December 2005 Archives

Citizen journalism has been haunting newsrooms since Dan Gillmor wrote We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People in 2004. Suddenly, for Gillmor epigone and imitators (not for Gillmor himself), there was a new hero, the citizen journalist, struggling against a bad guy called the traditional journalist.

In fact a very bad guy this old journo: outdated, working for a mainstream media – disgusting, isn’t it ? -, linked to corporate interests, limited by the newsroom horizon, not very well connected (nor well educated) and with no knowledge of what can interest average people! Moreover, truth and accuracy were no longer his cup of tea…

On the contrary, the citizen journalist had so many qualities: as a newcomer, he was young, fresh, innocent, independent, with a lot of new ideas on journalism and democracy and on top of that a real love of truth.

But the problem is that this ideal citizen journalist only exists in some bloggers’ views.

Whew! What a turbulent year for the newspaper industry. One would think that after so many developments, positive and negative, that the storm would be ebbing. But 2005 may be just the beginning.

Below are eight trends that the Editors Weblog feels will have major effects on newsrooms in 2006:

1. Print/Online integration becoming the norm
2. Threats against investigative journalism growing
3. More transparency needed
4. Breaches appearing in the free news ideology
5. News agencies competing with newspapers
   
6. Social networking: advantages for newspapers
   
7. Mobile TV threatening mobile news
8. News organizations becoming entertainment companies

Please feel free to comment and add your own ideas.

Happy New Year to all!

The International Federation of Journalists announced the winners of the 2005 South Asiai Journalism for Tolerance prize. The prize "is about promoting tolerance, combating racism and discrimination and contributing to an understanding of cultural, religious and ethnic differences." Eminent Soth Asian journalists make up the jury.

A new Arabic language full colour tabloid targeting youth is to be launched in Saudi Arabia before the end of the year. The tabloid is to be called Sun; the three letters in Arabic stand for youth variety and Saudi. The initial print run will be 120 000 copies. Sun will offer a "fresh approach to news, sport, music and technology."

WashingtonPost.com will now offer articles for free for 60 days, instead of the previous 14, before putting them behind the paid for subscription wall. The objective of the initiative is to increase traffic and advertising revenues.

Zhao Yan, who worked in The New York Times' Beijing bureau, has been indicted for "revealing state secrets" and for fraud. Mr. Yan's has been in prison without trial for 15 months, his lawyer has said the indictment means the trial will most likely begin within the next six weeks.

iRex Technologies BV, a spin-off from Royal Philips Electronics, plans to launch an electronic paper (e-paper) application next April, reports Inside IT. The new gadget called Illiad combines an electronic paper display with touch screen and wireless networking technologies (see picture here).

The spokesman for the Hezbollah party in Iran Mojtaba Bigdeli has announced that it will launch its own newspaper on 9, January 2006. The paper will be distributed across the country; its editorial staff has been appointed.

Kevin Sweeny of business journalism.org interviewed the Times Picayune's Money editor Kim Quillen, who spok eabout the challenges of reporting post-Katrina.

Sweeny began by asserting that in the aftermath of Katrina "Readers and businesses depended on their local papers to deliver the news they could get from no other source." He then proceeded to ask Ms. Quillen how her paper responded to this "monumental task."

Independent News and Media expects to report revenue growth of over 7.5% and double digit earnings for 2005. Adiitionally, the group has experienced a year on year increase in advertising and expects to announce a 3% growth in circulation for 2005.

Approximately 10 jobs that were to be eliminated by Trinity Mirror in Scotland have been saved. Under the revised plan a total of 32 jobs will be eliminated at four papers: The Scottish Daily Mirror The Sunday Mirror, The Daily Record and The Sunday Mail.

The four news stories most searched for on the internet in 2005 were the Aian tsunami, Iraq, the Michael Jackson trial and Apple I-Pod. Hurrican Katrina came in at seventh place. The impact of US President Bush's foreign policy was also a popular news item.

Editorial cartoonists across the US recently staged a protest called 'Black Ink Monday' (a series of 106 great cartoons) in response to the loss of editorial cartoonist positions at a number of Tribune Co. newspapers and more generally "as a commentary on newspapers everywhere who have lost sight of the value of having a staff editorial cartoonist."

Robert Niles of the USC Annenberg Online Journalism Review asked a number of web editors and publshers the following question: "Why do i love online publishing?"

Niles first gives us his own view: "the people of this country finally have a medium at their disposal which allows any person to speak and be heard by a global audience. If freedom of the press belongs to those who own one, now, we all do. And the world, ultimately, will be the better for it."

