The media frenzy following the death of Michael Jackson has been discussed in depth, and done to death, elsewhere. I planned to completely ignore the topic, but today, @suzzaneyada posted a link via Twitter to an interesting post on the LA Times website, asking what would have happened had TMZ been wrong. Did TMZ and others really know, or did they just roll the dice? I know I didn’t accept the fact until the PA report confirmed the facts.

I don’t really want to weigh in on the tired topic of the troubled artist, but from a media perspective, I think the question is important.

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Posted by Dave Molloy in •Journalism
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I haven’t posted in a while due to my university finals, and I’m slowly re-immersing myself in media.

One of the most interesting things I’ve read this week is the creation of a localised version of the Creative Commons licence which is custom-built for the nuances of Irish copyright law. The above links to Eoin O’Dell’s excellent cearta.ie blog, but the actual project is the child of UCC staff Darius Whelan and Louise Crowley.

It’s great to see these types of initiatives. Irish law is different to that of the USA, where many of these projects originate, and to those of us lacking a law degree, it’s these little things that make our lives easier.

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Posted by Dave Molloy in •Journalism
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I’ve mentioned before the problems with the website of Trinity News. Essentially, we don’t have the staff to manually copy-and-paste the 45,000 or so words per issue, and when we’re lucky enough to have someone willing, they inevitably get bored and quit after a few sessions doing this mind-numbing, repetitive and uninspiring task. That’s why, apart from the PDFs of every issue this year, the site is out of date. So that needs to change.

The problem is that there is no easy, all-in-one non-technical solution. The elements that need to be incorporated are:

• XML export from InDesign
• Import of print content to website
• A quality, reliable Content Management System
• User-friendly backend for web-only content
• Backward-compatibility with existing archive (in MySQL databse)
• Accessible enough to be passed on to my successor without too much difficulty
• Multimedia capability
• Staff blogs

Now, there are a number of ways to go about this. ExpressionEngine uses custom fields that could be paired up with specific XML tags. Drupal has an entire open-source project on newspapers with a lot of work being done to integrate print design exports. And the Daily Tar Heel has a very interesting project called The Magic Bullet where they’re hiring an outside web developer to create their “magic bullet”: a customized, tick-all-the-boxes solution for their particular setup.

I don’t have those kind of resources available to me. I do have a summer, a lot of dedication, and a committed staff. I need to find my own “magic bullet” and I’m looking for input. Should I go with Drupal, with their open information? ExpressionEngine, which I currently use for this blog, and their paid professional support? Or some other solution I’ve never heard of? If anyone has experience or success with a small college newspaper (small compared to the Daily Tar Heel, anyway) integrating their print and online workflows, get in touch. I’ll update over the summer as this project progresses, and, if successful, maybe other student papers can benefit too.

Posted by Dave Molloy in •Journalism •Tech
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I’ve been rather busy this week, but I’d like to point you all in the direction of this post by Mark Potts on the odd pricing structure of WSJ.com (the Wall Street Journal). It transpires that a subscription for print-and-online costs about half of online-only.

Huh? WSJ is frequently referenced as the holy grail of online subscription models. It’s odd to see the smoke and mirrors in their logic. Trying to artificially inflate print subscription figures, perhaps?

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Posted by Dave Molloy in •Business •Journalism
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