Results matching “uk editorial to”

The Washington Post has decided to cancel its plans to host private, off-the-record dinner parties for political lobbyists at the home of its publisher after criticism from the newsroom at the suggestion that their services were effectively been sold. Publisher Katharine Weymouth was to host dinners that would give paying lobbyists and business leaders access to officials from the Obama administration and Congress, as well as Post journalists.

Politico first reported the story yesterday after obtaining a flier promoting the events that had been given to a healthcare lobbyist. The flier was entitled "Underwriting Opportunity: An evening with the right people can alter the debate" and advertised events with a maximum of 20 guests to discuss major White House policy initiatives, which participating firms could co-sponsor for $25,000 per event, with up to two sponsors per session. There was also an offer for 11 for the price of 10. The theme of the first July dinner was to be health care reform, and WaPo guaranteed the attendance of Obama administration officials and members of Congress as well as reporters.

Twenty-five American nonprofit news organisations have decided to come together to form an Investigative News Network, following a three-day conference at the Pocantico Conference Center in New York. Its mission is to aid the work and public reach of its members, and to foster the "highest quality investigative journalism" to hold those in power accountable.

The Pocantico Declaration anticipates an increase in the number of investigative news publishers, and hence seeks to establish "basic shared goals and news values." It identifies several different forms of potential collaboration. Firstly, editorial: meaning that nonprofits could carry out joint accountability projects. Secondly, administrative: organisations could exchange information about organisational functions and even possibly centralise some of these. Thirdly, financial, which could consist either of just sharing information and jointly fundraising, or even of "pioneering new economic models to help to monetize the shared, combined content of the member organizations, in order to achieve a more sustainable journalism.

Nieman Journalism Lab's Zachery M. Seward interviewed Spot.Us founder David Cohn about the project's plans for expansion. Spot.Us is an 'experiment' in locally funded journalism, which calls for readers to suggest and fund story ideas about the San Francisco area. Since November, the site has funded and published 20 stories written by freelancers, supported by donations from readers.

Cohn explained to Seward that one of his three-month goals is to replicate the Spot.Us model in other communities, such as Los Angeles or Seattle, or maybe Boston, Philadelphia or New York. To do this would call for "a more careful analysis of what's really required from the organisation," he said. He is currently a volunteer and would probably have to stay that way for some time, the site does not bring in anywhere near enough money to fund a full-time employee.

The World Association of Newspapers and IFRA, the leading international associations for print and digital news publishing, have merged into a new organisation, the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA). The combined new organisation will represent more than 18,000 publications, 15,000 online sites and over 3000 companies in more than 120 countries. WAN-IFRA is dedicated "to be the indispensable partner of newspapers and the entire news publishing industry worldwide, particularly our members, in the defense and promotion of press freedom, quality journalism and editorial integrity, and the development of prosperous businesses and technology."

Dow Jones & Company and SBI Holdings, Inc. of Japan formalized their joint venture, Wall Street Journal Japan K.K., which will launch a Japanese-language business and financial news Web site later this year. The joint venture agreement was first announced on May 7.

Under a licensing arrangement between Wall Street Journal Japan K.K. and Dow Jones, the new site, carrying The Wall Street Journal brand, will primarily feature Japanese translations of content, including video and other multimedia, from all print and online editions of The Wall Street Journal and those of other Dow Jones publications. Wall Street Journal Japan K.K. also plans to develop mobile products and services in conjunction with the new site.

Many newspaper readers would agree that word games are an essential component of the newspaper package. Yet, in last Sunday's edition of the New York Times magazine, the Acrostic puzzle had apparently disappeared.

The magazine has been making modifications to economise on newsprint. It has been reduced in size and the puzzle content altered: two Sundays ago the acrostic had moved page, and its original spot filled by a maths puzzle, the KenKen.

The publication of the Complete Expenses File special supplement has reportedly boosted the circulation levels of Saturday's edition of the Telegraph by 120, 000 to 150, 000 copies above its base rate.  

The exposure of the scandal has been a major coup for the British broadsheet: since the story broke on the 8 May, the publication has maintained extraordinarily high circulation levels.  A month later, industry figures suggested that sales were at 87,000 copies above the Daily Telegraph's regular rate. The interest is evidently still strong: Saturday's figures represent the highest peak in the upward soar of circulation figures since the story broke.  

The Washington Post is restructuring its newsroom to be revolve around a cross media software concept.  The daily is the third US based publication to adopt the Methode system from EidosMedia S.p.A., following the Seattle Times and The Wall Street Journal who made the move last year. 

