Media Week: Times website loses 1.2m readers

Media Week reports on figures from ComScore, which suggest that unique users of the the Times and Sunday Times websites have fallen from 2.79 million in May to 1.61 million in July.

The new websites were launched on 25 May with compulsory registration introduced in June and the paywall for both sites going up on 2 July. According to the report, page views for the sites dropped from 29 million in May to 9 million in July.

Prior to the launch of the new websites, News International withdrew from the monthly Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic (ABCe) reports for newspaper website traffic.

Full story on Media Week at this link…

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Twenty-one new media, editorial, PR and communications vacancies this week on Journalism.co.uk

These are the latest editorial, PR and media job opportunities from this week on Journalism.co.uk’s jobs board

Assistant producer – online media
Travelzoo (Europe) Ltd is the European subsidiary of Travelzoo Inc. (NASDAQ: TZOO), a global Internet media company. We are now searching for an Assistant Producer to join our UK production team.
Salary: DoE
Travelzoo (Europe) Ltd
London, England
>>more

Producer
This role requires a high level of editorial skills combined with a strong knowledge of client/campaign management
Salary: Competitive
Travelzoo (Europe) Ltd
London, Covent Garden, England
>>more

Editor – Middle East Golfer
ITP Consumer Publishing is searching for an editor to take over its golfing title. Published since 2004, Middle East Golfer blends together local knowledge, expert insight and coverage of international and Middle Eastern tournaments.
Salary: DoE
ITP Publishing Group
UAE, Dubai
>>more

Head of news content public relations
The head of Bloomberg News content promotion – EMEA will be responsible for enhancing Bloomberg’s image as an innovative company and trusted information source through proactive, strategic and effective external communications.
Salary: Competitive + benefits
Bloomberg
London, England
>>more

Market Reporter – EMEA oil (six month contract)
We are currently recruiting for a six month fixed term contract position; this role involves the reporting, analysis and benchmarking of oil markets.
Salary: DoE
Platts
London, England
>>more

Junior account executive
Passionate about PR? Luxe Public Relations requires a junior account executive to assist in the running of an agency specialising in PR for luxury and design hotels, restaurants and spas.
Salary: £18K
Luxe PR
London, England
>>more

Senior editor – nuclear power
Platts is seeking a senior editor to report on the nuclear power industry in designated regions in Asia and established and growing programs in Russia and Ukraine
Salary: DoE
Platts
London, England
>>more

Online freelance writers
Demand Studios is hiring freelance writers to write short, structured articles for popular websites. Write as much as you want, from anywhere.
Salary: Average $15-$25 per article
Demand Studios
Nationwide, United Kingdom
>>more

Deputy editor
Republic Publishing is looking for a new editorial genius to join its expanding team. You will currently be a section or deputy editor, preferably covering consumer electronics and working online.
Salary: DoE
Republic Publishing
London, United Kingdom
>>more

Publications editor
As part of our busy communications department you will be in charge of our expanding publications portfolio produced to the highest standards and reflecting all aspects of our association’s work.
Salary: £23K
RenewableUK
London, England
>>more

Operations editor
Are you a production editor looking to develop your career, or a talented sub-editor looking for a new challenge? PC Plus, the UK’s leading technology magazine is looking for an operations editor to join the team.
Salary: Competitive + excellent benefits
Future Publishing Ltd
Bath, England
>>more

Bloomberg New Energy Finance public relations manager
Our dedicated global network of analysts are continuously monitoring technology market changes, deal flow and financial activity allowing instantaneous transparency into the clean energy and carbon markets.
Salary: Base + bonus + benefits
Bloomberg
City of London, England
>>more

Junior journalist (part-time)
We’re on the look out for a Junior Journalist who is keen to pursue their career in on-line journalism. Hopefully the person has the ability to write as well as record, film, edit and publish quality advice-based content.
Salary: £21K pro-rata
YouthNet
London, England
>>more

Production assistant
How To Apply For more information, a full job description and to apply visit our website futurenet.com/jobs.
Salary: Competitive + excellent benefits
Future Publishing Ltd
Bath, England
>>more

Web journalist, thisismoney.co.uk/MailOnline
The leading financial news and advice website and its sister site MailOnline have a vacancy for a journalist with experience of both web production and financial reporting
Salary: DoE
Associated Newspapers
London, England
>>more

