Results matching “obs should head lib”

The British Photographic Council (BPC) has irately reacted in response to the informal meetings between UK press photographers and CO19, the Metropolitan Police's Specialist Firearms Command, that were meant to establish a new pixellation policy that would allow the blurring of firearms police officers in order to protect their identity.

The photographers who attended the meetings mentioned that while they agreed to boost cooperation between the police and the press, it was up to their editors to decide on the blurring of photographs, reported the Press Gazette last week.

According to Journalism.co.uk, Paul Stewart, who spoke on behalf of the BPC, pointed out that it isn't up to the police but up to the editors to decide what to publish or broadcast.

He said, "Once images are recorded, we have no power to delete or confiscate them without a court order, even if we think they contain damaging or useful evidence."

"We are in no position legally or morally to start making demands... but there are welfare and safety issues and, to be fair, the photographers here understood that," said Chief Superintendent Bill Tillbrook, head of CO19.

However Tillbrook expressed concern about the safety of officers, following past occurrences that had criminals ldig up information about officers' identities.

"The guidelines for police clearly state: members of the media have a duty to take photographs and film incidents and we have no legal power or moral responsibility to prevent or restrict what they record," said Stewart.

The Metropolitan Police has assured the BPC that they will not be "issuing guidelines to picture desks across all London papers soon," as was written in the Press Gazette.

Source: Journalism.co.uk, Press Gazette

The Star Tribune announces that it is transforming its online edition into a blog that will allow for the site to be updated regularly and for interaction between readers and editorial staff to be increased so as to "reinvent" print and online opinion journalism, reports StarTribune.com.

"We have two products, the Web-based one and the newsprint one. The newsprint one doesn't change during the day, because it can't. The Web-based one can, but it doesn't, because we use it mainly to present a snapshot of what we were thinking and writing about yesterday. I realized we could turn that model on its head by making the Web version change throughout the day and letting the newsprint version handle the snapshot,'' said Eric Ringham, the paper's commentary editor.

On weekdays, the Opinion Exchange section will feature a summary of daily Editorial Board meetings and encourage readers to provide their opinions, which may "inform" and possibly "influence" editorial views. "Traditional" editorials will be posted alongside opinions that evolve throughout the day, such as columns and YouTube videos.

The "best" of Opinion Exchange will be published in the following day's paper, writes SrtarTribune.com.

Source: StarTribune.com

The editors of Kyrgyzstan oppositional newspaper Alibi were arrested last night, after the paper was accused of refusing to pay over US$ 28,000 towards Asilbek Saliev, the nephew of President Kurmanbek Bakiev and son of national security head Janibek Bakiev, reports Lenta.ru.

The paper's staff mentions that they were not refusing to pay the sum, but simply asking to have the payment delayed by three months.

De Facto, another oppositional title, published an article (which Alibi re-published later) suggesting that the nephew was involved in a car accident that killed a pedestrian. The author of the article noted that investigations into the accident were lagging because of Saliev's status.

Saliev filed a lawsuit against both papers and won in both cases. In addition to the US$ 28,000 that both papers were ordered disburse to Saliev, the author of the article had to pay US$80 to him personally.

De Facto put a halt on publishing on June 12, following harassment from authorities. The paper published content that suggested that the Kyrgyz Taxes and Duties Committee was corrupted.

Numerous organizations have questioned the extent to which press freedom exists in Kyrgyzstan and whether the state allows for journalists to report freely.

Source: Lenta.ru

See also:
Kyrgyzstan: newspaper forced to stop publication, pressure from authorities

The Federal Mass Media Inspection Service accused the St. Petersburg edition of Russian daily newspaper Novaya Gazeta of advocating hatred towards Georgians, warning the paper that it risks being shut down if it defies the media and extremism laws again.

UK newspapers The Express & Star and Shropshire Star launched mobile editions of their sites, with the focus being put on news and sports content.  The mobile site will be updated throughout the day so as to provide breaking news stories.

MNA Digital, the publisher's online division, and Wapple, a mobile technology company based in Bromsgrove, developed the sites. According to MNA, the mobile versions are meant to "complement the existing print and online products".

The sites support images and text, and readers are allowed to comment on articles, reported Journalism.co.uk.

"Print customers are used to being able to take their MNA newspaper anywhere, now the digital audience can access content on the move," said David Ratcliffe, MNA's head of digital, to explain the popularity of MNA sites.