The adoption of the Methode is a firm indication of the convergence of the online and printed media in news provision.   The choice of software corresponds with the decision of the Post to combine its online and print operations.  The two teams will merge into a remodelled newsroom, in theory before the functioning of the new software begins. The Post is approaching the restructure with vigour: In January it appointed two new managing directors to oversee the developments, Elizabeth Spayd and Raju Narisetti.  The paper's new Executive Editor Marcus L. Brauchli, headed the previous restructure whilst at the WSJ.  The logistics of the move however, highlight the gloomier side of necessary evolution: according to Narisetti, the combined staff will measure the same or just under that of the print staff as it stood eighteen months ago.  The diminishment has been due to attrition and buyouts.

As online news becomes more and more prevalent, with an unimaginable amount of information available at users' fingertips and Internet now ranked as US consumers' top way to access their news, how can media organisations make sure that readers find their articles?  Part of the answer is search engine optimisation, which is becoming an essential part of the daily life of a newsroom. For the printed product, newspapers must try to sell the paper as a whole; online, articles can attract traffic individually as readers come across them while searching for specific topics. It is therefore important that each story, rather than simply the site as a whole, is 'optimised' to appear higher in search results. Aside from highly technical aspects like HTML meta tagging, URL structure or site navigation, what can a newspaper do to optimise its content for search engines?

How to introduce SEO to the newsroom

One major potential stumbling block is that journalists might view SEO as a way to manipulate their stories and take away their true value. So the way it is presented to staff is extremely important. And indeed, it is crucial that newspapers do not get carried away with prioritising SEO above all else. Even Google advises creating content "primarily for your users, not search engines:" it is important to make your site easily accessible to search engines but still remain focused on your visitors' needs.

Clearly, it is important for all reporters to be aware of the ways that they can make each individual article more search-friendly. After all, journalists have always wanted their stories to be as widely read as possible, in print as well as online, and are likely to be willing to help make that happen. And often, the principles of SEO echo the principles of writing a good story: such as the idea that the first sentence should be a summary of the rest of the article, containing relevant concepts or keywords. One difference is that less generic, more specific works for SEO in terms of names or concepts. Google recommends shorter rather than longer titles.

Esa Peltonen, who has been working as a web analyst at the largest Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat for three years, said that he has worked extensively with editorial staff, for example on how to use Google, to get an idea of how users will be searching and what kind of search words people are using. Head of audience development at the Telegraph, Julian Sambles, said in March that the paper was trying to give journalists "the knowledge and understanding that they need so they can apply it to their daily production process and make informed decisions about content when they're writing or publishing it." Thinking about SEO should be second nature, he added.

Papers must also consider their goals in optimising content for search engines. As Drew Broomhall, head of search at the Times explained, if you rank success by sheer volume of traffic, then you should "write the same as everyone else but more of it and more frequently updated." However, if you are looking to increase engagement on a specific subject you need more detailed keyword analysis and niche research.

One straightforward course is the need to stay ahead of the trends: predict what people are going to be talking about in upcoming months and provide appropriate content. "Fix SEO requirements into the editorial calendar," Broomhall suggests. Obviously much news is unpredictable, but there are some events that are year-in-year-out, or which are easy to prepare for in advance, such as an election or a festival. It is necessary to consider both specific, distinct events, such as religious holidays, and longer, less defined periods such as winter travel. Articles that contain links and that have been linked to by others appear higher in search results. Therefore, with annual events, it is beneficial to link to last year's coverage and make use of old content that already has inbound links to help promote the new content.

Hiring a SEO specialist?

As well as training all reporters to be aware of the principles of search engine optimisation, many newspapers have taken the step of hiring an in-house specialist. Ideally such a person would have deep technical knowledge combined with considerable journalistic experience, but such candidates might be hard to find. Peltonen comes from a business background, Broomhall from journalism and technology.

There are also many third party services available to news outlets, supplementary to the guidance of an in-house expert, such as Thomson Reuters' OpenCalais which recently announced deals made with the Huffington Post, DailyMe and the Mail Online. OpenCalais offers an 'Archive Express' feature which can tag an archive of up to 20 million documents in 24 hours. The service 'reads' and breaks down articles into their essential elements - who, what, when, where, how - and tags and sorts them so that it is easier to bring archived articles into 'related stories' sections and improve their search relevance.

