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English regional newspaper publisher, Newsquest, is rolling out a revamped website.

The Lancashire Telegraph, Telegraph & Argus and The Press have all had the makeover treatment. Further Newsquest sites are expected to launch the new look in the weeks ahead.

The new-look websites have a navigation website that tretches across the top of the screen, bigger banner adverts, live traffic updates, weather reports, and a  'What's On' information on every page. Birthday, marriages and deaths are now altogether in one section titled 'Announcements' and blogs and comments are also paired together.

lancashiretelegraph.co.uk guides readers through some of the major changes.

Source: Holdthefrontpage.co.uk through IFRA Executive News Service

Newspapers are making several preparations in anticipation of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, trimming staff and putting increased focus on their online operations.

The Associated Press will provide newspapers with a service called Summer Games Plus, made possible by a deal with NBC that allows the AP to publish NBC-produced context.

According to New York Times Sports Editor Tom Jolly, the Times will utilize the AP's service "because we wanted the ability to fully cover things like lead-up events, lesser events we might not staff, and mostly agate events."
 
The Tribune Company's papers, which include the LA Times, the Chicago Tribune, and the Baltimore Sun, will share reporters to provide the widest range of coverage.

The Boston Globe is among the papers sharpening its web coverage. According to sports editor Joe Sullivan, the paper is bringing "a full-time multimedia person...in charge solely of producing products for the Web."

The Globe will also bring a Chinese reporter "to help with the language and cultural stuff."

Check out some past coverage of the Beijing Olympics:

Human Rights Watch Guide for Reporting
BBC Coverage
Journalists Manage Expectations

Source: Editor and  Publisher

Dave Stancliffe, a columnist at The Eureka Reporter in the USA, has published a unilateral condemnation of outsourcing. He asks: where do we draw the line with outsourcing?

Outsourcing may begin with ad production and layout, but where will the financiers look to next in their drive for efficiency? Is this the beginning of a wholesale move in search of cheaper labour, or is it a one-off reaction to a competitive market?

"I dread to see what will be outsourced next. Newspaper editors perhaps? Somewhere along the line we're losing more than just jobs," writes Stancliffe, citing issues of diminishing public trust if their local papers are edited overseas.

This is a serious question, especially for local newspapers. Pulitzer Prize-winning local newspaper, The Orange County Register, outsourced its copy editing and page design function to India after struggling with falling ad revenues. As Stancliffe writes, "The writing was on the wall in 2006 when they started offering a voluntary severance program."

If a paper is being copy-edited in another country, can it really still be called a "local newspaper"?

However, the wholesale relocation of newspapers to India or any other country is still unlikely. Most newspaper owners are well aware that to provide news to their communities they have to be a part of those communities. Running a newspaper is difficult enough without having to consider time-zone differences when chasing a story.

Early reports on outsourcing indicate that it is not always plane sailing. However, we will have to wait and see how these newspapers fare in their efficiency drive. Maybe this innovation will prove successful.

Source: The Eureka Reporter

IHT.com has announced a new iPhone-optimized web site. The entire site is based on AJAX, allowing for quick downloads.

IHT blogger Michael Cosentino acknowledged there are still bugs in the system, notably compatibility issues with some Safari features. "The iPhone site is still very much a work in progress. We wanted to get the core functionality in place first," wrote Cosentino.

The IHT plans to continue developing the site from its current barebones frame, including plans to soon add an "E-mail Article" option.

It's expected other papers will soon follow suit, the New York Times has already announced plans for an iPhone application, which will be released later this month.

Source: IHT Developer Blog through Journalism.co.uk

The World Association of Newspapers and World Editors Forum have called for the repeal of a punitive "luxury" tax on newspapers that are imported into Zimbabwe, which is preventing independent newspapers from reaching their audience.

The tax was imposed in early June in the run-up to the widely condemned presidential election won by Robert Mugabe after his opponent quit the race in the face of escalating violence against his supporters. It aims to reduce the influence of South African-based news sources, which have been extremely important to Zimbabweans.

"Restricting access to information by punitive taxation constitutes a clear breach of the right to freedom of expression, which is guaranteed by numerous international conventions, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights," the Paris-based WAN and WEF, which represent 18,000 newspapers world-wide, said in a letter to President Mugabe.

The two organisations called on Mugabe to remove the luxury tax on foreign publications and to end state intimidation of the independent media. All domestic independent newspapers and broadcasters in Zimbabwe are banned.

During its coverage of the upcoming Olympics, broadcaster NBC intends to engage in a massive audience measurement research, involving not only TV viewers but also other media platforms, such as on-demand video and mobile technology.

Working with Quantcast, NBC will determine the number NBCOlympics.com unique users, video stream viewers, page views and time spent on the Web.

