#FollowJourn: @steve_nicholls/multimedia editor

BBC denies ‘radical’ overhaul of websites

September 30th, 2009 | 2 Comments | Posted by Judith Townend in Broadcasting, Online Journalism

What’s the difference between a refresh and a re-launch? We’ll leave that for the Guardian and the BBC to fight out…

The Guardian today reported that a ‘radical redesign’ and re-launch of BBC websites is planned for March 2010, with a focus on social media – according to the paper’s sources.

Among the changes outlined were a ‘a new homepage and underlying hosting platform,’ radical changes to news navigation, commenting facilities on programmes, the launch of the Open iPlayer and new connections to third party platforms.

The BBC, however, denied such a ‘radical overhaul’ to Journalism.co.uk, although it said ‘a refresh of the BBC News site’ will take place in due course – as previously reported.

In a statement it said:

“We’re always looking to improve the BBC experience for our users but contrary to reports, we are not planning a radical overhaul of the BBC’s websites.

“We are looking at how we can genuinely make BBC Online part of the web and meet our users growing expectations that they can contribute in different ways to our web site, and more broadly how we can share our technologies with other media companies.

“The website for Strictly Come Dancing as well as the Open iPlayer are examples – and as previously announced, we are planning a refresh of the BBC News site in the new year. Any investment in BBC Online is tightly assessed for market impact and public value before we commit to it.”

Further explanation will be given further down the line, a spokesperson told Journalism.co.uk.

In March 2009 director-general Mark Thompson announced that the BBC must cut £400 million from its budget within the next three years to avoid going over its statutory borrowing limit. Thompson said the corporation was targeting a five per cent cost reduction for television programme cost, year-on-year, for the next five years, a cumulative saving of 20 per cent.

This month he has talked of a ‘radical’ review of a different kind, one which will not necessarily dismiss the notion that the BBC has reached its limit of expansion (a suggestion originally made by culture secretary Ben Bradshaw).

Speaking at the BBC Open Day in August journalism controller of BBC Future Media & Technology, Nic Newman, said there will be no new editorial launches; rather users would see a ‘re-arrangement’ of content in the new year.

Tags: BBC, BBC iPlayer, Ben Bradshaw, British Broadcasting Corporation, Mark Thompson, media players, Strictly Come Dancing, The Guardian

Trinity Mirror update: One weekly could be rescued at TM North West and Wales, while exec share row rumbles on

September 30th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted by Judith Townend in Job losses, Jobs, Newspapers

Two updates on Trinity Mirror stories to report:

The Whitchurch Herald could be saved despite last week’s announcement that it would be one of three weeklies in the North West and Wales division to close – if a buyer is found. ‘It has been postponed to enable owners Trinity Mirror North West and Wales to consider new approaches from parties interested in purchasing the newspaper title,’ said the company.

“There have been some developments in the last few days so we have decided to continue producing the Whitchurch Herald while discussions with interested parties take place. We will keep readers and advertisers informed of developments,” said Carl Wood, Trinity Mirror Cheshire publishing director.

Meanwhile, a dispute over Trinity Mirror executives’ share awards continues. Following last week’s announcement that two additional weekly newspaper titles are to close, with around 15 jobs threatened overall at Trinity Mirror subsidiary Media Wales – one division of TM North West and Wales - the NUJ questioned share ‘handouts’ to executives – worth over £800,000 in total, it claimed. But Trinity Mirror denied they were of any value.

We’ll go through this one point by point – please do get in touch with additional points to raise:

1. The NUJ claimed that share awards to directors had not been publicised when a pay freeze and bonus cut across the company – including directors – was announced in November 2008.

TM said it was not new information and it had always been publicly available online.

The NUJ now says: “The fact is that Trinity Mirror employees were not told directly at the time of the pay freeze about this additional remuneration. It was merely stated that the pay freeze applied to directors too.”

2. The NUJ challenged share awards made to Sly Bailey (chief executive) and Vijay Vaghela (finance director) in April 2009.

TM said the share awards ‘have no value’ at present and were provisionally granted until targets are met.

The NUJ now says: “We have not suggested that the directors have already received payment for the value of the shares. In the circumstances, we call on the directors to confirm that they will decline to accept any financial advantage from this share award.”

3. The NUJ also claimed that the three directors – Bailey, Vaghela and legal director Paul Vickers – exercised an option to ‘buy’ more shares on June 29 this year – for no purchase price, before selling them.

TM said: that the shares sold in June were part of the 2007 bonus, which had been deferred until now:

“[P]art of the bonus paid to senior managers is deferred for 12 months and paid in shares. It is the deferred shares from the 2007 bonus that have just been released.

“The only shares that were sold were those that the company required to be sold to pay the PAYE tax liabilities on the value of the shares. None of that money went to the directors and they still hold all the other shares released to them.”

The NUJ now says: “We call on the directors to return this part of their 2007 bonus as it was paid after the imposition of the pay freeze.”

Journalism.co.uk asked TM about the 2007 bonus arrangement: why are the directors required to sell these shares in this way?

“The release of shares is treated as a payment for tax purposes, and – like all other payments – the tax is deducted at the time the payment is made,” a spokesperson said.

And why was the share award system not publicised at the time of the pay freeze?

