Journalism.co.uk Editors' Blog » Journalism

Online tribute to global journalism trainer Russell Lyne

Judith Townend — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:50:17 +0000

Journalism trainer and former journalist Russell Lyne has died aged 65, the Thomson Foundation reports.

Lyne, who had been in poor health for two years after suffering a stroke, joined the global training foundation in 1995, and later became a full-time project manager and training consultant, and eventually head of regional development.

He was ‘a cornerstone of the Foundation’s international success,’ the organisation said this week.

He worked in numerous countries: South Africa, Botswana, India, Vietnam, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Bahrain, Qatar, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, Kasakhstan, Romania and Bulgaria.

Lyne’s career included time at newspapers, radio and television:

“After working as night news editor for the Western Mail, the daily newspaper for Wales, between 1976 and 1978, he formed his own freelance news agency before joining the BBC as chief news assistant for BBC Radio Wales in 1982. Russell went on spend a year as a producer for BBC Radio Four’s Today programme in 1983. He later became a senior producer for BBC Radio Wales, leaving to join HTV as news editor in 1987, where he eventually became programme controller of news and sport.”

Thomson Foundation CEO Janet Boston writes:

“Time after time I meet people from Asia, Africa and the Middle East who tell me, quite unprompted, that he was one of the best trainers they ever had. Apparently Russell’s energy bounced off the training room walls either with pleasure that the group were responding or with complete irritation at their lack of enthusiasm.”

The foundation is asking for additional memories of Lyne. Contribute yours at this link.

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DigiDave: Redefining journalism, cit-j and ‘honest communication’

Laura Oliver — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:36:23 +0000

David Cohn, founder of crowd-funded news site spot.us, discusses why it isn’t necessarily journalism and newspapers that we should be saving, but ‘honest communication’:

“Journalism as a word is loaded because of the ministry it invokes. The profession that, since Watergate, has laid claim to it. That ministry is now a diaspora. Much like after the Gutenberg revolution the ministry lost its authority in interpreting the bible. Martin Luther showed us how. In reaction many journalists cling even tighter to that word,” writes Cohn.

“What we need to preserve isn’t newspapers. I’d argue it isn’t even ‘journalism’ as we understand it. What we need to save is something else. Something more fundamental. The ability for communities to be informed with honest information and then to mobilize based on that information.”

Full post at this link…

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#soe09: Audio – Trinity Mirror’s Neil Benson on newspapers as PR agencies

Laura Oliver — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:37:16 +0000

There was a mixed reaction (as you might expect from a room full of newspaper editors) to Trinity Mirror Regionals’ editorial director Neil Benson’s suggestion yesterday that newspaper groups could make money from running ‘arm’s length PR agencies’.

Journalism.co.uk spoke to Benson at the Society of Editors conference to find out more about the scheme in Northumberland (in which he refers to Brian Aitken, editor of the Journal) and the potential for newspaper groups to work with local authorities:

Below he explains why newspapers running PR agencies in-house could work:

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PCC calls for submissions to governance review

Laura Oliver — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:17:03 +0000

The Press Complaints Commission (PCC) has opened the doors to its governance review, announced in August.

The review, which will be conducted by an independent panel, will look at the commission’s:

Board structure
Appointments commission
Accountability
Transparency
Constitution

The closing date for submissions, which can be made in writing to governancereview [at] pcc.org.uk, is 25 January 2010.

The PCC has been heavily criticised this week for its conclusions in its inquiry into phone hacking allegations at News Group Newspapers. Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger said the commission after its report, which said there was no evidence to support allegations of ongoing phone hacking at the News of the World despite last summer’s Guardian reports, was ‘worse than pointless’; while Geoffrey Robertson QC suggested that editors ‘with any integrity’ would withdraw from the code committee.

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Sun apologises for spelling Jacqui Janes’ name wrong…

Laura Oliver — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:41:58 +0000

A fantastic spot from Michael Acton Smith after the Sun’s criticism of PM Gordon Brown this week for misspelling the name of killed Guardsman Jamie Janes in a letter to his mother, which included the paper publishing a transcript of a phonecall between Brown and Jacqui Janes.

