracy and human social service:
Projects
Italian Journalism in the Age of Silvio Berlusconi
What's happened to Italian news media in the last two decades, and what was it like before?
Reporting China
Chinese journalism after market reforms: the possibility and dangers of investigation.
Russian News is Good News
The remaking of Russian journalism, and Russian journalists, in the age of Vladimir Putin.
Independent Journalism in Post-Independence States
The perils and possibilities of holding power to account in different African countries.
The Pipers and the Tunes
A comparative perspective on the power of proprietors, public service and people to influence the content and limits of journalism.
The Peripheral Vision of Central Issues
How good is the coverage of matters essential to public welfare and the public interest? And who cares about it?
Axess Programme on Journalism and Democracy
Submitted by Janice Winter on September 9, 2009 - 9:39 AM
journalist.jpg
The Axess Programme on Journalism and Democracy began in June 2009, born out of the perceived need for a comprehensive study of the relationship between journalism and democracy in the contemporary - and rapidly transforming - media landscape.
Two main issues frame the programme:
* how should journalism serve the public?
* what effect will the changing nature of journalism have on its ability to hold power to account?
The programme consists of a range of projects, based in different parts of the world, which address these issues in differing ways. These include, or will include, projects in China, Russia, Italy, the European Union, Sweden, the UK, South Africa and elsewhere.
In each case the projects will develop an accessible narrative. The aim is to combine a rigorous approach to research with the ability to tell a vivid and illuminating story. The end product of this three-year programme will be a unique, world-wide story of the way in which journalism, democracy and power affect each other.
The Axess Programme on Journalism and Democracy is funded by the Ax:son Johnson Foundation. Its director is John Lloyd.
We invite our readers to submit blogs similar to those posted on the website by our researchers. If you have strong views about journalism and politics that you'd like to share, submit your writing to us by emailing janice.winter@axessjournalism.com
Comments (9)
To all involved in this project
Good luck! It's a huge undertaking, but should prove to be extremely interesting and of immense value.
Posted by Simon Winter on October 8, 2009 - 3:33 PM
Hello -
What a great initiative, it will be interesting to follow.
Wait a minute - good heavens! Where is your RSS feed?
If you really want to chart the "development of the internet" which "is revolutionising the ecology of journalism" you might want to show some grasp of its fundamentals.
Please inform your webmaster about RSS feeds, the most important web technology of the past ten years. And please ask your webmaster to implement it.
Sincerely,
C.L.
Posted by Computer Literate on October 15, 2009 - 6:01 PM
Thank you for the encouragement! We are already onto our webmaster about an RSS feed, so it should be implemented soon!
Posted by Janice on October 16, 2009 - 12:56 PM
Thank you for your quick response. I am looking forward to subscribing to some probing and daring analyses.
Posted by Computer Literate on October 19, 2009 - 2:30 PM
And there it is. Thank you.
Now all you need to do is to provide full-text coverage and image inclusion in your RSS feed - and your site will climb even higher on the accessibility mountain.
Posted by Computer Literate on October 28, 2009 - 5:02 PM
The quality of democracy depends on the quality of the political communication - where mmedia is important. In Stockholms Community PopVox.info is an organization developing a new relation between poltiics and media.
Posted by Peter Ahlm on November 17, 2009 - 4:49 PM
Hi,
How long have you been in this field? You seem to know a lot more than I do, I'd love to know your sources!
Posted by cheap printer ink on Janurary 29, 2010 - 7:16 AM
The quality of democracy depends on the level of education of the constituents. Communication is important, of course, but the more educated voter will be far more capable of reading between the lines in the verbal play that is journalism and politics. A reporter's job, initially, was to report the facts, just the facts, all of it, unpleasant or not and the reader was left to make up his own mind as to the circumstances or intentions of those involved. Then the newspaper industry became big business and started hobnobbing with politicians and other businessmen and these days, it seems, the reporter's job is to sell the paper, paying lip service to readers. The real problem starts when journalists start taking the game of politics so serious that they figure they are best qualified to become politicians. That is when the reader, who is also the voter, will start getting the news the politicians and businessmen want them to know. I recommend reading Terry Pratchet's "The Truth" for his history of the journalist and press. Well worth the real perspective on life.
