May 2004 Archives

At the World Editors Forum today, Andrew Nachison and Dale Peskin (biographies below), Co-Directors, Media Center at the American Press Institute, modeled the digital future of the newspaper industry. Through research, seminars and symposia, the Media Center has been creating models for "the visible future -- the things we know are happening, and how things are emerging," said Mr. Peskin. The goal is simple but ambitious: "to build a better-informed society," said Mr. Nachison.

At the World Newspaper Congress in Istanbul, Turkey, which is running concurrently with the World Editors Forum, there has been discussion of comments made last month by investor Warren Buffett, who said the newspaper business is going to deteriorate. Brendan Hopkins, the CEO of APN News & Media, which is Australasia’s largest regional newspaper, radio and outdoor advertising group, had an interesting reaction -- he says Buffet singled out US newspapers and that innovations elsewhere in the world are keeping the business strong. Here is what he had to say at the Congress:

At the 11th World Editors Forum today, Mr. Oh Yeon Ho, CEO and Founder of OhmyNews said goodbye to 20th century journalism and invited everyone to the 21st century, in which “Every citizen is a reporter.” His online publication, OhMyNews, based in South Korea, has offered its readers since 2000 a new media proposition : to become active readers in an environment where every citizen is a (potential) reporter. In a south Korean market where (mobile & broadband) internet penetration is 75 %, online technologies give citizens the unique opportunity to produce OhMyNews' content. The intent of blurring the line between contributor and consumer is to "change the world together," Mr. Ho said.

According to the New York Times, "Bob and Harvey Weinstein, the principals of the Walt Disney Company's Miramax Films division, on Friday personally acquired the rights to the Michael Moore documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11," bringing the movie a step closer to American theaters. Although Miramax had bankrolled the documentary, which harshly criticizes President Bush and his decision to wage war in Iraq, Disney refused to let the unit, its art-house subsidiary, distribute it. Under the deal worked out with Disney, the Weinsteins will reimburse Disney for the $6 million production cost of "Fahrenheit 9/11." Miramax and Disney also agreed to donate any "monetary benefit" from the deal to charity, according to a joint statement.

Source: New York Times

Well done by BBC news and today by the Sunday Times (UK): "In his first interview since his release, Mordechai Vanunu, the former technician jailed for 18 years for leaking Israel's nuclear secrets has said he was trying to prevent a nuclear holocaust. "I felt it was not about betraying; it was about reporting. It was about saving Israel from a new holocaust." In the interview for the BBC's This World programme, Mr Vanunu said he had no regrets over his actions. "I have no regrets despite the fact I have paid a heavy punishment, a large price," he said. Mr Vanunu, 50, who is widely regarded as a traitor in Israel, spent nearly 18 years in prison for revealing details of Israel's clandestine nuclear arms programme. Under the terms of his release, Mr Vanunu is forbidden from leaving Israel, meeting foreigners and revealing secrets about the Dimona nuclear plant.

Gunmen shot dead the editor of a conservative daily in Montenegro early Friday, The assailants used an automatic rifle to shoot Mr Dusko Jovanovic, the editor-in-chief of the Podgorica-based Dan daily, as he entered his car in front of the paper's head office, witnesses and investigative judge Mr Radomir Ivanovic said... The Dan paper has been embroiled in several libel lawsuits. Mr Jovanovic was indicted last year by the UN war crimes tribunal for revealing the identity of a protected witness at the court. Mr Jovanovic, a controversial journalist, was considered close to conservative opposition parties in Montenegro.

Source: European Journalism centre

From Slate: Thank the self-proclaimed narcissism of Slate editor-at-large Jack Shafer for this amusing tidbit. While scanning Google News Alerts mentioning his name, Shafer noticed that practically the same paragraph appeared in the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post, citing him as a prominent media critic calling for the New York Times to own up to its pre-war reporting mistakes. To make a long story short, the Los Angeles Times ended up running a correction apologizing for an editor's "accidental" lifting of the Post paragraph in the midst of searching for background info. But Shafer is skeptical. Is the lifting of text ever truly an accident? If you want a good laugh, read the entire piece.

Source: Slate

Here, in totality, is an important and creative piece about media ethics and black Africa written by Claude-Jean Bertrand, the editor of presscouncils.org. It reminds us all that our responsibility toward journalistic ethics extends past recent plagiarism and fabrication scandals, and proposes a sort of "adopt-a-newspaper" program between newspapers in the developed world and in Africa: "On Press Freedom Day (May 10), economist Amartya Sen repeated that there are no famines in democracies with press freedom. May I add no genocides either and few civil wars or mass epidemics ? News media in emerging democracies can help avoid such disasters. And news media in established democracies should help their less fortunate brethren...

From thedeal.com: The news could hit today that Dutch publishing company PCM Uitgevers NV has been sold to Apax Partners, a private equity house. The PCM group has been a powerhouse in Dutch journalism - it owns the national dailies de Volkskrant, Algemeen Dagblad and Trouw (which originated as an underground resistance paper during World War II), as well as NRC Handelblad, the Netherland's leading financial newspaper. According to thedeal.com article, an Apax spokesperson said Apax would become a majority shareholder, but this contradicts the reporting of de Volkskrant itself, which reported that Apax was set to purchase 47.5% of PCM Uitgevers NV instead of 63%.

