The Times and Sunday Times: What a paywall looks like

And it’s up – the long awaited News International paywall for the new Times and Sunday Times websites has gone up today. This is the screen you get when you try to go beyond the sites’ homepages – thetimes.co.uk and sundaytimes.co.uk. It’s interesting to see what’s not included in the £1 day pass option: email bulletins, mobile access and daily puzzles.

What the web and world is saying about it:

• ExchangeWire.com asks what impact the paywall will have on CPM (Cost per thousand impressions) rates and where it will drive traffic to;
• Science writer Ed Yong laments the paywall’s effect on science journalism from the Times;
• BBC Breakfast describes the paywayll as “a tollbooth in the middle of the ocean”;
• The Guardian cheekily offers a “warm welcome” to “former Times readers” on its News Blog;
• And The Beta Blog looks at paywalls and “game theory”.

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#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – style guides for the web

Style: Yahoo has entered the style guide fray – a useful addition when deciding house style on web and new media terms in particular. Tipster: Judith Townend.

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

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Chinese state news agency eyes Times Square headquarters

Chinese state news agency Xinhua may be taking up residence in Times Square alongside the likes of Thomson Reuters and Conde Nast, reports the Wall Street Journal.

According to Xinhua’s North America bureau chief, Zeng Hu, the agency is closing in on a deal to move into the top floor of a 44-story skyscraper at 1540 Broadway. The move would be an upgrade from the agency’s current headquarters in the Woodside area of Queens, New York.

The Journal calls the move “part of a broader push by China’s government to enhance its ‘soft power’ abroad by countering the dominance of Western news outlets and conveying a Chinese perspective on events.”

Xinhua, founded in the 1930s when China’s Communist Party was still a revolutionary organization, has made efforts in recent years to go beyond serving as a government mouthpiece. In China, it has made a push to compete with Reuters and Bloomberg LP as a provider of financial information.

But the news agency still draws controversy for bending the news of events like the ethnic riots in China last summer.

The news agency today launched CNC World, an English-language TV service which we will be broadcast around the world and focus on global news. Along with the agency’s potential move into Times Square, the launch represents China’s desire to strengthen its media influence abroad. The station will be part-funded by private investment.

Full story at this link…

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PCC director speaks out over Lord Puttnam’s criticisms of regulatory body

The director of the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) Stephen Abell has come out fighting in an article on Index on Censorship after Labour peer Lord Puttnam said earlier this week that the regulatory body should be shut down.

Speaking in a speech on parliament and young people on Tuesday, Puttnam said the PCC should be scrapped if newspapers failed to improve their behaviour within a year. In comments made to MediaGuardian, he said the PCC should work to prevent “the slow reduction of politics to a form of gruesome spectator sport” and “ensure the general representation of young people is more representative of reality”.

Abell says Puttnam’s remarks were not based on “well-informed and considered comment” about the PCC’s role and work, but says they are a starting point for debate:

Lord Puttnam is keen to assert that the PCC “cannot” instruct newspapers to be nicer to politicians and young people (two items on his wish list) without pausing to ask the question: should it? There must be the argument that if any body – even a self-regulatory body like the PCC – were to dictate the tone of political coverage, or suggest that there should be more positive stories on youth issues, the result would be a very significant restriction on freedom of expression.

(…)

However, and this is very important, he is right that the PCC must be active agents in maintaining newspaper standards. The coverage of politics, or of issues affecting the young, are two important areas. The PCC must ensure that we hold editors to account for what they report and how they report it. We must ensure that inaccuracies are corrected, intrusions and distortions prevented.

Related reading on Journalism.co.uk: Stephen Abell’s first interview as the new director of the PCC.

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Union magazine Arena takes top prize in Trade Union Communication Awards

Union magazine Arena will pick up the award for the Best Journal/Magazine at tonight’s Trade Union Communication Awards.

USDAW’s Arena fought off competition from UNISON’s ‘U’ magazine and Nautilus’ ‘Telegraph’ newspaper, both to be highly commended.

Other winners included The Communication Worker’s Union (CWU) in the category of Best Campaign, for its Keep the Post Public crusade.

