November 2008 Archives

In 24-hour news cycle, the public becomes aware of news items instantaneously.  At the same time, within the context of 24-hour news, it become increasing difficult to protect those who need to remain out of the spotlight.

Recently, the focus has been on war correspondents for news organizations - those who get kidnapped in areas such as Somalia and Afghanistan.  After an abduction, most news organizations request an embargo on all information out of a given country if one of their staff has been kidnapped, as means of protection.

The National Union of Journalists representatives from the UK's "big four" newspaper groups will be holding a crisis summit Saturday following a "spate of job cuts across the regional press" in an attempt to offset an economic fallout.

According to Press Gazette, under a deal signed today, the Independent titles are relocating to share offices with the publishers of the Daily Mail in the early part of 2009.  The Independent titles will share back office functions with the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, Metro and Evening Standard.

A statement released by IN&M stated that, "The two groups' editorial, management and commercial operations will remain entirely separate. The Independent and Independent on Sunday will remain under the full ownership of INM."

In a debate organized by representatives of the European Commission in Russia and national news agency RIA Novosti, media's role as promoter of cross-cultural dialogue seemed to be the main theme. Additional discussions include reporting of the financial crisis.

A World Internet Project-International Report 2009, released by the Macau Internet Project, reveals that even though people may have increasing trust in online sources, a "surprisingly high" amount of users find that only half or less of the information found on the Web is reliable. Meanwhile, almost half of users from around the globe believe that offline newspapers are dependable sources, Macau Daily Times reports.

Editor Roy Wright says that the Huddersfiled Daily Examiner "will retain a strong network of frontline news gatherers" despite the scaling back of editorial management and production roles, Hold the Front Page is reporting.

In an effort to move to "a streamlined multimedia operation," the Trinity Mirror North West "shake up" of the daily paper will leave 16 van drivers and three transport supervisors unemployed, in addition to the dissolution of four editorial roles.  The paper will now switch to overnight printing.

"The changes are both radical and necessary," Wright said.  "Recent research shows there is strong demand for the Examiner to be available earlier in the day."

The paper seeks to remain "at the forefront of the digital revolution," while maintaining the quality of the paper for readers, Wright said.

Source:  Hold the Front Page

According to Le Figaro, L'Equipe, a French daily who's bailiwick is sporting news, is under pressure from their parent company, Amaury Group, to change direction and restructure due to declining sales.

Sales have been declining since 2007.  Also, the paper has seen a significant shift in staff over the past year.

A sampling by the Egyptian Information and Decision Support Center shows that 89% of Egyptians age 18 to 35 are in favor of an Internet censorship law.

The number of Internet users in Egypt has increased by nearly 9 million people since 2000.  74% of those surveyed use the Internet "to stay up to date with recent and current news," with 50% of those surveyed on the Internet daily.

The Internet has "connected" youth with the rest of the world, according to the survey, and 98% of the sampling agrees "the Internet makes most information accessible."  In fact, one in three people surveyed have a blog.

However, a majority of those in the 1,338 person sampling distrust the Internet, with 72% seeing it as a "bad influence," and 71% finding it "dangerous for children."  Internet relationships and friendships are also seen as "untrustworthy," and 43% have found it negatively impacting family ties.

Source:  Blogging Times via Global Voices

A Public Opinion Foundation (FOM) study reveals that Russians are not satisfied with how the Russian press reports on the financial crisis, Lenta.ru writes. Coverage elsewhere in the world is considered more "objective."

According to the FOM results, 45% of respondents think the media are not objective on the country's economic situation. 35% have the opposite view, while 20% could not decide. 57% said that the reporting of the financial crisis in Russia may not be thorough.

39% of Russians who participated in the study said that coverage of the global financial crisis was objective. However, 31% couldn't decide and 30% said that it wasn't objective.
 
Although 40% think the situation in the country is actually worse than it is, only 5% think that it is better than portrayed by the media.

Source: Lenta.ru

Photos are doctored, enhanced or manipulated by news organizations on a regular basis - and not necessarily maliciously.  Sometimes a photo needs to be "enhanced;" for example, a journalist makes tonal adjustments or noise filters to more accurately reflect the environment in which a photo was shot.

Photographer Mark Hamilton offers a new way to describe "enhanced" photos that gives a reader a clear idea of what's been done.  Adopting a system that readers understand, "in terms they understand," is the next step toward "transparency" for journalism, establishing a level of honesty about process and allowing readers to "judge veracity."

Trinity Mirror has announced that the Liverpool Daily Post will undergo a major restructuring.  According to the paper's website they are launching a "revolutionary new editorial operating model by streamlining its production process to create a centralized hub, providing up-to-the-minute online content for its websites and writing and producing all its Merseyside daily and weekly newspaper titles."

The Post will also stop publishing its Saturday edition, making it a Monday to Friday morning paper, although its website will remain a seven-day-a-week operation.

"Relentless" media coverage of the terror attacks in Mumbai has sparked a strong backlash from the public, according to Global Voices, who has been following the story.

The mainstream media's approach of "shock and shake" can lead to unverified rumors being reported as fact, Global Voices reports, and the blogosphere has monitored the coverage with a mounting anger.

The Women's Institute is campaigning to prevent sex ads, which "could involve trafficked women," from local newspapers in the UK, Hold the Front Page is reporting.

The WI said it would "name and shame" newspaper publishers that run such ads, and are planning to collate members' findings for the campaign.  Members will be looking for "key phrases" in sex ads, and will send letters to editors.

The Newspaper Society vowed to work with the government to "issue guidance to the local press."  Several groups, including Newsquest and MEN Media, have stopped carrying the ads.

Source:  Hold the Front Page

Scotland houses an abandoned aerodrome, home to seven million issues of newspapers.  

The warehouse stocks papers that can be seen on back-issue-newspaper.co.uk. The company  has been running for five years and has sold about 30,000 back editions of UK and Irish national and regional newspaper titles each year.

Businesses will use more blogging, community sites and user-generated content in 2009 in an effort to "boost customer engagement," according to the third annual Online Customer Engagement report.

The research examines the "likely impact of a worsening economic environment on customer behavior and psychology."

The rise in investment in social media comes as "51% of companies say that the economic crisis has caused them to place greater focus on customer engagement," the study says.  45% have "defined" customer engagement strategies in place, however.

More companies are using tactics such as blogging, user reviews and on-site video to engage customers, head of research at E-consultancy Linus Gregoriadis said, and are "pulling only those levers which are most appropriate for their business model and customers."

Source:  Brand Republic

According to Brand Republic, Microsoft has signed a one-year agreement with Hargreaves Lansdown, a financial services and asset management firm, to provide MSN Money users with information, news, comments and services related to the financial industry.

The service will cover funds, Isas, pensions, Sipps, annuities, share dealing and currency.  It will allow users have access to investment and technical research and use interactive tools.

York's Press newspaper will be the first daily regional newspaper without its own editor, Press Gazette is reporting.

Weekly editor Kevin Booth and managing director Steve Hughes have been made redundant, according to Press Gazette, and are entering the process of applying for managing editor, "the one post that remains."

The Grey Cardigan blog anticipates "significant commercial responsibility beyond merely balancing the editorial budget, i.e. slashing costs and shedding jobs" for the post, and the transition will "destroy any notion of independence or impartiality" on the part of the editor and having significant repercussions on the paper itself.

Source:  Press Gazette
 

The UK's daily Independent costs its publisher, Dublin-based Independent News & Media a "small fortune" every year, The Evening Standard's Roy Greenslade writes, and is likely to fail.

The way to save the paper is by taking a "revolutionary" step--going entirely online.

Foregoing all of its newsprint editions would be following the paper's tradition of "taking risks," according to Greenslade, and would change the face of newspapers in the UK.

Monaco-based hedge fund, SRM Global is suing the Wall Street Journal over the publication of allegedly confidential financial information, according to The Guardian.

The case is to be heard next week in London's high court and centers on two articles published on WSJ.com in August.  The Guardian reports that the two articles titled, "Woods Fund Takes a Beating" and "Hedge Fund Suffers Sharp Losses" mentioned that former UBS trader Jon Wood had lost roughly 85% of its value since it was founded in 2006.

The Associated Press suspended the use of US military photos on November 14th after the US Government body distributed doctored photographs of General Ann E. Dunwoody, the first female four star General in US history. This is the second hand out photograph that has been altered by the US army in a matter of months. The fact that a government institution would manipulate a photograph begs the question: can we trust what we see?

The Editors Weblog spoke to Santiago Lyon, the Director of Photography at AP about the events surrounding this suspension and the issue of photo manipulation.

First case - flag appears

Lyon reports that when Dunwoody was promoted, the AP searched for an image of the new General on a US military website that gathers photos of armed services personnel. Unable to locate a photograph, the AP contacted the website and requested a photograph and subsequently received a picture of the General by email. This photo showed Dunwoody with a US flag behind her (the photo on the right). The photo was immediately passed to the editing desk (all AP photographs go through at least one editing desk) where it was vetted and examined; it was then released onto the wire.  The San Antonio Express-News, a Texas-based local newspaper, contacted the AP alerting them to the fact that they had found a very similar image of Dunwoody on Google images, but with no US flag behind her (both photos shown above). Lyon and his team immediately investigated and discovered that a member of US military staff had added the US flag background and changed the number of stars on her uniform from three to four. The photograph was then immediately removed from the AP's wire.

