Pixels & Paper

Notes, references and recollections from a life lived in between pixels and paper.

[treedance]

Verification Handbook

In times of crisis our social spaces become troves of information. Misinformation too as journalists and ordinary citizens try to make heads and tails of what’s going on around them.

Enter the European Journalism Centre which just released the Verification Handbook, a collection of essays and case studies from journalists at the BBC, Storyful, ABC and other news organizations.

In their introduction to the collection, Craig Silverman and Rina Tsubaki write:

A disaster is no time to try to verify on the fly. It’s not the moment to figure out what your standards and practices are for handling crowdsourced information. Yet it’s what many - too many - newsrooms and other organizations do.

Fortunately, an abundance of tools, technologies and best practices have emerged in recent years that enable anyone to master the new art of verification, and more are being developed all the time.

It is, in the end, about achieving a harmony of two core elements: Preparing, training and coordinating people in advance and during an emergency; and providing them with access and resources to enable them to take full advantage of the ever-evolving tools that can help with verification.

The combination of the human and the technological with a sense of direction and diligence is ultimately what helps speed and perfect verification. Admittedly, however, this is a new combination, and the landscape of tools and technologies can change quickly.

This book synthesizes the best advice and experience by drawing upon the expertise of leading practitioners from some of the world’s top news organizations, NGOs, volunteer and technical communities, and even the United Nations. It offers essential guidance, tools and processes to help organizations and professionals serve the public with reliable, timely information when it matters most.

The online edition is here. ePub and PDF versions are coming soon.

[pxlppr]

A valuable resource.

[theatlantic]

Sit Back, Relax, And Read That Long Story — on Your Phone

Earlier this month, Buzzfeed published a story called “Why I Bought a House in Detroit for $500.” It ended up getting more than a million pageviews, which is notable because the story is also more than 6,000 words long. The other notable thing: 47 percent of those views came from people accessing the story on mobile devices. And while people who read the piece on tablets spent an average of more than 12 minutes with the story, those doing so on phones  spent more than 25 minutes—a small eternity, in Internet time. 

Those stats are, if not counterintuitive, then counter-conventional: The working assumption, among media executives and most of the public who cares about such things, has long been that phones are best suited for quick-hit stories and tweets rather than immersive, longform reads. And while content producers have attempted to take advantage of the “lean-back” capabilities of the tablet (see, for example, tablet-optimized products like The Atavist), phone use has generally been seen as flitting and fleeting—the stuff of grocery store lines and bus rides. ”The average mobile reader tends to skim through headlines and snackable content as opposed to diving into long-form articles,” Mobile Marketer put it in late October.

Read more. [Image: kgnixer/Flickr]

[pxlppr]

Interesting.

[globalvoices]

The interactive platform Ojo al voto wants to provide young voters with useful and straightforward information about the upcoming presidential and legislative elections in Costa Rica, scheduled for February 2, 2014.

Online Platform ‘Ojo al Voto’ Seeks to Lure Young Costa Rican Voters

[pxlppr]

Great overview of Costa Rica's electorate education program.

[globalvoices]

A series of recently leaked emails between the chief editor and sub-editor of a leading English newspaper in Hong Kong, regarding the coverage of mainland Chinese political activist Li Wangyang’s staged suicide, has raised concerns that a once well-respected and independent newspaper might be slipping into red territory.

[dimplevjk-deactivated20190110]

[pewinternet]

Electronic reading: It’s what’s happening.

Did you get an e-reader/tablet for Hanukkah/Xmas? Our new stats show that there’s been a recent jump in e-book reading, while print reading is on the decline; and in all, the # of owners of either a tablet computer or e-book reading device such as a Kindle or Nook grew from 18% in late 2011 to 33% in late 2012.

The full report: http://pewrsr.ch/ZDqqKD

[thesmithian-blog]

People in the U.S., France, Japan, and Brazil are all consuming more of their news digitally than ever before. But whether they will pay for a national news story—or post that article on Facebook once they find it…varies widely…It’s…a reminder that the U.S. media landscape isn’t a universal example…“Partly because the U.S. is so big, it’s such a pioneer, it’s done so much innovation, everyone thinks everything that happens in the U.S. happens in the same way everywhere…One of the surprising things is, I don’t think that’s happening.”

more.

[stephenkennedy]

Open Data Index

"The Open Data Index is an initiative of the Open Knowledge Foundation based on contributions from open data advocates and experts around the world. The Index results were compiled from the data collected from the Open Data Census. You can see a list of our global community of contributors here.”

[globalvoices]

Have you read the Ethical Code?

This week, we report on scary new Internet laws in Peru and Ecuador, blocked sites in Morocco and Tajikistan’s all-in-one ICT “ethics code.”

Netizen Report: Tajikistan’s ICT Ethics Code Forbids Online Harassment, “Unpleasant Sounds”

[pxlppr]

Discouraging developments.

[pxlppr]

The Internet is transforming almost every element of the news business: shortening news cycles, eroding long-reliable revenue sources, and enabling new kinds of competition, some of which bear little or no news-gathering costs. There is no map, and charting a path ahead will not be easy. We will need to invent, which means we will need to experiment. Our touchstone will be readers, understanding what they care about – government, local leaders, restaurant openings, scout troops, businesses, charities, governors, sports – and working backwards from there. I’m excited and optimistic about the opportunity for invention.

