Argus apologises to BBC producer – a note on media transparency

UK local newspaper title the Brighton Argus has published an apology on its website to Martyn Smith, the Bafta-nominated TV director, producer and writer, after wrongly identifying him its story Brighton TV producer escapes jail for “repulsive” child porn collection.

 The Argus has offered an unreserved apology and to its credit published it online at 7:15pm on 22 December – just over 24 hours after the story was published. The original story also appears to have been taken down from the site, though a cached version remains in Google News.

Interestingly the story is (at time of writing) the third most popular story on the paper’s website – good news for the wrongly identified subject?

This, and an excellent post from Andy Dickinson, made me consider how online tools on newspaper websites (such as traffic counts and commenting systems) can be used for transparency in such cases.

Dickinson’s post refers to a recent apology by the Northumberland Gazette – a Johnston Press title that has a pay wall in place on its website. The apology in this case was published behind the pay wall.

Whether this was purposeful or an oversight, it suggests that pay walls will throw up problems for newspapers, transparency and the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) with regards to its recommendations for publishing apologies and corrections, says Dickinson.

If I am going to pay someone for this stuff then one of the things I should want to know is just how accurate their content is and how transparent they are.

I for one would like to see all corrections and clarifications made free and visible on all parts of media orgs websites before the paywall. That way I can make an informed choice.

What other simple tools or processes should online newspapers be using to encourage transparency?

Similar posts:

• Brighton Argus’ new out-of-town subs fall at the first hurdle
• MediaBugs: How US newspapers differ on corrections and clarifications
• Andy Dickinson: Print organisations must make systems open source
• What does it take to get a front page apology?
• Ben Goldacre calls for new website for publishing unedited source material

Press Gazette: MEN shifts part-paid, part-free strategy

The Manchester Evening News is cutting down the number of days on which the paper will be freely available.

The MEN will now be available only as a paid-for edition on Monday to Wednesday and Saturdays. A mixture of free and paid-for copies will still be distributed on Thursdays and Fridays.

The paper began its experiment with distributing free copies in the city centre and paid-for editions in outer areas in April 2006. But uptake of the freebies has recently leapfrogged paid-for sales.

Full story at this link…

Similar posts:

• HuffPo doesn’t like being linked to… really?
• ABC continues to verify airline copies for national newspaper circulation audit
• FT.com: Brazil’s ‘tabloid revolution’
• Communicate.ae: Digital experiments at the Guardian – successes and failures
• CNET: PressReader app grabs newspaper subs on iPhone

The Jobless Journalist: Post eight – Some lessons learned in 2009

It’s been a rocky year for journalists. I, like thousands of others, was made redundant from my staff post and it seems the cull is far from over. But, at risk of sounding too negative at this time of festive bonhomie, I thought I’d share some thoughts on the future of the industry and some anecdotes from 2009:

The future is online
After being made redundant I managed to get regular shifts on a national newspaper’s website. For a while I saw it as a stepping stone onto the paper, where I’d be rolling with the big boys.

Having worked on the website for six months, I now realise that the future really is online. Yesterday I saw a social affairs story appear in the paper that I’d written a whole two days earlier for the website. Print can no longer compete with the internet for news. The website is still looked down upon as the paper’s poorer cousin, but in five years’ time it will be king.

Write a blog
Sounds obvious coming from a blogger, but it’s a great way to practice writing for the web. If you learn about dealing with an interactive audience, SEO, linking, etc now, you’ll be streets ahead when everything goes digital.

Learn a language
An editor recently told me to learn a language. If you have a GCSE or A-level, it’s worth topping it up with a business language class. The French Institute offers reasonably priced classes and you can chose the evening you go in.

Keep in touch and be patient
It’s worth reminding your contacts every few months that you’re still there and still looking for work. Don’t be put off by radio silence from an editor - if they don’t immediately respond to an email or phone call, it’s not personal. I recently got a reply from an editor I’d emailed months ago. He’s asked me to call him in the new year regarding writing opportunities. Patience with a strong dose of persistence does pay off.

Wishing everyone out there a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

This is the eigth post in a series from an anonymous UK-based journalist recently made redundant. To follow the series, you can subscribe to this feed.

You can also read posts by our previous ‘Redundant Journalist’ blogger at this link.

Similar posts:

• The Jobless Journalist: Post seven – Shifting my job search
• The Jobless Journalist: Week three – To sub or not to sub?
• The Jobless Journalist: Week six – Trainee scheme application forms
• The Jobless Journalist: Week one – An introduction and redundancy packages
• The Jobless Journalist: Week five – Temporarily re-employed

Paywall results in for Newsday as US newspapers see dip in traffic

Some interesting takeaways from new traffic stats for US newspapers released by Nielsen this week and reported by Editor & Publisher.

Unique users to the Newsday website, which went behind a paywall in late October, decreased by 2.2 million in October 2009 to 1.7 million in November.

