DWPub Sporadic

Predicting future media themes

Our Response Source Journalist Enquiries System is great for helping journalists and PR professionals connect. It's also a barometer of what's coming up in the media.

We've just started a new section in our DWPub JournAlert newsletter for journalists (the section will also appear soon in our FeaturesExec Media Bulletin newsletter for PR professionals) called Response Source Zeitgeist where we will reveal the most common phrases included in recent Response Source requests.

This is what we found when we dipped into the data last Friday:

It may be July, but while the media remains interested in camping, beaches, holidays and hotels, a surprising number have been asking about Christmas and winter already. Perennial favourites like fashion, food, drink and beauty have a strong showing, while in the B2B sector, marketing, government and outsourcing are hot topics. A number of requests, both business and consumer, concerned social media, with Twitter and Facebook inevitably heading the list. For business and trade journalists, top keywords this week included skills, technology, design, advertising, building and management, and the consumer press sought answers about homes, kids, music, hair and gadgets.

We'll be running the Response Source Zeitgeist regularly, it will be interesting to see what themes crop up.

Why we went daily with the DWPub JournAlert

Since 2006 we've been sending an email newsletter to journalists called the DWPub JournAlert. It proved popular and in 2009 it even got its own website.

Initially the JournAlert was weekly, then it became twice-weekly and today we've upped it to daily.

Why did we do this? For a while we've been getting requests from journalists to increase the frequency as sending it just twice a week meant the emails were very long and difficult to read. It also meant some people who submitted items of media news did not see their stories go out straight away. For example, if we heard about a new launch on Friday afternoon we could not put it in the JournAlert email until the following Wednesday.

So, we went ahead and made it daily, and at the same time went for a complete redesign of the emails to make them easier to read and navigate. The amount of content per week is pretty much the same, we've just broken it up into smaller chunks. And we're now able to be more responsive to breaking news.

The response so far has been good, with lots of people commenting positively on the new design. But of course it hasn't worked for everyone - someone quite rightly asked: "Why would journalists want *more* emails?"

We're looking into doing a weekly digest as an alternative to the daily emails. And nothing is ever set in stone, so if the daily emails really don't work out for most people then we'll reduce the frequency.

There are already two alternatives to the email version of the JournAlert which will give you most of the content that appears in the emails. For the increasing number of people who, like myself, use Twitter regularly then you can follow @journalert. And there is a JournAlert RSS feed if you like to get your news in an RSS reader.

Whichever your preference, we love to hear your thoughts so please comment on this post if you feel the daily JournAlert emails are too much. I'd also love to know if a weekly digest would be as good as the old twice-weekly emails. Let me know!

SourceThatJob strikes a chord over media internship exploitation

My recent post about our decision to no longer accept adverts for unpaid internship positions on media job board SourceThatJob triggered a wave of support.

I had more comments on that one post than any other on this blog and the vast majority were supportive of our attempts attempts to raise awareness of this issue.

I've recorded a podcast explaining how I became aware of media internship exploitation and our subsequent decision to reject advertising for unpaid positions.

Daryl's internship exploitation podcast

If the only people who can get decent work experience are those who can afford to work for free for extended periods then media inevitably becomes elitist. I firmly believe the media should represent society in its widest sense, not just the better-off.

SourceThatJob takes a stand over exploitation

You might be familiar with our media job site, SourceThatJob, which has been running for some years and has a loyal following.

I guess it's not surprising given the state of the economy, but in the last year or so there has been an increase in the number of 'internships' being offered in the media, many of these advertised on SourceThatJob. These positions are almost always unpaid and often run for long periods - three to six months - and are sometimes open-ended.

We had some feedback about this trend from journalists, so I took a closer look at it.

There is a need for young, inexperienced journalists to gain work experience, but there is also a serious risk of what the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) warns against - 'bogus' work experience 'used by employers to get work done for free'. That's a simplification of a complex issue which is potentially damaging in a number of ways, check out the NUJ 'Work Experience?' campaign for full details.

SourceThatJob is run by media people and is part of our family of media services, including Response Source, FeaturesExec and SourceWire. I was concerned that the site should represent the best interests of its audience, primarily journalists and PR professionals. So we've decided that from now on we will only include paid positions on SourceThatJob.

The downside to this decision of course is that we won't be able to advertise real work experience opportunites (see here for the NUJ guidelines on work experience). That's a real shame.

This policy may cost us in terms of revenue, but I think it's the right thing to do until the media industry can find a way to deal with the risk of work experience exploitation.

SourceWire party at the Cheshire Cheese welcomed journalists in from the cold

The annual Xmas journalist party at the Cheshire Cheese, which I'm very proud has become our responsibility to organise, went ahead this week - and what a great afternoon it was.

There was a particularly good turnout this year - around 140 journalists throughout the afternoon and people generally came earlier and stayed longer. The traditional pie and veg went down well, with many people commenting on the quality of the food,

Inspired by escherman's Andrew Smith and his video of the Jackenhacks event, I picked up a FlipVideo camera to capture some people's thoughts of the event (there are also pictures on Flikr). You can't describe the results from this camera as 'broadcast standard', especially in low light in the basement of the Cheshire Cheese, but its simplicity makes the whole process of creating video content a lot easier. No journalists were harmed in the making of the movie, despite Adrian Mars' exclamation at the end. 

Twitter for journalists - a starting point

I've just been answering some questions from a journalist about how to use Twitter. It prompted me to jot down a few basics that could help to any reporter, feature writer or broadcaster who is new to Twitter.

1. Don't worry if you don't understand Twitter, just create your Twitter account and follow the steps below
   
2. Make sure your Twitter biography includes your media outlet name and keywords relating to the subjects you cover
3. One of your first Tweets should be 'I'm a journalist for [name if outlet] magazine/newspaper/website and I'm looking for info from PR people on [keywords relating to your specialist areas or 'patch']
4. Consider following PR people in your sector. A good place to find out PR people on Twitter is the ukmediatweeple wiki

Then sit back and wait for relevant public relations professionals to start following you (smart PRs should be tracking Twitter using alert services like TweetBeep and Twilert). You can then Tweet things like "who does the PR for XYZ" of "I need quotes about the XYZ story" and get responses from PRs.

If you have a more sophisticated request or one you don't want to plaster on a very public website like Twitter, then you can use my Response Source journalist enquiries service, which many thousands of PRs follow.

Oh, and you could also follow me!

Social networking - hams have been at it for years

I am now officially a 'ham'. Having spend the weekend on a course with the Mid-Sussex Amateur Radio Society I can now apply to Ofcom for my callsign - once the papers are processed.

The course made be realise that alot of the concepts behind social networking are not new at all. Ham radio enthusiasts have been doing it for decades.

The beauty of amateur radio is that the participants create the network themselves. It is 'unassisted'. Whereas if you network on the internet you are probably at the mercy of a telecoms provider and/or an internet service provider, with amateur radio all you need is your 'rig' and a power supply (and the latter can simply be a battery or generator). And even a relatively low-power radio can reach all over the world.

And for those who say it is a bit retro - well, I guess the basic concept (two-way radio) is a bit retro, but there is a hell of a lot of hi-tech and cleverness going on around it. Moon-bouncing anyone?

Press release word cloud

Note sure of the exact value of this but I've just put together a word cloud based on the last 24 hours releases on the Response Source/SourceWire Press Release Wire.

Shame to see 'leading', 'solution' and 'announced' up there, despite being at best cringeworthy press release clichés or at worst words banned by most journalists!

Buying Max Clifford

Having stumbled across the BBC Children in Need online auction I couldn't resist bidding for this photo of my most famous customer, celebrity PR supremo Max Clifford. I'm looking forward to finding a suitably prominent place for it at the Daryl Group HQ.

Media through the prism of future generations

I did a guest seminar today for University of Brighton English degree students who had chosen a journalism module.

It was fascinating to get some feedback from the students about their media consumption habits, so much so I decided to throw together a bit of a survey.

Here are the results:

42% buy newspapers at  least once a week
58% regularly watch video/TV on a computer
17% often browse the internet on their mobile phone
100% have a profile on a social networking site

OK - so 12 students isn't a very representative sample, but the results are interesting nonetheless.

I was suprised at the number of students who buy newspapers, but then again these are students who are interested in the media, so you'd expect some of them to buy newspapers.

More significant was the number who regularly watch internet TV - nearly two-thirds. Chatting to them, it was clear that the group could see the benefits of being able watch what the wanted and when they wanted online with things like the BBC's iPlayer and Channel 4's 4oD.

The number of them who browsed the internet using their phones was surprisingly low, but one in five is still significant and I would imagine this increasing rapidly as the post-iPhone devices, which make browsing so much easier, become ubiquitous.

The social networking thing is probably the most powerful message. 100% participation in social networking gives you an idea of how savvy this generation is when it comes to consuming and taking part in digital media.