The Express & Star site had 380,000 unique users and 6.6 million pageviews in June. Meanwhile, the Shropshire Star attained 120,000 unique users and 2 million pageviews.

Source: Journalism.co.uk

Germany's Deutsche Telekom is developing a portable e-reader that could be competition for Amazon's Kindle.

They are currently planning a test run with a few dozen of prototypes in Berlin. Pictures of the product, whose code name is "News4me", have not been revealed yet.

Peter Möckel, head of Deutsche Telekom's R&D department, said the "company sees a market in the gap between mobile phones and laptops."

However, Deutsche Telecom won't manufacture the devices, nor will they offer any kind of content, according to CrunchGear. Unlike with Kindle, the users will just have to download content from print media onto their e-readers (no RSS, online news, and so forth).

The researchers are trying to keep the "form" as similar as possible to articles in the printed format. According to one of the engineers, Kindle is in the right direction but DT's News4me will have a larger (and possibly flexible) display, and it will be easier to operate.

France Telecom's Orange is also working on a similar project called "Read&Go". Kindle is not in either the French or the German market.

Source: CrunchGear

An alliance between Yahoo and more than 775 newspapers has helped the papers ramp up online readership, according to Yahoo.

Links on Yahoo, Yahoo Sports or Yahoo Finance facilitate access to newspaper websites such as The Dallas Morning News, which can receive up to 800.000 visitors in a couple of hours. According to its deputy managing editor, Anthony Moor, visits through Yahoo links represent "27% of the day's page views, and 65% of the day's unique visitors."

The New York Daily News has also seen its visits increase, its vice president Jon Beck acknowledges that Yahoo links brings "a steady growth of traffic" to their site.

For Yahoo, this alliance allows them to give their readers a "more valuable local perspective" according to Scott Moore, senior vice president and head of media at Yahoo.

Source: Editor & Publisher

Telegraph Media Group (TMG) has signed a deal with Google, after a six-month trial, which will enable its journalists to access email and share documents and other information through Google's applications, journalism.co.uk reports.

This deal is part of TMG plans to move towards a "cloud computing" model."

"The flexibility of having applications online is of special interest in the media sector where journalists need to be able to collaborate with others on copy," said Robert Whiteside, head UK and Ireland for Google's enterprise division.

Source: cyberjournalist.net

Do women face a glass ceiling in the blogosphere? Organizers and attendees of BlogHer, the three-year-old conference attended by more than a thousand female bloggers, think so.

Last year, a study co-authored by BlogHer and Compass Partners found that 36 million women (about 11 percent of all US women) participate in the blogosphere each week, and 15 million of them have their own blogs.

Yet, when Techcult, a technology Web site, ranked its top 100 Web celebrities, only 11 of them were women. And last year, Forbes.com created a similar list, naming just 3 women on its list of 25.

"It's disheartening and frustrating," said Allison Blass, a BlogHer attendee whose personal blog at www.lemonade-life.com is about living with Type 1 diabetes.

Created in 2005 to help female bloggers gain exposure, this year's San Francisco event "has since evolved into a corporate-sponsored Oprah-inflected version of a '60s consciousness-raising group," reported the New York Times.

"These days, there is money to be made, fame to be earned and influence to be gained," reports NYT. "And though women and men are creating blogs in roughly equal numbers, many women at the conference... belie(ve) that they are not taken as seriously as their male counterparts... Nor, they said, were they making much money, even though corporations seem to be making money from them."

The conference hosted seminars like "How to Take Names and Be Taken Seriously as a Political Blogger," where many women said that their male colleagues and major media groups undercut them, and linked to them less often.

Megan McArdle, who blogs for the Atlantic monthly about economic issues, did no attend the conference, but noted "Women get dismissed in ways that men don't." "(McArdle) added that women are taught not to be aggressive and analytical in the way that the political blogosphere demands, and are more likely to receive blog comments on how they look, rather than what they say," reported NYT.

Confronting the issue head on, and encouraging those women fighting the tide, Enkay recently created the first Top 100 Female Bloggers list and NxE created a 50 most influential female bloggers list, earlier this month.

Sources: The New York Times, About.com

Trinity Mirror announced it is developing a mobile site for two national papers, including the Daily Mirror and the Daily Record and 12 regional newspapers.

Each publication will have a print version, an online edition and a mobile site, which shows that the newspaper industry is a "growing multiplatform media business", according to Rick Gleave, head of Trinity Mirror interactive and mobile.

Nokia and Bluestar mobile (responsible for New York Post's site launch) helped develop the sites.

