Yemen Times is an old friend of the World Editors Forum and the newspaper will celebrate its 14th anniversary this year. The Board of Directors of Yemen Times Establishment for Press and Publishing has officially appointed Nadia Abdulaziz Al-Saqqaf as the new Editor-in-Chief of The Yemen Times starting tomorrow, March 1st 2005. After roughly six years of service as the Editor-in-Chief, Walid Al-Saqqaf will be ending his term of office and temporarily leaving Yemen for training and post-graduate studies. His post will be taken over by his sister Nadia, who has been working for Oxfam Yemen for more than a year, and who has also worked for The Yemen Times during various periods of her professional career."

"Mrs. al-Saqqaf is a graduate of Sterling University in the United Kingdom with a Masters degree Information Systems Management. She graduated with Upper Grade with Distinction and had also enrolled in a number of training programs and courses including a month-long course on Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.

During her work at The Yemen Times, she said she would be focusing on supporting human rights, gender issues and womens? rights."

Source: Yemen Times

Since my first trip to the Al Jazeera headquarters in July 2004, I'm convinced that the future of the TV station will impact the whole Arab media landscape: Al Jazeera has introduced something new in the news gathering process and it will be very difficult to go backwards. Al Arabiya has already changed its coverage of Arab news - in the sense that it is more conventional - and it could happen to Al Jazeera according to this New York Times article: "Bush administration officials have complained heatedly to Qatari leaders that Al Jazeera's broadcasts have been inflammatory, misleading and occasionally false, especially on Iraq. The pressure has been so intense, a senior Qatari official said, that the government is accelerating plans to put Al Jazeera on the market, though Bush administration officials counter that a privately owned station in the region may be no better from their point of view. "We have recently added new members to the Al Jazeera editorial board, and one of their tasks is to explore the best way to sell it," said the Qatari official, who said he could be more candid about the situation if he was not identified. "We really have a headache, not just from the United States but from advertisers and from other countries as well." Asked if the sale might dilute Al Jazeera's content, the official said, "I hope not."

According to John N. Wilcox, president and chief operating officer of Ottaway, "Now, people expect to get the news on their desktops, laptops and cell phones not only once a day, but whenever it breaks." Ottaway, the parent company of The Daily Item, recently signed contracts to install a new content management system for print and online services at its daily and weekly newspapers in nine states. The project has been in the planning stage for more than two years. At The Daily Item, installation of the new equipment will commence in July 2005 and will offer the Susquehanna Valley area innovative ways to receive information and advertising messages electronically throughout the day, using a variety of electronic devices. The content management system will also streamline the traditional printing methods that are used to generate this newspaper daily, while offering expanded archiving capabilities.

Ottaway Newspapers Inc. is the community newspaper subsidiary of Dow Jones & Company. Ottaway publishes 15 daily newspapers, 12 Sunday newspapers, 18 weeklies and numerous specialty publications and web sites in nine states. Source: Daily Item

"Visual information is fundamental to the survival of journalism," says Alberto Cairo

This important comment arises in the Q&A following the session. It is fortified by the following dialogue about why infographics may hold the key to attracting younger readers, and thus sustaining journalism's relevance for the next generation...

Basically, graphics attract young people because kids play video games so much. Thus, the quality of infographics are especially important because younger readers are used to that kind of quality in the video games they play so often. If the media provides them with that kind of high quality inforgraphics, it will then also get them interested in reading the newspaper as well...

Tarek Atia

It's not very common in the newspaper industry: a publisher who becomes ambassador! But it happens in South Korea according to the Korea Herald: "It wouldn't have been a surprise if anyone did a double take at President Roh Moo-hyun's choice as the new ambassador to the United States: JoongAng Ilbo Chairman Hong Seok-hyun... The president's unconventional choice is widely considered to have come from Roh's desperate need for a figure with an amicable relationship with Washington as President George W. Bush begins his second four-year term. South Korea's relationship with the United States has been stuck in a tense limbo that has stalled communication with North Korea over the communist state's nuclear weapons program... As president of the World Association of Newspapers, Hong has a strong network with internationally renowned newspapers and opinion leaders, while also being a member of a number of international-level advisory councils."

Thanks to Alain Neuville, ANIMA CEO, for his authorization to publish his toughths when they are related to newspapers. This week, Alain analyzed the situation of the European Newspaper industry:

"There is at least one metric that is broadly shared by a great majority of countries; newspapers readership and circulation slump. Newspaper readership posts -0.6% in Italy. Circulation of national titles dropped by 0.5% in France. Circulation and readership are falling in Ireland. All the data recently released are in the red. The national dailies have been losing readers for some time now. The regional press had remained one of the few positive shelters in the British market. It is no longer the case since the last ABC figures have been released. In light of this difficult situation, publishers have to find new solutions..."

Five rescue strategies

- First is to find fresh cash in order to initiate rescue strategies. This is the case in France with new shareholders for Liberation (Rothschild) and Le Monde (Lagardere, Saint Gobain, Prisa, La Stampa)

- Second is to find new strategic alliances. In the Netherlands, the two major competitors, PCM and Wegener have decided to join in order to fight the dramatic situation of the regional press. PCM will replace De Volkskrant - which is the n?2 title in the market, behind De telegraaf ? with a merger between the Algemene Dagblad and five regional titles.

From AdAge: "Mr. Turner was the keynote speaker of the opening session of the American National Association of Television Program Executives annual conference. The media mogul... accused big media corporations of maintaining cozy relations with government. "It's very disturbing when we're at war," he said... The founder of CNN said, "I think there should be a little less Hollywood news and a little more hard news. That would be good for our democracy." He lamented that there was little opportunity for independent voices when "90% of the cable companies are owned by the broadcast networks."

I think Turner is right on one point: the American community of media thinkers is today focused on participatory journalism and citizen media as an answer to mergers and concentrations. But this position could also be interpreted as a renunciation: it is impossible to avoid more and more consolidation in the media industry. But at least, citizens can blog and chat!

In other words, Turner tries to defend the existing "Fourth Estate" when others want to invent an hypothetical "Fifth Estate". The problem is that this new Fifth Estate prefers struggling with "mainstream media" and forgets to fact-check the three other Estates. "Dommage" as we say in French!

Source: AdAge (registration required)

What are the likely challenges to newspapers from their core competitors for advertising, and how can newspapers exploit their competitors' weaknesses to take a larger advertising share? The World Association of Newspapers will provide answers to these questions at the World Newspaper Advertising Conference & Expo in Rome early next year.

This is a very polemical and conservative point of view. But interesting on how covering the "terror war". The writer is Hugh Hewitt and he takes the Los Angeles Times coverage as a case study: "I have picked The Los Angeles Times' coverage of the war on terrorism to criticize because that coverage is woefully inadequate, failing to educate the paper's readership on the nature and extent of the threat the country faces... I would like to see The Times restructure its coverage to accomplish crucial objectives:

•  Do more to identify and inform the readers on the organization, leadership and capabilities of the Islamist terrorist network.

•  Start a daily — a daily — feature on the Global War on Terrorism and call it that."

Is Hewitt considering that terrorism is the only war of this new century?

Source: Los Angeles Times (registration required)

According to Forbes newspaper and publishing stocks in the S&P 500 are down 9% year on year. Economist and newspaper business consultant Miles Groves dissects the industry by distinguishing between those who "get it" and those who don't. Those who "get it" are the publishers that are branching out from print into other forms of media while maintaining their quality content, notably the New York Times and Dow Jones.

Source: Forbes

Here's an optimistic twist on recent rhetoric about the future of newspapers. Dennis M. Lyons of the Daily Record, a New Jersey newspaper owned by Gannett Co. Inc. quotes Walter Isaacson, president of the Aspen Institute, an international nonprofit that promotes "enlightened leadership and open-minded dialogue," who says, "Print. If for the past 400 years we'd been getting all of our info electronically, and somebody invented a way to put it on paper and deliver it to our doorsteps so we could read it in the backyard or bath or bus, people would say this new print technology is so wonderful it will replace the Internet." Lyons goes on to laud the convenience, reach, and influence of newspapers, emphasizing that nothing else sells for so little and provides so much valuable information. He citesRandy Siegel of Parade Magazine who says, "At the end of the day, the power of well-written newspapers is unparalleled in providing meaning, connection and context. In our harried daily lives, the human brain can absorb print more intimately and more effectively that the cacophonous, often confrontational messages blaring at us from the electronic media hundreds, if not thousands of times per day."

Source: The Daily Record