“All the information about the share award referred to in the NUJ’s press release was already in the public domain before the announcement about pay freezes in November 2008,” said the spokesperson.

Tags: Carl Wood, Paul Vickers, Sly Bailey, the Whitchurch Herald, Trinity Mirror PLC, Vijay Vaghela

Small victory for Heather Brooke in ongoing fight for transparency

September 30th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted by Judith Townend in Legal, Press freedom and ethics

Earlier this month we reported how a submission by the investigative journalist Heather Brooke was among 67 statements being questioned by lawyers for the Committee on Standards in Public Life inquiry into the MPs’ expenses scandal.

Hearings were held in public for the investigation into MPs’ allowances but the standing committee, chaired by Sir Christopher Kelly, was refusing to publish evidence from Brooke, on the grounds it could be ‘libellous’.

But Brooke can now claim a small victory in her fight for transparency. Last week the committee told her it has now been published on its website, she told Journalism.co.uk.

“The Committee having weighed the risks decided to publish the submission,” she was informed via email.

It is available to view at: http://public-standards.org.uk/Library/MP_Expenses_E681_Heather_Brooke.pdf [PDF]

Journalism.co.uk will now try and find out what happened to the other 66 submissions in question…

Tags: Christopher Kelly, heather brooke

TimesOnline: Daily Mail halves its advertising decline rate

September 30th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted by Judith Townend in Advertising, Editors' pick, Newspapers

“Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) said yesterday that it had halved the rate of decline in advertising revenue at its flagship national newspaper in September, a fillip that suggests the industry could start to recover in the new year,” reports the Times.

Full post at this link…

Tags: Daily Mail, Daily Mail and General Trust, The Times

Reportr.net: Online News Association needs to be more global

September 30th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted by Judith Townend in Editors' pick, Events, Training

The US-based Online News Association needs to be more global, writes Alfred Hermida, professor of journalism at the University of British Columbia, before setting off to its annual conference.

“One major issue is the dominance of US panelists. While many of these have much to contribute, the ONA is doing its members a disservice by not noting that most of the world’s online news organisations are based outside of the US.

“This is a recurring issue for the ONA. Last year’s conference was also US-dominated, so it is disappointing that so little has changed.”

It should follow the lead of the recent Future of Journalism conference in Cardiff which brought together ‘scholars from across the world’ he says.

Full post at this link…

Tags: Alfred Hermida, ona, Online News Association

Malcolm Coles: ‘Cervical cancer jab reports show the newspapers have learned nothing from MMR’

September 30th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted by Judith Townend in Editors' pick, Press freedom and ethics

The UK media have learned nothing from the debacle over the MMR vaccine, argues internet and media consultant Malcolm Coles on his blog.

“They are continuing their habit of undermining public-health initiatives with their latest scare story about the safety of the cervical cancer jab, after the tragic death of a schoolgirl who had the vaccine the same day.”

Full post at this link…

Tags: cervical cancer jab, malcolm coles, scaremongering

Kristine Lowe: Iceland’s ‘most hated man’ appointed newspaper editor

September 30th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted by Judith Townend in Editors' pick, Newspapers, Press freedom and ethics

The news is now a few days old, but Kristine Lowe’s blog post on the appointment of Davíd Oddsson – Iceland’s longest serving prime minister and former head of the Central Bank – as editor of daily paper Morgunbladid, is worth a read. Not least for her photograph showing how Icelandic protesters felt about Oddsson back in December.

Full post at this link…

Icelandic Review story at this link…

Can we think of a hypothetical comparison for the UK? Mandelson to edit the Times?

Alistair Campbell to edit the New Statesman? (Ed: we said hypothetical…)

Tags: Davíd Oddsson, Kristine Lowe, Morgunbladid

Newsweek’s Daniel Lyons: ‘Don’t bail out newspapers – let them die and get out of the way’

September 30th, 2009 | 1 Comment | Posted by Judith Townend in Editors' pick, Newspapers, Online Journalism

Daniel Lyons, senior editor and columnist at Newsweek, argues on his Techtonic Shifts blog that US bailout plans for newspapers, such as a proposed ‘Newspaper Revitalisation Act,’ are pointless and stupid:

“All this hysteria has nothing to do with saving the news, or saving jobs. Nor is it about saving democracy, which is what the red-in-the-face newspaper lovers always get themselves huffed about, as if newspapers and democracy were inextricably linked. Democracy existed long before newspapers did, and it will survive without them. And plenty of countries that don’t have democracy do have newspapers. Nor would a bailout help readers. In fact, it would only slow down our shift to the internet, which is a far better medium for delivering information.”

Full post at this link….

Tags: daniel lyons, Newspapers, Newsweek

Sun says it’s Tories wot should win it

September 30th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted by Judith Townend in Newspapers

thesun

The Sun is ‘praying’ for the Tory leadership today, winning lots of coverage overnight for Britain’s highest selling daily newspaper. If you somehow managed to miss it, it reckons ‘Labour’s Lost It’.

Once again, in true lightbulb / ‘wot won it‘ style, it proclaims its political influence:

“At the 2005 election, we and our readers believed Labour had many failings but gave them one last chance over a lacklustre Tory party. They have had that chance and failed.”

Gordon Brown says he doesn’t care: “it is people that decide elections”.

Tags: Gordon Brown, Labour, The Sun, Tories, uk election