Journalism.co.uk Editors' Blog » Gavin O’Reilly

MediaGuardian: Sir Anthony O’Reilly leaves Independent News&Media

Judith Townend — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 11:33:04 +0000

“Sir Anthony O’Reilly, the chief executive of the Independent’s owner Independent News & Media, has announced he will retire in May, with his son Gavin O’Reilly replacing him with immediate effect,” reports MediaGuardian.

Full story at this link…

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World Association of Newspapers calls for press freedom in China

Stuart Goodwin — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 13:00:41 +0000

The World Association of Newspapers (WAN) and the World Editors Forum have written to the Chinese government about international standards of press freedom in the country.

Laws in China restricting foreign journalists were temporarily relaxed during the Olympic Games in Beijing and have recently been extended by authorities.

In a letter dated October 21, WAN wrote to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in an attempt to change the laws permanently:

Your Excellency,

We are writing on behalf of the World Association of Newspapers and the World Editors Forum, which represent 18,000 publications in 102 countries, to welcome the extension of the relaxation in media regulations, but also to call on you to take further steps to uphold international standards of press freedom.

In the run-up to the Beijing Olympics, your government introduced new rules that allowed foreign journalists greater freedom to travel in the country without prior government permission and to talk to anyone who was willing to be interviewed. Those regulations were set to expire on 17 October, however, shortly before they expired new regulations were introduced that recognise these rights.

While welcoming the extension of the more relaxed regulations for foreign journalists, we are concerned that they do not extend to domestic journalists and that many fundamental rights necessary for the proper functioning of a free press are not observed. For example, there is no protection of news sources, it is not possible to report freely on Tibet and hotels are obliged to report the arrival of a foreign journalist to police. Furthermore, with more than 30 journalists and at least 50 cyber reporters imprisoned, China jails more journalists than any other.

We respectfully call on you to extend the relaxed regulations to domestic journalists, to introduce further reforms so that your country might fully respect international standards of press freedom, and to ensure that all
those detained for exercising their right to freedom of expression are immediately released from prison.

We look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience.

Yours sincerely,

Gavin O’Reilly
President
World Association of Newspapers

Xavier Vidal-Folch
President
World Editors Forum

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Independent News and Media is no ‘digital ostrich’ says O’Reilly

Laura Oliver — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 16:31:59 +0000

Gavin O’Reilly, chief operating officer of Indepenent News and Media (INM) and president of the World Association of Newspapers (WAN), has responded to criticism of the publisher’s digital strategy by media commentator Roy Greenslade.

INM has adopted a ‘platform agnostic’ policy for growing its media, O’Reilly wrote in a comment responding to Greenslade, and is not investing in print at the expense of online.

“[T]he O’Brien saga is a distraction from the stark reality facing a company that has put its faith in the longevity of newsprint and averted its gaze from the digital future. It has invested online, of course, but it is way behind many other newspaper companies,” Greenslade wrote, likening INM to a ‘digital ostrich’.

According to O’Reilly, the facts speak for themselves:

INM online revenues grew by 111.5% last year and its 100 websites attract 12 million monthly unique users.

Reports of a ‘volatile’ advertising situation, he added, are not a result of print vs online or structural shifts within INM, but a result of the wider economic downturn.

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WAN 2008: Stop fixating on young readers, O’Reilly tells newspaper industry

Laura Oliver — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 13:56:00 +0000

The newspaper industry should not be fixated with young audiences, Gavin O’Reilly, president of the World Association of Newspapers (WAN), said at the organisation’s annual conference today.

The chief information officer of Independent News and Media said publishers should be looking to serve all generations with their print and online products.

The focus on youth is largely driven by the advertising industry, which is ‘transfixed’ by the youth market, he said.

“There’s always been an unnecessary fixation on youth. We need to capture them first.

“We need to market the newspaper for all generations and we also need to explain to the young that while the net is overwhelming in content it is pretty underwhelming in reliability.”

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WAN 2008: The imminent demise of print is “sheer nonsense’

John Thompson — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 11:45:26 +0000

Gavin O’Reilly, president of the World Association of Newspapers, nailed his colours firmly to the print mast in his speech at the opening ceremony of the 61st World Newspaper Congress in Gothenburg, Sweden:

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Eric Schmidt – Google resistance to ACAP based on technology

Oliver Luft — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 10:49:28 +0000

Google CEO Eric Schmidt has denied that Google’s resistance to using ACAP is based on ‘wanting to control’ publishers information, insisting that it is strictly a technology issues.

Speaking to iTWire, Schmidt said: “ACAP is a standard proposed by a set of people who are trying to solve the problem [of communicating content access permissions]. We have some people working with them to see if the proposal can be modified to work in the way our search engines work. At present it does not fit with the way our systems operate.”

According to iTWire, Schmidt went on to deny that Google’s reluctance so far to use the rights and permissions technology was because Google wanted as few barriers as possible between online content and its search engines. “It is not that we don’t want them to be able to control their information.”

Schmidt made his comments after a tit-for-tat exchange last week in which Gavin O’Reilly, chairman of World Association of Newspaper and ACAP CEO, reacted strongly to claims made by a senior Google executive that the search engine believed ACAP was an unnecessary system and that its function could be fulfilled by existing web standards.

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@SOE: (Audio) ‘We are wordsmiths, not video and cameramen’ Gavin O’Reilly

Oliver Luft — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 08:45:47 +0000

The WAN president doesn’t seem smitten with the idea of multi-tasking journalists given this response to a question about converged journalism posed to him by Paul Horrocks, president of the SoE, during the Q&A on the opening night of the Society of Editors conference in Manchester.

“I don’t think that’s the core competency of writers… we are wordsmiths, not video and cameramen…”

Full Extract:

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@SOE: (Audio) ‘It may be heresy, but it’s just possible that the advertising prize of the internet may not be as big as people want you to believe’ Gavin O’Reilly

Oliver Luft — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 08:45:31 +0000

The WAN president and COO of Independent News and Media crunches the numbers of internet advertising while talking about how a fragmented mix of media may be the key to capturing the necessary market for newspapers prosper.

Global online advertising market worth 21 billion (pounds or dollars?) he says. 65 per cent in the hands of three companies, all the rest are scrabbling over a much smaller (admittedly) growing online share.

Full Extract:

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@SOE: (Audio) WAN president Gavin O’Reilly slams UK media commentators

Oliver Luft — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 08:45:15 +0000

Gavin O’Reilly, chief operating officer of Independent News and Media and president of WAN, launched a stinging attack on senior media commentators in the UK while speaking at the Society of Editors meeting in Manchester.

Listen here to some of his concerns and other points of his speech:

Failings of media commentators: too much rhetoric, overly simplistic digital vs print approach…

Failures of US print papers, threat of reader apathy biggest threat not internet, real reasons for state of UK market – freesheets and enticements, search engines and ACAP…

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