Results matching “italy one in th”

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:

Pess freedom in Italy has come under international scrutiny in recent weeks as a down-grading of the press's freedom status by US non-profit Freedom House has coincided with an increase in prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's aggression towards media outlets which oppose him. Leading left-leaning daily La Repubblica has even attempted to take on the premier directly, publishing a list of questions concerning his relationship with a young girl, to which it believes he owes answers. A Dutch politician has threatened to take action in the European parliament against the Italian leader because of journalistic constraints. Should a newspaper be demanding such information which concerns a politician's private life? Is the press freedom situation as bad as it seems?

The La Repubblica crusade

On May 14 La Repubblica journalist Giuseppe D'Avanzo published ten questions directed at the prime minister concerning his involvement with 18-year-old Noemi Letizia. Berlusconi's relationship with the girl gained mass media attention when, four days after the prime minister dropped in on the girl's 18th birthday party in Naples, his wife issued a press release accusing him of "consorting with minors" and pressing for a divorce. Berlusconi promptly went on a late-night political chat show to defend himself, but the holes in his story which have gradually emerged have attracted even more attention than the original incident. D'Avanzo's questions address these holes and ask the premier to come clean about the nature of his encounters with the girl. Berlusconi has not yet answered the questions and has given no indication that he intends to. The paper has put a timer on its website to indicate the days, hours, minutes and seconds since the questions were issued, and even offers them in English.

Berlusconi himself has tried to present the left-leaning paper's campaign as a left-wing plot to undermine his authority, accusing the paper of lying and adding in an interview on TV-channel Sky that he believes many readers will abandon the paper because of this. His office issued a statement saying referring to the "campaign of denigration" and saying that the paper is driven by "jealousy and hatred."  The prime minister has fought back as the story developed, with his lawyers applying for the seizure of photos taken at his Sardinian villa (where Letizia reportedly attended parties with other young women) before they could be published, and a journalist from Berlusconi's brother's Milan-based daily Il Giornale posing as a member of the foreign press to get an interview with Ms Letizia's former boyfriend in an attempt to discredit him.
 
 
The international reaction 
La Repubblica has defended its actions, with editor Ezio Mauro saying that "There are contradictions here and when the powers that be don't explain something, journalism has a job to do." And foreign journalists seem to agree. The paper also featured an interview with Bill Emmott, former editor of the Economist, who said that "for a newspaper, asking a political leader questions is not only legitimate, but part of its mission to inform the people." According to the International Herald Tribune, "for the first time in recent memory, the Italian press is shining a bright light into the dark recesses of a politician's personal life." The Times wrote that the premier's campaign against La Repubblica "looks ominously like an attempt to cow dissent rather than protect a private reputation" and that "his newspaper critics are performing a public service for a badly governed populace." A Financial Times editorial criticised the way that Berlusconi turned on La Repubblica following the questions, and stressed that part of the "danger of Berlusconi... is that of the media sapping the serious content of politics, and replacing it with entertainment."

Berlusconi has reacted with anger and scepticism to such foreign criticism. He seems to refuse to believe that papers might be acting of their own accord, announcing that "the international press's campaign is being orchestrated by an Italian group" and referring to it as a left-wing "plot." He insists that the foreign press is misrepresenting the Italian situation, and a rift in his relationship with Rupert Murdoch seems to be further deteriorating following the Times' article and others. He has accused the Times of writing critical editorials about him because his government is in dispute with News Corp. Il Giornale, owned by the prime minister's brother Paolo, ran a story discussing the FT editorial entitled "The left has also enlisted the Financial Times."

One of a newspaper's main goals should be to act as a watchdog over the government, but it is unusual for a paper to take on a country's leader so directly, particularly over a matter which is largely private. In the UK, the Daily Telegraph's recent campaign over MPs' expenses was firmly in the public interest, as it dealt with public money being used by members of parliament for personal gain. Berlusconi has been derisive of the media discussing what he says is his private life. Should a paper be putting so much focus on an issue that is arguably unrelated to the prime minister's ability to govern the country? Is this indicative of media trivialisation?

