Results matching “us opposing vie 1”

Editor of the Guardian Alan Rusbridger made clear his feelings on paywalls and the growing importance of social media during the 2010 Hugh Cudlipp lecture yesterday, entitled 'Does journalism exist?' The Guardian reproduced the text of the lecture here.

Hugh Cudlipp was an editor at the Daily Mirror from the early 1950s to early 1970s,
a period in which, as Rusbridger pointed out, newspaper editors' key challenge was producing good editorial content, rather than trying to come up with a new business model, which is a top issue confronting all editors now.

Four newspaper unions have voted against the cuts and contract changes sought by a bidder for the Sun-Times Media Group this week. These include the flagship Chicago Sun-Times, as well as the Lake Country News-Sun, Pioneer Press and the Post Tribune of Northwest Indiana. James Tyree, the leader of the investors interested in purchasing the ailing newspaper group, urged unions to reconsider but asserted he would not give up on the deal before September 29.

Key concessions sought by the investor group, STMG Holdings LLC, include a continuation of a 15 percent wage cut for three years, an end to seniority rules, and the ability to transfer employees among the company's various locations. Tyree attests that his group's $25 million takeover bid will not be possible without the support of the unions on these measures.

The BBC and others reported that L'Espresso media group, publisher of Italy's second largest-selling newspaper La Repubblica, is suing Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. The group is suing for defamation following Berlusconi's description of the paper as 'subversive.'

L'Espresso's complaints have been lodged with a Milan court, according to a statement. The group said that the prime minister had attacked the paper in a speech last month to Italian entrepreneurs, discouraging them from buying advertising space in the "subversive" newspaper. L'Espresso also accused Berlusconi of abuse of office and flouting market rules.

Talking Points Memo's Zachary Roth has highlighted similarities between Atlantic Media's 'salon dinners' and the highly controversial evenings advertised by the Washington Post which provoked outrage last week and were swiftly cancelled.

According to Roth, "the notion that the Post's gambit represents some sort of new and uniquely outrageous collapsing of the wall between the editorial and business sides of a news publication is badly off the mark." He believes it is something that other outlets have actually been doing for years. TPM obtained a flyer advertising The Atlantic's dinners which it describes as "private, custom, off-the-record conversations of 20-30 key influential individuals, moderated by an Atlantic editor." The flier is not dated.

Guardian readers' editor Siobhain Butterworth addresses the issue of the differences between reader responses and feedback to news in printed media as opposed to online forums. Prompted by the libel action brought by Washington lobbyist Vicki Iseman against the New York Times, which settled last week in a negotiated resolution that included space on the newspaper's website for her lawyers' commentary on the lawsuit, Butterworth examines the changes in the reader's "right of reply" in the digital age.

There was a new face gracing the pages of yesterday's New York Times: that of Bono, a man known as much for fronting Irish rock group U2 as he is for his high profile campaigns against Aids and poverty in Africa.

It is thought that the singer will write six to ten columns for the NYT throughout the year, and will also be recording podcasts for the publication.  The columns will cover a broad range of subjects, moving away from Bono's usual focus on political issues - his debut column in yesterday's publication was about Frank Sinatra who, Bono describes 'had the talent to hear two opposing ideas in a single song, and the wisdom to know which side to reveal at which moment'.

A new website designed by the Intelligent Information Laboratory at Northwestern University is removing the need for humans in the news broadcasting and reporting process, according to NowToronto.

News at Seven "collects news stories from the web, edits them automatically and formats the content for artificial anchors," creating a complete editorial package, pulling relevant images and blogs from the web to "complement" the story.

Google backed out of an upcoming search advertising partnership with Yahoo! yesterday after a negative response from the regulatory federal government.

The US Justice Department planned to file a lawsuit to block the deal, announcing Wednesday that "Yahoo's competition likely would have been blunted immediately," as Google would have "placed its more lucrative ads on Yahoo searches."

According to several sources, the Commonwealth Press Union will cease to exist as of December 31, 2008.

An internal memo from the October 15 meeting stated:

"It was unanimously agreed by the Executive Committee of the Commonwealth Press Union that the CPU Secretariat in London would cease operation on 31 December 2008.  

"It was unanimously agreed that the name, mission and future work of the organisation would be handed over to the Commonwealth Press Training & Education Trust (CPTET) together with any funds, to continue this work as deemed appropriate by the Trustees."

