Results matching “uk the guardian 4”

The Guardian reported that a senior editorial staff member at Express Newspapers wrote an email to colleagues at the Sunday Express voicing his opinion about the declining quality of the paper.

The email stated that, "last week's Sunday Express was riddled with appalling, slapdash and lazy writing and subbing", and goes on to outline a number of errors in the paper.

The memo highlights the impact of years of budget cuts at the Sunday Express.  Most recently Express Newspapers fired 80 subeditors and placed reporters in charge of inputting copy directly on to pages.

The Saturday edition of UK paper the Daily Mail will undergo a 10p price surge to 80p, which means that it will cost 20p more than its competitor the Daily Express. The cover price of the weekday and Sunday editions will stay the same at 50p and £1.50 respectively.

The previous time that Associated Newspapers augmented the cover price of the Saturday issue was five years ago, when it went from 60p to 70p. Earlier this year, the weekday editions of the Daily Mail underwent a 5p jump to 50p.

Other UK titles to increase cover prices include the Independent, the Times and the Telegraph.

Source: The Guardian

Bertrand Pecquerie wrote in an article in Le Monde yesterday that the French newspaper industry is in crisis and, worryingly, turning to the State for help. Newspapers have been subsidized in France for the past ten years and, in those ten years, the situation has not improved, it has actually worsened.

Pecquerie believes that there are four core problems facing the industry and these are not being addressed. The four core issues are method, diagnosis, objective and means.

On Monday, October 6 The Independent launched a 24-page sports section replacing the stand-alone media section.  The media section has been moved into the main paper and still has seven pages of coverage.

However, according to The Guardian, it is difficult to attract advertisers for sports sections which may pose revenue problems for the paper.

Sources: The Guardian

Newsquest has announced plans to fire all subeditors and replace them with "multi-skilled, cross-platform journalists". 

According to the Press Gazette, the changes will take places at the following papers, Epping Forest Guardian, the Waltham Forest Guardian, Wanstead and Woodford Guardian, the Enfield Independent and the Borehamwood Times as well as the free Bishop Stortford Citizen and Waltham Forest Independent. 

Cambridge-based firm Liquivista announces that it will be developing electronic newspapers over the next three years, with £12 million backing the project. The web developer plans to build full-color interactive e-paper reader that will resemble an A4 piece of paper and will feature audio and video content, according to the Press Gazette.

France's newspaper industry is in crises and President Nicholas Sarkozy is launching talks to look into alleviating the situation. There will be a two month industry consultation period led by a one of Sarkozy's former Elysee advisers.

However, unions are reportedly concerned Sarkozy could loosen ownership laws, allowing his television baron friends to buy into the national press. Sarkozy, is known as the "télé-président" due to his media fixation and his close relationship with key figures within the media.

The French press is one of the least profitable in Europe, the daily circulation of all French national papers is just 8 million, which is half that of the UK and one third of Germany. French newspapers' combined turnover fell from €1.145bn (£905 million) in 2000 to €848 million last year.

It also costs more to print a national newspaper in France than in most of its European neighbours due to the Union Le Livre's importance in this sector, it insists on strict working hours and conditions for its members. It is also difficult to buy a newspaper in France because Labyrinthine state controls newspaper kiosks. The press already receive €1.5bn in direct and indirect state each year

Le Monde's editor, Eric Fottorino, has called for Sarkozy to make it easier for the public to buy a copy of a newspaper.

Sarkozy reportedly favours loosening French laws to allow media organisation to own a TV station, a major radio network and a major daily newspaper.

Source: Guardian.co.uk

Following on from the announcement that 80 subeditors across the Daily Express and Sunday Express are being made redundant, details have emerged of a proposal for reporters to input stories directly into page templates.

Under the proposed system, reporters would fit stories into an editorial template containing the necessary styles. Rewriters and lawyers would then check the pages.

A leaked memo entitled, "Changing Ways of Working", outlined the proposed changes to workflow at the newspapers. The newspaper group has recently introduced the Woodwing editorial system.

Express Newspapers group managing editor, Ian Parrott, said in the memo, "We are therefore proposing to introduce the direct input of copy by reporters and writers into the system. Pages would be envisaged by the backbench and drawn by the designers as now. The reporters would be sent a shape for the stories, containing all the necessary type and styles and they would fit their copy to that shape.

"Once finished, the reporters/writers would check in their story shape and the words would be edited by the newsdesk and a team of rewriters/editors who would also write the headlines and make any necessary changes. Our night lawyers would check the stories as they do at present."

There has been no formal conformation from Express Newspapers that the memo is genuine or that the plans will be implemented.

Source: MediaGuardian.co.uk

According to ABCe, a non-profit organization that publishes studies on the media, The Guardian is once again the UK's most popular news website.  According to Brand Republic, The Times Online reported the highest growth, 20.1% month to month.

