Wordblog

I have come across some strange work creation schemes but the picture of a policeman with “medic” across his back and his truncheon raised takes the prize. Pity I can’t find it among the Guardian’s web coverage of the aftermath of the G20 protests.

But you can read on line an interesting piece about the way in which the video,  by a visiting American fund manager, of Ian Tomlinson being assaulted by a policeman shortly before he died spread around the world. The video provided strong images and was backed up by some very solid reporting including the gathering of witness statements. As the piece in the Guardian today says:

It was a perfect mix of old and new media: led by some very traditional reporting on a newspaper but with an impact all the more visceral alongside the footage showing a masked, helmeted riot officer strike Tomlinson from behind before shoving him violently to the ground.

There follows an examination of the way in which the web has driven world-wide interest in the story and, of course, a very high level of hits on Guardian.co.uk. A significant number come from US political blogs.

If there is any message for journalism in this it is that a combination of trusted news brand (one a fund manager from New York would send  his video)  and very good reporting will, as it has long done, bring in the audience.

Quite how this converts into revenue for the Guardian would be very interesting. Probably there has some increase in sales of the paper but possibly not as much as there would have been before the web. And what extra revenue has the increased level of hits on the web brought in?

There are some significant figures here for anyone developing web strategies. That is why, I fear, they won’t be forthcoming.