Second case - superimposing a head
 
This was the second such incident involving the US army in a matter of months. The AP collects headshots of all the US personnel that have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and as part of this effort the AP received a photo that on closer inspection was not what it appeared. The army had the cut out the face of the dead soldier in question from one photo and superimposed it onto an existing mug shot with a uniform and an American flag in the background.

Lyon says, "Because this had been the second incident in as many months, we decided to suspend the use of US military photographs while we examined our own internal policies as well as have a conversation with the US military about what they were doing to these pictures and how this was unacceptable."

Army were, "at a loss to explain it"

Surprisingly when Lyon contacted the military to complain about this incident, it did not appear to accept the gravity of the situation. Lyon reports, "Initially they were a little bit defensive, claiming that this photo did not really alter the substance of the image. Our policy is of course zero tolerance, we do not accept that images be manipulated or that content be added or subtracted more specifically, unless there is a pressing need to for security reasons for example, and in that event we flag this." In further conversations, the army were, "at a loss to explain it." Lyon goes on to say, "I was shocked, but we wanted to deal with it as forcefully as possible and put it behind us."

The Pentagon later told the AP that they would redistribute their guidelines again to staff, which are also firm on the issue of manipulation. Lyon says, "They pretty much admitted that there had been a mistake and that they weren't proud about it, and that they wanted to work with us to try and ensure that this does not happen again."

As a result, the AP has now strengthened its internal policies with regard "hand-out" images (images that it receives from non-AP staff and external bodies). "We have instituted a more rigorous policy of examining those images now, at least two editors have to examine the images closely and if there is any doubt at all, the image is then held pending further examination." Previously, the standard procedure was to examine all images but not in the kind of minute detail that they do now with hand out images. Lyon reports that the AP receives vast numbers of these hand out images from various bodies, including the police, industry and so forth. AP staff know its strict zero tolerance policy for photo manipulation, but is it something that these external organisations adhere to?

In recent weeks not only do we have the AP case, but also the issue of a French Government minister and a disappearing and reappearing diamond ring. A Le Figaro front-page photo of Justice Minister Rachida Dati was doctored to erase a substantial diamond ring she was wearing. The practise of photo manipulation is nothing new: in 1942 Mussolini had a horse handler removed from a photograph of him sitting on a horse in order to make him look more heroic.

As long as there has been photography, there have been photo manipulations. However, with advanced technology and increased use of photo shop, it is now easier to achieve and harder to detect. Lyon says, "It is the click of a mouse and you can add or subtract things from a photo quite easily. What that means for an organisation like ours, whose whole reputation is based on the voracity of the information and telling the truth, is that we have to be ever vigilant." These incidences raise the question of how often these doctored images make it onto our front pages - unintentionally in the case of AP and intentionally in the case of Le Figaro  - as we generally only hear of this when the culprits are caught out. Can we now trust what we see? "You see images that are printed by others and are you always sure of the truthfulness of what you are looking at? It's hard to say. Sometimes you look at an image and you wonder," say's Lyon on the issue.

Lyon says that the Dunwoody image has highlighted the problem to AP. "What this has done is that it has shown us the need to be as vigilant and as careful as possible with hand out images from third parties whose provenance we cannot be 100% sure of. It has heightened our vigilance."

Today's newspaper reader is well aware that anything can be done with an image, even if it is just from their experiences watching the magic of CGI at their local multiplex. However, this is an arena where they expect the full trickery of the camera to be on display, the public does not expect it when they open the newspaper.

Due to the Internet and various other factors, "there has been a huge increase in the number of images that are being sent by international news agencies. 20-years ago we were probably sending 100 images a day in a 24-hour period. Now we are closer to sending 3,000 images in a 24-hour period. When you do the maths, the news agencies are handling close to a million images a year. That's a huge amount of imagery." This increase in distribution and use of photographs highlights the need for there to be strict rules on the doctoring of photographs. The role of a photojournalist is to capture a story for the reader, to bring a story to life, and to tell the truth. Just because we have the technology to do something, it  doesn't mean we should.

Source: AP, Straits Times, National Press Photographers Association, Ethics of Digital Manipulation, Daily Tech

The series of coordinated terrorist attacks in Indian financial capital Mumbai have gained worldwide attention, and the speed with which Internet users were able to read first-hand reports within hours of the initial attacks is proof of a revolutionized way that information reaches an audience.

Although mainstream news coverage has dominated headlines thus far, social media has been a major outlet for news at the scene and around the world.  Internet users are sharing news and information for updates and reactions.

A citizen-journalism upload portal has been launched by Qatar-based Arabic satellite network Al Jazeera, "seeking eyewitness news reports from its vast international audience."

According to The Guardian, UK's free daily Metro, is being redesigned with smaller headlines, extra pages of celebrity news and fewer pages devoted to listings.  

The editorial/advertising ratio will remain the same and the listings that were previously in the print version will move to the paper's website.

Media Bistro is reporting that Time magazine will consolidate their international editions and be primarily edited out of New York.

This decision will end the decade-old tradition of major editing that takes place in London.  Also, it is being reported that the South Pacific edition will cease at year-end and will be replaced with the editorial content of the Asian edition.

With an impending closure of two local newspapers, seven state legislators have written to state Economic Development Commissioner Joan McDonald for a meeting to determine how to save them, The Hartford Courant reports.

The all-Democratic delegations from Bristol and New Britain are trying to save the New Britain Herald and the Bristol Press, who will be shut down soon after Christmas if a buyer is not found.

The Journal Register Co. is faced with a "huge advertising decline at papers nationwide" and "slumping" state and national economics, and is seeking new ownership of the titles.

A letter from the legislators said that neither community could "afford the loss of jobs that these closures would mean."

Source:  Hartford Courant

The Indian Readership Survey, a sampling of trends in newspapers in the Himachal state, demonstrates that a differing family structure, increase in female readership and youth favoring the Hindi language over English are all factors in the country's media industry.

Total readership is down in the Himachal state by nearly 700,000.  Both Hindi and English dailies have lost readers, 11,000 and 49,000, respectively, since the last survey, according to the report.

Sony Ericsson is jumping on the mobile application bandwagon, making Facebook, Windows Live and Dashwire available for download on its multimedia phone the Xperia X1.

The phone provides opportunities for users to "interact with their personalized experiences, and for developers to help bring them to life," said Ford Davidson, founder and CEO of Dashwire.  The Xperia X1 has been built on a "custom panel."

Sub-editors are facing a series of cutbacks at the Herald Express, a South West daily newspaper, in the latest of an industry-wide overhaul of newsrooms to reduce costs.

The team of five sub-editors will be reduced to two, Hold the Front Page reports, and administration and sales staffs have left the company.

"Casual staff" has been cut back - at least six community correspondents, who contribute pieces for local news pages, and their sub-editor, have been fired.

The Herald Express has joined other Northcliffe titles on a new server, allowing their copy to be available for sister papers.

Source:  Hold the Front Page

See Also:
Interview with Trinity Mirror's Neil Benson

A new training initiative between the BBC and the University of Central Lancashire is giving freelance journalists the chance to learn the newest skills in digital production, according to Hold the Front Page.

The program will give "30 freelance and broadcast journalists from the region the chance to get to grips with producing content for a number of platforms - online, TV, radio and mobile."

After reports surfaced that Dutch free daily, Spits, was selling editorial space, the media in the Netherlands was outraged.  

According to Newspaper Innovation, today another paper that has been selling editorial space, De Pers has been criticized for the almost indiscernible line between their advertising and editorial content.

To promote its growing mobile market, the BBC is running a new campaign advertising its mobile news website.

Steve Herrmann, editor of BBC News Website, discusses research of users' consumption habits on the editor's blog.

Herrmann calls the habits a part of a "news ecosystem," constructed from a range of different media.  The plan for BBC's campaign is to target current mobile users, or gain new ones.

BBC's mobile services have 3.2 million users a month, and is used mostly to "access news headlines, major news stories and areas of specific interest."

Source:  Journalism.co.uk

A new website devoted to NCAA Division I men's college basketball teams has been launched by Washingtonpost.com.

Press Break hosts related news, blogs, including one by sports reporter Eric Prisbell, and a forum "to compare area teams, players and coaches."  The site will also have special features to include stats, bracketed matchups, headlines, and message boards.

Source:  Editor and Publisher
 

Following the announcement that the business networking website LinkedIn would be launched in 41 different languages, the French version just went live.

With the launch of the French version, LinkedIn expects to double the number of French professionals currently using the website. 

Guardian News & Media is expanding its mobile market.  News alerts are currently offered through a version of Guardian.co.uk for PDA, Smartphone and BlackBerry devices, and via text message.

GNM has hired Andrew Bagguley, former head of mobile strategy for News International, as a consultant for the process.  Bagguley will be "working closely with Guardian in-house teams" to formulate the plan, a spokeswoman for GNM told Journalism.co.uk.

Source:  Journalism.co.uk
 

The New York Times is boasting a "successful" advertising campaign on social networking site Facebook, increasing their number of "fans" following the presidential election, according to the Nieman Journalism Lab.

An internal memo from Times president Scott Heekin-Canedy said that the goals of the campaign were to increase the company's number of Facebook fans, "raise awareness of NYTimes.com as an interactive news center, and engage the Facebook community in a conversation about the election outcome."

