Dutch Problogger Ernst-Jan Pfauth» blog inspiration Archives – Dutch Problogger Ernst-Jan Pfauth

Pick your medium. Every day

Ernst-Jan Pfauth — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 21:02:46 +0000

,,Go kill more trees”, my friend Edial cheerfully replied when I told him about my upcoming blog book. ,,While you’re writing articles for the newspaper, don’t forget your personal blog”, Erwin Blom warned me on Twitter. Are you a journalist or a blogger, people ask me frequently. Hell, I don’t know guys. I just publish. And for every story, I pick the most suitable medium.

Twitter piece in NRC weekly magazine

This week, the Saturday edition of NRC Handelsblad printed a story I wrote about Twitter. It was a piece for the beginner, the kinda person who has only heard about Twitter on the news here and there. I tried to convince the reader to give Twitter a go for a few tweets. Sure, I could’ve written that piece for a NRC blog, but I bet most people who read blogs have a fairly good idea what the use of Twitter is.

Same goes for the book I’m writing. I want to promote the use of blogs, since I think it’s a great medium for people to share knowledge and experiences about their profession or hobby. I could’ve published it as an ebook. But since I wanted to reach people who don’t really know what blogs are, I’ve opted for a traditional book.

When finding an awesome Internet movie (like the QT mixtape), I don’t write a short article about it for the newspaper. No, I blog about it and embed the movie on the nrc.next blog.

And uhm, when considering an inside story like this, I always choose to save it for my blog. My personal blog.

Are you switching between medium types?

That’s about it guys. Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and publicize.

Stop Wondering What Readers Want, It Leads to Mediocrity

Ernst-Jan Pfauth — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 16:23:19 +0000

Newsflash: in the endless discussions about the future of journalism, most people are asking the wrong question: ,,What does the reader want?” What follows are assumptions about the behavior of the new news consumer. ,,He doesn’t want to pay for news”, ,,He’s only going to read from epaper”, etc etc.

Well, two things:

Assumption is the mother of all f*ckups
The reader has NO clue what he wants

Like Steve Jobs said: ,,If I asked consumers what they wanted, Apple would’ve never made the iPod.” Same goes for news. Journalists are the experts. They know what it takes to cover current affairs. They know how to write an essay. In short: they know their profession.

So now it’s time for them to start thinking about how they should present their news stories.

Last Saturday I met one of Amsterdam’s best reporters. He calls himself an old-fashioned journalist. That day, a research story of him was featured on a spread. It took a lot of work, and it definitely stirred up some stuff. There wasn’t an online version.

I asked him: ,,Shouldn’t you’ve linked to documents, extra witnesses stories, and video material? Shouldn’t you’ve published the audio interviews? And why wasn’t there any supporting video material?”

,,You’re absolutely right”, he said. ,,That would’ve been a better journalistic production.” ,,But I’m not going to do it. I’m a traditional journalist and I will remain one.”

Who can blame him? He’s in the autumn of his career. He writes great stories and doesn’t wanna be bothered with seminars to learn this new media stuff.

Thus I asked him: ,,What if a young journalist would help you with all that?”

,,That would be magnificent”, he replied.

Journalists should think how a medium can help them getting the information across. And if they don’t know how to use the tools, young guns can help them. Cause in the end, every good journalist wants his story to be heard.

Another example: I’m writing a story about Augmented Reality. I’ll use the newspaper to bring the general story. The blog for some more examples. I’ll ask the video team to shoot a demonstration. And I’ll promote it on Twitter and Facebook.

I’m a blogger! How does this concern me?

You’re not into journalism but just want blog tips? Sure enough. You can use the above story as an advice to ignore all ‘how to grow blog traffic’-articles. They’re based on mediocrity. Just think how you can get your message across.

What Journalists Can Learn From Rock Stars

Ernst-Jan Pfauth — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 15:22:15 +0000

Newspapers are dying – you probably know that by now. Online news is their hope, but there’s no business model (yet). We can be sure of thing though: at some point, somebody has to pay for quality news. It doesn’t really matter those who are paying are readers or advertisers. What matters, is that quality newspapers can show their audience that their news is worth paying for.

Every expert journalist is a rock star. Just like Ezra Koenig from Vampire Weekend. Photo: Anne Helmond

When The Times announced that they’d start charging for online news, its editor indicated the costs of quality journalism. He said it had cost the Times €1.6m ($2.4m) to run a Baghdad bureau for the duration of the Iraq war and €11,000 ($16,363.33) to send a correspondent to report on violence in northern Sri Lanka.

Whether it’s dumb idea of The Times or not, the editor got one thing right. He showed people how much quality journalism costs. It’s not free, like many people seem to think. No: training, paying, and facilitating expert journalists is incredibly expensive. It costs years of investigating till you can give good analyses of conflicts in the Middle East.