The Times editorial does not see the questions as intrusive, as they relate to Berlusconi's "public roles as politician and media magnate". The Independent's Peter Popham said that the media "cannot be accused of muck-raking on the issue because it was Mr Berlusconi himself who drew attention to the relationship" by attending the 18-year-old's party and not only posing for photographs but publicly giving the girl a 6000euro gold necklace. And the fact that a politician might have lied to the public is probably enough of an incentive to investigate.
 
Press freedom in Italy
 
Italy has a fairly unique media situation, which makes confrontation between a newspaper and the prime minister even more pertinent. The country's press freedom status is clearly in question. A Dutch politician who is leader of the Green Left party in the European Parliament, Judith Sargentini, has said that her party is considering taking legal action against Berlusconi because of the press freedom constraints in his country. Amongst her complaints is the fact that the premier blocks critical questions at press conferences. If a majority of the European Parliament were to agree to the initiation of legal proceedings, then the matter would come before the European Court of Justice.

US-based nonprofit Freedom House recently downgraded Italy's press freedom status from 'free' to 'partly free' for 2008. In conversation with Karin Karlekar, editor of the report, she explained that the main reasons given for this were the unusually high level of media concentration, particularly in broadcasting, threats from organised crime and others, and attacks on journalists, mainly from far right groups. During Berlusconi's former term as prime minister, the country was also given partly free ratings, and Karlekar added that the media concentration was "one of the highest levels anywhere in the world."

Daria Gorodisky, a veteran Corriere della Sera journalist who is also a union representative for the paper, told the Editors Weblog that she believes there is a "truly enormous press freedom problem in Italy" which will be "extremely difficult to resolve." She does not place blame for this directly on the government but on the fact that there are no "pure" newspaper owners, rather, those who publish newspapers also run other businesses and therefore have aims and interests aside from their papers. She also believes that the quality of Italy's journalism schools have deteriorated as more and more have sprung up. She did, however, point out that this is not the first time that Berlusconi has threatened the press.

Internet penetration is low in Italy in comparison to that of its Western European neighbours: about 48%, compared to 72% in the UK or 66% in France, for example. This low figure would suggest that many people are more likely to get their news from television and one or two newspapers, rather than the range of sources that online readers might visit. Despite this, however, Karlekar noted the country's "very vibrant and influential" blogosphere, particularly politically-orientated blogs.

Gorodisky commented that although some journalists were "very worried" by the situation, she did not think that there was enough widespread concern about Italy's press freedom status. Karlekar said that her organisation's report had sparked considerable debate and she had received both praise and hate mail from Italians. Niccolo Ghedini, lawyer to Berlusconi, dismissed the report on a TV show called Anno Zero, saying it was a private organisation and took its information from only two sources, La Repubblica and Corriere della Sera. Karlekar responded that she was "not sure where he got that" and was clear that "the range of sources is large and our authors would never just rely on one or two." She added that it was "interesting that the government felt compelled to respond in some way."
 
Karlekar did say that Berlusconi did not seem to be "exerting the same amount of influence over the broadcast media" as he did during his previous term as prime minister; there seems to be less "overt political manipulation." She was also clear that she did not think that the high media concentration had "stifled" the whole media, and drew attention to the diversity in terms of political opinion in the print sector.

Arguably there are far more important questions that the Italian press could be asking its country's leader, rather than focusing on the somewhat sordid details of his involvement with a teenage girl. But as a vital part of the press's role in a democracy is to play watchdog on the government, the fact that a paper is challenging the prime minister to clear up inconsistencies is something that must be welcomed. And even though the original issue may not be crucial in itself, the other questions it has brought up concerning use of government planes for private use, for example, are very pertinent. Given how much of the media the prime minister does control, and the fact that even the journalists who do not currently work for Berlusconi know that they may well some day, the press freedom situation could undoubtedly be worse than it is, and it is important that journalists keep fighting.

Will people voluntarily pay to read news that they could easily read for free? Cynthia Typaldos, founder of Kachingle is convinced that they will. Kachingle proposes a novel solution to the news industry's revenue problems: encourage people to donate money to their favourite sites, whether these are major news outlets or small-time blogs. The Editors Weblog spoke to Typaldos to find out more about the scheme, which is due to launch in late July or early August.

How it works

Kachingle users, who the company are calling Kachinglers, need to sign up once to set up their subscription, which, via PayPal, will charge them $5 a month. When they go to a news site that is participating in the venture, it will display a Kachingle 'medallion', which the user can click on to indicate their support for that site. The reader can choose to highlight as many or as few news sites as it wishes, and Kachingle will track the number of times that they visit that site in a month. At the end of a month their $5 will be divided and distributed proportionally between the sites which they have flagged, according to the amount of times visited (with a 15% cut going to Kachingle and 5% to PayPal.) "The algorithm is meant to be a proxy for value received the consumer," Typaldos explained.

Why will people pay?

The main reason Typaldos thinks people will be prepared to offer this $5 is not because they have a strong desire to help save newspapers but because of the social advantages of using Kachingle. Contributors create a profile that shows which sites they are supporting, which they can post to their Facebook profiles or send on Twitter, Typaldos suggested. There will even be a Facebook application. "It becomes a very real view of the things I value, part of my online persona," she explained: something which she believes is "very important" to people as their online existence becomes more and more complex. Essentially, "there's a very powerful peer pressure recognition element to Kachingle" which is what she thinks will drive people to become involved, she feels that users will be "getting something back" in the form of social recognition. The more altruistic wish to help support news would come second to this, she believes.

Another reason Typaldos gave for why Kachingle will work is simply how easy it is: a crucial factor for such a venture. Registering involves providing just basic details, and thereafter, a Kachingler's job is straightforward, marking the sites, without having to consider how much they would like to contribute to it. "There just can't be any mental transaction costs," as Typaldos put it. And the system still allows people to move freely around different publications without encountering pay walls, which Typaldos is firmly against. "Pay walls are just the kiss of death for newspapers," she claims, "we just think it's the wrong economic approach." Those who are trying to implement them "are trying to take the old business model and stick it on the Internet," which she believes is a doomed approach.

To start with, anyone who registers as a Kachingler will make a $5 a month payment. It is fixed thus because Typaldos did not want the decision of how much to contribute to be a barrier for users. The company plans, however, to allow people to give larger amounts in the future, and to encourage them to do so by suggesting amounts based on how many sites they have chosen to support. Typaldos hopes that the typical amount given will rise to about $20 a month. Unsurprisingly, content providers would like people to contribute more money, she said.

The start-up has been in contact with many major news publishers, Typaldos clarified, and these have been by no means only US based: publishers in Germany, the UK, France, Italy, Brazil, Hungary and across Scandinavia, for example, have been in touch. "We are not country specific," she confirmed. For news organisations, the benefits are clear, and the medallion button is extremely easy to install: a simple Java script widget which "you can put on your site in three minutes."

Will it work?

So how much could Kachingle actually raise for newspapers? Could it make a difference? "I think that we will bring enough revenue to sites that are very high quality with original content," Typaldos asserted. She is not under any illusions that such an effort could save a major newspaper that has "debt, so many overheads, print, a huge staff," but she is confident that Kachingle could have a highly significant impact on smaller publications such as MinnPost, which has low overheads but respected journalists. "We will be very powerful for them," she added.

The idea is a good one in the sense that it manages to combine the notion that people should and can pay for news, without putting up paywalls that would block off sections of newspapers and seem incompatible with the idea that news readers should be able to jump around as they please online. It is also compatible with an advertising model. Typaldos described it as "not like tipping, not like micropayments, but we have taken the best elements of both." The fact that readers can choose what they think its worth paying for is likely to appeal to many, and the cost is sufficiently low to not be a deterrent. It does seem that quite a substantial marketing campaign will have to be carried out to spread the word and persuade people that it is worth making the effort to sign up: social pressure alone might not be enough. Once they do so, however, they will probably appreciate the service.

