Calculating column inches

Calculating the number of column inches, or words, a publication has devoted to a particular subject is a popular journalistic tool. It's a rough and ready way of showing interesting trends in coverage and it's just the kind of job that lands on the news librarian's desk.

In days of yore a ruler would be used to measure each column. In more recently times the job has involved doing a search in a newspaper text archive such as LexisNexis, or Factiva, noting the word count for each relevant story, and then adding them up. It may sound like an imprecise science but if done properly it can throw up interesting results. For example, a few years ago, there was surprise over the fact that the Guardian had devoted so much attention to Celebrity Big Brother (click to enlarge).

(Guardian, February 6, 2006)

However, changes in the way in which newspaper content is archived has made the job a lot harder to do. With the duplication of articles, archiving of picture captions, trailers, adverts etc, it is nigh on impossible to get a true picture of coverage. It was with some interest then that I noticed that outfits like Journalisted can do the job automatically. Just type in a subject and results spill out. To continue with the Big Brother theme, the site revealed that over the past week or so there have been more articles about the contestant Chantelle Houghton, than those about the Pakistan Floods. As explained on the site:

"All the information on Journalisted is collected automatically from the websites of 21 British news outlets (altogether, this means 14 news websites, since many daily papers share a website with their sister Sunday paper). Articles are indexed by journalist, based on the byline to the article. Keywords and statistics are automatically generated, and the site searches for any blogs or social bookmarking sites linking to each article"

Of course it's not actually searching what appeared in paper copies of news organisations so results could be slightly skewed, especially on a site which carries lots of blog coverage. But as the whole point is to get a snapshot of how something is being reported, it's a great resource. There are several other sites offering such a service. Now, if someone could just work a clever way of doing the same thing with printed columns in newspapers...

Andrew Roth

Andrew Roth, author of Parliamentary Profiles, died last month at the age of 91. For half a century his books have been a treasure trove for political hacks writing about MPs. Roth left no stone unturned in the chronicling of a career - everything from acts of indiscreet youthful rebellion, forgotten attacks on colleagues on late-night talk shows, business links, to scandals were all there in the tightly packed prose.

Compiled from a library of press cuttings, the New York born journalist added his own pithy, and often very funny, characterisations. An early description of Margaret Thatcher was as a "diamond-hard Rightist suburban feminist, cold-water English rose", while Jim Callaghan, her Labour Party rival, was "avuncular, cocky, tetchy, shrewd, cunning, teetotal."

As well as compiling the guides, Roth had a 12-year spell as political correspondent or the Manchester Evening News and 13 years with the New Statesman. From 1996 he contributed obituaries to the Guardian.

Now that he has sadly died, the question is what happens to the great man's cuttings library? He had been trying to sell it but as many journalists now get their information electronically through the likes of LexisNexis or Factiva, not to mention blogs etc, it's value wasn't quite what it would have been a couple of decades ago. That said, it's still of great historical value and it is to be hoped that it finds a home at a university.

More information here and here.

World Cup coverage in The Guardian

Martin Belam writes on Currybetdotnet about a display of Guardian World Cup coverage, compiled by the paper's Research & Information team. The pieces, ranging from 1950 to 2006, include Cup final reports as well all the usual stories - Hand of God, murdered goalkeepers, Gazza's tears etc, etc.

Until a couple of years ago, the task of finding these articles would have involved a nausea-inducing session at the microfilm reader. Thankfully, such projects can now be carried out using the Guardian/Observer digital archive.

Chatham House Rule

To Chatham House last night for a retirement party. Chatham house is the home of the Royal Institute of International Affairs and prides itself on "Independent thinking on international affairs". Central to this is the world famous Chatham House Rule which allows speakers' comments to be reported, but not their identities, thus encouraging frank debate. I don't think it was in force last night but I'll refrain from revealing too much other than to say that the general consensus was that libraries are essential to any organisation which want to be taken seriously for its accuracy and independent analysis.

Digital Journalist Survival Guide: Tech terms you should know

At last - a glossary of all those techie terms and acronyms that non-tech information professionals and journalists should know. PoynterOnline's Jennifer 8.Lee has compiled this with the help of the Hacks/Hackers group. As the ResourceShelf put it, being able to "translate from 'geek speak' to layman terms is an excellent skill to have."

Digitising newspapers

In last week's Media Guardian Dan Sabbagh examined James Murdoch's claims that the British Library's plan to digitise newspapers was for commercial gain. Obviously the accusations centre around copyright, but there's an interesting response in today's paper where Ralph Gee notes:

"Most 19th century provincial editors shamelessly lifted from the Times as copies reached them by stagecoach and railway; but London presses reciprocated, for their plunder to be used yet again by other provincials. This very incestuous process is now easily proved."

Indeed it is. Digitisation has completely opened up papers in a way that the original editorial teams could never have imagined. Long may it continue.

Association of UK Media Librarians

After 24 years of promoting and supporting librarians working in the print and broadcast media, the Association of UK Media Librarians (AUKML) is to fold. On May 11, a farewell party was held at IET London, Savoy Place, to celebrate the group's achievements (due to careful stewardship, the group has a healthy bank balance). Over 60 members and former members came together for one last time.

I've written something about the event, for Cilip Gazette (turn to page 3.) See also Annabel Colley's column in Cilip Update, although this is only available to Cilip members...Pictures will soon be available on a Flickr site.