Source: thedeal.com

From Richard Prince's Journal-ism's at the Poynter Institute: The Knight Foundation has surveyed 1,413 U.S. newspapers to find out which are least representative - racially - of the communities they serve. The results show that only 13% of the newspapers surveyed have reached parity between the racial makeup of their staff and the racial makeup of their readership. And 374 papers, mostly small-circulation, reported no African American, Hispanic, Asian or Native American staff members at all. As the Knight Foundation reports, one of the 374 is "The Independent in Gallup, N.M., where the circulation area is 93% non-white."

According to MediaWeek, the UK magazine, "Commuters in Leicester, Nottingham and Derby have been on the receiving end of a major marketing push in recent days in the lead up to first new Metro (free daily) for a number of years. The first day saw 53,000 copies distributed at railway stations and transport hubs in the three cities.Next Monday, a further 30,000 copies will be distributed in the West Country, as the next stage kicks in for pushing the paper’s total UK circulation towards one million copies. Working with Daily Mail and General Trust partner, regional publisher Northcliffe Newspaper, Metro will also be distributed in Bath, Bristol, Cheltenham andGloucester."

Source: MediaWeek

Each week, Jack Schafer, Slate, tries to assess the readibility of major English speaking newspapers websites. Last week, he was incredibly negative about the electronic editions of NYT, LAT and WaPo. This week, he is in better mood: "the electronic editions of Florida Today and The Guardian are changing my thinking. The future of newspapering might be closer than I thought. On the surface, Florida Today and the Guardian are very similar to their electronic edition genre-mates. Both display PDF images of each print-edition page; both allow readers to page through the "paper" with mouse clicks, skip forward to a desired section, or zero in on a subject with the search function. What sets Florida Today and the Guardian apart from the pack is the way they preserve the basic navigation principles of a daily newspaper.

Just for your weekend... and thanks to Seth Godin. "Assume that: Hard drive space is free Wifi like connections are everywhere Connections speeds are 10 to 100 times faster Everyone has a digital camera Everyone carries a device that is sort of like a laptop, but cheap and tiny The number of new products introduced every day is five times greater than now Wal-Mart's sales are three times as big Any manufactured product that's more than five years old in design sells at commodity pricing The retirement age will be five years higher than it is now Your current profession will either be gone or totally different What then?"

Source: Seth Godin's blog through Buzzmachine

Just for your weekend... and thanks to Seth Godin. "Assume that: Hard drive space is free Wifi like connections are everywhere Connections speeds are 10 to 100 times faster Everyone has a digital camera Everyone carries a device that is sort of like a laptop, but cheap and tiny The number of new products introduced every day is five times greater than now Wal-Mart's sales are three times as big Any manufactured product that's more than five years old in design sells at commodity pricing The retirement age will be five years higher than it is now Your current profession will either be gone or totally different What then?"

Source: Seth Godin's blog through Buzzmachine

Today, it's almost impossible to find an American blog without a comment on what the Microsoft chairman has said about the blogosphere... For lot of bloggers, it's a sort of (religious) consecration. According to BBC, In a speech to an audience of chief executives, Mr Bill Gates said the regularly updated journals, or blogs, could be a good way for firms to tell customers, staff and partners what they are doing. Mr Gates' blessing of blogs came during his keynote speech at Microsoft's CEO Summit held on the company's campus in Redmond, Seattle. Mr Gates made a point of dwelling on blogs and said that although they started in the technical community and have come to be a broader social phenomenon, businesses can use them too.

Dean Southwell, 41, is the new editor of The Examiner, Tasmania (South of Australia). According to the newspaper, "The board of The Examiner Newspaper Ltd, at its meeting unanimously supported Mr Southwell's appointment as only The Examiner's fifth editor in the past 66 years. Mr Southwell had been news editor for the past four years, a position that included the responsibility of acting editor in the absence of the former editor Rod Scott."

Source: The Examiner, Tasmania, Australia

According to AFP, "The German newspaper publisher Axel Springer has made an offer to buy Britain's influential Daily Telegraph newspaper, informed sources here said Friday. A Springer spokeswoman refused to comment on the report, which came a day after the deadline for offers. The source did not reveal how much Springer was willing to pay... According to Friday's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung daily, the publishing company has offered 740 million euros."

Source: AFP

Thanks to LA Observed and Kevin Roderick for the news sent at 4 PM, Los Angeles time: "Six AP wire stories are all that shows, plus this alert: "We are experiencing technical difficulties on latimes.com and calendarlive.com. We are working to fix the problem. Thank you for your patience." (I'm told in email that the entire Tribune chain of websites is down. Something about the servers...)." At 6 PM, LA time, everything was OK!

Source: LA Observed

The deadline has passed for bids for the newspaper assets of Hollinger International, owners of Britain's Daily Telegraph. Offers for all or some of US-based Hollinger were submitted on Thursday. Bidders interested in buying the Daily Telegraph are thought to include media tycoons David and Frederick Barclay and rival UK newspaper the Daily Mail. Hollinger's newspapers were put up for sale following a bitter dispute between the firm and ousted boss Conrad Black.

