I’m now blogging over at my new site, DaveLee.me.

Please update your bookmarks and RSS feeds! As ever, I’m on Twitter.

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Posted in Blogs

Oh my.

There’s a lot to be said about Sir David Tang’s ICorrect. Sky have given the background. It’s a new website which invites celebrities and other public figures to, the creator says, “correct permanently any lies, misinformation and misrepresentations that permeate in cyberspace”.

Users can sign up, bring attention to a mistake and then write their side of the story alongside it. This is important, they say, as “the likes of Wikipedia and Google searches consist entirely of hearsays”. Apparently, ICorrect lets users permanently “correct” these sites.

That’s an odd claim. It does nothing to change the websites in question, and it comes at an extortionate price: £600 a year, or £3,100 if you’re a company.

Amazingly, it seems to boast top names like Michael Caine, Naomi Campbell and Cherie Blair.

It’s probably the greatest get rich quick scheme I’ve ever come across – an inkling which was confirmed with this priceless correction from Sir John Bond, the chairman of communications giant Vodafone:

I wish to correct my entry in Wikipedia. I was born on 24 July 1941. I am not The Honourable. I joined The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation at the age of 19, not 21. I have not worked in the Middle East. I was posted to New York, not Buffalo. I spent one year in the USA as an English-Speaking Union scholarship student at Cate School, near Santa Barbara, California, not two years.

Incredible. £600 to correct a mistake on a freely-editable online encyclopedia. Hilariously, the Wikipedia entry is still wrong.

Tell you what, celebs, I’ll charge you £300 for five years to write your corrections to the international media in the comments of this post. Knock yourself out.

16 comments »

Posted in Comment, Multimedia, Newspapers, Social Networking, The Future, The Web

In many ways, it was perfect SEO-fodder: a funny gaffe, pretty American journalist… all wrapped with the topic of the moment, the Grammy Awards.

As CBS reporter Serene Branson prepared to introduce a segment about the awards, something strange happened. Her speech slurred, she lost her place, she seemed distracted. It is – on the face of it – quite hilarious. But as newspapers across the world rushed to get the clips on their sites, many of them should have taken a step back and asked why it happened.

It is emerging now that Serene may have suffered a stroke on air. I say may because we’re not altogether sure yet – all that we do know is that she was taken to hospital after that segment. [UPDATE: It has since emerged that while Ms Branson was observed by paramedics afterwards, she did not need to go to hospital.]

But, as she undergoes tests, and as her family, friends and colleagues worry – newspapers are running stories like these:

“Grammy’s reporter goes gaga” said The Sun, before hastily changing its headline to read “Grammy’s journo taken to hospital“. You’ll notice that while The Sun rephrased much of its story to suit a sombre tone, they haven’t given the same luxury to its readers – many of whose comments still appear from the previous article. “That’s so funny!” says one, referring, of course, to the original story’s content.

The Daily Record got in on it too, quickly removing a article which started with:

Serene Branson was presenting for CBS2 at the biggest music bash in the world when she struggled to put together a coherent sentence

Hastily replacing it minutes later with:

CBS reporter Serene Branson was last night under observation in hospital after it was feared she may have suffered a stroke live on air during the Grammy Awards broadcast.

But perhaps worst of all – posted well after the news of Ms Branson’s apparent stroke – is this effort from 3am, the gossip section of the Daily Mirror:

If this Grammys video clip doesn’t make you laugh out loud, see a doctor

We don’t know why we bothered with the gazillion pictures of dresses, suits, shoes and the leopard we showed you earlier – this is all the Grammys coverage you need.

Serene Branson is an American TV presenter with blonde coiffed hair, very white teeth (naturally, well… probably not naturally, compulsory) and lashings of make-up. All good so far, except she can’t speak… a word. Not even a word that resembles one you’ve heard before. Watch it – it’s officially hilarious.

As I type, the article remains on 3am.co.uk. I hope, sincerely, that it gets removed/edited soon.

But this raises a couple of issues. Number one, did all of these sites get so excited that they forget to use their common news sense? Did it not occur to them that there could be more to it? Number two, for those that have edited, is it acceptable for newspapers to republish video of someone who maybe having a stroke?

Disclosure: I posted this on my own Tumblr this morning – without giving thought to a further problem. I’m not surprised that these places saw the video and figured it would make a great story – but I wonder if, in the rush to be first up with a story, they forget an editorial process which should prevent stories like this getting out there.

