Results matching “are french medi”

Nicolas Sarkozy has a worrying degree of influence over the French media, according to an article in the Guardian today. Prompted by his "shocking" alleged interference in the recent sale of French daily Le Monde, Guardian writer Kim Willsher looked at the ways in which the French president influenced the media and discussed fears of the "Berlusconisation" of the media.

Sarkozy called in Le Monde's editor-in-chief Eric Fottorino before the sale of the paper to express his concerns about one of the takeover offers, which it seemed he feared might turn the paper against his government. This promptly led to criticism over the level of his involvement and possibly contributed to the takeover offer in question being approved by Le Monde's staff. 

Le Monde, the so-called "French Establishment Bible," has run into some financial difficulty. Like many other print publications, Le Monde is searching for ways to rake in more cash to avoid financial collapse. In light of its struggle, The Times reported today, that Le Monde may be on the verge of sacrificing some of its values in order to attract a larger readership. In a noted break from tradition, Le Monde is offering its readers a chance to buy classic, albeit licentious, works of literature like Casanova or the Marquis de Sade.

The Social Media Club France recently blogged about how the diversification of mobile devices which give readers access to the internet has obviously changed the way users access information. As a result, Social Media Club France recommends that journalists adopt a method of presenting news that is not only interactive but also adaptable to the non-linear diffusion of media.

The World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) is calling on publications world-wide to commemorate World Press Freedom Day, 3 May, by honouring journalists who are forced to flee their countries just for doing their jobs.

WAN-IFRA, which represents 18,000 newspapers, 15,000 online sites and more than 3,000 companies world-wide, is dedicating its 2010 World Press Freedom Day campaign to "Journalists in Exile",  and has produced editorials, advertisements, political cartoons, interviews and other materials for publication in newspapers and other media on or around 3 May.

Newspapers wishing to view, download and publish the materials, free of charge, can find them at http://www.worldpressfreedomday.org .

Not fifteen years ago, if a news consumer wanted to get in touch with a reporter or the rest of the community concerning an article in the paper, he or she would put pen to paper and send off a letter to the editor's desk.  That letter would be screened by the editor of the newspaper and, most likely, thrown into a trash bin never to find a place on the op-ed page.  But with the advent and increasing popularity of newspaper websites, any person can comment on just about any article, and many can do it with little thought, moderation or the need to identify themselves.

Such unfettered commenting has led to what William Grueskin, dean of academic affairs at Columbia University's journalism school, called a "brawl."

"A lot of comment boards turn into the equivalent of a barroom brawl, with most of the participants having blood-alcohol levels of 0.10 or higher," he said to the New York Times.

These threads run hundreds of comments long and often stray off-topic or turn nasty.  Though most comment threads are equipped with the option for users to flag questionable content, as the discussion loses direction, offensive comments can slip through the cracks.  In response to out of control comment threads, newspapers have gone so far as to shut down commenting capacity until they were able to clean up the threads. 

The newly reinvented French daily, France-Soir, is encountering difficulties in its attempt to reestablish itself amongst the French public, according to the New York Times. Using a "mass-market reach" the paper is attempting to "change how the French think about newspapers" with flashy headlines which the NYT's Eric Pfanner has likened to those found in tabloids.

The International Press Association, an organization representing all foreign reporters stationed in Belgium, is hosting a meeting today to discuss employment prospects for journalists reporting in Brussels.

The meeting, entitled "What does the future hold for Brussels-based journalists?" will attempt to address the exodus of much of the European Union press corps over the past five years and the diminishing presence of foreign press in Brussels.  According to a press release, the API "considers an urgent taking stock and a broad debate are imperative."  The group hopes to address three main concerns:

The Huffington Post Investigative Fund, the journalism nonprofit launched by Ariana Huffington in September 2009, has produced roughly 50 stories since its inception.

Nick Penniman, executive director of the fund, estimated that his editorial staff of nine publish between three and five stories a week. Some are "deep-dive" pieces, requiring months of reporting, while others are "quick-strike" articles that are less in-depth.

The fund's articles are posted on their website and can be distributed by other news outlets free of charge under a Creative Commons license.

T. Christian Miller of the independent, non-profit news organization ProPublica recently won the prestigious 2010 Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting. Editor & Publisher reports that it was a collaboration between The Los Angeles Times and the non-profit news outfit that produced Miller's winning report into abuses of insurance coverage for private contractors in war zones.

Just last week, the winners of the George Polk Awards in Journalism - usually given to courageous and skillful reporting - were announced, NPR's On the Media explains. Among the usual big media winners was a surprising win - the anonymous Iranians or Iranian who captured the death of the 26-year old protestor Neda Agha-Soltan on tape in the violent aftermath of the Islamic Republic's contested elections of June 2009.

The Paris-based citizen photojournalism agency Citizenside has partnered with Metro International to launch a new website for citizen reporting.

