New York Times journalist Martin Fackler has written about the "failure" of the news media to press Japanese prosecutors for answers in an ongoing political scandal.

In March, Tokyo prosecutors arrested an aide to a prominent opposition political leader and sparked a damaging scandal which led to the resignation of Ichiro Ozawa, head of the opposition Democratic Party. Many Japanese have been vocal in their criticism of the prosecutors' actions, which appear politically motivated, but "you would not know that from the coverage by Japan's big newspapers and television networks," said Fackler.

He points out that what the media "mostly reported" was a "stream of anonymous allegations, some of them thinly veiled leaks from within the investigation, of illegal campaign donations from a construction company" to Ozawa. Despite "a rare outpouring of criticism" directed at the prosecutors, including accusations of political meddling and concerns about the arrest's timing. The Democratic Party's lead in the polls was eroded following the incident. It is a particularly "crucial moment" in Japan's democracy, reported Fackler, as the country's Liberal Democratic Party, which has dominated government for the past 50 years, could be defeated and subsequently replaced with more competitive two-party politics.

The alternative weekly publications of the New Mass. Media group, the Hartford Advocate, New Haven Advocate and Fairfield County Weekly have outsourced all of their editorial content to freelance journalists in India.

The first editions to have been created in this way will be released this Thursday. And rather than trying to bury the use of these potentially problematic methods of journalism, the publishers are courting the controversy. The cover of each paper will be emblazoned with the statement: "Sorry, we've Been Outsourced. This Issue Made In India."
And just so there is absolutely no confusion over the nationality of the journalist, each article is preceded by the notation, "this article was written by an Indian freelancer."

"It's been fascinating to me to see this go from a chuckle in an edit meeting to an entire issue," Group Managing Editor John Adamian related in a telephone interview with Editor&Publisher.

The relationship between the content and the reporter has produced results that may provoke some bemusement among the Connecticut readership. The pieces outsourced cover local news, entertainment and culture. Nilanjana Bhowmick enlightens Essex (Conn.) residents about the annual Rotary Club Shad bake, and advises, "Enjoy shad the way you feel comfortable. If George Washington was not daunted by its bones, why should you? After all, shad is not just a fish, it's a celebration of life!"

The Associated Press has recently announced two global additions: its newly created post of African editor, and a new bureau in Kabul due to open in August. Veteran AP correspondent Andrew Selsky has been appointed to the role of African editor and will be based in Johannesburg, overseeing the bureau there as well as those in Nairobi, Kenya, Harare, (Zimbabwe), Lagos (Nigeria) and Dakar (Senegal) and controlling a network of correspondents across 45 countries.

The new bureau in Kabul will open in time for the Afghan elections in August, forming part of existing newsgathering services in the region. It comes under AP's outside broadcast production and transmission project, AP Global Media Services. It will provide studio space and house a team of engineers, camera crews and video editors, a good indication of the AP's range of multimedia coverage.

The BBC World Service's citizen journalism project, 'Your Story' has been axed due to lack of funding, reports journalism.co.uk.

"It's sad, but funding priorities make it so," said Nina Robinson, a senior broadcast journalist who headed the service.

'Your Story', in operation since June 2008, asked amateur contributors from around the world to put forward their ideas for news stories and features, as well as send in their own personal testimonies, photos, video and audio clips. Without funding, the programme could not continue to function in its role as a teacher in the citizen journalism trend, as individuals following their own research ideas were provided with equipment and training. Their work was then broadcasted on the World Service or put on to its online site.

Whilst circumstances have forced the closure of this one venture, the door has not been closed permanently to aspiring amateur journalists. Robinson plans to meet with the World Service commissioner, Anne Koch, "to discuss how we move forward with citizen content", in recognition that "most content is still coming in through the Have Your Say page on the BBC News site".

Will people voluntarily pay to read news that they could easily read for free? Cynthia Typaldos, founder of Kachingle is convinced that they will. Kachingle proposes a novel solution to the news industry's revenue problems: encourage people to donate money to their favourite sites, whether these are major news outlets or small-time blogs. The Editors Weblog spoke to Typaldos to find out more about the scheme, which is due to launch in late July or early August.

How it works

Kachingle users, who the company are calling Kachinglers, need to sign up once to set up their subscription, which, via PayPal, will charge them $5 a month. When they go to a news site that is participating in the venture, it will display a Kachingle 'medallion', which the user can click on to indicate their support for that site. The reader can choose to highlight as many or as few news sites as it wishes, and Kachingle will track the number of times that they visit that site in a month. At the end of a month their $5 will be divided and distributed proportionally between the sites which they have flagged, according to the amount of times visited (with a 15% cut going to Kachingle and 5% to PayPal.) "The algorithm is meant to be a proxy for value received the consumer," Typaldos explained.

One of the most striking themes to come from the second day of the Power of Print Conference was the importance of newspapers knowing their audience. South Africa's Daily Sun, for example, grew rapidly to become the country's largest newspaper off the back of in depth market research.