The Online News Association, an organization for digital journalists has redesigned its website, Journalists.org.  According to Editor & Publisher, the site seeks to connect online media worldwide.

The redesigned site has several new features including a way in which members can connect by region and area of interest through chats and discussion groups, a training section and tips on multimedia storytelling.

Hungary's leading daily newspaper, Népszabadság, has announced plans to launch a Sunday edition of the paper on March 1, 2009, according to the paper's website.

Népszabadság will be the first paper in Hungary to launch a Sunday edition.

After the denial by BBC Trust to expand the BBC to include local coverage, The Guardian Media Group is considering the "interesting opportunity" of starting news websites to serve local communities, according to Paid Content.

A feasibility study may be conducted in Manchester, although the title there is looking toward international coverage.  The so-called "Guardian Cities" project would provide "highly relevant" information to local areas.

Source:  Paid Content
 

Foreign journalists and editors often face problems establishing themselves in the United Arab Emirates. 

The government "licenses all new publications and approves editors," in addition to adding pressure and suppressing sensitive stories, making the launch of new papers relatively impossible.  

The National, an Abu Dhabi-based daily, is breaking that mold.  Martin Newland is the only non-Emirati editor-in-chief in the country, the Guardian reports.

Free paper 24 Hodin will publish its last issue on December 19, three years after its initial launch in the Czech Republic, leaving only one of the country's four free dailies published in 2006 remaining.

The paper, by Swiss publisher Ringier, had a circulation of 210,000.

Source:  Newspaper Innovation

The idea of an ombudsman, or reader's editor, is not new, but its practice is still relatively infrequent.  Journalism.co.uk discussed with Siobhan Butterworth, The Guardian's ombudsman, why the post is "more important than ever" in the web environment.

There are an increasing number of articles are published straight to the Web.  In fact, there are 10 times as many articles online than there are in print.

Reader complaints are in large supply. Butterworth dealt with 23,000 corrections and complaints via email, telephone and fax in 2007.  The Press Complaints Commission received 10,000 communications last year.

As outlined in the first entry of this series, consumers will start using mobile electronic reading devices routinely. But will these versatile tools also become the preferred display for news and current affairs? Publishers' ability to inhabit this uncharted territory will matter greatly, but even more important is the decision of media consumers that news offered in this way best fits today's lifestyle and nicely blends in with their expectations and routines.
 
The readers' view is currently being explored and tested in several prototyping and/or pilot initiatives, although this effort is modest compared to the involvement of hardware and software engineers. Nevertheless, first results reveal the contours of what in the eyes of the digital reader will be the ideal form of electronic information delivery. Based on four recent research actions, this contribution will sketch the preconditions for successful deployment of e-readers and services, seen from the users perspective.

The eNews project, set up by Ifra, explored the consumer readiness for e-readers. Via focus groups in European and Japanese locations it was found that the use setting is different: more lean backward compared to the lean forward use of PC and print. This finding will have consequences for the kind of content that can be offered. Surprisingly, the consulted test persons appreciated the daylight readability of the e-readers, but by no means hyped it as heavily as the manufacturers themselves always do. The love for the device stems much more from its environment-friendly image.

Microsoft, partner in the design of the New York Times News Reader, has evaluated the user appreciation of this application in a field study. A selected group of readers worked for weeks with the NYTReader, especially while commuting, and was interviewed afterwards. Overall assessment was very positive: two-thirds, especially the serious travellers, would stick to the service. The kind of use however depended much on personal reading style: the news junkies appreciated the amount of detail, the skimmers the quickness of updates while the fun-seekers enjoyed the sophisticated layout. The synchronisation feature for permanent updating was less popular: too time-consuming and difficult to understand.
Conclusion: newspapers will have to bear in mind all these different use categories, and with an improved product.

In the Dutch MePaper project, the five participating newspapers are exploring novel journalistic formats for two types of e-readers: the e-ink devices and the mini laptops (UMPCs). New content models for mobile reading are developed in a joint design studio and these prototypes are tested in lab-based proof reading sessions. Here, it shows that there is a difference between what journalists think is important, for instance the addition of time frames to story overviews, and what the public wants (don't bother us with release hours). Also in this R&D effort, the variety of user demands is apparent. Many want both local (often hyper local) news, without loosing the global perspective. The preference can change from day to day, depending on personal circumstances and the attraction of news on offer. A definite outcome is the demand for customisation of the e-paper, ideally composed of sections, even editors from a range of different media. This result is in fact a cry-out for joint ventures between titles and across newspaper groups. Thus, e-reading will provoke unconventional business practices.
If the newspaper world manages to respond to these user requirements, there certainly is scope for a quick roll-out of the e-reading technology. In a Swedish large scale online survey (part of the UbiMedia project), 42 percent of the 3600 readers indicated to be ready for it now, and another 19 percent in the next five years.  Would these people want to change their trusted print edition for an electronic version? Two-thirds said yes, only one-third would be faithful to newsprint. The e-service however is expected to be considerably cheaper (says 58 percent), with a meagre 8 percent willing to pay extra for premium content.

The conclusion is obvious, the adoption potential for mobile electronic reading is certainly high, but it is a medium in its own right, not just another print or online edition spin-off. It needs to be well designed, fully user-driven, with convincing personalisation options. Valuable lessons in this respect are being learned by a Dutch paper, NRC. The e-reader service it launched last year based itself on simple copy streaming, and it obviously doesn't work. Disappointed users created an open forum in wiki format to voice their concerns, criticism and improvement suggestions. The company hasn't been able to respond to it adequately yet. E-reading clearly asks for special content formats, a different type of navigation architecture and innovative forms of news organisation. In the next entry, first design principles will be reviewed.

Director of the Euorpean Centre for Digital Communications and long-time journalist, Jan Bierhoff is currently conducting studies on e-reader technology and the consumer trends that will define their use. 
 

State-owned Indonesian news agency LKBN Antara, which provides news stories to media sources, asked for a IDR450 billion (US$35.9 million) government bailout from the State Ministry for State Enterprises. The money would be used to "revitalize" and improve the company's economic performance as well as to redesign the website, Asia Media wrote.

"We are planning to become a content providing company and to enrich our website with multimedia content, and we need help from the government to carry this out," CEO Ahmad Muklis Yusuf said.

According to recent findings from the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Pew Research Centre's Project for Excellence in Journalism, health is a key issue for internet users. However, only 3.6% of Internet-based news content between January 2007 and June 2008 dealt with the issue, according to the study. Directnews.co.uk reports that the demand for online health news may be increasing.

The study showed that 42% of all online news stories covered specific conditions. Meanwhile, 31% focused on public health and 27% on health policy. Traffic to online health outlets in the UK rose by 10% in September since the previous month, comScore research showed.

"As the public's news consumption shifts more toward online and cable outlets, people are likely to come across fewer stories about health and particularly about health policy," said Kaiser Family Foundation's Victoria Rideout.

The Kaiser Family Foundation recently announced the launch of a news utility that will offer  "in-depth coverage of the policy and politics of health care" on the Internet and though the mainstream media.

Source: Directnews.co.uk

Free-daily newspaper, Link, is set to close by the end of the year.

Link is part of the same newspaper group that contains the Virginia Pilot, the publisher is pursuing a cost-cutting regime. The Virginia Pilot will loose 10% of its workforce, close its business section and have less pages overall.

Link launched in October 2006 achieving positive reviews. Editor of the Link, Denis Finley, said in an article in The PilotOnline,  "we, as a company, cannot afford to withstand those losses in the next couple of years in this climate."

Link had a circulation of around 30,000.

Source: Newspaper Innovation

Brazilian newspaper Diario de Pará has seen some significant changes that include a restructuring of editorial processes and editorial focus, reorganization of content, addition of new material, a new design as well as a new logo.

"With a new logo, the management of Diario hopes to start a new era representing a product that is more modern, with a stronger presence in the market," wrote Dr. Mario Garcia.

Source: Garciamedia

Roger Alton, editor of UK daily newspaper The Independent, said in an interview on Sky News Online that he takes responsibilty for the publication's declining economic situation. Alton also sttates that there are no plans to sell the newspaper in the future.

Alton goes on to say that the price increase startegy (from 80p to £1 in September) failed and pushed sales down further. The price rise made The Independent more expensive than other papers in the UK market, such as The Telegraph, The Guardian and The Times.

The Trinity Mirror's innovative workflow overhaul, moving three of its regional newspapers into a single newsroom, has been a "morale booster" for staff in a time when the industry has seen its share of downturns.

The new site at Fort Dunlop is the largest open plan office space outside of London, Journalism.co.uk reports.  As the Weblog has reported, Trinity Mirror completely revamped the approach to newsroom management with the transition.

Reuters has named Jonathan Ford, founder deputy editor of Breaking News, to the newly created post of "commentary editor," a move by the news agency to broaden its service to "more than just breaking news," Press Gazette is reporting.

The agency has recently adopted a policy to expand its content, including adding columns in 2007 and encouraging correspondents to write more "color" pieces.

The decision to include editorial and commentary content adds "context and expertise," and allows the agency to cover a range of business topics, Reuters said.

Source:  Press Gazette

The Associated Press has appointed Carole Feldman to lead the convergence of text, broadcast and online formats in its Washington bureau.