The site, MetroReporter, allows readers to upload and share their news photos and video. All contributions are vetted by editors before being posted. If they are published in print or on Metro's primary site, the member is paid between €10 and €70. Membership of MetroReporter is free and Metro has agreed to purchase and publish user contributions on a regular basis. This means that an international publication has plans to regularly pay its audience to contribute content, rather than expecting user-generated content to be free.

Newspapers have not only lost significant advertising revenue in the last couple of years, they have also been losing government support in the form of subsidies in the last forty years, concludes a new study by the University of Southern California.

According to Poynter, a new study of historic subsidies and emerging trends tracks various tax breaks, reductions in postal subsidies first enacted in 1792, and upcoming cutbacks in public notices that government regulations have traditionally forced into American newspapers. The study provides valuable insight, if not clear-cut recommendations for print media to follow, about the thorny issue of government funding for media.

The Amaury group, responsible for both Le Parisien and L'Equipe, has given its publications a face life this week, with all 48 pages of the former appearing in colour for the first time on Tuesday, and divided into five new sections: Fact of the day, News, Local News, Sports and Leisure.

L'Equipe is set to integrate three new pages into its design, the first appearing today, the second in Thursday's edition and the third in Friday's, as a response to reader surveys. From March the publication will introduce a motoring section, which will appear every Monday- intended to deal with the production of cars as opposed to buying and selling.

On January 12 last year GlobalPost was launched, a new international news service focused on getting the context behind the headlines, hoping to combat diminishing foreign reporting in the US. Its number of foreign correspondents is second only to the Associated Press and they are expected to provide both text and visual reports.

A year on, and the news outlet has made considerable progress in terms of covering a wide range of international stories, establishing a significant audience, and implementing a successful business model. The Editors Weblog spoke to President, CEO and co-founder Philip Balboni about his first year at the helm of this project.

Balboni was clear that he considered GlobalPost's first year a success. "It has been an extraordinary year, it has exceeded any reasonable expectations that I could have had when I started out on this journey," he said.

"To a large degree, the stories on GlobalPost are ones that you would be unlikely to find elsewhere," said Balboni. As one of GlobalPost's aims was to fill the gaps in the reporting of traditional outlets, this must be satisfying.  The news outlet has also remained true to its original stipulations: its reporting has broad geographic diversity, and consists of a wide range of types of stories and topics.

And much of this reporting has had the potential for considerable impact. Balboni highlighted a recent story on how the Taliban have been taking a cut of funds supplied by the Indiana National Guard to local Afghan contractors for development projects in Afghanistan's Khost province. The issue of the Taliban skimming American aid in Afghanistan is one to which GlobalPost has dedicated much coverage over the past few months.

Such investigative pieces are accompanied by more entertaining reporting, such as an article from Paris about how the French are rediscovering the joy of wearing berets. Correspondents also write ample blog entries.

GlobalPost adopted a relatively unique correspondent model, hiring country-based, part-time reporters who could produce one article a week. The compensation level - a monthly salary plus shares - has proven "very successful" and working for GlobalPost seems to be a popular job: the news service now has correspondents in more than fifty countries and "we have far more people who would want to work for us than we could possibly hire."

The correspondents work with regional editors based in Boston and Balboni said that so far this system has been functioning "with a remarkable degree of smoothness."

Building an audience from scratch

Developing an audience is "really more important than anything else," said Balboni. "We could have the most spectacular content in the world but if you can't build an audience for it then you can't succeed, right?"

The news outlet's highest-traffic month this year was November, when more than 750,000 people visited the site. This exceeded Balboni's goal of 600,000, set before the launch. In addition, "we are retaining more than 50% of all the visitors," he said.

The target for 2010 is to top one million unique visitors, and Balboni mentioned the company's "very sophisticated marketing strategy" aimed at audience building.

Prize partnerships

Building a brand on the web with no support from legacy media has been a considerable challenge, and GlobalPost's partnerships with other high profile brands have been very helpful in doing this, and "particularly important in the validation of GlobalPost as a brand," Balboni said. Such partnerships have helped present the outlet's content as authoritative, and often "raising our visibility is more important than any compensation we might achieve." From the beginning, GlobalPost has sought to present itself as a complement rather than a competitor to newswires and newspapers.

The partnership formed with CBS in September, for example, is a syndication deal, with CBS paying GlobalPost for help with foreign reporting. But having a broadcast news partner was also something that Balboni and his team considered a high priority in terms of brand-boosting, and such a deal "certainly goes beyond" purely syndication. He sees the recent partnership with PBS NewsHour as a "significant achievement" and mentioned that GlobalPost has upped its video production so that it might have the chance to forge other broadcast partnership. 

