AP: New report faults Daniel Pearl murder investigation

The four men imprisoned for the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl were not present at his beheading, according to a new report from the Pearl Project.

The report, the result of an investigation carried out by a team of US journalists and students and spanning more than three years, also accuses Pakistani authorities of knowingly relying on false evidence and ignoring important leads during the prosecution. It claims that US forensic evidence known as “vein-matching” points to al-Qaida commander Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who confessed to having killed Pearl after being arrested in connection with the World Trade Centre attacks.

Pearl was abducted in January 2002 while researching a story on Islamist militancy. In February a video of his execution was delivered to US officials in Pakistan.

Full story on AP at this link.

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#followjourn: @stefanstern – Stefan Stern/director of strategy, Edelman

Who? Stefan Stern, management writer and director of strategy at Edelman, London.

Where? Formerly a weekly columnist for the FT on management, Stefan moved to Edelman last year and blogs for them at Stefan Stern on Management. He has also recently contributed to the Guardian.

Twitter? @stefanstern

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 laura at journalism.co.uk; or to @journalismnews.

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#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – privacy law updates

London law firm Reynolds Porter Chamberlain LLP has launched a new privacy blog offering updates on the latest cases written by specialist lawyers – a useful resource for anyone who wants to keep on top of the latest developments in this area. Tipster: Rachel McAthy.

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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Guardian: Online news service promotes false climate change study

An Online news service operated by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) unwittingly promoted a study making the false claim that catastrophic global warming would occur within nine years, the Guardian reports.

EurekAlert! carried a press release for the study, and the story was picked up by a number of international news organisations including the Vancouver Sun and the Economic Times of India.

“This is happening much faster than we expected,” Liliana Hisas, executive director of the Universal Ecological Fund (UEF) and author of the study, said of her findings.

But, in an episode recalling criticism of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), when the UN climate science body wrongly claimed the Himalayan glaciers would melt away by 2035, the UEF claims about rising temperatures over the next decade were unfounded.

Full story on the Guardian Environment pages at this link.

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BBC CoJo: Working with user-generated content

The latest edition of the ‘Inside BBC Journalism’ series, on the BBC College of Journalism website, looks at the role of journalists working with user generated content (UGC).

Trushar Barot, a senior broadcast journalist in the UGC Hub in the BBC’s London newsroom says he thinks the future of journalism is going to be much more about journalists who work with social media becoming trusted editors of UGC, he says.

We are the ones that have the skills, hopefully, to be able to analyse what’s coming in, give it the context and then report that context.

So a lot of the work we do at the hub in the newsroom is not just about taking content, getting permission and putting it on air, but it’s about trying to authenticate it as well.

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Knight Center: What the Waco Tribune-Herald has learned from its premium content model

Four months ago, the Waco Tribune-Herald launched a premium content payment model, keeping breaking news, obituaries and other sections free but introducing levies on more in-depth work.

Knight Digital Media Center blogger Michele McLellan has posted an interview with Tribune-Herald editor Carlos Sanchez, and although he can’t divulge the numbers it sheds some light on how communities may respond to such a model.

Q. How do you decide what content is for online subscribers only?

Our strategy from the beginning was to keep things as simple as possible. Generally, if it’s a wire story that is available at other websites, it’s free; if it is something locally produced, it’s behind a pay wall.

There are broad exceptions: staff written blogs, breaking news and, most important, obituaries (are free). Our thinking behind the blogs was that our reporters could offer more of a social media feel, with links to content behind the pay wall. Ideally, it would replicate the kind of banter that we hear every day in a newsroom in which the story behind the story becomes just as fascinating as the story itself.

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PPA changes name to reflect ‘increasing variety’ among membership

The PPA announced a name change today to acknowledge the increasing use of a variety of platforms by its members.

The PPA, which previously stood for Periodical Publishers Association will now be called the Professional Publishers Association. In a release Barry McIlheney, chief executive of the PPA said:

Today’s PPA members are professional publishers of immersive, high-quality content. In recent years their businesses have changed dramatically as they deliver this content across an increasing variety of platforms.

We have changed our name to acknowledge this development, and to reflect our commitment to serving our members’ needs and representing their interests as their businesses continue to evolve.

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#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – breaking news online

News organisations that deal with breaking news online may be interested in this list of questions on ethics, credibility and delivery compiled by Sioux City Journal editor Mitch Pugh for a NewsU Webinar, for outlets to consider. There are also links to more resources at the end of this piece on Poynter. Tipster: Rachel McAthy.

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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Tim Radford: My 25 commandments for journalists

Tim Radford, a former Guardian science editor, letters editor, arts editor and literary editor, sat down 15 or more years ago now and wrote 25 commandents for journalists. Ahead of an appearance tonight at Imperial College London, Radford has published them on the Guardian language pages.

He may have got a bit carried away with the number – commandments being traditionally limited to 10 – but each and every one is worth a look for any working or aspiring journalist.

1. When you sit down to write, there is only one important person in your life. This is someone you will never meet, called a reader.

Read the full list on Guardian.co.uk at this link.

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BBC News: Smoking out the illegal tobacco trade

BBC investigative reporter Samantha Poling has spent several months secretly filming the UK’s counterfeit tobacco trade for a documentary due to be aired tonight.

A clip from the documentary shows Poling and her camera crew being threatened by tobacco dealers with a metal pole in Glasgow’s Barras Market.

Investigating criminal gangs like these ones always carry risks. And these are risks you have to add up.

Are they worth taking in order to get the footage, to get the story told?

After looking back at the hours of evidence I had recorded, and knowing the level of criminality we had discovered, which affects each and every one of us, I knew the answer.

Read Poling’s report here.

BBC Scotland Investigates: Smoking and the Bandits will be broadcast tonight at 7.30pm BBC One Scotland. It will be available on the BBC iPlayer for a week afterwards.

h/t: Jon Slattery

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