Thorough comment from Jeff Jarvis: "I found myself shocked by the number of dead people pictured in today's New York Times. Page A1: A photo of a man carrying a dead child the age of my own child. Page A10: A photo of a dozen corpses of people killed in Gaza, shrouded with their faces staring out. Page A13: A photo of Iraqi men carrying the bodies of the dead from "an attack by American forces" off a truck. Page E 3: A photo of a dead Confederate soldier under the infamous photo of the leashed prisoner at Abu Ghraib." Read the whole comment on his blog.

Source: Buzzmachine

According The Navajo Hopi Observer, "Two Hopi High School journalism students won state journalism awards from the Arizona Interscholastic Press Association. Jamie Keith and Tori Yazzie won the awards for articles that appeared in Hopi High School’s newspaper, The Bruin Times. Jamie Keith won a superior rating for an editorial about “Eliminating ‘Under God’ usage” in the pledge of allegiance. Tori Yazzie won an Honorable Mention for a feature story about “Crying babies help students.” This story is about a class at Hopi High School, which uses mechanical babies to teach students what it’s like to have real babies... Hopi High School is the only high school north of Sedona that annually wins awards for journalism from the Arizona Interscholastic Press Association."

Source: The Navajo Hopi Observer through Topix.net.

Thanks to Jemima Kiss for this piece of news: "The BBC has launched a new mobile phone service for children that will deliver headlines from Newsround, the current affairs programme for children. "Our research reflects that children are becoming increasingly technologically aware, and we are simply reacting to the demands of that audience, offering approved, relevant content across easily accessible platforms," said Ashley Highfield, BBC director of new media and technology. The launch follows the release of new research by mobileYouth that shows that under 25 year-olds spend around five times as much on mobile phone services than on music.

Source: dotjournalism.co.uk

According to Dow Jones, "Editorial staff at two John Fairfax Holdings Ltd. newspapers in Sydney passed a resolution Thursday rejecting any lay off plan by the company that involves forced departures and the targeting of older workers. The Sun-Herald and Sydney Morning Herald employees also accused Fairfax of breaking the spirit of a deal that saw them previously agree to "modest" pay rises, said Richard Harris, an industrial organizer with the Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance. Fairfax announced its layoff program Tuesday, targeting 35-45 reporters, editors, sub-editors, artists, designers and photographers on the senior grade of J9 and above. The program is designed to reduce annual costs by more than A$4 million. In addition, Fairfax plans to reduce page numbers at the two papers. "

Source: DowJones through Yahoo Singapore

According to AP, Norwegian journalists extend strike at major newspapers. Nearly 400 more Norwegian journalists will join a week-long strike that has stemmed the flow of news in the Nordic country, after negotiators said Wednesday that talks had yielded no progress. Nearly 2,900 journalists went on strike May 12 after they failed to settle a new contract, crippling major newspapers and the national news and photo agencies. Another 390 have joined them this week. State-led mediation between the Norwegian Union of Journalists and the Norwegian Media Businesses' Association collapsed in a dispute about pensions, treatment of temporary staff and raises for the lowest-paid journalists.

According to Frank Barnako, CBSMarketwatch.com, Traffic patterns to the campaign Web sites of President Bush and Sen. John Kerry are mirroring the political polls: It's a tight race. Kerry, the presumptive Democratic nominee, saw his site draw 1.6 million visitors last month, according to Nielsen/NetRatings (NTRT); the Bush-Cheney reelection site attracted 1.5 million... "Despite most political campaigns' continuing comfort level with TV as the preferred medium, the Kerry for President camp and the RNC appear to be embracing online advertising," said Greg Bloom, senior Internet analyst. "Political parties on both sides are recognizing that important target audiences can effectively be reached online."

Source: Frank Barnako's Internet Daily (CBS Marketwatch)

Bad news in April, good news in May! Last month, the American newspaper industry was a bit depressed by the 2003 circulation figures (see former posting), but this month the ad figures seem to give it a boost. According to the Newspaper Association of America, "Newspaper advertising expenditures for the first quarter of 2004 totaled $10.2 billion, a 3.5 percent increase over the same period a year earlier, according to preliminary estimates from the Newspaper Association of America. Against that background of total advertising growth, classified advertising spending increased 4.0 percent to $3.6 billion, national ad spending increased 4.5 percent to $1.8 billion and retail spending rose 2.7 percent to $4.8 billion."

Source NAA through Yahoo

The International Press Institute (IPI) said it would remove South Korea from its "watch list" of countries where media freedom was curtailed. The IPI, a Vienna-based organisation which monitors press freedoms in more than 100 countries, also decided to add Ethiopia to the list, where it joins Russia, Venezuela and Zimbabwe... The IPI also passed resolutions expressing serious concern about press feedom or working conditions for journalists in Zimbabwe, Cuba and Iraq. Wilfred David Kiboro, Chief Executive of the Nation Group in Kenya, was elected chairman of IPI, succeeding Argentinian Jorge Fascetto. The next IPI annual meeting is due to take place in Nairobi next May. Source: AFP

British MediaWeek presents "who are the most influential individuals in the UK media sector - the people whose footsteps reverberate around the industry." The magazine counts down the 50 individuals who wield the most power in the media business. OK but I'm very surprised not to find at least one single editor in this list! It's a bit old-fashioned to consider that editorial issues are less important than marketing or management questions...

