Guardian.co.uk: Subbing own Guardian blog is not the norm, says Janine Gibson

It would seem that Roy Greenslade is in a ‘small handful of journalists’ who blog straight-to-screen at the Guardian. Today in the Guardian, Siobhain Butterworth’s weekly column looks at the media regulation debate following the publication of the Media Standards Trust report.

This part, near the end of the article, is particularly interesting, given Roy Greenslade’s comments last week:

“The trust reports that many newspapers are giving journalists responsibility for their own editing and that this is increasing the risk of inaccuracies. Janine Gibson, editor of the Guardian’s website, says this is not true of the Guardian: “The majority of our blogs are edited and subbed before publication. I can only think of a small handful of journalists who blog direct to the web without being either desked or subbed first. We don’t publish news stories undesked and although our journalists can publish pictures direct to blogs, they rarely do.”" Open door, Guardian.co.uk 16/02/09

According to Press Gazette’s report from last week’s Publishing Expo, Roy Greenslade said that he subs his own blog:

“I write my blog every day, I don’t need a sub to get in the way,” said the former Daily Mirror editor turned Guardian blogger.

“I produce copy that goes straight on screen – why can’t anyone else do that? You can eliminate a whole structure.

“It’s not perfect, not how I would want it to be – but the thing is, commercially, we have to do it.” PressGazette.co.uk, 13/02/09

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BJP documents Terrorism Act photography event

The British Journal of Photography (BJP) is covering the photographic ‘event’ against the new Counter-Terrorism Act 2008, which comes into force today, with live updates and images posted to Twitter.

A Facebook group for the gathering outside New Scotland Yard in London describes the event as ‘NOT a protest! It’s just photography!’

The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) is also supporting the action against the act, which makes photographing a police constable (“Eliciting, publishing or communicating information about members of armed forces etc”) an offence.

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Roy Greenslade: Response to criticisms of sub-editor comments

Media commentator Roy Greenslade responds to criticisms made of his comments last week, in which he said why the current role of sub-editors is becoming redundant.

“It is just not good enough to say that it’s fine for reporters to upload an ill-written set of facts and that subs should make sense of it. The coming generations of reporters will need to have both reporting and subbing skills,” he writes.

Full post at this link…

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Dallasnews.com: Court calls on news aggregator to reveal anonymous commenters

A US county court judge has called on news aggregation site Topix.com to reveal identifying information about 178 anonymous commenters, who left comments on a story relating to sexual abuse allegations.

The site has until March 6 to comply.

Full story at this link…

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Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – Breaking into social news

Social news: Want to break into social news sites such as Digg and delicious? Users of these sites tend to be tech-savvy so technology focused items could fare well with this audience. Tipster: Laura Oliver.

To submit a tip to Journalism.co.uk, use this link – we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.

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FT.com: RBI publisher may extend loan debt

Reed Elsevier, parent company of Reed Business Information (RBI), is close to completing a deal that would grant a three-year extension of $2 billion of loan debt.

Full story at this link…

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paidContent:UK: Interview with Jacob Weisberg, Slate Group editor-in-chief

Interview with Weisberg following the launch of Slate.fr – the French-language edition of Slate.com – in which the editor-in-chief hints at global expansion plans.

Full article at this link…

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Baroness Ros Scott: Should the PCC be abolished?

Baron Ros Scott, member of the House of Lords Select Committee’s review of media ownership and the news last year, questions the existence of the Press Complaints Commission (PCC).

“Its entire existence is based on a narrow remit of dealing with complaints from individuals who have the patience (and resources) to go through their procedures. They do not attempt to deal with standards more generally, and given the enormous competitive pressure on newspapers, standards of accuracy and the need for more sensationalist stories are resulting in a dramatic decline in general standards,” she writes

Full post at this link…

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Sarah Hartley: Barriers to journalists using Twitter – and how to overcome them

Excellent round-up from Sarah Hartley of why ‘I don’t see the point’ and ‘I don’t have time’ aren’t reasons to prevent journalists from using Twitter.

Full post at this link…

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Save The Media: What’s a typical day in a web-first newsroom?

Newspaper journalist Gina Chen goes through her working day in an online-first newsroom with some great tips on time management and using social media tools.

Full post at this link…

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