Feldman is currently the Assistant Chief of Bureau in Washington, which is the news cooperative's largest bureau.

As part of convergence, Feldman will develop "innovative news gathering, training, and production approaches, plan major news events, and oversee the budgets for both departments," according to Editor and Publisher.  She will be reporting to Washington Bureau Chief Ron Fournier and Acting Head of Domestic Broadcast News Kevin Roach.

Source:  Editor and Publisher

At the newsXchange 2008 conference in Valencia, a new business model for business reporting has been urged. At the conference, British journalist and founder of the Work Foundation (the former Industrial Society), Will Hutton said, "We take the truth as handed down by the business elite, especially in the US... There is an obligation to be tougher in the questions we ask."

Duncan Stanworth of BBC Monitoring reports that Hutton also said, "All of us, including journalists, suspended our judgment and we are paying the price."

Media outlets had been mouthpieces for "neoconservative, neoliberal" pro-deregulation economists over the last 15 years, said Jeremy Rifkin of the Foundation on Economic Trends.

Al-Jazeera TV political analyst Marwan Bishara said the crisis heralded a time for "soul searching" among journalists. "How far are we in bed with power?" he asked.

Onno Ruding from the Centre for European Policy Studies said, "Journalists should devote time to longer-term matters and seek the views of two or three sides. Select those voices and give them a wider audience." Ruding went on to say that there was a risk of going from the "extreme optimism" of the boom years to "eternal depression".



Source: BBC Monitoring research 21 November 2008

The United Arab Emirates' Daily Gulf News is integrating its online and print departments to develop a "multimedia newsroom."  The group's radio department is to join the merge in the future.

The move "emulates" that of the UK's Daily Telegraph.

Source:  Ameinfo

Self-regulation in the UK newspaper industry needs more protection with the "threat" of digital media and celebrity privacy actions, according to Sir Christopher Meyer, departing chairman of the Press Complaints Commission.

The Kaiser Family Foundation is launching a news service to provide "in-depth coverage of the policy and politics of health care" both online and through collaboration with mainstream media.

The website will be independently run, with a budget expected to reach $4 million in two years, and is a part of the "wave of online ventures that have emerged as newspapers and magazines cut jobs and newsgathering budgets," the New York Times reports.

The World Internet report by the Centre for the Digital Future is reporting that fewer American youth have access to the Internet than those in the Czech Republic, Canada, Macao and Britain. 

The 13-country survey among 12 to 14 year olds showed that 100% of British youth use the Internet, with Israel at 98%.  Only 88% of Americans age 12 to 14 have access, followed by Hungary and Singapore.

Mobile phone access to the Internet is increasing outside of the US, particularly in Southeast Asia, according to a separate bulletin by a software company.

Source:  Reuters via EJC

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."

The number of British people accessing the Internet via mobile rose by 25% in the third quarter of 2008, Nielsen Online report.

The study, Mobile Media View, highlighted that mobile internet use is increasing eight times faster than PC-based internet growth, growing from 5.8 million to 7.3 million between the second and third quarters of 2008.

The most popular site is BBC News, which is visited by 24% of British mobile internet users, then BBC Weather, Sky Sports and Gmail. On computers, Google Search (23%) and eBay (43%) are the most popular.

Several paper manufacturers have reported to Media Bistro that they will not be raising their rates in 2009, giving the financially strapped industry a break in costs.

The high rates of newsprint have contributed to "a wave of downsizing in the beleaguered newspaper industry." 

Google is upping the browser war against Microsoft in considering pre-installing its Chrome browser on personal computers.

Chrome, launched in September, is direct competition for Microsoft's Internet Explorer in a "battle to dominate how users access and interact with the web," The Times is reporting.

The Huffington Post is set to expand its news offering, moving into local news in the US and investigative reporting, according to The Times.

The confirmation of this expansion into investigative reporting comes after speculation last week following a panel discussion featuring Adriana Huffington. This scheduled increase in coverage has been enabled by $15 million in third round funding courtesy of Oak Investment Partners. The funding round has yet to be finalised.

Souce: CNET

Two newspapers are to resume printing in Belarus after being forced to publish abroad for several years, according to the Moscow Times. 

Narodnaya Volya and Belorusskaya Niva have been publishing from Russia after government restrictions on the use of state printing plants in 2004 and 2005 "forced many opposition papers to print outside Belarus."

There was no government comment on the announcement made by Narodnaya Volya editor Iosif Seredich.  This decision follows pledges by the European Union to "intensify dialogue with Belarus if it moves to promote democratic values, including press freedom."

Source:  Moscow Times via EJC

The Guardian's Peter Wilby asks the question:  just how many journalists do you need to publish a newspaper?  In today's failing economy, circulation declines, dried up advertising revenue and the transition to new media, can a newspaper staff maintain its numbers?  Is "small," he asks, inevitable?

A free site that helps out-of-work journalists set up their own blogs has been launched, according to Poynter.

The Typepad Journalist Bailout Program provides journalists with "professional help," and is an initiative that helps journalists survive in a changing industry, Poynter notes.

The site "acknowledges that journalism needs a business model," keeping its users planning ahead and "thinking about future revenue streams" by enrolling journalists in an advertising program.

The Typepad Journalist Bailout Program promotes journalists' new sites, and is a positive venue for journalists' morale, "letting them know that storytelling is alive and growing."

Source:  Poynter

The Pentagon agreed to avoid distributing altered images to the news media on Friday, prompting the Associated Press to lift its suspension on photos provided by the US military.

Spot.Us is an innovative new sight that recently won funding and support from the highly respected Knight Foundation. It is garnering much attention as the concept essentially transforms the idea of community reporting and reinvigorates investigative reporting on a local level. However, would it be attracting this much support and attention if the newspaper business model weren't struggling?

The concept

Spot.Us allows anyone to send in a story idea to the site as long as it is a local issue affecting the San Francisco Bay area. Spot.Us calculate how much it would cost to investigate said story and the ideas is then "pitched" on the site, if other users of the site support the story idea then they can donate money to pay for a freelance journalist to cover it. It is then published on the site and other news organisations can publish it as well. The point being, some stories that are interesting to the public are being ignored by news organisations, this is an opportunity for the public at large to read a story that they want written about. The public becomes the editor.

Spot.Us deserves credit for coming up with an innovative way of bringing journalism back to the community and reinvigorating local investigative reporting. Furthermore, it is an original concept that has won the support of not only the Knight Foundation, but also Jeff Jarvis and other significant names in the journalism community.

Will the public pay?

While Spot.Us is undoubtedly exciting, there does appear to be some issues with the concept. For example, the organisation is currently garnering a lot of press attention and is therefore very much in the public eye, but what happens after the media attention dies down? Will people continue to visit the site: how will they maintain public interest?
 
Furthermore, it will be very difficult for Spot.Us to maintain its integrity and not be manipulated by outside groups who want certain stories investigated for their own agenda. It may be difficult for it to stop itself becoming little more than part of a lobbying machine for various interest groups.

The Editors Weblog spoke to David Cohn - the CEO and sole employee of Spot.Us - about these issues and the thinking behind his project.

EW: If newspapers were not suffering financially in the US, do you think there would still be a place in the market for an organisation such as yours?
 
DC: I do think there would be a place for an organization such as mine - but I don't think it would be as urgent. Part of what Spot.Us does is democractize the media by allowing the audience to determine the news agenda. Traditionally .001 percent of the population determined the news agenda, we called them "editors." But with Spot.Us the public can set the news agenda because now they have a freelance budget as well.

EW: Do you have any guidelines on what you will or will not investigate or write about, eg, an oil company wants you to write a piece proving that oil drilling doesn't hurt the environment?

DC: Yes: They aren't guidelines but categories that all pitches have to fall in. This was to ensure that we don't get pitches that aren't civic journalism. The categories are education, environment, city government, public health - etc.

EW: How will you maintain Spot.Us's integrity, to stop it from being used as a tool for lobby groups or marketing?

DC: We have an algorithm that required a diverse group of people to support a story or it does not make it on to our homepage as a pitch. Right now my algorithm is very simple, firstly, the site is new and I have a small pool of people visiting the site in general. As the site becomes more popular it is just a matter of tweaking the algorithm to ensure that you always have a diverse group of people.

EW: Is this something that you are aware of?

DC: It is something that I am very aware of. I would say I am concerned about it. I understand the concern and the fear...

But I am more concerned that we are going to find out that the public are just not going to donate at all, that's the fear. People think that they're going to be clambering, we will have to build bridges so that we slow them down they are going to be donating so much money towards our work. I think it is actually going to be the opposite and that we are going to have to do a lot of outreach to try and find people who would benefit and see the public good of donating to journalism.

EW: There is a lot of media attention surrounding your organisation right now, but how you are going to maintain that when, say, the interest in your organisation has died down from the media perspective. How will you maintain interest with the community?

DC: We are going to be doing some community organising. This is where it gets interesting right? So, like the San Francisco Commutative campaign that we did over the summer and we raised $2,500 from 74 different people who gave $34 each. If we were to do that again next year, the first thing I would do is go to the League of Women Voters. It's an organisation with a branch in San Francisco and say they have - I am just guessing here - 1,000 members in the bay area, they have a large group of people who would be interested in fact checking for the political adverts and I can go to the League of Women Voters and say, "Hey, can you help go and spread the word about this to." Then they spread the word to their members, and say even 30 of them thought it were a good idea and donated $25 each. That is a decent amount of money right there. That and also social networking and things like that.

