Brand Republic: Guardian to launch Arabic news wire

The Arab-language news wire, Al Sharq, will be launched in the first quarter of 2009. Based in Qatar, the service will translate up to 15 stories a day for use by other media organisations in the Middle East. Full story...

Tags: Al Sharq, guardian, Guardian News&Media, media organisations, Middle East, Qatar

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NMA: Guardian to run location-based ads in podcasts

Guardian News & Media (GNM) has introduced location-based, third party ads into podcasts and audio content. The ads are relevant to a listener's location and time. Full story...

Tags: Audio, guardian, podcasting

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Comment is Free: Graphs at the Guardian - remember to label the Y axis

Siobhain Butterworth's weekly column looks at the use of graphs by the paper's designers and journalists. Where have they gone right and wrong? Full story...

Tags: graphs, guardian

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US Elections: Guardian rolls out special homepage

To complement its liveblogged coverage of election day, which is still going at time of writing, Guardian.co.uk has changed its homepage design to the below:

This is a template that could be used for other major news events. As BBC News online editor Steve Herrmann told Journalism.co.uk earlier this week the election has been a great opportunity for news sites to experiment with coverage and layout, developing features for future use.

Tags: Barack Obama, BBC, British Broadcasting Corporation, guardian, Steve Herrmann, US elections, USA

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Paul Foot 2008: The alternative highlights of the night

Journalism.co.uk was very happy to make the acquaintance of Jim Oldfield, one of the runner-ups in the Paul Foot Award, last night. He is the editor of seven community newsletters in South Yorkshire.

He was nominated for the Rossington Community Newsletter, South Yorkshire Newspapers, for coverage of opposition to the proposed construction of an ‘eco-town’ in Rossington.

Oldfield very keen to emphasise the talents and commitment of his reporting team (which consists of one full-time and two part-time journalists), who were also there last night.

After hearing about the Newsletter’s various scoops over a canape or two (J.co.uk now has his ‘The Killer in My Cab’ splash decorating its desk), we got this pic:

Meanwhile, the prize for the biggest cheer of the night definitely went to another runner-up’s supporters: those rooting for the Observer’s Dan McDougall (he is pictured with host Ian Hislop, below). McDougall was nominated for his investigation of child labour in South Asia.

Tags: Dan McDougall, guardian, Ian Hislop, Jim Oldfield, paul foot award, Private Eye, The Observer

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We’re off to the investigative Oscars tonight: follow us live

Tonight is the pinnacle of the investigative and campaigning journalism year, when one (or three in last year’s case) journalists walk away with the prestigious Paul Foot Award, which rewards the best of campaigning journalism.

We’ll do our utmost (dongle/Wifi/mobile signal permitting) to Twitter the proceedings: follow us @journalism_live.

Nominations this year:

• Richard Brooks of Private Eye - for his articles investigating the government’s involvement with fund management company Actis

• Camilla Cavendish of The Times - for a series of pieces and a campaign against miscarriages of justice carried out under the Children’s Act 1989

• Andrew Gilligan of the Evening Standard - for his investigation into financial irregularities at London’s City Hall and the London Development Agency

• Warwick Mansell of The Times Educational Supplement - for his work on the SATS test marking scandal and educational opposition to the government’s league table system for schools

• Dan McDougall of The Observer - for investigating child labour in South Asia, particularly that perpetrated by clothing retailers Esprit, Primark and Gap Inc

• Jim Oldfield of Rossington Community Newsletter, South Yorkshire Newspapers - for coverage of opposition to the proposed construction of an ‘eco-town’ in Rossington

Tags: award, Camilla Cavendish, Dan McDougall, guardian, Jim Oldfield, Paul Foot, Private Eye, Richard Brooks, Warwick Mansell

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What-gate? Can the media just make up their minds on what to call the Brand/Ross/Sachs fiasco?

Little did the architects behind the office/hotel complex at the heart of the Nixon affair (doesn’t sound right does it?) know what an impact the building’s name would have on the British media.

It’s a legacy which has given British newspaper journalists an easy way to coin a name for the latest ’scandal’ (scandal defined in its broadest sense: we have Flakegate, after all).

But when it comes to last week’s BBC outrage no-one seems to know which gate to stick with:

Media Guardian alone refers to Sachsgate, Granddaughtergate and Manuelgate.

We’ve seen Rossgate from the Telegraph, Brandgate from the Independent. For readers’ sake, since the coverage really doesn’t seem to be letting up, let’s have an agreed gate.

And some consistency please: should the named gate namesake be the perpetrators, or the victims of the ’scandal’? That particular detail often bothers me: we’ve had Queengate, but also Cherie and Camillagate (Nipplegate of Justin Timberlake fame is a particular favourite).

Reuters and most of the papers/blogs are going with Manuelgate but my vote’s with ‘whatnewanglecanwepossiblytakenowgate’ (she says, fully aware of the irony as she pens her own tenuous angle for this blog post).

Mainly because Rossgate could lead to confusion for the poor pupils at this school in Hemel Hempstead.

Any gates on this particular story I’ve missed? For those that care and are thinking of writing their Masters thesis on the subject, there’s actually a Wikipedia page dedicated to ’scandal-gates’ (which actually already lists Manuelgate, fyi).

Tags: andrew sachs, BBC, brandgate, camillagate, cheriegate, flakegate, georgina baillie, granddaughtergate, guardian, Independent, jonathan ross, manuelgate, nixon, queengate, reuters, rossgate, russell brand, sachsgate, telegraph, watergate

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Guardian.co.uk: Afghan court overturns death sentence for student journalist

The student journalist who was accused of blasphemy after distributing anti-Islamic material, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison after an Afghan appeal court overturned his death sentence. Full story...

Tags: Afghanistan, guardian

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MediaGuardian: Former Al Jazeera executive loses discrimination case

An London employment tribunal has dismissed a compensation claim made by Jo Burgin, the former executive at Al Jazeera English. She was seeking substantial compensation from the television network on grounds of discrimination. Full story...

Tags: Al Jazeera English, guardian, Jo Burgin, television network

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