How to: design an effective journalism blog

Video guide of the basics of designing a blogspot page: more tutorials by wvteks available here.

When designing a blog to present journalistic work there are certain elements that need to be included in its construction. These elements include:

A strong layout

One blog user suggests on Blogntrepreneur that:

"There is a golden rule when it comes to page layout in design, which is that everything on the page should be there for a reason. This same rule should apply to your blog. So to do this, remove anything unneccessary on your blog."

To achieve this it is important that you have in mind what messages you want your blog to contain. In this blog it is important that the content is clear and straight to the point so by having only one column and no widgets this look has been achieved. Additionally added a page banner at the top of the content still maintains a simplistic look but adds organisation to the content and interlinks with the content. Blogger as a blog creator allows the user to add additionally widgets and columns but always bear in mind  how this will affect your blogs aesthetic.


Tags
One blogger user stated that:

Tags not only allow people and search engines to find your content easier, but they can also help you organize your site

Tags are an important way to organise content as well as improve the chances of your blog being noticed. In this blog tags have sometimes included Twitter tags that link to the online promotion techniques being employed. Additionally these tags directly link to the pages at the top of the page e.g. data journalist adding an organisational structure to the blog. The tags you choose to accompany your posts must highlight the important parts of your content and also your blog. 


Copyrighted images
A blog isn't visual enough without strong images that relate to the content, however you can't just take a photograph or image from the internet and put it in your blog you have to acknowledge the graphics origin and copyright. Online images can be bought through websites such as iStockphoto but some images are available for free provided you reference where you got the photo from directly. Flickr is a great example of a website where copyright is important but also a great source of images. There are different levels of copyright under the umbrella of creative commons on Flickr which include:

Attribution:
You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your copyrighted work – and derivative works based upon it – but only if they give you credit.

Non-commercial:
You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your work – and derivative works based upon it – but for non-commercial purposes only.

No Derivative Works:
You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform only verbatim copies of your work, not derivative works based upon it.

Share Alike:
You allow others to distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs your work.

To see this information in more detail with further explanations visit the Creative Commons website.

To get images from Flickr use the search engines and check the creative commons before using an image. For this blog photos are highly important and below is a visual guide to how copyrighted images from Flickr were used in this blog:

Another way to obtain images for a journalism blog is by looking through official companies websites. In this blog the main subject matter was the London 2012 Olympics so by going through their official Olympics websites images are available. With all companies search their sites have press sections that you should search for. In these sections they sometimes have a section for images that you can use on your site which are free of copyright. This is what was used on this blogs header to create a strong visual identifier for the blog and to emphasize what the blog is about. You can find more London 2012 Olympic images through their press site here.

All of these elements need to be considered when making a blog. Think about how you ultimately want the blog to look and use these techniques to show your blogs meaning and style.

Major sporting sponsors involved in abuse scandal

http://www.knowmore.org/wiki/index.php?title=Nike

Workers in factorys that produce prodcuts for Nike, Adidas and Puma are being abused by their employers. A recent investigation showed the real conditions the factorys workers are surrounded by.

For a while now PlayFair, an organisation who constantly monitor and fight for the rights of factory workers, have been publishing reports and storys on how the workers are getting mistreated. Amoungst many of the major issues surrounding these work places are; poor pay, long hours and violence. 

 In a recent story published by The Guardian, we are told that factory workers from some of the top sponsors of the Olympics are getting sexually harassed and beaten.  It is claimed that some Adidas workers were paid as little as 9p an hour.

In these major companies the bosses have to make sure their working conditions are up to standard and meet certain legislations. The work done to produce these final garments and products aren’t always done in one factory, there are often stages in the production line. Not many companies will release the names of the suppliers used during this process but this year Adidas have.  Elasteks, a Turkish company who until recently supplied Adidas factory with material for their socks, has recently been dropped by the sporting giants. This is because sometime last year the workers from Elasteks attempted to set up a union against the working conditions of the factory and demand better ones. The demonstration resulted in the factory owner sacking the employee’s involved and moving his factory 280 miles away.

So basically, there are a chain of suppliers Adidas would have released the suppliers names to a certain level. So a company like Elasteks may not have been named, but the company they supply to, Gelal, will have been named. So obviously Gelal would have had to drop any connection to Elasteks so that Adidas would not suffer. When Gelal were checked out for working conditions they passed the test, but a source from inside revealed that the company were still using the remainder of their stock from Elasteks.

