WAN-IFRA: Ringier and Axel Springer join forces in eastern Europe

The two publishing groups will combine their operations in Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Serbia and create a new business with headquarters in Switzerland.

Between them Ringier and Axel Springer have 100 print and 70 online publications in these markets, including tabloid newspapers Fakt in Poland and Blesk in the Czech Republic.

Full story at this link…

Similar posts:

• Slovakian media goes behind the paywall
• Axel Springer blocking browser access to its newspaper on iPad to promote apps
• WAN-IFRA launches initiative to promote investment in newspapers
• Four rules for using citizen journalists regularly on your paper – from those in the know
• MorningStar.com: Readers will pay for online within five years, says Axel Springer exec

Herald Online: AOL’s hyperlocal network Patch gets charitable to fund community news

Patch, AOL’s growing network of hyperlocal news and information websites in the US, has announced the foundation of a new charitable arm, Patch.org:

Patch.org will partner with community foundations and other organisations to launch Patch sites and bring objective local news and information to communities and neighborhoods around the world that lack adequate news media and online local information resources.

The Patch.org sites will employ a local journalist to produce original news and content, and aggregate material and information created by the community. Any revenue earned by the sites will be invested back into the community they serve, a press release says.

Full release at this link….

Similar posts:

• paidContent: AOL hyperlocal network Patch plans 400 new sites
• Business Insider: AOL to launch hundreds of local news sites in 2010
• More US publishers sign up for Briggs’ Newsgarden
• Online news network VillageSoup in print expansion
• Star News Online: Why news organisations should link to the competition

Advertising Age: US newspapers cut 109,500 jobs in past five years

Advertising Age’s article from earlier this week on the difficulties faced by media advertising staff making the transition from selling print space to going digital is worth a read – not least for the statistics it offers on media job cuts in the US:

Between January 2005 and January 2010, newspapers eliminated 109,500 jobs and magazines shed 19,400, according to an Ad Age DataCenter analysis of Bureau of Labour Statistics’ jobs data. During that same period, jobs at internet media companies, portals and search engines grew by 18,300.

Full story at this link…

Similar posts:

• New figures suggest continued growth for US magazine advertising
• Economics Unbound: The US journalism job market – plotted
• Ad Age: Internet media employment at peak since 2001 despite falls elsewhere
• Guardian: IAB launches behavioural advertising code
• Online advertising spend tops £4bn after 12.8% rise

#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – creating a presentation

Need to do a presentation? Check out Carsonified’s guide to a sleek performance, with tips and suggestions for best techniques. Tipster: Judith Townend.

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 – checking the reliability of a site
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – spotting dodgy links
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – freelance fees guide
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – multimedia kits for all budgets
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk

RBI sells off furniture titles in US

Reed Business Information (RBI) has sold its Furniture Today group of titles to Sandow Media, part of private equity firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson.

No financial terms have been disclosed for the deal, which includes Furniture Today, Casual Living and Interior Design magazine, according to a media release from Sandow.

The sale is the latest in a series of deals as part of the piecemeal divestment of a number of RBI’s B2B and trade titles, after the company’s attempt to sell the whole of its magazine publishing arm failed in December 2008.

Similar posts:

• Timeline of RBI sale
• Media Week: H Bauer and Bauer Media in joint bid for BBC magazines
• FT.com: Reed Elsevier sells Nordic division of RBI
• Media Business: New bidder in talks to buy RBI’s US magazines
• RBI Divestment Watch blog closed?

Why your opinion doesn’t matter

As a postscript to today’s link to a BuzzMachine post on messy comments, here’s Doug Stanhope on why your opinion doesn’t matter, from Charlie Brooker’s Newswipe last month.

Similar posts:

• Heather Brooke on how British journalists avoid accountability by not naming sources
• A lesson in SEO from Charlie Brooker
• Welcome to a ‘Charlian’ page. Nothing but Charlie Brooker.
• Charlie Brooker on how broadcast journalism works
• BuzzMachine: Comments and how to play host

Shadow justice minister says libel reform issue would be a ‘priority’ for a Tory government

The Libel Reform campaign, a coalition of Sense About Science, Index on Censorship and English PEN, yesterday said it had one major political party left to get on side: the Conservatives.

But following justice minister Jack Straw’s pledge of Labour support in parliament yesterday, Henry Bellingham, the Conservative shadow justice minister, said that if his party formed the next government they would give the issue priority – with a draft Bill by the end of 2010, according to the latest email update from the campaign.

“He indicated that the Law Commission would be asked to report urgently on necessary. The commitment to legislation from Bellingham is a major milestone,” the campaign’s organisers reported today.

Left: Jack Straw speaking to campaigners in Parliament yesterday (English PEN on Flickr).

Disclaimer: Journalism.co.uk has pledged its support to the Libel Reform campaign.

Similar posts:

• Index on Censorship: Conservatives pledge support to libel reform campaign
• William Bennett on libel reform: ‘The real crux of the problem is not the law but the excessive costs of deploying it’
• Journalism.co.uk backs Libel Reform Campaign
• Press Gazette: Libel reform and FOI on LibCon agenda
• Jack of Kent: Could Lester’s libel reform bill fail to launch?

#followjourn: Bronagh Miskelly/group editor

#followjourn: Bronagh Miskelly

Who? Group editor of social care magazine Community Care.

Where? Miskelly’s work can be found mainly at CommunityCare.co.uk. She also has a blog, Bro’s Browsings, although it hasn’t been updated for a little while. Follow this link to see her LinkedIn page.

Contact? Bronagh tweets regularly about social care at @bromiskelly

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: @gordonmacmillan/social media editor
• #followjourn: @TheRealJoeCox/news editor
• #FollowJourn: @acarvin/NPR social media strategist
• #FollowJourn: @mattgarrahan/Los Angeles correspondent
• #FollowJourn: @sim89/Community Care community editor

BuzzMachine: Comments and how to play host

Jeff Jarvis takes a look at online comments: the problem isn’t messy comments (likened to graffiti), but the way one deals with them, he argues.

Should comments as a form of conversation be eliminated? No, of course not. The tool isn’t the problem (any more than blogging tools or printing presses are). If you eliminate comments that’s even more insulting than not listening to them and it risks giving up the incredible value the public can give if only they are enabled to (a value I saw so clearly in the comments under my posts here or here). The issue isn’t comments or identity or registration or tools. The issue is how you play host.

Full post at this link…

Similar posts:

• What was that Boris? Carve up the licence fee?
• Do Twitterers have less of an identity than a newspaper columnist? Oliver James answers
• Correction for Las Vegas Sun site over use of anonymous online comments in article
• Mediating Conflict: Blogging and the curse of comments
• Going viral on steroids: New York Times style editor on his pet peeves

Heather Brooke: ‘Transparency keeps those in power honest’

In case you missed reading an extract of Heather Brooke’s new book, ‘The Silent State’, in the Mail on Sunday, here’s a link…

A second excerpt will be published next Sunday. Last weekend’s extract focused on expenses.

An early reporting experience in America taught her ” that transparency keeps those in power honest: more than any regulator, any bureaucracy or set of rules,” she writes.

The Telegraph did a phenomenal job presenting the data, and I don’t begrudge them anything, even if they did take away my scoop.

Brooke collected the judge’s award at last night’s British Press Awards for her campaigning over MPs’ expenses.

Similar posts:

• British Press Awards – the winners
• MediaGuardian: British Press Awards results
• British Press Award winners 2009
• Guardian wins top sports award with multimedia coverage
• Heather Brooke and Telegraph named in PSA Awards