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Reuters backs multimedia journalism co-operative for Berlin Wall coverage

Posted: 06/11/09 By: Laura Oliver

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Berlin Project team (L-R: Marco Waldt, Alex Wood, Dominique Van Heerden, Sheena Rossiter, Marcus Gilroy-Ware)

A group of recently graduated journalists has launched an ambitious, multimedia project to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The Berlin Project, which began yesterday and will initially publish seven days of coverage, will use a variety of tools, including audio service Audioboo, Twitter and mobile video service Qik, and assess how free services can be used to create, consume and distribute multimedia reports.

News agency Reuters has partnered the project and will use the team to cover more unusual stories surrounding the anniversary in a range of media, team leader and freelance journalist Alex Wood told Journalism.co.uk.

The project is the next generation of a previous collaboration G20 Live, where members of the Berlin Project's team used Twitter and Qik to cover April's G20 summit protests in London.

G20 Live attracted more than 80,000 unique users to a site only built the night before, but the Berlin Project will be about more than using mobile and mixed media for journalism, said Wood.

"It's about connecting the dots [between different mediums]. It's all about context rather than just content," he added, explaining that how a reader of viewer watches the team's work will inform their choice of tool and medium for covering an event. The quality of video streaming offered by Qik, for example, would be used to cover events that might be watched back on mobile.

"Think of it as a documentary on online journalism. For online journalism the rules aren't written, so we're trying a different thing."

The project's main website was built by the team and deliberately features few navigation tools so users can 'get lost' and discover new reports and features, Wood said. Content will also be published on Facebook and Reuters' website.

On the date of the anniversary, 9 November, live coverage of the day's events will feature more prominently, said Wood.

Wood, a graduate from City University's MA in international journalism, is one of a five-strong team behind the website and project features three other City alumni, Sheena Rossiter, Dominique van Heerden and Marco Woldt.

"We all work in different areas. It's that whole sense that we're entrepreneurial journalists - we've all got offshoots of the work we do, whether that's web development or social media consulting," Wood explained, adding that the site would act as an online portfolio for the group.

Marcus Gilroy-Ware, a visiting lecturer at City, will be the fifth member of the team.

The group is also discussing with Reuters using content created as part of the project for a more permanent interactive feature, such as a timeline website.

The project has also been about looking for new business models for online. While the Berlin Project has not yet been successful finding sponsorship, it hoped it will lead to spin-off sources of revenue, such as training and consultancy work, Wood said.

Got a story? Email our news team: Laura Oliver; Judith Townend or telephone +44 (0)1273 384290. You can also follow us on Twitter: @journalismnews / @LauraOliver / @JTownend.