#FollowJourn: @jonslattery/Jon Slattery, freelance media journalist

Freelance Unbound: Print and online differences – a view from Belgium

June 25th, 2009 | 1 Comment | Posted by Judith Townend in Editors' pick, Online Journalism

A nice round-up from the Freelance Unbound blog on a post by a Belgian linguistic researcher, Tom Van Hout, about the differences between print and online journalism.

“I like its academic slant (something which often puts me off), as it actually helps to illuminate the murky way that news journalism is constructed and then passed off as something whole and authoritative.”

This quote by Van Hout is picked out: “Online, ‘readers’ can see how the sausage is being made and promptly start making sausages themselves. This inevitably leads to discussions about sausage making.”

The summary and the original post are worth a visit.

Tags: Belgium, freelance unbound, linguistic researcher, online differences, Online Journalism, tom van hout

Demotix photographer arrested in Iran will not face further inquiries

June 25th, 2009 | 1 Comment | Posted by Judith Townend in Citizen journalism, Editors' pick, Press freedom and ethics

Last week we included news that a Demotix contributor had been arrested in Iran in a blog post about the cit-j agency’s content from Iran.

Now an update from Demotix commissioning editor, Andy Heath:

“In these difficult days, it’s good to have some positive news to report from Iran.

“We’ve just heard that the Demotix contributor who was arrested last week by the Iranian police will not face further inquiries and has had his camera returned to him by officials. You may that he was told he could be charged as a spy and potentially executed during his arrest, so this news comes as a great relief to him and – I’m sure – everyone involved with Demotix.

“It’s too early to tell if this is an example of a relaxation of press restrictions in Iran or if, as seems more likely, this particular photographer was fortunate.”

Tags: Andy Heath, commissioning editor, Demotix, Demotix photographer, Iran, iran elections, Iranian police, Islamic Republic of Iran, particular photographer, spy

Deadline Hollywood Daily’s Nikki Finke: “I did not sell out”

June 25th, 2009 | 1 Comment | Posted by Judith Townend in Editors' pick, Online Journalism, Social media and blogging

It was reported this week that Nikki Finke has sold her media and entertainment news blog, Deadline Hollywood Daily, to Mail Media Corporation – for a figure speculated to be as much as $15m. Here’s a blog post written on Tuesday by the former Newsweek writer:

“Know this: I did not sell out. I really meant it when I said that DeadlineHollywood Daily.com will continue to be an independent editorial voice – and I would retain complete control over everything reported on the website – so that DHD’s credibility with its readers could remain intact.”

Full post can be found at this link…

Tags: Daily.com, deadline hollywood daily, dhd, mail media corporation, Newsweek, Nikki Finke, USD, writer

Schlesinger: Reuters’ ‘multimedia gospel’ and a new media Olympics

June 25th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted by Laura Oliver in Citizen journalism, Online Journalism, Social media and blogging

On Tuesday Reuters editor-in-chief, David Schlesinger urged the International Olympics Committee to rethink its accreditation rules and strategy for media/news coverage of forthcoming Games to take into account new forms of newsgathering, publishing and the democratisation of both in the hands of the non-journalist.

Schlesinger (or @daschles) is well placed to comment on such issues – during this year’s World Economics Forum, the Reuters head beat one of his own correspondents to a report by tweeting his own updates from George Soros’ speech.

Last night, he also described to the IOC how he had been pressured to remove a Reuters blog post after he took pictures of the Beijing Games without proper editorial photographer accreditation.

His comments also builds on the debate ahead of last year’s competition over whether athletes should be allowed to blog/report from the Games.

Some key quotes from the speech:

“The old means of control don’t work. The old categories don’t work. The old ways of thinking won’t work. We all need to come to terms with that.”
“More and more, we’re issuing a multimedia report to multimedia-savvy consumers who no longer make a distinction between information they receive from text and information they receive from images.”
“That means understanding what really can be exclusive and what really is insightful. It means truly exploiting real expertise. It means, to my earlier point, using all the multimedia tools available and all the smart multimedia journalists to provide a package so much stronger than any one individual strand. It means working with the mobile phone and digital camera and social media-enabled public and not against them.”

You can read Schlesinger’s full speech on Reuters’ blogs.

