FT scoops six prizes at SOPA awards

The Financial Times’ Chinese-language website, FTChinese.com, took the prize for best feature writing at the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) awards last night.

The site was one of six winners for the FT, which also took home gongs for newspaper design, digital journalism (for reporting on China and the Olympics) and scoop of the year.

FTChinese.com’s winning effort was an article on 30 years of reforms in China.

The title’s Mumbai correspondent, Joe Leahy, was also named journalist of the year at the event.

A full list of the award winners, which also saw the International Herald Tribune and Newsweek recognised, can be downloaded at this link.

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FT.com: BBC pay freeze for 400 most senior employees

“The BBC froze the pay of its 400 most senior employees – from the director-general to the heads of production divisions – for 18 months and suspended its bonus scheme as it sought to fill a £450m ($639m) funding shortfall by 2013,” the Financial Times reports. Full story…

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Guest bloggers for FT’s Davos coverage

The Financial Times has signed up a host of guest bloggers for it’s coverage of this week’s World Economics Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, which starts tomorrow.

Sir Martin Sorrell, Kofi Annan and British foreign secretary David Miliband will all be posting alongside FT editors and correspondents – you can read Sorrell’s first post at this link.

The site has set-up an ‘in depth’ microsite to host its coverage, which will also feature video reports and can be followed on Twitter @FTDavos.

Elsewhere YouTube got its users to pose video questions to the forum via its Davos channel – the most voted submission was from Pablo Camacho, a student and independent writer from Bogotá, Colombia, who will now attend the event on behalf of the site as a citizen reporter.

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NUJ Release: Mass meeting at FT after only 11 volunteer for redundancy

“Journalists at the Financial Times are to hold a day of action next week against proposed compulsory redundancies on the paper,” a release from the National Union of Journalists has announced.

“Management want to axe 20 editorial jobs – but only eleven volunteers have come forward,” the NUJ said.

Tony Benn (NUJ Member of Honour and former Labour cabinet minister) will address a mass meeting in the canteen of the London-based company on January 22. Full release…

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FT launches new look homepage

The Financial Times will (from Tuesday) sport a new homepage design across each of its online editions.

Below is a screengrab of the new look and here’s Journalism.co.uk’s interview with Kate Mackenzie, interactive editor at the FT, on the redesign.

Kate had some views on personalisation of news, in particular how the debate around this issue has changed in the last 10 years:

And explained how journalists are encouraged to link out in their work:

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Forbes.com opinion channel gets a makeover

Forbes.com/opinions has had a makeover, as of today. Under the control of new opinions channel editor, Tunku Varadarajan, no time has been wasted in having a bit of an autumn clean. Particularly significant is the introduction of an array of high-profile new columnists.

Here’s a run-down of the changes:

• Four main topic categories: Business and Economics, Foreign Affairs and Defence, Culture and Society, and Politics.

• 16 new columnists will be writing weekly columns for the channel, including author Reihan Salam, economists Brian Wesbury and Bob Stein, former Reagan speechwriter Peter Robinson and Quentin Letts (from the UK).

• Book reviews every Monday and Thursday, on all subjects, as well as daily essays and commentaries.

• Forbes.com Editor Paul Maidment’s will produce a weekly video “Notes on the News” about international politics and business.

• Forbes magazine Publisher Rich Karlgaards’s daily blog “Digital Rules” will still run, in addition to a new video blog “Talk Back” about the business world.

Varadarajan was previously contributing editor at the Financial Times, where he wrote opinion pieces, arts and culture essays and book reviews. Before that, he was at the Wall Street Journal for seven years – most recently as Assistant Managing Editor.

He gives fuller run-down of all the changes here.

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Amazon Kindle adds Financial Times and Times

The Financial Times and the Times are now available as e-newspapers on Amazon’s Kindle.

The partnership means electronic and automatically updated editions of the papers will now be accessible via the Kindle.

Editions of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Le Monde and the Irish Times are also available on the device.

Earlier this year the US Tribune Co. launched a magazine specially designed for the e-reader.

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Killthecliche.com: ‘more data = better media’

A website tracking the frequency with which journalists use certain cliches has been set up with the aim of improving journalism.

Killthecliche.com, which currently tracks five US newspapers and the Financial Times, aims to show ‘how smart data analysis can help us improve media’ – so this is more than a naming and shaming exercise.

The site currently has 167 cliches in its database, which it scours the feeds of the newspapers for.

According to the results, insurgent is the all time top cliche used, while amid tops the polls for today’s and the week’s most overused word.

The journalists behind the cliches are also ranked, as are the papers – the Boston Globe is currently coming out worst.

Please submit your most cliche-ridden sentences below and let’s get this post on the chart!

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MediaGuardian: FT.com stalls after theft of computer equipment

The Financial Times’ news team was unable to update its website for several hours this morning after thieves stole computer equipment from Cable & Wireless’ data centre at Watford.

The site’s Alphaville blogged ran live updates on the situation and published stories while the main site was out of action.

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FT launches first in series of niche online news services

The Financial Times (FT) has launched the first in a series of online financial news services for Europe.

Ignites Europe – aimed at workers in the European cross-border fund industry – has been launched by online news organisation Money-Media, which was bought by the FT in January.

The service is an email newsletter featuring 10-12 stories and mixing both original and aggregated content.

The paid-for newsletter expands the title outside of the USA, where it has been published for 10 years.

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