Results matching “denmark newspap”

A recent poll conducted by the Megafon Institue found that the slight majority of Danes (51%) did not support the recent apology made by the Politiken newspaper for re-publishing cartoons negatively depicting the Prohpet Mohammed in 2008. Politiken's decision was largely influenced by Muslim organizations that promised to drop legal action if the newspaper published a public apology.  

In another development in the case of the controversial Muhammad cartoons, the Danish newspaper Politiken apologized today to eight Muslim organizations for the offense it caused them by reprinting the cartoons. The Muslim organizations have promised to drop legal action against the newspaper if it printed an apology, according to the Guardian.

The newspaper's apology was condemned by a wide range of Danish figures that believe the apology compromises Denmark's freedom of the press.

Mecom, a 'content and consumer business' under David Montgomery, publishes 25 million newspapers per week across Europe; thrice as many as the UK's Johnston Press. In 2007 the company's share price plunged a disastrous 97 percent due to weak advertising and debt, an unfortunate turn of events the news publisher been struggling to recover from ever since.

Trading up yesterday however, revealed an altogether brighter outlook for the publisher of some 300 titles, its share price jumping 14.8 percent, topping the FTSE Small Cap .FTSC leaders board.

A Norwegian newspaper has republished the controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, after an axe attack on a Danish cartoonist in his own home, The Telegraph reported.

The newspaper Aftenposten, in an article about cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, last week printed six out of the 12 controversial images that ignited global debate and protest after their initial publication by Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in 2005. Westergaard's drawing depicted the prophet wearing a turban in the shape of a bomb.

Editor of Aftenposten Hilde Haugsgjerd said that it seemed "natural and justified to republish the artistic and journalistic body of work that is likely the cause of this violence".

The struggles of many American newspapers have been well documented recently, the closure of the Rocky Mountain News and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's transition to online-only being two of the more high profile stories. Yet European newspapers seem so far to have avoided the plight of their US counterparts. Writing for the New York Times, Eric Pfanner describes how despite Europe facing similar problems to the US "a few newspaper publishers have found innovative ways not only to survive, but thrive in the face of the recession and the Internet."

Oslo based publisher Schibsted earns "about a quarter of the company's revenue and the vast majority of its profit" from online activities. VG Nett is the website of Schibsted's daily tabloid Verdens Gang, and boasts a profit margin of over 30% as well as rivalling Google as the most popular site in Norway. German publisher Axel Springer generates 14% of its revenue online, which is a higher percentage than most publishers in the more digitally developed US manage, and is currently in the position to search for "undervalued assets" to buy.

Many publishers are wondering how long it will be until newspapers go entirely online, and how long a publication like that could survive "on its own," Poynter's Ernst Poulsen writes.

But after going bankrupt in a competition with major media companies, free paper Nyhedsavisen has a web site that is doing relatively well.

Although Avisen.dk's numbers have gone down, their readership is younger, and "surprisingly" strong.

The site's content is far from pablum, focusing instead on brand awareness, targeting a younger audience, according to Kristoffer Gravgaard, CEO of Newspaq, the site's recent owner.  

The site has been moved from a "fairly tabloid position" and now covers subjects relating to its audience, such as mobile phones, crime, bicycle traffic and youth economy, Gravgaard said, which gives the site an advantage.

Gravgaard finds that online newspapers will not only survive, but thrive in the new economy, he said.  

Source: Poynter

A renewed effort by Danish newspaper publishers to stop search engines from linking to individual articles rather than a newspaper's homepage has sparked controversy with blogging journalists in the country.

"Deep linking" is a blogger's bread and butter--it's how users are directed to their sites--and search engines, such as Google News, are facing pressure from the Danish Association of Newspaper Publishers who only want homepage links to "better control the user experience."

After a series of "rapid launches of free dailies between August and October 2006," two more of Denmark's editions of 24timer have closed, according to MediaWatch.

The latest closures in Odense and Aalberg on Friday mark a trend in the Danish newspaper market, which has been in a circulation decline since 1997.

In 2006, Denmark had 10 different free dailies with "20 editions and a total circulation of more than two million."  After a series of shutdowns, 24timer, Metro and Urban are the three that remain, each with only 3 editions and a circulation of less than 600,000.  Odense and Aalberg each had a circulation of 20,000.

Paid circulation in Denmark "dropped almost 25% in the last ten years," and free circulation is going down "even faster."

Source:  Newspaper Innovation 

The World Association of Newspapers presented its annual World Young Reader
Newspaper of the Year award Thursday (16 October) to the Polish daily Gazeta
Wyborcza for its successful initiatives to attract younger readers in a
country where half the population in under 35.

The newspaper, which received the award at the WAN Readership Conference in
Amsterdam, also won Jury Commendations for two projects: a tie-in for young
readers with the Euro 2008 football matches, and for a campaign that helped
readers protest against Chinese policies in Tibet.

"This is a total 'youth think' newspaper. They do everything right for young
people," said Aralynn McMane, Director of Young Reader Programmes at WAN, in
presenting the award.

Danish free daily newspaper Nyhedsavisen announces it is shut down as of today due to lack of advertising and declining economy, reports Newspaper Innovation.

The paper published editions for Copenhagen and Aarhus, as well as a Saturday one and was reportedly the "best-read" paper in Denmark.

Two years ago, 11 free dailies with 25 editions were available in Denmark. Today, however, the figure dropped to three papers and 10 editions. Circulation for free dailies plummeted from nearly 2 million to around 900,000 since 2006.

Dagsbrunn, an Icelandic firm, launched Nyhedsavisen in 2006. This year, it was acquired by Morton Lund, a Danish entrepreneur, and also invested in by Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

Source: Newspaper Innovation through IFRA Executive News Service

Following the International Press Institute (IPI) world congress in Belgrade, where a session focused on the limits of tolerance and the issue of publishing blasphemous content, such as the Mohammed cartoons in Denmark, IPI will make a programme-length video about the issue of blasphemy.

This is a good initiative in the wake of the publication of satirical cartoons of Mohammed by 17 Danish newspapers, three years after the initial row.

"Deciding where to draw the line, or whether there should be a line, would be a major step forward, if it's done in a sensitive and sensible way," wrote the Guardian's Roy Greenslade.

The debate between proponents of unrestricted press freedom and those who advise cautious self-censorship will undoubtedly drag on, but IPI's initiative may help to throw light on these issues.

UPDATE: A Danish appeals court rejected today a suit filed by seven Muslim organizations against the editors of the Jyllands-Posten, which first published the Mohammed cartoons in 2005. The court found that the most controversial of the cartoons, depicting the prophet wearing a turban shaped like a bomb, was "of a satirical nature" and "does not refer to Muslims in general or to the (plaintiff) organisations or their members," reported the AFP. The court also stated "that terrorist acts have been committed in the name of Islam, and it is not illegal for these acts to be made the object of satirical representation."

Source: Roy Greenslade

The World Editors Forum has asked five prominent newspaper designers to pick their Top 10 newspaper designs and Top 5 newspaper website designs to illustrate the evolution of newspaper design and how it is beginning to relate more to the Web.

Here are the newspapers most often cited by the designers: The Guardian (United Kingdom), Poklitiken (Denmark), Bergens Tidende (Norway), St Petersburg Times (United States), Eleftheros Typos (Greece), De Morgen (Belgium), elEconomista (Spain), Excelsior (Mexico), Expreso (Portugal) and Äripäev (Estonia).

The newspaper websites most often cited were elpais.com (Spain), guardian.co.uk (United Kingdom), globeandmail.com (Canada), 24sata.hr (Croatia), and Times Online (United Kingdom).

The results are included in a chapter on the 'fusion" of print and web design, one of the key trends examined in the just-released Trends in Newsroom 2008.

The examples chosen by the designers are those they consider the best newspaper and online newspaper designs of 2006 and 2007. The five are Jördis Guzmán Bulla of Welt am Sonntag in Germany, Lucie Lacava, one of the most notable and prolific print designers working internationally, Robb Montgomery, CEO of Visual Editors and former visual editor for the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune, Peter Ong, an Australian-based designer with clients throughout Asia and the Pacific, and Ally Palmer, a founding director of Canada-based Palmer Watson, which has created internationally acclaimed designs for newspapers around the world.

Source: WEF

According to Lisbeth Knudsen, CEO, Det Berlingske Officin, and Editor-in-chief, Berlingske Tidende, Denmark, the question is not if integrated newsrooms are working but how newspapers can make them work. Knudsen was one of the presenters in a session about integrated newsrooms at the 15th World Editors Forum.

Knudsen gave a general introduction to all of the monumental changes occuring in the media. Because of the Internet, newspaper are not automatically given the special status of sole news providers that they enjoyed before. "A lot of things have changed. We are no longer the gatekeepers of information," said Knudsen. While print is nonparticipatory, online needs dynamic and participation. "The reader has broken the old circle of power." Two recipes for successful online media are expertise in certain editorial areasa and content driven production according to Knudsen. Although newspapers are used to competing heavily with each other, they are not used to all the new competetors online and becoming speialists in an area will help them compete.

Another thing that the internet has changed are deadlines. Journalists in a print environment are used to working with one deadline, but online there are dealines all the time.

Knudsen closed by asking if integrated newsroom are really working. She concluded that they are, but not without a total turnaround of their businesses.

It's been about two years since Cultural Editor of Jyllands-Posten Flemming Rose commissioned and published satirical cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad. The cartoons sparked a global debate on Islam and free speech, as well as violence in some countries. In a recent interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) Correspondent Jeremy Bransten, Rose believes that there have been positive changes at least inside of Denmark. with 17 papers reprinting the cartoon of Muhammed with a bomb in his turban.

A new opinion poll taken two weeks ago showed that 2/3 of the Danish population now think it was right to publish the cartoons back in 2005. The problem, according to Rose, is that Denmark, including its Muslim population, is ahead in the debate compared to several other countries
 
"It is between those who support the values embedded in the constitutions of the liberal democracies and those who don't," said Rose, as opposed to the Muslim community and "us."

