November 2005 Archives

An interesting article by media lawyer Ian Felstead criticizes threats made by the UK Attorney General to prosecute newspapers under Section 5 of The Official State Secrets Act if they publish any material concerning the infamous leaked Al Jazeera memo (see previous postings here and here). 

Borrell Associates recently published a report in the US entitled 'Independent City Sites Gain Steam: A New Threat to Old Media", which highlights the threat that such websites pose to newspapers. The report states that independent city sites are growing quickly and "elbowing in on territory that traditional local media properties have been trying to stake out for the past decade."

A new international newspaper called Newsademic targeting younger readers (from age 9 onwards) has been launched. The objective of the paper is to be a source of information "for younger people who are keen to begin to understand what’s going on around them and to make sense of the world they are growing up in." 

An interesting article by Michael Massing debating whether US journalists are failing in their responsibility to produce hard nosed reporting and uncover the truth for their readers.

Corante, "the world’s first blog media company", has launched its new Media Hub. The company has partnered with a network of well respected media bloggers to provide news and commentary on the trends currently affecting the media industry.

For the first time in its history, The New York Times began printing outside the United States, in Toronto, this Sunday. The move will expand the paper's daily availability in the city; it has so far been distributed through delayed delivery and sold at retail outlets.

Guardian Unlimited today launched its new RSS news reader NewsPoint (see previous posting), which has automatic subscriptions to a number of news feeds across the Guardian website. The reader also allows users to subscribe to Guardian reccommended feeds and feeds from thousands of other websites.

The German daily newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, which is already very successful in selling collections of books, CDs and DVDs under its brand (see former posting), launched a new project: Last week it started publishing a series of books dealing with the history of the Football World Cup. The new series is called WM Bibliothek (= World Cup Library).  Each volume will deal with a Football World Cup from 1954 to 2006, the first volume covers the Cups between 1930 and 1950.

"We're over you, Rupert," is how Emily Bell at the Guardian responds to the first interview News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch has given to the British press in five years. Ms. Bell thinks the interview marks the end of the mainstream media era that has now been ceded to a host of "accidental entrepreneurs" in new media. But looking more closely, it seems that the lines between the two are crossing.

Swiss publishing group Ringier yesterday launched a new free Prague daily called 24 Hodin (24 Hours). The paper targets the "Internet Generation" (under 35) and will have a distribution of 250 000 at key sites in the city.

Received from Ehsan Ahmed Sehar, convenor of the Rural Media Network in Pakistan about the latest Al-Jazeera story. It begun with an article in a British newspaper last week, it spreads all over the world and now it reaches Peshawar in one of the most remote parts of Pakistan. Good case study about globalization (and anti-Americanism).

"Like other parts of the country, media persons in Peshawar staged a protest demonstration to condemn the statement of US President Bush and UK Prime Minster Tony Blair regarding attacks on Al-Jazeera offices..."

According to accounts filed at the UK's Companies House, converting The Independent to tabloid format has cost Independent News and Media over 12 million pounds sterling. Group accounts for the company show outgoings of 6.3 million in 2003 and 6.1 million last year, both related to the tabloid conversion.

WatchingAmerica.com is a website dedicated to showing Americans how their country is reported on in the foreign press. The site is edited by William Kern, former copy editor for the International Herald Tribune, and provides translations of interesting stories sourced from newspapers and broadcasts in Europe, The Middle East, Asia, Africa and Latin America.

The German national daily newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung changed its design yesterday. The changes include slimmer and bigger headlines and the introduction of the colour red into the paper to facilitate the navigation. Infographics and maps will be in colour as well. (To see the new front page click here.)

Mediapost reports that a Pew Internet and American Life Project survey shows that September's use of online classified advertising was up 80% year-on-year. Craigslist claimed 8.8 million visitors, a 156% boost from last year. With more consumers becoming accustomed to the Internet, free online classifieds will only cut further into newspaper revenues, which by some estimates are already down 75%.

Source: MediaPost 

The German cartel office (Bundeskartellamt) has approved the takeover of newspaper publisher Berliner Verlag, publisher of daily newspaper Berliner Zeitung, by a consortium of Mecom and Veronis Suhler Stevenson, a U.S. equity form (see former postings (here and here). Cartel office President Ulf Boege said on Reuters, "The planned merger will not lead to the founding or the strengthening of a dominant market position in the relevant markets, since it does not entail any market share increases." It is the first sale of a German newspaper to foreign owners. 

