Have you seen the site newsdesigner.com? It's a great little blog, well written and perfectly designed (of course), all about news design and photojournalism. Useful postings show how multiple front pages approach the same story (ex; Lance Armstrong's Tour de France victory).
From cnet.com: Microsoft's Newsbot aggregator entered its test period today. The site is a competitor to Google News and runs on MSN's newly developed web search technology. Check out Newsbot and let us know what you think - I think the design is terrible, with the huge MSNBC logo running down the left-hand side. When I arrived at the home page, I didn't even see the search query box until I scrolled down the page and back up again.
Source: cnet.com
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From cnet.com: Microsoft's Newsbot aggregator entered its test period today. The site is a competitor to Google News and runs on MSN's newly developed web search technology. Check out Newsbot and let us know what you think - I think the design is terrible, with the huge MSNBC logo running down the left-hand side. When I arrived at the home page, I didn't even see the search query box until I scrolled down the page and back up again.
Source: cnet.com
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From Dagblad van het Noorden and the Dutch Commissariaat voor de Media (PDF file): In Britain and other European countries, the "compact revolution" refers to the trend of quality newspapers adopting the tabloid format, but that's not to say that all newly launched tabloids are in this genre. Dutch newspaper Dagblad van het Noorden reports that newspaper group Noordelijke Dagblad Combinatie (NDC) is planning to bring a tabloid to the market that will feature entertainment, action news and celebrities. The paper, tentatively titled NL NWS, borrows from the more traditional British tabloid model, featuring a "page 3 girl." Another tidbit from the Netherlands: did you know media consolidation there exceeds that in other European countries, with two groups, PCM and De Telegraaf, sharing 95.5% of the newspaper market? This report, in PDF format, examines the phenomenon.
Source: Dagblad van het Noorden and the Dutch Commissariaat voor de Media (PDF file)
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From Dagblad van het Noorden and the Dutch Commissariaat voor de Media (PDF file): In Britain and other European countries, the "compact revolution" refers to the trend of quality newspapers adopting the tabloid format, but that's not to say that all newly launched tabloids are in this genre. Dutch newspaper Dagblad van het Noorden reports that newspaper group Noordelijke Dagblad Combinatie (NDC) is planning to bring a tabloid to the market that will feature entertainment, action news and celebrities. The paper, tentatively titled NL NWS, borrows from the more traditional British tabloid model, featuring a "page 3 girl." Another tidbit from the Netherlands: did you know media consolidation there exceeds that in other European countries, with two groups, PCM and De Telegraaf, sharing 95.5% of the newspaper market? This report, in PDF format, examines the phenomenon.
Source: Dagblad van het Noorden and the Dutch Commissariaat voor de Media (PDF file)
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From the Washington Post: Last week, we noted the Washington Post's explanation for why it decided to publish the "F-word" following a confrontation between Vice President Dick Cheney and Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy. Now, Post ombudsman Michael Getler writes that while he backs the paper's decision to print the word, he doesn't support the way Post reporters framed the story: "Having obviously put a lot of thought and deliberation into deciding to use Cheney's exact language, Post editors then proceeded to neglect their responsibilities, in my view and those of several readers, by failing to take out some smart-aleck and tendentious writing by the reporters. I'm not going to repeat the word, but the key sentence read: '"[Expletive] yourself," said the man who is a heartbeat from the presidency.' Why not just say, 'said the vice president,' as one reader asked. ... This was guaranteed to be an explosive story because of the language. It should have been done in a way that was beyond reproach journalistically."
Source: The Washington Post
From ChinaView.com: The Australian New Express Daily, the first Chinese-language daily paper to be published in the country, was launched Wednesday in Sydney, where Chinese is the number two most-spoken language. The paper is owned by the Guangdong based Kingold Group Companies Limited and the Yangcheng Evening News.
Source: ChinaView.com
From the Washington Post: If the Vice President says a very bad word, can your paper print it? In his Media Notes column, Howard Kurtz looks at his own paper's decision to print in full a word Dick Cheney used in a verbal altercation with Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy. "The New York Times said Vice President Cheney had used 'an obscenity' ... The Los Angeles Times had Cheney saying 'Go . . . yourself.' CNN said Cheney used 'the F-word,'" Kurtz reported. So why did his own paper decide to be more specific? "When the vice president of the United States says it to a senator in the way in which he said it on the Senate floor," said Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr., "readers need to judge for themselves what the word is because we don't play games at The Washington Post and use dashes." What is your paper's policy?
Source: Washington Post
From Seattle Weekly: If journalism is a crucial part of a functioning democracy, then it makes sense that newspapers would encourage their readers to vote. But many of these efforts, particularly campaigns to increase decrease absenteeism among the young, come off seeming like "nanny journalism" writes Seattle Weekly columnist Knute Berger. "It’s not the job of the media to try to improve voter turnout," Berger argues. "Our job is to inform, not implement. In this country, you’re free to vote or to not vote. And Americans want it that way. An ABC News poll in June asked voters if they liked the idea of a small fine being imposed on people who don’t vote, like they do in some countries. The results: 72 percent said such a law would —what’s the technical term?—suck. That’s right. Our right not to vote is sacred, too." It's interesting to read this in light of the high absenteeism during the recent European Parliament elections here on the continent...
