Zuma and wife number 5

Is the ANC leader an ambassador or an embarrassment?
Reading the Sunday Times article regarding Jacob Zuma taking a fifth and possibly sixth wife has got me asking all sorts of questions. It appears that polygamy is okay under customary law however it is not legal in a court of law. This means that a man can have more than one wife in South Africa. This is rather a contentious issue.

By Lizette & Wade.

For the the rest of this popular Reporter.co.za article go here.

NVDL: Lizette is one of the Intec Bursary winners on Reporter.co.za. The final bursary will be given away at the end of February.

Capture the news on your cellphone

Become a part of the news reporting process with News24

Next time you witness something newsworthy that you think News24 Users would like to see, just snap a picture or a video on your cellphone camera and e-mail it or MMS it to photos@news24.com.

If it's a big scoop, we'll contact you immediately, get your details, and publish it live on News24.
You could also win big in our That's News to Me competition!

News24 Users have got into the swing of things already with these great galleries:

The big brrrr by Various News24 Users
Heavy rains in Cape Town by Various News24 Users
Fire in Stellenbosch by Various News24 Users
A UFO or a vapour trail? by Deon Williams
Armed robbery in Newlands by Various News24 Users
Shooting in Fourways Mall by Andre Raubenheimer
Bomb blast in Algiers bu Elies Belazouz
Mozambique demolition by Lorinda Steenkamp
Turmoil in Durban by Various News24 Users
The lunar eclipse by Various News24 Users

NVDL: You can do the same by submitting it to info@reporter.co.za and be paid for its published.

Ranked 2nd

2 different articles, Hypersexed and Disruptive Technologies, were both 2nd most popular on 2 respective citizen websites: Ohmynews and Reporter.

Credibility and Good Writing

What makes a great news site?

In a word: credibility. Credibility is based on high quality graphics, and good writing.

The most valuable credibility comes from firsthand encounters. That means you seeing something firsthand, and reporting it. The value erodes as this experience becomes increasingly secondhand, thirdhand and worse.

After that, good writing comes in 2 forms: the writing itself (the content) and then how it is presented.

If you're a blogger, or in charge of designing articles for websites, remember the following:

- highlight keywords (people can skim a page in 3 quarters of a second)
- create meaningful subheadings (these must not regurgitate what is in the underlying paragraph)
- provide easy to read bulleted lists (like this one)
- present one idea per paragraph
- have a pyramidical structure (presenting essentially a punchline, and then providing supporting evidence as the underlying triangular structure
- half the word count you'd generally have in magazines and the newspaper

Bullseye

An interesting question here is to what extent you would want to target your text. For example, you could make it very simple and somewhat informal, but then the risk is a diluted, blank audience who might feel 'dumbed down'. Obviously, if it is adequately simple and readable, you get a more 'Reader's Digest' audience - that is, understood by all.

3 Areas

A more targetted style of writing (which I personally prefer) means a more targetted audience, which means revenue can be generated (via content related and targetted advertising). The risk of less simple text is turning away perhaps a majority of readers who prefer non-serious 'popcorn' content. Thus a good mix between quality, credibility and accessiblity is important.

Web 1.0 or 2.0?

What impact is online news having on print media? Is blogging having an impact on the journalistic profession? Yes. But the core of writing is still being done by experts.

If you want to compete, or even talk with the big guns in writing, you have to raise your game. In the same way, if you want your story to be picked up by the major newspapers, it has to be, at a minimum, a good brief.

What that means is, whether you are a citizen journalist or working for an online newsroom, your building blocks should build SOMETHING. Then it can be handed over and using the kernels* of information you're provided, converted to a higher form of knowledge or even wisdom (in the context of news).

Of course, if an article is so hyperlocal or specialised, it might be handed back to a reporter with this demand: flesh out, develop this story.

Captain Fantastic is Elastic

Since online news sites are more flexible than the more static and deadline fixated print media, it is possible for online resources to be based on a Web First scenario. The Web, when properly integrated, can be a highly elastic source of information.

In fact, the best result of news sites in particular, is where these platforms enable users to have a conversation. Communities want to speak amopngst themselves.

When short, simple articles break very quickly online, they can be handed over whilst still 'fresh' to be elaborated and developed in the print medium. This allows the online resource to fully develop itself as a fast and efficient detector of source material.

It can then function as the first originator of flexible and consistently fresh material. The newspaper feeds back and forward to its online counterpart, integrating what is most readable, relevant and appropriate for further fleshing out on paper. In essence, newspapers ought to carry those stories that are just that: the best stories.

