Editors Weblog: Search Results

Newspaper liveblogs local council meetings

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on February 9, 2010 at 12:12 PM

A newspaper in Manchester has been using various multimedia tools to liveblog council meetings from across the Greater Manchester Area, Press Gazette reports.

Meetings of the local authorities are attended by a reporter from the Manchester Evening News (MEN) or one of its sister weekly publications. Reporters then use Twitter to file updates minute-by-minute. Their updates are then streamed on MEN websites using CoverItLive technology, which allows liveblogging and other forms of real-time updating.

The MEN has so far used this to report on meetings of the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities and the Greater Manchester Police Authority. The newspaper wants to extend the service so that it can cover every full meeting held by ten local authorities across Greater Manchester.

German news websites put up paywalls: Morgenpost and Abendblatt

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on February 8, 2010 at 12:40 PM

German publisher Axel Springer has made good on its promises and put up online paywalls for two of its German newspapers, Paid Content reports.

Two of its newspapers, the Berliner Morgenpost and the Hamburger Abendblatt, are now charging for online content. It now costs €4.95 a month for access to all content on morgenpost.de. By contrast, abendblatt.de has a mixture of free and premium content, with a premium subscription priced at €7.95 a month. It appears to charge extra for content specific to the Hamburg region while providing national news for free. Subscriptions for both sites are renewed on a monthly basis.

Three French dailies undergo redesigns

Posted by Helena Humphrey on January 27, 2010 at 5:07 PM

The Amaury group, responsible for both Le Parisien and L'Equipe, has given its publications a face life this week, with all 48 pages of the former appearing in colour for the first time on Tuesday, and divided into five new sections: Fact of the day, News, Local News, Sports and Leisure.

L'Equipe is set to integrate three new pages into its design, the first appearing today, the second in Thursday's edition and the third in Friday's, as a response to reader surveys. From March the publication will introduce a motoring section, which will appear every Monday- intended to deal with the production of cars as opposed to buying and selling.

Success for citizen journalism fundraising efforts: Allvoices

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on January 27, 2010 at 3:28 PM

Citizen journalism website AllVoices has raised another $3 million in funds, bringing their total start-up funding to around $9 million, TechCrunch reports. The new funding comes courtesy of existing investor VantagePoint Venture Partners.

Since its launch in July 2008, the site has seen its audience grow to almost 5 million unique visitors a month, which is considered fast for a media startup. Half of its traffic and visitors are from outside the US and the UK.

The New York Times creates unit for electronic editions

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on January 26, 2010 at 12:47 PM

As speculation mounts about the expected launch of the Apple tablet computer, The New York Times has announced that it will create a new business unit dedicated to electronic editions.

Yasmin Namini, currently the senior vice president of marketing and circulation, has been appointed head of the new Reader Applications division. This unit will be part of the Media Group, joining the newspaper, the website, the International Herald Tribune and News Services.

Toronto Star reduces job cuts

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on January 20, 2010 at 11:12 AM

The Toronto Star has cancelled plans to outsource editing jobs, in a move that will substantially reduce the number of job cuts planned.

The newspaper announced in November that it was outsourcing all copy-editing and cutting 78 editing jobs, eight of which were part-time and the rest full-time. This constitutes one fifth of its total editorial staff of 390. Revenue at the paper's parent company, Torstar, had fallen 13% in the last quarter and the cuts were expected to save around $4 million a year.

The union and the paper have reached a deal to keep editing duties as part of the internal operations, saving around 35 jobs. The rest will still be cut, though, through layoffs and voluntary redundancies. Design and layout of the paper's ads will still be outsourced.

Hadfield leaves digital role at TMG in favour of "entrepreneurial future"

Posted by Helena Humphrey on January 15, 2010 at 4:34 PM

Greg Hadfield, Telegraph Media Group's head of digital development is to leave the newspaper group after only a year in the role. He made the announcement at the news:rewired event yesterday, organised by Journalism.co.uk. TMG today issued a statement saying: "Greg Hadfield was employed at TMG on a 12-month contract which expired at the end of last week. It was mutually agreed that this would not be renewed."

How blogging has changed journalism and the BBC

Posted by Maria Conde on January 15, 2010 at 1:12 PM

"Blogging is the biggest change to BBC journalism", Kevin Marsh, the head of the corporation's College of Journalism, said at the Journalism rewired conference. He added that blogging by senior figures like Robert Peston and Nick Robinson has helped to fundamentally change the way BBC delivers its news.

Kevin Marsh told conference attendees that in the last couple of years, the BBC had shifted its news focus away from its traditional TV bulletins, adopting a "live and continuous" model centered on multimedia content on the web, according to the PressGazette.

AP's new social network manager interviewed

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on January 13, 2010 at 2:57 PM

All AP journalists should use social media, and more AP accounts will be rolled out on social networks in the coming weeks, according to AP's new manager of social networks Lauren McCullough. In an interview with Steve Myers on Poynter Online, McCullough has explained her vision of an active two-way conversation about the news.