Analysing traffic

A SEO specialist would be responsible for analysing traffic to a news outlet's site, looking at how readers find content, readership patterns and what methods of optimisation work best. Peltonen explained how he started off looking at basic data such as what are the top news stories, how many people are going where on the site, and started to work out how to increase traffic. His paper partnered with Microsoft to further analyse traffic data. Such traffic data analysis can be used to spot and develop potential niche verticals to focus on, for example, by looking at repeat visitor figures.  

Google keywords

Purchasing Google keywords to guarantee that news articles appear higher on search results is one of the more costly ways for news outlets to promote their content. Peltonen said that his paper frequently buys specific words, for instance for sports events, but stressed that it would be cheaper to improve the paper's SEO. Buying keywords could also raise ethical issues, depending on the words and their context. The Sun, for example, reportedly purchased the key words 'Natasha Richardson' immediately after the British actress's sudden death in March, in what appears to be a blatant attempt to profit from the tragedy. The Guardian came under considerable criticism last August when, apparently accidentally, it purchased the Google keywords "Madeleine McCann," giving any searchers the link to its coverage of the child's disappearance. The Guardian promptly relinquished the rights, and said it would review its list of keywords. Purchasing Google keywords in order to promote a product is common practice, but is it ethical for newspapers?

Evidently, SEO strategies are necessary in today's media landscape, not only to make more money but also to spread awareness of stories and help readers find what they are looking for and therefore should be embraced by journalists and editors as well as publishers. Search engine 'friendliness' should not be prioritised over good, accurate stories but it should be used to promote such content. Journalistic training is vital in order to optimise each individual article, and larger strategic steps should be taken by editors in conjunction with SEO specialists.

On Tuesday 23 June at 14.00 London time, Drew Broomhall, Head of Search at the Times of London will be speaking at a WEF webinar on "How to teach your journalists to write for the web." More details here.

The deal was 18 months in the making, but Richard Connor has finally succeeded in buying up the Maine-based properties of the Seattle Times Co. Connor's acquisitions include the dailies the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, the Kennebec Journal and the Morning Sentinel, as well as MaineToday.com, the Coastal Journal and The Maine Switch.

As part of his new role as editor and publisher of the three dailies, Connor will write a weekly column, although he said he's not going to "foist" his opinions on the newspapers. Connor aims to make the group profitable by the end of the year - in part by slashing jobs. This week, 31 non-union workers were let go, and up to 100 more could meet the same fate.

On Wednesday, Clarity Media Group announced that Rubert Murdoch had sold the Weekly Standard to Phillip Anschutz. The Huffington Post was one of the first sources of the rumor that emerged speculating that media groups News Corp. and Anschutz were discussing the transaction, more than ten days ago.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Murdoch may not necessarily "need" the right-wing political magazine, since its editorial tone echoes that of the more influential Wall Street Journal, a publication that Murdoch recently added to his media portfolio.

The FrontLine Club has launched its own quarterly title to sponsor independent journalism.  FrontLine: A Broadsheet, will comprise of foreign coverage, as well as articles investigating British culture and politics.  In fact, its creators hope to resurrect "some traditions lost from the British market".

The identity of these traditions is as of yet vague, however the publication's ethos has been made clear.   This, according to Vaughan Smith, founder and managing director of the Club, is "political, but party-politically-allergic, irreverent and iconoclastic".  The subject choice in the selection of articles for the first edition suggests that these values are indeed underwriting the content.  Up for discussion is Tony Blair's Catholic faith, the return of British sleaze and peacekeeping in Kosovo.

As editorial teams the across the globe seek to increase and diversify their papers' revenue streams, a wealth of diverse ideas and business models have appeared.  One of the latest to be aired comes from Laurent Joffrin, editor of the French national La Libération.   He suggests that editors of the press, publishers and website unite in the request that the leading internet servers providers (ISP or FAI's in France) Free and Orange add a few extra euros to their clients' bills.  This would serve to finance the costs of the services provided by publishers.  The fees would then be invested back into newspapers and other productions, the amount corresponding with the title's popularity and size of its newsroom.

The concept of a mutually rewarding financial model has a strong precedent in France.  The French cinema industry is financed this way, which according to Joffrin, 'has saved the industry and allowed its expansion', as reported by Challenges.fr. The editor is convinced that newspapers are an essential component in a democratic state, thus highly worthy of greater financing. 

News publishers, moving with the irrepressible technological pull of modern readership desires, and the financial necessity of adapting to advertising changes, have shovelled huge amounts of money and effort into the development of online editions of their titles. The aim was to increase revenue from the Internet editions faster than money was being lost from the printed editions. This was a risky, but apparently necessary gamble and the final result is yet to be seen.   The latest rounds of industry analysis, however, suggest that online editions will not be able to save their printed sisters financially, as the latter's traditional sources of revenues continue to drop disproportionately to the incomes generated by new ventures.