Jeff Bezos on the market he will be facing.  

[fred-wilson]

Journalism plays a critical role in a free society

Jeff Bezos on Post purchase - The Washington Post (via fred-wilson)

[pxlppr]

The best way to change such attitudes, however, would be for Washington to take the initiative in establishing a new diplomatic and economic modus vivendi with Havana. In the short term, the two countries have numerous practical problems to solve together, including environmental and security challenges, as well as the fate of high-profile nationals serving time in U.S. and Cuban prisons. Most of the policy steps Obama should take at this stage -- removing Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, eliminating obstacles for all Americans to travel there, and licensing greater trade and investment -- would not require congressional approval or any grand bargain with Havana. Although it might be politically awkward in the United States for a president to be seen as helping Castro, on the island, such measures would strengthen the case that Cuba can stand to become a more open, democratic society without succumbing to external pressure or subversion. Deeper commercial ties, moreover, could have repercussions beyond the economic realm, giving internal reformers more leeway and increasing support on the island for greater economic and political liberalization.

Sweig, Julia E., and Michael J. Bustamante. "Cuba After Communism." Foreign Affairs. 11 June 2013. Web. 22 July 2013. 

[pxlppr]

Article: Despite Bans, China's Uyghurs Wear their Identity with Pride

Despite Bans, China's Uyghurs Wear their Identity with Pride http://globalvoicesonline.org/2013/03/27/despite-bans-chinas-uyghurs-wear-their-identity-with-pride/

[urbanlaunchpad]

Kickstarter Update #5: Designing Dhaka’s Bus Map

Dear backers,

Sorry it’s been so long since you’ve heard from us. We have been working hard trying to translate all the data that we collected into something simple to understand and excessively useful for bus riders in Dhaka. We started with the fairly complicated map of the bus lines - already clustered into fewer lines based on their general direction e.g. north-south, east-west and mapped topologically to the exact geographic coordinates of Dhaka. When we showed this prototype to our partners, they quickly and strongly told us that we needed to make something simpler, something more like a New York City subway map.

So we went back to work and came up with our almost-printable map below. Since we want to make sure this map works for our intended audience of bus riders in Dhaka, we are going to wait to hear from our on-the-ground print distribution before we show you the complete first version. We have been busy preparing for the soft launch in Dhaka for the next few weeks but there have been the usual hartals (city-wide protests that keep most people off the roads) and the unusual natural disasters (20 people died from a tornado southeast of Dhaka).

We did want to tell you a little more about this design itself, in case you had any feedback. First, we are calling this version alpha and being clear that this map is only 75% correct. We are opening a sign-up list to gather a local flock of evangelists to help bring the map to 99% and to help us keep updating the map in the future, since the system is likely going to change.

Second, we moved toward a more diagrammatic rendition of the bus network that would primarily display the entirety of the system in relation to the key locations in the city, as opposed to geographic accuracy. (Eddie Jabbour, designer of the NYC Kickmap, has a great read on the differences between topographic and diagrammatic versions of the New York City subway map).We did do some mental map experiments in Dhaka and tried to mimic a bit of how people from Dhaka saw their city (thanks Kevin Lynch from MIT!). Based on these mental maps, the team felt that topographic accuracy was less important, and people would understand the system more clearly based on labeled location names. A diagrammatic approach provided far more flexibility in terms of spacing lines and labels for readability.

Third, while we would’ve loved to use the official route numbers, we found that not every route had a number and those that did, rarely had them on the buses themselves so they were not always known to riders. Instead, we used roman numerals (instead of the Bangla numerals in which the official route numbers are listed) to re-number and re-cluster the system. This perhaps took us the longest but we are hoping this will make it easier for someone to quickly understand the many lines moving through the city.

Finally we, designed this map to print at A3 size (a little larger than a tabloid sized sheet) and be foldable so that it could be easily fit into one’s pocket.

We will keep you posted on how the initial distribution goes and thanks for all your patience and support! Right now, the Kewkradong team is busy translating all the English labels into Bangla and coordinating with the local printers.Once the initial launch happens in Dhaka, we can also begin to fulfill our supporter rewards for you all and begin concepting designs for the other elements of the bus infostructure so that they relate to the design of the bus map.

All the best, Stephen, chief designer at the Urban Launchpad

[pxlppr]

Designing Dhaka's bus map. Such a great use of all the crowds. Good luck to the team.

[readmatter-deactivated20140804]

Last night I spoke at the Hacks/Hackers London meet up as previously advertised. Others on stage included John Bracken of the Knight Foundation (via Skype) and David Leigh, the award-winning investigations editor of The Guardian. The subject? Business models for journalism.

It’s obviously a...

[pxlppr]

Good update on the Hacks/Hackers London as well as the progress of the sustainability discussions in the UK.  

[pxlppr]

A Book Is a Start-up: Lessons from Leanpub, Net Minds, and Other Publishing Hustlers : The New Yorker

[pxlppr]

Adam Gopnik: Philip Roth Turns Eighty : The New Yorker

Gopnik on the challenges on being a professional writer in the current media deluge.