Further to Metro International's announcement earlier this month that it was planning to sell off its US newspapers, the company has now publicised its intention to sell off its Italian and Portuguese businesses.

The company said it "is currently in advanced negotiations with potential partners in both Italy and Portugal which may lead to a partial or full divestment of these operations. These discussions are in line with Metro International's global strategy to encourage consolidation in its European markets. For the full year 2008, the total losses in Italy and Portugal together amounted to EUR 2.5 million."

A new portal supported by the European Commission "aims to get EU citizens across the 27 member states talking and reading about the same issues" by translating selected articles from 250 of the continent's newspapers into 10 different languages. Titles such as France's Le Figaro, Spain's El Pais and the UK's Guardian will be involved in the project, which will employ 10 journalists and receive €3 million of EC funds per year.

The site is lead by Courrier International, along with Internazionale in Italy, Forum Polityka in Poland and Courrier Internacional in Portugal, and hopes to have all 23 of the EU's official languages involved within the next five years. EU communications commissioner Margot Wallstrom explained that the site will "broaden, enrich and expand coverage of European affairs," allowing Europeans to read European coverage from other nation's perspectives, instead of being limited to their own national newspapers.

Several leadership changes have recently taken place at major Italian newspapers, the latest being the appointment of Mario Calabresi as editor-in-chief at La Stampa, one of Italy's biggest dailies, owned by the Fiat Group. On 30 March, Ferruccio de Bortoli left his post as editor-in-chief at financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore to take up the top role at RCS's Corriere della Sera, the paper he previously edited from 1997 to 2003. De Bortoli was replaced by Gianni Riotta at Il Sole 24 Ore, who leaves a leadership position at TV news programme TG1.

Calabresi replaces Giulio Anselmi, who goes on to become president of Italian news agency ANSA. Calabresi was the US correspondent for another major daily, La Repubblica. He was a surprising choice, reported La Repubblica, not least because of his age: he is only 39. It is extremely unusual in Italy for someone so young to be at the helm of a major newspaper. Calabresi's first big scoop was his discovery that prime minister Silvio Berlusconi had had cancer, a story which he reported so rigorously and with such respect that even Berlusconi himself praised it.

The Internet is set to overtake television as a main form of media consumption in 2010 says a report by Microsoft called "Europe Logs on: Internet trends of today and tomorrow." The report covers Italy, France, Spain, Germany, the UK, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands, Finland, Norway Turkey, Gibraltar, Cyprus and Greece.

If the current growth trends continue, Microsoft states the turn could occur in June 2010 with a weekly average of 14.2 hours on the web and 11.5 hours on television. The report also states that TV will continue to be a strong source of media, however it will be experienced in new ways. Already, online videos are shown to be the most popular entertainment feature with 1 in 4 Europeans watching all kinds of videos.

The study found that Europeans are spending an average of 9 hours a week online, more time than they spend reading print media. They found that 65% of online activity was dedicated to news websites, social networking and email.

In the United States, online news consumption overtook print media, yet local television remains strongest. With cable, local and network TV combined, TV lead at 70% of news consumption, according to Pew Research Center's State of the News Media 2009 report. The report also stated that with the current growth of Internet, it will eventually pass television.  

Source: Brand Republic, Europe Logs On, Journalism.org

The International Journalism Festival took place in Perugia, Italy from April 1-5. The festival addressed the differences between old and new media and the necessity to integrate the two, and many other widely discussed issues affecting the media today, such as integrating print and web news in light of readers' migration online, the necessity to finance journalism as a watchdog, and hence the need to make readers pay for online news.

