Matthew Bell in the Independent on Sunday today looks at the Whitehaven News and the way it covered the fatal shootings in Cumbria.
He notes: “Within a few weeks, once the world’s media has moved on, the people of Whitehaven will return to whatever normality there can be, and the circulation of The Whitehaven News will go back to normal levels.

Anyone who has followed this site over the years, has heard a lot about my Representative Journalism concept. Well my Center for Sustainable Journalism is a launching the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange, a fairly pure example of the Rep J concept, although now we are calling it simply community supported journalism. You can read all about it as the Center for Sustainable Journalism site or go directly to the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange at JJIE.org .

…is a very personal choice. A few weeks back I had a posting where I discussed possibilities for my next camera.

And now I’m torn between three. Fortunately there is no reason to rush, so I’ll continue to study and may even change from the two front runners.

The HMC40 leads the pack right now for pricing and features. Only thing I don’t like are the mini-jack audio inputs. It does have three quarter-inch sensors.

Next up the HMC150 with three 1/3″ chips AND XLR audio ins. Sweet but more than $1300 more than the 40.

And my last choice is the granddaughter of my old JVC GY-DV300u – the GY-HM100u. It is priced halfway between the above two with a shorter 10x lens, XLR inputs, and three 1/4 inch sensors.

The digital information revolution is changing both the meaning and value of words. By now, we know a “friend” isn’t always a friend, and clouds and graphs don’t bring rain and spreadsheets.

After years of resisting, I’ve thrown myself into the new-media verbiage with relative gusto as I attempt to conquer my own modest corner of the digital landscape. Still, my brain/language synapses can sometimes misfire: When I saw Robert Scoble’s link last week to “one of the social services I am using a lot more lately,” I expected to click open details of his favorite new welfare program or rehab center.

As a journalist, I’m fully aware of the reasons why we don’t learn programming — and I’m guilty of using many of them. I initially thought there were good reasons not to take it up:

• Learning to program is time-consuming. One look at the thick books full of arcane code and you remember why you became a journalist and not a mathematician or an engineer. Even if you are mathematically inclined, it’s tough to find the time to learn all that stuff.

• Your colleagues tell you you don’t need it — including the professional developers on staff. After all, it took them years of study and practice to become really good developers and web designers, just like it takes years for a journalist to become experienced and knowledgeable. (And, if you start trying to code, the pros on staff are the ones who’ll have to clean up any mess you make.)

• Learning the basics takes time, as does keeping your skills up to date. The tools change all the time. Should you still bother to learn ActionScript (Flash), or just go for HTML5? Are you sure you want to study PHP and not Python?

• Why learn programming when there are so many free, ready-made tools online: Quizzes, polls, blogs, mind maps, forums, chat tools, etc. You can even use things like Yahoo Pipes to build data mashups without needing any code.

• When Megan Taylor wrote for MediaShift about the programmer-journalist, she asked around for the perfect skillset. One response nearly convinced me to never think about programming ever again: “Brian Boyer, a graduate of Medill’s journalism for programmers master’s track and now News Applications Editor at the Chicago Tribune, responded with this list: XHTML / CSS / JavaScript / jQuery / Python / Django / xml / regex / Postgres / PostGIS / QGIS.“

Senior production journalist: “The writing’s on the wall for sub-editing as we know it … but then the writing’s on the wall for newspapers as we know them, too. This isn’t news. I absolutely believe there’s a vital role for production journalists in the future — the core skills of editing and presentation are no less vital. But it’s not going to be the traditional subbing model, and trying to hold on to that is looking increasingly desperate. But that seems to be what too many subs are trying to do right now. We need to evolve — to convince managers that we still matter, that accuracy still matters, that presentation still matters, that quality still matters. We need to make it clear that we can play a more important role than ever in digital publications, as well as being vital in getting the existing paper products out of the door.”

For more check out Jon’s blog.

On Friday, I broke a tasty story about a woman suing Google, claiming bad directions caused her to get hit by a vehicle. Today, I discover our story is everywhere, often with no attribution. Come along and watch how the mainstream media, which often claims bloggers rip it off, does a little stealing of its own.

Woman Follows Google Maps “Walking” Directions, Gets Hit, Sues was the story I posted on Friday afternoon, Pacific Time. I was tipped to the lawsuit by Gary Price of ResourceShelf. Gary hadn’t written about it himself but thought Search Engine Land would be interested in it. He came across it through the regular monitoring of search-related news that he does across a variety of resources (Gary watches many, many things — he’s a research guru extraordinaire). Gary downloaded a copy of the suit via the PACER Service and sent it to me.

Sam Whitmore is the best media watcher around, he regularly talks to the press as part of his research for the excellent Sam Whitmore’s Media Survey, which is heavily used by all the large PR agencies.

I was at a recent panel moderated by Sam Whitmore that discussed pageviews and the effect on journalism. Although nothing much emerged from that event, it is an important issue, and Sam has been collecting more information on this topic.