(Hat tip to @joe on Twitter for sharing the link)

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Freek Bijl: What would Apple do with publishing?

Laura Oliver — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 10:57:36 +0000

As we debate pay walls, micropayments, mobile apps and business models, it’s worth looking to other industries for inspiration – exactly what Freek Bijl, an internet strategist, has done in this excellent slideshow:

(Hat tip to @arjanelfassed)

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Mumbrella: Murdoch to remove sites from Google’s index?

Laura Oliver — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:56:42 +0000

Following his comments last month in which he described aggregators as ‘kleptomaniacs’ and ‘plagiarists’, Rupert Murdoch has suggested News Corp could remove its sites from Google’s index.

Speaking in an interview with Australia’s Sky News (video below): “I think we will [remove our content from Google's index]. But that’s when we start charging.”

As Mumbrella explains: “Using the robots.txt protocol on a site indicates to automated web spiders such as Google’s not to index that particular page or to serve up links to it in users’ search results.”

In the interview, Murdoch also discusses what could be put behind potential news site pay walls.

Full post at this link…

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Torontoist: ‘Why the Star needs its own editors’ – an editor’s red-pen revenge

Laura Oliver — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:26:51 +0000

Last week the Toronto Star announced plans to outsource around 100 editing jobs – an announcement met with red pen by one alleged ‘editor’ from the paper, who sub-edited the memo from Star publisher John Cruickshank in their own unique way…

New headline: “Why the Star needs its own editors”

New deck: “No one else has experience, knowledge and investment in the Star’s excellence to maintain the ‘brand’, say journalists.”

Full post at this link…

(HT Boing Boing)

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PCC rules Daily Mail not in breach of code over Iain Dale diary piece

Judith Townend — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:14:34 +0000

The Press Complaints Commission has ruled that the Daily Mail was not in breach of clause 12 (discrimination) with a diary piece that described blogger and aspiring Conservative candidate Iain Dale ‘overtly gay’. Commenting on Dale’s bid for the parliamentary constituency of Bracknell, the piece said it was ‘charming how homosexuals rally like-minded chaps to their cause’. Dale lodged a complaint, claiming that the references were pejorative and the article homophobic, the PCC noted.

Today the PCC reported:

“The Commission could understand why the complainant found the comments to be snide and objectionable. However, it did not rule that there had been a breach of Clause 12 (Discrimination) of the Code. It noted that the item had used no pejorative term for the complainant, nor had it ‘outed’ him. In the Commission’s view, the piece was uncharitable, but – in the context of a diary column, known to poke fun at public figures – was not an arbitrary attack on him on the basis of his sexuality.

“The Commission said that: ‘where it is debatable – as in this case – about whether remarks can be regarded solely as pejorative and gratuitous, the Commission should be slow to restrict the right to express an opinion, however snippy it might be. While people may occasionally be insulted or upset by what is said about them in newspapers, the right to freedom of expression that journalists enjoy also includes the right – within the law – to give offence.’”

In the wake of the Jan Moir episode at the end of last month, a petition to Gordon Brown was launched, questioning the impartiality of the PCC and calling for its replacement by a public body. The PCC’s deputy director (and soon-to-be director) Stephen Abell subsequently defended the position of Daily Mail editor, Paul Dacre, as head of its code committee.

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Richard Wilson: ‘No one knows how many secret super-injunctions are currently in force’

Judith Townend — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:42:36 +0000

Richard Wilson, author of Don’t Get Fooled and central blogger in the Trafigura/Guardian/Carter-Ruck episode, reports back from a meeting of the UK Parliament Joint Committee on Human Rights which focused on ’super-injunctions’.

Wilson, along with journalists, editors, MPs, Lords and lawyers (including two senior partners from Carter-Ruck) took part:

“[N]o one knows how many secret super-injunctions are currently in force. While the UK state seems bent on meticulously recording every detail of its citizens phone, email and web-browsing habits, it is positively lackadaisical about tracking its own media gagging orders. While each individual super-injunction is (we have to hope) being kept on file somewhere by the judiciary, no-one, anywhere, is collating information about the overall picture.”

Full story at this link…

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