All over China people are uploading audio material to podcasting sites to share their personal experiences. One  of these sites, Wangyou.com, broadcasts the uploaded material daily on 16 regional radio stations in half an hour segments called Wangyou Happy Hour.

According to Periodistas Digital, "Jesus de Polanco, chairman of one of Spain's largest media organizations, Grupo Prisa, has chosen a new editor-in-chief for the company's flagship daily, El Pais. Javier Moreno, 43, who has worked for El Pais since 1994, willl replace the present editor-in-chief Jesus Ceberio." When? Sometime during the spring or the summer of 2006 according to El Pais internal sources.

A new Urdu language daily called Etemad is to be launched in Hyderabad by the family of former MP Sultan Salahuddin Owaisi. Although Hyderabad already has three Urdu newspapers and boasts the largest circulation of Urdu papers of any Indian city, some believe the new paper will not cut into the circulation of its counterparts.

The International Press Institute (IPI) has condemned the German government's treatment of Cicero magazine journalist Bruno Schirra. In a protest letter adressed to the German Interior Minister the organisation stated that “the case involving Cicero and the journalist Schirra contains a number of worrying developments for press freedom and freedom of expression in Germany.”

Once again skipping the middleman otherwise known as newspapers, Reuters is directly contacting the public through mobile phone alerts. Offering up to three headlines a day on various subjects.

The news agency's general manager Tim Faircliff said, "Mobile phone users are increasingly relying on their handsets for up-to-the-minute news and information when they are on the move. Reuters can deliver the news as it happens, wherever and whenever, direct to these consumers." 

Source: Journalism.co.uk (previous postings about Reuters mobile services here and here) 

Staff at Liberation, one of France's leading newspapers, voted Friday to end a four-day strike which has kept the publication off newsstands for most of this week and revealed the deepest internal crisis the daily has faced in its 32-year history.

The decision was adopted by 218 employees with just five votes against. They also agreed to insert a four-page supplement in Saturday's edition of the paper to explain to readers the cause and consequences of their strike, which started Monday.

The World Chinese Language Operator Guild, an organisation repreenting over 100 papers distributed worldwide,  recently held its annual congress in Shanghai. Zhang Xiaoqing, chairman of the organisation, urged the participants of the congress to "report to the world China's new image ... not only as an economic giant, but also a giant in terms of cultural and social ethics."

The Hull Daily Mail has begun offering video reports of local news on its website following the completion of a  diploma in videojournalism by eight of its journalists.

Paul Hartley, assistant editor at the paper, said the following about the new project: "We are currently looking at developing our multi-media skills in the newsroom and are experimenting with putting videos of local news stories on our website."

Former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder is going to work as an advisor on international politics for the Swiss publishing group Ringier, the company announced today. Schröder will start working for Ringier in January. Die Welt reports that Chairman Michael Ringier hired Schröder as his personal advisor.

A new survey, conducted in the US and funded by Bayer, involving 1004 people has revealed that 94% of people would prefer to hear good news than bad, and 77% believe not enough coverage of good news is shown in the media.

Furthermore, people indicated that they felt hearing bad news made their day worse, and in 78% of cases bad news made people feel anxious on occasion.  

Polish dailies center-left Gazeta Wyborcza and right-of-center Rzeczpospolita yesterday published editions with a front page largely obscured by censoring heavy black pen marks and a caption stating "this is how freedom of the press looks like in Belarus." The two papers collaborated with Amnesty International to stage the protest.

Page 2 Page, a new free weekly paper targeting the British Asian community, has been launched in London. The aim of the new paper is to offer ‘quality’ news and analysis to an ‘upmarket’ audience, “the young, upwardly mobile and professional.”

Managing editor Shashi Singh feels the new paper will fit a niche in the UK press market by offering something different to British Asian readers.

Emmy award wining journalist Kristina Borjesson has edited a book entitled: 'Feet to the Fire: The Media After 9/11' that questions US press coverage of the pre-Iraq war period. The book poses three major questions. Was the US media misled by the government? Was the media negligent in reporting the truth concerning the rationale for war, and thus complicit in the push for war? Were senior news reporters too close to government sources?