Following negative press coverage of his diplomatic gaffes at the recent G20 and Nato summits, Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi appears to have threatened journalists with reprisals, even implying that he is considering a government-inspired boycott. The most reported faux pas were skipping an official Nato photo and snubbing German Chancellor Angela Merkel by finishing a mobile phone conversation while she waited to greet him, and shouting out to Barack Obama during a photo call at Buckingham Palace, causing the Queen to look round in annoyance.

Speaking to reporters in Prague on Saturday, Berlusconi accused journalists of "defaming me and misinforming readers," and claimed that the Italian press had "no other aim than that of saying the prime minister has committed faux pas or gaffes." He seemed to threaten a news blackout: "I will no longer talk to you... I will no longer give news conferences," and went so far as to admit that he was tempted to call for "direct and tough action towards certain newspapers and members of the press." When asked to explain further he warned, "If I say 'don't watch a TV channel' or something, do you think that no one in Italy would follow me?"

European institutions must take action to tackle the current media crisis, according to Aidan White, general-secretary of the International Federation of Journalists, EUObserver.com reported. "The future of the media must be at the core of the new commission's agenda, at the core of the new parliament's agenda," he stressed. White added that he would like to see a top-level taskforce perform an intensive review of the European media landscape, "looking at questions of content, politicisation, relations with the public and the question of funding."

EUObserver.com reported that European broadcasting is undergoing a "counter-reformation," according to a report by the Open Society Institute. The Institute presented its survey of the European broadcasting landscape in Brussels on 18 March, in which it detected a "backsliding towards overt political control" in contrast to the post-Cold War period, when leaders relaxed their grip on TV and radio.

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Free dailies around the world are closing and making cutbacks, but Italy seems to be bucking the trend.  The Newspaper Innovation blog reports that there are still six national free dailies in publication, as well as other free local titles. The blog puts national free daily circulation at approximately 4.5 million, and that of its paid counterpart at 5.5 million, although warns against taking the figures too literally as such data is not officially audited in Italy.

These figures appear to indicate that the Italian free daily market is not encountering to the same extent the financial pressures and plummeting readership experienced by publications globally.  Metro, for example, publishes 7 daily editions around Italy and boasts a circulation of 850,000.  Yet in Spain, Metro International has in fact pulled the publication due to "unsustainable losses".

Source: Newspaper Innovation

Eurostat - the statistics wing of the European Commission - published results this week on internet access across the European Union. For the first time, a European country has seen a decline in internet access per household. The percentage of Italian households with Internet access fell from 43 percent, in 2007, to 42 percent in 2008.

In September Google announced plans start archiving historical newspapers and just this week they acquired Paper of Record's archives to get the project rolling.

ZD Net believes the project is important because "Newspapers are an excellent source of historical information, and thanks to the combined efforts of Google and Paper of Records, it will be unlocked for everyone to search and read. This shows how these companies perceive the importance of all kinds of information -- be it breaking news, or hundreds of years old."

The Pensacola News Journal, based in Pensacola, Florida, has begun distributing the newspaper with two different front pages, one designed for home delivery and one for single-copy sales.  

The change, which was launched on Monday, is an experiment designed to combat the impact on PNJ from the economic slow down, lost advertising revenue, and declining circulation. PNJ also sees this as a move which will appeal to both young and old readers in Pensacola.  

In an interview the deputy managing director, Kim Thomas, explained that the change was made possible by "shuffling tasks" around in order to free up designers for the extra work.  

According to Thomas, it is too early to tell whether the move will be successful or not. However, newspaper sellers have seen a bounce on the move; they had their best day since the PNJ increased the cover price a few weeks ago.  The question is, can they maintain this after the novelty wears off?

As quoted in a PNJ unbylined editorial on Sunday, "maybe, just maybe, by giving that market a different look in our newspaper, and in some cases different stories, we might end up serving our new generation of readers a bit better. It might not work, we know that. But we're going to give it a shot."