Reuters is launching a video Affiliate Network pilot programme which will enable blogs, news organisations and other online publishers to offer Reuters news videos on their websites. The video material will be viewable on a media player embedded on the host website (this means viewers will not have to download software to watch the video); video coverage will be updated throughout the day.

'Snoopgate', the most recent scandal to hit the Bush White House, was revealed to the public last week in a New York Times article entitled: 'Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts'. The paper is currently under fire for having held off on publishing the story for a year.

The scandal concerning pro-American stories planted in Iraqi newspapers (see previous postings here and here) has caused outrage among Iraqis. Khalid Samim of the Iraqi Journalists Association (IJA) has been particularly critical of the practice saying it ammounts to a US abuse of power.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has issued a handbook containing information on avian flu which can be downloaded from the WHO website in PDF format.

The Canada Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), national broadcaster, has dedicated an entire section of its website to coverage of the run-up to the January 2006 election.

Journalists from across Europe and the United states are invited to apply for the European Journalism Fellowships, offered this year for the eighth time by the Journalisten-Kolleg of the Free University of Berlin.

The Edinburgh based Johnston Press, fourth largest regional newspaper publisher in the UK, has purchased the Scotsman newspaper group for 160 million pounds stirling. In addition to its title daily the Scotsman group publishes Scotland on Sunday, The Edinburgh Evening News and the Edinburgh Herald and Post series of free weeklies. 

The Observer, Sunday paper of the Guardian Media Group, is to be re-launched in a Berliner format on 8, January 2006. The 'new' Observer will include a full colour news section and a listing section separate to the magazine.

Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, has started his own blog called timbl's blog.

In his first post entitled 'So I have a blog' Berners-Lee writes about his brainchild: "In 1989 one of the main objectives of the WWW was to be a space for sharing information. It seemed evident that it should be a space in which anyone could be creative, to which anyone could contribute."

Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet reports that Metro plans to begin distributing free dailies in 17 more Swedish cities. Media Culpa reports Metro have declined to comment on this claim.

Metro expanded its distribution to Russia, Portugal and Ireland adding 19 new editions in 2005, and now publishes 59 editions in 19 different countries.

The Times has been named newspaper of the year at the What The Papers Say awards. Judges complemented the paper for "recovering from a weak relaunch to become a very confident paper which was now very strong across a range of categories - journalists, feature writers, stories and scoops."

The Roanoke Times of Roanoke, Virginia has begun offering a daily online video newscast four minutes in length. The newscast becomes available online at 3:30 PM every day.

Spanish language newspaper Hoy, sister paper to NY Newsday owned by Tribune Co., is to convert to free distribution in New York in 2006. The paper is already distributed free in Chicago and Los Angeles.

The Syndicate conference in San Francisco saw the re-establishment of discussion on structured blogging, a concept that Jack Schofield of the Guardian technology blog says "has been floating around for the past couple of years without making much headway."

The Guardian initiated its costly 100 million pound stirling Berliner format redesign in the hopes of dramatically increasing circulation. The desired result has not been achieved.

The Boston Globe is considering launching a new paid for sports section in early 2006 for its website Boston.com. If launched, the service would be called Sportsplus and "would be the essential resource for news, opinions and discussion about New England's sports teams, produced daily by the country's best sports writers."

The Sun Herald of Biloxi, Mississipi, a coastal town devastated by Hurricane Katrina, has published an editorial criticising the lack of media coverage of the effects of the disaster on the area, stating its plight has fallen "into a black hole of media obscurity."

The Toronto Star is making its website more reader friendly. Mandatory registration has been abolished in response to complaints from readers that registration was an inconvenience: "Our online readers have told us that registration is an inconvenience. We listened to our readers, and we've removed mandatory registration from our site."

An interesting article by media analyst Tom Foremski who is concerned that "we are losing our media professionals." Foremski asserts that "we need professional journalists ... so that we can ensure a high degree of accuracy in the content of our media."

An interesting article (in French) from Liberation, including an interview with online journalism analyst Steve Outing, where he discusses newspapers' transition from print to the web.

UK regional newspaper publisher Northcliffe Newspapers, to be sold by Daily Mirror and General Trust (see previous posting), is set to initiate an employment reorganisation initiative at its Western Newpapers division. The jobs reshuffle is part of the 'Aim Higher' money saving plan launched by management, and could cost up to 10 newsroom jobs.

