FT Alphaville wryly notes Reuters’ source for its Gmail fail story, ‘Twitter accounts’. Alphaville prefers a screen-grab from Gmail instead.
(Via @Psmith)
PS. Last Twitter post of the day, maybe.
Tags: Alphaville, reuters, Twitter
BBC science correspondent for the West Midlands David Gregory braves a ‘them and us’ post, blaming Twitter and bloggers for leaking the ‘water on the moon’ story ahead, hold your breath, of the embargo.
Journalists had been tipped off about the moon water announcement ahead of NASA’s big press conference by the journal Science, while another NASA release named the scientists taking part. With that information the bloggers predicted the scoop, leaving the 2000 chosen journalists behind.
Then, Gregory says the story was reported in the mainstream press in India, and picked up by the Times’ Delhi correspondent.
“Eventually the journal Science sees the cat is out of the bag, drop the embargo at 22.57 our time last night and all the British science journalists who’ve obeyed the embargo wake up to find they’ve missed one of the biggest days for the moon since we walked on it.”
Despite the headline, Gregory is not arguing that the embargo should be protected. In fact he says, the system is not working:
“[I]n these days of a global, 24-hour news media the process appears to be broken. You can’t shut up bloggers and you can’t shut down Twitter. The only thing that can go is the embargo system itself.”
Gregory doesn’t link to the blogger or Twitter rumours and cites the Indian press as the place the story went mainstream: does anyone know where it first broke online?
Tags: david gregory, embargo, embargoes, moon water
The following great job opportunities have been listed on journalism.co.uk this week:
Press officer
With proven media handling experience and have worked for or with a big brand, you’ll be part of a team that’s responsible for communicating a broad range of issues to a diverse external audience.
Salary: Up to £35K basic + benefits
3
Maidenhead, England
>>more
Assistant web editor
As assistant web editor you will work across all PMGroup’s websites. You will be responsible for the loading of content to the website, will have previous writing, editing and proofreading experience and a good technical understanding of the web
Salary: £competitive
PMGroup Worldwide Ltd
Dorking, Surrey, England
>>more
Junior reporter
Enthusiastic junior reporter needed by London SE1 agency.
Salary: DoE
AB Publishing
London, England
>>more
Intern writers
StrategyEye provides strategic intelligence and consulting services to a roster of high-profile corporate and financial services clients, including Amazon, the BBC, BSkyB, EMI, Warner Music, Vodafone, Yahoo!, Cisco, UBS and Benchmark Capital.
Salary: DoE
Market Clusters Ltd
London, England
>>more
Acting production editor
Haymarket Media Group, one of the worlds most respected private publishers of magazines and websites is seeking an acting production editor.
Salary: £34K
Haymarket Media
Hammersmith , United Kingdom
>>more
Group editor
Group editor for online, print and event activity in global automotive design. Needs ability to manage people and projects, solid journalistic/editing skills and web publishing/production experience. Knowing auto design is helpful but not essential.
Salary: £35-40K
Ultima Media
London, England
>>more
Broadcaster (broadcasting in Pashto)
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is seeking broadcasters for our programming to the Pashto-speaking people of Pakistan and the Pakistani-Afghan border region.
Salary: DoE
RFE/RL Inc
Prague, Rest of World
>>more
Russian-language service editor
Bloomberg News is seeking an editor for its Russian-language service to be based in the Moscow office.
Salary: competitive + benefits
Bloomberg
Moscow, Russia, Russia
>>more
Magazine editor
With excellent interpersonal skills and substantial experience of copywriting, proofreading, editing and working with graphic designers to edit the National Deaf Children’s Society’s title, NDCS Magazine.
Salary: £23,774 – £27,775 PA pro rata
The National Deaf Children’s Society
London, England
>>more
Production assistant – Editorial Production Studio
Are you passionate about punctuation? A stickler for spelling? Mad about magazines? Future is home to some of the best-known brands in magazine and online publishing, and there’s now an opportunity for you to sub-edit a whole range of fantastic titles…
Salary: Competitive
Future Publishing Ltd
Bath, England, England
>>more
Production sub-editor (permanent/full-time)
Global Legal Group (GLG), an independent legal publishing house based in central London, is looking for an ambitious production sub-editor to join our growing team.
Salary: DoE
Global Legal Group Ltd
London, England
>>more
News correspondents
Adfero, a leading online news agency, is looking for talented and enthusiastic writers to join its DirectNews division in Leeds.
Salary: £16K
Adfero
Leeds, England
>>more
Editor – Digital Camera
Take on the high profile role of editor on Digital Camera, one of Future’s biggest brands, and continue to grow the success of the magazine in a highly competitive sector.