 Sources:  Visual Editors, PNJ, Gannett Blog

See Also:
UK: Sunday Telegraph's makeover unveiled
US: More leaked reports on Chicago Tribune redesign
Ukraine: Kyiv Post revamp web edition, print redesign to debut later in the month
New York Times International Weekly announces revamp
Italy: Daily newspaper La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno announces redesign

South Italian daily newspaper La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno, which has been published since 1887, announces a redesign that will transform the title into a tabloid that will be entirely in color.

After Viacom and France's TF1, Italy's MediaSet is reportedly also filing suit against YouTube for illegal video and audio uploads. Mediaset is seeking at least $800 million. Spain's Telecinco (owned by MediaSet) has previously sued the video site.

YouTube sent a press release to Reuters, which states: "We respect copyright".

According to Bloomberg, at least 4643 MediaSet videos (which is equal to 325 hours) have been illegally used on YouTube. MediaSet said that they have lost "the equivalent of 315.672 broadcasting days."

Moreover, Italian Prosecutors said that Google will be charged for broadcasting a video of an autistic child being taunted by classmates. Google is the parent company of YouTube.

Source: paidcontent.org

New data released from Nielsen Mobile, in the "The Worldwide State of the Mobile Web" report, indicates that adoption of the mobile web has reached a critical mass and can now support "large-scale mobile marketing efforts."  

According to Nielsen, as of May 2008, 15.6 percent of US mobile subscribers regularly use the internet on their mobile device - reaching a total of 40 million users. (In all, some 95 million US subscribers pay for access to the mobile internet, but the 40 million are regular users.)

The UK and Italy followed the US, with 12.9 percent and 11.9 percent respectively, of subscribers going online from a mobile device.

It's interesting that while the US leads in overall mobile internet usage (of total users), other nations are now using mobile devices as the primary mechanism for getting online. According to Ars Technica, "In Russia, Brazil, and India, mobile lines far outnumber landlines, and as those countries continue to flourish, they will become a greater driving force in mobile Internet use."

According to the Nielsen report, the most popular things to do online were to go through web portals for mobile sites, followed by e-mail, then weather, news/politics, search, city maps, and sports.

"All of this ads up to a significant marketing opportunity, if companies can learn how to do it right," reported Ars Technica. "Mobile users appear to be lukewarm towards advertising (although Nielsen says that self-reported advertising receptivity tends to be low across all mediums), and due to its more personal nature, could be even more difficult to sell. Still, it could be successful as long as mobile marketing can respect consumer privacy and actually engage users"

For more on mobile internet usage, read our sister SFN blog's post yesterday on reaching teen audiences.

Source: Ars Technica through European Journalism Centre

The growing market for e-paper technology will soon welcome a device with a foldable, flexible display screen, to be released this fall. The Readius' foldable format is predicted to prompt developments in mobile reader screens, the New York Times reported.

"Flexible displays are the crucial enabling technology for a new generation of portable devices that are mobile, but also have compelling user interfaces," said Jennifer Colegrove, analyst for iSuppli Corporation, a Californian market research company.



The Readius is geared towards reading books, newspapers, magazines and e-mail on a 5-inch diagonal screen that can be folded and reduced to a pocket size.

Karl McGoldrick, CEO of Polymer Vision, the Dutch company that developed the Readius, said that although it displays only shades of gray, its "active matrix" technology might be developed to include colour and videos.

The Readius will come out in this fall in England, Italy and Germany, and in early 2009 in the United States. According to many analysts, the market for e-paper will really begin to boom in 2009.

(For more information about the functions of the Readius, see more about Polymer Vision)

Source: The New York Times through IFRA Executive News Service

See also:
Are we headed for all-electronic papers?
A paperless world?
BusinessWeek review: The Kindle an "imperfect subsititute" for the newspaper
Electronic newspapers nealy ready for release,Kuwata says

In the wake of Tim Russert's death, we are reminded again that in the world of Wikipedia and Web 2.0, breaking news waits for no man.