See the full release at this link…


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Journalist confesses to working as spin doctor for local politican

A former political journalist for South African newspaper the Cape Argus was being paid to write articles favouring Ebrahim Rasool, premier of the Western Cape province, according to reports from the paper itself.

The paper has published a report online saying Ashley Smith, who worked at the title up until 2006, admitted working as a spindoctor for the premier in an affidavit submitted to the National Prosecuting Authority.

In return, they claim he has requested indemnity against any possible criminal charges.

Smith also accuses the then political editor Joseph Aranes of assisting Rasool’s campaign, which he allegedly denies.

Read the full story here…

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US advertising body publishes guidelines for online ads

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has produced a set of guidelines to help advertisers and publishers “demystify” online advertising.

The IAB Quality Assurance Guidelines aim to define a set of standard terms and processes for use by ad networks and exchanges.

The US-based body has called the current online advertising marketplace “complex and confusing.”

According to the IAB, networks and exchanges that volunteer to be certified against the guidelines will be “providing marketers and agencies with a standardized approach that is designed to make buying easier and to give increased control over where ads are placed”. In turn, marketers and agencies will benefit from “greater brand safety assurances that ads will not appear next to content that they decide is inappropriate”.

“For the first time, the US ad networks and ad exchanges market will be giving advertisers consistent and standardized information, serving to build greater marketplace trust,” says the IAB report.

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Cumbria local media praised for care and diligence absent from the nationals

A Cumbrian MP has praised the work of local media covering the horrific shootings in Whitehaven, according to a report by the Newspaper Society.

Jamie Reed, MP for Copeland, said journalists reported with “care and diligence”.

He refers specifically to the work of the Whitehaven News, News & Star, North West Evening Mail, Border television, BBC Radio Cumbria and ‘Look North’.

Like the News & Star, the Whitehaven News understands the role that it plays in my community and how it can help the community’s healing process – not the families’ healing process, perhaps, but certainly the community’s.

The media local to the tragedy – the Whitehaven News, the News & Star, the North West Evening Mail, Border television, BBC Radio Cumbria and ‘Look North’ – reported the tragedy with a care and diligence entirely different from that of the national media.

Local newspapers have been previously recognised for networked reporting of the events.

See the full report here…

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‘Demented intensity’ of tabloid celebrity coverage shows commercial importance

You either love or hate it, but according to Peter Kirwin the celebrity gossip filled pages of British tabloids could be its saviour in the future.

In a Wired.com post, Kirwin talks about why digital replications are not the long-term solution and that British tabloids need to get back to the roots of their popularity.

There’s plenty of life left in print. But publishers need to start work on long-term alternatives to the failed approach of simply dumping print content into digital formats. Stripping down the disintegrating bundle of delights stitched together by Hugh Cudlipp in the 1930s and focusing exclusively on celebrity coverage could yet emerge as one route to salvation (…) Happily, the demented intensity of celebrity coverage also reflects the presence of a real commercial imperative: the entertainment industry’s need to shift units in an era of audience fragmentation.

Read his full post here…

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Hyperlocals, regional press, and the ‘them and us’ attitude

Interesting blog post from Joseph Stashko, co-editor of local news site Blog Preston, where he highlights what he thinks are the biggest issues surrounding ‘hyperlocal’ news networks.

One of his points is the relationship between regional press and local sites.

Not all bloggers are reactionary, unsubstantiated wannabe journalists, and not all regional media journalists view the internet as an evil contraption. We need to get beyond this immature view that still persists.

Rather than two very separate platforms, he would like to see greater integration between the two, a ‘best-of-both-worlds’ situation.

What I’d like to see is some kind of co-operation between traditional and online media. This has been done in some places, but not enough, and not to a standard where both parties equally benefit. Too often, articles are written deriding ‘the other side’, making snide cheap shots and I don’t think anyone can afford to be making enemies right now. How about providing a space on regional newspaper websites for these new journalists to cover their small beat? Or even integrate into the print edition, maybe with a postcode specific opinion article once a week.

Read his post in full here…

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