Now it's Leveson: The Musical - video

Superb. Hat tip to @simoncrerar and @tomwhitwell.

How Facebook became the world's biggest social network - a Guardian animation

This Guardian animation give some useful background to the Facebook phenomenon. But it's also a great example of how you can use a visual medium to get over what would otherwise be a highly statistics-heavy piece of text.

Updated: The new McNae, a Leveson database and a few other media law resources for journalists and students

The Old Bailey. Pic: Anaru

I've just come back from an NCTJ workshop for media law lecturers and examiners. Inevitably there was much talk about recent events in media law so I thought I'd have a look at new-ish media law resources for journalists and students.

Law books
The workshop was led by lecturer Mark Hanna, who is co-editor of the latest edition of McNae's Essential Law for Journalists.  While McNae has traditionally been the bible for journalists and for students taking NCTJ exams, it's fair to say that in recent years it has lost ground to Law for Journalists by Frances Quinn, mainly because the Quinn book was easier to read and easier to navigate

The good news is that the latest McNae has slimmed down a little, has re-designed to help the reader navigate its pages tools and has also added some extra web-only chapters on niche areas of media law. It's well worth a look.

One area of discussion at the workshop centred around the fact that fewer journalists are doing court reporting these days. Sounds like a niche for entrepreneurial journalists to fill.

Libel reform
Anyone interested in keeping up with libel reform now that a Bill has finally been introduced should take a look at David Allen Green's Jack of Kent blog which has aggregated a series of useful bits of info relating to the Defamation Bill 2012.

Freedom of Information
There's a couple of good blogs to put in your feed reader if you want to keep up woth FoI. First, there's David Higgerson, who regularly rounds up FoI stories including this one on the council that wanted to keep the location of jubilee street parties secret. And there's FoIMan, for anyone who's really into Freedom of Information.

And just a reminder that Whatdotheyknow.com is a great resource for tracking FoI requests - and getting help with making one.

Leveson Inquiry
UPDATE: Hat-tip to @richpeppiatt and props to Full Fact for this searchable Leveson database.

General developments
As always, keep an eye on Judith Townend's Meejalaw blog for news and comment on developments in law for journalists.

Coffee time: Interesting links from the last week

Here's a handful of links gathered from the last week or so on everything from data and long-form journalism to big thoughts on the business of publishing.

Data journalism and data visualisation

• First, Getstats argues that data is at the heart of all stories - and life in general 
• Adrian Holovaty says that news sites need to move away from their story-centric worldview and organise data in different ways - an old post but still relevant.
• And there's five of the Guardian's best data visualisations as featured on journalism.co.uk.

Different ways of telling the story

• Adam Westbrook tells us about his crowdsourced book on digital storytelling.
• Plus, there's Wannabehacks' look at the best in long-form journalism.
• Meanwhile, a BBC survey finds that the UK online population is actively contributing in greater numbers than before.

The business of publishing

• On the money front, Gawker Media's Nick Denton tells Business Insider how he's making money 'beyond the banner ad' via e-commerce, branded content and events. 
• Speakers at the PPA conference debate the commercial role of the editor 
• There's a look at the value of conversation rate optimisation in understanding which routes through the sales funnel will "yield the biggest wins with the least work". 
• And Peter Kirwan asks how can companies attract and keep the best developer talent, and how does the traditional publishing mindset need to change to accommodate them?

Trends in the newsroom 

• Try this podcast on how analytics can provide story leads and new angles.
• Lastly, here's some ongoing discussion about how best to organise newsrooms when some journalists are still arguing about the merits of Traditional subbing versus new age hubbing. 

Best journalism job ad ever?

Stop me if you've seen this one before, but for some reason Scoop.it just served up this Mother Jones post from last year for a US job ad looking for committed journalists.

According to the ad the ideal candidate has:

Cursed out an editor, had spokespeople hang up on them in anger and threatened to resign at least once.

It also wants someone who doesn't fear taking on overambitious projects that can be "hellish and soul-sucking".

If you’re the type of sicko who likes holing up in a tiny, closed  office with reporters of questionable hygiene ...all for the glorious reward of having readers pick up the paper and glance at your potential prize-winning epic as they flip their way to the Jumble… well, if that sounds like journalism Heaven, then you’re our kind of sicko.

Nice to see a bit of honesty instead of all the usual buzzwords.