How objective and spin-free is our news? There is much conjecture that media spin is damaging the relationship newspapers have with their audience, with a recent UK survey indicating that just 43% of the population trust newspapers. With the armies of Communication Directors, PR professionals, lobby groups and political parties battling the press with dizzying budgets and ready-made press releases, is the truth getting through?

With this problem in mind, a new online tool called "SpinSpotter" has been launched. It promises to - once it is fully launched and out of beta testing - scan articles and expose bias, misreporting and spin in the news online, for example a political piece that gives a one sided story or uses colourful language that exaggerates the facts.

Once downloaded, the SpinSpotter Spinoculars appear on your Web browser toolbar and "flags" any bias in an article you are reading with a red icon. Users with the software can highlight and comment on questionable content using a guide to potential inaccuracies and biases created by a panel of journalists compensated by the company. Only people with the Spinoculars program installed on their PCs will see other users' comments. The company is using the Society of Professional Journalists' code of ethics and input from an advisory board of journalists to police and judge each allegation.

The innovation was launched by ex Microsoft boss Todd Herman and John Atcheson, the founder/CEO of both MusicNet and Ads.com.

The Editors Weblog managed to pin down Todd Herman for a brief chat before he dashed off to promote - and maybe spin? - the new software.

EW: How do you think newspapers will react to SpinSpottter?

TH: Journalists tend to approach us with skepticism, as they should, and some worry that their work might come under attack. But their attitude quickly changes when they realize that SpinSpotter also can protect them against vague, unfounded accusations of bias since users have to be very specific about "why" they think something is inaccurate or biased and must work within a carefully constructed set of rules based on the Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists.

They are also pleased to learn that we have all sorts of safeguards to ensure people don't abuse the system, from a Journalism Advisory Board of journalists, writers and academics; to a layer of referees who are mostly graduate students at journalism schools; to a trust rating system that gives more weight to the judgments of users who have proven to be objective in finding spin, vs. those who are showing themselves to be too biased or partisan.

Once the service is officially launched (we are still in beta-testing mode) I wouldn't be surprised if some newspapers started to use SpinSpotter as an internal tool or asked us to develop custom services for their own use.
 
EW: Do you think this product is performing a task that editors and newspapers should be doing themselves?

TH: Most editors do perform this task, and perform it quite well. But it is extremely hard to be 100 percent objective 100 percent of the time -- especially in an era of declining advertising revenue when editors and reporters are expected to do more with less. And then, of course, there is the small minority of reporters and editors who are simply not as vigilant against bias as they should.

EW: What inspired you to launch SpinSpotter?

TH: Although my CEO and I have opposing political viewpoints -- I am conservative and he is liberal -- we both agree on one thing: A free, independent and trusted press is critical for a democracy.  We both admire courageous journalism but are disappointed to see the press lose credibility with readers. According to Pew Research, 66 percent of Americans think the U.S. press is one-sided.
 
EW: What technology is powering your device and how does it work?

TH: At heart, we are a user-driven system.  Our SpinSpotter Spinoculars make it easy for people to identify, share and edit any signs of bias or inaccuracy they find online.  Right now we are in beta, meaning we are still testing and refining the service.

SpinSpotter is not a place for people to hurl vague accusations of media bias, however.  If they want their markers to be seen by other people using the service, they must clearly label which "rule" the journalist has violated (these are drawn from the Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists and interpreted by our Journalism Advisory Board and team of referees) and back-up their assertions. Otherwise, their trust rating will decline and their entries will be all but invisible.

EW: How do you envision SpinSpotter developing in the future?

TH: The topic of media bias is much too important to take lightly. We hope our service will raise the level of discourse on the subject by encouraging people to be much more specific and rigorous in their analysis of bias in the press. And as the service fosters that debate, we think the service will grow and evolve. For example, we envision giving editors and reporters special access to respond to users' "spin-markers" and engage in dialog over their choice of words or sources.

We can also imagine newsrooms and journalism schools using the service as a tool to encourage fair and balanced reporting. Lastly, we can foresee a day where SpinSpotter helps people make choices about what they read based upon the level of "spin" any given article contains.

EW: It is obviously early days for your device, but how has the take up been so far?

TH: If passion counts for anything, the response has been great. But, these are *very* early days.  In fact, we are in what is called an early beta phase, meaning all of our current users are actually helping us test the service's technology and refine its algorithms through their usage.

Newspaper opinion pages usually hire male academics who agree with the editorial page, Rutgers University research reported. The results point to the possibility that opinion pages don't necessarily advocate "diverse views", The New York Times (NYT) reported.  

