Recently by Kelley Vendeland

The French socialist party has accused current president Nicolas Sarkozy of trying to intimidate the media.

Last week Sarkozy condemned five media, including the international news agency Agence France-Presse, for showing bias against him by failing to sufficiently highlight a court ruling against his former rival in the presidential race, Ségolène Royal. The issue has since become more heated, with other members of Sarkozy's UMP party hurling accusations of bias.

The French left sees the latest polemic on the press as nothing but a "smokescreen aimed at obscuring the government's errors and Sarkozy's record low popularity," said Socialist spokesman Faouzi Lamdaoui in a statement.

UMP spokesman Frédéric Lefebvre maintained, however, all the ruling party wanted was a "neutral" press.

AFP, however, rejected claims that its neutrality was compromised, saying that nowhere was it written that the press must relay every governmental communication. According to the AFP, the last press release brought no new information to the case.

"Being a journalist requires you to make choices, and decide what's news and what isn't," said AFP president Pierre Louette.

Further fueling the fire, the controversy coincides with the agency's financial negotiations with the French state, which partially assures the continued solvency of AFP. Although constituted to be an independent agency, the reality is that the government's is AFP's biggest customer. The agency is currently asking for an additional 20 million euros in order to add multimedia offerings to its repertoire.

Sources: MediaChannel, Le Monde  
 

The "local focus" mantra that has spread to so many U.S. and U.K. newspapers is also alive and well at Latin American newspapers, albeit with a different game plan for success.

In the view of Editor & Publisher's Mark Fitzgerald, who attended a recent seminar for senior editors of leading Latin American dailies, the reasons for going hyperlocal are essentially the same across the board: to combat the pressures of the internet.

In the U.S., local news is seen as "the one franchise that differentiates newspapers from any other media pretenders." In this conception, in order to survive the digital era, newspapers can create multi-media hyperlocal ventures, tying together a social networking model with what they do best, print, to encourage "constant refreshment of the web site."    

The American local model, however, does not whole-heartedly encourage a two-way dialogue between residents and newspaper. Dialogue is important, yes, but not in the same way as in Latin America. There, it is the foundation of what makes local news successful; newspapers view "their local efforts as ways to imitate the Web's interactivity and its encouragement of self-expression."

"People want to narrate their stories," El Tiempo Editor in Chief Ernesto Cortes Fierro said. "People want to resolve their own problems. It is two-way content, and in a way it is a mutual rediscovery of the newspaper and the citizens."

Readers are an integral part of the Latin American local news model; efforts have ranged from including neighbor hood residents on the board (El Tiempo) to equipping citizen journalists with cameras to get footage during protests against President Hugo Chavez (Venezuelan daily El Nacional).

Source: Editor & Publisher 

Nearly half (46%) of internet users favor the creation of a voluntary code of conduct for bloggers and online commentators, shows a survey by legal firm DLA Piper.

Bloggers were fairly evenly split: 32% supported the application of a code reflecting laws on defamation, intellectual property and incitement, while 34% were opposed.   

According to Duncan Calow, a DLA Piper media law specialist, there is a "dangerous perception" among web users that user-generated content is "immune to the law." Three-quarters of users who had posted comments or blogged online were oblivious to libel law, while only 1 in 3 had actually read the terms and conditions of the sites they frequent.

"The combination of confusion and complacency about the relationship between the law and UGC puts users at risk as they come under increasing scrutiny online," Calow said.

Although some users will inevitably ignore the small print, online sites, newspapers included, should perhaps make the possible legal ramifications more visible. The other option is proactively fighting bad behavior by commentators.

Source: MediaGuardian 

Newly-elected London mayor Boris Johnson is halting publication of the The Londoner, the monthly promotional newspaper published by the Mayor's office.

Johnson described the decision as a move to cut "unnecessary funding," and has pledged to put the savings, up to  £1 million per year, towards planting trees in London's underprivileged areas, according to Press Gazette.