One Playing Field

The Web First scenario should not be interpreted as a ranking system. That's not to be implied or inferred at any level. It's a chronological system which is intended to be functionally collaborative. This means Online and Print play on the same field, but perhaps spend more time is various sectors of the field.

It is helpful for the journalists and writers involved, I think, to have an integrated approach in order for Print and Online to enjoy the maximum benefit. If the mindset is that news does not belong to anyone, it is not owned, then inhouse sharing of stories (from online to print and vice versa) can encouraged and the corporate involved will see Win/Win results in both mediums.

Another area that should be the focus of the online journalist is an online follow up on stories. This can be followed through statistics, but even without a technical focus, you the writer can check to see how much coverage your story is getting. Is it still on the homepage after Day 1?

How To Impress...

On this site a number of work related stories (including How To Impress Your Boss)have done well, which should encourage the writer to investigate his theme even further with supporting material (perhaps: How to Impress Your Colleagues in this case).

Remember, many people in South Africa have web access at work, thus work related issues are going to interest them.

Another useful area to 'mine' for ideas is forums and message boards.

Google Maps

An exceptional underutlized area (online and in the print medium) is the simple use of maps and statistics. Google Maps is an extraordinary tool. Any person can mine the internet for statistics, and then visually represent these using Google Maps for very effective articles.

This can be applied to all manner of angles, from crime, to elections, to the number of schools in your neighborhood. Where are the most expensive houses, or the best restaurants, or the big malls in your area? Plot the statistics, and send them in.

A Final Tip

For regular registered reporters on this site: if you would like to quickly search through the archive of your (or other reporter's) stories (without logging in), type in the appropriate name in the searchbar (top right).

This can be used to quickly piece together all the links to stories you (and other reporters you might be interested in) have already produced. This is your easy to use portfolio. You can email the link to friends or prospective employees.

The Incredibles

Remember, at the end of the day, credibility works both ways. Writers want to be associated with a credible resource - whether it is a website, magazine or newspaper. But all these different forms of media also want to be associated with credible people too, including writers.

Credibility as stated above, is based on effort. Good writing does not always come easy; good graphics may take a little extra time to develop and fine-tune. But over the long term, the results will compliment your portfolio.

Silver surfers rule the net

By Tom Dennen

Survey finds that oldies spend more time online than youngsters.

Media watchdog Ofcom’s UK Internet user figures are out – and are a typical reflection of affluent Internet users. Pensioners - ‘Silver Surfers’ – spend more time online than youngsters.
Pensioners surfing the internet are spending more time online than their younger counterparts. The "Silver Surfers" dedicate an average of 42 hours a month to the World Wide Web, compared with 37.9 hours among 18 to 24-year-olds, the survey concluded.

A greater interest in hobbies, news and local issues among the elderly is believed to be driving the trend, which sees over-65s account for nine per cent of all time spent online in the UK. The figures debunk the traditional image of pensioners as technophobes and youngsters as web wizards.

Disruptive Technologies: Are you armed and dangerous?

How - and why - to join the online revolution

Why blog? For the same reason people buy cargo pants (with a terrorist design), wear Crocs and use cellphones. Because everyone is doing it.

But what makes blogs different to Crocs and cargo pants is that 10 years from now, everyone will have a blog (something like a business card), except not only businessmen will introduce themselves, but brats too, through their blogs.

A 'Disruptive Technology’ according to Wikipedia is:

’...a technological innovation, product, or service that eventually overturns the existing dominant technology or status quo product in the market. Disruptive innovations can be broadly classified into lower-end and new-market disruptive innovations...’

It may sound like a mouthful, but essentially, disruptive technologies are very good for the average person. A good contemporary example is MXIT, which is giving the likes of Vodacom and MTN gray hairs in terms of losing their SMS market share. MXIT offers the same service at a fraction of the cost (each SMS costs around 1 cent).

Blogs are another excellent example of Disruptive Technologies, and in the same breath, so is Reporter.co.za. Reporter.co.za is essentially a user generated blog; it’s the crowd - you - sending us your thoughts and news. If you have a cellphone and an internet connection you can (possibly) compete with some of the best journalists out there. How? By being somewhere where they aren’t and couldn’t possibly be. You can!