UPDATE:

Staggeringly, I’ve just discovered this report from the New York Daily News. Which, despite making reference to her hospitalisation, still pokes fun at Ms Branson’s “gibberish”:

A Los Angeles reporter delivered a bizarre string of gibberish on live television Sunday night while at the Grammys.

ANOTHER UPDATE:

3am.co.uk have removed their story.

How did Fox News treat the situation? Like this:

42 comments »

Posted in The Web

I was lucky, earlier this week, to finally get my hands on a lovely new iPhone 4. It is simply the most sophisticated gadget I’ve ever owned – not to mention the most expensive. But while I’m still in the giddy ‘new gadget’ love-in, it certainly won’t take my affections away from the best thing in my bag – the Amazon Kindle.

I bought the WiFi-only version just before Christmas. It was at the time of the massive ad campaign from Amazon – and I’d hazard a guess that there were more Kindle ads than Kindles in London at one point. It worked – curiosity of my fellow commuters meant a lot of “oh… is that a Kindle? How do you find it?” questions on my journeys around the capital. There are less now, I’m assuming that many who’d wondered about the Kindle had got one, or given one, as a holiday gift.

It’s certain that popularity is growing. Indeed, we’re hearing now that in the last three months of 2010, in the US, Amazon sold more e-books than actual paperbacks.

I guess we all have our reasons for liking the device. But here are mine. For the Kindlerati among us, please add your own…

1. It doesn’t do very much

I thought long and hard over whether to shell out the extra few quid and get the 3G version of the Kindle before deciding it wasn’t worth it. I don’t need the internet when I’m reading. If anything, it’s the internet that’s been stopping me reading all these years anyway – a constant distraction, flickery lights that take me away from good old-fashioned literature.

So when people say, “It’s not as good as the iPad, you can’t do much else with it”, I say, “GOOD! That’s the point!”.

Think of it this way: What’s the best book you’ve ever read? Remember how engrossed you were, as if the world could collapse around you and you still wouldn’t notice. Now – imagine missing out on that because you suddenly got distracted by playing a bit of Angry Birds.

Seems crazy to think – but while a device could do a million-and-one things at a time, that’s just a million reasons for you not to read. And for me, the Kindle was about reading. Nothing else.

Nobody has ever criticised a paperback’s inability to send a tweet. So why do people get hung up on a feature-lite device?

2. It’s allowed me to enjoy long-form writing again

Nobody reads anything online. We think we do, but really we read the first few bits of text, skim around, check out the hot pictures (if it’s the Daily Mail…) and move along to something else. That’s not reading.

I guess that theory means you’ve stopped reading this by now, but I’ll trudge on regardless. By using the brilliant Instapaper, I’m able to see something good, interesting and long-form and, rather than stop everything I’m doing right there, I can just click a bookmarklet and send it to my Kindle for reading later. Bliss.

I’m not the only one. LongReads.com is one of a few sites promoting the best long-form writing from around the web. I’m hooked.

3. Project Gutenburg

I can still hardly believes this exists. Project Gutenburg looks pretty naff (if I’m quite honest), but it’s a gateway to a library of some of humankind’s greatest achievements.

The site allows the free download of books in the public domain. Often, this means books which were written so long ago that their copyright has since expired. Selected personal highlights: The Time Machine, Sherlock Holmes and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.

Project Gutenberg is the perfect way to – if you’re like me – catch up on all those classics that you really should have read, but never got round to.

Worth pointing out too that Gutenberg books work on all e-readers, and come in a variety of languages. Tasty.

4. I don’t have to be its mother

I’ve had the Kindle for well over a month now, and I’ve charged it, er, twice. And that includes when I first opened it up.

Now bear in mind that in that time I’ve read five books, at least 50 articles and endured two 25-hour flights to and from Australia and you’ll start to have some idea of the juice this little thing can hold.

Being able to not think about gadgets is important for me. Sometimes, with my iPhone, I feel like I’m looking after a small child.

Where a mum would do the customary “do you need a wee wee before we go shopping?”, I constantly need to mentally ask my iPhone: “Are you going to need a little chargey-charge before I go out tonight?”

The Kindle… it just is, you know? It’s in my bag. And if I fancy reading, I can.