Source: MediaWeek

In the UK, the majority of complaints made to the Press Complaints Commission, which raise a possible breach of the Code of Practice, are resolved directly between the Commission's staff, editors and complainants says Hold the Front Page. Recently, newspapers agreed to take more care when reporting sensitive cases. For instance, Irvine Times A man from Scotland complained that the Irvine Times (regional newspaper) had provided sufficient information to identify him as a victim of sexual assault. (Clause 12 of the Code). Finally, the complaint was resolved when the newspaper provided a letter of apology to the complainant and an undertaking to take into consideration the issues raised in the complaint for future reporting of such sensitive cases.

Source: Hold the Front Page

Reported by MediaGuardian: " Military police yesterday arrested a number of soldiers in connection with the faked photographs of British soldiers supposedly torturing Iraqi prisoners. It is understood that up to four people are being questioned. The Daily Mirror, which printed the photographs, denied it had given the names of the soldiers to the military authorities. A Mirror source said: "They haven't come from us." The soldiers are the first people arrested in connection with the hoax."

Source: MediaGuardian"

Thanks to Juan Varela for this posting. The Spanish Federation of Press Association has created the first national Ethical Press Council to autoregulate the professional conduct of press and journalists. The new council will inform about misconducts and ethical problems in order to autorregulate and repair the bad activities of the media. Its reference will be the Conde of Conduct approved for the members of regional press associations in November of 1993. It is the first national deontological comission created in Spain. Before in 1996 was created the Catalonian News Council, that only operate in this autonomous region. The autorregulation of the press always has been very difficult in a culture of strong competition and hard partisanship. The new Ethical Council has nine members: two journalist, three academics, two jurist and two ONG´s members.

Source: Juan Varela, Mediathink Consultores and editor of Periodistas21

Good paper on the new New Yorker by the Boston Globe: "If anyone still thought of The New Yorker as just a stately literary magazine, the past few issues would have disabused them of that notion. For three weeks in a row, the magazine has published stories by Seymour Hersh that have brought wide attention to the abusive treatment of Iraqi prisoners... Kathleen Hall Jamieson, head of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, said: "What The New Yorker may be doing is opening up a space for this kind of journalism . . . long-form, based on original investigative work, not only source work but document work -- a hard kind of work to do."

Source: Boston Globe

A very provocative - not enough maybe - paper in Slate: " If Colin Powell admits he was misled about WMD (weapons of massive destruction). Why can't the New York Times?" asks Jack Shafer. "Secretary of State Colin Powell confessed on Meet the Press yesterday (May 16) that he and the CIA had been hoodwinked by sources who provided the United States with inaccurately sourced, incorrect, and "deliberately misleading" information about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction... Powell shares his embarrassment—if not his regret—with New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who was similarly taken. During the 18 months before the Iraq invasion, Miller and the New York Times repeatedly quoted Iraqi defectors about Saddam's various nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programs. None of Miller's prewar WMD scoops were ever confirmed—unless the sarin-gas shell discovered over the weekend leads to a major weapons cache—and the Times has never explained how it came to publish so many column inches that turned out to be so wrong."

Journalists from the world's Commonwealth countries will descend on Sydney, Australia, next winter for the Commonwealth Press Union's biennial conference and editors' forum. CPU members are newspapers and news agencies from 49 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America. The forum, intended for the senior editors of CPU members, is scheduled for February 20 to 22, 2005. The conference, for publishers, editors and other media professionals, is scheduled for February 23 to 25, 2005.

According to the Spanish trade magazine Gaceta de prensa, the Spanish group, Grupo Joly, publisher of eight regional dailies in Andalucia (Diario de Cadiz, Diario de Sevilla...) has launched a new regional daily newspaper in Malaga: Malaga Hoy. The newspaper has an initial print run of 60'000 copies. This is the seventh daily newspaper (six in Spanish and one in English) for the city of Malaga, south of Spain. Malaga is the fifth city of the country, with 750.000 inhabitants in its metropolitan area.

Source: Gaceta de prensa through Publicitas. See also Periodistas21 (in Spanish).

Read in MediaWeek this apparent contradiction: "In the first four months of 2004, The Independent’s ad volumes fell by 11% compared to the previous year. During the same period the overall quality market, including Sunday titles, was down 1.8% in volume terms, according to Nielsen Media Research." But for sales, the opposite occured. "Extra “value” comes from The Independent’s increased readership and circulation. Sales in April were up 15% year on year and readership is up 31% for the six months to the end of March" said MediaWeek. "While newspaper bosses may argue that the smaller size gives more impact to an ad, media agencies remain unconvinced. “An ad may look bigger on a compact page but there will be less editorial on that page, which means a reader will spend less time looking at it,” one press director says.

Source: MediaWeek

The Washington Post Co. announced today that it is buying El Tiempo Latino, the Arlington-based Spanish-language newsweekly born in 1991, from Farragut Media Group Inc... The Washington Post Co.'s foray into Spanish-language media echoes those of other newspaper publishers, including the Tribune Corp., Belo Corp. and Knight Ridder Inc., which have either launched their own Spanish-language newspapers or bought established ones. El Tiempo Latino, which has a circulation of 34,000, is delivered to homes in the District and Maryland, as well as distributed for free at Metro stations and selected big stores in the Washington metropolitan area.