Quality is a separate issue of course. People who are not trained to write, or take photos, do not always write stories or take photos that are worth the trouble to look at, or read. But sometimes they are. And sometimes they form the basis for the biggest news stories.
Some video footage for the 9/11 tragedy was provided, as I recall, by a Turkish tourist.* Someone’s cellphone provided us with footage on the London bombings, and recently, the ’London Bombings Again, Almost’.

A blog basically puts incredible power and resources into the hands of an individual. You don’t have to be a corporation with vast networks and resources to beam your message to the world.

Low Cost

You don’t need satellite dishes or banks filled with humming machines. A blog can really be quite a powerful thing: you inputting your thoughts here (on Reporter.co.za) or on your own blog (or both, as I do), and publishing them, means anyone, anywhere - whether it is Fiji or Iceland - can find you.

A mere mouseclick in an arbitrary office or bedroom means someone you don’t even know (or someone you do know) can and read and see what an individual was doing over the weekend in say, Johannesburg, a place they might otherwise never visit (or even think to visit).
A blog also provides the curious Netizen who doesn’t have a blog, with the opportunity to virtually visit, at very close quarters, the lives and times of people from New York to Nieu Bethesda.

Exciting

I find that tremendously exciting, although obviously the limit on how exciting it is depends on how exciting the person is that is loading up whatever it is they are loading onto the net.
This is a good thing to bear in mind, I think, whoever you are. Is it meaningful, is it worth knowing, is it interesting whether relevant to me or not?

Content(ious) Issues

You can make your content interesting by doing a little background research. Google and Wiki some of the terms you’re using and see what others have commented on your subject. Most important, check your own work for mistakes. Once you put it up, those flaws, if they are present, are going to put people ever investing their precious time in your thoughts.
Another reason to blog is to reach out and form, organically in a sense, niche markets, niche communities. This is an area that has made bloggers very competitive.

For example you might have a blog about fishing (the world’s largest outdoor sport), and so with a consistent theme, and updated content, you will be reaching friends and/or strangers that particularly want to be associated with you - and there’s your community. It’s specialised, and customised. This is also what Facebook is all about.

How to blog

A good blog is one that has something new on it each day. That may sound easier than it is. By some accounts there are already 200 million ex-bloggers, since most people who start blogs don’t keep them up and running forever. Some believe blogging will peak at 100 million bloggers.** I think that’s conservative and shortsighted, since China has only just started.
In the end though, good blogs are like good newspapers and magazines. They are worth reading (or watching in the case of video blogs) if the writing (or video) is good. The same applies to this website. So when is writing good, and worth reading?

Many writers, especially citizen journalists underestimate the incredible appeal of local stories. Writing about some of the main stories (for example, the debacle concerning the Health Minister) means that citizen journalists have to compete with acres and acres of excellent broadcast writing on the same subject.

To compete effectively, citizen journalists must invest themselves HYPERlocally. That means, report what is happening in your neighborhood. I recently participated in a discussion*** on this subject, where the speaker spoke about a series of stories sent in by citizens on potholes, in the United Kingdom.

Ordinary people began to take photos of the nearest hazard (using their cellphones), and then sent them in to the BBC. This started a snowball, which led to the implementation of Google Mapping (to form a grid of all the pockmarked routes in England) and probably led to some sort of broader municipal effort to sort out the problem. This story started with hyperlocal content.
You can start a blog by heading to blogger, at www.blogger.com, and follow easy setup instructions. Or, you can make use of the audience that’s here, and encourage others like yourself to do the same, right here at Reporter.co.za. Go on, join the revolution!

*If you have more details on exactly who provided the 9/11 footage, please contact Reporter.co.za and let us know

**Gartner Report’s Top 10 Predictions for 2007

***http://www.andydickinson.net/

Bicycling Article

Reporter lead story

LiveSTRONG, like Lance

Understanding his winning psychology

Daniel Coyle describes Lance Armstrong’s Psychology, which is based on fairly simple, but highly effective software, on these paradigms:

1. Binary evaluations: everything is either good or bad, there are no grey areas.
2. Attack, push, inflict yourself on the world.
3. Free yourself; block out the negative.

To understand how powerful Armstrong’s persona is in the world of cycling - it’s moved into popular mythology since - it is important to have a basic understanding of the lifestyle, and the realities, of the professional cyclist.

During the 2002 NASCAR season, there were five injuries all year. Professional cyclists (and there are approximately 400) suffer about five serious injuries a week. These injuries include having the flesh torn off your eye, punctured lungs, broken vertebrae, concussions and that staple of cycling injuries - the broken collar bone.

For the full article click on the title of this post.