MediaShift

Social Media

Profiles in Courage: Social Media Editors at Big Media Outlets

by Craig Silverman

During a recent trip to see an editor I work with at The Globe and Mail, a national newspaper in Canada, I passed by the newspaper's cafeteria. My editor looked in and pointed at a man who was sitting with his back to us. "There's Mathew Ingram, doing his office hours," he told me. Ingram is the Globe and Mail's...

• November 19, 2009
• 1 comment

NewspaperShift

The Shutdown of UWIRE and the Implications for College Media

by Bryan Murley

Last month, UWIRE.com, an edited college media newswire, mysteriously vanished from the Internet. "UWIRE, a popular service that aggregated articles from student newspapers across the country, promoting student journalism both within higher education and to the outside world, has disappeared," wrote Simmi Aujla for the Chronicle of Higher Education earlier this month. Today, visitors to the site receive an error...

• November 18, 2009
• 8 comments

PoliticalShift

Young Political Candidates Confronted by Digital Past on Facebook

by Steven Davy

Last spring Emanuel Pleitez, 26, ran for California's 32nd Congressional seat in a special election to replace Hilda Solis, the new secretary of labor. During the campaign, one of Pleitez's opponents, California State Sen. Gil Cedillo, discovered photos from Pleitez's Facebook profile that showed Pleitez hanging around with various women at parties. The Cedillo campaign used the photos as the...

• November 17, 2009
• 4 comments

MovieShift

DigiFest Examines DIY to Big Budget Special Effects for Films

by Nick Mendoza

Apocalyptic visions and alien invasions descended upon Hollywood earlier this month, to the collective delight of the digital media industry. At the American Film Institute's DigiFest, which was produced by the AFI Digital Content Lab, attendees experienced two days of presentations and screenings focused on new media platforms and creative storytelling using digital innovations. The event spotlighted advanced productions from...

• November 16, 2009
• No comments

4MR

4 Minute Roundup: Murdoch-Google Spat; Ft. Hood Shooting on Twitter

by Mark Glaser

Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's edition, I look at recent comments by News Corp. honcho Rupert Murdoch about taking his content out of Google searches, and how many people reacted to it. Plus, many news organizations made Twitter Lists to cover the Ft. Hood shooting, but the Austin American-Statesman had an excellent Twitter feed...

• November 13, 2009
• No comments

Social Networking

Media140 Brings Old and New Media Together, With Explosive Results

by Julie Posetti

Over 300 people gathered under the Media140 banner in a concert hall at Australia's national public broadcaster ABC in Sydney last week to consider the future of journalism in the social media age. Media140 is a newly formed global collaboration of journalists, academics and social media practitioners that is staging conferences around the world. The goal is to examine the...

• November 13, 2009
• 1 comment

AdvertisingShift

Can Salon's Revamp Help it Stop Bleeding Money?

by Mark Glaser

Salon.com was a pioneering website launched in 1995 by former editors of the San Francisco Examiner, mixing opinion and investigative reporting with a sharply progressive slant. Although the company went public at the height of the dot-com boom in 1999, it had lost more than $80 million by 2003, and lost $4.6 million in the fiscal year ending March 31,...

• November 12, 2009
• 6 comments

Legal Drama

Does Gawker's Publication of McSteamy Sex Tape Constitute Fair Use?

by Rob Arcamona

It probably seemed like a fun idea at the time. Last year, Eric Dane, known as "McSteamy" from the show "Grey's Anatomy," his wife Rebecca Gayheart, and former beauty queen Kari Ann Peniche decided to make a home movie. Yes, that type of home movie. The threesome recorded themselves nakedly fumbling around in bed, slurring words, and splashing in a...

• November 11, 2009
• 6 comments

World View

President Obama Must Press China on Web Censorship

by Clothilde Le Coz

In China, Google is forced to censor its search engine, Facebook and Twitter are blocked, U.S. news agencies are barred from selling their services freely, and foreign investment in the media industry is closely watched. Yet when President Obama visits the country in a few days, it's unknown if he will publicly pressure the Chinese government on issues of censorship...

• November 10, 2009
• 6 comments

BookShift

Speculative Fiction Novelists Find Success with Online Donations

by Simon Owens

Over the years, many authors have tried versions of the online donation model, with mixed results. But one specific genre of writers, speculative fiction, seems to be experiencing a moderate level of success. Back in 2000, Stephen King became one of the first major authors to offer a book online using an "honor system" to solicit donations. The book was...

• November 6, 2009
• 3 comments