EW: Are you going to try and build a relationship with the local media?

DC: Yes, definatly. If there is a pitch that a local newspaper would be interested in running, they have a vested interest in seeing community members donating towards it so they could help spread the word about the pitch.

EW: Can you explain how you monetise Spot.Us?
 
DC: The same way that Kiva.org monetizes their site. If somebody is donating $25 then all of their money goes to where they want it to go, but before they are done with the transaction we also ask that they donate 10% or $2.50 to the nonprofit organization that is Spot.Us. This extra 10% is optional. Kiva.org does the same thing and they found that something close to 90% of people will go ahead and give the extra 10% to the organization.

EW: What inspired you to set up Spot.Us?

DC: A few things. First - I was a freelance journalist for a long time and I know how hard it can be to make it as such. I wanted to create tools that enabled freelancers to do their job easier.

I was also the research assistant for a guy named Jeff Howe who was writing a book on "Crowd sourcing." I was researching for the chapter on Crowd funding and I began to learn about sites like Kiva.org and DonorsChoose.org. These are micro-finance sites for teachers or for people in third world countries. They are hugely successful. I wondered if it would be possible for journalist to also tap into the gift economy, which in America was $300,000 billion last year.

I have worked in citizen journalism in the past. I love it and strongly believe in it - but I also know the limitations of citizen journalism. I wanted to find a way that journalism could be participatory but also stretch to do some of the harder journalism that requires professionals to stick to a story for a longer period of time.

EW: Can you talk me though how you organise your staffers?
 
Spot.Us is not a newsroom. It is a platform or Internet tool. All pitches on Spot.Us are from freelance journalists in the Bay Area. They are not staff reporters for Spot.Us.

EW: How big is your team and how do you contact the editors

DC: I am the only staff person on Spot.Us. The developers and designers are contractors. All the pitches you see on Spot.Us are from independent freelance journalists - and are contractors. We assign an editor to each story - but the editor is just another journalist within our system. Again, Spot.Us is NOT a newsroom or news organization as traditionally understood. We are a platform. Just as YouTube is not a film production company, but they host video, Spot.Us is not a content producing organization, but we host the production of content.

EW: What technology is powering the platform you are using?
 
DC: The site is built with Ruby on Rails. I was thinking about using Drupal but in the end used Ruby on Rails and so far I am very happy with that decision.

The development firm is called Hashrocket. My hosting service is Engine Yard.
 

The Editors Weblog site will be closed on Saturday, 22 September for site maintenance.

The website will be working as normal on Sunday and thereafter.

A new BlackBerry application for MySpace hosted more downloads for the product's first week than any other of its applications.

RIM's co-CEO Jim Balsillie found the fact proof of "an evolving consumer lifestyle where social connectivity and information access are more important than ever."  The spike could also be due in part to "a more concerted marketing push" or a wider consumer base.

The 400,000 downloads for BlackBerry is not the highest in history, as Mozilla Firefox set the record with 1 million downloads in 24 hours.

Source:  News.cnet

Search Wiki is the newest feature to Google, allowing users to customize search results, and is available only to users with Google accounts.

The feature will allow users to rearrange search results, tailored to what they frequently use, according to Brand Republic.  

Users will also be able to add and remove URLs relevant to their own searches.  They can make notes on sites that will be "available for future searches."

Search Wiki allows users to "share insights with other searchers," said an engineer behind the project.

Source:  Brand Republic

The European Interactive Advertising Association (EIAA) released a study showing that Europeans are increasingly turning to the Internet.  Usage is increasing both for leisure pursuits and a means to manage their daily lifestyles.

55% of the 178 million European Internet users go online everyday and 51% go online on the weekends.  In addition, it is the 25-34 year -olds that are driving recent growth.  The study also highlights the top ten activities people do online; here are the top five:

An event hosted by Goldsmiths Media Research Centre sparked a "provocative" discussion on a new book exploring the impact of digital technology on modern news practice and operations, which will influence the final draft.

Colleagues of the Guardian were "divided" during the discussion of "New Media, Old News:  Journalism and Democracy in a Digital Age," with some journalists agreeing with the Guardian's Nick Davies' belief that "modern news involves plagiarism." 

The ban imposed on the circulation of daily newspaper the Daily Islam has been lifted by the Sindh government, provided that the newspaper not publish material that could "inspire terrorism," according to AsiaMedia.

The government withdrew the ban on several conditions: that the paper not contain material to "inspire Jihadi outfits and youths to carry out terrorist attacks," any material that may "hurt sentiments of people belonging to any sect, religion or country," or "harm national integration."

The paper must also submit three copies to the "home department" of the government each day for review, according to the report.

Source:  AsiaMedia

Following the announcement that Reuters, AP and AFP were suspending cricket coverage due to unacceptable accreditation terms from Australia's governing body, Cricket Australia, New Zealand's largest newspapers remained barred from covering cricket matches.

According to Cricket Australia spokesman, Peter Young, "The New Zealand Herald, Fairfax Media-owned titles and the New Zealand Press Association have not received accreditation after failing to join a scheduled teleconference." 

The EU's new online digest of Europe's cultural heritage - the Europeana digital library - was forced to close temporarily on its launch day due to the site being overwhelmed by Internet users, according to a spokesman.
 
The site features over 2 Million digital objects, such as films, paintings, photographs, sound recordings, maps, manuscripts, newspapers, documents and books had only been open a short time.

Spokesman Martin Selmayr reported that they are now using six computer servers, instead of three. "It is now up and running again," he said. "We hope we will be able to survive the next storm of interest."

Europeana is due to be fully operational by 2010 and it aims to have 10 million works available.

Source: EU Business via EJC
 

Staff reductions at the Associated Press in 2009 could total more than 400 positions globally, or 10% of its workforce, according to the EJC.

AP CEO Tom Curley said the cutbacks are the result of a cut in fees paid by member newspapers and the declining economy.

A $30 million reduction in fees paid by newspapers is anticipated to reduce the "cash flow" of the AP from $95 million to $66 million in 2009, Curley said.  The staff reduction is expected to save $25 million a year.

Most of the cuts, Curley said, are hoped to be buyouts, however, in a meeting webcast to AP offices that announced the news to staff, he did not rule out layoffs.

The "reductions" will include some of the company's 3,000 journalists.  The global staff of the AP is currently at 4,100.

Source:  European Journalism Centre

The Dutch free daily, Spits, allows people to purchase editorial space. According to Newspaper Innovation, this method "caused some disturbance among most audience members" at the World Free Press Conference in Barcelona.

A recent example was when the paper made a deal with a local bank, Rabobank, to cover their cycling team throughout the Tour de France.  The bank covered all of the costs, however, coverage was probably less objective.

According to Newspaper Innovation, readers of free dailies are more likely to accept this model than readers of paid dailies.

Source: Newspaper Innovation

Internet users in China and Zimbabwe have been blocked from viewing Channel 4 News online videos in an act of self-censorship by the news organization, Guardian.co.uk is reporting.

The fear of "reprisals" against the subjects of online investigative videos sparked the channel to restrict access in the countries where subjects live, said Tim Lambon, assistant foreign editor of Channel 4 News.  The move also legally protects the station.

Due to the speed at which recent events, such as mass riots this summer, were posted on Internet, the Chinese government has told the state media to report on unrest in order to manage the impact of the news.

According to a Chinese official, the government is "trying to control the news by publicizing the news.  The central government has permitted local authorities to publicize negative news themselves, with no need to report to upper governments any more.  They have a principle of 'report the facts quickly, but be cautious on the causes behind the facts."

Source: The Guardian

Media Bistro highlights a posting on popular website Twitter about Spot.Us, a new community-funded reporting website.

According to the posting, Spot.Us allows public, tax-deductible donations to commission journalism investigations for "important," and perhaps "overlooked" stories.

If a news organization buys "exclusive rights to the content," the post says, then "donations are reimbursed."  If no one buys, then the content is released through a "Creative Commons license."

This approach could be a new outlet for journalists without a steady paycheck, or a new non-profit direction for news organizations.

Source:  Media Bistro

PV Media Group has launched a news aggregation website, BreakingNews.com in partnership with the wire service Breaking News Network Inc.

The group is an online marketing company that is headed by Steve Rosenberg, former Universal TV executive.

President of Groupe Les Echos, Nicolas Beytout, announced the fusion of their titles print and online newsrooms by 2009. 

The group's titles include Les Echos, Enjeux Les Echos and Investir.  The company has also changed their name from Di Group to Groupe Les Echos.

Prosecutors following through on the government's promise to crack down on journalists threatening "information attacks" on the economy have received criticism from the editor of an Internet news portal.

Aksana Panova, editor of www.ura.ru, accused Russian authorities of "censoring bad news about the financial crisis" after she was brought in for questioning about her sources, calling the government interference a "throwback to the Soviet Union."

Neil Benson, Editorial Director of Regionals, at Trinity Mirror, and the three Editors of the Birmingham titles that have merged, have completely changed the approach to newsroom management by combining workforces to cut costs.