Elsewhere 16 of the top 30 newspapers in the figures posted a year-on-year drop in unique users – in part a result of the bumper traffic created by the presidential race in November 2008.

Unique users to the New York Times, USA Today and LA Times websites fell by more than 20 per cent year-on-year, according to the November stats. But the New York Times did record the highest number of unique users for the month at 16,635,000.

But the biggest winner by far in November was Tampa Bay Online, which saw a gigantic 354 per cent jump in unique users to 1,724,000.

Related reading: More on the average time spent on US newspaper websites in November

Similar posts:

• Mixed fortunes for top US newspapers in November traffic figures
• Has ditching print edition damaged Post-Intelligencer’s web traffic?
• ThisisMoney.co.uk sees traffic surge in economic downturn
• Record traffic as hellomagazine.com tops 1.5 million users
• Crains: Mail Online to open New York office

Mixed fortunes for top US newspapers in November traffic figures

Mixed results for US newspaper websites a year on from the traffic surge generated by the US presidential race, according to Nielsen Online figures reported by Editor & Publisher.

The stats suggest that readers of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution spent 12 minutes more on its site in November 2009 when compared with the same period last year.

Half of the top 30 websites recorded a year-on-year increase in average user time spent on site, with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution posting the highest average time for the month at 23 minutes and 38 seconds.

But the New York Times’ website recorded the biggest year-on-year decrease in average time spent on the site by users. The figures suggest a drop of more than 19 minutes in the past year to a time of 17 minutes 17 seconds for November 2009.

Related reading on Journalism.co.uk: See the UK’s national newspaper websites’ traffic report for November from the Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic (ABCe)

Similar posts:

• Paywall results in for Newsday as US newspapers see dip in traffic
• Editor&Publisher: Web traffic to US newspapers up 10 per cent
• Shropshire Star posts 59% rise in page impressions
• Has ditching print edition damaged Post-Intelligencer’s web traffic?
• Business Insider: Chart of the Day – US viewers ‘still watch remarkably more video on TV than phones or online’

#FollowJourn: @Jasmine/financial journalist

#FollowJourn: Jasmine Birtles

Who? Financial expert, TV presenter and writer.

What? Founder of advice website MoneyMagpie.com.

Where? There’s more from Jasmine on her personal website, www.jasminebirtles.com.

Contact? @jasmine.

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.

Similar posts:

• #FollowJourn: @rachcolling/freelancer
• #FollowJourn: @laurikab/freelancer
• #FollowJourn: @lizbolshaw/freelance journalist
• #FollowJourn: @welshrosie/hyperlocal writer
• #FollowJourn: @seanhargrave/freelance journalist

Journalistics: 91 journalism blogs and websites

Great round-up of websites covering the journalism industry by Jeremy Porter – handily split into categories including investigative journalism sites, technology sites, media commentary and more.

Full post at this link…

Similar posts:

• ONA 2008 Awards: new categories reflect developments in online news
• Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – Aviation resources for investigative journalists
• Spanish websites claim top prizes at ONA awards
• Atlantic Wire: a new comment aggregation site
• Jeremy Dear: ‘Self-harm – there should be a BBC website about that’

#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – tools for online maps

Building maps: Kevin Anderson runs through some journalist-friendly tools for building maps from information on a spreadsheet in this handy blog post. Tipster: Laura Oliver.

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

Similar posts:

• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – number crunching tools
• Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – building maps
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – getting pictures out of a word doc
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – online writing tools from Wolfram Alpha
• Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – a round-up of the best tools for Twitter

Mediaite: Traffic has dictated online news coverage in 2009

Glynnis MacNicol for Mediaite says it should come as no shock that the media “in a year of hard news [2009] (…) has gone soft” and devoted time and coverage to “shiny distractions” of stories.

[U]ntil someone creates a new, workable business model the coin of the internet realm is traffic. And traffic is most cheaply generated by frequency and shock value, two things which are very much at odds with in-depth reporting (…) Traffic talks in the new media internet world, what it does not do yet is report and/or research whilst penning the required 15 posts per day.

Full post at this link…

Similar posts:

• Media Release: CNN International / Ericsson’s joint research
• Egypt: BBC Arabic on keeping the story alive after the internet has died
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – Tweet at 5pm and post to Facebook at noon
• Journalism.co.uk top 10 blog posts in 2007
• Memeburn: Could Intel’s tech news site start a corporate media trend?

paidContent:UK: The digital media year in numbers

It’s the time of year for lists, but paidContent’s breakdown of 2009 in numbers gives a useful overview of the digital economy, including:

729m: Requests to BBC iPlayer

152.6m: Total monthly uniques across top seven UK newspaper sites (ABCe)

Full post at this link…

Similar posts:

• How the Guardian and Telegraph overtook the Mail in latest ABCe traffic report
• Newsquest attracts 4.8m unique users in 2007
• Regional online traffic compared; Johnston Press comes out top
• BJP: Derbyshire – the best place to live as a photographer?
• Times and Sunday Times reach 79,000 digital subscribers