Compensation is obviously an important consideration, however, and syndication is one of GlobalPost's major revenue streams, the other two being advertising and subscriptions. Currently, advertising comprises about 70% of GlobalPost's income, but Balboni hopes that over time this share will fall to around 50%, with syndication and membership rising to make up the other half.

Passport to premium services

The most unusual of these revenue streams is the subscription, or membership, scheme called Passport. For $99 a year (discounted to $50 for students, academics or seniors), readers can have access to conference calls with GlobalPost reporters, the chance to suggest stories, global and country briefs and newsletters. There is also the option to commission custom research projects, something Balboni said he was "very excited about." One client, for example, has ordered a series of ten reports for the coming year. "It takes careful shepherding but it's very interesting and I think it could scale up to be a meaningful part of our Passport financial strategy," he said.

"I am very bullish on the membership aspect," Balboni said, "I think it's the hardest one but if you want to point to one thing that could be a potential salvation for quality journalism then it's that." He always wanted to encourage a subscription or membership scheme, but explained that as a new little-known media brand it would have been foolish to put up a paywall immediately.
 
Passport does not offer pure paid online content, rather additional editorial services. "My hope and my expectation is that GlobalPost will remain free and open to all but we need to find more effective ways to get all of the people who are most engaged to help support our mission," he said, specifying that GlobalPost was likely to continue to ask for, rather than to require, reader contributions. He does think, however, that it would be "entirely fair" for a news organisation to demand payment.

So far, Passport has 450 - 500 members: "just not enough," according to Balboni. He hopes to increase this by making "a strategic shift in how we market our membership" and by using some new technology starting this spring that will help the membership base and subsequent revenue to grow. Currently, visitors to the GlobalPost site can read about Passport but there is no chance to test it out first and they have to "take a leap of faith" if they want to subscribe, Balboni said.

From a purely financial standpoint, 2009 was "a decent year," especially given the global economic recession. Balboni specified that the $1 million revenue figure that was reported in November was not accurate, but described the amount as "consequential." The company's original business plan projected profitability in 2012, and Balboni thinks this is still likely.

What's next?

GlobalPost seems to have demonstrated that there is an audience for more international news and has set up a structure to cover this that works. As Balboni explained, its challenges now are to build that audience into the millions and (like almost every other news organisation) to shift its business model so that it depends less substantially on advertising.  

The French government is considering subsidies for France's number one press distribution company Presstalis, Le Figaro reports.

French Prime Minister François Fillon has assigned the delicate task to Inspector-General of Finances Bruno Mettling. He will consider the conditions under which exceptional state support could be granted.

The mobile offerings of L'Equipe are profitable, says Sébastien Valere, VP Marketing and Operations of L'Equipe 24/24 in France, speaking at the WAN-IFRA conference 'Using sports news to optimise your revenues'.

91% of the French have a mobile phone, with the operators including Orange, SFR, Bouygues and Free. 25% of mobile subscribers access the network through 3G, which means easier access to mobile data and surfing. He expects that two years from now, 75% of the population will have a smart phone, up from 35% now. The iPhone has been successful in France, and more devices will arrive on the market. Unlimited access subscriptions are offered, with subscriptions available for around €60 per month. Smart phones translate into massive content use.

L'Equipe is a global media brand, with a daily newspaper, a website with 5 million unique visitors per month, as well as offerings in television, radio and mobile. It has 18 million customers a month, mostly male, and reaches 50% of the upper-socio-professional advertising category. Usage peaks at night, although the goal is to reach people throughout the day.

Newspaper readers in France have been disrupted this week, after distribution company Presstalis blocked the distribution of papers to different parts of the country two days in a row. In response to the action, one newspaper has refused to publish an edition today.

It was northern France and part of central France that went without their national daily newspapers on Wednesday. Papers were distributed normally in the east, west and south. Le Monde made a PDF version of that day's paper available for free on its website.

On Thursday, distribution was interrupted in the east and south of the country. By contrast, the north of France, including Paris, received its newspapers mostly as normal. Only Le Figaro and France Soir suffered a smaller distribution than normal in this area.

Reflection and conciliation are called for during discussions on the reformation of Agence France-Presse, Le Figaro reports. 

In an innovative project from the Netherlands, the Dutch Minister for Education, Culture and Science has managed to gain support from the Parliament for more funding for journalism.

It's not in the form of government subsidies for newspapers, though, which have been criticised by various industry insiders including media mogul Rupert Murdoch and editor Frédéric Filloux. Instead, the Dutch government will finance two-year contracts for 60 young journalists across 30 titles in the country's press, reports Media Trend.

Government aid for newspapers is in the spotlight again, The Wall Street Journal reports. The head of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the U.S. has announced plans to examine whether subsidies and regulatory changes should be implemented.

Speaking at its workshop last week, FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said that his agency will consider whether the government should exempt news organisations from antitrust laws, change copyright laws, or allow them special tax treatment.