Posted by X Cepting on February 15, 2010 - 2:09 PM
Democracy depends on communication...do we have to educate ourselves to know how we want to live???? You might need education to understand how educated people is trying to justify their ideologies (religions)!
Posted by Peter Ahlm on February 16, 2010 - 11:51 AM
By JEREMY W. PETERS
Published: September 5, 2010
Daniel Rosenbaum for The New York Times
The Washington Post newsroom displays traffic data. Raju Narisetti, a managing editor, said it helped to decide where to cut staff.
Now, because of technology that can pinpoint what people online are viewing and commenting on, how much time they spend with an article and even how much money an article makes in advertising revenue, newspapers can make more scientific decisions about allocating their ever scarcer resources.
Such data has never been available with such specificity and timeliness. The reader surveys that newspapers relied on for decades took months to produce, often leaving editors with stale data.
Looking to the public for insight on how to cover a topic is never comfortable for newsrooms, which have the deeply held belief that readers come to a newspaper not only for its information but also for its editorial judgment. But many newsrooms now seem to be re-examining that idea and embracing, albeit cautiously, a more democratic approach to serving up the news, particularly online.
“How can you say you don’t care what your customers think?” asked Alan Murray, who oversees online news at The Wall Street Journal. “We care a lot about what our readers think. But our readers also care a lot about our editorial judgment. So we’re always trying to balance the two.”
Editors at The Journal, like those at other large newspapers, follow the Web traffic metrics closely. The paper’s top editors begin their morning news meetings with a rundown of data points, including the most popular search terms on WSJ.com, which articles are generating the most traffic and what posts are generating buzz on Twitter.
At The Washington Post, a television screen with an array of data — the number of unique visitors to washingtonpost.com, how many articles those visitors view and where on the Web those visitors came from — is on display for the entire newsroom. A red or green marker designates each data point, indicating whether the Web site’s goal for the month on that particular metric has been met. About 120 people in The Post’s newsroom get an e-mail each day laying out how the Web site performed in the closely watched metrics — 46 in all.
Rather than corrupt news judgment by causing editors to pander to the most base reader interests, the availability of this technology so far seems to be leading to more surgical decisions about how to cover a topic so it becomes more appealing to an online audience.
The Post, which provided extensive coverage of the recent elections in Britain online and in its print editions, found that online readers were not particularly interested in the topic. One of the five most viewed items on The Post’s Web site in the last year, in fact, was not a political project at all but a piece on Crocs, the popular foam footwear. Editors attributed that to Yahoo, which linked to the article.
But that did not translate into more Croc coverage. And coverage of the British elections was not scaled back.
Raju Narisetti, The Post’s managing editor overseeing online operations, said he saw reader metrics as a tool to help him better determine how to use online resources.
“We ask, ‘What can we do online to make it more attractive?” ’ Mr. Narisetti said. “Can we do podcasts? Can we do a photo gallery? Can we do any kind of user-generated content?”
He said the data has proved highly useful in today’s world of shrinking newsroom budgets. Mr. Narisetti said that when he had to reduce his staff last year, he looked at what kind of content was not performing well with readers. He discovered that long-form video had a low audience, so he reduced that department by a couple of people.
At The Journal, editors use traffic data to inform decisions on how articles should be presented on WSJ.com. “We look at the data, and if things are getting a lot of hits, they’ll get better play and longer play on the home page,” said Mr. Murray. Conversely, articles getting low audiences will be moved down more quickly if there is no compelling news reason to keep them prominent.