The New Orleans paper The Times-Picayune last Sunday published a scathing editorial entitled 'Its Time for A Nation to Return The Favour'. The article directly attacks the federal government for its failure to react effectively to the destrution caused by hurricane Katrina.

At a time when many major US papers are eliminating employees, liberal blogger Joshua Marshall, author of TalkingPointsMemo.com is hiring new journalists. Marshall wants to hire two writers to work on a new blog that will give "wall-to-wall coverage of corruption, self-dealing, and betrayals of the public trust in today's Washington."

Journalism is under fire. It has lost the public's trust. It is marred by scandal. It is looked at by those who "own" it as an aside to a profit machine, not a community service.

Although all this looks bad, we still depend on journalism as one of the guiding forces in democracy. So who's going to fix it?  

Although market shares of free newspapers are growing in almost every newspaper market, the impact on paid circulation is yet unclear.

The left wing French daily Libération will not be on sale today, nor will its website be updated. The staff at the newspaper announced a twenty four hour renewable strike in protest at a plan to fire 52 employees.

Over the last 12 months the paper has suffered a decrease of 9.8% in circulation and 10% in advertising. Libération is currently operating at a loss of approximately 497 000 euros per month.  

Hans Kullin of Media Culpa reveals the results of a study he conducted of 42 blogs belonging to 17 Swedish newspapers.

60% of newspaper blogs do not allow for comments, only 53% have RSS feeds for their blogs, and almost 30% do not have permalinks.

With scandals the likes of Jayson Blair and Judith Miller, perhaps no other newsroom in the world is as cautious with its use of anonymous sources as the New York Times is today. Or is it? NYT's public editor Byron Calame describes the paper's revised confidential source policies and says it will take some time until they are completely integrated in the news process.

Sent by Rodney Pinder, director of The International News Safety Institute (INSI): a draft proposal for a United Nations resolution, entitled ‘Actions to Improve the Safety and Security of Journalists, Media Staff and Associated Personel in Situations of Armed Conflict’ has been sent to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. The UN has been called on to act urgently to respond to the problem of violence against journalists.

So far in 2005, 86 news staff members have been killed.

Michael Oreskes, chief editor of the International Herald Tribune (IHT), spoke in an interview with the German online daily newspaper Netzeitung about the future of print newspapers in the digital age. In his opinion print newspapers can survive despite the Internet.

Bertrand Eveno announced that for personal reasons he would relinquish his post as CEO of Agence France Presse (AFP) by the end of 2005 at the latest. His resignation announcement came before a staff vote of no confidence in AFP's management was confirmed.

The German Cartel Office (Bundeskartellamt) announced on Friday that based on its current analysis it would not clear Springer's takeover of ProSieben. The German publisher Axel Springer AG had announced plans to buy ProSiebenSat1 Media AG, a big German broadcaster, in August (see former postings here and here).

The Finnish paper Aamulehti, based in Tampere, has announced that in early 2006 Mikko Honkala will take over as the paper's new editor-in-chief. Honkala has been news chief at the paper since the year 2000.

Simultaneously, a new free newspaper, to be funded by a subsidiary company of Aamulheti and published once a week in Tampere, will be launched.

Source: NewsRoomFinland 

Chinese officials have retracted plans to allow local newspapers to print foreign papers on a contract basis. The decision is a response to fears that the influence of the foreign media may cause revolts similar to the 'colour revolutions' responsible for collapse of other authoritarian regimes, such as those in Georgia and the Ukraine, to occur in China.

The Swiss weekly L'Hebdo gives a good example of interaction between online and print journalism. A few days ago, the newspaper decided to send a part of its newsroom to Bondy, a Northen Paris suburb of 70,000 inhabitants near the main"hot spots" of the riots that enflamed the "Seine Saint Denis" from 29 october to 14 November 2005.

At the moment, Serge Michel, one of the best French speaking journalist - he won the Albert Londres Award in 2001 - is in charge of the blog, writing from the "Eden hotel" in Bondy (no, it's not a joke). Other Swiss journalists will follow him.

The WAN World Editor and Marketeer Conference began yesterday in Athens. The conference brings together 450 participants from 64 different countries and presents a unique opportunity for dialogue between editors and marketing departments, two groups who otherwise communicate with difficulty.