5. It doesn’t make me want to puke on the bus

Reading in a moving vehicle makes me want to die. Seriously. I lose all the colour in my face (which, as the Palest Person on Earth, is quite scary) and want to vom.

I’ve asked a few people over time and it turns out I’m not the only one. Now this isn’t a problem if you don’t get driven to lots of places – but for anyone who has experience the No. 25 bus from Tottenham Court Road to Stratford will know, it’s a long and bumpy ride.

Imagine how delighted I was, then, to discover that by bumping up the font size a little, I can eliminate the nausea which previous cursed my boring journeys.

3 comments »

Posted in Books, Five Things, Multimedia, The Future, The Web

Tags: amazon apple ipad kindle reading

Last week, Ghana and Sunderland striker Asamoah Gyan was named the BBC’s African Footballer of the Year.

After having what can only be described as a truly exhilarating World Cup, Gyan has silenced many doubters as he shifted from the mad-dash style of African football into the altogether more rugged world of the Premier League.

I am certain he will go down in history as one of Africa’s greatest ever footballers, if not the greatest. But no matter what he does in the future, he will always be remembered for his part in one of the most dramatic nights in world football.

I was there. Well, I felt like I was there. I think I was in the third most I-was-there-feeling place possible. No, I wasn’t in the stadium. Nor was I even in Ghana. I was instead in a cramped, sweaty bar in Brixton. It had, for that one night at least, a piece of Africa’s soul.

My reason for visiting wasn’t just to soak up the atmosphere. I wanted to produce an audio slideshow of the night as a way of experimenting with some newish equipment of mine: an SLR (bought), a high-quality Marantz (borrowed) and SoundSlides (long fiddled with, never fully utilised).

Sadly, we couldn’t use the slideshow on the BBC site, and it has, until now, sat gathering dust on my hard drive. But, as Gyan collects his well-deserved award, I thought now a good time to relive that night in Jo’burg.

The events unfolded in incredible fashion. Ghana took the lead through Sully Muntari just before half-time, before Diego Forlan – who was later named player of the tournament – equalised in the second half. It stayed 1-1 until the final minute of extra-time when a scandalous handball on the line gifted Ghana with a last-gasp penalty – and the chance to be the first African team to ever reach a World Cup semi-final.

Asamoah Gyan stepped up, but fired the ball against the bar, and with it crushed the dreams of a continent. Ghana went on to lose the match on penalties. It was simply devastating. I can’t describe the emotions in the bar that night, so I’d like to invite you to watch the slideshow below – I think it conveys the hurt pretty well. As one text message sent to the BBC live text team remarked: “Football, how cruel and beautiful you are.”

(Pictures, audio and slideshow production by myself – with a touch of extra audio gathering (and beer delivery) from Ben James and Ben Sutherland. Cheers lads.)

I was heartbroken that night. That game was about more than football – and I hope the slideshow at least gives some idea about what that result meant – or could have meant – to the people of that country.

Brazilian football legend Pele once famously said that an Africa team would win the World Cup before the year 2000. Of course, he was wrong. But it will happen one day, and I believe Ghana have the best shot at it. I plan to be in Brixton when it happens.

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Posted in Multimedia, My Work, Sport, The BBC, The Web, work

Tags: audio slideshow brixton football ghana world cup

You know, while this is a blog about journalism, and one that you’d expect to examine the techniques and developments in how we report online, it would seem almost crude to do that with this example.

After all, sometimes the best journalism is in the act of getting out of the way. And there is perhaps no better example of this than this link I was sent today.

I didn’t know who Shana Greatman Swers was. And, by all rights, I had no need to pry into her tragic world. Nor did I have any right to be a part of her husband’s grief, or the sadness of her friends and family.

And yet, it’s that family’s bravery that has made Shana’s story become more than a statistic. And it’s the invention of the Washington Post’s webteam which has put this story in a format which facilitates an impact which will leave you speechless.

UPDATE: Interestingly, Bobbie Johnson seems to see it from another angle – tweeting that the format of this seems “oddly impersonal”. I can see his point – the annotate format is something we’re more used to seeing for far more mundane subjects – but I can’t think of something more personal than seeing how a story unfolded as told by the people it affected the most. What do we think?

1 comment »

Posted in Multimedia, Newspapers, Social Networking, The Web

Tags: facebook shana greatman swers washington post