To follow up on last month's Weblog story on the Trinity Mirror's complete overhaul of its workflow, which anticipated the transition, a series of photos have been published which demonstrate the restructured newsroom, combining "all-in-one" news conferences to share ideas and stories, and to maximize output. 

News Corp.'s Europe and Asia CEO James Murdoch has blamed the economy for stalling the development of the News International headquarters in east London, according to Paid Content.

The site was scheduled to expand, renovating the space to fit in other News Corp. members such as Dow Jones, MySpace and Harper Collins in the same complex, as well as national newspapers The Times, the Sunday Times, The Sun and News of the World.  

This transition would have made integration for News Corp's media brands easier, and created "synergies where possible," facilitating access between organizations.   

There has not been an updated timetable of when work will recommence at the Wapping HQ.

Source:  Paid Content

LinkedIn, a business networking website, launched editions in 41 languages due to user demand.  The move is designed to offer more support to the 40% of its audience based outside of English-speaking countries.

According to Kevin Eyres, LinkedIn European managing director, there are 31 million members and one new member joins every second, thus it is critical to provide the service in other languages as the site continues to grow.

Eyres also noted that they have "completely re-architected the site and have many more new features coming out that will make the site more responsive from a user standpoint."

Source: The Guardian

Following weeks of speculation, the Commonwealth Press Institute has confirmed its closure and the transferal of its remit to its sister charity body, the Commonwealth Press Training and Education Trust (CPTET). In an email to members the Executive Committee Chairman, Vyvyan Harmsworth, LVO blamed the move on rising costs.

The Editors Weblog broke the story of this closure on the 28th of October, but this is the first official confirmation.

Harmsworth stated that the handover will take effect from the  31st of December when the CPU and its London Secretariat will close.

Harmsworth said, "The CPU's mission of supporting press freedom and journalistic training will continue - reshaped for a vibrant, 21st century role through the revitalized CPTET."

James MacManus, Executive Director of News International, will take over as interim Chairman of the reformed organisation.  

Source: Press release from the Commonwealth Press Institute

See also:

End of the Commonwealth Press Union on December 31, 2008
What does the death of the Commonwealth Press Union mean?

All ABC-audited UK publishers saw record web traffic in October, due in large part to the coverage of the "build up" to the US presidential election and the economic crisis, which made up for the interstices of regular reporting, according to Guardian.co.uk.

Figures by the Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic show that Guardian.co.uk recorded more than 25 million unique users in October, marking its fifth month "as the most popular UK newspaper website." 

There was a decline in the average time spent per person on newspaper websites in October compared to last year, according to a Nielson Online report.

While monthly uniques increased, the data followed a similar September trend of a decrease in time spent on some sites.

The New York Times, the leader in time spent on newspaper's websites, saw an increase from 35 minutes in October 2007 to 40 minutes this year, the report says.  Politico increased its time spent from 9 minutes to 19, while its monthly uniques increased 178%.

Source:  Editor and Publisher

The Daily Mirror has launched a digital archive of its newspapers from 1903-1980.  The archive will be available to the public through an online subscription-based service.

The archive will house Mirror papers including the Daily Express, Daily Star, Sunday Express and Star on Sunday.  The new site that houses the archives is ukpressonline.

According to journalism.co.uk, "prices for access to the archive range from £5 for a 48-hour pass to £295 for one year."

Source: Journalism.co.uk

The new year will see the UK parliamentary body, the House of Commons, launch an inquiry into press standards, privacy and libel laws.

The Culture, Media and Sport Committee is accepting submissions, opinions and views on key topics affecting the press.

How the media in the UK handled the tragic case of missing Madeleine McCann is expected to be a priority. There have been allegations of overly aggressive reporting and newspapers have been sued by the family and friends of the McCanns.

Other key topics for discussion include:

* UK libel laws and press reporting.
* Do conditional fee agreements impact press freedom and should self-regulation be toughened.
* Contempt of Court laws with respect to press reporting.
* Impact of European Convention on Human Rights.
* Should financial penalties for libel or invasion of privacy be exemplary rather than compensatory.
* Is the balance between press freedom and personal privacy right.

Source: HoldTheFrontPage

According to the Associated Press, Russian prosecutors will "aggressively monitor" how the media covers and reports on the ongoing financial crisis.

The Prosecutor General's office ordered news organizations to be responsible and not to spread panic, the AP reported.  The Russian media has been lacking in financial crisis coverage, this is due to the fact that most media outlets are government controlled or loyal to the Kremlin.

According to the International Herald Tribune, Microsoft plans to help "European media owners protect and profit from copyrighted material online."

Thomas Rubin, Microsoft's intellectual property lawyer, said that they were going to work with publisher to develop a technology that will allow them to have more control over their material after it has been referenced by search engines.

The International Herald Tribune is launching a news reader application in the first half of 2009 according to the New York Times Vice President of R&D, Michael Zimbalist.

The software will be based on the AIR 1.5 which was released on Monday. According to an article on CNET news, "it's pretty clear that the company will release a reader for The New York Times as well." The announcement was made at the Adobe Max Conference in the USA.

There is currently a desktop reader in the marketplace for the NYT. The recently announced IHT platform will take advantage of the newly released AIR application's new technology, such as its fast text-rendering engine that re-flows text as you resize the screen. The new app also uses the video capabilities of Flash 10, which Air 1.5 uses. The demo showed videos in ads, but it could also be used for editorial content.

Source: CNET

The Casper Star-Tribune is one of the many newspapers that have been slimming down.  The new format is 11 inches wide, down from the previous 12.5 inches.

The reduction in size is in order to cut print costs.  According to the papers editor, Chad Baldwin, the slimmed-down version will not cause interstices in coverage because paper has redesigned its layout and headlines so no content will be lost.

Source: Editor & Publisher

Helium is an online company that describes itself as, "the online spot to learn what you need to know and share what you know." It combines citizen journalism with peer rating in order to provide a plethora of articles on just about any topic.

Helium brings together a system of news and information combined with a place to submit articles. It even has a "marketplace" where publishers can post topics for people to write about - sort of like a publishers à la carte classified space.

It is a place for readers to find articles that interest them, writers to write about topics that they know and understand, publishers to find articles and non-profits to voice their issues.

It is a unique system of sharing content, ideas and knowledge. It will be interesting to see what the future holds for Helium, if the current system will hold up and retain its credibility.

The Editors Weblog interviewed Peter Newton, the VP of business development at Helium.com to get a better idea of how the site works and what their goals are for the future. Newton has worked at Monster.com and The Boston Globe where he was the vice president of advertising.

EW: What is your selection process for articles and writers?

PN: Helium represents the first true meritocracy in the publishing industry. Helium welcomes anyone and everyone to join its community of writers.

We don't select writers; they naturally come to the site and write to areas in which they have an interest (in many cases, a passion) in sharing their knowledge or opinion. Once members join, their work is evaluated by other members though our peer-review rating system.  In essence, Helium brings order to the chaos of user generated content. Its patented peer review rating engine elevates the best quality articles.

After a writer submits an article, he/she is presented with two anonymous articles in the same topic area to rate in an "A versus B" comparison. Through the wisdom of the crowds, the best articles rise to the top, resulting in a rank-ordered list for every topic.

The end result is that the best writers are promoted, recognized and rewarded for their work.

New titles are introduced onto the Helium site through members, partners and directly by Helium staff.

EW: Where do you draw the line between journalist and citizen journalist?  What about between citizen journalist and blogger?

PN: Citizen Journalism is a very awkward term. Quality journalism demands its participants to be objective, ethical and methodical. Research, fact checking and skillful interviewing techniques are critical to the art. It's not obvious that what we are starting to call citizen journalism possesses any of these traits. I'm certain that the Columbia School of Journalism doesn't teach that the art of being a world class journalist is to be in the right place at the right time. Citizen Journalism seems to be migrating to each individual's "15 minutes of fame" and further and further away from journalism. It might be fun to watch - but so were the lions and Christians in the Roman Coliseum.

With that said, Helium is not really concerned with categorizing or labeling different types of writers.  We have created a platform for people to express themselves in writing across a wide variety of topics in a civilized and substantive way, and then have the community sort for quality.

Helium is a site for writers that fills a unique role in the publishing industry. In doing so, we are representing a new classification of online writers.

Our community of members includes professional writers, freelancers, subject matter experts, students and the expert next-door.

We are not attempting to replace investigative journalism or time sensitive reporting. Instead, Helium attracts and produces individuals who have the skill and insight on specific topics that they wish to share with others.

EW: Do you feel that the status of being an "expert" or a "professional journalist" is becoming less important?

PN: No, there will always be a need for professional journalists, especially in covering breaking news or conducting investigative journalism, and Helium is definitely not out to undermine established journalists or copywriters.

Instead, we are trying to expand the ranks of paid writers to include part-time talent that otherwise would be sitting fallow.

Our media solutions product offers newspapers a way for them to supplement what remains of their editorial staff, but is in effect driving down their content-creation costs. We are merely tapping into the notion of "social publishing," in which publishers ask their readership to contribute content.

EW: Do you apply any regulations for topics? style? content? etc...

PN: Yes, Helium has established regulations for topics, style, and acceptable content.

Beyond providing clarity to our members, the community is self moderating. Every new article submitted to Helium is rated by other members. The best content rises to the top. Our members often message each other with advice as to how to improve articles and items that don't fit the standards of the site are removed.

