Hace casi un mes y casi ni me ha dado tiempo a disfrutarlo (ni a ponerlo aquí para vosotros), pero es verdad: publiqué otro artículo en Washingtonpost.com y durante unas horas estuvo en la portada de la Web… aquí queda constancia:

Y para añadirle gracia al asunto, unas semanas después la revsita Columbia Journalism Review publica un artículo sobre el mismo tema, esta vez basado en la cobertura de las convenciones: The View From Abroad…

By Cristina Fernández Pereda 

El País, one of Spain’s major newspapers, shows after its last redesign how citizen journalism is changing the way news outlets present news both in print and digital format.

ELPAIS.com is an example of how citizen journalism, a community of blogs and crowdsourcing techniques can expand the newspaper’s content through the interaction with readers.

ELPAIS.com editors have worked on
the Web site’s redesign with consultants
Ally Palmer and Terry Watson.
Palmer & Watson were also in charge of
changes in news sites such as Le Monde,
in France; The Scotsman, in Scotland;
and Politiken, in Denmark.

El País published its first edition in 1976 and 31 years later, on Oct. 21, 2007, presented a major renovation that has changed its design, added different ways of gathering the news and modified its content. All the changes were reported by the newspaper’s editors through a blog named “Querer Comprender,” (Willing to Understand).

“We are betting on exclusive information, critical analysis of major topics and in-depth interviews, leaving on the side the routine and news conferences-journalism, and taking an important step towards the interaction of print and digital newsrooms,” Lydia Aguirre, director of ELPAIS.com, posted on the blog the Web site published to describe the changes.

The editors of ELPAIS.com have made significant efforts to provide readers with information updated every minute.

“We are incorporating more exclusive online content, with multimedia elements and the print and digital newsrooms working together 24 hours to provide better content in both formats,” Aguirre said.

The best example of how the digital edition is providing content to the print edition is the citizen journalism section Yo, Periodista (I, Journalist), a space created entirely by readers who send news with videos, pictures and audio. The section “where readers become journalists,” as it states on its front page, was launched on Nov. 20, 2006. In one year, the section became the best Interactive Emergent Project on the Internet, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau in Spain, which cited the paper’s efforts for its originality and vision.

When it started, Yo, Periodista originated 5 percent of the online news site’s users. One year later, 15 percent of the news site’s readers start their visit to ELPAIS.com through the citizen journalism section.

“People not only want to read online, they also want to create and share information. And information through readers’ integration in the creative process is a trend that will not stop,” Javier Moya, coordinator of the participative sections, said.

The content from Yo, Periodista affects both the digital and print editions of the paper. Moya recalls the case of the Virginia Tech shootings, when a Spanish student sent updates from the campus and provided first-hand information of what was happening there.

When a citizen journalist sent pictures from the chaos resulting from
eight days of strikes in the metro of Paris, El País had the chance to
continue their coverage by adding different angles.

In a more recent case, a reader sent pictures from the chaos in the Paris metro caused by eight days of strikes. El País had already reported about the strikes, “but the testimony of this reader gave us an opportunity to cover the workers’ negotiations with the government, something we wouldn’t have published without the pictures,” said Fernando Navarro, reporter for the digital edition.

“The content created by readers complements the news with a reader’s views on the event. It is good because this allows us to get to information the newspaper cannot reach any other way,” Moya said.

ELPAIS.com also launched a “Community” five months ago, allowing readers to publish blogs within the news site. So far, readers have created 6,000 blogs and some of their content also jumps to the different news sections.

“Sometimes we detect a post that could easily become a news story. We contact the blogger and suggest the possibility of using it in Yo, Periodista. If the story is more significant, it can even have a link from the main story written by one of El País’ reporters,” Moya said.

ELPAIS.com has developed the crowdsourcing strategy through the online news site: a link asks readers if they have been affected by a particular situation, from blackouts to train delays to a strike. The readers become sources providing the information the agencies cannot get: testimonies, images, videos and audio describing what the situation is like on the streets.

“This gives us data and suggests different angles to cover a story. It creates a feedback between the print edition, the online edition and the readers complementing the final product we give: information,” Moya said.

This information can come from all over the world. Appealing to its international audience (25 percent of the readers are outside of Spain), ELPAIS.com has created a Global online edition. “It’s a project for Spanish speakers outside of Spain who want to know what’s happening in the world: They all have their newspaper at the Global edition of El País,” Navarro said.

The editors of ELPAIS.com are conscious of their reader’s involvement with the newspaper. Last September, El País released the transcript of the interview between Spain’s former president, Jose Maria Aznar (1996-2004) and U.S. President George W. Bush on Feb. 22, 2003, in which the Bush admitted he would be in Iraq even if he didn’t have the United Nations’ support.