US consultancy firm Classified Intelligence has released a report that states that Google Base is the "biggest single threat to the international classified advertising industry." (see previous posting)

Amidst a whirlwind of controversy over the reliability of his product, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said in an interview with Business Week Online that Wikipedia should be viewed "as a work in progress -- it's our intention to be Britannica or better quality, and our policies and everything are designed with that goal in mind. We don't reach that quality yet -- we know that. We're a work in progress."

The US Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) has released a new study entitled 'Extra! Extra!', that compares tabloids with broadsheets and examines their potential future in the US media market.

Guy Ruddle, former BBC Radio 5 presenter, has been hired by The Daily Telegraph as podcast editor. The paper claims the creation of this position is a first for a UK national paper. Ruddle is to take up his position in January, with the objective of expanding the podcasting service (launched last month) the paper currently offers.

AgoraVox, crowned best French journalistic weblog at the 2005 International Weblog Awards (for the rest of the winners see here), is "leading the field in European citizen journalism" asserts Jemima Kiss of journalism.co.uk. Traffic to the blog is currently increasing at a rate of 40% per month and the Yahoo News is already listing its stories beside AFP and Reuters news reports.

The California, USA based news website/aggregator Topix.net is to begin allowing readers to post their own news stories. Topix.net is also to introduce forums and reader comment features.

AdAge reports that Yahoo's foray into original content news production has had a 'slow start'; traffic is low.

Juan Varela at Periodistas21 discusses the differences between newspaper usage of RSS feeds and desktop alerts. Varela uses the example of the Spanish sport daily, As (part of the Prisa Group), whose page views doubled from 128.6 million in September to 257.2 million in November after implementing desktop alerts.

The Los Angeles Times has announced its national edition will be shut down next week. The operation had already been pared down in March going from a full color broadsheet to a 24 page reduced format.

At last week's Global Media Conference in New York Washington Post chairman Don Graham made the following comment in his keynote speech: "I have come to believe that we will be able to tell you about certain subjects better on the Internet than we will be able to in print."

The United States' largest daily USA Today has announced it will merge its print and online newsrooms. As part of this convergence Kinsey Willson, the current editor of USAToday.com, will join John Hillkirk as a second executive editor for the merged operation. Willson and Hillkirk will oversee daily news production and content, reporting to chief editor Ken Paulson. 

The importance of the internet for journalists in Switzerland is still growing. According to a study among German-Swiss journalists, around 92% use the internet on a daily basis, compared to 80% in 2002. Journalists, who use the internet, think that the most important functions of the internet for their work are e-mail (98%), search engines (97%), websites of companies and administration (around 78%), news portals (71%) and newsletters (51%). 14,6% say that weblogs are important or very important for their work.

The San Francisco Chronicle is struggling, like many other US newspapers, to coexist with new media. The Los Angeles Times characterises its position as "on the front lines of the battle between old and new media." The paper reported a 16% loss in sales across the last 6 months and it is also suffering decreasing advertising revenue.

The BBC recently launched a nine month long local television pilot in Britain's West Midlands region of Shropshire. "The voice of Britain's regional press", The Newspaper Society, has consitently opposed the BBC's local television initiative, on the grounds that it will have an adverse effect on the local newspaper market. However, not all local newspapers are responding negatively, some have decided to collaborate.

Even more so than the London bombings, the recent Buncefield oil depot explosion has prompted an unprecedented response from citizen journalists who have sent thousands of emails, photographs and video clips of the disaster to news websites.

Following the announcement, by Daily Mail and General Trust, that regional publisher Northcliffe Newspapers is to be sold (see previous posting), staff facing redundancy at The Western Daily Press in Bristol have placed an add on e-bay offering themselves up for auction.

The World Association of Newspapers today expressed its outrage and sorrow on the car bomb assassination of Gebran Tueni, its Board Member for Middle East Affairs. "We condemn in the strongest possible terms the killing of Mr Tueni, an outstanding, brave, and determined publisher and journalist," said WAN, which called on the Lebanese government to do everything possible to ensure that the killers are swiftly brought to justice.

New York Times journalist Andrew Revkin put together daily podcasts of the climate talks in Montreal last week. This was a first time experiment for the Times (see previous posting). Revkin suggests that if the experiment is a success and audiences are receptive, the Times will "be able to do more."

Two of Scotland's biggest tabloids The Daily Record and The Sunday Mail have eliminated 43 jobs. The job cuts included 16 editorial positions.

As consumers move to the Net, advertisers are following them. Over the next five years, the Internet is projected to hold ten percent, or $23.5 billion of the entire advertising market.

These five years will be very trying for newspapers. 