Source: Washington Post

Good idea from Jeff Jarvis in its Buzzmachine. Because Western reporters are pretty much blocked in the "green zone" of Baghdad - the only alternative seems to accept to become an embedded journalist! -, Buzzmachine provides a list of Baghdad bloggers who report on daily life in an unsecure country.

Source: Buzzmachine

A new report on China's burgeoning magazine market is now available from American Business Media. The 90-page "Guidelines for Publishing in China (2004)" is a project of American Business Media's International Committee. It was written by publishing veteran Thomas Gorman, who launched Fortune China in 1996. The report contains a complete listing of Chinese business magazines with international links, plus the circulation, frequency, one-page 4-color rate, and other information on each title. The report is available free of charge to American Business Media members. Non-members can purchase it for $495 on the American Business Media website.

Source: Media Daily News

Here is an AP story about the success of RSS applications (Real Simple Syndication): A new Web browser from Opera Software ASA this week is the first major browser to incorporate an emerging technology that automatically delivers new blog entries and news articles. Visitors can subscribe to feeds using RSS, and have new items come in regularly as individual messages in Opera's mail client, which is packaged with the browser... The decision by a major browser maker to include RSS is a sign of the technology's rapid adoption.

Source: AP through Yahoo News

The Daily Mirror could soon have its first female editor, as Sunday Mirror editor Tina Weaver is being tipped to succeed Piers Morgan.

Source: Brand Republic newsletter

Some interesting papers about the come-back of "convergence" in media issues in Media Guardian (UK): "Once taboo, convergence is back on the agenda. The seamless delivery of TV, music and the internet is poised to radically alter the media and business landscape" said the Guardian supplement. Another quote: "A lot of this is down to the falling cost of technology, but also a new willingness among the players to work together. Most pertinently, the power of convergence is that it relates to the partnerships (both current and potential) among some of the most important players on the media stage." Please note that the Guardian supplement is "brought to you in association with Deloitte" Source: Media Guardian

Don't miss this article written by Jason Nissé at The Independent: "Until a few months ago, no one had heard of Tweedy, Browne, the American investment company. The small New York fund manager was on the radar of a few City cognoscenti, largely because of its media investments. But now anyone who sees the rather quaint name on their shareholder register will take notice. Tweedy has been instrumental in the dismissal of two of the newspaper industry's largest characters, Lord Black of Crossharbour and Piers Morgan. It is understood to be one of those shareholders who told Trinity Mirror (the owner of the Daily Mirror) that it expected it to take "appropriate action" if the abuse pictures were false." A very good paper on the American shareholders of Trinity Mirror.

Bob Safian, the managing editor of Money magazine for more than six years, is leaving the top editorial position to become an executive editor at Time, the Time Inc. unit of Time Warner announced yesterday.

Source: NYT

The Chilean government criticized the newspaper La Nación for distributing free condoms bearing the official logo of the Ministry of Health, apparently with no prior notification, according to the Knight Center for Americas. The Sunday edition of La Nación included an extensive report on sexuality and a pamphlet from the National Commission on AIDS (Conasida) with instructions on the use of condoms."

Source: Knight Center for Americas

According to The Guardian, "Piers Morgan was forced out as editor of the Daily Mirror tonight (14 May) after a crunch meeting with chief executive Sly Bailey over the Iraq 'torture' photographs, ending his eight and a half year reign at the paper... The board "apologised unreservedly for publishing the pictures" that it said had damaged the paper's reputation. It is believed that Ms Bailey summoned the embattled Morgan to a meeting late this afternoon and demanded he apologise for the alleged fake photographs. Morgan refused and he was asked to leave the building. The company announced he had resigned with "immediate effect" just after 6pm... "He got called down to Sly's office this afternoon and wasn't even allowed back up to the 22nd floor to say goodbye to his staff," said one insider. "He was escorted out of the building by security. Staff were in tears when it was announced by Des Kelly, Morgan's deputy.

According to The Guardian, "Piers Morgan was forced out as editor of the Daily Mirror tonight (14 May) after a crunch meeting with chief executive Sly Bailey over the Iraq 'torture' photographs, ending his eight and a half year reign at the paper... The board "apologised unreservedly for publishing the pictures" that it said had damaged the paper's reputation. It is believed that Ms Bailey summoned the embattled Morgan to a meeting late this afternoon and demanded he apologise for the alleged fake photographs. Morgan refused and he was asked to leave the building. The company announced he had resigned with "immediate effect" just after 6pm... "He got called down to Sly's office this afternoon and wasn't even allowed back up to the 22nd floor to say goodbye to his staff," said one insider. "He was escorted out of the building by security. Staff were in tears when it was announced by Des Kelly, Morgan's deputy.