According to a report written by a charity called War on Want, this is a summary of who these leading sports brands are employing and what they hope to do through the sponsorship of the 2012 Olympic Games.

http://bit.ly/24CRt

Adidas has spent £100 million on the Olympics, securing its place as the only official sportswear partner of London 2012. In return for its financial commitment; Adidas will clothe the 70,000 volunteers who help run the Games and has the sole rights to produce goods with the Olympic logo. Adidas hopes to achieve over £100 million in sales from its Olympic clothing lines alone. More importantly; it hopes to use the boost to its brand from the Olympics to overtake Nike as the UK’s sportswear market leader – increasing sales across all of its product lines.


 In addition to the partnership with the Games, Adidas is also the official sponsor of Team GB and a range of high profile British athletes including David Beckham, expected to play in the British football team, the 2009 world champion heptathlete Jessica Ennis, tennis player Andy Murray and the current women’s 400 metre Olympic gold medal holder Christine Ohuruogu. Adidas has more than 775,000 workers in 1,200 factories across 65 countries making its products. Almost all of these jobs are outsourced, yet through its code of conduct and its relationships with its suppliers the company has enormous influence over their working conditions, and ultimately their lives.

http://bit.ly/zJTeoS

Nike is the world’s largest sportswear brand, holding nearly a third of the global market for athletic footwear, with global sales in 2010/11 totalling over £13 billion, earning the company over £1.3 billion in profit. It secured its association with the Games through the official sponsorship of a range of high profile teams including the USA and athletes such as Mark Cavendish and Paula Radcliffe.

This sponsorship aims to ensure the Nike ‘swoosh’ logo remains instantly recognisable throughout the world. Through its supply chains Nike influences the conditions of more than 800,000 employees in 700 factories across 45 countries.

Puma’s largest profile sponsorship deal is its relationship with Usain Bolt, arguably the
highest profile athlete taking part in the 2012 Games as he defends his Olympic 100 metre and 200 metre titles. Puma’s manufacturing is outsourced to over 350 factories, a majority of which are in developing economies, involving around 300,000 workers.

After being presented with the report written by War on Want, a Puma representative said that they had found evidence of illegal overtime in one of its supplier factories named in the report and will be investigating further. Adidas also released a statement that they were shocked at the allegations made and would look further into the claims. They said they were “deeply concerned about reports of harassment or physical abuse of workers” and they were going to be investigating straight away.

http://www.knowmore.org/wiki/index.php?title=Nike

So is it right that sponsorship is going to companies that are allegedly paying their workers as little as 72p a day? Although these major companies are also doing a lot of positive things for the Olympics is it still right? It again makes us question whether sponsorship does just go to the highest bidders.

Read more on the article written by The Guardian in regards to this scandal:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/mar/03/olympic-brands-abuse-scandal
 http://www.waronwant.org/attachments/Race%20to%20the%20Bottom.pdf
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/workers-supplying-olympic-sponsor-have-union-crushed-2375536.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factory_Act

BP Sponsorship Fallout

A glance at the comments accompanied by The Guardian's article retweets suggest that some people in the Twittersphere think they know why the company is playing a major role in the Olympics, with the above comment in particular mentioning a line amounting to 'money being unable to buy everything'.


He's right of course, it can't. But BP made $25.70 billion in 2011. If BP have agreed to sponsor the Olympics to the tune of even 1% of that, which is unlikely, then all of a sudden, from a business perspective, with events to organise and costs to pay, the deal looks incredibly attractive, especially in a capitalist world where budgets have to be met and profits will always be the number one priority.


When the Games begin, and millions are watching from around the world, and the British flag is being waved in anticipation of medal success, the cheers will be for putting on a Games that will make Britons proud. Those cheers won't suddenly turn to jeers come the closing ceremony, because we won't suddenly start thinking about the gulf of Mexico again, or even BP...


It's true to say that BP has attracted a fair bit of negative attention, and in truth, the ethical and financial whirlwind that is Olympic sponsorship can't truthfully claim to be squeaky clean either.


For the latest evidence of that, some might say unnecessarily, bold claim, you only need to go back 3 days to the above article.


The 34 signatories featured in the letter mentioned in the article above all, some would say rightly, take exception to the fact that the company formerly known as British Petroleum is officially listed as the major 'environmental' Partner for the Games.


The question on everyone's lips is a simple one... How on Earth can a company that was named as the 'responsible party' by the US Government who, just 22 months ago, filled the sea with an estimated 300 million barrels of oil, be suitable for an Olympic environmental sponsorship/partnership?


It's an uncomfortable one for BP, sure, but given the millions of people who will be watching the Games in the summer, it is an understandable deal from their viewpoint.


But for the IOC and the London organising committee, the 'understandable' section of that above statement can be removed, and they are just left with 'uncomfortable'.