Regional newspapers to have their sites developed include the Newcastle Evening Chronicle, the Newcastle Journal, the Teeside Evening Gazette, the Liverpool Daily Post, Liverpool Echo, the Huddersfield Examiner, the Daily Post Wales, the Western Mail, the South Wales Echo, the Birmingham Mail, the Birmingham Post, and the Coventry Telegraph.

Source: Journalism.co.uk

A new law will protect journalists investigating into corruption in Russia, starting from the beginning of 2009. The law will give them the same protection as court witnesses, reported Russia Today.
 
 "We need to have a clear mechanism of legal regulation on every journalist publication. We need investigations of prosecutor's offices, and some administrative measures if they prove necessary. Only then we'll feel the feedback and reaction on the part of the authorities. And we need journalists to be protected," said Kirill Kabanov, head of the National Anti-Corruption Committee.

This comes as a significant improvement in a country that is the third deadliest in the world for reporters, after Iraq and Algeria. Around 50 journalists have been killed in over 15 years, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and many cases remain unsolved.

Source: Russia Today

See also:
Russia: Politkovskaya murder suspects caught
Russia: Kremlin adviser resigns over reporter's murder
GÖTEBORG: EXTENDED VIDEO - Garry Kasparov challenges Russian press freedom at World Editors Forum
Russia: English-language paper shuts down after government raid

Robert Murat has settled his libel action with eight British newspapers over claims he was involved in Madeleine McCain's disappearance. The Press Gazette raises an interesting point, does this win increase the pressure on journalists and Editors? Is the legal climate now worse?

Murat's action is the largest number of claims ever made against several different British media outlets in the same case. He initially launched his libel suit in April. Sky News reports that the damages total between £250,000 and £500,000.

Niri Shan, head of media at law firm Taylor Wessing said: "This was a perfectly legitimate story. The question is how can you write it in a safe way. There is a lot of pressure on newspapers now."

The Press Gazette reports that Shan went on to say that this case reflects a trend for suing several targets rather than just one. He also believes that the increasing popularity of "no-win, no fee" conditional fee agreement deals remove any financial concerns for claimants.

Murat was seeking a formal public apology and undisclosed damages from Sky, the Daily Express, Sunday Express, Daily Star, Daily Mail, London Evening Standard, Metro, Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror, News of the World, Sun and the Scotsman.

Please let us know your thoughts.

Sources: Press Gazette and Guardian

What if we left journalism to journalists and the technology to Google?

Jeff Jarvis contemplates such a partnership, sparked by a recent discussion with Edward Roussel, head of digital for the Telegraph.

Jarvis paraphrases Rouseel's argument, saying, "Google already is the key distributor online... Google is great at technology and newspapers aren't and for the future, where are the best technologists going to go? Google. Google is also brilliant at selling ads and Edward even wondered where the best sales talent would go in the future: there or a paper? So why not hand over those segments of the business to Google and concentrate on what a newspaper should do: journalism?"

Source: BuzzMachine

The Chairman of the UK's Press Complaints Commission (PCC), Sir Christopher Meyer, is to stand down in March of 2009. This will be the end of his second three-year term in office.

Under Meyer's watch, the PCC confirmed that it would regulate newspaper and magazine websites.

His resignation comes at a time when the UK's major political parties have stated their support for self-regulation of the press.

The position of PCC chairman will be advertised.

Source: Guardian and Press Gazette

Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, says his document-leaking site is helping journalists change the world.

"Imagine a world where companies and government must keep the public, or their employees, or both, happy with their plans, and behavior," Assange says. "That is the world we are striving to create."

Wikileaks has been responsible for the leaking of several major news stories: the U.S. military's operating manuals for its detention facility at Guantanamo Bay; lists of U.S. munitions in Iraq; reports of the looting of Kenya by former president Daniel Arap Moi.

For investigative journalists, this powerful new resource has the potential to provide an endless stream of stories. Assange is beginning to tweak Wikileaks to better accommodate journalists, pre-releasing selected documents to reporters. He is also considering making Wikileaks a subscription service for journalists.

Though Steven Aftergood, head of the Federation of American Scientists' Secrecy Project, is critical of Wikileaks' indiscriminate release policy, he admits Wikileaks could be a powerful tool for journalists.

"Working reporters can use all the help and sources they can get, and Wikileaks does have a track record of getting their hands on documents that other people haven't," Aftergood says. "It also has the potential to introduce another layer of editorial judgment and I believe in editorial judgment on matters of confidentiality."