Joe Strupp at Editor and Publisher writes “A "miscommunication among staffers" and "a breakdown of checks and balances" led to The Boston Globe's publication Wednesday of a photo in which two people are holding a group of sexually graphic pictures, purportedly taken in Iraq (but actually not), that the paper has deemed inappropriate, the Globe's ombudsman said. Christine Chinlund, who has held the ombudsman post for two years, plans to make the photo the subject of her weekly column on Monday, declaring that the paper should have done a better job of screening the photo before it ran."
To conclude, it could be funny (but it isn't): in England, the Queen's Lancashire's regiment now demands apology from Daily Mirror and the tabloid Sun offers 50,000 British pounds reward for Mirror fake photo info!

Sources: Editor and Publisher and Slate

If you interested in finding out what blogs can do for you as an editor the launch of a new website may come as welcome news. “A new Intelliseek service could be a godsend for Web-savvy editors” writes Stephanie Woo at Online Journalism. “The "automated trend discovery system" Blogpulse.com compiles the most popular names, phrases and links in more than 1 million blogs to find out what issues and personalities might be tomorrow’s front-page news.” According to the article Steve Outing, a senior editor at Poynter, “was surprised to see that the top news stories -- prisoner abuse and beheadings in Iraq -- did not top Blogpulse’s "key phrase" list. Rather, according to Blogpulse, many Weblogs are more concerned with the Mexican air force’s UFO sighting, Ralph Nader’s Reform Party endorsement and Abu Musab Zarqawi, the al-Qaeda leader who allegedly beheaded American Nicholas Berg.” Blogpulse.com: an easy and convenient way to determine what story is proving to be the current topic of interest. A reminder: it's just a tool!

Source: Online Journalism

Thanks to Jonathan Dube, MSNBC.com/CyberJournalist.net, for this very helpful paper on a new search site: "Google has a lot of great features, but it's limited in its ability to customize its searches for you, because it doesn't take registration data. A9.com, a new search site from an Amazon.com subsidiary, takes Google's search results and adds some useful personalized features: - Search Inside the Book - Search History (probably the most useful new feature) - A9 Toolbar (like Google, A9 also offers a toolbar)." Conclusion of the article: "A9 may have a lot of features Google doesn't, but it also is missing a lot of key Google features — most importantly, Google's advanced searching interface. A9 is still in beta, though, so hopefully that's something that will be added before the final version is launched."

Source: Poynteronline

Seen in the (British) Guardian (yesterday edition): "The Mirror's offices have been rife with speculation that Morgan, who arrived at work at around 12.30pm today, had already made up his mind to go if the investigation concluded the photographs were not genuine." Seen in The Guardian today: "The editor of the Daily Mirror last night refused to resign over his decision to publish photographs showing alleged Iraqi prisoner abuse after the government said the pictures were "categorically not taken in Iraq". Piers Morgan went on the offensive, calling for ministers to "bring to book" the soldiers who had committed the alleged abuse..." The paper issued a robust defence of its pictures, demanding the government provide evidence for claiming the images are fake. "The government likes to produce a scapegoat to distract attention when it is in a crisis," the paper said.

Sources: The Guardian and former mail (13/5/04)

According to The Guardian, the British armed forces minister, Adam Ingram, today told MPs that the Daily Mirror's "world exclusive" pictures of British soldiers abusing and urinating on Iraqis were "categorically not taken in Iraq"... In an implicit attack on the paper's editor, Piers Morgan, he told MPs that "it is deeply disturbing that there are those prepared to casually vilify our armed forces without first establishing the facts".

Source: The Guardian. See also our former posting.

According to The Guardian, the British armed forces minister, Adam Ingram, today told MPs that the Daily Mirror's "world exclusive" pictures of British soldiers abusing and urinating on Iraqis were "categorically not taken in Iraq"... In an implicit attack on the paper's editor, Piers Morgan, he told MPs that "it is deeply disturbing that there are those prepared to casually vilify our armed forces without first establishing the facts".

Source: The Guardian. See also our former posting.

The New York Times will introduce a companion publication to its Sunday magazine this summer to concentrate on fashion, designing and entertaining. The new magazine will be published eight times a year and will replace the current Part 2 publications. Please note, too, that the New York Times Company plans to begin construction this summer of a long-awaited 52-story skyscraper at Eighth Avenue and 40th Street. The Times and its partner, Forest City Ratner Companies, have tentatively scheduled a groundbreaking ceremony for late June on what will be the newspaper's third home in the Times Square neighborhood over the last century.

Mark Glaser at the Japan Media Review has written an interesting article that looks at the evolution of blogs and whether this new form of communication is changing the face of traditional journalism. Cori Dauber, an associate professor of Communication Studies, and of Peace, War, and Defense, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is quoted as saying “I really don't consider it a form of journalism. I think there are moments when bloggers take on a reporting function -- clearly the Iraqi bloggers have taken on this role in response to what they see as the failure of Western media. And other bloggers have done so when big events have happened in their areas, particularly when they've felt the need to serve as a corrective to mainstream outlets."

Mark Fitzgerald at Editor & Publisher has written a good piece about the current state of the Spanish-language newspaper industry in the US. According to the article, the industry is not doing as well as everyone believes. “At a time when everyone wants to publish a Spanish-language paper, the truth is many of them are only seeing incremental growth. This is the third consecutive ABC reporting period in which Spanish-language dailies have posted underwhelming numbers.

