February 2005 Archives

An interview with Topix.net founder and CEO, Rich Skrenta, on SearchEngineBlog.com sheds some light on the importance of internet search and the problem that news site registration causes. Skrenta and co. have designed their popular "news organized by topic and location" website to avoid articles that require registration. "Registration gates cause the majority of our user complaints. Because of this, the Topix.net robo-editor will do its best to find a related story to link to that is not behind a reg gate. So if the same story comes out in two places, but one is behind a reg gate and the other is not, topix.net will link to the story that won't impede users clicking on it with a form." Thus, Topix.net could feasibly pose two problems to newspaper websites:

An interview with Topix.net founder and CEO, Rich Skrenta, on SearchEngineBlog.com sheds some light on the importance of internet search and the problem that news site registration causes. Skrenta and co. have designed their popular "news organized by topic and location" website to avoid articles that require registration. "Registration gates cause the majority of our user complaints. Because of this, the Topix.net robo-editor will do its best to find a related story to link to that is not behind a reg gate. So if the same story comes out in two places, but one is behind a reg gate and the other is not, topix.net will link to the story that won't impede users clicking on it with a form." Thus, Topix.net could feasibly pose two problems to newspaper websites:

Yemen Times is an old friend of the World Editors Forum and the newspaper will celebrate its 14th anniversary this year. The Board of Directors of Yemen Times Establishment for Press and Publishing has officially appointed Nadia Abdulaziz Al-Saqqaf as the new Editor-in-Chief of The Yemen Times starting tomorrow, March 1st 2005. After roughly six years of service as the Editor-in-Chief, Walid Al-Saqqaf will be ending his term of office and temporarily leaving Yemen for training and post-graduate studies. His post will be taken over by his sister Nadia, who has been working for Oxfam Yemen for more than a year, and who has also worked for The Yemen Times during various periods of her professional career."

It happens in a lot of African countries where buying a newspaper is relatively expensive compared to the average standard of life. Here, Publishing-Industry.Net reports about the Moroccon sitiuation: "Morocco's publishing industry has decided to take a stand to confront the economic crisis that the industry faces in the name of “renting” newspapers instead of buying them. In one such effort The National Federation of Newspaper Publishers is planning to launch an awareness rising programme to encourage readers to buy newspapers instead of “renting” them, said the President of the (FNEJ) Abdelmounim Dilami. Dilami also said that they are working at improving the distribution of national newspapers in remote areas and that the independent press is starting to conquest the media environment in search of profit."

Source: Publishing-Industry.Net

It happens in a lot of African countries where buying a newspaper is relatively expensive compared to the average standard of life. Here, Publishing-Industry.Net reports about the Moroccon sitiuation: "Morocco's publishing industry has decided to take a stand to confront the economic crisis that the industry faces in the name of “renting” newspapers instead of buying them. In one such effort The National Federation of Newspaper Publishers is planning to launch an awareness rising programme to encourage readers to buy newspapers instead of “renting” them, said the President of the (FNEJ) Abdelmounim Dilami. Dilami also said that they are working at improving the distribution of national newspapers in remote areas and that the independent press is starting to conquest the media environment in search of profit."

Source: Publishing-Industry.Net

Interesting article of the Washington Post on the Kremlin press pool: "While Putin travels around with a contingent of reporters just as Bush does, the Kremlin press pool is a handpicked group of reporters, most of whom work for the state and the rest selected for their fidelity to the Kremlin's rules of the game. Helpful questions are often planted. Unwelcome questions are not allowed. And anyone who gets out of line can get out of the pool. The Kremlin press pool is like so many institutions in Russia that have the trappings of a Western-style pluralistic society but operate under a different set of understandings, part of what analyst Lilia Shevtsova of the Carnegie Moscow Center calls "the illusion of democracy."

Source: Washington Post

Interesting article of the Washington Post on the Kremlin press pool: "While Putin travels around with a contingent of reporters just as Bush does, the Kremlin press pool is a handpicked group of reporters, most of whom work for the state and the rest selected for their fidelity to the Kremlin's rules of the game. Helpful questions are often planted. Unwelcome questions are not allowed. And anyone who gets out of line can get out of the pool. The Kremlin press pool is like so many institutions in Russia that have the trappings of a Western-style pluralistic society but operate under a different set of understandings, part of what analyst Lilia Shevtsova of the Carnegie Moscow Center calls "the illusion of democracy."

Source: Washington Post

Recent news posted by Susan Mernit on February 23 about the Associated Press adding RSS to their website has caused a minor tremor in the news industry. If news feeds are now directly available from AP, what effect will this have on the brands for which they provide content? AP has emphasized that the company is not trying to launch its own branded news site, rather that their RSS feeds will link to their members' news sites through their service called Custom News. Rafat Ali interviewed Jim Kennedy, VP/Director of Strategic Planning at AP, who added that soon, clicks on AP's RSS will be "geo-targeted," meaning that AP's RSS clicks will be directed to a member relative to the reader's location. Thus, where at first glance it would appear that AP could possibly be attempting to detach itself from its members by providing its own branded news feeds, its RSS strategy will actually result in not only reinforcing the AP brand, but also the brand of its plethora of members. In turn, this will also strengthen the relationship between AP and its members. On the other hand, UK based Reuters seems to be taking a different route in the United States by trying to stimulate its online, mobile and interactive-television businesses.