NBC will also:

-work with Knowledge Networks to conduct an online study of 500 Olympics viewers per day for the duration of the games, to decide who is watching what at given times
-use IMMI phone technology and special chips installed in phones, which will track the platforms users are viewing thanks to sound bytes
-conduct an Olympic Qualitative Panel that selects people from major markets, interviews them and places them into focus groups

Advertisers will then have access to the research material obtained, which might help them in the future. The research may also help other online media sites to target their audiences better.

Source: MediaWeek

The Sunday Times unveiled its new design, which includes colour-coded content, increased colour usage, minimal changes in the basic architecture and typeface alterations.



The Times' move to a different printing plant has brought on a change in the use of colour, editor John Witherow said. Not only are the paper's sections colour-coded, colours are used to distinguish different types of reporting (i.e. the Comment section in green, news stories in blue and special reports in red).  

"For the first time in its 186-year history, every page of every section of this newspaper can now be published in colour. It was these new presses that prompted a comprehensive review of how we produce and present the paper, and the design you see today is the result. We were keen to use colour to maximum effect without going over the top," Witherow said.

Although there have been changes to the structure of the paper, such as moving The Weather section and India Knight's column or expanding the Comment section, the basic blueprint of the paper remains the same.

 "We have brought in much that is new, but not at the expense of the old," Witherow said.

Source: The Sunday Times

In the last year, the Wall Street Journal's web site - one of the few news sites still requiring a paid subscription - has nearly doubled its user-base, with a 94% increase since June 2007. The site now reaches 16.2 million users.

While many sites requiring subscriptions flounder -- just last week, the Irish Times dropped their subscription-based platform, relaunching as a free site, and earlier this year the Atlantic Monthly also dropped their online paywall -- the Wall Street Journal has been uncommonly successful.

The site offers a mix of free and paid content. The Journal's breaking-news alerts and personal-finance, opinion and lifestyle content, as well as videos, blogs, podcasts and other interactive elements are all available free.

Even with a fee - print subscribers pay $49 a year for a web subscription - WSJ Online attracts more than one million subscribers and 10 million monthly unique visitors.

In 2007, WSJ.com generated about $60 million in subscription revenue. To put this in perspective, making up that revenue in ad sales would require WSJ.com to increase traffic by more than 20 million unique monthly visitors.

Sources: Media Week, The Wall Street Journal
 

In an article two weeks ago, despite objections from the Central Intelligence Agency and Deuce Martinez's lawyer, the New York Times chose to identify Martinez as the interrogator "who used shrewd psychology, not rough stuff, to get Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, to talk."

Clark Hoyt, NYT public editor explained the paper's decision in his Sunday column. The paper has faced criticism and reader's questions on their decision not to withhold Martinez's name.

"I understand how readers can think that if there is any risk at all, a person like Martinez should never be identified," wrote Hoyt. "But going in that direction... would leave news organizations hobbled when trying to tell the public about some of the government's most important and controversial actions."

The Times faced a classic journalistic dilemma. The paper had the duty to deliver accurate and substantive information, as well as maintain their journalistic independence, while balancing this with the obligation to seriously consider the consequences to a key stakeholder.

Bob Steele, of the Poynter Institute, was consulted by Hoyt after the decision, and discussed the issues in his Everyday Ethics column.

"This story is powerful in its substance. That power is enhanced by the specific use of Deuce Martinez's name," explained Steele. "Granted, the Times chose to use his nickname, Deuce, rather than his real first name, apparently to offer him some level of identity protection. But the use of his surname and nickname helps the paper achieve one of its primary objectives: bolstering the credibility of its reporting."

Steele did question "whether Times editors went far enough in seeking additional input from knowledgeable, independent individuals who could assess the potential risks to Martinez's personal safety and that of his family." Although the Times received input from Agency officials and Bob Bennet, the attorney representing Martinez, the Times did not seek "independent" voices who were not connected to the story, but might still be able to assess the potential risk to Martinez and his family.

Sources: The New York Times, Poynter Online

Since its relaunch April 1, Cosmopolitan.co.uk's web traffic has surged. According to Journalism.co.uk, the Cosmo site has increased the number of unique users visiting the site by 136 per cent in May compared to a traffic audit from October 2007 -- the most recent information available from the Audit Bureau of Circulation Electronic.

According to the Nedstat data used by Journalism.co.uk, the Hearst Digital site registered 415,165 unique visitors in May up from 176,385 users recorded by ABCE in October. Page views over this period also doubled from 2,388,532 in October to 5,131,472 in May.

Hearst originally set targets of five million page views and 500,000 unique monthly visitors by the end of 2008, said Hearst Digital managing director Alex Ballantyne.

"We're pretty much on track to achieve those numbers this month or next month when at the start of the year we said we'd try and achieve that by December. We're well ahead of the curve with Cosmo, it has been a fantastic response from the market," said Ballantyne.

Ballantyne credited the site's success to "a new SEO-friendly platform built specifically for the launch, improved knowledge of the importance of tagging for search amongst editors and substantial cross promotion through magazine and across its network of sites had contributed to the traffic gains," reported Journalism.co.uk.

