Beijing snow brings luck to video journalism course

Published: January 7, 2012

Xinhua course By HELEN SCOTT

As the snow continued to fall, any hopes of filming outside were fading fast.

“But the first snowfall is lucky”, said Li Dan. “You will be lucky!” My group of 18 young journalists from the Xinhua news agency were bright, enthusiastic and convinced it would all work out.

And it did. The weather cleared just in time. Li Dan was right … luck was on our side. The clear skies meant we had no time to lose. But the participants rose magnificently to the challenge.

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Judges get set for 2011 Inquirer Awards for investigative journalism

Published: January 2, 2012

Some of the Middle East’s most distinguished journalists and media figures are preparing to cast an expert eye over entries for the 2011 Inquirer Awards.

The Inquirer Awards, hosted by the Thomson Media Foundation, spotlights the achievements of investigative journalists in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq whose stories really make a difference. Print and television journalists as well as photojournalists are eligible to compete for the prestigious award. The winners will be announced at a ceremony in Beirut on February 3.

❮ Click here for Arabic version of this story جائزة الصحافي المتقصي لعام ٢٠١١

The judging panel comprises:

Print category. First round judges

From Jordan, Ms Randa Habib has spent a quarter of a century covering war, politics and economic development in the Middle East. Currently the bureau chief of the French News Agency in Jordan, Ms. Habib has long experience as a field journalist having extensively covered the situation in Iraq since the first Gulf war in 1990.

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Africa, Middle East journalists praise ‘enriching’ Convergence & Multimedia Skills Course 2011

Published: August 14, 2011

Convergence * Multimedia Skills: Hadija Nabukenya Journalists from Africa and the Middle East declared the Thomson Media Foundation’s Convergence and Multimedia Skills course one of ‘the most exciting and enriching’ experiences of their careers.

Six senior journalists – from Uganda, South Africa, Qatar, Nigeria and two from Malawi – travelled to Cardiff for the one-month course, which covered a wide range of online, social media, mobile journalism, writing, investigation and multimedia skills.

They also visited news operations and had the opportunity to quiz visiting media experts in subjects including media law and newsroom management. In a Skype interview, the journalists discussed reporting from conflict zones using mobile tools with award-winning photographer Balazs Gardi, whose recent work in Afghanistan was shot using an iPhone.

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Why news could become one of China’s most profitable exports

Published: June 15, 2011

Using audio for the Social Affairs Reporting By DAN MASON

WATERMELONS SELL POORLY AFTER RECENT EXPLOSIONS. Now that’s a newspaper headline to catch the eye. Especially while you’re enjoying a Beijing hotel breakfast of juicy red watermelon.

According to my morning copy of the China Daily, farmers saw sales of the football-size fruit plummet after reports of exploding watermelons in East China’s Jiangsu province.

It seems the problems started when farmers added growth-accelerating chemicals to their watermelons – a trick they learned from a local ‘technician’ who was quoted as saying: “I never received professional training on agricultural techniques. I only have a primary school diploma.” Oops.

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It’s Wordle on steroids: Tagxedo gives President Goodluck Jonathan’s speech a whole new look

Published: June 2, 2011

President Jonathan Goodluck of Nigeria By DAN MASON

For years, Wordle has been an unsung hero of presenters, report illustrators and journalists looking to pick out the keywords of important speeches in a visually interesting way.

But the online tool does has its limitations. So it was inevitable someone would take a great idea and give it the spinning bowtie treatment (and make money).

Enter Tagxedo (pronounced like tuxedo, which is why, I read, its strapline is ‘tag cloud with styles’).

Like Wordle, it’s a piece of cake to use. But it has a few tricks up its sleeve …

… like creating a tag cloud from your tweets or a website URL; fitting your cloud into a shape or uploaded image; building your own colour theme, and saving your finished image as a JPEG or PNG in a variety of sizes. I also really like the ability to control the density and ‘emphasis’ – relative size of words – within the cloud.

The inauguration address of Jonathan Goodluck, President of Nigeria (pictured wearing his trademark hat), seemed a suitable opportunity to try out two of the best things about Tagxedo – the option to upload an image and embed the completed word cloud.

Here’s the result, in custom green and white (Nigeria’s national colours), complete with neat mouseover effect. (You may need to install Microsoft Silverlight).

It would be nice if the embed code was available for all to share, and that public clouds could be searchable on the Tagxedo site. But maybe later …

Tagxedo is still in beta phase, so if you want to try out the bells and whsitles (like uploading your own image) jump in before premium pricing kicks in. Use of Tagxedo images for personal, non-profit and educational use is free under Creative Commons licence.

I like it. What could YOU do with Tagxedo?

Convergence Course now open

Published: April 15, 2011

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