Salary: Competitive
Future Publishing Ltd
Bath, England, England
>>more
Senior editor (broadcasting in Pashto)
RFE/RL Inc. is seeking a senior editor for our programming to the Pashto-speaking people of Pakistan and the Pakistani-Afghan border region.
Salary: DoE
RFE/RL Inc
Prague, Rest of Europe
>>more
Senior copy editor
You will be an experienced copy editor looking to develop your skills, working on a cutting edge portfolio of global news products, for one of the business world’s most respected brands.
Salary: £40K + superb bens.
Formula Won
Central London, United Kingdom
>>more
Editor
B2B Magazine editor for a market leading publication
Salary: Up to £33K
Lloyd Recruitment
West Sussex, England
>>more
Journalism trainee scheme
The BBC are looking for 15 exceptional people to be the broadcast journalists of the future. You’ll be trained in online, TV and radio.
Salary: DoE
BBC
Nationwide, United Kingdom
>>more
To see the full jobs board, please go to http://www.journalism.co.uk/36/64/
To sign up for free as a jobseeker, please go to http://www.journalism.co.uk/113/
To sign up as an advertiser, please go to http://www.journalism.co.uk/75/
According to a poll of more than 18,000 Australians released today by Pure Profile, only five per cent said they would be willing to pay for ‘high quality articles’, reports Mumbrella, the Australian media and marketing site.
“A further seven per cent said they would be willing to pay if there was no advertising. Ten per cent said they would not pay because the quality of online news was unimportant to them, while the vast majority – 78 per cent – said they would simply refuse to pay for online news.”
Related: Readers prefer subscriptions to micropayments – according to paidContent:UK/Harris survey
Tags: Australia, business model, mUmBRELLA, paid content, paidcontentuk, pay-for content, pure profile
Promoting its new book out today, the Telegraph discloses that a lack of army supplies for soliders fighting in Afghanistan motivated the whistleblower who leaked the unredacted MPs’ expenses data earlier this year.
The Telegraph will continue to protect the identity of its source, although it named another intermediary – former SAS major John Wick - in May.
“Workers who processed the MPs’ claims included serving soldiers, who were moonlighting between tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan to earn extra cash for body armour and other vital equipment.
“The soldiers were furious when they saw what MPs, including the Prime Minister, were claiming for and their anger convinced one of their civilian colleagues that taxpayers had a right to know how their money was being spent.
“The mole who leaked the data has told his story for the first time, in the hope that it will shame the Government into finally supplying the right equipment for the thousands of soldiers risking their lives in Afghanistan.
(…)
“Five months after The Daily Telegraph broke the story of MPs’ expenses, the mole angrily denounced politicians who ‘still don’t get it’ and were still preoccupied with their own financial situation rather than the plight of troops.”
New book: ‘No Expenses Spared‘
Tags: john wick, MPs expenses, the Telegraph
Finally, in its new duck-adorned book, the Telegraph reveals how much it paid to the source for the MPs’ expenses data: £110,000.
It doesn’t really sound that much (and much less than speculated figures) when you consider that the group pays Boris ‘chicken feed’ Johnson £250,000 a year for his weekly column.
Assistant editor Andrew Pierce, who has previously refused to disclose the details of the deal, defended the payment on this morning’s Radio 4 Today Programme:
“So far the tax payer has been reimbursed by MPs £500,000 and there’ll be more. We’ve got a much better commons as a result of it and I think the Telegraph took the decision – not lightly – but we were given 24 hours to read that file: it blew our minds when we saw what was in that file. It was money well spent in the public interest.”
Tags: Andrew Pierce, MPs expenses, telegraph
#FollowJourn: Dan Owen
Who? Executive editor online, Trinity Mirror
What? Responsible for the print editions of North Wales Weekly News and the Denbighshire Visitor, and edits companion websites for North Wales such as dailypost.co.uk. Prior to this he was a reporter for North Wales Weekly News.
Where? @danowen
Contact? dan.owen [at] northwalesnews.co.uk
Just as we like to supply you with fresh and innovative tips every day, we’re recommending journalists to follow online too. They might be from any sector of the industry: please send suggestions (you can nominate yourself) to judith or laura [at] journalism.co.uk; or to @journalismnews.
Tags: #followjourn, Dan Owen, editor, executive editor online, North Wales Weekly News, reporter, reporter for North Wales Weekly News, Trinity Mirror
A plan to cut 13.2 jobs at Media Wales, a Trinity Mirror-owned subsidiary, was announced this afternoon without the guarantee of no compulsory redundancies. A two month consultation period will now be held.
The company also announced the closure of the Neath and Port Talbot Guardian paid-for weeklies on October 1.
In response, union members at Media Wales will hold a strike ballot, the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) said today.
Media Wales publishes The Western Mail, The South Wales Echo, Wales on Sunday and the Celtic series of weekly papers.