Many innovative strategies are being proposed at the conference, ranging from encouraging more interaction with readers and citizen journalists, to designing newspapers for young people that look like web pages.

Two British journalists have written articles about the state of the British blogosphere and how professional journalists are reacting to the developing citizen journalism movement in the UK.

Martin Newland has resigned from his post as editor of The Daily Telegraph. The resignation comes just a week after John Bryant was appointed overall editor-in-chief for the Telegraph group's two papers, The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph. (see previous posting)

In the wake of the Tribune Co's announcement to cut jobs at five papers, Editor and Publisher reports that a rough estimate of the number of American newspaper jobs lost in 2005 is over 1,900. This data includes only large and mid-sized papers. The E&P article breaks down job losses per paper.

Source: Editor and Publisher 

Interesting editorial in Saudi paper Asharq al-Awsat, published in London. The article talks of the 'ugly face' of the internet in Arab countries and states that a paradox exisits; while the internet is heavily censored in certain areas it can simultaneously become a tool to spread hatred and incite violence.

The editorial states that it is regrettable that the internet, which should be used to foster development in Arab countries, has become a digital preaching ground for racial and religious intolerance.

Steve Outing of Editor and Publisher asks whether investigative journalism, the quality that has "set newspapers apart from competing media", can survive the budget cutting and staff culling that is currently affecting many US newspapers?

As a result of reduced circulation and revenue, The Tribune Company has announced it will cut jobs at five of its newspapers, among these The Los Angeles Times and The Chicago Tribune. The company stated last month that due to an adverse tax ruling its profits had fallen by 82%.

85 newsroom jobs are to go at the Los Angeles Times with more job cuts in other departments to be anounced over the next three weeks. At The Chicago Tribune less than 100 lay offs across all departments are expected to be required. Of these 100, reports suggest 30 will be in the newsroom. Also over the coming weeks details concerning "initiatives to boost circulation and advertising revenue" will be announced.

Even although Google's forays into the realm of advertising have created difficulties for the print media in the form of declining revenues from classified advertising, the company is giving something back.

Google is reportedly considering placing ads in a number of Chicago newspapers. Following positive reactions to ads placed in PC Magazine and Maximum PC (see previous posting), the company is committed to "continue exploring ads in the print media", said spokesman Michael Mayzel. When questioned about which newspapers the ads will run in, Mayzel gave no details.

German regional daily newspaper Sächsische Zeitung (SZ) has introduced a free weekly paper called freitagSZ in the east German city of Dresden some weeks ago. The name comes from the German word Freitag (= Friday), because the paper appears every Friday. It is distributed to all households that do not subscribe to the Sächsische Zeitung. The paper can therefore offer its advertisers the possibility to reach the whole population of the city. FreitagSZ is also an attempt to find new readers for the main paper, advertising the main paper and pointing to stories that will appear in the Sächsische Zeitung in the following days.

Pedro J. Ramirez, editor-in-chief of the Spanish daily El Mundo, has received the 2006 Montaigne Award from the Hamburg based Foundation Alfred Toepfer. Mr. Ramirez was granted the prize "for his work as founder and combative director" of El Mundo and for his strong opinions "in an era when Spain is struggling against philosophical, political and intellectual nihilism."

The award was first granted in 1968 in order to "honor cultural works of exceptional character in European countries of Latin heritage."

Source: El Mundo (in Spanish)

An eleventh hour agreement concerning control over the technology powering the internet was reached in Tunis last night. The text of the agreement must be approved at the UN-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society which begins today.

The crux is that the United States will continue its control over the internet through the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). ICANN retains its power to allocate web adresses and regulate domain names.

Nielsen/NetRatings released its figures for newspaper website readerships on November 15, showing that the number of visitors grew 11% year on year to 39.3 million. 22% of newspaper readers now read their news online opposed to 71% who still prefer the paper edition.

The New York Times' website came out on top claiming 11.4 million readers.

Read the press release and our posting about newspapers' difficulties in adapting to the Internet.  

Source: PRNewswire

Montpellier Plus, a new free daily (25 000 copies), was launched this Monday by Midi Libre, of the Le Monde group.

Montpellier Plus is the fifth paper to be released by the Ville Plus newspaper network (created by the Lagardere media group), which publishes free dailies in a number of French cities. Each of these papers is affiliated to a paid-for newspaper. For example, in Marseille La Provence launched Marseille Plus, and in Lille La Voix du Nord launched Lille Plus.