Following the sudden death of Mr. Russert, the former moderator of "Meet the Press" and the chief of NBC's Washington bureau, NBC chose to withhold the news for over an hour, wanting to first inform Russert's family, who were vacationing in Italy.

"We were not prepared to say anything until all the family had heard," said Allison Gollust, an NBC News spokeswoman. "The last thing we wanted to do was to have the family discover this on the air." Gollust said NBC had asked the other networks to hold back and all agreed.

Russert collapsed from a heart attack in NBC's Washington newsroom around 1:40 p.m. and was pronounced dead shortly after arriving at the hospital at 2:23. The official announcement came from NBC's former anchor Tom Brokaw, on air at 3:39.

But almost 40 minutes earlier, the news broke on Wikipedia. Mr. Russert's page was updated at 3:01 p.m. -- adding the date of death and turning present-tense verbs into the past tense. "The entry was particularly influential since many journalists had heard of Mr. Russert's becoming stricken, but did not know the outcome," noted the New York Times. "If some turned to Wikipedia to refresh themselves about Mr. Russert, they found an article that seemed to confirm what many had been hearing."

The IP address of the editor traces to a "junior level" employee at Internet Broadcasting Services in St. Paul, Minn., which contracts Web services to local NBC TV stations. The employee, who posted thinking the information was public record, has since been fired.

Sources: The New York Times, The Daily Online Examiner

According to the European Journalism Centre (EJC), UK journalists are more likely to be blogging and producing videos as part of their job, a European Digital Journalism Study about the effects of the digital age revealed.

The study surveyed 347 journalists from 9 European countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, the UK) from regional, national, broadcast and trade media. It was conducted by PR firm Brands2Life and Oriella PR Network, their European partners.

61 % of UK journalists said their publication provided TV or video features, as opposed to 41 % from other European countries.

Over 75 % of UK journalists said the most challenging part about their job was producing "additional multimedia content for the web", EJC reports.

UK journalists are the premier bloggers, since 85 % said their websites had a blogging feature. Only 10 % out of the total and 14 % from the UK said that they had professional media production training.

Source: European Journalism Centre

World Editors Forum - SEVENTH SESSION

With : Gianni Valenti, Deputy Editor, Gazzetta dello Sport, Italy Raju Narisetti, Managing Editor, Mint, India Ignacio Escolar, Editor-in-Chief, Publico, Spain Pierre Haski, Founder and Editor in Chief, Rue89.com, France Dominic Young, Director of Editorial Services, Intellectual Property, News International Ltd, UK Chairman: Roy Greenslade, Media Columnist, The Guardian, UK

More video reports from Sweden

Xavier Vidal-Folch, Deputy Director of the Spanish daily El Pais, has been elected President of the World Editors Forum, the global association for senior newsroom executives within the World Association of Newspapers.

Mr Vidal-Folch was elected by the Board of WEF, meeting in Göteborg, Sweden, on the eve of the annual World Editors Forum conference. He succeeds George Brock, Saturday Editor of The Times of London, who served as WEF President for the last four years.

"It is an honour to be the successor of George Brock," said Mr Vidal-Folch. "Under his presidency, WEF became the voice of editors-in-chief through its Editors Weblog, and the attendance to our annual conference more than tripled.

"My task will be to transform the organisation into a truly digital organisation with more products and services available online. WEF wants to welcome more senior news executives through a new professional online network, useful worldwide, which will become a hub for the entire newspaper industry."

Mr Vidal-Folch has been Deputy Director of El Pais since 1989. He has been with the paper since 1982 and has served as Chief Editor and Brussels Bureau Chief.

Harald Stanghelle, the Political Editor of Aftenposten in Norway, was elected Vice President of WEF.

He has been Political Editor of Aftenposten since 2000. He previously served as News Editor of the paper and as Editor-in-Chief of Dagbladet.