B2B Editorial Team Member
Pro-Activ Publications is seeking an editorial team member for its expanding portfoilio of B2B publications. The successful applicant will work on its flagship publication, helping to develop and progress the publication. The role will see the successful
Salary: DoE
Pro-Activ Publications
Surrey, England
>>more

Editorial Team Member
Do you have an interest in business in emerging markets? We require an editorial team member for our portfolio which specialises in commerce and industry in the Middle East and Africa.
Salary: DoE
Alain Charles Publishing Ltd
London, England
>>more

Associate editor
Leading US news and data firm SNL Financial is expanding its service in Europe and is seeking a London-based Associate Editor to assist in its coverage of the European financial markets.
Salary: DoE
SNL Financial
London, United Kingdom
>>more

Freelance careers advice/recruitment writers
Freelancers needed to write careers/recruitment advice for the largest online recruitment company in the UK.
Salary: Varies by brief but about £100/600-word article
Totaljobs Group
Telecommute, United Kingdom
>>more

Commissioning editor
This is a chance to work within our friendly team based in Brick Lane, London. The successful candidate will liaise with editorial, business and technical teams, and lead a variety of travel digital travel projects across a range of clients.
Salary: Subject to experience
John Wiley & Sons Inc.
London, England
>>more

Reporter – Drinks International
We are looking for a trained journalist to work on Drinks International, the leading monthly business title for the global alcoholic drinks industry.
Salary: £18K-£22K
Agile Media Ltd
Crawley, West Sussex, England
>>more

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/

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The Daily Beast: A look at Africa’s WikiLeaks

A look at Sahara Reporters – “Africa’s WikiLeaks” – by the Daily Beast in an article last week explained the site’s origins and the threatened existence of its founder Omoyele Sowore:

Its scoops shielded by US libel laws, the site is a phenomenon in Nigeria, a nation that is blessed by huge oil reserves – it is the fifth-largest foreign supplier of oil to the US – and also cursed by the outrageous corruption that petrodollars have created.

The scoops have brought threats against Sowore, who is often publicly denounced by political leaders back in Nigeria as a scandal-mongering criminal. Sowore says he assumes his life is in danger if he travels openly in his homeland anytime soon, a view shared by Western diplomats in Nigeria.

Full story on the Daily Beast at this link…

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#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – optimising web pages

SEO: Really straightforward guide to what you can do to web pages to optimise them for search engines from PR agency Stone Junction. Tipster: Laura Oliver.

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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Confidence in US television news hits 20-year low

American’s confidence in television news is at its lowest since 1990, according to the latest figures from Gallup.

The organisation interviewed 1,020 adults for its annual Confidence in Institutions survey. Only 22 per cent of respondents said they had a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in television news; 25 per cent said the same for newspaper news.

While the figures have remained pretty stable from 2007 onwards, confidence in television news 10 years ago was at 36 per cent and newspapers 37 per cent.

Newspapers and television news were in the bottom half of the rankings for the 16 institutions in the Gallup poll: newspapers came in 10th and television news 12th, above only “big business”, “organised labour”, “congress” and “Health Maintenance Organisations”.

With nearly all news organizations struggling to keep up with the up-to-the-minute news cycle and to remain profitable in the process, Americans’ low trust in newspapers and television news presents a critical barrier to success. The Pew report asserts that 80 per cent of new media links are to legacy newspapers and broadcast networks, making clear that traditional news sources remain the backbone of the media. But so long as roughly three in four Americans remain distrustful, it will be difficult to attract the large and loyal audiences necessary to boost revenues.

American’s Confidence in Newspapers and Television News by Age

(% “great deal”/”quite a lot”)

Full post at this link…

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Nieman: Exploring a niche for non-niche fact-checking

There are a number of fact-checking platforms online, including PolitiFact, FactCheck and Meet the Facts. “The efforts are admirable. They’re also, however, atomised,” writes Nieman Journalism Lab’s Megan Garber.

Now Andrew Lih, associate professor of new media at USC’s Annenberg School of Communication & Journalism and author of The Wikipedia Revolution, has plans to bring the scope of the wiki format to the world of fact-checking with WikiFactCheck.

WikiFactCheck wants not only to crowdsource, but also to centralise, the fact-checking enterprise, aggregating other efforts and creating a framework so extensive that it can also attempt to be comprehensive. There’s a niche, Lih believes, for a fact-checking site that’s determinedly non-niche.