“Although we have been briefed fully about the financial position of the company and the group, we are determined that no NUJ member should be made compulsorily redundant as a result of these cuts. We expect the company to ensure that will be the outcome,” said Martin Shipton, NUJ father of chapel at Media Wales.
Tags: martin shipton, media wales, National Union, nuj, Talbot Guardian, The South Wales Echo, the western mail, Trinity Mirror, Wales, Wales on Sunday
As reported on Journalism.co.uk in August, Northern & Shell, owners of Express Newspapers and OK! magazine, announced plans to make 70 journalists at its newspaper titles – Daily Express, Sunday Express, Daily Star and Sunday Star – redundant.
Now the company has reduced the overall number of cuts at the newspapers from 90 to 75. This means the number of journalism jobs cut would be reduced from 70 to between 52 and 57 – a figure reported by the Guardian and confirmed to Journalism.co.uk by the National Union of Journalists.
“The reduction in job cuts was only announced after the NUJ had warned the company that they were not following the right procedure,” said Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ deputy general secretary.
Stanistreet, a former Express Newspapers union representative, attended talks with the company this week.
“While we welcome the reduced numbers we still don’t know how the papers can be produced with the few people who will be left. We want to see some proper plans and we want guarantees that there will be no compulsory redundancies.”
Last year 80 Daily and Sunday Express redundancies were proposed by Northern & Shell, to cut the number of staff sub-editors, long-term regular casual sub-editors and other casual journalism staff.
Last year’s cutbacks included the introduction of a new working week pattern for sub-editing staff at the paper and a production system, which would allow some staff to write directly onto page templates without the need for sub-editors.
Tags: daily express, Daily Star, express newspapers, Express Newspapers union representative, Journalism. co.uk, Michelle Stanistreet, National Union, northern & shell, NUJ deputy general secretary, representative, Sunday Express, Sunday Star, The Guardian
Sidewiki (noun): a browser sidebar that enables you to contribute and read helpful information alongside any web page (source: Google.com)
or…
Sidewiki (noun): an attempt by our online colonial masters to own all of the comments on our websites (source: Andrew Keen)
On this occasion Jeff Jarvis would not do what Google is doing: the CUNY journalism professor and WWGD? author is worried. He can see some potential dangers for the development of Sidewiki, launched by Google yesterday. His commenters share their thoughts too, in a split conversation between the BuzzMachine comments thread and the Sidewiki (you’ll have to take the plunge and install it if you want to see how that looks). Jarvis says:
“This goes contrary to Google’s other services – search, advertising, embeddable content and functionality – that help advantage the edge. This is Google trying to be the centre. Quite ungoogley, I’d say.”
Sidewiki has the potential to be great for freedom of speech but what about the nastier side? Publishers no longer have control of the look of part of their site. Google has tested the application at news organisations it says – testimonials here – but it’s still developing its technology, and asking for feedback.
Some initial thoughts, then. The main concerns for journalists and news organisations might include:
1) Will it lose money for news sites?
Andrew Keen, writing for the Telegraph, comments:
“Sidewiki is a brazen attempt to own the Internet. What Sidewiki would do is replace/supplement the Telegraph comments section on this page with a Google comments page. So all comments on the internet would, in theory, be owned by Google (which, presumably, they could sell advertisements around – thereby eating into my salary).”
2) What happens about libel?
Google publishes its programme policy here, at this link.
‘Keep it legal,’ it says (and it will report us to the ‘appropriate authorities’ if we don’t).
“If you believe that someone is violating these policies, use the ‘Report Abuse’ button within Sidewiki. We’ll review your report and take action if appropriate. Just because you disagree with certain material or find it to be inappropriate doesn’t mean we’ll remove it. We understand that our users have many different points of view, and we take this into consideration when reviewing reports of abuse. Although not all reports will result in removal, we do rely on our users to tell us about materials that may be violating our policies.”
Have fun with that Google!
Here are a few questions about the legal aspect from Jo Wadsworth, online editor at the Brighton Argus, for whom comment moderation is part of her job:
“How long does it takes to get abusive comments removed? Where’s moderation criteria? Can site switch it off? Can trolls be banned?”
Meanwhile, SEO consultant and blogger Malcolm Coles is having a play… This morning, he says, he was finding it hard to resist the temptation to be the first to sidewiki the home page of UK newspapers. But someone else got there first.
Please add your own thoughts and questions. In the Google Sidewiki – to your left, via Twitter (@journalismnews) or in the comments…
Tags: andrew keen, author, Brighton Argus, consultant, CUNY journalism professor, google, Jeff Jarvis, Jo Wadsworth, malcolm coles, online colonial masters, online editor, sidewiki, the Telegraph, Twitter, United Kingdom
Download our free iPhone app for the latest news, jobs and releases.
