Should newspapers limit subject matter of their bloggers?

Posted on May 1, 2008 - Filed Under Standards, Newspapers, blogs, online communities | Leave a Comment

Roshan Doug’s blog post ‘Check-out desk woman and Saddam Hussein’ for the Birmingham Post has been causing a stir on the site. Whether you agree or sympathise with Doug’s post, the readers’ reaction raises questions over what guidelines or control the title should exercise over the topics their bloggers write about.
Reporter and overseer of the […]

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OUT-LAW.com: complaints about online content and ads outstrip TV and newspapers, says ASA

Posted on May 1, 2008 - Filed Under Standards, Editors' pick, Advertising | Leave a Comment

The annual report from the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has suggested that the number of complaints made to the body about online advertising is for the first time higher than those relating to TV or newspapers.

ASA received 2,980 complaints about the internet in 2007, though 72 per cent of these related to content and as such fell outside of the authority’s jurisdiction.

“Interestingly, these complaints are almost entirely about truth, accuracy, misleadingness, and availability â

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Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk

Posted on April 29, 2008 - Filed Under Top tips for journalists, Standards, Audio, Video | Leave a Comment

Audio-visual: Online news videos/audio recordings/images should complement the story they accompany, not repeat it. Readers will not be happy if you simply ‘double-up’ on content. Tipster: Oliver Luft

Got a tip? Submit it here - we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.

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Hysterical woman - also a Spanish government minister - ruins AP copy

Posted on April 25, 2008 - Filed Under Standards, AP | Leave a Comment

I don’t mean to sound over emotional - it’ll just be the hormones acting on my smaller female brain - but I’ve got a problem with a report yesterday from the Associated Press about Charme Chacon, the Spanish defense minister.
The ministry has ordered its staff to stop browsing entertainment and sport websites during working hours. […]

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BBC Trust says news website must review fact checking procedure

Posted on April 24, 2008 - Filed Under Standards, BBC | Leave a Comment

The sourcing and fact checking process for stories on the BBC News website must be addressed by management, the BBC trust Editorial Standards Committee has recommended.
The committee made the suggestions as part of its response to a complaint about an article on the site, which pointed to inaccuracies in the report on Congressman Joseph P […]

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Reflections on the life of a videojournalist

Posted on April 9, 2008 - Filed Under Standards, Video, Newspapers, multimedia experiments | Leave a Comment

Having spent April 1 shadowing the two-person web video team at the Express and Star, I came away with:

3 minutes 41 seconds of video footage
14 minutes of audio
54 photos

After a day spent gathering the material I then spent approximately two days editing it for the piece on the site, entailing two slideshows with audio (40s […]

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Media Guardian: record online libel settlement for social housing firm

Posted on April 3, 2008 - Filed Under legal, Standards, Editors' pick | Leave a Comment

Social housing firm Gentoo will receive £100,000 compensation from an anonymous news and discussion website used to launch ‘a malicious, unpleasant and relentless campaign of libel and harassment’ against the company.

Olswang associate Ashley Hurst, who represented Gentoo in the case, has called on the Press Complaints Commission to establish a voluntary code of conduct for online publishers to avoid similar complaints in the future

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Media Guardian: BBC to give staff guidelines on their social networking profiles

Posted on March 13, 2008 - Filed Under Standards, Myspace, Editors' pick, social networks, BBC, Facebook, Online Journalism | Leave a Comment

The BBC is compiling a set of guidelines for staff on what they can put on their profiles on social networking sites.

Helen Boaden, BBC News director, said the rules would clearly state what could and could not be posted to sites such as Facebook in a bid to protect the corporation’s image.

The guidelines are part of the BBC’s wider response to the use of social networking sites by staff.

New rules have also restricted journalists from using pictures from such sites in news articles without the permission of the copyright holder

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Guardian: Readers’ editor on journalists and online etiquette

Posted on March 11, 2008 - Filed Under comments, Standards, Editors' pick, online communities | Leave a Comment

“Siobhain Butterworth’s piece on Guardian journalists’ contributions to online article comments has itself initiated a lengthy thread of reactions.

“You can see why journalists might be reluctant to join online conversations. Imagine that you arrive at the office one morning, you take your coat off and you’re just sitting down when a crowd of masked strangers bursts in, gathers around your desk and spends the rest of the day making derisory comments about the way you do your job. Work, for journalists whose newspaper columns are posted online, can sometimes feel a bit like that,” writes Butterworth, who admits that journalists involvement in online commenting is new territory and guidelines for such interaction are under discussion.

Not enough of a defence for all readers, as one commenter suggests: “Sorry Siobhan, but that won’t do. Those masked strangers are not random assailants, they are your journalists’ clients, customers and audience.”

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Criticism from blogosphere for journalist’s interview with Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg

Posted on March 10, 2008 - Filed Under Standards, Facebook, blogs | 1 Comment

Business journalist Sarah Lacy’s interview with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg at the SXSW conference is being torn to shreds by bloggers, because of Lacy’s anecdotal style and rambling questions.
Lacy’s response: an angry message to Twitter (flagged up by CNET) shown below.

Lacy’s interview is now being touted as teaching material for journalism professor Jeff Jarvis’ classes. […]

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