The story was widely reported and even prompted coverage in international newspapers, such as The Washington Post and USATODAY.com, when reporters asked the White House Press Secretary Dana Perinoabout the conversation. On Oct. 10, ELPAIS.com then announced a chat between Ernesto Ekaizer, the reporter who released the transcript, and readers.

“Ekaizer talked to readers in English and Spanish. In less than one hour, we had 600 questions from readers,” Aguirre said.

ELPAIS.com has introduced changes that engage the readers through multimedia content, improving the Video section and adding a television service, ELPAISTV with three channels.

“The impact has been immediate and significant, with a 20 percent increase of videos downloaded by our readers,” Aguirre said.

All the changes, such as participation tools, the blogs community and applications to customize the front page that allow readers to change the header style or the font size, type and color, appeal to an audience of both traditional readers and young people familiar with the digital technology.

“We are facing these challenges to offer a better product and engage younger readers who are starting to get involved in our society; we have to count on them for the next 10 or 15 years,” Javier Moreno, Director of El País, said according to EFE news agency.

His adjunct director, Juan Cruz, posted on the blog how Moreno has conceived the changes.

“The change is not over once it’s done. The change has just started.”

This story was published on the American Observer Dec. 4, 2007.

By Cristina Fernández Pereda 

Ask anyone in the streets of Paris what they are first: French or European? It is more likely that they consider themselves French. But if the person you run into happens to be an Erasmus student, it is more likely he or she will tell you they are first European, then French.

The European Union is now expanding but the evolution of a European identity has just started. Cafebabel.com has become a forum where Europeans can share, reflect and analyze current affairs across borders, with different views, in different languages. The site encourages readers to think as Europeans, and use Café Babel as a means to build European identity and public opinion.

The online magazine Cafe Babel.
Photo provided by Cafebabel.com

Italian Adriano Farano spent one year in Strasbourg as an Erasmus student. Erasmus, the European university exchange program, took him to study political science in the city where the European Parliament congregates. The Erasmus experience is believed to be building the first eurogeneration: the first group of young people from the old continent who consider themselves European.

Friends from different European countries, their views on current affairs, conversations in different languages and a common interest in journalism inspired Farano to found Café Babel. He is now editor-in-chief and executive manager of this online magazine that has become the first pan-European media.

“A café is where people meet. Babel is what separated them,” said Farano. With his friends from the Erasmus experience, he decided to take the conversations from cafes across Europe to a forum online.

The Cafe Babel community across Europe,
with local offices from Lisbon, Portugal;
to Istanbul, Turkey; to Stockholm, Sweden.
Photo provided by Cafebabel.com

In contrast to the Bible version of Babel, where languages divide people, Café Babel is “a cafe where you can speak, read and write in the language you want, but you are understood. We are, at Café Babel, all together in a cozy cafe, speaking all our different languages, but we can understand each other, we communicate and we debate,” said Monika Oelz, project manager and communication chief at Café Babel.

The project, now seven years old, involves more than 1,000 citizen journalists and translators from different countries, 22 local offices in 14 European countries, and 400,000 people visiting the site every month.

“We play the card of originality by addressing a specific audience (the eurogeneration) with a specific content that is general (society, culture, politics), but analyzed with a European perspective. We try to gather stories from all around Europe and also find transnational tendencies in the fields of art, immigration, education, etc.,” Farano said.

Last week, Café Babel’s creator joined American University’s International Communication students during his visit to the school. He was invited to the United States by the International Visitor Exchange Program, which brings youth from all over the world to the U.S. During a three-week trip, he is meeting with leaders from Google, Facebook and Wikipedia.

Image from the interview with
Café Babel’s creator, Adriano Farano.
Photo provided by Adriano Farano.

“What I learned from International Communication Prof. Shalini Venturelli in her speech is that national mass media were needed by the U.S. in order to build a sense of community,” Farano said. “The problem is that we don’t have, as was the Anglo-Saxon for the U.S., a dominant culture. That is why a pan-European media needs to respect the different cultures and languages of the Old Continent.”

One of the magazine’s goals is to break down the barriers created by national media to create that sense of European identity. Café Babel is published in six different languages (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Catalan), and makes it possible for journalists and bloggers in the community to have their posts translated, so the readers can chose the language. No other online community includes this feature.

Café Babel is another example of participatory media, as writers and journalists contribute to the site. Translators then edit the articles in different languages for each of the different editions of the online magazine. Editors encourage contributors to share different opinions to show current affairs from a transnational perspective. The only requirement is quality.

When you go to Café Babel, you find articles about the immigration to Europe; how Muslim women “cover their hair, but not their mouth“;” the Eurodyssey: scholarships to work in Europe for Erasmus students; and the European Reform Treaty to be signed next December in Lisbon. The readers’ favorite: Tower of Babel where Europeans laugh comparing idioms and expressions in different languages.