It seems to have been a very significant year for the British press. According to Claire Cozens at The Guardian, the Press Complaints Commission “has overhauled its code of conduct and tightened up the rules on payments to criminals in an effort to counter accusations it has failed to curb the worst excesses of the print media”. The code makes it clear editors must take personal responsibility for ensuring their publications comply. From June 1, when the new code takes effect, newspapers will also be barred from paying criminals for material that seeks to "exploit, glorify or glamorise crime", and will not be able to publish any information obtained by paying a criminal unless it is in the public interest to do so.”

The Independent has ended months of speculation and abandoned its broadsheet format in favour of a tabloid edition. The move, which sees the end of the broadsheet edition of the newspaper in the UK after almost two decades, will come as no surprise to the industry. A leader column on page 2 of today’s edition said: “Since 30 September last year, we have been offering readers a choice between broadsheet and compact formats." Describing the response as “overwhelming”, the paper said the number of readers that prefer the broadsheet is now “so mall that it simply does not make business sense to continue to publish it”

Source: Mediaweek

Never seen this news before, it seems a BBC exclusive news: "The Baghdad Blog, a book based on an online diary written by an Iraqi man about life during the conflict there, is to be made into a film. Media group Intermedia is searching for a scriptwriter to adapt the book by the man, who calls himself Salam Pax. Salam Pax's diary, Dear Raed, became an internet sensation during the Iraq war. Salam Pax, whose real name has never been revealed, spent months writing an often bleakly humorous weblog which detailed the fears and hardships of Iraqi citizens. Salam Pax began a fortnightly column in The Guardian newspaper in May last year.

Source: BBC news

"Get the latest word direct from the Googleplex about new technology, hot issues, and the wide world of search," it says at the first official Google weblog home page.

Source: Google.

According to Indrajit Basu, UPI business correspondent, "Media industry sources say that the foreign deals that India has seen so far are just a glimpse of what is yet to come. Other high-profile deals in the pipeline include a tie-up between BusinessWeek and Cybermedia, a leading Indian publisher of IT magazines; The Intelligent Computing Chip, published by TBW Publishing; Par Golf from Exposure Media; along with rumors circulating that Walt Disney has approached the Foreign Investment Promotion Board to set up an Indian subsidiary. Besides Dainik Jagran, the Hindi language newspaper, whose owner Narendra Mohan was in the forefront of the pro-FDI lobby, is reportedly talking to the Wall Street Journal as well."

Source: UPI

Thanks to cyberjournalist.net for writing this useful piece on the way in which people read online news headlines. According to the article preliminary findings from an eyetrack study from Poynter, the Estlow Center for Journalism and New Media and Eyetools Inc, show that “the readers on home pages with larger headlines appear to do more skimming or spot-checking, rather than 'reading.' Larger headlines seem to implicitly allow permission to skip blurbs and easily scan down the page. This raises the key point as to the purpose of Web page headlines. "Small-headline viewers tended to 'hover' over each headline/blurb combo on the page. The extra concentration it took to absorb the smaller headline type seemed to draw them more into reading the accompanying blurbs. And these readers tended to move further down the page."

Source: cyberjournalist.net

Thanks to cyberjournalist.net for writing this useful piece on the way in which people read online news headlines. According to the article preliminary findings from an eyetrack study from Poynter, the Estlow Center for Journalism and New Media and Eyetools Inc, show that “the readers on home pages with larger headlines appear to do more skimming or spot-checking, rather than 'reading.' Larger headlines seem to implicitly allow permission to skip blurbs and easily scan down the page. This raises the key point as to the purpose of Web page headlines. "Small-headline viewers tended to 'hover' over each headline/blurb combo on the page. The extra concentration it took to absorb the smaller headline type seemed to draw them more into reading the accompanying blurbs. And these readers tended to move further down the page."

Source: cyberjournalist.net

Joe Strupp at Editor & Publisher looks at the role of editors when it comes to ‘ethical breaches’. “While reporters involved in various ethical breaches have been punished in many cases for their crimes, few editors have been suspended or fired in the past year for transgressions that occurred on their watch. Of course, Karen Jurgensen recently quit her top newsroom post at USA Today amidst the Jack Kelley scandal. But some newsroom veterans say those in charge should be taking more of the responsibility, more of the heat.”

Popular UK daily tabloid newspaper The Sun has promoted “Chris Pharo to take over as the tabloid's news editor following the resignation of Sue Thompson last week” writes Claire Cozens at The Guardian. Pharo, the Sun's deputy news editor who has worked for the paper for 12 years, takes over with immediate effect.

Source: The Guardian

Source: The Guardian (article by Claire Cozens) The Guardian (article by Owen Gibson)

It seems to have been a bad year for circulation, for many US newspaper. According to Jacques Steinberg at The New York Times "while a majority of the nation's 10 largest newspapers reported circulation gains for the six months ended in March, most others lost readers during that period, continuing the industry's overall long-term decline, according to an analysis of reports released yesterday by the Audit Bureau of Circulations." According to an analysis by the Newspaper Association of America (NAA), half of the largest newspapers in the US reported weekday circulation declines.