From Kenya's Sunday Standard: The East African Standard has come under government scrutiny after publishing political cartoons officials deemed inappropriate. Sunday Standard columnist Kodi Barth reports that the government's Goldenberg Commission of Inquiry has "demanded an explanation" for two political cartoons that mocked its work investigating an export compensation scandal . The Standard Group’s Managing Director, Tom Mshindi, appeared before the commission to apologize for making fun of its officials, but simultaneously defended cartoonists' right to satirize the government. Barth calls satiric journalism a "creative art": "The point is that within the creative art, there is no question of right or wrong. It is the power of debate within the constitutionally endorsed quest for journalistic space that counts. Better still if that debate is provoked in humour. Naturally, law and ethics may find fault with any publication, creative or otherwise, that is premised on a wrong and a lie. But satire, which highlights practices that frequently contradict virtue, is often the extreme limit of comedy in which the difference between things as they are and things as they ought to be is deliberately exaggerated."
Source: Sunday Standard
From Agence France Presse via Yahoo News: Press freedom abuses throughout the world include the harassment and imprisonment of online journalists and the suppression of Internet news content and commentary, a new report by Reporters Without Borders reminds us. RSF highlighted two types of online press freedom abuses in the report: the "gag the Internet" ethos of totalitarian governments like China, and the effort to restrict access to certain material in the name of the war on terrorism or more general crime fighting, as practiced by democracies such as the United States. In China, 61 web-based dissidents are in jail. And in the U.S., where laws like the Patriot Act impose government surveillance of Internet activity, the Senate has backed a plan to fight international Internet censorship but refused to check U.S. companies who manufacture the email and Internet surveillance tools used by "gag the Internet" governments. Other nations cited in the report include France, Tunisia, Vietnam. Along with the U.S., the European Union and Council of Europe are singled out for failing to balance press freedom issues with the need to pursue the fight on terrorism.
Source: Agence France Presse via Yahoo News
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From Agence France Presse via Yahoo News: Press freedom abuses throughout the world include the harassment and imprisonment of online journalists and the suppression of Internet news content and commentary, a new report by Reporters Without Borders reminds us. RSF highlighted two types of online press freedom abuses in the report: the "gag the Internet" ethos of totalitarian governments like China, and the effort to restrict access to certain material in the name of the war on terrorism or more general crime fighting, as practiced by democracies such as the United States. In China, 61 web-based dissidents are in jail. And in the U.S., where laws like the Patriot Act impose government surveillance of Internet activity, the Senate has backed a plan to fight international Internet censorship but refused to check U.S. companies who manufacture the email and Internet surveillance tools used by "gag the Internet" governments. Other nations cited in the report include France, Tunisia, Vietnam. Along with the U.S., the European Union and Council of Europe are singled out for failing to balance press freedom issues with the need to pursue the fight on terrorism.
Source: Agence France Presse via Yahoo News
From Agence France Presse via Yahoo News: Press freedom abuses throughout the world include the harassment and imprisonment of online journalists and the suppression of Internet news content and commentary, a new report by Reporters Without Borders reminds us. RSF highlighted two types of online press freedom abuses in the report: the "gag the Internet" ethos of totalitarian governments like China, and the effort to restrict access to certain material in the name of the war on terrorism or more general crime fighting, as practiced by democracies such as the United States. In China, 61 web-based dissidents are in jail. And in the U.S., where laws like the Patriot Act impose government surveillance of Internet activity, the Senate has backed a plan to fight international Internet censorship but refused to check U.S. companies who manufacture the email and Internet surveillance tools used by "gag the Internet" governments. Other nations cited in the report include France, Tunisia, Vietnam. Along with the U.S., the European Union and Council of Europe are singled out for failing to balance press freedom issues with the need to pursue the fight on terrorism.
Source: Agence France Presse via Yahoo News
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Press freedom not the key to good journalism? Perhaps, says Media Guardian columnist Martin Kettle. Like Newsweek's Robert J. Samuelson, Kettle warns against overly-partisan journalism, in this case, using British coverage of the European Union constitutional debates as a test case. The U.K. media, Kettle says, has turned toward Europe to both fan the flames of alarmism about immigration (on the right) and urge integration (on the left). Front page splash-headlines, fiery leads chock-full of figurative language and television appearances by top editors have pushed journalists to the fore of the policy debate, when they should be acting as disinterested observers, Kettle writes. The solution? Not unadulterated press freedom, but perhaps the creation of a bipartisan, Parliament press oversight committee to "ask editors and senior journalists to explain their coverage of public life. You can hear the howls of outrage already - but the aim would be scrutiny not regulation."
Source: Media Guardian
From Media Guardian: Last week, Media Guardian reported that Reuters business correspondents were being pressured to back away from investigative reporting by their employer after the news wire was investigated by Britain's Financial Services Authorities as to how they obtained information on retail sales figures before it was officially released. Read our posting here. Now, Reuters Editor-in-Chief Geert Linnebank has written a sharp letter to the Guardian defending his firm's ethics. "Reuters has a worldwide reputation for providing accurate and reliable news. It's a great shame that your reporter did not apply the same journalistic standards," Linnebank says.
