Mobile Media Toolkit

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Read on for a compilation of tools, tips, trends, and events and opportunities in Mobile Media. Want to receive this list yesterday, a day ahead of the world, direct to your inbox? Then sign up here for the Mobile Media Toolkit mailing list.

Mobile Media Mashup: Making Media Mobile

Welcome to the inaugural Mobile Media Mashup, a compilation from the Mobile Media Toolkit with tools, tips, trends, and events and opportunities in tech in and for media.

Tools and Tips for Mobile Journalists

• As a journalist, you may encounter situations where you need to scan documents on the fly. Mashable suggests 8 Simple Digital Tools for Scanning Documents. It also has its own roundup featuring 39 Digital Media Resources.
• MediaBistro.com offers Five New Year's Resolutions for Newsrooms, including a suggestion to cut back on paper usage by using mobile tools such as iPad Notes or Evernote.
• Ohio University and the Society of Professional Journalists led a discussion on apps for journalism. Read on for how to convert a phone to a teleprompter or consult the AP Stylebook from the field.
• Poynter apologizes for adding "one more thing that you have to be using to survive in journalism," but writes about How Online Audio Tools Can Help Journalists.
• We can't forget the people who work behind the scenes to design the mobile media tools we use and love. Check out this list of Resources for Mobile Designers from Mojos Unite.
• An integral part of web development is to test designs on actual mobile devices. Here's how to do it without breaking the bank; a great read for newsrooms.

Mobiles Shaping Media

• A Pew research study shows 47 percent of people get news from portable media devices; the Montreal Gazette suggests that mobile technology also changes the way news is reported.  
• Wired.com explains why smartphone photography is growing in popularity among reporters and photographers.
• Mashable compiles what it believes to be the 6 Game-Changing Digital Journalism Events of 2011, including advances in paywall models, using Twitter to cover events of the Arab Spring, the role of Google+, and a more competitive mobile market for news participation and consumption.
• Citizens use mobile phones to create and share news content, but professional news rooms and companies need to harness the benefits of mobile media, too. The International Journalists' Network offers tips for "bringing mobile journalism out of the amateur arena."

SaferMobile for Journalists

We have a new Mobile Media Toolkit resource on safer mobile practices for journalists. We draw much of the content from SaferMobile, a project of MobileActive.org that helps activists, human rights defenders, and journalists assess and mitigate mobile communications risks.

• A Mobile Security Primer will help you identify and understand the risks involved with your specific mobile use, including tips to keep in mind when capturing photo or video content, or using SMS to stay in touch with colleagues, sources, or the newsroom.
• A section on Protecting Yourself offers use cases and tips you can take today to better protect yourself, including tips for Journalists Covering Protests or Peaceful Assemblies or best practices in safer Twitter use to cover the news.
• The Security Apps and Reviews section highlights security apps that you can add to your reporting tool bag, including tips on selecting trustworthy apps. We suggest backup and restore tools, data deletion tools, and remote wipe tools.

Mobile Media Around the World

• Al Jazeera launched Somalia Speaks to help amplify stories from people and their everyday lives in the region -- all via SMS.
• Mobile journalism helps empower indigenous communities in the Northern Territory of Australia. A project called NT Mojos trains people to use iPhone "Mojo" kits to create and share their own stories.
• In a number of countries in Africa, Umuntu Media is launching online and mobile portals to address a lack of local news content. Local freelance journalists receive payment to submit stories.
• The Voices of Africa Media Foundation shares lessons learned from teaching mobile journalism around the continent.

Jobs and Events

• The deadline has been extended for the IJNET course, Digital Tools for Public Service Reporting (Middle East) to February 20th, 2012.
• Applications are being accepted until March 1 for the Arthur F. Burns Fellowship, an opportunity for 20 media professionals from the U.S. and Germany to travel and report.
• Rising Voices has a call for proposals for citizen media outreach. The deadline to apply is February 3.
• The Nieman-Berkman Fellowship in Journalism Innovation is accepting applications until February 15; candidates are asked to propose a specific course of study or project relating to innovation in media.
• The Nieman Journalism Lab is also hiring a staff writer for its Cambridge newsroom.
• More jobs! The Washington Post is looking for a “politics-obsessed software developer and journalism-loving mobile-interface genius.”
• Other events: Media that Matters 2012 on February 10 and 11, and the International Journalism Festival in Perugia Italy, April 25-29.