Leave your comments below: what do you think of the Sun’s feature on waterboarding and its related video? It’s not the first time a news outlet or magazine has done this feature – see Vanity Fair’s Christopher Hitchens’ article in 2008, but is what it shows to readers irresponsible?
Tags: Journalism, The Sun, waterboarding
Lord Triesman, former chairman of the Football Association, has made a formal complaint to the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) about the Mail on Sunday report into allegations of corruption in the World Cup bidding process.
Reports the Guardian:
In the extract that led to Triesman resigning the Mail on Sunday wrote that he “accused rival nations of corruption” in their bids to host the World Cup. The paper wrote that Triesman “accused” the Spanish and Russian football authorities of planning to bribe referees in this summer’s World Cup. Triesman was described as making “the extraordinary claim” that Spain’s FA might drop out of its joint bid with Portugal for 2018 in return for Russia helping to bribe match officials.
Triesman says the article has breached three clauses of the Editors’ Code of Practice – accuracy, privacy and subterfuge.
Full story on Guardian.co.uk at this link…
Tags: Lord Triesman, mail on sunday, world cup
In an open letter to Wired magazine published on her blog, Cindy Royal, an assistant professor at Texas State University in San Marcos who teaches web design and multimedia journalism, “breaks up” with the magazine:
When I noticed this month’s issue in my mailbox, I approached it with the same breathless anticipation that I do every month. I didn’t even mind the naked picture of Jennifer Aniston on the GQ subscription insert. I mean, it’s just advertising. You’ve got to make a living, right? Then, I turned you over to see what fascinating topics I would be delighted by this month. Boobs. Right there on the cover. A pair of breasts, no head, no rest of body… just boobs. Sure it accompanied a story on tissue re-engineering, so what other possible way might you visually represent that, but with a pair of breasts? No other possible way?
This isn’t the first time. We’ve been through this before. Your covers aren’t all that friendly to women on a regular basis, and that makes me sad.
To his credit Wired editor Chris Anderson has posted a lengthy reply in the comments:
[T]his problem goes beyond women: we have trouble putting *people* on the cover. It’s the same reason: they have to sell, and what sells for us is either big ideas (sans people) or well-known, likable people with interesting things to say. The problem is that there aren’t enough geek celebrities, so we often end up going with celebrity geeks instead. Our Gates and Zuckerberg cover didn’t sell as well as our Will Ferrell cover. I’m glad we did both, but at the end of the day, we have to work on the newsstand to be a profitable business.
Tags: Chris Anderson, cindy royal, wired, women
An interesting post on Rob O’Regan’s blog looking at how Conde Nast has developed best practice guidelines for advertisers who want to work on its iPad apps. To create the guidance for clients, the magazine publisher has been conducting extensive research on how readers are using and rating the apps:
To learn more about these early adopters, Conde Nast is combining its in-app and in-person research with usage software built into its apps. Results from the in-app survey showed that 80 per cent of users who downloaded a Conde Nast digital magazine app said the content and experience “met or surpassed their expectations”, and 83 per cent said they were likely to purchase the next month’s edition.
Full story on emediavitals at this link…
Tags: Advertising, Conde Nast, iPad, ipad applications, ipad apps, Magazines, us
According to the Daily Mail, a married sportsman has won an injunction from the high court banning reporting on his private life. The Mail says its possible that the injunction will be modified to allow reporting of the individual’s name but not the secret.
Full story on Mail Online at this link…
Tags: injunction, press freedom, privacy, privacy law
The World Press Photo 2010 exhibition arrives in London today as the display of 167 winning photographs opens at the Royal Festival Hall, as part of its worldwide tour.
The annual competition takes entries from photojournalists, picture agencies, newspapers and magazines across the world, with the most recent winners selected from more than 100,000 entries.
This year’s World Press Photo of the Year was awarded to Italian photographer Pietro Masturzo. The exhibition also includes the work of seven photographers from the UK.
The exhibition runs daily until Sunday 5 December and is open from 10am to 11pm. Admission is free and there are more details on the Southbank Centre website.
Tags: Awards, event, exhibition, photojournalism, press photography
Professor of cross media content at the School of Journalism and Communication at Hogeschool Utrecht, Dr Piet Bakker, has produced an interesting heatmap to illustrate the ‘significance’ of European newspapers.
Following the predictions of futurist Ross Dawson last week that newspapers in the UK will be “extinct” in their current form by 2019, Bakker writes on his Newspaper Innovation blog that rather than measuring the insignificance of newspapers over time he wanted to do the opposite, using circulation and population data.
His results, based on the number of newspapers per 100 inhabitants, places Luxembourg at the top overall, while Norway leads when it comes to paid newspapers only.
The only consistent data we have for almost every country in the world are total circulation and population. If we define newspaper significance as the number of copies per 100 (15+) inhabitants, we can compare countries, see how this changes over years and predict how it will develop.
The graph below (made with Google Docs and the heat-map gadget) show this “significance”, the darker the color, the more significant newspaper are.
Hatip: paidContent
Tags: Dir Piet Bakker, Europe, News consumption, Newspapers
Tumblr: Ethan Klapper on the 10,000 Words blog has a round-up of how news organisations are using rapid blog platform Tumblr. A good source of inspiration.
Tipster: Laura Oliver.
To submit a tip to Journalism.co.uk, use this link – we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.
Tags: journalism tips, tip, Tumblr
Last night the New York Observer’s Media Mob broke the news that Newsweek and the Daily Beast will merge.
According to the report, the editorial staffs of the two titles will combine in a 50-50 merger of the two companies.
Full story on the New York Observer at this link…
The Daily Beast’s editor-in-chief Tina Brown confirmed the deal in a statement on the site late last night:
It’s a wonderful new opportunity for all the brilliant editors and writers at the Daily Beast who have worked so hard to create the site’s success. Working at the warp-speed of a 24/7 news operation, we now add the versatility of being able to develop ideas and investigations that require a different narrative pace suited to the medium of print. And for Newsweek, the Daily Beast is a thriving frontline of breaking news and commentary that will raise the profile of the magazine’s bylines and quicken the pace of a great magazine’s revival.
Tags: Business, Newsweek, the daily beast, Tina Brown, us
The National Union of Journalists says it is prepared to suspend the second 48-hour BBC strike it has planned for 15 and 16 November, after the broadcaster offered new talks in the ongoing pensions dispute.
In a press release, the union said the BBC must first withdraw disciplinary action against three of its members overseas, claiming they were disciplined after supporting the strike action which took place on Friday and Saturday last week.
Jeremy Dear, the NUJ’s general secretary said the union welcomes “the BBC’s change of heart”.
We will enter those talks determined to seek a negotiated settlement. But we remain committed, and authorised, to take further industrial, political and legal action in the event that talks fail to deliver a fair pensions settlement.
In a statement Lucy Adams, director of BBC People said she also welcomes the NUJ’s decision to “lift the threat of strikes”.
This is good news for the licence fee payer. While the BBC cannot afford to reopen the pension reform deal agreed with the majority of staff, we have agreed to meet with the joint unions, including the NUJ. In that meeting, we will discuss points of clarification raised in a letter this afternoon from Gerry Morrissey, General Secretary of BECTU and the leader of the joint unions at the BBC.
Tags: BBC, bbc pensions, dispute, industrial action, nuj
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