Recent news posted by Susan Mernit on February 23 about the Associated Press adding RSS to their website has caused a minor tremor in the news industry. If news feeds are now directly available from AP, what effect will this have on the brands for which they provide content? AP has emphasized that the company is not trying to launch its own branded news site, rather that their RSS feeds will link to their members' news sites through their service called Custom News. Rafat Ali interviewed Jim Kennedy, VP/Director of Strategic Planning at AP, who added that soon, clicks on AP's RSS will be "geo-targeted," meaning that AP's RSS clicks will be directed to a member relative to the reader's location. Thus, where at first glance it would appear that AP could possibly be attempting to detach itself from its members by providing its own branded news feeds, its RSS strategy will actually result in not only reinforcing the AP brand, but also the brand of its plethora of members. In turn, this will also strengthen the relationship between AP and its members. On the other hand, UK based Reuters seems to be taking a different route in the United States by trying to stimulate its online, mobile and interactive-television businesses.

From MediaGuardian: "Salam Pax, the former Guardian columnist whose internet diary gave the world a glimpse of Iraq before, during and after the war, has won a Royal Television Society award for the programmes he made with Guardian Films and Newsnight. The Baghdad Blogger began recording daily life in Baghdad in September 2002. His musings on pop music and the likelihood of being blown to pieces by allied bombs or murdered by Saddam's secret police captivated web surfers all over the world. He began writing for the Guardian during the invasion."

Source: MediaGuardian

From MediaGuardian: "Salam Pax, the former Guardian columnist whose internet diary gave the world a glimpse of Iraq before, during and after the war, has won a Royal Television Society award for the programmes he made with Guardian Films and Newsnight. The Baghdad Blogger began recording daily life in Baghdad in September 2002. His musings on pop music and the likelihood of being blown to pieces by allied bombs or murdered by Saddam's secret police captivated web surfers all over the world. He began writing for the Guardian during the invasion."

Source: MediaGuardian

Thanks to one of my correspondents in Pakistan to send me this very worrying news: one week ago, one Pakistani newspaper, The Daily Times, received a fax from a group calling itself "Sipah-e-Islam" (Soldiers of Islam) claiming responsibility for the killing of two journalists in South Waziristan on 7 February 2005. Amir Nowab and Allah Noor (see former posting) were the first journalists to be killed in 2005, one of them working for the Frontier Post. "Some journalists are working for Christians while disguising themselves as mediamen. They are used as tools in the negative propaganda of Christians against the Muslim mujahideen," said the claim.

My worry is that the Pakistani press was very quick to denounce the murders, but didn't take attention to this new claim linking religion and journalism. Another possibility is that the claim wouldn't be serious. Even in this case, the attack against Christians (around 1% of the country's population) is worrying. Source: The Daily Times

Thanks to one of my correspondents in Pakistan to send me this very worrying news: one week ago, one Pakistani newspaper, The Daily Times, received a fax from a group calling itself "Sipah-e-Islam" (Soldiers of Islam) claiming responsibility for the killing of two journalists in South Waziristan on 7 February 2005. Amir Nowab and Allah Noor (see former posting) were the first journalists to be killed in 2005, one of them working for the Frontier Post. "Some journalists are working for Christians while disguising themselves as mediamen. They are used as tools in the negative propaganda of Christians against the Muslim mujahideen," said the claim.

My worry is that the Pakistani press was very quick to denounce the murders, but didn't take attention to this new claim linking religion and journalism. Another possibility is that the claim wouldn't be serious. Even in this case, the attack against Christians (around 1% of the country's population) is worrying. Source: The Daily Times

With 300,000 monthly visitors, Bildblog, started in June 2004, has proven very successful at analyzing and dissecting the popular tabloid Bild, according to The New York Times. Christoph Schulteis, one of the four journalists who work on BILDblog in their spare time, says, "We started doing it because in the daily newspaper business we read Bild anyway," Mr. Schultheis said. "We always found small things we can't put in other newspapers because we can't do it every day. So we decided to create a place to collect them." It turns out that many of the blogs readers are employees of Bild and in general, the blog's fact-checking has not worried managers of the daily tabloid. "BILDblog is hardly above the threshold of our attention," said Tobias Fröhlich, a spokesman for Bild's parent company, Axel Springer. "We can't help liking it. It is full of silly assertions, pure nonsense and refreshingly biased stories. Moreover, Bildblog boasts the importance of Bild by calling us the undisputed opinion leader and agenda setter in Germany. What more can one ask for?" On the contrary, sites in other countries, such as Spain's popular news and commentary site, Periodistas Digital, are not as well received by the press they nitpick. The Times' article also mentions that watchdog blogs have become so popular in Europe that at a competition for the best international blog held by the international German broadcaster Deutsche Welle, over 1,000 of the competing blogs surveyed media and technology and awards went to media blogs in seven languages.

Source: The New York Times

With 300,000 monthly visitors, Bildblog, started in June 2004, has proven very successful at analyzing and dissecting the popular tabloid Bild, according to The New York Times. Christoph Schulteis, one of the four journalists who work on BILDblog in their spare time, says, "We started doing it because in the daily newspaper business we read Bild anyway," Mr. Schultheis said. "We always found small things we can't put in other newspapers because we can't do it every day. So we decided to create a place to collect them." It turns out that many of the blogs readers are employees of Bild and in general, the blog's fact-checking has not worried managers of the daily tabloid. "BILDblog is hardly above the threshold of our attention," said Tobias Fröhlich, a spokesman for Bild's parent company, Axel Springer. "We can't help liking it. It is full of silly assertions, pure nonsense and refreshingly biased stories. Moreover, Bildblog boasts the importance of Bild by calling us the undisputed opinion leader and agenda setter in Germany. What more can one ask for?" On the contrary, sites in other countries, such as Spain's popular news and commentary site, Periodistas Digital, are not as well received by the press they nitpick. The Times' article also mentions that watchdog blogs have become so popular in Europe that at a competition for the best international blog held by the international German broadcaster Deutsche Welle, over 1,000 of the competing blogs surveyed media and technology and awards went to media blogs in seven languages.

Source: The New York Times