Outbound links? EveryBlock? What the hell just happened at the Trib?

I just had an interesting chat with Daniel X. O’Neil, EveryBlock‘s People Person, and he confirmed my suspicions…

Two (maybe three) *totally amazing* things happened on chicagotribune.com today.

  1. They silently released a new “(beta test)” feature, an EveryBlock-enabled police blotterGaper’s Block got the scoop, from, get this, a tweet by the Tribune’s twitter persona, according to Daniel.
  2. More shockingly, the aforementioned blotter links *out* to EveryBlock, which links *out* to other news organizations. Click on one of the “more news in this neighborhood” links to see for yourself. I’m not positive, but I think this is a Tribune Company first!
  3. (maybe) They added a digg widget to their homepage? This may have happened earlier, but it’s the first time I’ve seen it.

Really Sexy Syndication: Page 3 girls read the feeds

Journalism.co.uk sez:

A Page 3 girl widget for RSS feeds, launched by The Sun on Friday, has beaten previous download figures for Sun apps after only three days, the newspaper has said.

The Keeley Hazell application was built using Adobe Air – a new piece of technology, which allows one widget to be built that will be compatible with both PC and MAC systems.

According to the Sun, here’s what you have to look forward to:

Desktop Keeley from the Sun

Dressed in a stunning range of lingerie, Keeley will be at your beck and call 24/7 and comes armed with all the information you need, whether it’s celeb’s drunken antics, the latest football transfer news or the Page 3 girl of the day.

Don’t try and tell me that this isn’t compelling. Christian Bale could sell a lot of bat-news. And I think, maybe, there could be a non-sexy way to do this too. Who best personifies your RSS feed?

I wonder if I can get Leoben to pose for the Sixth W…

7 great resources for green (and seasoned) new media journalists

TreeHouse Media Project, in their words: “Teaching old scribes new tricks.” Jay Rosen sez “The tone is self help for angry journalists.”

Making a living as a publisher, however, requires entrepreneurial skills that few journalists possess. That is the reason for the TreeHouse Media Project, an effort to provide journalists with the business knowledge and technical skills to survive — even thrive — in this harsh, yet exciting new media world.

Wired Journalists is social networking for, um, wired journalists. Be sure to check out the groups section for tons of good stuff:

WiredJournalists.com was created with self-motivated, eager-to-learn reporters, editors, executives, students and faculty in mind. Our goal is to help journalists who have few resources on hand other than their own desire to make a difference and help journalism grow into its new 21st Century role.

I\'m a member of: Wired Journalists

Reporters’ Cookbook is a wiki filled with good stuff:

For reporters to share code, examples, tutorials and other bits of information related to the practice of journalism, especially computer-assisted reporting.

Current.tv’s producer training is super cool — though I wish the content wasn’t buried in a icky Flash app! (Special thanks to Kevin for the suggestion!)

Current.tv

Online Journalism Review’s ‘How-To’ Guides are super useful (but don’t expect any more):

Getting started with an online news or information website? These guides will help you learn what you need to know about reporting, writing and making money on the Internet.

Ourmedia: Learning Center has got excellent guides on audio, video and multimedia:

The Learning Center is a rich educational resource for everything you wanted to know about user-created video, audio, and other forms of citizens’ media

J-learning has lots of great stuff (most of which is hidden under their colorful menu):

J-learning

Here, you’ll find extensive, detailed training in Web site creation, HTML, page design and use of photos, audio, video, animation, surveys and databases. We also offer tips on advertising, fundraising and e-commerce to help sustain these community efforts.

Where else would you send a new media newbie?

Hacker journalism: Version control for campaign promises

The always outstanding Threat Level sez:

John McCain’s campaign published a side-by-side comparison of Barack Obama’s Iraq War policy web pages on Tuesday using a new automated online tracking service called Versionista.

Obama statements compared at Versionista

The Friday, July 11 version of the page says: “at great cost our troops have helped reduce violence in some areas of Iraq, but even those reductions do not get us below the unsustainable levels of violence of mid-2006.”

The Monday, July 14 version spidered by Versionista says: “Our troops have heroically helped reduce civilian casualties in Iraq to early 2006 levels. This is a testament to our military’s hard work, improved counterinsurgency tactics, and enormous sacrifice by our troops and military families.”

We (software dorks) have been doing this for years.  It’s how we tell who broke something:

Trac project, Changeset 7273 for trunk
Trac project, Changeset 7273 for trunk

Revision: 380, SoC
Revision: 380, SoC

Version control is an enormously powerful tool. If you’re making software without it, you’re nuts. (It’s also the primary reason I don’t use word processors to write – there’s no good way get a diff between two copies of a Word doc. Well, that… and Word sucks.)

I just wish a journalist had done this, instead of a campaign worker.

Ugh. Next time.

New media literacy: a quiz

Ryan Thornburg has posted a quiz for his readers — an excerpt:

Could you explain how Twitter.com spread like wildfire the rumor of the death of Subway spokesman Jared Fogel? (And why it will be important for every political journalist to monitor the site on Nov. 3?)

Could you use Wikipedia’s revision history to see who edited the Jared Fogel entry with the false rumor of his death? Could you explain why the page is (probably) accurate right now?

SEO and whois are also on the quiz – do you know how these tools work, or even what they are?  His point is that the bad people do know.  They’re creating misinformation — the modern journalist needs to know how to filter it out.

I would add:

UPDATE – Spelled Ryan’s name wrong! Eek!!  So sorry.  Medill F.