Bob Summer, a public policy communications teacher and president of Observer Media, and John R. Maycroft, a graduate public policy student, did the study by looking through 366 opinion articles written by academics, published in The NYT, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and The Star-Ledger.

According to the study, most of the academics writing the opinion pieces were from "prestige" establishments like Harvard and Stanford, according to the NYT.

Between 90 to 95 % of the opinion articles agreed with the editorial opinion on a given topic and in case an opinion piece did disagree, it was in a "point/counterpoint" format where authors are required to have an opposing view, the NYT wrote.   

The study authors said the "most astonishing" find was that men wrote 78 % of The Star-Ledger, 82 % of the NYT and 97 % of the WSJ opinion pieces.

The NYT and WSJ editors refused to comment but John McMahon from the Star-Ledger said that he was "surprised" and that the results didn't "reflect conscious biases".

Source: The New York Times through World News Network

A recent proposal by the BBC to expand local video output on a network of 65 local websites has been rejected by The Newspaper Society.

"BBC management believes the proposition will help the BBC meet its public purposes," the organization explained in a statement. "And close the gap between the importance that audiences attach to the BBC's local role and their view of current performance."

The proposal sought to create an annual fund of £800,000 for sourcing local news video from external providers and would also make BBC content available for embedding on other sites.

Despite the proposal's aims to collaborate with regional press, many local news organizations feel threatened.

"BBC News online is using sizeable sums of licence fee money to replicate services already provided by local media companies and using its cross-promotional power to attract audiences away from local media sites," said society director David Newell.

BBC previously had outlined ultra-local TV plans, but later withdrew because of concerns over duplication.

The proposal is currently subject to a public consultation; a final decision on the issue is expected in February 2009.

Sources: Journalism.co.uk, Paid Content, Guardian.co.uk

Read more about this story on our sister site, SFN blog.

As to be expected the blogosphere has exploded with commentary following the New York Times' "death by blogging" article. The article has spawned everything from accusations of sensationalism (blogger Howard Owens) to tips on keeping healthy as a blogger.   

The New York Times suggests that the ceaseless work required to stay afloat led, at least partly, to the recent death of two "prolific" bloggers. This, however, leads to the larger question: does the value of a non-stop internet economy outweigh its risks?  

We can all agree that blogs have become an integral part of how we consume news. The lines between blogs and journalism are blurring, and arguments are being thrown around that blogs may be more influential than the New York Times. There's even calls for a sort of blogger's union.

As illustrated in Nieman fellow Josh Benton's Curve of Journalistic Interestingness, the quick response time of bloggers adds a fresh, interesting dimension to news before a story has a chance to be repackaged into wire copy. Moreover, blogging's viral nature, as well as the chance to engage without a major-up front investment, has enabled the "little guy" in a way never before possible.

Take the recent success of a covert video by an animal rights activist who posed as a slaughterhouse worker for six weeks. The undercover vegan citizen journalist released the video, which went viral within hours on the blogosphere, reports the New York Times.

Consequently the slaughterhouse was closed, the United States Congress held hearings, and the Agriculture Department recalled 65 million kilograms of meat, the largest recall in American history.

It is a powerful example of the virtually instantaneous ability of blogs to spread information, which elicited a change in policy faster than would be possible drumming up support through print alone.

And now to the dark side. Yes, the Times was reaching a bit in tying the death of two bloggers to the strain of their profession. The paper itself acknowledges that "to be sure, there is no official diagnosis of death by blogging." But they do hit on a nasty side effect of the ceaselessness that has made bloggers a success; the around-the-clock demands of the internet forces bloggers work extreme hours in order to keep up.

 The same concerns of excessive overtime hours are weighing on newspaper journalists, who are being encouraged to blog on top of producing articles. It also stands to detract from quality journalism; if journalists have to compete in the same "pay-per-click economy" in which bloggers exist, quality inevitably slides. With these two opposing pulls on journalists' time, it is hardly surprising that newspaper blogs are not yet perfectly oiled machines, as detailed in a study by Ball State University.

So does blogging need regulation? Healthwise, perhaps the answer is yes. But that would go against the essence of blogging, which owes its popularity and its relevance to its 24/7 engagement.

Even the stress-level issue is up for grabs. In the words of TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington,"This is not sustainable."

But then there's Larry Dignan, who was interviewed for the New York Times story and not quoted,  according to Romenesko.

"Yes, blogging is stressful. Yes, it can be insane," Dignan said. "But is it any worse than being a corporate lawyer? How many of those folks dropped in the last six months? How about mortgage brokers? Hedge fund traders?"

