Kevin: Judith Townend at Journalism.co.uk looks at some good examples of how the VentnorBlog, a hyperlocal site on the Isle of Wight, has been covering protests against the closure of a wind turbine plant on the island. "Last week, using the Area Ship Traffic Website, AIS, VB was able to report where two barges held by an agent – NEG Micron Rotors – who used to own the Vestas’ factory were due to head."
Judith asks: "Now let’s take that one step further: how can journalists tap into this kind of publicly available data to scoop stories?" She's got some good comments from Tony Hirst, of Open University who writes the excellent OSuseful blog. (http://ouseful.wordpress.com/)

Kevin: Jeff Jarvis flags up how the traditional media engages in 'internet bigotry' when reporting rumours. A New York Times report blamed the 'free-for-all internet media' culture. However, it appears that the reporter, Peter Baker of the New York Times, is blaming the internet for what is a rumour created and passed along by the traditional media, according to Jeff. "Yet this snarling about the internet still bubbles up from the newsroom, from reporters and from the many editors who choose to publish it."

Kevin: More than 70% of adults in the US get their political news from television, but the role of the internet is increasing. "The Pew Internet and American Life Project found that for the first time a majority (55 percent) of voting-age adults engaged with politics online during the 2008 presidential election." Another interesting finding of the Pew study, "Smith said that for the first time the Pew data shows that people admit they go online to get information that agrees with their existing viewpoint."

Kevin: "News Corporation is launching a global service that will make all its news stories and videos instantly available to its entire network of TV, print and online news outlets.

The service, called NewsCore, will operate like a global wire service for all the company's newspapers, TV networks and websites. News Corp is describing the venture as a "21st-century multi-media information service that will draw on the worldwide news and sports resources within News Corporation and make them available to other News properties everywhere".