Results matching “correspondents and coverage what”

In this short interview with Gianni Valenti, deputy editor of Gazzetta dello Sport, the world's largest 'sports' newspaper and leading daily in Italy, he explains how the paper has balanced its focus on sports with coverage of the protests against China and the Olympic Games in general.

Should sports sections concentrate on the actual events, and leave the rest to the politics desk? Can they really get away without putting sports into context?

As a newspaper focused on sports, Gazzetta dello Sport evidently has vested interest in the upcoming Olympic Games. How have you balanced coverage of sports and of the protests?

Gazzetta dello Sport isn't only a sports newspaper anymore. It's a sports newspaper that includes a general news section. The paper naturally is in favor of the Olympic Games, but it has dedicated entire news pages to the events that took place in Paris when the Olympic torch went through.

For the last six months, many pages have gone to coverage of social, political and environmental issues in China. In preparation for the future, a team of reporters will be dedicated to covering social issues. But the Gazzetta will not make a distinction between sports and social issues and reporters from both desks will collaborate.

Was the Gazzetta's coverage of the protests factual or did the newspaper take a stance?

The paper has special correspondents covering the International Olympic Committee and China. Its coverage remained factual on those aspects and the exactions in Tibet. Regarding the Olympic Torch, the Gazzetta took position, to an extent, arguing that the torch should pursue its route throughout the world. In practice, the Gazzetta did 'equidistant journalism' about the protests, recapping both the pros and cons.

After the events in Paris and London, there was lots of debate online. The Gazzetta created forums to host these discussions, but it didn't advocate a particular political stance for Italy - this was at the time of general elections in Italy.

However, now that the government is in place, and when a real debate will be engaged about whether Berlusconi should go to the Olympic Games or boycott them, then the newspaper will take a side - which is yet to be determined. But I predict that most political leaders will end up going.

How substantial will be Gazzetta Dello Sport's coverage of the Olympic Games?

We will have 23 journalists who will travel there. It will be the biggest coverage the paper has ever given to the Olympic Games, and it will involve collaboration between both print and online.

Source: Gianni Valenti, deputy editor Gazzetta dello Sport

David Hiller, publisher, president and chief executive of the Los Angeles Times, talks the paper's future to Forbes.com.

Hiller assures that the LA Times, being one of the few U.S. papers left with a strong number of foreign correspondents, will continue "to keep a strong foreign report," and over time, "gauge what size should it be, where those correspondents are allocated, and also look at how we do collaborate with, for example, our sister paper the Chicago Tribune."

He says that there may be a chance in eliminating overlap between the two staffs to cut costs while still maintaining quality coverage.

Three areas that are in the most need of change are:
1. Continuing to grow and build Internet business. They just launched an online entertainment product, The Guide, that's built on a platform that allows for hyper-local news and user-generated content.

2. Finishing the integration of the print and online operations. "You're always going to have specialists, people who do different things," says Hiller. "[But] particularly in this environment, we need to make sure there's no redundancy, that all the players can write for both print and online and editors can edit for both, etc., etc."

3. Continuing the redesign or re-imagining of the main print newspaper. In the 24- hour continuous news cycle, the LA Times' mantra is to break news online and do something else in print.

As for the synchronization between the newsroom and the business side of the paper, Hiller says that they are "getting there."

"Life is a journey. I think we make headway every day," he concludes.

Source: Forbes.com through IFRA Executive News Service

"How could a business that was so stable and profitable for 150 years go into such a rapid tailspin?" Paul Gillin asks on his blog Newspaper Death Watch - which vies, perhaps hastily, for the death of the newspaper industry. According to him, in the post-Watergate era, US newspapers excessively focused on chasing Pulitzer prizes, thus diminishing their much-needed local coverage.

Wall Street Journal editor Paul Steiger's 2007 farewell piece puts the start of the decline in the post-Watergate period when journalists began to revel in excess, refusing to travel any other way beside first-class, and according to Gillin, "Steiger's piece makes it clear that newspapers fumbled the opportunity to get out front of the Internet by focusing too much on protecting their print franchises."

Eric Alterman's recent article in The New Yorker adds that papers lost their focus on local journalism and their readers during post-Watergate as well. Papers edged towards increased impartiality, and the scramble to win Pulitzers to duplicate the Washington Post's Watergate success cost newspapers millions of dollars on large Washington bureaus and overseas correspondents.

Another trend that began in the 1970's was the rise of the "insider journalist." In Gillin's view, reporters became celebrities with access to powerful people, who learned "to exploit their access to leading journalists for their own gain as well."

According to Gillin, newspapers didn't make any changes because they had healthy and predictable profit margins, and their investors were happy. However, most big companies, according to Gillin, "often enjoy their most profitable years just before the undertow of market change sucks them under."

Gillin's concludes that "it's too late for the newspaper industry to save itself."  He forsees massive consolidations, more layoffs and the emergence  a new form journalism which uses blogs, camera phones, Twitter, wikis, hyperlinks, and search engines.

But although the newspaper industry may have been slow to transition to embrace new media formats, it is actively doing so now, through blogs, social networks, multimedia projects and the inclusion of readers in the news process. Up to them to prove Gillin wrong.

Source: Newspaper Death Watch through Journerdism

In the past, reporters used to follow US presidential candidates by car or bus, but today with candidates flying from city to city, coverage of the presidential election becoming too expensive for newspapers, with fares up to $2,000 a trip or $30,000 per person a month.

Papers such as USA Today and the Boston Globe used to cover candidates on a day to day basis, but with newspapers already in financial troubles, they are covering the campaign from television or using wire service reports from AP or Reuters.

"We'd all like to be able to be out there, but given the reality of the costs and other priorities, it just isn't realistic," said Senior Political Editor of USA Today Lee Horwich.

This year the only papers that have full-time correspondents following the candidates are The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Wall Street Journal, and the NY Times. Newsweek is the only publication with a full-time reporter on both Clinton's and Obama's trails.

Traveling campaign reporters say that anyone can watch speeches on YouTube, so instead of repeating raw information, reporters try to track the evolution and growth of candidates by identifying inconsistencies or dishonesty. Bloggers are also taking the reins by posting their thoughts on candidates' speeches and adding information from conference calls with the candidates' press aides.

Los Angeles Times's Mark Z. Barabak, who has been riding political buses since 1984 observed, "What you have lost is the benefit of getting 6, 12, 15 different perspectives. Now you may get three or four. They may be very good."

On one hand, US newspapers are diminishing election coverage. On the other, AP has recently hired 21 additional staff to bolster entertainment news. They say that they will provide what sells and as of now, celebrities are what the people want.
 
US consumer magazines increased ad revenues by 7% last year with those focusing on entertainment and sports personalities did particularly well.

Philip Stone from Follow the Media wrote, "People Magazine and OK! publish first pictures of Jennifer Lopez and twins and pay millions for the privilege while most US newspapers while most US newspapers cannot afford the $1,000 - $2,000 a day to send a reporter on presidential candidate planes."  

Richard Desmond who publishes both OK! and the Daily Express newspaper, noted that advertisers are already "vying for space" in OK!'s special issue on England footballer Wayne Rooney's wedding, which they paid a record $6.4 million for the rights.

Daniel Becker, newly appointed director of Entertainment Content, wrote a memo declaring that AP photographers will not become paparazzi, but instead use their "journalistic talent and unmatched network of  resources to produce high quality, multimedia coverage in an area of growing interest," thus becoming the "trusted authoritative voice on entertainment."

Is the future of quality journalism celebrity gossip?

Sources: The New York Times, Press Gazette, Follow the Media (picture)
 

The Editors Weblog obtained an exclusive interview with Philippe Karsenty, who is currently appealing a 2006 verdict that found him guilty of libel, in a trial opposing him to French public broadcaster France 2 and journalist protégé Charles Enderlin. The hearing on Wednesday Feb. 27 lasted over six hours, but the court adjourned its decision to May 21.

According to Karsenty, France 2's Al Dura "coverage is the media's biggest masquerade to have had such impact." But he doesn't believe that the allegedly fraudulent report is representative of more widespread manipulations in media coverage.

Quick recap of the story: in 2000, France 2 diffused coverage obtained from a local camera man, and voiced over by Enderlin, of the death of a Palestinian boy, allegedly killed by Israeli fire, an iconic image which was widely reproduced thereafter and used as a symbol by pro-Palestinian propaganda.

In 2004, Karsenty's Media-ratings company accused France 2's coverage of being a hoax - for a plethora of reasons. Karsenty was subsequently taken to court and found guilty in October 2006 of defaming journalist Enderlin and his outlet, public broadcaster France 2. He appealed the decision and during the new hearings on Feb. 27, a lot of time was spent reviewing and discussing the video footage and images. And as a Weblog exclusive, you can read the ballistic report, which was commissioned by Karsenty.

Without going too deep into the details about the new trial, Karsenty argues that a lot of coverage produced at the time was staged with the help of the local population, and this seems to be confirmed by footage viewable on Honest Reporting, as well as footage shown in court. "On that day in Gaza, it was a film set," he says. Other major news organizations, including Reuters and the Associated Press, were present.



Are these kinds of manipulative or staged media practices widespread?

"I'm not generalizing," says Karsenty, who insists his only claims are about this specific report in those circumstances. But this event should bring attention to international news organizations' use of local correspondents and camera staffers, whose content the outlets must often trust at face-value, he said.

In fact, the France 2 camera man's footage was offered to CNN, which refused to initially air the report because it didn't obtain the guarantees of authenticity it was asking for.

Whether these media practices are widespread internationally Karsenty didn't say, but he argues they correspond to the media's situation in Palestine, "a situation where the media bends over to the rules of Palestinian authorities," he says (see here about the monitoring of coverage of the Oct. 12, 2000 lynch).

There is another intriguing issue in this affair: in the years since this controversy has started, few French traditional media have openly taken Karsenty's defense or been willing to place it high in the news agenda.

Blogs and independent media have increasingly covered the story, many of them outside of France though. According to Karsenty, a similar affair would have never dragged on as long in the US, because bloggers and truly independent media would have long dug out the truth (evoking Dan Rather and the Killian documents controversy).

What the Al Dura affair also shows is that France is (still) a "system with dominating media that don't recognize their mistakes," says Karsenty. He points out that of the few established blogs and 'independent' news outlets in France, those that are considered legitimate by traditional media, all are held by professional journalists and former journalists who have worked within traditional media.

But Karsenty refuses to see the Al Dura affair as the symbol of commonplace manipulative practices in the media. Nor was France 2's report symptomatic of showbiz-news and news agendas increasingly led by eyeballs and sensationalism. For him, this is simply the story of a local camera man who submitted a faulty report, which was picked up by a mainstream media organization and its well-respected journalist, both of whom didn't recognize their mistake.

According to Karsenty, a US website will shortly be publishing the 18 minutes of raw footage that France 2 showed in court (out of 27 minutes filmed by the camera man).

Karsenty says he is confident about the outcome of the appeal. The court will make its decision public on May 21.

Source: Philippe Karsenty - Metro - Le Monde - Tribune de Genève - Honest Reporting

The Guardian boasts UK’s most popular newspaper site, yet its newsroom has been traditionally non-integrated – till the paper moves to its new premises next fall. In Part 2, several Guardian editors described the paper’s somewhat atypical approach toward its online redesign, video, blogs and user interaction.

The Guardian boasts UK’s most popular newspaper site, yet its newsroom has been traditionally non-integrated – till the paper moves to its new premises next fall. In Part 1, several editors give a few details about the ‘liberal-ed’ approach to integration and describe some of the recipes for Guardian Unlimited’s success.

As newsrooms worldwide, big and small alike, march towards integrating their print and online operations, newsroom design has become an increasingly significant consideration for editors. In three interviews for the Weblog, editors from the Daily Telegraph, RBS Group and De Volkskrant give their views on the importance of newsroom design, whether it’s more of a detail, a truly pragmatic facilitator of change, or a mirror of conceptual transformation.

2 new citizen journalism ventures are adding a new dimension to the US presidential campaign coverage, providing voices in addition to the mainstream media coverage of campaigns and at times giving a new perspective.

The national daily Libération has launched an online-only regional edition in Lyon – which is in fact a blog. Something for newspapers to consider, even nationals, as they are pressure to provide more local coverage but have few resources to do so. (Also included: a note about the paper’s upcoming redesign)

Launched two weeks ago, LePost.fr is not your typical online-only news site. With a resolutely ‘new media’ approach to news, the website fearlessly tackles new trends in news consumption, and caters to a younger public generally perceived as having deserted the arena. Its editorial content and processes have been adapted to this aim, which can also be seen as a traditional media publisher’s attempt to experiment with the future of online news.

The International Center for Media and the Public Agenda (ICMPA) recently published a study called “Openness & Accountability: A Study of Transparency in Global Media Outlets.” The results of the study indicate that The Guardian and the New York Times are the most transparent and accountable while Sky News and Time are the worst. 

After their speeches, the group on stage during the Reuters Master Class at the 14th World Editors Forum in  Cape Town fielded some questions from participants curious about the role that social and citizens media will play in the media landscape.

There has been a degree of alarm amongst newspapers as it is realized that it’s no longer just about the written product. Audio and Video can provide a huge opportunity if embraced in the right way.