"A vibrant city depends on a vigilant and competent press." These words from Pew Charitable Trust president and CEO Rebecca Rimel are hitting home in the communities that Knight Ridder serves around the United States, particularly in Philadelphia. 

Trever Ncube, publisher of Zimbabwe's two remaining independent newspapers The Zimbabwe Independent and The Sunday Standard is among 60 government critics who are to be banned from leaving the country.

ABCNEWS.com is launching a number of new services in its World News Tonight section. A live daily webcast will run from January 3rd onwards, and site users will be able to watch reports put together by the World News Tonight team throughout the day, even before the nightly broadcast.

Online journalist Ahmed Mahmoud Abdallah, currently editor of the news site Balady Net and formerly editor of the now extinct opposition newspaper Al-Shaab, has been arrested by Egyptian state security agents. His work has been confiscated and his website closed down.

Express Newspapers, owned by Northern and Shell (fourth largest national newspaper publisher in the UK), has teamed up with Wippit, a London based digital music service, to launch four online music stores for the following publications: Daily Express, Daily Star, OK Magazine and Daily Snack (online only).

An interesting article from Greg Mitchell of Editor and Publisher discussing the US media's coverage of the results released by the independent 9/11 Commission concerning the Bush administration's record on securing America. The author says "you would think" this story "would deserve banner headlines" particularly in light of the fact that the report reveals that the government has not performed well.

Welcome to the blogosphere, NYT!

In a staff memo, Deputy Managing Editor of the New York Times, John Landman, announced the start of his paper's dive into the blogosphere. The first blog off the block, columnist David Carr's "Carpetbagger," part of the new movie-awards-season feature from the Times.

The Oxford American Dictionary has declared podcast word of the year. Podcast is defined as "a digital recording of a radio broadcast or similar program, made available on the internet for downloading to a personal audio player."

The rape trial of South Africa's former deputy president Jacob Zuma has begun in Johannesbourg away from the critical eye of the media. Zuma appeared before court opening hours and his trial was not put on the court roll. Outside the court, journalists were told by the police commisioner that the trial was confidential and they were physically prevented from entering the court room by policemen.

The New York Times Co. has released online revenue figures for 2005. Online advertising revenue is expected to come in at between 194 and 198 million dollars this year. This represents about 6% of the company's total revenue. Online advertising sales grew by over 30% across the company this year.

According to the French bi-monthly media publication Presse News, Le Monde has plans to launch a new free financial daily in partnership with Philippe Micouleau, former President of financial daily Agefi.

The Google foray into print advertising that caused much worry among print media organisations (see previous postings here and here) has not been as big a success as some might have expected, says Business Week.

The Los Angeles Times has announced that it will close one of its printing plants in early 2006, eliminating 110 jobs. The plant closure is part of a plan to consolidate the papers' printing and cut costs.

Because of all of the online software that allows them to create, distribute and easily access content of their niche interests, younger generations will never pay for general news. Large news organizations should presently be adapting likewise, but they're not.

In response to a complaint of libel on Wikipedia, founder of the free online encyclopedia that anyone can contribute to and edit, announced that users will heneforth be asked to register before being allowed to create an article. Registration time takes 15-20 seconds and does not require an email address. Still, in maintaining some of its original spirit, users will not have to register before editing an already posted article.

Sources: Wired, BBC   

The general secretary of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) Aidan White has condemned the recently discovered US practice of planting stories in the Iraqi press (see previous postings here and here). White said the US "is manipulating media with stories by stooge journalists which tell lies and distort the reality facing millions of people in Iraq."

An international journalists' conference is set to be held under the theme of 'Peace and reconciliation of the Korean Peninsula' in February 2007 in Mount Kumgang in North Korea.

According to a survey undertaken by the Jordanian Higher Media Council (HMC), national newspapers give more coverage to regional and international politics than they do to local issues.

The President of a Pakistani religious youth group who allegedly promised a bounty for the heads of Danish cartoonist who authored caricatures of Mohammed today told AFP that there had been a misunderstanding.

An interesting article from William Raspberry of the Washington Post on column and opinion writing, questioning what kind of future it has.

The Virginia-Pilot has launched a video only website called HamptonRoads.tv with material published by Hampton Roads residents for Hampton Roads residents. The focus will be on local news, entertainment and sport and there will also be film previews.

French dailies Le Monde and Le Figaro have carried stories representing Professor Jean-Michel Dubernard's negative reaction to the British media's coverage of the partial facial transplant he performed on a French woman last week.

The issue at stake is the difference between rules concerning ethics and confidentiality in the press in the two countries. 