This story was published on the American Observer Nov. 6, 2007.

By Cristina Fernández Pereda

Diamonds have become a symbol of love. According to Amnesty International, few customers can be guaranteed that their precious stone has been obtained legally.

According to a report from the organization, only 37% of the companies contacted could guarantee that they obtained their diamonds without violating human rights. This report was published two years after the diamond sector created regulations to prevent the trade in conflict zones.

Angola, Liberia, Sierra Leona and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are all diamond exporters. They are also among the poorest countries in the world. The wealth of their soil has become one of the causes of poverty for their nations. The millions of dollars that the illicit diamond trade produces fall in the hands of guerrillas. They evade the embargos imposed by the international community by exchanging diamonds for arms.

This funding source has helped to prolong many conflicts in these countries. The production of diamond has not saved 90% of the Angolan population from poverty. There, a diamond sells for 20 dollars at a local agency. Afterwards, as the stone passes from owner to owner its value increases until it reaches European or American hands. In the last phase of the process, the diamond could cost up to $2000. In the end, the figures increase: in one year Liberia exported diamonds that cost up to $300 million.

The diamond trade requires a group of countries that buy, sell or exchange arms for the precious gems. A United Nations report about the causes of the war in Angola listed diamond traders in Johannesburg, Dubai, and Ambers. They also reported Bulgaria and the Ukraine as exporters of arms to countries at war. The final sale is concentrated in Europe. Two-thirds of the world’s diamonds are sold in Ambers, Belgium.

The sale of illegal diamonds is favored by the control mechanisms and insufficient legislation. They do not make the detectors in the airports and they are easily exchanged for cash. Many international organizations have asked for measures that guarantee the legality of the diamonds sold in Europe. Measures that guarantee the diamonds were obtained without violations of any human rights.

The petitions from different organizations such as Amnesty International collide with other interests. The implementation of stricter laws would jeopardize a $50,000 million trade. Although 10% of that money finances armed conflicts, no one wants to lose money simply because diamonds are associated with war.

The diamond consumers should ask for legal guarantees before buying. These demands would help enforce the international legislations. This way diamonds would be controlled from the moment of extraction until they arrive at their final destination.

Regulatory measures that guarantee that diamonds follow the legal path would lead to a decrease amount of funds that finance armed conflicts in the world. There would be no more war diamonds.

(En Español)

By Cristina Fernández Pereda

Chocolate could save the most endangered forests in Brazil according to study published by the World Watch Institute. Its authors confirmed that cacao, the most important ingredient in chocolate, could be cultivated to re-establish the most distraught parts of the Atlantic Forest.

The cultivation of cacao would thrive in the Brazilian forest for two reasons. First, there are many species of great height in this tropical forest and cacao grows well in the shade. In fact, it needs it. The second reason lies in its potential for conservation. It is not necessary to eliminate other existing species and thereby lose natural resources to cultivate cacao.

The Atlantic Forest occupies the largest part of the Brazilian coast and constitutes 13% of the national territory. 476 different species of trees have been found in one hectare, the greatest level of diversity in the world. However, only 7% of the original ecosystem remains.

Brazil produces 6% of the world’s production of cacao. In 1983, it was the world’s second largest producer, behind the Ivory Coast, with 24% of total production. About 80% of its production is grown in the Bahia region, in the northern zone of the Atlantic Forest. The majority of cacao is cultivated through an agricultural system called Cabruca—on the surface of the forest, in the shade of taller species, small cacao trees are planted that later can support the weight of the fruits. This system is used in other countries but Brazil has the largest “chocolate forest” in the world.

But, this type of forest is failing. The help is not enough to replace the taller trees that die. In the 90s, an epidemic in cacao plantations caused a decrease in the price on the international market. The landowners had to change the system to other more lucrative techniques. The crisis left 90,000 people unemployed.

Now that the prices have risen again and new methods to combat the epidemics have been found, the authors of the study recommend a return to the Cabruca system, adapted to current conditions. They want the restoration of the forest to be valued above the business of massproduction. The cultivation of cacao along with other species implies a slow rhythm and long term benefits. But, they don’t want to fall into patterns that the world market establishes.

The chocolate business generates $60,000 million per year. Multinational companies control 80% of the market. These benefits do not take into account the depletion of lands’ resources or if they reduce employment in the region. The rhythm of the international market makes it difficult to see the needs of an ecosystem as priorities.

The social aspirations of the study consist in creating a stronger rural economy. The cultivation of cacao would generate employment in the local environment and would contribute to the development of other forms of ecological commerce, such as eco-tourism, in addition to fighting against deforestation. Brazil could begin to orient its chocolate consumption towards the restoration of the Atlantic Forest.

(En Español)