Local news at a simple glace (update)

Few days ago, Jan Martynowski, one of the online journalists of Concentra (the publisher of the two regional newspapers hbvl.be and gva.be) sent me an email to draw my attention on a new application hbvl.be recently started. Since the newspaper's focus is on regional and local news, online readers can insert their postal code to get referred to the news from their neigbourhood. Since few days, it is not only possible to select the news based on the postal code. A google map makes it able to visualize the region and to select the news by clicking on on specified city or village and further on by clicking at a specific news item (which are represented by flags on the map). Users can select which neigbourhood, which period and which type of news (e.g. general news, fire, theft, accident) they want to see on their screen.

In my opinion, the option provided by the newspaper to choose between a postal code or a google map is the right one. Perhaps they should focus even more on the latter option, since clicking on a map is more tempting then inserting a postal code. It provides the news at a simple glace on the google map. Can it be easier? I wonder how long it will take until the other regional newspaper, gva.be, will adopt this great feature.

Update: It seems that also Het Nieuwsblad Online started to use this kind of feature. As predicted, also GVA.be already uses maps to visualize local news.

ECREA symposium @ Brussels

Today, I presented a paper at the ECREA symposium in Brussels on "The Myth of the Global Internet", organised by the Free University of Brussels. In 'speaking of meta; questioning the internet as a homogeneorus and global news medium', I discussed some of my theoretical approaches and conclusions from the content analysis and online survey I conducted during the last two years.

Since there were not all too many participants, the discussions after the presentations was more profound than this is usually the case. I especially enjoyed the lecture and critical thoughts of today's keynote speaker, Prof. Andrew Calabrese. I also want to thank Prof. Van Audenhove and Prof. Morganti for inviting me at this symposium.

Refering from online to offline

Maybe not as unusual as it seems to be at first glance, but I found it rather strange to read this article on Gva.be
It is kind of a teaser for an article in the print edition of the newspaper. In the end of the online article, the journalist writes 'more in Gazet van Anwterpen' (= the offline paper). Normally, print papers refer to the online digital paper to provide extra information, but in this case, the opposite is true. As I read this article around midnight, I also wonder in which edition of the newspaper I can read this article: today's print newspaper or that of tomorrow?

The immediacy of online news

Live, minute-to-minute coverage of the Police concert in Antwerp on Nieuwsblad.be
We've already seen this with all kinds of sports activities, but in my opinion, this is the first time with regard to a music concert in Belgium. If not, let me know!

Collaboration between De Standaard en Luc Tuymans (few remarks)

Yesterday, Luc Tuymans (famous Belgian painter) worked at the print paper of De Standaard. His task was to select and provide pictures to illustrate the news stories. The result is great, as we can see in today's newspaper.
This visit got a lot of attention on the Standaard Online, the digital newspaper of De Standaard. It is nice to see that the online journalists have provided a photo-tray, some audio fragments, a discussion forum about the special print paper, and so on.
There are, however, two things I don't fully understand:

The first question I have is why De Standaard Online uses Youtube to present some video fragments. Due to the limited storage capacities of the Youtube server, the quality is not fantastic. Not a problem for most of the video stories as we are all happy to see some action, the quality is of secondary importance. But since Luc Tuymans was at the editorial office and since someone of De Standaard should have filmed the movie, then why not uploading the video without using Youtube in order to have better quality? Why not using flash-movies or integrated movies like on vrtnieuws.net?

Secondly, I don't understand why Luc's pictures only were used for the print edition of the paper and not for the online counterpart. Probably because one could fear that if the pictures were already used during the day on the digital paper, less people would buy the print paper the day after. Personally, I think that this type of cannibalism is overestimated, especially with regard to pictures.

Thirdly, Luc Tuymans state that he's using online news media for foreign news, but that he prefers to read print papers when looking for national news, since print papers 'provides more space for nuances and complex theories'. Since one of the key features of the online news and the internet in general is the unlimited space for publication and the possibility to link different kinds of information by the use of internal and external hyperlinks, I think this stereotype of 'the online news as shallow and limited with regard to complex information' is remarkable. There can be two reasons for this stereotype: it can be that the internet is not fully making use of the potentialities of the digital environment and that the online journalists are putting limited information online. Or, news readers do make limited use of the potentialities of the internet, not making fully use of all the online sub-media like links, discussion fora, news blogs and other that are related to a news story.
To illustrate this with the Luc Tuymans story itself: online news consumers can read, listen, see and even discuss the collaboration between De Standaard and Luc Tuymans. There's online much more to consume than in the print paper about Luc Tuymans, with even links to other works of this Belgian painter. In my opinion, most of the digital news papers in Belgium are providing enough links, media, and communication possibilities to consume the news in a non-limited or non-shallow way. Things can only be better, but if I need some background, I can be satisfied with the information I can found online. We just need to get rid of these kinds of non-nuanced and non-complex stereotypes as if the online news is shallow and limited, perhaps by learning the authors of these expressions to use the online news in an appropriate way.