UK broadcast and online media ran stories yesterday about Prince Harry's military deployment with the British Army in Afghanistan, after the US Drudge Report broke the blackout that UK media had agreed on with the Ministry of Defence.

A deal had been made between British media and the Ministry of Defence not to report on Prince Harry's frontline position, for fear that he may become a privileged target for Talibans, in return for access to the prince during his deployment.

According to the Guardian, the story had already been broken by Australian women's magazine New Idea on Jan. 7. In fact, many insiders are surprised the blackout lasted two months.

Significantly though, UK media only decided to run the story after it was broken by US news blogger Drudge, showing how much influence he has acquired. Yesterday, nearly all of the national newspapers, except for The Independent, ran the story on their front page.

"I am very disappointed that foreign websites have decided to run this story without consulting us," said Sir General Dannatt, head of the British Army.

"This is in stark contrast to the highly responsible attitude that the whole of the UK print and broadcast media, along with a small number of overseas outlets, who have entered into an understanding with us over the coverage of Prince Harry on operations."

Eye on the Asian Media was launched in January, in order to generate discussion about and survey ethical issues confronting journalism in Asia.

The Eye on the Asian Media blog was jointly launched by the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility and the Asia Media Forum.

The blog produces stories and analyses and encourages readers to comment and contribute content. It also features various journalism codes of ethics from across Asia and links to online resources.

Source: European Journalism Centre - ijnet

The Washington Post's site is to get a major facelift, as announced previously.

"This is a reflection of what the Web site is all about: change. We have done a half-dozen redesigns in-house, but during the past five or six years it has been different parts of the site," said executive editor Jim Brady (see his interview about the Future of Journalism).

Last September, the Post hired the Wonderfactory of New York, which has led redesigns for Newsweek and Martha Stewart. The main focuses of the redesign will revolve around reader participation and friendlier searches.

"They wanted theirs to be a site where you understand immediately it is a place to get the news and participate in the news," said Joe McCambley, Wonderfactory's co-founder and creative director. "The biggest change will be that it will be dramatically easier for people to find what they are looking for."

"We are trying to fill it with the strategies we've emphasized the past few years -- reader engagement, multi- media, and providing useful databases for our readers," said Brady.

Another symbolic issue for the redesign was whether to keep the differentiate logo of washingtonpost.com or adopt one similar to that of the print edition.

A few days after publishing a viral video of French President Sarkozy insulting someone, Le Parisien's editors are justifying the modifications they made to the transcript of an interview with Sarkozy.

Following the event, a panel of eight readers of the paper had a conversation with the President. As is the norm in France, Le Parisien's article about the exchange was submitted to the Elysée prior to publication. In the version that was returned to Le Parisien, a new sentence was added to the transcript: "It would have been better had I not answered."

The correction came in too late and Le Parisien published the original interview, without that sentence, on Feb. 26. On Feb. 27, Le Parisien published a corrected version of the original interview, with the new sentence in the headline.

"Instead of hypocritically inserting that phrase, we chose to put it in the headline because it has punch in the journalistic sense," wrote Dominique de Montvalon, deputy newsroom director, and Henri Vernet, editor of the politics section, in the Feb. 27 edition.

To have excluded that phrase, "which is representative in a few hours of the evolution of the presidential view, would have meant depriving everybody of a late, but essential, clarification."

According to the Biving Report's Todd Zeigler, newspaper websites are increasingly, and efficiently, using interactive features to complement their storytelling.

Zeigler examines an interactive piece in Flash by The New York Times that shows box office receipts by month and movie for the last twenty years (click here to see it).

The Flash project also promotes other content produced by the newspaper, by linking back to reviews about movies, summaries and more.

Following Super Tuesday in the US, the NYT had announced that its interactive graphic about the elections had drawn the most page views on the site.

Yet another proof that online and multimedia content can improve the quality of journalistic coverage.

Source: Bivings Report

The Wall Street Journal Online is to offer new investor tools and investment funds data on it website, following an agreement with research and global data firm Morningstar Inc.

All tools provided by Morningstar are available in WSJ.com's Markets Data Center. They include the Morningstar International Fund Screener, which is designed to help investors narrow down a fund universe, and Morningstar Quicktake Reports, which provides facts sheets on funds.

Source: BtoB through I Want Media

Washington Post Co. posted a 13% drop in fourth-quarter earnings, as print revenues at its flagship title continue to fall.

Net income for the company fell to $82.9 million, down from $95.5 million a year ago.

However, the Post's fourth quarter results include a $17 million one-time cost linked to restructuring of the Post's Kaplan education unit.

Print ad revenue ad the Washington Post declined 13% in 2007, down to $496.2 million. Circulation fell 4% in 2007, at 649,700 copies daily and 902,500 on Sundays.

On the brighter side, online revenue increased 11% in 2007, up to $11.4 million.

Source: Yahoo Finance

At the Newspaper Association of America's Marketing Conference in Orlando, Philadelphia Inquirer owner Brian Tierney said that the papers are implementing new business and editorial strategies, including targeting women over the age of 35.

Since Tierney took control of the Philadelphia papers, his team has had many challenges, faced with union problems, declining circulation and decreasing ad revenues.

However, the website Philly.com has healthily grown. Thanks in part to a deal with online job site Monster.com, the site has doubled its page views and boosted unique visitors by seven percent, said Tierney, according to Local Onliner.

Tierney's strategy is to attract new audiences online, and refocus print content – which doesn't seem very attractive to younger people.

“We're targeting women 35+,” said Tierney. In order to capture younger audiences online, Philly.com is to create more TV-like shows, along with magazine-style stories and radio content. The site already has Philly Uncorked, a “wacky wine show” produced by the Philadelphia Wine School.

On the business side, Tierney also described the opportunities he saw in e-commerce and the Zeppy site, an online marketplace with a local look-and-feel.

Source: Local Onliner – Editor & Publisher

China Mobile and China Daily have launched the world's first English-Chinese language mobile newspaper. China Daily Mobile News sends multilingual news to users' cell phones.

Pictured above, Zhu Ling (right), Editor-in-Chief of China Daily, and Wang Jianzhou (left), Chairman of China Mobile together launched the mobile paper.

China Daily Mobile News is sent to users twice in the day, morning and evening. Each multimedia issue contains 20 pieces of news including top news, business, odd news, health, cartoons and more.

Target users include foreign officials, members of foreign companies, white collar workers, college students and more.

In January, China Daily won the rights to publish the official English language newspaper in China about the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Mobile news has reportedly been very successful in China, as was already the case in 2005. In March 2007, the People's Daily launched a mobile version in Beijing – 160,000 people had subscribed to its trial version in the Guangdong province alone.

Source: China Daily through IFRA Executive News Service

For its relaunch, the Editors Weblog is running a series of exclusive interviews with some top editors at leading newspapers around the world about the future of journalism. We kick off the series with Jim Brady, Executive Editor of Washingtonpost.com.

The list of upcoming interviews will be updated as they are published (click here to view all interviews in this series). Among the other titles that have been asked to participate in these interviews are:

Should all European newspapers jointly publish the controversial cartoons of Prophet Mohammed, as did 17 Danish newspapers in mid-February? Yes, in the name of freedom of press, according to German Interior minister Wolgang Schäuble.

“In fact, all European newspapers should now publish these caricatures, with this explanation: we judge them pitiful, but it is not justifiable to resort to violence in response to the exercise of free press,” said Schäuble to the magazine Die Zeit.

The German minister mentioned his “respect” for the decision of the 17 Danish newspapers to republish the cartoons. Undoubtedly these comments will spark another wave of controversy.

Any thoughts?

Source: AFP Mail