The paper is currently distributed to three million homes across Greater London.

Source: Press Gazette

The Knight Foundation and the Salzburg Global Seminar have launched the Salzburg Media Initiative, a series of joint leadership programs intended to improve the effectiveness of international news coverage, media development, journalism education, and news literacy.

The Initiative, supported by an initial three-year, $1.22 million grant, will concentrate on the year 2020, with an eye towards identifying and promoting developments, technological and otherwise, important in improving the future state of the news media.   

"We hope to help consolidate the support of influential global funders, and to educate a next generation of leaders about the critical role of independent news and information sources," said Stephen L. Salyer, President of the Salzburg Global Seminar and former CEO of U.S. Public Radio International (PRI).

Source: Knight Foundation press release

Looking at the latest figures from The Teesside Evening Gazette's network of community websites, it seems a hyperlocal focus drives online traffic.

The five largest of the Gazette's 20 hyperlocal websites (a figure which is set to increase) have a five-figure monthly unique user count not much lower than the number of households in the post-code size areas they serve, reports blogger Martin Stabe.

The largest of the websites, based in Redcar's TS10 postcode, has 16,366 monthly users in an area with 16,396 households. And Redcar's users are obviously not a captive audience; on the web, they could go anywhere. Instead they choose to use a service carrying content with a more personal dimension.    

Teesside has also capitalized on the high user numbers by reverse-publishing the community sites into hyperlocal print publications, a scheme which has proved profitable, according to Evening Gazette editor Darren Thwaites.

The moral of the story: while too much hyperlocal news may not be "sophisticated," it might just boost traffic.

Source: The Wire through David Black 

Journalists at last week's Global Inter-Media Dialogue, hosted by the Indonesian and Norwegian governments, stressed the need to "go back to basic tenets of journalism."  

Particularly targeting American journalism as practiced under the current administration, the conference denounced the widespread use by journalists of loaded terms such as "war on terror" and "Islamic terrorists," without sufficient research into their accuracy.

Participants at the conference emphasized the importance of presenting the truth as closely as possible, promoting professionalism, independence, social responsibility and tolerance of other cultures.

A point was also raised regarding the immense value of placing journalists in the field, in order that they can gain the fullest possible understanding of all sides of a story.

For a journalist who worked in Bosnia for many years, this holistic knowledge was particularly prudent: "as soon as [journalists] write stories, especially when they represent a global media firm, people take their stories as impartial."

Morever, polls show that print is more trusted that web sources, making accuracy doubly important to in-depth newspaper reporting.

Source: AsiaMedia

The Shanghai Daily, an English language newspaper in China, has launched an e-paper edition compatible with Amazon's Kindle E-reader.

The Daily says it is the first paper in Asia to release an e-paper version for the Kindle, reports Journalism.co.uk's Laura Oliver.

With the addition of The Shanghai Daily, Amazon's number of e-paper titles, including the Washington Post and The New York Times, now stands at 18.

Source: Journalism.co.uk

Lessons on the brave new world of citizen journalism via cell phones are coming from the unlikeliest of places: Disney World. Using a new website called Twisney.com, anyone strolling around a Disney park can upload live updates and images from their phone.

Believe it or not, Twisney is not a Disney project nor the work of a venture-capital incubator. Rather, it was created by a 34-year old software developer with two kids who was taking his son to Disney World on a guys-only trip, and wanted to be able to update his wife and daughter back at home.

Twisney users can send short messages to an email address provided on the website, where the messages appear overlaid on an aerial view of the theme park provided by Microsoft's Virtual Earth map. Twisney is also tied in with Twitter; all you have to do is send a Tweet to the Twisney feed. 

The posts on Twisney are a mish-mash. While some users post trivial information such as their locations or their photos, others are sharing information valuable to navigating the Disney World parks.

And therein lies the potential of these types of sites, which offer instantaneous information sharing. Writes Wall Street Journal blogger Tom Weber, "The next logical step for Twisney is to have users consistently share real-time intelligence throughout the parks."

As these services evolve and become more popular, there's an opportunity for companies like Disney "to encourage passionate customers and even participate directly in the electronic conversation." There is also a risk for logistical headaches. Imagine one person sending a message to Twisney saying that a ride has a small line; pretty soon all the park will have descended on one place.

The Twisney experiment does, however, illustrate a key truth about today's citizen journalism: it's getting easier to participate. That will inevitably increase the numbers of people who do, changing the landscape of journalism along the way.

How do newspapers cope? The most effective model, like so much in journalism at the moment, remains elusive. Some news organizations like CBS and CNN have launched their own citizen journalism websites. But offering a chance at participation alone is not enough; a good business model is equally key, as Dutch cit-J site Skoeps recently discovered. The only thing newspapers can't do is bury their head in the sand and ignore the increasing levels of amateur participation.   

Source: Wall Street Journal  through I Want Media
  

TechCrunch has become the latest blog network to go mainstream. The blog has finalized a syndication deal with WashingtonPost.com, and TechCrunch stories are already appearing on the Post's technology section.

The Washington Post, which already runs stories from paidContent.org and mocoNews.net, is the first mainstream source to sign a deal with TechCrunch.

It's an equally beneficial partnership; in the words of MediaGuardian's Jemima Kiss: "TechCrunch wants to reach a more mainstream audience, and WashingtonPost gets niche coverage from an authoritative source."

Sources: MediaGuardian, Wired

Although three national newspapers posted sales increases in April, overall national newspaper circulation in the U.K. dipped in April, according to ABC data released today.

The London Evening Standard saw the biggest sales jump (5.62%), a figure that was likely boosted by the Standard's role in covering the London mayoral elections, according to Press Gazette. The Sun and The Daily Mail also posted gains.

The Sunday market was most affected, enduring a 3.91% average circulation drop with no papers posting gains. The quality market did not fare much better; both The Guardian and The Financial Times had month to month circulation losses, although the FT has actually increased circulation over a six month period as compared to its six month average last year.

Sources: Press Gazette, Brand Republic

The New York Post has been slowly shrinking in the past two weeks, reducing from a height of 34 cm. to 30 cm. The smaller paper now appears almost square.

However, the size change has not been implemented with all published copies, and the smaller Posts were only available in certain locations, according to Editor & Publisher.

"Just like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, the NY Post will be making the size of the daily paper slightly smaller effective tomorrow," spokeswoman Suzanne Halpin said in a statement to the New York Times' City Beat blog on April 21.

Although Halpin did not touch on the reason for the reduction, an expert on the field said that such a reduction can save a publication millions of dollars on printing costs, reports Le Monde.

Sources: Editor & Publisher, Le Monde

According to TimesOnline editor-in-chief Anne Spackman, search engine optimization "is woven through the fabric of journalism and culture" at The Times.
 
Speaking the PPA conference, Spackman said that the paper placed more emphasis on search as part of its redesign in February last year, after research showed that 60% of the site's traffic is generated from search and external links. 

"It's inconceivable that we would start a new project now without the search team being involved at every single stage," Spackman said.

Blogger Pat Thornton too is stressing the importance of SEO, seeing it as the key to longevity on the web. Thornton noted that only 20% of his traffic comes from direct sources (RSS, users who have bookmarked pages), while half of the past month's traffic came from referring websites.

"I actively encourage deep linking to my content (links that go to individual content, not just my main page) and the use of my content on other blogs and social networks," Thornton writes.

Undoubtedly SEO is crucial, but Spackman said that Times staff are not being encouraged to write solely for search optimization. In her view, maintaining the quality of the brand is just as important, a sentiment shared by ClickZ's P.J. Fusco in a recent article on content optimization (see a summarized version).

In other news out of the PPA conference:
-The Telegraph is to integrate UGC from MyTelegraph across its website
-WSJ and TimesOnline to more closely integrate content

Source