Latest News

In the UK, journalists at Thompson Reuters have voted to strike for the first time in over 25 years in response to a below-inflation pay offer. Journalists will strike for 48 hours next week, just as Thompson Reuters publishes its full year financial results, reports The Guardian.

Africa Times News reported that the first African tablet device, which was presented at the Africa Web Summit in September 2011, has been launched in Congo on January 30. Way-C, which means "starlight" ("lumière des étoiles") in a North Congolese dialect, is the first in the history of these new technologies on the continent, the article says.

Zimbabwe's media commission said on February 2 that it will ask authorities to ban foreign newspapers that are not registered to operate in the country, news24 reported. Commission chair Godfrey Majonga singled out South Africa's Sunday Times newspaper as having failed to comply with the rules, which require all journalists working in the country to obtain accreditation from the commission, the article said.

With video becoming increasingly important to consumers, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have each announced they are launching new daily video programmes. The New York Times has launched a new daily business-related programme while The Wall Street Journal has started a new daily lifestyle show.

On 1 February, NetNewsCheck reported that the New York Times has launched a new program called "Business Day Live."

In a related press release, the New York Times stated that "the program is broadcast live from The Times newsroom, and offers the insights and analysis of reporters and columnists from The Times's business, media and technology desks."

 It features five rotating hosts, including David Gillen and Winnie O'Kelley, deputy business editors, and reporters Peter Lattman, Catherine Rampell and Louise Story. The Times said the show will run about six minutes at launch, with plans to expand it in the future.

"We are committed to delivering the crucial business news stories to our readers as they happen, across all platforms," said Lawrence Ingrassia, business editor at The New York Times. "Business Day Live will provide NYTimes.com users immediate accounts of the day's essential business news in real time, with exclusive insights from top business reporters from The Times's newsroom."

A School of Data Journalism will be held in Perugia, Italy, between 25-29 April, during the sixth edition of the International Journalism Festival. See the programme here.

Continuing on the path of transparency, the Guardian announced it will open its doors to readers "hosting a weekend at the end of March for a festival of ideas, innovation and entertainment."
Editor Alan Rusbridger explains what visitors can expect from the Open Weekend project.

As the Leveson inquiry continues, self-regulation of the press is under scrutiny. The Hold the Front Page reported what the chairman of the Press Complaints Commission told the inquiry about the possibility of having a "totally new body" to oversee the industry.

Tools already exist for journalists to exploit this growth in data. Nieman Lab reported earlier this week on Weave, an open-source internet platform for creating visualizations of "any available data by anyone for any purpose". Another example is Tableau Public, a data visualization tool that was billed by Journalism.co.uk as requiring "no technical ability" and being "easier to use than the wizard options that allow you to create graphs in Excel".

"La Tribune bids you farewell" said the paper's frontpage on January 30, the day of the last printed edition of the French newspaper La Tribune, which will now be entirely digital. Benoît Raphaël on Le Social NewsRoom reflected on what this closure means.

According to Paid Content, the state-owned Chinese telecommunications company China Telecom will start selling the iPhone4S by the end of this month or the beginning of the next. This is the first time that the company will offer an Apple smartphone. 

The Trinity Mirror has proposed 75 more editorial redundancies at the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and People. Press Gazette reports that the company is creating a "centralized reporting and production hub" for reporters across all three papers, but also promises to maintain "bespoke editorial teams" for each title. 

by Hannah Vinter

Jim Romenesko has published an interview with Tom Curley, the departing CEO of the Associated Press, on his blog. "The Internet has ushered in a world where there is more chaos, but that's good for us because our values are strong and we have earned a reputation for getting it right," says Curley.

"No comment".

Business executives had become more and more adept at hiding behind this phrase, argues David Carr of The New York Times in an article published on Sunday. Not only that, but major figures in business are often obscured by "communications" teams that are anything but communicative. But now, suggests Carr, "Twitter has the potential to cut past all that clutter".

Carr writes that thanks to Twitter "there's a chance to get a glimpse into the thinking of otherwise unapproachable executives, and sometimes even have a real dialogue with them".