Guardian.co.uk reported 23.1 million unique visitors, a 12% monthly increase.  The Guardian also has the highest number of unique users in the UK, 8.7 million.

Times Online reported 19.6 million unique users, an increase of 92% since August 2007.  Also according to the report, of those users, only 6 million were based in the U.K.  Editor in chief Anne Spackman claimed that the steady rise in TO's "global audience is testament to the power of the Times brand and the strength of our coverage."

Roy Greenslade has been running a series of articles in The Guardian based on email exchanges with unnamed sources within the Daily Telegraph. A recent email that he received and writes about in his column today alleges that plagiarism is rife at the respected British newspaper.

Greenslade quotes directly from the email, which states: "You do realise, don't you, that stuff is being lifted with hardly a word changed from the Mail website and the Metro?"

The email goes onto say: "No one is going to pay the least bit of attention to a media organisation that recirculates other people's stuff, and thus the name, the brand and the reputation are constantly undermined from within. One can even imagine a situation a few years hence when the Telegraph is no more than a news aggregator website doing no journalism of its own."

These allegations are surprising, especially considering the Telegraph's reputations as one of the most respected newspapers in the UK market. However, one does have to consider that a large number of staff at the Telegraph are unhappy with the recent increase in working hours at the newspaper, so perhaps this anonymous source is simply a disgruntled employee venting?

Source: Guardian.co.uk

See also:

UK: Editor-In-Chief of the Daily Telegraph lifts the lid on his newsroom

Austrian tabloid, Kronen Zeitung, has been the subject of content concerns for quite some time.  The paper is currently under fire because publisher and editor in chief, Hans Dichand has been accused of manipulating the public by openly using his paper for pet political issues.

KZ has a daily circulation of three million (42% of the population), which, according to BNET is the highest per capita circulation of any newspaper in the world.

Dichand has now taken on the task of promoting Werner Faymann, the Social Democratic party's leader, to become Austria's next chancellor.

In many cases the paper's campaigns have succeeded which is making some experts nervous. According to the Financial Times, experts fear that Dichand is making other parties too subservient to his wishes.

Sources: Financial Times, Roy Greenslade, The Guardian, BNET

Telegraph.co.uk now has an integrated finance channel rather than the previous separate business and personal finance sections.

The newspaper is also moving sections of its website onto Escenic, its new in-house digital publishing and content management system. This new publishing platform enables the newspaper to publish to the web and mobile services simultaneously.

In the latest stage of the newspaper's web development programme, the new finance site will allow telegraph.co.uk readers to create and manage their own portfolios.

A new finance blog called Economic Pulse will be introduced, written by Edmund Conway, and carry regular analysis from breakingviews.com, following the deal announced between the two companies last week.

This latest development follows a process that has been running for months at the news provider, which began with a revamp of the homepage back in July.

TMG has also developed a financial iPhone application, a widget for social media sites to display financial news from its website and TV services, and an online tool called Questor to offer share tips.

Source: Guardian.co.uk

The Independent launched its redesigned full color paper today. 

Editor Roger Alton has created a color-coding system to facilitate navigation through the sections of the paper.  Alton went further to state, "The Independent has always been acclaimed for its innovative use of photography and design, and our new printing processes will allow us to maintain and surpass those high standards."

The paper also includes a new "Independent Life" supplement to replace its second Extra section.  The change designed to make the paper more customer focused according to Alton.  The Independent Life section will have a specific daily focus.  Mondays, style and beauty; Tuesdays, health and well-being; Wednesdays, games and gadgets; Thursdays, food and drink; and Fridays, arts and books in an extended section.

UK regional publisher Newsquest announces that it will adopt a mixture of free and paid distribution to its weekly paid paper the Richmond & Twickenham Times, following in the footsteps of the Manchester Evening News according to Hold The Front Page.

Even as technology becomes more and more available in India, the oldest handwritten Urdu-language newspaper Musalman preserves its "old-school look" and continues to employ an Islamic calligraphy style, reports WSJ.com. The paper's four-page issues include coverage of local and international news, editorials and a weekly Urdu poetry feature.  

The Times Online announced beginning Thursday they will charge for access to their archives.  Free access to their archives was launched in June.  This follows Google's announcement of their plans to digitize newspapers.

According The Guardian, an email was sent to Times Online users describing the first three months access to archives as a "free introductory period."  The email went on to say, "On Thursday September 18, the free introductory period will end, so we're writing to let you know how you can continue to enjoy this wonderful resource."

The 200-year archive includes news stories from 1785 to 1985 including the Battle of Waterloo, the arrival of convicts at Botany Bay and the execution of Marie Antoinette.

Paid access to sites, rather than relying purely on advertising, is seen as a more stable revenue stream.  However, according to online editor, Anne Spackman, this is not the case, the trial is designed to allow the paper to see what kind of content people are visiting the archives for.

Access charges will be £4.95 for a day, £14.95 for one month and £74.95 for a year.

Sources: