The Swedish Market Court just slapped Metro International with a fine of half a million kronor (close to $70,000) for running an ad that covered the entire front page of its 11 November 2004 Swedish edition, blurring the line between editorial and advertising content.

The ad for Xbox game Halo depicted a “large spherical building against a red sky” with the headline “The World will never be the same again,” Swedish news site The Local reported Thursday.

While Metro did print “Annonssida” (“Advertising Page”) in the top right-hand corner of the edition, “the impression given on a casual glance is that a catastrophe has occurred,” the Court’s ruling read.

It’s unclear what future impact this ruling will have on the international free paper giant, which frequently runs full front and back page ads.

Source: The Local (through European Journalism Centre)

Rupert Murdoch has plans to sell several of News Corp’s local US television stations in order to buy back an 18 percent shareholder stake from billionaire John Malone, The Australian reported Thursday.

While the deal is not finalized, Murdoch said News Corp. was “a little closer to talking about that with Mr. Malone more meaningfully.” Murdoch has expressed interest in Malone's stake since he accumulated the shares in November 2004.

Local TV stations are generating less and less revenue, Murdoch explained. He told Australian media that News Corp. will be “certainly expanding very, very strongly online businesses. We may well be starting new ones in Australia, everywhere.”

He did not specify which stations might be sold.

Source: The Australian (through I Want Media)

As the humid summer season falls on Western Massachusetts, I've returned to the area where I grew up to see what's happening at the inaugural Media Giraffe Summit. The first session gathered some of the "usual suspects" as they called themselves to discuss how journalism will stay relevant, to whom and in what forms.

On bloggers:

Helen Thomas, Hearst Newspapers: “Anyone with a laptop thinks they’re a journalist.” The esteemed White House correspondent went on to say that the “stock and trade” of journalists is their credibility, credibility that has been damaged in the past few years by story fabrication, payola, self censorship, etc. But credibility is not necessarily a trait of bloggers and thus we need the mainstream press.

Jeff Jarvis, Buzzmachine (among other things): – “Let’s not make this another bloggers vs. journalist conference, not about competition, us vs. them… That debate is over... We should be talking about opportunities, success stories, invention creativity... Journalism needs reinvention.”

On the Internet:

Former Mirror Group executive David Montgomery announced plans to purchase Norway’s Orkla Media by the end of July, the Guardian reported Wednesday, a sweeping move that further extends his reach over European media.

Orkla Media, the fifth largest media group in the Nordic area, publishes in Scandinavia, Poland, the Baltic States and Ukraine. Its Danish paper, Berlinske, is the biggest in Denmark. In Poland, its 13 assets make it the largest player in the nation’s market. Orkla owns local papers in Norway and Sweden with No. 1 positions.

During the past year, Montgomery has been accumulating media groups through his investment fund Mecom and, at times, generating considerable unrest in the process. His October purchase of Berlin publishing group Berliner Verlag outraged Berliner Zeitung employees. In February, Mecom purchased the Hamburger Morgenpost, Hamburg's second largest daily newspaper. The third acquisition came in April with the Telegraaf Media Group’s LMG.

People in the UK, France, Germany and Spain can now access Google News and gmail with mobile phones. The service — already available in the U.S. — will be compatible with most mobile phones, according to Journalism.co.uk, but charges for Web access depend on the mobile company.
The mobile version of Google News will be similar to the Web site, breaking news down into various categories. However, stories will be accessible only from sources whose content is designed for mobile viewing.

Source: Journalism.co.uk (through Ifra Executive News Service)

Bloggers are often portrayed as having a tense relationship with mainstream media, defying traditional reporting practices while seeking recognition and credit for their work. But several recent announcements imply a dawning awareness that serious bloggers produce legitimate work.

Example No. 1: A citizen journalism agency called Scoopt just launched a service to help bloggers sell their work for publication. It’s been too difficult for professional-level bloggers to market their content, Graham Holliday, managing editor of ScooptWords, told the UK’s Press Gazette.

The service lets bloggers indicate their work is for sale by posting a button on their Web sites. Editors can click and purchase, but ScooptWords takes a 25 percent commission.

Example No. 2: Venture capitalist Alan Patricof, the technology and media investor who financed Apple Computer and founded New York magazine, is purchasing a minority stake in ContentNext Media Inc. The company produces PaidContent.org, a site run by Rafat Ali that analyses how technology is affecting different forms of media.

The Chinese government wants to reinforce restrictions on press freedom, trying to push a law through Chinese parliament that fines media who report on epidemics, industrial accidents or natural disasters, 24heures reported Monday. The government is responsible for the dissemination of this type of information, according to the proposed law. It is unclear whether or not foreign media would be affected.

Source: 24heures (in French)

Juan Varela at Periodistas 21 reports that Spain's top selling daily, El Pais, has launched an edition for Sony's popular video-game device, Playstation Portable. The PSP version will join El Pais' PDA and cellular phone editions as the paper expands its multimedia distribution offerings.

It will also add to the daily's efforts to attract younger readers, efforts which it reinforced last year with the multimedia, Internet-based EP3.

After taking a quick look, Varela considers the PSP edition to use few graphics, being mostly text with small pictures that doesn't make for very pleasant reading on such a device. Grupo Prisa, El Pais' parent company, will have to work on it.

The Norwegian paper, Dagbladet was the first paper to create a PSP edition back in September 2005.

Source: Periodistas 21 (in Spanish)

Douglas Okasaki will serve as the Society of News Design’s first regional director for the Middle East and Africa. Okasaki, a graphic designer based in Dubai, has worked in newspaper design since 1989. In 2001, he won the “News Graphic Generation” award from Reuters Foundation.

The US-based Society for News Design has more than 2,600 members from the U.S., Canada and more than 50 other countries. It created the new regional director position to help unite newspapers in the Middle East and Africa interested in improving and investing in design.

Source: Society for News Design

The US Treasury Department attempted to block a story on a secret program that tracks global bank transfers that ran in today’s editions of the New York Times and Los Angeles Times.

"The president is concerned that once again the New York Times has chosen to expose a classified program that is working to protect our citizens," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino, referring to the paper's disclosure last December of the National Security Agency's eavesdropping program.

The program in question began after 9/11 in attempts to track terrorist spending. While the financial records of thousands of Americans and others in the U.S. have been examined, government officials told the NYT the searches were only applied to those believed to be linked to Al Qaeda.

Treasury Department representatives spent 90 minutes Thursday trying to persuade LA Times staff not to publish the article, according to Romenesko. The government also pressured NYT executive editor Bill Keller to kill the story.

A document reportedly released by the Afghan national intelligence service has sparked controversy about the state of press freedom in Afghanistan.

The Washington Post described the recently released document, a list of 17 instructions that warned members of the press against weakening the public morale, as “an unofficial attempt by Afghanistan’s national intelligence service to quash sensational and negative coverage by the Afghan news media.”

While journalists are in uproar about the document — which the intelligence service has not denied writing, according to the Post — several analysts note certain Afghan media outlets do have a tendency to sensationalize reports of violence.

Source: The Washington Post, United Press International (through European Journalism Centre)