EW: Do you see a shift towards more citizen journalism in news reporting? Both online and print?  How will this affect the future of professional freelancers? Is it going to put a dent in the freelance market?

PN: When you say "news reporting", let's be clear that our focus is not breaking news or conducting investigative journalism.  With that said, there is a growing paradigm shift in content creation; publishers are increasingly sourcing content, not writers. As for how this will impact freelancers no one can say for sure but one thing is for sure-there will always be demand for quality writing.

EW: Can a person make a living from putting material on Helium the same way a freelance gains income?

PN: The short answer is no.  But with that said, there are thousands of Helium members who earn from $40-$100 each month, which is much more than chump change. In fact, some of Helium's highest earning members have made more than $3,000. It really depends on how much members use the site.

Earlier this month, Helium announced upfront payments for all new articles being written by starred writers on Helium.com. This change to Helium's Terms of Service is a move to reward the site's highest quality writers and to promote quality content at Helium.com.  In addition, the company's popular Marketplace product - used by publishers looking for top-notch content for their publications - now offers special access to the site's best writers. The move will improve content for Helium's publishing partners and help ensure that the site's best writers will be seen by those publishers.  

Many web 2.0 companies offer opportunity for incremental income. With these changes at Helium, highly-rated writers will have an opportunity to earn larger sums for sharing their expertise with the Helium community.

"Helium has grown by leaps and bounds these last two years; it has earned the respect of people and writers around the world," said Petra Newman, a 3-star writer on Helium.com "With the sky falling on our economy, Helium has again found a "pièce de résistance" for people who already have a passion for writing. Increasing the earnings for well-written articles is a win-win situation for both Helium and writers."

EW: What newspapers or websites do you work with?    

PN: Currently Helium is working with GateHouse Media's State Journal-Register(SJ-R) in Springfield, Ill. SJ-R recently begun using Helium's "Media Solutions" product to source writers for its op ed section-there are currently over 700 additional papers in the active funnel.

We also provide content for a wide a variety of other newspapers, magazines, online-only sites, etc.

EW: What about your competition? Who are they?

PN: As a producer of content and as a publisher of content, we compete with thousands of companies, yet in most ways, we have no competition.

That said, we really don't see anyone that directly competes with us, in terms of delivering a scalable solution to engage a community to produce high quality content.  

EW: Where do you see yourself in relation to news organizations such as the AP or the New York Times?

PN: The New York Times is the New York Times. Helium is not attempting to create a competitor to breaking news.  

EW: Where does a site like Helium envision itself in the future? How do you grow / expand ?

PN: Helium is rapidly building the world's largest community of writers. We plan to grow and expand the business in a number of ways over the next five years:

• Become the partner of choice to the publishing, non profit and broadcast industries for generating quality content at a low cost, while helping engage their audience in the process.

• Become the content source for any entity needing quality content.

• Expand internationally; international business represents 60% additional market opportunity

• Create a community of micro publishers

Telegraph is to launch a new political show designed specifically for the Internet, according to Press Gazette.

The weekly show will run about 5 minutes, available on telegraph.co.uk, offerig "comment and debate" on a range of topics, mostly political and economic.

The show by Telegraph TV will be starring Simon Heffer and political pundit Ron Liddle.

Source:  Press Gazette

Following on from Part 1 of our interview with the Editor-in-Chief of the Christian Science Monitor, John Yemma - where we looked at why the CSM is pursing a digital future and how it prepared its readership base - we now look at what is happening inside the CSM itself. Yemma and his team are restructuring the newsroom, its mindset and the technology powering it. This is the cutting edge of news distribution, and Yemma talks us through how it is preparing itself for uncharted territory.

Restructuring the newsroom - rebuilding the engine

The next big step for this revolutionary new "newspaper" model was in the newsroom itself. How does a traditional daily newspaper restructure its newsroom team to prepare itself for the uncharted digital waters ahead? Yemma is overwhelming positive about undertaking the task of remodelling the newsroom, saying, "We essentially get to sit here and take our car engine apart and put it back together. It was an automobile engine that was built for the print world and now we get to take it apart and rebuild it for the web-first world. That is a tremendously exciting prospect because that means instead of having to serve the print master, which has its own production schedule and arbitrary deadline, we free ourselves, and we are therefore able to be much more immediate and relevant online."

Currently the CSM has one staff orientated to producing the print CSM and a small online staff who repurpose the print content for the online edition. Yemma tells the Weblog that the team is organising itself into a "three pronged operation" with a common editorial model - under the editor, managing editor and includes the national, international and photo editors, and foreign and domestic correspondents, made up of about 70 to 80 people - feeding two smaller divisions. These two smaller divisions are the weekly print desk and the website desk, in each case they will have a small production staff. This differentiation between the magazine and the web is vital, "as print has its own needs to produce a good and valuable product" so it needs a minimal but dedicated staff. In the same way, the web has to have a focused staff to keep the site running and up to date. Yemma reports they will have about 10 people each devoted to the web and weekly. For the weekly this involves a team that will build a coherent weekly magazine - working on articles that will need to have a longer shelf life - and the overall look and feel. Similarly the website staffers will have a dedicated team of technical producers who will work on the entry page to optimise it for web traffic.

Yemma says that it has not been necessary to radically change the shape and layout of the newsroom to push through this change as the common editorial pool will be driving content and this remain largely intact. There will likely be some moving of desks to put the weekly staff together and so forth, but nothing radically different.

New technology to aid the change - democratising the web

The CSM is introducing new content management systems to facilitate this move, a print CMS and a new web CMS. This new system will allow the common editorial pool to directly feed both operations and allow the editorial staff to have much more influence over the website. CSM are using K4 CMS for the print edition and is currently closing the deal for a new CMS for the web edition. The new web system according to Yemma will, "democratises the whole operation of the web so non-technical assignment editors with the common editorial pool can update the website directly." Therefore, the majority of the content will feed from the editorial pool but the focused web team will work on the homepage itself.

Retraining for the digital future

This new business model will not only result in a rebuilding of the newsroom, but a rebuilding of staffers. The CSM has already trained its team for multi-media publications and now it is undertaking a programme for its new future. The team are being trained for the new CMS platforms; however, the new system does not require extensive training, as it is a very user-friendly system. CSM is continually training staffers for the web, as "the future is the web. Everybody knows that."  On the weekly, the assignment editors will have to rethink content to make it move "evergreen" and thus hold up for much longer on the shop shelf, and the content will have to be prepared multiple weeks in advance. The CSM is an analytical newspaper so it is already somewhat prepared for this new style of content, but Yemma says, "it is more rethinking than retraining, a magazine mindset is different to a daily mindset."

Managing staffers through uncertain times

It is exciting times at the CSM, but how do you manage staff through these uncertain times. Yemma says, "Be as open as possible about what you are doing. While things are still being developed and you don't want staff to prematurely publicise, you must be careful about you say, as anything you say in a newsroom can get outside of the newsroom. In fact, I would be disappointed if it didn't; being good gossips is part of their job. I would sometimes say things like "If theoretically we were going to have a weekly and no more daily....", the team would laugh, but I can't really say it as I do not want it to show up on a blog or something. I also tried to give them all the information. I tell you, it is much easier to remember your story when you are honest than when you make things up!"

Yemma reports that he worked with the University of Southern California and the Knight Media Digital Centre, and they performed an anonymous survey of staff. As a result, the staff were able to freely express their opinions about the changes without fear of it damaging their career. The team at USC and Knight compiled all the results and gave this to management, so they could see exactly how their staff were feeling. Yemma reports that the feedback was, "appropriately sceptical, but not overly. Again, I would be disappointed in journalists if they weren't sceptical. I would not expect everyone to be completely on board, but they appear to be largely on board."

Yemma says that that the combination of the town hall meetings, sitting down and talking with the different departments, and the anonymous survey are all necessary when managing a team through change.

Staff sackings

Yemma admits that, like many US newspapers, the CSM will be forced to let staff go. Yemma expects to reduce staffing levels by between 10% and 15%, which translates to 10 to 15 people.

Yemma told the Weblog that the staff cuts will take place in summer of next year and the time between now and then Yemma is publicising these staff cuts to the team so that hopefully levels may be reduced organically with people naturally looking for other jobs on hearing this news. Yemma admits that this will only get them part of the way there with the economy being what it is currently. Yemma is also working closely with the Human Resources department and they plan to offer a redundancy package, outplacement assistance and counselling.

The future

Looking at the radical change that the CSM is pursuing, one cannot help but feel that this type of radical restructuring is exactly the type of thinking what will pull the news industry out of its current slump. The media needs newspapers like the CSM to pursue these new strategies, as the industry has evolved very little in the past 100 years and it needs to start taking some radical risks to ready itself for a radically different future. Whether this model will prove successful, time and the market will only tell; but it is undoubtedly a brave and exciting undertaking.
 

The 100-year old Pulitzer prize winning Christian Science Monitor has bravely announced that it is ending its daily print format and going fully digital: it will now only print a weekly "magazine" edition. The Editors Weblog caught up with the Editor-in-Chief of the Christian Science Monitor, John Yemma, and we discussed the thinking behind this move and how on earth a nationally distributed newspaper completely restructures itself for a digital future.

This story has been broken down into two parts. Part 1 focuses on why the CSM took this step and its initial steps down this path. Part 2 looks at the nuts and bolts: restructuring the newsroom, retraining, and managing staff through change.

The CSM's decision has sparked the inevitable debate about whether this is the beginning of the end for daily printed newspapers, a debate which will run and run in the years to come. However, the peculiar nature of the CSM's subsidised business model, its relatively small print distribution run and international readership base, make it difficult to draw any firm conclusions on industry trends from this move. Nevertheless, many in the industry will be watching closely to see how the CSM manages this move and whether it proves successful or not. If the CSM is successful, then this may lead to other newspapers pursuing this business model, but these papers will have to have a distinctive and loyal readership like the CSM if they have any hope of being successful.

Why the move away from print?

Yemma (left) states that there are two main reasons behind the CSM's controversial decision to move away from the daily print model. Firstly, the CSM's publishers, "saw the writing on the wall, they knew that the Internet user patterns and reader preferences and so forth were changing the business model of print. Print was becoming increasingly untenable, especially for the Monitor, which has an international audience. We just don't have enough reach with our print product, but we have great reach with our web product. That's not uncommon in the world of publishing right now to come to that conclusion, but for the Monitor we were able to make the change a little faster, because the Christian Science church wanted to move away from subsidising the Monitor within about three to five years."

The CSM is subsidised by the Christian Science church, with the church contributing approximately 50% ($13 million) of the newspapers revenue.  The newspaper itself makes about $12.5 million in terms of print advertising, circulation, web revenue and syndication. Therefore, the publishers of the CSM felt that, secondly, this level of subsidisation could not continue forever, so the team decided to look at the newspapers various options.

How the move to digital began - where to begin?

Two years ago the CSM convened a task force to look at the possibility of dropping its daily print edition. The newspaper worked at it from all angles; from prototyping to financial analysis, and working with a consultant (newspaper consultant Chris Urban), marketing group (Kadence Associates - who organised focus groups and surveys), and a PR company (Shift Communications - who handled assisted the company in communicating this move). A former editor of the Christian Science Monitor, John Hughes, and newspaper consultant, Chris Urban, headed up this task force.

Surveying the core readership base - will they buy it?

Given the nature of the CSM and its relatively small daily print run, international appeal as a Christian newspaper and its worldwide reputation, the reasoning behind this move - no matter the financial calculations and industry trends - is sound. However, if the core CSM readership did not largely support the change, then all bets would be off. The CSM surveyed its core loyal readership base, taking sample groups to sound out their response. Yemma states that the CSM was most concerned with converting this core group as quickly as possible to reading the newspaper in a new way. Its focus groups revealed that 50% welcomed the idea of decreasing the frequency of the CSM and that of the 50% who were "on the fence" only half of these wanted to preserve it as it is now.

Once the decision to drop the daily print edition was announced, the CSM had a customer service team field all calls and emails about the decision from readers, which Yemma receives a daily report on. The accumulative report of this over the past few weeks is consistently running at just 14% negative. 35% are asking questions about this new model will work, such as price and so forth, with the rest being positive. Yemma feels the CSM has got a, "pretty good response. We expected worse."

Yemma is clear that the most important thing for them to find out is how many people will convert from buying the daily newspaper to the weekly magazine. This will not be known until the new format is marketed in the spring, and they begin selling the weekly in April. The CSM's marketing estimate is that they can covert about 80% of the people currently buying the daily to take up the weekly model. On this, Yemma says, "that is the best we can do at the moment without having perfect knowledge of the future."

Communicating with your reader

On the CSM website currently there is a web cast featuring John Yemma and the Managing Publishing, John Wells. Here they talk over the various changes and why they have come about for their reader. The site also has an in depth editorial on the changes ahead for the venerated newspaper.

"The Web is not just a paperless publishing medium, it is a totally new way of telling stories"

The move to a web focused future will, "unshackle the newsroom from print."  Yemma says "We will get to see what we can do online in a way that we have never been able to do before. I really believe that journalism in is the infancy of story telling online and that online story telling is about interactivity. I expect us to look more at intelligently moderated user generated content, crowd sourcing, and expanding the reach of CSM journalism.  We can look more at speaking to our readers, and asking them to send us their images and stories of the events hitting the headlines, and thus expand our eyes and ears. There is a non-linear way of telling stories on the web that I think has to be developed by journalists who want their stories to be told in the most appropriate way for the medium."

Yemma goes on to say, "The Web is not just a paperless publishing medium: it is a totally new way of telling stories. We can really start using the web for what it is really all about, which is this three dimensional medium getting information and providing it at whatever level you can convey it."

Part 2 - In our next article on the CSM, the Weblog talks to Yemma about reorganising the team and the newsroom for a weekly magazine and web future, retraining, and staff cuts.

Exactly one year after its initial launch, the Mittelland edition of free newspaper 'News' will be closed in Switzerland.

News will continue to be published in its other three markets in Zurich, Berne and Basle "in cooperation with the paid newspapers," Newspaper Innovation reports, and will distribute in Mittelland.

News was launched in December 2007, and had a circulation of 132,000 in Mittelland.

Source:  Newspaper Innovation

Last week the Financial Times relaunched its website with a new homepage, along with five other resdesigned pages and a new Middle East section. This is the first stage of its redesign and more changes will be rolled out over 2009. Reviews about the new design have been mixed; some call it a success, some say it's a failure. The FT has been applauded for finally redesigning and "clearing up the clutter" but the criticisms go further than the redesign, some critics have called their entire business model into question.

The new design aims to make the site look more like the print version through colour and layout. The homepage is now pink, just like the newspaper, and the design of the masthead reflects the print version as well. The website has also been renamed Financial Times, no longer FT.com.

The editorial integrity of journalism is "threatened" by traditional and citizen journalists using the Internet to "distort" information, Reuters' global editor of multimedia for news Chris Cramer said last night.

In an address at Nottingham Trent University, Cramer emphasized that news organizations must work to separate themselves from the nascent 'electronic mob rule' of online journalists who seek to strengthen their own messages.

The Huffington Post's news and commentary website could be raising money to fund "investigative journalism projects," according to a Reuters blog by Robert MacMillan.

Founder Arianna Huffington made the announcement at a panel discussion yesterday, saying that further details wouldn't come for at least three months.

Huffington's website is "small compared with big professional publishers," but, MacMillan reports, "she's latching on to a growing trend."  

Online investigative journalism "ventures," such as Mark Cuban's sharesleuth.com and bailoutsleuth.com, or ProPublica.org, a privately funded operation directed by Wall Street Journal Managing Editor Paul Steiger, take on a watchdog role that is difficult to fund at "traditional media outlets" in a financially failing industry.  Time will tell if these news sites will have staying power.

Source:  Reuters blog

According to The National, the first ever Arabic-language business daily newspaper will be launched in January in the United Arab Emirates.  The launch of the paper is part of I-Media, an integrated media project which will "include a financial news online portal in Arabic and English, a mobile news services and the first Arabic economic news radio channel."

Qusai Aljamous, the paper's executive editor in chief said the paper will be a 40-page broadsheet titled, Alroya Altiqtissadiya, which means Economy Vision in Arabic.  The initial circulation will be 20,000, targeting business-savvy readers.  In addition, the paper will be accompanied by a 16-page tabloid supplement focusing on real-estate, banking, the stock market, commodities, tourism and lifestyle. 

Free dailies 15minut and Obzor are numbers 2 and 3 in readership in the Ukraine, right behind paid paper Segodnya.

All three papers had gained readership since spring 2008, according to a National Readership Survey.  Segodnya had 519,000 daily readers, with 15minut and Obzor at 394,000 and 314,000, respectively.

Obzor's readership from spring to fall rose 25%, while Segodnya gained 3% and 15minut 1%.

Vecherkom, a free afternoon paper, came in 7th on daily readership in the country with 197,000 readers.

Source:  Newspaper Innovation

Life magazine, holder of one of the biggest photo collections in the world, dating back from the 1750s will now make their images available online through a deal with Google.    

According to the Guardian, 10 million images will be available, of which 97% have never been seen before.

Forbes has begun the process of integrating their print and online sections by combining the two ad sales groups.  The complete merging of the two editorial sides will be completed by early 2009, according to PaidContent.

According to Forbes, the move is due to a "changing marketplace."  

In addition to the merging of the two sections, on Friday Forbes announced that it was discontinuing ForbesAuto.com.

Sources: PaidContent, Valleywag

Beginning November 16, Le Journal du Dimache has "refreshed" its layout, offering a more "modern" look.

Complete with new sections, JDD will have more investigative reporting, and has "strengthened" its editorial for readers.

Content will focus on "original insights" to exclusive information, reports, and surveys.  New sections include "encounters" and "portraits," among others.

JDD will "set the tone" for the week, according to managing editor Christian de Villeneuve.

Source:  Publicitas

De Standaard Weekend was launched this weekend as a part of the newspaper's new overall strategy.

The new strategy has involved the launch of De Standaard, Online - which will focus on breaking news stories - and the daily newspaper focusing on in depth articles, such as analyses and editorials.

The new weekend edition is divided into six "booklets," including a restyled De Standaard Magazine, an economy section, culture and media section, a travel supplement, job listings and a general news section of political and national and international news.

De Standaard's daily edition has a readership of 350,000, while De Standaard Online has 180,000 daily visitors, according to the press release.  

Source:  Publicitas