Tags: cellular telephone, David Schlesinger, digital camera, editor-in-chief, George Soros, International Olympics Committee, media/news coverage, multimedia tools, non-journalist, Olympics, photographer, reuters, the Beijing Games, the Games

‘Hostage in Qatar’: jailed for three years with hard labour unless raises appeal money

June 25th, 2009 | 1 Comment | Posted by Judith Townend in Editors' pick, Legal, Online Journalism, Press freedom and ethics

A report from The National.

“A Belgian national who claims he has been ‘held hostage’ in Qatar by his sponsor since the company he worked for fell into financial difficulty last year, has been sentenced to three years in prison with hard labour.”

On June 22 the former managing director of Dialogic Qatar, Philippe Bogaert, discovered he had been sentenced to three years imprisonment. Bogaert, who has been publicising his case via Twitter, said: “I can pay 500 Riyals to freeze the judgment and appeal. Then I will have to be represented by a Qatari lawyer during the next hearings.”

Bogaert told Journalism.co.uk: “If I raise the money, I can appeal so won’t go to jail (yet). But unfortunately, I’ll still be far from free…”

Previously on Journalism.co.uk: ‘I am a hostage in Qatar and this is my Twitter SOS:’ Philippe Bogaert’s story told in 140 characters’

If you have further information to add to this story please contact judith at journalism.co.uk.

Tags: broadcast manager, Dialogic Qatar, hostage in qatar, Journalism.co.uk, lawyer, managing director, Philippe Bogaert, Qatar, SAR, The National, Twitter

BBC executives’ expenses: the links. Now play!

June 25th, 2009 | 1 Comment | Posted by Judith Townend in Broadcasting, Editors' pick, Handy tools and technology

You’ll find the information tucked away on the BBC Freedom of Information site at this link.

Update: Journalism.co.uk wasted a little bit of its time getting the annoyingly inaccessible BBC PDFs into spreadsheet format, but knew that the Guardian’s data people would be doing that too. So we’ll get back to other duties while you have fun with this from the Guardian’s DataBlog: DATA: download the full spreadsheet of BBC executive expenses.

More to follow from Journalism.co.uk, but in the meantime the links you’ll need if you want to play yourself. Some files are missing – BBC Information informs us that there are more to come.

And the individuals:

Mark Thompson, Director-General

Mark Thompson’s expenses 2008/09 PDF (63KB)
Mark Thompson’s expenses 2007/08 PDF (47KB)
Mark Thompson’s expenses 2006/07 PDF (48KB)
Mark Thompson’s expenses 2005/06 PDF (44KB)
Mark Thompson’s expenses 2004/05 PDF (42KB)

Mark Byford, Deputy Director-General

Mark Byford’s expenses 2008/09 PDF (41KB)
Mark Byford’s expenses 2007/08 PDF (41KB)
Mark Byford’s expenses 2006/07 PDF (42KB)
Mark Byford’s expenses 2005/06 PDF (41KB)
Mark Byford’s expenses 2004/05 PDF (40KB)

Jana Bennett, Director, Vision

Jana Bennett’s expenses 2008/09 PDF (47KB)
Jana Bennett’s expenses 2007/08 PDF (48KB)
Jana Bennett’s expenses 2006/07 PDF (48KB)
Jana Bennett’s expenses 2005/06 PDF (48KB)
Jana Bennett’s expenses 2004/05 PDF (51KB)

Tim Davie, Director, Audio & Music

Tim Davie’s expenses 2008/09 PDF (47KB)
Tim Davie’s expenses 2007/08 PDF (42KB)
Tim Davie’s expenses 2006/07 PDF (47KB)
Tim Davie’s expenses 2005/06 PDF (41KB)

Erik Huggers, Director, Future Media & Technology

Erik Huggers’ expenses 2008/09 PDF (39KB)

Sharon Baylay, Director, Marketing, Communications & Audiences

Lucy Adams, Director, BBC People – biography to be published shortly

Zarin Patel, Chief Financial Officer

Zarin Patel’s expenses 2008/09 PDF (42KB)
Zarin Patel’s expenses 2007/08 PDF (42KB)
Zarin Patel’s expenses 2006/07 PDF (45KB)
Zarin Patel’s expenses 2005/06 PDF (40KB)
Zarin Patel’s expenses 2004/05 PDF (37KB)