Editors from four countries have been nominated to become new members of the WEF Board: Nadia Al-Saqqaf, Editor-in-Chief of the Yemen Times; Raju Narisetti, Editor of Mint, India; Marcelo Rech, Editor-in-Chief of Zero Hora, Brazil; and Gianni Valenti, Deputy Editor of Gazzetta dello Sport, Italy.

The Paris-based World Editors Forum (http://www.worldeditorsforum.org ) is the organisation of the World Association of Newspapers that represents editors-in-chief and other senior news executives. WAN, the global organisation for the newspaper industry, represents 18,000 newspapers; its membership includes 76 national newspaper associations, newspapers and newspaper executives in 102 countries, 12 news agencies and ten regional and world-wide press groups.

Source: Larry Kilman, Director of Communications, WAN, 7 rue Geoffroy St Hilaire, 75005 Paris France. Tel: +33 1 47 42 85 00. Fax: +33 1 47 42 49 48. Mobile: +33 6 10 28 97 36. E-mail: lkilman@wan.asso.fr

In this short interview with Gianni Valenti, deputy editor of Gazzetta dello Sport, the world's largest 'sports' newspaper and leading daily in Italy, he explains how the paper has balanced its focus on sports with coverage of the protests against China and the Olympic Games in general.

Should sports sections concentrate on the actual events, and leave the rest to the politics desk? Can they really get away without putting sports into context?

As a newspaper focused on sports, Gazzetta dello Sport evidently has vested interest in the upcoming Olympic Games. How have you balanced coverage of sports and of the protests?

Gazzetta dello Sport isn't only a sports newspaper anymore. It's a sports newspaper that includes a general news section. The paper naturally is in favor of the Olympic Games, but it has dedicated entire news pages to the events that took place in Paris when the Olympic torch went through.

For the last six months, many pages have gone to coverage of social, political and environmental issues in China. In preparation for the future, a team of reporters will be dedicated to covering social issues. But the Gazzetta will not make a distinction between sports and social issues and reporters from both desks will collaborate.

Was the Gazzetta's coverage of the protests factual or did the newspaper take a stance?

The paper has special correspondents covering the International Olympic Committee and China. Its coverage remained factual on those aspects and the exactions in Tibet. Regarding the Olympic Torch, the Gazzetta took position, to an extent, arguing that the torch should pursue its route throughout the world. In practice, the Gazzetta did 'equidistant journalism' about the protests, recapping both the pros and cons.

After the events in Paris and London, there was lots of debate online. The Gazzetta created forums to host these discussions, but it didn't advocate a particular political stance for Italy - this was at the time of general elections in Italy.

However, now that the government is in place, and when a real debate will be engaged about whether Berlusconi should go to the Olympic Games or boycott them, then the newspaper will take a side - which is yet to be determined. But I predict that most political leaders will end up going.

How substantial will be Gazzetta Dello Sport's coverage of the Olympic Games?

We will have 23 journalists who will travel there. It will be the biggest coverage the paper has ever given to the Olympic Games, and it will involve collaboration between both print and online.

Source: Gianni Valenti, deputy editor Gazzetta dello Sport

Two profitable Nordic media groups, Schibsted in Norway and SanomaWSOY in Finland, have suffered disappointing results and dropping share prices in the last month. 

The figures are relative; for most publishing groups such figures would be welcomed, but for these particular houses, who are traditionally strong revenue generators, they are disappointing.

In Norway, Schibsted is still suffering losses in its home market due to a rapid shift from print to online. However, although it has faced circulation cuts on papers such as its tabloid Verdens Gang, it has not lost readers. Indeed the website is responsible for more than 30% of Verdens Gang’s revenue.

Schibsted has been affected more by losses in classified advertising, both print and web, from its holdings in Spain, France, and Italy.

In Finland, lower figures were not a result of circulation and advertising drops; rather SanomaWSOY cited increased marketing costs and new product launches at the root of the problem.

Some positive news comes out of Scandinavia as well; Bonnier, a Swedish private international media company, announced in a press release that their sales rose 45% in 2007.

Source: followthemedia