Photographs of an Iraqi prisoner being allegedly abused by British soldiers of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment will be examined by the Royal Military Police to decide whether or not they are authentic. Doubts were raised about the authenticity of shocking photographs purporting to show British troops apparently mistreating prisoners in Iraq. According to The Guardian, army claimed there was more evidence photos were fake. On the other side, The Independent reported that the two soldiers who supplied the photographs to the Daily Mirror sought to refute accusations that they were fakes.

Source: The Independent and The Guardian

Quoted by the Washington Post about the abuse allegations in Iraqi prisons: "The public relations damage is profound and permanent," said Juan Cole, a professor of modern Middle Eastern history at the University of Michigan. "The release of these pictures may be the point at which the United States lost Iraq."

Source: Juan Cole weblog and the Washington Post

Howard Kurtz's (unfriendly) quote in the Washington Post: "Washington City Paper Editor Erik Wemple thinks he knows why the Jack Kelley scandal hasn't gotten much media traction. In a database search, he writes, the Jayson Blair debacle garnered 1,428 mentions in U.S. newspapers in the two weeks after the New York Times detailed his fabrications. The Kelley count after USA Today's investigation was published: 103 hits. Wemple's analysis after some interviews: "Media heavies don't read USA Today." (Here's another factor: Howell Raines, NYT, who had to quit, was far better known than Karen Jurgensen, USAT, who had to quit.)"

Source: Washington Post

According to Prajjal Saha at agencyfaqs! Delhi-based newspaper Hindustan Times today launched Hindustan Times NEXT, a standalone daily newspaper targeted at readers in their mid-teens and early twenties. According to the article the paper, which starts with 14 to 16 pages, is divided into three subjects. The first section will "include current affairs, national and international news, city news and sports." The second will "feature the kind of information young, urban readers find interesting – news and articles on technology, gadgets, nature and wildlife, academics and careers." The third section will "be fun and entertainment-oriented, with news from the world of fashion, movies, television and music."

Source: agencyfaqs!

Thanks to The Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas for featuring this useful and interesting article about the problems that have been identified within Colombia's print news. According to the article "the press faces serious quality and credibility problems" after the results of the The Antonio Nariño Project were published. The study presented the results from a content analysis of 3,000 articles published in 13 newspapers and found that the majority of newspapers only cover Colombia's armed conflict "superficially." "The newspapers' managing editors collectively announced plans to collaborate to improve the quality of coverage." Its worth having a look at the results of The Antonio Nariño Project (but bear in mind the report is in Spanish)

Source: The Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, Semana.com and elespectador

According to this article, written by Margaret Stafford an Associated Press writer, Gerald Boyd, who resigned as managing editor of The New York Times after the Jayson Blair scandal, has said "the nation's media is under assault from internal and external forces and must evolve in order to recapture a public that views it with increasing skepticism." Gerald Boyd's quote is taken from Friday's Media and Law seminar in Kansas City.

In this article Michael Hann at the Guardian "examines the air of secrecy and silence surrounding the US media's treatment of George Bush's 'war on terror.'" In his article he writes "American contractors and soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners in a prison outside Baghdad? A huge story, by anyone's standards, surely, especially when pictures of the abuse were broadcast on the US TV network CBS. So it was no surprise that newspapers around the world made huge, horrified play of the events at the Abu Ghraib prison. It was more of a surprise, however, that the story did not receive the same level of coverage in the US papers." The article goes on to feature further examples of how the US media have treated other Iraq news issues.

Source: The Guardian

Thanks to Agence France Presse for this article, which highlights the depressing state of media freedom within the former Soviet Union. "Death, torture, censorship -- working conditions for journalists in much of the former Soviet Union remain grim more than a decade after the break-up of the totalitarian superpower" writes the article. Soria Blatman of the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders watchdog group says "Media freedoms in most countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States, which includes all but the Baltic former Soviet republics, are only deteriorating." According to statistics by Russia's Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations "during 2003 in CIS, 85 journalists were detained or arrested and some 200 were attacked as a result of their profession." Vasila Inoyatova, an official with an outlawed opposition party in Uzbekistan says "each editor has his hands tied. If he publishes something critical he's sacked."

Source: AFP

It is World Press Freedom Day today, but Asia's media has little to celebrate. Karl Malakunas at Channel NewsAsia writes "just seven percent of the Asia Pacific's population have access to a "free press", according to a report by the US-based Freedom House global industry watchdog released last week." It is interesting to learn that "of the larger nations, only Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Taiwan and Australia were classified as having a free press, which is judged according to the legal, political and economic constraints on the media." According to Freedom House most Asian countries are going backwards when it comes to press freedom. Lets hope that next years report brings more positive results for this region.

Source: Channel NewsAsia

Its worth having a look at this article by Stefanie Olsen
at CNET News. The article predicts that Google-like technologies could revolutionize the world of advertising, due to the fact that Interactive advertising is able to specifically pinpoint targeted consumers, thus save advertising agencies substantial amounts of money. According to the article "Companies that have advertised for years on platforms ranging from television to billboards are rethinking their marketing strategies, as Internet advertisers work through the technology glitches and privacy issues that have challenged the first wave of the technology. Although the advertising business will not change overnight, some Internet ad practices are already gaining credibility in other media and could soon take dollars away from static outlets such as billboards and print publications."

Source: CNET News