John Smith, Chief Executive Officer, BBC Worldwide

John Smith’s expenses 2008/09 PDF (44KB)
John Smith’s expenses 2007/08 PDF (44KB)
John Smith’s expenses 2006/07 PDF (44KB)
John Smith’s expenses 2005/06 PDF (46KB)
John Smith’s expenses 2004/05 PDF (46KB)

Caroline Thomson, Chief Operating Officer

Caroline Thomson’s expenses 2008/09 PDF (50KB)
Caroline Thomson’s expenses 2007/08 PDF (51KB)
Caroline Thomson’s expenses 2006/07 PDF (51KB)
Caroline Thomson’s expenses 2005/06 PDF (45KB)
Caroline Thomson’s expenses 2004/05 PDF (50KB)

And while we’re about it – here’s the link to the Audit Committee standing orders:

And the Register of interests:

Expenses:

General:

Travel and transport:

Tags: Audio & Music, Audio & Music Tim Davie, Audio & Music Tim Davie's expenses, Audit Committee, BBC, BBC People, BBC Scotland, BBC Worldwide, bbcexpenses, Beijing Olympics, British Broadcasting Corporation, car hire, Caroline Thomson, Chief, chief executive officer, Chief Financial Officer, chief operating officer, Christmas, Christmas party, communications, David Robbie, Deputy Director-General, director, Director General, Erik Huggers, Executive Board, Future Media & Technology Erik Huggers, Future Media & Technology Sharon Baylay, General, Glasgow RFI20080025, Jana Bennett, John Smith, Journalism.co.uk, London, Lucy Adams, Marcus Agius, Mark Byford, Mark Thompson, Marketing, Mike Lynch, Nominations Committee, Northern Ireland, officer, PDF, Public Service Broadcasting Travel, Radio 3, Remuneration Committee, Robert Webb, Salford Council, Samir Shah, Sharon Baylay, The Guardian, Tim Davie, Vision, Zarin Patel

Reportr.net: Innovative funding led to ‘Ghana:Digital Dumping’ film

June 25th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted by Judith Townend in Broadcasting, Editors' pick, Training

Alfred Hermida comments on the ‘innovative funding approach’ that led to this: a documentary on the global traffic in e-waste. He says:

“Among the headline-grabbing findings, the students bought a hard drive in Ghana which contained sensitive US Homeland data about military contracts.”

The film was produced by students at the UBC Graduate School of Journalism and aired on FRONTLINE/World on June 23.

Hermida, who is assistant professor at the UBC School of Journalism, writes:

“The work was produced as part of an new course in International Reporting run by my colleague, Peter Klein.

“But it was only possible due to an innovative funding approach that combines social entrepreneurship, journalism education and professional partnerships.”

Full post at this link…

Tags: Alfred Hermida, assistant professor, e-waste, FRONTLINE/World, Ghana, Ghana:Digital Dumping, Graduate School, Peter Klein, Reportr.net, ubc, UBC Graduate School of Journalism, UBC School of Journalism

Arabian Business: Al Jazeera English ‘signs first major US TV deal’

June 25th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted by Judith Townend in Broadcasting, Editors' pick

“Al Jazeera English will begin its foray into the American market on July 1 after signing its first major US distribution deal with a cable TV company in the Washington DC area,” Arabian Business exclusively reports.

According to AB’s report, Al Jazeera’s director general, Wadah Khanfar, said in an interview: “On July 1 we [AJE] are going to launch the first operation in cable distribution in the United States.”

Full story at this link…

(Hat tip: @amonck)

Tags: Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera English, arabian business, Cable TV, Director General, major US distribution deal, major US TV deal, United States, wadah khanfar, Washington DC

HoldtheFrontPage: New row over UK council newspapers

June 25th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted by Judith Townend in Editors' pick, Journalism, Newspapers

“A fresh political row is brewing over council newspapers after a Tory-run council in Essex voted to press ahead with plans to spend £100,000 launching its own publication,” reports HoldTheFrontPage.co.uk.

Full story at this link…

Tags: council newspapers, GBP, hold the front page, HoldtheFrontPage.co.uk, httfp, UK council