The story you read about China’s economy in the free daily isn’t of the same quality as the one you read in a quality newspaper. Why? Because the economy editor of the quality newspaper is one of the best in his country. He didn’t just copy/pasted a Reuters report, he also did his own research. He asked the China correspondent for more insight. And he discussed it with his fellow writers.

But somehow, quality newspapers fail to show the audience that advantage. There used to be a time when just the name of the newspaper was enough. ,,Oh, it’s in the New York Times? Well, it must be true then.” In this new media age, the role of the brand has become considerably smaller. ,,It’s just another news website.”

So what should newspapers do? Well, how about a spotlight on the expert editors? Show a picture, mention the experience of the writer in a short biography, make it personal. Show the audience how concerned the journalist really is with the subject. Let him build a reputation in his field. Better yet, make him the face of the field. They’re the rock stars of the news company.

The New York Times is on the right track. On their Twitter Lists site, the newspaper features some of its expert editors:

Featured editors of The New York Times on Twitter

Have a look at the account of Brian Stelter for example. He’s a digital media editor. You can see what kind of sources he tracks, a few insights in his personal life and of course links to stories he wrote. Over 14,000 people follow him. They know he’s an expert. They trust him. And when he writes a bloody good story, they might even pay to read his stuff.

So, dear newspapers, show the audience how great your journalists really are. Treat them like rock stars. Prove to your readers – every single time – why you are a source for quality journalism. And then, when a business model for online news emerges, your readers will be a lot more willing to pay for your trustworthy and thorough reporting.

16 Movies for Journalists, the Follow Up

Ernst-Jan Pfauth — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 20:52:06 +0000

Last June, I was facing a potential boring Sunday evening. So I twittered whether anyone knew an inspiring, rock ‘n’ rollish or just tough journalism movie. Man, I received a whole lotta great tips from my fellow twitter users. As a blogger at a newspaper, I loved the blogger-versus-journalists references in State of Play, dreamed of an All the President’s Men scenario and sang along with Tiny Dancer when watching Almost Famous. After collecting the movie tips, I compiled a list on the very blog you’re looking at. The result: now also blog readers were sending in tips. It would be a waste not to include them in a second list, so, well, here you go. 16 movies for journalists, the follow up (Part one here). Oh and if you know a movie that isn’t featured in the two lists, don’t hesitate to comment!

(In random order, descriptions by IMDB & trailers from YouTube)

The Hunting Party (2007)

How can they find the world’s most wanted war criminal when the C.I.A. can’t? [by actually looking]

A young journalist, a seasoned cameraman and a discredited war correspondent embark on an unauthorized mission to find the no. 1 war criminal in Bosnia; they find themselves in serious jeopardy when they are mistaken as a CIA hit squad and their target decides to come after them. (7.0 on imdb).
Suggested by Antonie

Dutch Problogger Ernst-Jan Pfauth» blog inspiration Archives – Dutch Problogger Ernst-Jan Pfauth

Pick your medium. Every day

Stop Wondering What Readers Want, It Leads to Mediocrity

I’m a blogger! How does this concern me?

What Journalists Can Learn From Rock Stars

16 Movies for Journalists, the Follow Up

The Hunting Party (2007)

Harrison’s Flowers (2000)

Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

Nothing But the Truth (2008)

His Girl Friday (1940)

Brüno (2009)

The Constant Gardener (2005)

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)

Salvador (1986)

Zodiac (2007)

La Dolce Vita (1960)

Under Fire (1983)

The Pelican Brief (1983)

Män som hatar kvinnor (2009)

Network (1976)

Lions for Lambs (2007)

24 must-see movies for journalists (and 3 series)

All The President’s Men (1976)

Shattered Glass (2003)

Parallax View (1974)

Foreign Correspondent (1940)

Year of Living Dangerously (1982)

Killing Fields (1984)

Professione: reporter (1975)

Citizen Kane (1941)

The Insider (1999)

Good Night, and Good Luck (2005)

Infamous (2006)

Control Room (2004)

Runaway Jury (2003)

Charlie Wilson’s War

Final Edition (2007)

Wag the Dog (1997)

Frost/ Nixon (2008)

A Mighty Heart (2007)

État de Siège (1972)

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)

Syriana (2005)

Capote (2005)

State of Play (2009)

Almost famous (2000)

And some series

The Wire, season 5 (2007)

State of Play (2003)

Live from Baghdad (2002)

Missing a great journalism movie here? Drop a line in the comments!

Bloggers should ‘drag’ journalists into the eye of the storm

Want to strike gold? Combine new technologies with old quality standards

How the early work of your heroes can make you a hero

Find the early work of your hero

Nike was right

Internet is the new LSD

Interesting links

The presentation

The Tim O’Reilly talk

How to get more from life: hussle, have swagger & text Branson

The Branson Connection

Swagger

It all comes together with hustling