The analysts at 24/7 Wall Street maintain that even at companies of which 15 per cent of their sales are generated by online projects, this does not provide a sufficent base to maintain a substantial editorial and business staff.  Moving content online is a palliative, which may "bring in additional sales but it will not do anything more than buy time for the industry to find other solutions".

Executive Editor Bill Keller of The New York Times, who filed some unexpected reporting on the Iranian elections, reveals his motivations in a couple of emails to Editor & Publisher. When the post-election uproar developed into sensational riots, Keller admits that it was his instincts that led him to take the plunge, leading to his notorious front-page editorial "Memo From Tehran (June 13). 

And plunge in he did. What with his front-page editorial this past Sunday, Keller's bold move to run a rare commentary on the politcal climate in Tehran (where he was most likely writing from), puzzled many newsroom pundits.

True/Slant is a recent arrival on the online-only news scene, aiming to offer a voice not only to its 100 or so contributors, but to the reader and the advertiser also. It is not a typical news site offering breaking news, but rather features commentary, opinion and some original reporting. Based in New York, the start-up has just six full-time staff, led by founder and CEO Lewis Dvorkin who has a total of 35 years of media experience, the last 12 of which has been in online news. The other employees have a similar mix of traditional and new media backgrounds, he said. T/S is a privately held company funded by Forbes Media and Velocity Interactive Group. The Editors Weblog spoke to Dvorkin to find out more.

The five differences

Dvorkin stressed the five ways in which T/S is "very different from any other news site." Firstly, because of the tools that it gives its journalists to create their own original content in real time. Second, because of its approach to copyright: contributors are encouraged to offer their perspective "around a piece of content that might have been produced elsewhere." Third, the relationship between the contributor and the audience is different because the contributors are contractually obliged to interact with their community. The last two differences are that the journalists have a variety of salary options and that the site has adopted an unusual approach to advertising.

For entrepreneurial journalists

True/slant offers "entrepreneurial" journalists their own homepage on the web, or as Dvorkin put it, "we enable them to create their own brand of one." They must be "experienced" in a specific field such as finance, politics or health but do not have to be a journalist from a traditional background: bloggers, authors or academics are also welcome. True/Slant is not a typical news publication with an editorial line, rather the work of a collection of individuals. "We don't have any ideology here, we have 100 different contributors, 100 different voices and 100 different perspectives," Dvorkin said.

Interaction with the audience is compulsory. Apart from that, it is up to each contributor to decide what they write and when. Much of what they write is opinion and commentary, but some also do original reporting. It is easy for them to comment on other news, by simply highlighting a section of an article they find on the web and clicking a button, the highlighted text will be placed on their post with a link to the contributing site. They are able to publish photos, audio and video as well as text and can self publish in real time. Their content can be automatically posted to Twitter and Facebook at the time of publishing. There is no traditional editing process in place, Dvorkin explained. Contributors are welcome to discuss their article ideas with a member of the T/S team, but they are not edited before publishing.

Different payment options are available, depending on the amount of risk that an individual contributor wants to take: journalists can choose to receive a monthly stipend, to participate in revenue sharing or they can actually have stock in T/S. Contributing to T/S is more likely to be one of several projects that a writer is working on, rather than their main source of revenue.

Promoting journalist-reader dialogue

Readers who want to interact with journalists must register and then they can 'follow' their chosen contributors and comment on articles, being drawn into a dialogue. Contributors highlight the user comments that they feel "further the conversation." A selection of these highlighted comments are then be integrated on the home page, amongst contributors' content. Dvorkin believes that this is very important to today's news reader, who enjoys "engaging with and being part of the news life of a professional media person." He believes that the True/Slant environment can be a "powerful experience" in the way that it encourages dialogue between contributors and users, as well as between fellow users.

A voice for advertisers

True/Slant is currently relying on advertising as its sole source of revenue. As well as display advertising, the company is incorporating "a very unique feature" called T/S Ad Slant for corporate marketers. They too can have a voice on True/Slant: they can pay for their own page and have access to the same tools that a contributor has to interact with a community. "It's a more direct and engaging approach," Dvorkin commented. He explained that such pages are integrated into the larger network in a "contextually relevant way," but stressed that the pages are clearly labelled as from marketers. Will this prove more lucrative than traditional advertising?