Rose believes that the change in Denmark is "a combination of several factors" and "definitely the strong stand by the government [to protect freedom of speech] is very important."

One of the leading Muslims who had tried to take Rose and his newspaper to court in the beginning of the debate came forward to Rose, saying, "OK, we now know from the court decision that we live in a country where it is allowed to ridicule and defame our religion. We don't like it but we have to accept it."
 
"What is really controversial in this case," Rose remarked, "is that Europe cannot unite around one of its fundamental values, which is free speech and open debate. You should be allowed to say what you want without risking being killed or receiving death threats."

However, Islamic countries and Muslims inside Europe are reportedly pushing to pass laws to protect religious sensibilities. Rose states that "attempts to protect people's religious sensibilities is being misused around the world every day" and fears seeing Europe going down this road.
 
"I don't think that you should offend people just for the sake of offending them or make a provocation just for the sake of making a provocation," said Rose. "But I think we'll have to be very clear that in a democratic society, you do have many rights -- the right to vote, the right to free movement, the right to assembly, freedom of religion, free speech etc.... But the only right you do not have is the right not to be offended."

Source: RFE/RL
 

In October 2007, Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet launched a new educational tool. Redaktionen is an internet-based editorial platform where schools produce their own newspaper totally free of charge. It is the only product of this kind in the world. 2-3 days after deadline Ekstra Bladet delivers 1000 colour prints of the paper directly at the school.

Since the launch of Redaktionen, 130 papers have been produced. This amounts to 130,000 newspapers distributed among children, teachers and parents and in some cases the newspapers have even been distributed to the general public in cities across the country. In addition to this successful beginning Redaktionen has recently been nominated for two INMA-awards 2008.

If you wish to know more about Redaktionen, read more here.

Source: Ekstra Bladet

Quebecois weekly business newspaper Les Affaires has been honored with an "Award of Excellence" in the "Redesign" category in the Society for News Design's 2008 competition.

Mignon-Media worked with Les Affaires in 2007 to revamp the editorial strategy and design. Newstands sales jumped by 10% following the redesign.

Les Affaires has also modified their website, which has led to new records in unique vistors, page views, and time spent on the site by readers.

Changes to the layout and website design seem to get results. This may because new designs cater more to today's user habits, which Poynter blogger Ernst Poulsen describes as an expectation to "scan, choose, and move on instantly."

Taking this to heart, Denmark's Jutland Post has recently started writing leads in two easy-to-read bullet points. The Washington Post has also taken on a redesign project.

Poulson poses the interesting question, however, of what a newspaper website might look like if designed entirely by web editors with your average no-time reader in mind.

Source: E-Media Tidbits 

Freesheets are the most-read dailies in Denmark, with 24timer leading all newspapers in the second half of 2007 with 535,000 daily readers. Free paper MetroXpress comes close with 507,000.

The most-read paid-for paper, Jyllands Posten, comes in third place with 505,000 readers. And free dailies Nyhedsavisen and Urban are fourth and fifth.

More interestingly, it seems free papers are starting to compete for readership, whereas the circulations for paid-for newspapers remained relatively stable in 2007, according to Newspaper Innovation (although Jyllands Posten lost 7% of readers year-on-year.)

However, compared to 2003, paid papers have lost 20% or more of their readers. In December 2006, Danish analyst Christina Ove Holm had predicted that the freesheets would cannibalize each other, but they are still faring healthily.

Source: Newspaper Innovation through European Journalism Centre

Dutch free paper DAG will be available for home delivery starting on Nov. 5. Customers will only be charged delivery costs.

The 14th World Editors Forum in Cape Town was full of great speakers and events. Below you'll find your one-stop-shop to the best the Forum had to offer: all of the blog postings and videos produced by our student teams from the University of Stellenbosch and Wits University. Just find the session and speaker that interest you and click on the link to find a summary of his or her presentation or the videos we posted on YouTube.

David Trads, Editor-in-Chief at Nyhedavisen in Denmark

David Trads launched his presentation by making a definite distinction between so-called first and second generation free newspapers. The Nyhedavisen in Denmark is a great example of a potentially successful free, national and quality newspaper.

Free newspapers delivered to households are not sustainable, according to Tφger Seidenfaden, editor of Denmark’s paid-for newspaper, Politiken. Speaking at the 14th World Editors Forum, Seidenfaden said free household newspapers were unlikely to become a fad because of high editorial, production and distribution costs.

After the opening ceremonies of the 60th World Newspaper Congress, CEO of the World Association of Newspapers, Timothy Balding, gave an update on the state of the global newspaper publishers in his annual World Trends in the Newspaper Industry.

The Danish newspaper market is in upheaval: free newspapers have rapidly taken over a 50% share. Not only are these papers being distributed on public transport, office buildings and coffee shops. Now 1 million Danish freesheets are also being delivered directly to readers’ front doors. Toger Peter Seidenfaden, Editor-in-Chief of the quality paid-for daily, Politiken, commented on the influx of free papers and previewed the presentation he will make at the 14th World Editors Forum in Cape Town, June 3-6.