The World Association of Newspapers today (15 November) called on the summit meeting of the Islamic Conference in December to drop from its agenda an item concerning caricatures of Mohammed that were published in a Danish newspaper. (see previous postings here and here)

The WAN Board, meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark, defended the right of Jyllands-Posten to exercise its rights to freedom of expression by publishing the cartoons, which caused an uproar in Muslim communities in Denmark and elsewhere.

"What happens if we lose much of the old media before the new media business models are formed?"

Former Fincancial Times reporter and Silicon Valley Watcher, a tech/media blog, founder Tom Foremski is worried that old media is losing its journalistic capabilities and influence faster than new media can make up for it. In an essay on his blog, he sums up the situation and throws out some ideas of what could be done.

The World Association of Newspapers today criticised restrictions imposed by sports events organizers on the use of photographs by newspapers, saying the restrictions "inhibit the free flow of information and the rights of newspapers to practice their profession."

From Roy Greenslade who recently left The Guardian for the Daily Telegraph: "Consider the statistics for just one day, October 15. The Times gave away The Last Emperor and added an extra 220,000 sales; the Daily Telegraph offered Whistle Down The Wind and improved by 170,000; and the Independent went up by 85,000 with Wings of Desire. In other words, on that Saturday, the three papers benefited from a total of 475,000 new buyers, a third more than normal.

DVDs are circulation Viagra. Nothing works so well at putting up sales."

Roy Greenslade could add that the boost is real but ephemeral. Perhaps too ephemeral to be convincing.

Source: The Daily Telegraph

The American Press Institute (API) is investing 2 million US dollars in a new initiative entitled 'Newspaper Next: The Transformation Project' which will conceive new business models to help the newspaper industry succeed in the next decade. The project is designed to analyse the trends disrupting the newspaper industry and develop practical business initiatives for newspapers to adopt to respond to these trends.

As the British Sun this week celebrates the 35th anniversary of its famous topless Page 3 (more than 9,000 women pictured!), it gives the opportunity to insist on the importance of this particular page in a print edition.

For instance, French Le Monde decided in its new formula to put here the most exciting or relevant article produced by its newsstaff.

Copenhagen, Denmark, 15 November 2005

Akbar Ganji, a leading investigative journalist who is now one of Iran's most renowned political prisoners, has been awarded the 2006 Golden Pen of Freedom, the annual press freedom prize of the World Association of Newspapers.

Pajamas Media, "a new media venture designed to bring together bloggers, journalists and commentators under a single umbrella," announced in a press release that it has closed a $3.5 million investment deal. It will be officially launched on November 16, marked by a New York event where controversial former New York Times reporter Judith Miller will keynote and the company will change its name.

The investment and buzz over the launching at times when many investors are cautious about traditional media demonstrates the growing influence that blogs are having on the spheres of media and journalism.

Source: L.A. Observed 

Major news organizations are becoming increasingly aware of the benefits of integrating citizen contributions in their news. But will the MSM eventually begin to compensate for its readers' content?

Steve Outing thinks that "It's almost time to pay up for Citizen Journalism." 

The Phillipine Daily Inquirer has joined the compact revolution and will publish its new Inquirer Compact in Metro Manila. The new compact paper is designed for the convenience of specific targeted readers. It will be distributed only in a number of key cities in the region of Luzon.

Stories will be tailored specifically for the new compact version and will be shorter and more visual. 

Source: Publicitas 

The Polish regional daily NTO, published in the South Western Opole region, launches its new format today. NTO will retain its tabloid format, but the content of the newspaper will change. The objective of this change is to interact better with readers, attract a younger readership and improve coverage of local issues.

The Daily Telegraph has again teamed up with Parador Properties, a foreign estate agent, to publish a second guide to property purchase on November 18th. The guide will focus on property investment in Spain, Portugal and Cyprus. 

The supplement responds to the increasing British interest in the purchase of foreign property. The Telegraph Group's business development manager Sarah Collinson states: "With the flow of people to Spain and new markets in Portugal and Cyprus opening up, we felt there was a need to respond to reader interests." 