Fergus Sampson, of the Daily Sun's owner Media 24 described how they discovered an audience of working class young black citizens who had come of age at the time of freedom, but who didn't have a newspaper, and set out fill the gap. "It does not try to be all things to all people. It does not include anything that wouldn't interest its people. The formula is dictated by the market and the needs of the market," said Sampson.

The Gulf News, based in the United Arab Emirates prints in a region which allows no free political discourse - a real problem for a newspaper. Francis Matthew, editor at large for the publication, described how the news overcame the issue by focussing on subjects of specific interest to its audience such as environment and education. "We have earned our readers' trust by covering topics vital to the interests and daily concerns," he says.

With newspapers working out how to simultaneously appeal to their readers, monetise their content and be successful businesses, some publications are taking unusual steps to do so. Speaking at the World Association of Newspapers' Power of Print Conference in Barcelona, Kylie Davis of the Sydney Morning Herald and Sun-Herald, and Rodrigo Fino of Garcia Media described what steps their publications have taken.

Davis discussed the "sacrosanct" relationship between editorial and advertising, and how the Morning Herald and Sun Herald have toed the line between the two and come up with a profitable solution. They create high quality specialised magazines of 'advertorials', bundled with the newspaper but clearly separated from the main editorial.
The content of the magazines is written by news staff to strict standards, on a brief provided by the advertiser. ""We're not selling content, we're selling context," explained Davis. She said that the specialised publications have brought the newspaper company close to $5 million AU (€2.54 million) of new revenue in under 12 months.

According to an investigation conducted by Princeton economists Sam Schulhofer-Wohl and Miguel Garrido, print journalists can bask in the knowledge that their work is sill important, the American Journalism Review maintains.

The spring report, "Do Newspapers Matter? Evidence from the Closure of The Cincinnati Post" found that "even underdogs such as the Post, which had a circulation of just 27,000 when it closed - can have a substantial and measurable impact on public life." The researchers qualify that the results are "statistically imprecise", but conclude that local newspapers have an important role in the civic life of a community.
To ascertain the significance of the paper, the economists decided to analyse civic developments and public mentality in its absence. They chose to follow the northern Kentucky suburbs following the closure of the Cincinnati Post in December 2007 and its Kentucky Post edition, which were the main providers of printed news in the region and had greatest levels of circulation.

The conclusions pointed primarily to the role of the paper as a political stimulus, through whipping up public interest in local politics. Attendant to the paper's demise was the rise of either indifference or ignorance about civic developments: fewer residents voted in elections and there was a decrease in candidates for city councils, city commissions and school boards.

Beamups, the digital marketplace for news footage goes live today with a UK version of the site.

The invention of two former cameramen, Boaz Eshtai and Yosi Romano, Beamups offers a platform for producers to distribute and sell their previously unused and archived material to would-be buyers.

The website first launched in the Middle East in April and, since then, has already helped to secure deals with the BBC, Al Jazeera, ABC and Rtvi.

Speaking with the Guardian's digital publishing correspondent, Jemima Kiss, a company spokeswoman said the site is intended as a business-to-business venture, although they have not ruled out the possibility of adding some amateur content. In any case, the company does not plan to operate in the same way as newswire service Demotix, which promotes the work of citizen journalists.

Every item sold on Beamups represents a 40% commission fee for the company - a typical figure within the industry, particularly for a B2B provider - and the seller gets to dictate the price. Buyers can choose from a variety of material and can opt to purchase footage outright or use it as a one-off. Like eBay, vendors set up their own "window" and, once a sale has been made, shoppers are invited to rate the service and quality of the content.

UK-based PageSuite, a software development company which creates digital publications, has come up with a new software tool that will enable readers of newspapers on the web to search for key words and phrases. The search results appear instantly highlighted.

Currently, such a function is possible with the website versions of a newspaper, but few electronic titles offer the option. Outside the UK, El Paí­s' English-language version, produced in conjunction with the International Herald Tribune, is a good example of a newspaper e-edition where this service is already available.

UK online papers expected to benefit from the new software are likely to be those which already have an agreement with PageSuite. Following a two-year deal signed back in March, they include all the local and regional titles of the Johnston Press, comprising - among others - the Scotsman. PageSuite also powers all of the Newsquest and Archant-owned newspapers, as well as some from the Trinity Mirror group. PageSuite also counts the Examiner newspapers in Washington D.C. and San Francisco, as well as Illinois' Shaw Suburban Media group and military newspaper Stars and Stripes among its American customers.

Mine magazine represents a further effort in the on-demand initiative to diversify the print industry. The Time Inc. publication professes to deliver a fortnightly magazine personalised to the subscriber's interests. Mine's content is an assortment of articles from a selection of Time's Inc.'s publications, of which the reader must chose five titles. Upon subscription the reader is asked four questions of personal choice to further gauge their tastes.

Its editors aim to provide a printed alternative to the wealth of online information that users habitually sift through to find pieces appealing directly to their own interests. It was also perhaps inspired by online services offering catered-to-taste provision of information and entertainment, such as the DailyME.

Mine magazine is currently in the experimental stages, and experiencing inevitable teething problems of timing and distribution. But the possibilities for future success along this format are there. According to Slate writer and recipient of the magazine, Farhad Manjoo: