The Age of the Liveblog: A Guardian Case Study, and a Solution to a Problem

A report published this week by researchers Neil Thurman and Anna Walters from City University (London) has shed some much needed light on the increasing prevalence of live blogs as a publishing format for leading news outlets, answering important questions on why outlets use the format, why readers prefer to consume news via live blog, and how readers interact with live blogs. Based on a case study of live blogs at The Guardian — an outlet that seems to have mastered the art of live blogging and who have used... Read The Rest →

On the Meedan Radar – November 2012

- A new wave of Checkdesk-ian fervour swept the interwebs as intrepid journos set about debunking fake #Sandy pics. Top of the pile are Alexis Madrigal and the Atlantic, who wrote about their experience: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/12/10/if-you-cant-beat-em-subvert-em-countering-misinformation-on-a-viral-web/264366/ “We also drew heavily on our community, asking for help, and incorporating our networks into the search. People could see us thinking on their screens, and I think they saw that we were approaching this task fairly and with the pursuit of truth as a goal. I know that sounds high-minded, but you can’t do... Read The Rest →

“Finding the Wisdom in the Crowd” and creating spaces for knowledge sharing

It’s an infrequent occurrence on the Meedan blog that we feel pushed to hit the “reblog” button, but sometimes important blog posts coincide with even more important breaking news events, and the time comes to reblog and remix. A few short weeks ago, Nieman Reports released their summer issue – essential reading for those of us pondering the increasingly overlapping worlds of social media and news reporting, and developing tools to help make sense of the social web. As a disjointed picture of events emerged yesterday from across Syria and journalists around... Read The Rest →

BBC Report on Arab Uprisings Calls for ‘Systematic’ Attribution for Citizen Footage

An internal BBC report on its coverage of the Arab uprisings this week revealed that three quarters of  reports containing citizen media failed to inform the audience about the source of that media. The report, authored by Edward Mortimer for the BBC Trust, said that journalists should use caveats or disclaimers to warn the audience that this video content – often mobile phone footage – came from particular activists on the ground. This striking, perhaps even alarming figure suggests that in the vast majority of reports on the Arab uprisings,... Read The Rest →

Meedan partners with Syrian citizen news outlet Al-Ayyam

Meedan is working with the news newtork Al-Ayyam to bolster public voice, free expression and accountability in Syria. In a joint initiative that is designed to be responsive to critical and fast-changing needs on the ground, we seek to strengthen the role of citizen journalists to act together as a watchdog documenting the actions of the Syrian regime and armed groups operating in the country. Our objective is to provide a model for an investigative, citizen-led media in Syria and a building block of future reconciliation efforts. The partnership is... Read The Rest →

Six Steps for Fact Checking Citizen Media

Anyone can be a publisher today – thanks to the web. As a result, there are so many more sources of news and information, which makes fact checking all the more critical in fast moving news stories.  When disinformation gets into the news cycle, it can lead to people being put in harm’s way.  Here, then, is a set of six tips to help you get it right. 1. Who is the original source? Every piece of news has a source – the person who told you the news.  Who... Read The Rest →

Meedan wins International Press Instiitute News Innovation Contest 2012

Meedan Checkdesk, a platform facilitating collaborative journalism for Middle East new media, has been named as one of 14 winners of the 2012 IPI News Innovation Contest. The award will support Meedan designers and developers to tackle one of the very thorniest problems of the social web: how news teams can better verify breaking stories from the Middle East using citizen reporting. We are honored to count IPI as a funding partner, putting us as it does in the company of some very high profile grantees, including AFP Foundation, Media... Read The Rest →

Ramy Raoof trains Alexandria’s citizen journalists on verifying citizen media

This is a guest post for the Meedan blog, written by human rights activist and citizen journalist Ramy Raoof. Many thanks to Ramy and to Sa7afat Welad el-Balad for hosting the workshop. Yesterday I came back from Alexandria after spending two days in a workshop with an amazing group of young men and women. The workshop is one of a series of workshops organized by Meedan and Birmingham City University to enhance the skills of citizen journalists in generating content on and from online media and train them on verification... Read The Rest →

Ma’an News Agency to partner with Meedan on Middle East citizen journalism project

If you are following today’s Palestinian Land Day protests in the West Bank, an event which marks the 1976 killings of Arab demonstrators protesting Israel’s land appropriation, you may well be following the #LandDay hashtag on Twitter. “4 injuries in #IraqBorin near #Nablus .one of them is serious and one serious injury in #KuforQaddoum weekly demo #LandDay,” reports one user. But how do you sort the accurate and important reporting in this stream?  And how do you corroborate these reports with other citizen media on YouTube, Facebook and Flickr? As... Read The Rest →

Cairo journalist and Twitter supremo Lilian Wagdy trains budding citizen reporters at Tahrir Lounge

Last week I took part in the first of a series of workshops organized by Meedan and the Birmingham City University Centre for Media and Cultural Research that aim to train citizen journalists in verification techniques for  social media, such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. The ultimate goal of these workshops is to introduce trainees to a reporting platform developed by Meedan and adopted by one of Egypt’s best-known independent newspapers, Al-Masry Al-Youm.  The platform, http://liveblog.almasryalyoum.com, is designed to support citizen journalists to verify and disseminate important citizen reporting, and... Read The Rest →

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