But Mr. Murray explained that the data was not always used as a blunt tool. In the case of a rather dry business development last month involving the Potash Corporation, the Canadian fertilizer maker, Journal editors decided to prominently display articles on the subject despite very low traffic numbers.
“We didn’t put it there because it was going to be a big traffic getter. We put it there because it’s big important news in the business world,” Mr. Murray said.
The New York Times does not use Web metrics to determine how articles are presented, but it does use them to make strategic decisions about its online report, said Bill Keller, the executive editor. “We don’t let metrics dictate our assignments and play,” he said, “because we believe readers come to us for our judgment, not the judgment of the crowd. We’re not ‘American Idol.’ ”
Mr. Keller added that the paper would, for example, use the data to determine which blogs to expand, eliminate or tweak.
As newspaper Web sites use technology to learn more about readers’ habits, they are also developing new ways to persuade readers to tell them more about what they want. The Los Angeles Times features what it calls a “personality quiz” for readers on its Web site. The feature adds a spin to the personalization options that Web sites have offered for the last few years with a 17-question test that asks readers things like “What does success mean to you?” and has them pick from 12 photos. A few options include images of a wedding, a gleaming sports car and a man embracing a peasant child.
At the end of the quiz, readers are assigned a personality type like “dynamo,” who, as the quiz explains, is someone “always seeking new adventures that broaden your horizons and take you out of your comfort zone.” A customized news feed then appears each time a reader visits the Web site from the same computer.
“It helps me understand the readers in a way that I can’t with just the metrics,” said Sean Gallagher, managing editor for online operations at The Los Angeles Times, explaining that he now pairs sports articles with food articles because surveys have shown a correlation.
As the technology advances and allows papers to look more deeply at performance metrics, newsrooms may find that there is just some data they would rather not know.
At a recent meeting with the top online editors of The Los Angeles Times, a consulting group that helps media companies enhance profits from their Web sites pitched new software that it said could change the industry. The newsroom would be able to know how much money — down to the penny — each of its articles online was making when readers clicked on ads.
“I could see a business case for it,” said Mr. Gallagher, who hastened to add, “I don’t agree with that business case.”
Software developers acknowledge that the questions can be difficult as newspapers try to reinvent their business models. But they say the dialogue is ultimately constructive.
“By having this data and making it available, we’re spurring the conversations to take place,” said Tim Ruder, chief revenue officer for Perfect Market, the company that developed the tracking software for ad clicks. “And it’s especially healthy to have those conversations in the context of experience and not in an abstract way.”
Such data has never been available with such specificity and timeliness. The reader surveys that newspapers relied on for decades took months to produce, often leaving editors with stale data.
Looking to the public for insight on how to cover a topic is never comfortable for newsrooms, which have the deeply held belief that readers come to a newspaper not only for its information but also for its editorial judgment. But many newsrooms now seem to be re-examining that idea and embracing, albeit cautiously, a more democratic approach to serving up the news, particularly online.
“How can you say you don’t care what your customers think?” asked Alan Murray, who oversees online news at The Wall Street Journal. “We care a lot about what our readers think. But our readers also care a lot about our editorial judgment. So we’re always trying to balance the two.”
Editors at The Journal, like those at other large newspapers, follow the Web traffic metrics closely. The paper’s top editors begin their morning news meetings with a rundown of data points, including the most popular search terms on WSJ.com, which articles are generating the most traffic and what posts are generating buzz on Twitter.
At The Washington Post, a television screen with an array of data — the number of unique visitors to washingtonpost.com, how many articles those visitors view and where on the Web those visitors came from — is on display for the entire newsroom. A red or green marker designates each data point, indicating whether the Web site’s goal for the month on that particular metric has been met. About 120 people in The Post’s newsroom get an e-mail each day laying out how the Web site performed in the closely watched metrics — 46 in all.
Rather than corrupt news judgment by causing editors to pander to the most base reader interests, the availability of this technology so far seems to be leading to more surgical decisions about how to cover a topic so it becomes more appealing to an online audience.