It will fall to bloggers to first determine the dangers and then draw the new rules of the game.

Sources: Romenesko through Howard Owens, New York Times

Last week, Senior Editor of Editor & Publisher Joe Strupp reported that editors at eight of Ohio's top newspapers have agreed to share content each day on a private site, just three months after publicly opposing a new Associated Press rate structure.

"If we were in a flat revenue environment, this might work. But as you know, this is not the case. The environment now is extremely challenging and the new structure seems not to acknowledge the current reality," stated a letter sent to AP President Tom Curley by the Ohio editors.

The letter also criticized several issues besides the fees, including "the delay in moving breaking stories on the wire, failing to credit newspapers for some stories, and denying requests for coverage of state events." Despite these complaints, the papers will not stop using AP content.

"This idea of content sharing is not about cutting back what we do. It is about sharing our content with the other large Ohio newspapers and getting their content in return," read a memo from Akron Beacon Journal Editor Bruce Winges. "The goal is to have stories that benefit the readers of all of our newspapers. A secondary benefit is that readers will know how much is produced by our newsrooms."

AP Spokesman Paul Colford responded that AP will "empower newspapers to set up their own member-to-member sharing of content via AP Exchange, a highly versatile and robust platform."

In February, AP officials addressed concerns about the new rate structure by attributing the added costs to the presidential campaign and upcoming Olympics.

Source: Editor & Publisher through INMA

The Editors Weblog obtained an exclusive interview with Philippe Karsenty, who is currently appealing a 2006 verdict that found him guilty of libel, in a trial opposing him to French public broadcaster France 2 and journalist protégé Charles Enderlin. The hearing on Wednesday Feb. 27 lasted over six hours, but the court adjourned its decision to May 21.

According to Karsenty, France 2's Al Dura "coverage is the media's biggest masquerade to have had such impact." But he doesn't believe that the allegedly fraudulent report is representative of more widespread manipulations in media coverage.

Quick recap of the story: in 2000, France 2 diffused coverage obtained from a local camera man, and voiced over by Enderlin, of the death of a Palestinian boy, allegedly killed by Israeli fire, an iconic image which was widely reproduced thereafter and used as a symbol by pro-Palestinian propaganda.

In 2004, Karsenty's Media-ratings company accused France 2's coverage of being a hoax - for a plethora of reasons. Karsenty was subsequently taken to court and found guilty in October 2006 of defaming journalist Enderlin and his outlet, public broadcaster France 2. He appealed the decision and during the new hearings on Feb. 27, a lot of time was spent reviewing and discussing the video footage and images. And as a Weblog exclusive, you can read the ballistic report, which was commissioned by Karsenty.

Without going too deep into the details about the new trial, Karsenty argues that a lot of coverage produced at the time was staged with the help of the local population, and this seems to be confirmed by footage viewable on Honest Reporting, as well as footage shown in court. "On that day in Gaza, it was a film set," he says. Other major news organizations, including Reuters and the Associated Press, were present.



Are these kinds of manipulative or staged media practices widespread?

"I'm not generalizing," says Karsenty, who insists his only claims are about this specific report in those circumstances. But this event should bring attention to international news organizations' use of local correspondents and camera staffers, whose content the outlets must often trust at face-value, he said.

In fact, the France 2 camera man's footage was offered to CNN, which refused to initially air the report because it didn't obtain the guarantees of authenticity it was asking for.

Whether these media practices are widespread internationally Karsenty didn't say, but he argues they correspond to the media's situation in Palestine, "a situation where the media bends over to the rules of Palestinian authorities," he says (see here about the monitoring of coverage of the Oct. 12, 2000 lynch).

There is another intriguing issue in this affair: in the years since this controversy has started, few French traditional media have openly taken Karsenty's defense or been willing to place it high in the news agenda.

Blogs and independent media have increasingly covered the story, many of them outside of France though. According to Karsenty, a similar affair would have never dragged on as long in the US, because bloggers and truly independent media would have long dug out the truth (evoking Dan Rather and the Killian documents controversy).

What the Al Dura affair also shows is that France is (still) a "system with dominating media that don't recognize their mistakes," says Karsenty. He points out that of the few established blogs and 'independent' news outlets in France, those that are considered legitimate by traditional media, all are held by professional journalists and former journalists who have worked within traditional media.

