New York Times: Job losses felt at all levels of journalism

“The fast-shrinking newspaper business set a new standard for job insecurity in the last couple of weeks. Winning your profession’s highest honor does not mean you get to keep your job, and neither does taking a bullet while at work,” writes Richard Perez-Pena.

While Perez-Pena focuses on the US industry – citing the example of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Paul Giblin who had been made redundant in January – the same story is seen in the UK: Northcliffe Media made the Newspaper Society’s digital team of the year redundant earlier this year.

Full story at this link…

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BBC News/Flickr: The week in newspaper billboards

(hat tip to @johncthompson for this one) The BBC has asked its audience to send in pictures of local newspaper billboards to show ‘a week in local news’.

The results can be seen in this Flickr group. Favourite billboard so far: ‘Jilted lover kills ex’s fish’.

Full story at this link…

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Milne Media: Opportunities in the Herald’s website merger

Shaun Milne sees the soon-to-be launched HeraldScotland site – a merger of the Herald and Sunday Herald websites – as a new opportunity: for design, for the papers to boost their audiences and for journalism graduates.

Full post at this link…

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Buzzmachine: Jeff Jarvis on the future of magazines

Jarvis turns his attention to magazines (in particular the consumer mag industry) in this post, asking if magazines are doomed.

“I’m not saying that magazines are going to start dropping like flies and newspapers. When the economy comes back, many will still be able to sell their targeted, engaged audiences to advertisers for a premium … at least for awhile,” he says.

Full post at this link…

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Slideshow: Nottingham Trent University’s new broadcasting and journalism centre

On Friday, Journalism.co.uk took a trip to Nottingham for the opening of a new training centre at Nottingham Trent University.

The results of a £250,000 investment can be seen below – as can a pic of me gazing somewhat adoringly at Sir Michael Parkinson, who expressed his concerns for the future of local media at the event.

The opening was followed up by a visit to the Nottingham Evening Post and a good chat with deputy editor Martin Done about how it integrated its newsroom – more thoughts to come on this.

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PA launches video wire service – added support for regional newspapers

The UK’s Press Association (PA) has announced a new service – a video wire of raw news footage.

While the association has produced video since 2005, it has never made this content available on a news wire, alongside text and pictures.

Subscribers to the service will be able to edit their own packages from the clips, a release from the agency said – making the cost of the service lower.

Regional newspapers will be offered a free trial of the service, which will feature up to 30 stories a day.

“The video wire is not only a cost-effective solution for news broadcasters, but will also support regional media players at an important stage in their development as multi-platform businesses,” said Tony Watson, PA managing director, in the release.

“As DCMS and Ofcom grapple with the issue of safeguarding plurality of provision in PSB regional television news, we believe the new UK video service could make a significant contribution to the solutions currently under consideration.”

The PA’s launch comes as potential partnerships between the BBC and local media on training and equipment are set to get the go ahead – according to this MediaGuardian report.

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Media Release: BBC to partner with commercial radio for new projects

The BBC has announced plans to team up with commercial radio groups Global Radio, Bauer Media and GMG, to develop new digital projects for the radio industry – including a ‘a calendar of exclusive digital-only content for listeners on DAB’.

Full release at this link…

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Bad Science: Ben Goldacre on scientists and the media

Ben Goldacre links to his interview for the Today Programme on BBC Radio 4 – ‘talking about dumbing down science’. He joins Kathy Sykes, who has just written a piece in New Scientist on the topic, to discuss scientists and their participation in the media.

Full post at this link…

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Dan Mason: The ‘pathetic tirade’ over council newspapers

An alternative perspective on the council publication debate from Dan Mason, a former managing editor for 12 London weeklies. He is fed up with the ‘pathetic tirade’ over local council publications, and argues that time should be spent talking, rather than warring.

(…) “[T]he fact is, if we’d [regional newspapers] done our job right and maintained a constructive, consistent, high-level relationship with council chiefs in years gone by, Cllr LGA chairman Margaret Eaton wouldn’t have been in a position to make this astonishing remark to the OFT: ‘The local media cannot provide the same amount of information about how to access services as a dedicated council publication can.’”

Full post at this link…

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WindowOnTheMedia: Database journalism defined

An interesting day to flag this one up (given that the Guardian  is actively calling for people to play with the Swine Flu data today): Nicolas Kayser-Brill has written an entry on Wikipedia for ‘database journalism’.

Full story at this link…

Also see: #DataJourn Part 1: a new conversation (Journalism.co.uk Editors’ Blog)

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