"Social media plays a central role in our newsgathering," she says, adding that social networks are used both to build sources and monitor trends. At the same time, the AP seeks to distribute its content through social networks, such as on their new winter Olympics website, optimised for social sharing. Accompanying Twitter and Facebook accounts are planned.

True to his word: Murdoch blocks news aggregator

Posted by Helena Humphrey on January 11, 2010 at 12:02 PM

Towards the end of last year, Rupert Murdoch, head of News International, spoke out against news aggregators. In an interview with Sky News Australia, he condemned the likes of Google as nothing more than "thieves", intent on stealing content from his newspaper's websites for their own benefit. The media mogul has long wielded threats of removing all News International articles from search indexes and implementing stringent paywalls around all his websites by the end of 2010.

It's only January, but Murdoch has already set about putting his plans into action: On Friday, the Guardian reported that News International is to prevent the aggregator NewsNow.co.uk from linking to content found on the Times Online website, by changing its search engine settings via the robots.txt protocol.

AP names social network manager

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on January 7, 2010 at 12:08 PM

Lauren McCullough has been named as the new manager of Social Networks and News Engagement for the Associated Press, the Los Angeles Times has reported.

Her role will include helping reporters to reach online communities, finding story material on social networks, informing editors of high interest topics within social networks, and promoting AP stories on social networks and in the blogosphere.

She will head the Social Network Center, one of the four sections of the new AP Nerve Center, or headquarters, in New York. The other components are standards, production, and the news center. The new heads of the News Center, Sally Buzbee and Tamer Fakahany, were announced this week.

Dow Jones restructure sees WSJ, news wire and businesses combine

Posted by Helena Humphrey on January 5, 2010 at 4:42 PM

In the biggest reorganisation since News Corp bought Dow Jones in 2007, the company has merged its consumer and enterprise operations, uniting The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones Newswires, Barron's, MarketWatch and Factiva for the first time.

Of the move, Dow Jones Chief Executive Les Hinton said: "This structure will provide the focus to make us faster and better than our rivals at identifying and meeting customer needs."

Trinity national titles and websites get apps to call their own

Posted by Nestor Bailly on December 16, 2009 at 6:17 PM

The Trinity Mirror's national daily titles will get dedicated iPhone applications, as will its 3am.co.uk and Mirrorfootball.co.uk websites, MediaGuardian reports.

The Daily Mirror and Daily Record apps will be free but the site apps will have a one-time download charge, to be announced with the apps' release early next year.

This comes amid a spate of app releases by Western newspapers, especially in the UK: The Guardian, Kent News, and Telegraph have all recently released iPhone apps.

Daily News takes advantage of new colour printing presses

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on December 14, 2009 at 5:37 PM

The New York Daily News can now print every page in colour, as its three new high-speed printing presses have whirred into action earlier this month.

Although the upgrade will increase efficiency and reduce waste, spending $200 million on equipment in the midst of a recession does appear to contravene conventional business wisdom.

But owner of the tabloid Mort Zuckerman told Crain's New York Business that he hopes that the resulting high-quality images will attract more advertising dollars, as high-end brands prefer to see their advertisements in the arresting visual format common to European newspapers or luxury magazines.

10 redundancies at Guardian News & Media

Posted by Helena Humphrey on December 11, 2009 at 5:20 PM

At least ten redundancies have been confirmed at the Guardian News & Media group, as part of a plan to reduce the operation of 1,700 by 100 over the next year.

In an email to staff sent yesterday, managing director, Tim Brooks wrote:

"I can now confirm that all conversations in commercial departments have taken place. Although many of the decisions have been driven by the need to reduce our costs to a more sustainable level in line with our reduced revenues, another key factor has been the need to create a more efficient structure for GNM."

Washington Times has good revenue idea; bad execution

Posted by Betsey Reinsborough on December 10, 2009 at 1:20 PM

The newspaper industry is struggling. Circulation is down, layoffs are ubiquitous, but fortunately, the industry is not taking it lying down. Even though most US newspapers are still turning a profit, the wheels are turning to come up with alternative revenue streams. The Washington Times recently used an interesting strategy to raise outside funds- though it was executed with less than complete application.

The paper was originally going to have a festive Cruise for America! around the Bahamas, during which the passengers could attend lively discussions such as "Where is America Headed Under President Barack Hussein Obama?" and "Who Will Emerge As the Next Republican Party Leader?"; however, the Times all but backed out of the event before it even left port.

Times Online to relaunch with paywall

Posted by Nestor Bailly on December 10, 2009 at 1:16 PM

The Times head honchos realize that they must innovate to create a desirable and competitive product before they can put up paywalls.

Times Media's digital development head Hector Arthur and News International's strategy and product development director Dominic Young remained calm and confident of their new paid content strategy at a panel organized by Microsoft's MSN UK HQ.

In terms of the potential problems with advertisers that paywalls present, Arthur said that "It's important we talk with the ad agencies to figure out how things will be in that world ...we need a constructive dialogue."

Making Google pay, the Axel Springer way

Posted by Helena Humphrey on December 9, 2009 at 3:37 PM

Rupert Murdoch is not the only mogul looking to make money from online content - it's just that what with the intense media circus surrounding his rants, not to mention the severity of his accusations (think calling Google and Yahoo out and out thieves on international TV) he's the only one we've really heard about of late.

Led by Matthias Döpfner, Axel Springer, publisher of Europe's biggest daily, Das Bild, and other newspapers across Germany and Eastern Europe, is plotting the numerous ways in which it too can go about monetising its content online.

Christoph Keese, Springer's head of public affairs, said: "The meta-philosophy of free - we should get rid of this philosophy. A highly industrialized world cannot survive on rumours. It needs quality journalism, and that costs money." Döpfner added: "I see no justification, neither democratic nor market-related, for content to be generally free on the Internet. For centuries, people have been willing to pay for things of interest to them."

Telegraph gets readers involved with app contest

Posted by Nestor Bailly on December 8, 2009 at 4:39 PM

The newest version of the Telegraph iPhone app allows users to contribute breaking stories or average everyday happenings to telegraph.co.uk.

Every day for seven days (December 4th - 10th), a story uploaded via the app will be selected to run on telegraph.co.uk. The author of the selected story will receive £100 worth of iTunes vouchers.

"All you have to do is send us words or images (or both) of something you think is newsworthy - maybe you've spotted a celebrity, seen someone do something heroic or had prime seats at an event," the Telegraph website reads. "By clicking on the 'Report' button, users can upload a photo and give a brief eyewitness account of breaking news."

U.S. Federal Trade Commission will consider government subsidies for newspapers

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on December 8, 2009 at 10:44 AM

Government aid for newspapers is in the spotlight again, The Wall Street Journal reports. The head of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the U.S. has announced plans to examine whether subsidies and regulatory changes should be implemented.

Speaking at its workshop last week, FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said that his agency will consider whether the government should exempt news organisations from antitrust laws, change copyright laws, or allow them special tax treatment.

Sports newspapers: the importance of multimedia and the potential for paid online content

Posted by Emma Heald on December 7, 2009 at 6:16 PM

At the International Association of Sports Newspapers workshop last week, editors spoke about the way that multimedia news has affected their newsrooms, and how they hope to make more money online. The workshop was held at the World Newspaper Congress in Hyderabad, India.

Gianni Valenti, deputy editor of Italy's La Gazzetta dello Sport, described key steps for the transition to multimedia sports delivery: changing the mindset of journalists, training and convincing them to accept and exploit new media, increasingly integrating the newsrooms, and changing working structures of the organisation. He stressed the need for prompt action, saying that "multimedia is not something for the future, it is something here and now and must be developed and managed quickly."

Microsoft quashes publishers' hopes

Posted by Jennifer Lush on December 7, 2009 at 10:49 AM

Amidst speculation of a potential deal that would entail News Corp's online content being exclusively listed on Microsoft's search engine, Bing- Satya Nadella, head of research and development for Microsoft's Online Services Division released an official statement last week, quashing publishers dreams of an escape from their current financial woes.

"We're not focused on getting non-Google content," Nadella said, adding that keeping information off Google was "not the thing that would be a benefit to us in the long run."

New look for Reuters.com

Posted by Helena Humphrey on December 7, 2009 at 10:40 AM

Thursday night a refreshed Reuters.com went live complete with bolder logo, red background and refined toolbar, including a selection of pages entitled News & Markets, Sectors & Industry and Analysis & Opinion, with increased political coverage and comment. According to Alisa Bowen, head of consumer publishing for the group, the shift in perspective, with a greater emphasis on politics, will revolve around macro-economic trends. "The new site reflects all the assets that were brought together with Thomson's acquisition of Reuters in the spring of 2008. We regard this as more than just a facelift" Bowen said.

Women at the top: is there a need for more female editors-in-chief?

Posted by Emma Heald on December 3, 2009 at 12:40 PM

A group of female editors and media experts from India, Sri Lanka, Russia and South Africa discussed the issue of whether more women editors-in-chief would generate more readers at the 16th World Editors Forum.

Bachi Karkaria, formerly with the Times of India and now an analyst of urban and social change and a media trainer, says that as an editor, she is totally against forms of gender-centric ideas. Journalism has too much emphasis on what is women issues and male issues, she said. Women issues consisting of housekeeping, entertainment and other light subjects and male issues consisting of heavier stories.

"Glass ceilings are sometimes actually creations of men," she said.

London Evening Standard might boost circulation

Posted by Jennifer Lush on December 2, 2009 at 12:55 PM

Responding to industry speculation, the London Evening Standard has announced that is considering increasing its distribution numbers, the Guardian is reporting.

After dropping its 50p cover price in mid-October to go free, the paper more than doubled its circulation from 250, 000 to 600, 000 copies a day. Doug Willis, the Evening Standard's managing editor said that the paper had the potential to boost its free distribution to 800, 000 or 1 million copies by late 2010.

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