Source: Media Week 

The Belgian daily Le Soir is reformatting itself from a "Belgian" sized paper to a Berliner on November 15. Le Soir, which has a paid circulation of 101,001, is the first Belgian paper to adopt the format. 

The downsized daily will be composed of three sections, news and opinion, business and sports, and culture and lifestyle. It will print color on all pages.

In these days, it is difficult to be a French journalist when you have to talk about the Paris suburb riots. Either you are accused of self-censorship and political correctness, or of damaging France's image by excessive coverage!

The first answer is to point out that some of the most well-known French columnists and journalists have reaped as they sowed: during the London attacks and the Katrina hurricane, they gave a lot of lessons, saying that such catastrophies couldn't happen in France.

A new report entitled “Western Perceptions About Islam and Muslims”, released last week at the NewsXchange conference in Amsterdam, reveals that Arab Muslims are typically portrayed in a stereotypical and negative fashion by the media in Western Europe and the United States. 

The report is the result of a study, commissioned by the Kuwaiti government and undertaken by Communique Partners of San Francisco, which involved a survey and a series of interviews with media experts.

Washingtonpost.com is looking for a star of cartoon satire for the digital age, and to this end has announced that it will hold an editorial shorts digital competition.

The ad for the competition reads: "Since the history of newspapers, cartooning has been a rich and vital contribution to American political commentary. With the advent of news on the web and new design technologies, who will carry on that tradition?"

The European Union grants an award to honour journalists who "contribute to a better public understanding of the benefits of diversity and the fight against discrimination in employment". The "For Diversity. Against Discrimination." Journalist Award will be awarded in the two categories of print/online journalism and photo journalism.

Giving an upbeat outlook for the full year, German publisher Axel Springer said this week that strong advertising revenues as well as the launch of new titles helped to "boost nine-month core profit by one third", reports Reuters.

Judith Miller, who has been negotiating with the New York Times about her future for several weeks (see former posting), has retired on Wednesday, November 9. In a letter to the Editor Bill Keller she writes that she resigns mainly because over the last months she has become the news, "something a New York Times reporter never wants to be."

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.

Martin Nisenholtz, a senior vice president at The New York Times, announced that in the two months that its TimesSelect service has been available 270 000 members have signed up (see previous posting).

TimesSelect offers users access to the paper's archives, to editorials, and to opinion pieces, and it provides the opportunity for readers to interact with columnists. The cost of the service is $49.95 for a year and $7.95 a month.

John Bryant, formerly of the Daily Mail, has been hired by the Telegraph group to act as editor-in-chief responsible for the long term direction of its two papers, The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph.

Bryant replaces Kim Fletcher who had to resign in June because a conflict of interest arose when his wife Sarah Sands was promoted to editor at The Sunday Telegraph.

Polish publisher Agora SA (owner of Wyborcza Gazeta) today announced that the first issue of its new Monday to Saturday paper, Nowy Dziea (New Day), will come out on November 14th.

Agora asserts that Nowy Dziea will be a mid-market paper (see previous posting). As already said, this launching is an answer to the successful Fakt launched by Axel Springer two years ago, even if Fakt is more a classical tabloid than a mid-market paper.

Othman al Omeir, owner of the Moroccan press group Maroc Soir Ltd., stated Morocco needs another newspaper in French, a paper "destined for the new generations…the generation of the internet and the digital world.”

Maroc Soir Ltd. already publishes three newspapers, Le Matin du Sahara, Assahraa Al-Maghrebia, and La Manãna, and manages the English-language website Morocco Times.

DailyMail.co.uk now provides readers with a comment feature for all articles. The website claims to be the first of its kind to offer such a service.

Since the introduction of the comment feature in July, the number of submissions per week has reached 2000.

Walter Grolimund and Jann Jenatsch, CEO and COO of photo agency Keystone Switzerland, spoke about the challenges professional photojournalism is facing in the digital age in an interview on Persoenlich.com. The interview focused on the influence of citizen photographs on professional photojournalism, but also dealt with the trend of regionalization in photojournalism.

Vladimir Borodin is expected to be replaced as editor-in-chief of Izvestia newspaper by Vladimir Mamontov from Komsomolskaya Pravda. This was confirmed by Nikolai Senkevich, Gazprom-Media Holding General Director and new owner of Izvestia.

In a bid to attract young readers, a number of major US newspapers will be restyling their Sunday cartoons, by January 2006, to resemble the Japanese manga tradition.

