Football Museum photos

Here are a selection of resized photos for JN2053 Digital Journalism module. The subject of these photos is the National Football Museum, who's Preston future is in doubt at the moment.


This image is 200x500 pixels big and has been cropped to show the entrance to the museum, to keep the photo as recognisable as possible


This version is 400x300 pixels and therefore can show more of the entrance to the museum.


For the 100x100 pixel i focused on the logo, which is located on the outside wall of the shop next to the entrance. I chose this because the logo was the most obvious and recognisable part of the photo compared to the building desgin.

This is the original photo, showing the complete image with all part of the museum and rest of Deepdale football stadium which could fit into view. From the photo it is possible to see where each of the small photos were cropped to.

Digital Journalism

Mark Payton is the Digital Editorial Director of Haymarket Consumer Media, owned by former Deputy Prime Minister Michael Heseltine.

Some of the titles owned by Haymarket include Autosport, What Car? and FourFourTwo.

In this video, taken from the Meld workshop at Sandbox, Mark discusses how online journalism has affected how the world of online has meant his publications have had to adapt to compete against the new competition.

Button - a deserving champion

It's very nearly been 24 hours since the 2009 F1 Championship was settled, and Jenson Button was crowned as Britain's 10th World Champion.

There are some people who say he does not deserve the title but to be honest, who out there did more to deserve it? The answer is nobody.

Winning six out of the first seven races, a record that betters those of Senna, Mansell and Schumacher, formed the foundations of his title challenge. And despite a mid-season blip which saw both Red Bull drivers and his team-mate Rubens Barrichello start winning races and picking up podiums while Button struggled with a string of poor qualifying sessions.

But over the course of the season, he has won the most races and scored the most points. You can't argue against that. Button has scored more wins this year than Hamilton did last year when he won his title.

Barrichello was the better driver over the second half of the season, buoyed by his victories at Valencia and Monza; his first for five years. But his terrible luck at Interlagos continues. His 17th race in his home city, and he has still not managed better than 3rd despite three pole positions.

Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber in the Red Bull's had fast cars but were hampered by poor reliability with the Renault engine not being as consistant as Brawn's Mercedes. Vettel will surely be a champion one day, he has time on his side as well as supreme talent. But this was Brawn's year.

A team which in December did not even exist. A team who didn't get to test the car until three weeks before the season. A team which had to lay off 200 staff to survive. A team which had to redesign part of the car to fit the Mercedes-Benz engine.

It is a brilliant story. This is only the third time since 1998 that a team apart from Ferrari or McLaren has won the Drivers and Constructors championships.

Even in the height of the Ferrari dominance in 2004, Button was 'best of the rest' finishing 3rd in the championship with 85 points and plenty of podium finishes.

The last two years he has been hampered by having two of the worst cars in recent F1 history but this season he got a competetive car and made the most of it. While Barrichello struggled with the anti-stall system which ruined many a race for him, Button charged off to victory after victory at the start of the season.

And despite the Brawn not having the advantage it did at the start of the season; as Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari close the gap, he got the points he needed to ensure his points lead was never seriously eradicated.

To crown his championship, a charge from 14th on the grid to a 5th placed finish at Felipe Massa's chequered flag with some feisty overtaking manouvers which showed the world he is not a conservative driver. When he needs to, he goes for it.

And he's got his reward.

Headline writing

According to Jakob Nielsen there are five rules that journalists should obey when it comes to headline writing, and in particular, headline writing for the web.

They are:
1. Keep it short. Don't use too many words because people read quickly on the internet and want headlines that are short and easy to read. Sky Sports' headline here is a good short story that will make people stop and read. Four words that will attract a reader because of who and why.

2. Summarise. Every word must tell part of the story so ensure that every word in the headline does its job and gives the reader as much information as possible. The Sun here have summarised up Alex Ferguson in an interview discussing the form of Rio Ferdinand after his mistake in the Ukraine on Saturday night.

3. Most important words at the beginning. Tell as much of the story as possible with the most important facts at the beginning. The BBC do a good job of this, as the headline shows. It gives away the most important part of the story at the start - Newsagents warn Labour.

4. Make it understandable out of context. The headline should be able to summarise the story so even without reading the article the reader knows the most important facts and has an idea of what it is about. Once again the BBC come up trumps with a headline that tells the reader the one fact in the article that actually matters.

5. Predictability. So the reader knows from the headline whether they will like the article or not.
This is the only category the Daily Mail succeeds in, giving its tendancy to write a headline that is so long, it's surprising they have any information left for the article.

The BBC headlines are the best. They tick all five boxes that Nielsen suggests the headlines need to follow. Reading various headlines, I do agree with Nielson that headlines should conform to the rules he suggests.

Nuclear Warheads

President Obama has recently abandoned the Pentagon's plans to build a missile defence system in Europe.

A meeting of the UN Security Council, also chaired by Obama, called for nuclear disarmament; with concerns over Iran's nuclear ambitions.

However Iran's nuclear programme still has a long way to go if it is to get anywhere near those of America or Russia.

Despite calling for nuclear disarmament, America has only got rid of 1,000 nucelar warheads in the last decade, compared to Russia which has scrapped 9,000.

According to the BBC, America still has thousands more strategic missiles than the former Soviet Union and nowhere near as many awaiting dismantling.

At this rate Russia will easily be the first out of the two countries to cut their warhead levels down to 1,700 within seven years of a new nuclear treaty.

At least they are cutting down though.

Despite having nowhere near the levels of the Americans or Russians, Britain is the only country in the Western World to have increased its nuclear arsenal since 2000.

So when Gordon Brown says that he's willing to remove one of Britain's trident submarines, it is easy to understand why the reaction is not jubilant.