Norwegian state broadcaster NRK has teamed up with mobile phone producer Ericsson to launch the world's first experiment with interactive television on mobile phones.

The Pakistani urdu daily Nawa-i-Waqt has reported that Shahid Gilani, President of the youth organisation Shabab-i-Milli attached to religious party Jamaat-e-Islami, promised, at a recent rally, a 500 000 rupee  (7000 Euro) reward for anyone who kills the cartoonist who drew caricatures of Mohammed. This comes after Jyllands Posten and Reporters Without Borders reported death threats were issued from inside Denmark against two of the cartoonists.

New York's Newsday has announced that 72 employees from across the paper will be let go and a further 40 currently unfilled jobs will be eliminated.

"In Iraq, Exporting a bunch of budding Jayson Blairs simply feeds the unhelpful image of Americans as inept and hypocritical puppetmasters" says Jonathan Alter, Newsweek columnist in a very challenging article after the Los Angeles Times revealed that the American government had been planting stories in the Iraqi press that promote the idea of Iraqi democracy and self-rule (see former posting).

What is interesting in Alter's article is the comparison between the cold war and the current war in Iraq: "My problem with all of this is less ethical than practical. If it helped build Iraqi democracy or blunted anti-American propaganda, it might even be worth it (though certainly not at those prices)...

The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the assault and harassment by Egyptian authorities of journalists covering December parliamentary elections. CPJ sources and press reports confirm over a dozen cases in which journalists have been attacked, detained, or prevented from working since the first round of voting in the three-round election began on November 8.

The ruling National Democratic Party and security forces have ordered supporters to beat and harass voters and journalists, the CPJ sources and press reports said. Good news to find this information in a Kuwaiti newspaper.

Source: Kuwait Times 

An interesting article from Randall Bezanson and Gilbert Cranberg of Editor and Publisher who assert that of all the cut backs currently taking place at US newspapers, the most damaging are the staff lay offs.

The private equity firms Blackstone Group, Providence Equity Partners Inc. and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. are said to be considering making an offer for America’s second largest newspaper publisher Knight Ridder. What might stop the bid is the company's estimated 4 billion dollar price tag, possibly too expensive for the three firms. 

Times Online has teamed up with search engine Blinkx to launch a co-branded search toolbar that users can download for free from the Times website. The new tool enables users to search for multimedia files on the internet as well as for files on the hard disk of their own computer.

An interesting article by Sruthijith K K who illustrates the power citizen journalism has to encourage participatory journalism; dialogue between readers and the mainstream media.

The owner of Chicago's City News Bureau, The Chicago Tribune, has announced that it will cease operations on January 1st 2006 and most of its news gathering activity will be transfered to the Tribune's 24 hour news website.

The UK's Telegraph website has launched a new feature called 'Snap and Send' whereby readers can send in images from their mobile phones.

Just compare these two cover pages from Belgium's La Derniere Heure newspaper (tabloid from Namur, south-west of Brussels). On the right, the usual cover with metro news and sports events. On the left, today's cover with the whole page dedicated to the first western woman likely identified as a "suicide bomber" in Iraq.

A real scoop for the newspaper and a real wave of emotion in Belgium. What is interesting here is that the newspaper totally changed the design of its cover for this exceptional occasion.

According to CNN, "Police say they believe that Muriel Degauque, a Belgian-born woman and convert to Islam, pictured and identified Thursday in a Belgian newspaper, was the first Western woman to carry out a suicide bombing in Iraq.

In an interview with the BBC, former New York Times reporter Judith Miller said she was "deeply sorry that (her) stories were wrong. In the same interview, she defended her reporting saying that she had verified the information she received with experts and included warnings in her articles about her sources. Ms. Miller declined to discuss details of the CIA leak case in the United States because she "might be a witness in a criminal trial."

Source: BBC 

Iranian dissidents who wish to have a public voice to criticise the current regime and make calls for democratic rule have been creating blogs (see previous posting) in a bid to fill the void left by the closure of most independent newspapers. (see previous posting)

Two of Switzerland's leading daily newspapers, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) and the Berner Zeitung BZ, will have new editors in chief. 

The UK's Daily Mail and General Trust (DGMT) is determined to sell its regional press group Northcliffe Newspapers, publisher of over 100 regional papers across the UK, for a price tag of approximately 1.5 billion pounds sterling. Northcliffe is the largest publisher of regional dailies in the UK.

The European Interactive Advertising Association (EIAA) has revealed the results of a study entitled 'The EIAA Mediascope Europe Study'. The study reveals that media consumption in Europe has increased across the board.