Top Twitter contacts for the Olympics

This logo is not my own work. © 2012 Twitter

This is a list of useful Twitter contacts that can be used while investigating the Olympics.


General Olympics:
@gamesmonitor
@LO2012
@hannengland
@2012cushing
@Paralympic
@alexhuot
@DaveGordonBBC
@DCMS
@jacquelinmagnay
@ashlingoc
@Jeremy_Hunt
@mirrorolympics
@London2012Fest
@TimesLondon2012
@PressAssoc2012
@NickHopeBBC
@iocmedia
@UKA_athletics
@Lon2012don
@Telegraph2012
@BBCLdnOlympics
@SkyOlympicOrla
@youtholympics
@London2012HQ
@TeamGB
@sebcoe
@BBC2012
@London2012
@Olympics


Sponsor Accounts:
@UPS
@ThomasCookUK
@Deloitte (and @DeloitteUK)
@CiscoUKI
@ArcelorMittal
@AdeccoUSA
@AskLloydsTSB
@EDFofficiel
@BTLondon2012 (and @bt_uk)
@British_Airways
@BP_America (and @BPGlobalPR)
@BMWGroup
@adidasUK
@VisaEuropeNews
@SamsungMobile (and @samsunguk)
@pgthankyoumom (and @ProcterGamble)
@panasonic
@omegawatches
@McDonalds (and @McDonaldsCorp)
@generalelectric
@DowChemical
@Atos
@CocaCola
@CadburyUK

Sponsorship clash over athlete's footwear

After a clash between two of the biggest sportswear sponsors of the 2012 London Olympics, it has come to surface that the athletes may have to step up to the podium with no shoes on.  This is all so that they avoid contractual issues with personal sponsors following a row they had with the British Olympic Association (BOA) over marketing rights.

 http://bit.ly/zHpP1D

As we know Adidas are sponsoring Team GB’s official presentation outfit, yet some athletes are being sponsored by leading competitors Nike. The BOA has been told that if Nike’s athletes are forced to wear Team GB’s official ‘presentation outfit’ they may be in breach of their sponsorship contracts.

A representative from Nike told the BOA that the athletes might have to take off their shoes before walking out to the presentation dais. They have agreed that it would be chaos if this rule was agreed and that the athletes are happy wearing the Adidas tracksuits but should be able to wear footwear of their choice.

The BOA has said that the rule that the athletes must wear Adidas’s footwear at all time, including presentation ceremony’s, would be strictly enforced. The rules also state that this rule does not apply whilst athletes are competing as footwear is classed as technical equipment.

GB athletes such as Paula Radcliffe, Dai Greene and Cavendish, who have been loyal to Nike up until now, may find themselves torn between their longtime supporters and their rivals Adidas. A spokesperson for another athlete has said that enforcing these kinds of rules at this time could prove to be a distraction for the athletes and isn’t necessary.

http://bit.ly/xB3CJU

The BOA has said that under the Olympic regulations, they had the right to prescribe and determine the clothing worn by the athletes and the equipment that is used. Due to the legalities, the BOA has to stick to this agreement and the rules outlined in them.

The athletes also have to sign a heavy weighted contract stating that they will agree to wear and use the team kit as supplied by or agreed in writing by the BOA or the BOA’s official suppliers at all times during the Games period. This also includes footwear, in or at the Olympic Venue, which is also the podium.

There have been disagreements by agents and sponsors about this rule. They have argued that in past years there had been a “gentlemen’s agreement” between the footwear companies, and no one really made a big deal about it.

The BOA responded by saying that the rules and regulations had been in place since 2004 and that other Olympic Committees have similar requirements.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/9067763/London-2012-Olympics-GBs-medallists-may-be-barefooted-on-podium-after-BOA-take-tough-stance-over-sponsorship.html

Dispatches

image via Dispatches website

Tonight on dispatches on channel 4 there is a great documentary revealing the undercover story of London2012 Olympics. There have been many issues surrounding the ticket process of the summer Olympics in the UK. 9.3 billion pounds has been put towards the Olympics by taxpayers within britain and this was meant to be a games for the people. However, many top businesses and companies have managed to secure premium seating and tickets within this supposedly "fair" ballot. Many are now questioning the legitimacy of the london Olympic games. Sponsorship is part of this legitimacy issue, multi national corporations have secured million pound sponsorship and exclusivity deals. When in actual fact many of those companies have little to do with the Olympic message conveyed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). I plan to delve further into scandals surrounding deals made within the summer Olympics and aim to contact many companies about what message their sponsorship is conveying to the general public.