The age of the average newspaper reader is currently estimated over 50 years, and is said to be on the increase. Newspapers and their cartoons are seen by the younger generation as a medium designed for their parents.

Statistics released yesterday by the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) for American newspapers show a 2.6 per cent decrease in average weekday circulation and a 3.1 per cent decrease in Sunday circulation year on year as of September. This percentage is worse than ABC's May announcement of a 1.9% year on year loss which, until now, was the steepest drop since 1996. (see pevious posting)

Combining these two statistics means that weekday circulation of American newspapers has decreased by an average of over 2 per cent during the past year. 

Today 7 November is the 18,907 edition of Le Monde, the French quality newspaper created in 1944. It is also the first edition of its new formula that might hopefully put the newspaper in black figures.

"Back to basics" seems to be the newspaper's motto - even if the official one is « putting everything in its place -, but I am not sure it is enough to prepare for the future.

German publisher Axel Springer's Hungarian newspaper Reggel ceases publishing, reports Kleinreport. Reggel, "the first modern quality paper for the Budapest region", was launched only one year ago. In the hard-fought newspaper market in Budapest the paper could not fulfill expectations. Axel Springer, who entered the Hungarian market in 1988, is the biggest publisher in the country, publishing 20 magazines and 10 newspapers.

Source: Kleinreport, see also Werben & Verkaufen (both in German) 

The European Newspaper Publishers' Association (ENPA) has criticized the EU's plans to open the rules on product placements in TV (see former posting). Speaking at the ENPA general assembly in Vienna on Friday, Valdo Lehari, newly elected ENPA vice president, said that loosening the rules concerning the separation of content and advertising will not only threaten the credibility of TV, but that of all other media as well.

The latest Audit Bureau of Circulation statistics for American newspapers, to be released today, are expected to echo May's 1.9% decline. Several publishers have already reported their numbers, most declaring more than a 2% loss. The New York Times reported a 0.4% increase in its daily circulation, the only positive number from a major paper.

One notable statistic is that of McClatchy has reported its circulation has dropped 1%, the first time the publisher has experienced a decline in 20 years.

Sources: Buzzmachine, Wall Street Journal, Editor & Publisher, Poynter

PS: Some of the official decline figures found at Editor & Publisher;

The San Francisco Chronicle - 16.5%, Los Angeles Times - 6.5%, Baltimore Sun - 8.5%

The World Editors Forum, is worried about the clash of cultures that recently occured in Denmark between Islamic conceptions and European values (see below our opinion). According to the Middle East Times, "The Organisation of the Islamic Conference has placed the issue of the publication of twelve cartoons of Mohammed, by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, on the agenda of its December 2005 summit. The caricatures have caused uproar among Muslim communities in Denmark and elsewhere since their publication in September because they are considered blasphemous under Islam.

From Frank Barnako, MarketWatch e-newsletter: "New York Times Co. will probably buy more Website companies soon, according to an executive of its online unit.

At a panel discussion on the future of news at Columbia University this week, Len Apcar, editor at NYTimes.com, said the Times' acquisition of About.com will not be its last. He said acquisitions may also include sites that are not directly related to journalism, according to a report by Editor & Publisher. "We're not quite sure where this is going," he admitted.

Very good paper from Tom Engelhardt (editor of tomdispatch.com) in Common Dreams about "hotel journalism" in Iraq and the debate in the UK and the US on how covering this new kind of information war: "Iraq is a war in which correspondents disappear into detention or die not because they are covering dangerous events and happen to be caught in a crossfire, but because they are often prime targets themselves -- of guerrillas and terrorists, of gangs of for-profit kidnappers, or of the American military."

Source: Common Dreams

The Tages-Anzeiger, one of the biggest newspapers in Switzerland, plans to introduce five new regional editions in the coming twelve months, reports Persoenlich.com. Every edition will be produced by six to ten journalists. The new regional editions will appear primarily in the canton of Zurich. Peter Hartmeier, editor-in-chief of the Tages-Anzeiger, said that the expansion plans are not meant to attack small regional papers, but rather helping to ensure the autonomy of the Swiss newspaper market. He added that the newspaper branch can only survive when there are, also in the future, big newspapers with a broad network of correspondents. (See also posting on localization.)