The Post, which provided extensive coverage of the recent elections in Britain online and in its print editions, found that online readers were not particularly interested in the topic. One of the five most viewed items on The Post’s Web site in the last year, in fact, was not a political project at all but a piece on Crocs, the popular foam footwear. Editors attributed that to Yahoo, which linked to the article.
But that did not translate into more Croc coverage. And coverage of the British elections was not scaled back.
Raju Narisetti, The Post’s managing editor overseeing online operations, said he saw reader metrics as a tool to help him better determine how to use online resources.
“We ask, ‘What can we do online to make it more attractive?” ’ Mr. Narisetti said. “Can we do podcasts? Can we do a photo gallery? Can we do any kind of user-generated content?”
He said the data has proved highly useful in today’s world of shrinking newsroom budgets. Mr. Narisetti said that when he had to reduce his staff last year, he looked at what kind of content was not performing well with readers. He discovered that long-form video had a low audience, so he reduced that department by a couple of people.
At The Journal, editors use traffic data to inform decisions on how articles should be presented on WSJ.com. “We look at the data, and if things are getting a lot of hits, they’ll get better play and longer play on the home page,” said Mr. Murray. Conversely, articles getting low audiences will be moved down more quickly if there is no compelling news reason to keep them prominent.
But Mr. Murray explained that the data was not always used as a blunt tool. In the case of a rather dry business development last month involving the Potash Corporation, the Canadian fertilizer maker, Journal editors decided to prominently display articles on the subject despite very low traffic numbers.
“We didn’t put it there because it was going to be a big traffic getter. We put it there because it’s big important news in the business world,” Mr. Murray said.
The New York Times does not use Web metrics to determine how articles are presented, but it does use them to make strategic decisions about its online report, said Bill Keller, the executive editor. “We don’t let metrics dictate our assignments and play,” he said, “because we believe readers come to us for our judgment, not the judgment of the crowd. We’re not ‘American Idol.’ ”
Mr. Keller added that the paper would, for example, use the data to determine which blogs to expand, eliminate or tweak.
As newspaper Web sites use technology to learn more about readers’ habits, they are also developing new ways to persuade readers to tell them more about what they want. The Los Angeles Times features what it calls a “personality quiz” for readers on its Web site. The feature adds a spin to the personalization options that Web sites have offered for the last few years with a 17-question test that asks readers things like “What does success mean to you?” and has them pick from 12 photos. A few options include images of a wedding, a gleaming sports car and a man embracing a peasant child.
At the end of the quiz, readers are assigned a personality type like “dynamo,” who, as the quiz explains, is someone “always seeking new adventures that broaden your horizons and take you out of your comfort zone.” A customized news feed then appears each time a reader visits the Web site from the same computer.
“It helps me understand the readers in a way that I can’t with just the metrics,” said Sean Gallagher, managing editor for online operations at The Los Angeles Times, explaining that he now pairs sports articles with food articles because surveys have shown a correlation.
As the technology advances and allows papers to look more deeply at performance metrics, newsrooms may find that there is just some data they would rather not know.
At a recent meeting with the top online editors of The Los Angeles Times, a consulting group that helps media companies enhance profits from their Web sites pitched new software that it said could change the industry. The newsroom would be able to know how much money — down to the penny — each of its articles online was making when readers clicked on ads.
“I could see a business case for it,” said Mr. Gallagher, who hastened to add, “I don’t agree with that business case.”
Software developers acknowledge that the questions can be difficult as newspapers try to reinvent their business models. But they say the dialogue is ultimately constructive.
“By having this data and making it available, we’re spurring the conversations to take place,” said Tim Ruder, chief revenue officer for Perfect Market, the company that developed the tracking software for ad clicks. “And it’s especially healthy to have those conversations in the context of experience and not in an abstract way.”
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