Full story at this link…

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Lara Setrakian’s ‘accordion bureau’ of media tools

Media Gaggle has an interesting profile of ABC’s Middle East correspondent Lara Setrakian, who describes how social media and mobile tools make up her “accordion bureau”.

Setrakian’s description of using different media and channels to share news and reports is great:

I don’t have to sit around and wait for a story to rise to the occasion of one of our shows, to the bar of one of our shows, something still significant but less visual, or something still significant but shorter. We’ll put it on the radio or tweet it. These things are important. I’m at Fadlallah’s funeral, I’m somewhere, I’m in Hezbollah’s neighborhood, I’m in Iran, I can tweet these effects. It has created a spectrum of ways to do this job.

And she’s @laraABCNews on Twitter.

Full post on Media Gaggle at this link…

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Murdoch’s new iPad newspaper: doomed already?

Predictions are already being made about the potential of Rupert Murdoch’s reported plans to produce a national newspaper available only on the iPad, as we discussed last month.

Over on Tech Crunch Paul Carr doesn’t mince his words, insisting that the concept is “doomed”. It is not about marketing the value of the contents but a simply money-making exercise he says, which is not a long term solution.

Of course the idea is doomed – that much should go without saying. Like so many of Murdoch’s recent forays into paid-for online news, it reflects less a bold strategy to convince a new generation of readers that good journalism is worth paying for and more the 79-year News Corp proprietor’s desperation to keep the cash flow coming until the company’s profitability becomes someone else’s problem.

But what’s remarkable about this current escapade is that Murdoch is actually proposing to sell a product that people have previously failed to even give away for free.

The LA Times, who also ran an editorial on the plans this weekend, added that News Corp is just another news organisation “scrambling to prop up their bottom lines with new sources of revenue”.

The initiative, which would directly compete with the New York Times, USA Today and other national publications, is the latest attempt by a major media organization to harness sexy new devices to reach readers who increasingly consume their news on the go. The development underscores how the iPad is transforming the reading habits of consumers much like the iPod changed how people listen to music.

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Teacher’s defamation suit against student newspaper dismissed

A music teacher who filed a defamation suit following an article written by a high-school student has had her case dismissed by a county judge.

According to a report by MyNews4, Kathleen Archey, a teacher at Churchill High School in Nevada, claimed student Lauren MacLean’s student newspaper report outlining parental complaints about the way students were selected for a choir competition was defamatory and negligent.

MacLean wrote that she tried to interview Archey to get her side of the story. Archey said MacLean pursued her; even after she refused to talk. Archey claimed defamation and sued MacLean’s faculty advisor, the principal, the superintendent and a local newspaper that picked up the story.

The faculty advisor issued a statement to the news site following the dismissal of the case.

The decision proves what I said the entire time–my reporter Lauren did everything correctly, told the truth, and that’s been proven with the dismissal of the lawsuit on the grounds of frivolity. There were no grounds to it whatsoever. The judge stated there was not a single sentence in the article that was untrue or defamatory.

Hatip: Techdirt

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Telegraph: Frederick Forsyth on starting out as a journalist

Author Frederick Forsyth discusses how his passion to travel led him to an early career as a journalist, in an interview with the Daily Telegraph this weekend.

His time spent reporting for news organisations including Reuters and the BBC was not only valuable in developing the investigative research skills which would later help him write “meticulously researched” novels, but also for revealing where his true passions lay.

“Journalism seemed like a good idea. It meant I could travel and keep my own timetable.” After a stint in Fleet Street, Forsyth joined Reuters, the foreign news agency. It was there that he honed the journalistic skills that are a hallmark of his novels. “I suppose I created a genre,” he agrees. “I was the first novelist to set fiction in the factual setting. Lumbered myself with it, I suppose.”

It was during a stint with the BBC, covering the war in Biafra, that the restraints of journalism led Forsyth into the altogether more lucrative world of fiction. Though he didn’t think so at the time. The deeply conservative BBC took issue with his political line, and Forsyth left. “I didn’t go into journalism to be a PR for Whitehall,” he says drily. “And it isn’t much different today. The hard-hitting investigative programmes no longer exist. The BBC is an arm of the Government.”

See the full interview here…

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