The site's relaunch has added a host of new features, most significantly the online video service CosmoTV. The video channel features a mix of clips from "red carpet" events and shows in addition to in-house video, including "how to's" on hair and make-up.

Duncan Edwards, the CEO of NetMags, that creates most of the video content, said they originally considered getting content froma  third party, like Videolug, but decided to create original clips instead.

According to the Guaradian.co.uk, the Cosmopolitan relaunch tests the water for Hearst Digital, which will snow et about ramping up Allaboutyou.com, the portal for content from magazine titles House Beautiful, Coast, Prima, Good Housekeeping, Country Living and She.

Sources: Journalism.co.uk, Guardian.co.uk

Stephen Glover of the Independent does not deny newspapers' bleak economic condition, but believes the industry is "not as troubled" as some think it to be.

Glover opens with a stream of negative information concerning newspapers: plummeting profits, battered circulation numbers, and increased layoffs. He says, however, these numbers are more fairly attributed to cyclical economic conditions rather than to the decline of the newspaper.

"No one could deny that there are problems ahead but my message is that the whole picture for newspapers is not as dire as fevered minds in the City appear to believe," Glover writes.

As proof Glover offers examples of several newspaper organizations experiencing financial success, such as News International and Pearson. These organizations, he says, "should not be tarred with the same brush."

And though Glover admits some papers "have structural problems", he insists investors are overreacting.
 
"The sudden level of panic is hardly justified," he writes.

Source: The Independent

Human Rights Watch has released a guidebook for the estimated 25,000 journalists traveling for to China to cover the Olympic games. The "survival guide" covers reporters' risks and rights, human rights issues outside the arena, tips on dealing with censorship and the police, protecting Chinese contacts, and the "Great Firewall" of internet censorship.

In 2001, Wang Wei, vice president of the Beijing Olympics organizing committee, said, "We will give the media complete freedom to report when they come to China."

This commitment was central to Beijing's successful '08 Olympic bid, having failed to win the 2000 Summer Games; however, China remains the leading jailer of journalists and continues to censor the internet and retaliate against citizen sources critical of the government.

The guidebook is available as a free download here.

Source: New York Times' Olympic blog, Rings

Cholpon Orozobekova, editor of Bishkek-based De Facto newspaper announced last Tuesday that publication will stop until at least 20 August, due to harassment from the authorities. Over two weeks ago, the paper was accused of printing false information about the Kyrgyz Taxes and Duties Committee, CNW Group reported.

The 12 June issue featured a reader's letter complaining about corruption in the capital's tax department. Taalaibek Dalbaev, the head of the Kyrgyz Taxes and Duties Committee, promptly filed for libel and the persecutor's office took legal action against the paper.

The persecutor's office concluded that the letter was fake and a warrant was obtained to search the newspaper's office. The paper was searched twice, its financial assets and bank account frozen.

Last Tuesday, Nurlanbek Chakiev, a presidential spokesperson sais that the authorities do not plan to shut De Facto down. However, he mentioned that the paper defied professional ethics.

"The decision to bring a criminal prosecution against the newspaper instead of a civil suit, the freezing of its accounts, the threats received by its editor and the speed with which the judicial authorities acted are all disproportionate and suggest that real aim is to force De Facto to close," said Reporters Without Borders.

Various organizations have questioned the viability of press freedom in Kyrgystan and whether  the government permits independent media to function correctly, reported Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty.

Source: CNW Group through World News

Staff at leading German newspaper Berliner Zeitung have placed an advertisement in a rival publication seeking a new owner. Berliner Zeitung is owned by Mecom, a leading European newspaper and content company.

The advertisement appears to be a reaction to the announcement last week that a quarter (130) of the editorial staff at Berliner Zeitung will be made redundant.

In a recent interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel the Chief Executive of Mecom, David Montgomery, played down the problems that his company is having in Berlin.

Montgomery said that the issues have been caused by, "isolated rabble rousers who are trying to stop time". He went on to say that times have changed for newspapers.

Under the title, "Publish Wanted", the advertisement stated the journalists were looking for a "serious buyer who doesn't just produce a paper to make money".

The Berliner Zeitung's editor-in-chef Josef Depenbrock has been a controversial figure at the newspaper ever since Montgomery gave him the dual role of managing editor and editor-in-chief.

The paper's editorial department failed in an attempt to bring proceedings against Mecom and Josef Depenbrock on Wednesday. They argued that his dual role at the paper went against the paper's statutes. The case was thrown out of court.

Sources reported to MediaGuardian.co.uk that a strike by Berliner Zeitung is likely later in the month.

Mecom announced last week that it will cut up to 465 jobs at its Dutch regional business Wegener.

Source: Guardian

See also:

Netherlands: editors-in-chief complain to Mecom, concerned over editorial quality

Germany: Montgomery continues to incite anger at Berliner Zeitung