But Karsenty refuses to see the Al Dura affair as the symbol of commonplace manipulative practices in the media. Nor was France 2's report symptomatic of showbiz-news and news agendas increasingly led by eyeballs and sensationalism. For him, this is simply the story of a local camera man who submitted a faulty report, which was picked up by a mainstream media organization and its well-respected journalist, both of whom didn't recognize their mistake.

According to Karsenty, a US website will shortly be publishing the 18 minutes of raw footage that France 2 showed in court (out of 27 minutes filmed by the camera man).

Karsenty says he is confident about the outcome of the appeal. The court will make its decision public on May 21.

Source: Philippe Karsenty - Metro - Le Monde - Tribune de Genève - Honest Reporting

At the 6th annual Ifra International Newsroom Summit, representatives from two of 2006’s most closely watched news organizations presented the conference with the trials and tribulations of their respective newsroom integration processes. Will Lewis gave the anxious audience a peek into the Daily Telegraph’s new newsroom and Michael Maness from Gannett detailed his organization’s dive into hyper-local "Information Centers."

Torstar Corp and Metro International just announced the launch of free Metro daily newspapers in Calgary and Edmonton, Canada. This is the latest development in the mounting freesheet battle in Canada opposing CanWest (one-third stake in some other Metro editions) to Sun Media (publisher of 24 Hours).

In light of the Telegraph’s high-profile advancements into the digital age, the Guardian’s Kim Fletcher asks, ‘Who wears the trousers at the Telegraph?’  Fletcher’s column probes the idea that the paper’s recent developments have shaken that age-old certainty of the industry: the editor in chief.

As the humid summer season falls on Western Massachusetts, I've returned to the area where I grew up to see what's happening at the inaugural Media Giraffe Summit. The first session gathered some of the "usual suspects" as they called themselves to discuss how journalism will stay relevant, to whom and in what forms.

Two Albanian dailies Koha Ditore and Flaka have stopped publication, while a new daily emerges Alternativa, which will be another media project by Albanian tycoon Vebi Velija.

Jordanian editors Jihad Momani, of Al Shihan newspaper, and Hisham Khalidi, of Al Mihwar, are both in the custody of the state having been charged with blasphemy of the prophet after their respective newspapers reprinted some of the infamous Mohammed cartoons that have caused uproar amongst Muslims worldwide (see previous postings here and here). In case of conviction, the charge can carry a penalty of between one and three years imprisonment.

France's majority party, the UMP, has enlisted the help of Google's AdWords to rally support for the policies of its interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, concerning the recent riots. This weekend, by entering a number of words associated with the French riots (Sarkozy, racaille, violences urbaines, émeutes, voitures brûlées) into a Google search, an ad directing one to a UMP petition would appear.

There have been many discussions about the contradiction between the huge profits that media giants demand and their newsrooms' role of producing quality journalism. Journalists feel that their publications, and their communities, are suffering greatly because of newsroom staff cuts which their corporate benefactors deem necessary in order to increase revenues as much of their audience and advertising migrates to new media, especially the Internet.

The Internet also furnishes a platform for journalism, but it has not yet been determined if it will be able to provide society with the kind of reporting it needs to remain informed.

In this respect, journalism is caught in a tug-of-war whose opposing sides are the old guard, which is seemingly cannibalizing it, and new media, which isn't quite yet sure how to embrace it. Depending on which side wins, either a brand new news model will emerge or journalism will be torn apart in the fight?

Two articles from "the world's first blog media company," Corante (named after what is believed to be the first English-language newspaper), make some observations about declining newspaper circulations. The first quotes an interview with internet journalism pioneer Bob Cauthorn, who faults large newspaper corporations, not the "concept" of journalism or newspapers, as the reason for declining circulations: "(Newspaper companies) are incredibly removed from the life of the community around it. It is insular, it takes place over the phone. It does not pay attention to reader habits." Cauthorn absolves the Internet as the source of newspaper woes stating that circulations were already dropping fifteen years before the Internet became a consumer medium.

The Guardian reports that a spat between the editor-in-chief of the Moskovskiye Novosti (Moscow News), a well established liberal paper, and it's largest shareholder, Leonid Nevzlin, caused Mr. Nevzlin to threaten selling the paper. The spat stemmed from firings of senior staff by the aforementioned editor, Yevgeny Kiselyov, who neglected to inform company shareholder. Fears were raised that the paper could be bought by a company with ties to the Kremlin. But Mr. Nevzlin, who is wanted by the Russian government on fraud charges and has used the paper as an opposing voice to the administration, has promised that if he does sell the paper, it will only go to a "buyer who will pledge to continue defending freedom of the press."

Source: The Guardian (registration required)