Source: Persoenlich.com

On a virtual spending spree, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. is at it again, buying UK classified ad site Propertyfinder.com for USD 25.3 million. In an April speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Murdoch warned of the growing popularity of the Internet and specified that "The threat of losing print advertising dollars to online media is very real," and said the most immediate challenge is "transforming (newspapers') offline classified business into online marketplaces."

Now News Corp. has a popular social networking website, an entertainment and gaming site, and classified ads. What's next for Murdoch?

Sources: PaidContent, BBC

A very practical guide about online issues in MediaWeek: 'Here's 50 crucial facts about the world of internet advertising designed to help keep you on the pace."

I like the 40th item: "Guardian Unlimited delivers nine million unique users to its digital content, this is more than 20 times the number of daily papers sold. The world's most respected traditional publishers – from The Guardian, to the Economist to the Wall Street Journal – all attract more customers to their digital content than to their paper product. This now means that we have reached the point in the internet publishing revolution from which there is no turning back..."

Source: MediaWeek

Contributing his decision to "strategic differences" with owner Pearson, the editor of the Financial Times, Andrew Gowers, has stepped down. Gowers, who spent 22 years with the paper, had been editor since September 2001 and helped guide the pinksheet through its website integration and recent launching of an afternoon freesheet.

During his tenure as editor, FT also extended its international reach, although its UK circulation continues to decline.

Gowers will be replaced by the paper's US managing editor Lionel Barber.

Sources: Forbes, Guardian 

Photoreporters and their coverage of the Vietnam war were seen in the late sixties as responsible for the turn around of the American public opinion regarding the way the conflict was waged. Are military blogs (weblogs written by American soldiers, see sources below) in the Iraq conflict playing the same role?

My answer is yes.

Thanks to Lee Gomes, The Wall Street Journal, for this interesting article on how newspapers websites can provide a real added value about the coverage of the Iraqi war casualties. But other websites sometimes offer more emotion... "From the start of the war, a number of newspapers and television networks have kept up-to-date honor rolls on their Web sites showing the American soldiers who have been killed -- the number passed the 2,000 mark last week, as coming Veterans Day ceremonies will surely note.

Many of the sites let viewers "drill down" into the lists for more details. The Washington Post, for instance, has a zoomable map of the U.S. that lets you see how many dead are from different cities and towns. At the New York Times, you can sort the war dead by age. There are so many dead in each of the years from 20 to 23 that showing their pictures requires two screens."

Although it is well documented that newspaper circulations have been declining for years, a slide that does not seem will reverse itself soon, it has been shown that newspaper website usage has been rising rapidly. But does their digital readership make up for the loss in print? Will sustainable online financial models emerge? Will the Internet change newspaper journalism?

In a report for the Newspaper Association of America, Nielsen/NetRatings found that the number of people who visited newspaper websites in September hit 47.3 million, a 15.8% increase on last year's 40.9 million readers. September's stats represent almost 1/3 (31.9%)of all Internet users in the United States.

The time spent on newspaper websites also rose, averaging more than 38 minutes during the third quarter.

Sources: Cyberjournalist, Newspaper Association of America

One of Scotland's principle newspapers, The Scotsman is reported to be dropping at least 8 journalists from its staff. Management is blaming the cuts on an unfavorable advertising market and the cost of new printing presses.

Business.hr, Croatia's new business newspaper is ready for launch. The design was done by New York based 5W Mignon-Média and Jacek Utko, art director of Bonnier Group. They decided upon a half-berliner format which is about the size of an A4. The paper will be a pink sheet, will be printed completely in color and complemented by a website.

5W Mignon-Média has previously won awards for its designs, notably for the Polish paper Puls Biznesu, which received Best Design from the Society of News Design in 2004. They also help with editorial strategy and helped Business.hr design its website.

Source: 5W Mignon-Média (in French)

The Los Angeles Times is extending its celebrity coverage with a new website focused on award shows called The Envelope. LAT's press release describes the site as, " An insider's resource, The Envelope is an original content, multimedia Website featuring exclusive in-depth reporting, photo galleries, videos, podcasts, lists, forums, polls, expert roundtables, archives and analysis of awards shows by some of the biggest names in entertainment journalism, including writers from the Los Angeles Times."

The site demonstrates two trends in the newspaper industry.