What's next?

Dvorkin said that the site has plans to grow, hoping to add more contributors and enhance its features. He believes that True/Slant is offering consumers a different way to experience news, one that is "more in line with how they want to access and interpret information today." Breaking news can be found in abundance throughout the web. What readers do need, is experienced, knowledgeable journalists to analyse and explain the news that they find, and this is where True/Slant steps in. It is indeed likely that many readers will appreciate the chance to be part of a conversation and form a relationship with their favourite writers. And from a writer's perspective, considering the growing number of out of work journalists today as traditional media outlets are forced to make cutbacks, a site that provides them with the tools for successful freelancing could be very welcome.

Two New York newspapers made strong public statements last week through the publication of front-page editorials.

New York's Daily News's headlining opinion piece was a reaction to a political row in Albany, the state capital of New York, which has paralysed the State Legislature.  The editorial, unabashedly outraged in tone, called for the halting of senators' paychecks and expenses allowances for the duration of the Legislature's closure:

On Wednesday, to mark the launch of Hebrew Book Week, staff at Israel's daily Haaretz surrendered their desks, notebooks and pens to some of the country's most celebrated writers and poets.

With the exception of the sports and finance sections, established and up-and-coming authors were entrusted with researching stories and producing copy for the entire newspaper, from the front page headline to the back-page weather report.

Alexander Lebedev is reportedly negotiating a potential purchase of the the Independent and the Independent on Sunday.   If the deal is successful, the Russian oligarch would have control of two important British titles, in addition to the 75.1 per cent stake in the London Evening Standard that he acquired in January.

Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger and Labour MP Tom Watson go head-to-head on Twitter, as Watson and the Daily Mail accuse the centre-left paper of going too far. Last week, the newspaper went ahead with a front-page editorial urging the British PM Gordon Brown to resign.

Daily Mail obsessed with idea of Guardian 'putsch' (in collusion with BBC?). A question of media ethics, apparently. http://tiny.cc/7Wp3M"

And so went the tweet that started it all, with Rusbridger linking to the Daily Mail article, in which Stephen Glover asks "Was it [the Guardian] trying to orchestrate events so as to secure the resignation which it had called for in its editorial?"

Follow the Media's Philip Stone has written about the "Battle royal" going on between Italian prime minister and media mogul Silvio Berlusconi and News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch. Berlusconi himself called attention to the rift recently while speaking on one of his TV channels, which he claims has led to News Corp criticism of his relationship with 18-year-old Noemi Letizia.

Stone explores the history of conflict between the two titans, starting in 1998 when Berlusconi rejected Murdoch's offer to buy his TV network Mediaset. Four years later Murdoch entered the market and formed Sky Italia, Italy's only satellite broadcaster, in fact with help from his Italian rival. Sky did well, not least because of its rights to the football matches played by the top Italian leagues, which Murdoch sold in monthly packages. Berlusconi "decided to fight back" and pushed a media law through parliament whereby the top three football teams could sell their home games on Mediaset's new terrestrial digital platform.

The National Union of Journalists has urged the new Culture, Media and Sport Minister, Ben Bradshaw to take action in the campaign to reinvigorate local journalism in the UK.  General Secretary, Jeremy Dear has also requested a meeting with the Minister to discuss the specific issue of industry job cuts.

The minister, who only assumed the role last week through a ministerial reshuffle, is under pressure from the NUJ to support an economic stimulus package designed to boost the newspaper industry.   The need for a comprehensive financial policy is evident; regional newsrooms across the UK have been subjected to sizeable staff cuts and reduced budgets as they strive to cope with the double burden of the recession and the decline in circulation.

A new daily newspaper serving the Detroit area will be launched within the next 60 days, it was announced Tuesday. The Detroit Daily Press, a project of the two experienced publishing brothers, Mark and Gary Stern, arose to compensate for the reduced home delivery of the city's two main daily papers earlier in the year.

"There is a definite need here," Mark Stern asserted at a news conference in the Detroit suburb of Southfield. "People are used to having a newspaper in their hand. ... That's what we're going to do -- provide a newspaper."

"It was brilliant, brilliant old fashioned journalism (...) at its finest".  Such was the sentiment of Telegraph's assistant editor, Andrew Pierce, expressed last night during the debate over the press handling of the MP's expenses scandal, 'A triumph for journalism?' at the Front Line club last night.

The Telegraph, basking in the success of its groundbreaking scoop, took the opportunity to reassert the conviction that the obtaining and management of the story represents the best in old school style  investigative journalism.