The world’s media (well, some of it at least) is eagerly anticipating the release of tens of thousands of emails sent by Sarah Palin while she was governor of Alaska.

The emails, which date from her inauguration as governor in 2006 through to her selection as John McCain’s running mate for the 2008 Republican presidential campaign, will be released at 6pm today.

The release looks set to spark a race between news organisations to dig out stories (or, let’s face it, plain old gossip).

In an affront to everything modern and digital, Palin’s office will release the 24,199 emails in printed form, in six boxes. That means, of course, that journalists will have to visit the courthouse in Juneau, Alaska to collect the documents and trawl through them on paper or scan them in.

The major US nationals will be on the courthouse steps at the appointed time of course. But it looks like there will be at least one UK newspaper represented – with the Guardian’s “crack correspondents” Ewen MacAskill and Ed Pilkington due to be “holed up in a Juneau hotel room combing through thousands of Palin emails as fast as they can read”.

The Guardian will then follow its MPs expenses app model by putting the trove of documents online and asking its readers to help analyse them.

The release comes just ahead of Palin’s visit to the UK and follows her recent bus tour of the east coast of the US. She is currently refusing to be drawn on whether she intends to run for president, and it remains to be seen whether the release of these emails will shed some light on a potential bid, derail it, or reveal no new interesting information at all.

Palin’s email was hacked back in 2008, with Anonymous, the group behind pro-WikiLeaks attacks on Mastercard and Amazon, thought to be responsible.Similar Posts:

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Pulitzer prize-winning photojournalist David Hume Kennerly is not at all happy with the way Newsweek magazine cropped his photo of former vice-president Dick Cheney at home with his family, Charles Apple notes on his blog. The original photograph shows Cheney leaned over a chopping board, with his family in the background. The cropped version shows the vice-president only, to illustrate quotes that he made about C.I.A. interrogators.

“This incident is another example of why many people don’t believe what they see or read. And America clearly notices these shifts in journalism,” wrote Kennerly in a piece for the New York Times site. Newsweek has defended its use of the photo.

• Charles Apple:  Newsweek alters photo… by cropping it?
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Ben Bradshaw’s speech from the Royal Television Society’s binnenial convention in Cambridge last night, his first since becoming the British culture secretary in June. In his speech he criticised James Murdoch’s recent comments in Edinburgh and discussed regulation, regional news and public service broadcasting. The headline grabbing comments concerned the BBC: Bradshaw said that there could be a case for a ‘smaller licence fee’ and also suggested that the BBC Trust model is not ‘sustainable’.

Twenty years ago I had the good fortune and privilege to be the BBC correspondent in Berlin. I had arrived there in the beginning of 1989 – as a rookie reporter from BBC Radio Devon – to a posting considered a bit of a backwater.

Not much had happened in Berlin since the wall had gone up. My predecessor’s biggest story in four years was the death of the elderly Nazi, Rudolph Hess, in Spandau Prison. Within weeks of my arrival, the East Germans were revolting and in just a few short months the Berlin Wall was
down. In career terms – it was very lucky timing.

I’ve been recalling the events of 20 years ago quite a lot recently. Not just because of the impending anniversary, but because of the loud and bad tempered debate in Britain about the future of public service broadcasting in general and the BBC in particular.

 I have many memories of that time in Berlin, personal and professional.

But one of the most abiding is of the stream of East Germans in the days after the Wall came down, who were able, for the first time, to visit the BBC office in West Berlin. They came to say ‘thank you’ for the programmes that had sustained them during decades of Communist rule.

When I asked them why they listened to the BBC, rather than the much better resourced Deutsche Welle, or the West Berlin stations or the Voice of America, they gave a variety of answers, but there was a common theme: “You don’t preach to us. You don’t treat us East Germans as second class Germans. Your news is fair. You don’t pretend everything in your own country is perfect, so we believe what you say about other things. You allow different voices.”

Broadcasting – changing world

The two decades since the fall of the Berlin Wall have seen a profound and accelerating change in our media landscape. You know better than most the journey from the analogue world of three heavily regulated broadcasters and a small add-on commercial market, to the digital world where the market is much larger, with a multimedia element, and where the public intervention is represented essentially by the BBC, with a self-funding Channel 4 gingering up the public service end.

It has been a transition from what could be called a command and control to a mixed economy.

In that transition some things have been lost or endangered – plural provision of children’s programming, high-end drama and, across all media, the viability of commercially provided news, locally, regionally and in the Nations.

But the changes have also brought huge gains for the consumer and for the industry. There is a choice of programming and of technology-driven convenience and quality unthinkable back then. Although current trading conditions are tough, the industry is fundamentally healthy both commercially and creatively, winning Oscars, Emmys and Golden Globes.

Our production sector makes the UK the world’s largest programme exporter after the US and by far the leading exploiter of programme formats, with over half of the global market.


 This mixed economy has served the interests of the public, both as citizens and as consumers. It would seem to be what people want.

When we do intervene or regulate, we try to do so in a way that best allows the market to grow, to evolve, to expand. And we try to do so in ways that sustain the core values to which the public continue to attach importance – impartiality in news, effective protection for children and so on.

In the last 20 years, the private/public mix has continued to innovate to anticipate and reflect public taste.

Technical innovations such as Sky Plus, High Definition and the iPlayer; an impressive range of innovation in content, from new talent to new formats; new regulatory models encouraging the growth of the independent sector outside London. And – at the centre of public provision – a strong, stable BBC with the security of income fixed for several years at a time to ensure its independence, both politically and commercially.

As we come towards the end of the transition from the old analogue world to the fully digital world, the challenge is to secure a consensus on whether our mixed economy remains the right approach – which I believe it is – and how to maintain it for the long term.

This is an appropriate point at which to thank Stephen Carter and his team for their excellent work in Digital Britain which provides both the long-term framework for government’s policy on the digital economy and our next steps.

Competing visions for future of public service

Just as we are approaching the 20th anniversary of the fall of the wall we have just marked another significant 20th anniversary – that of a Murdoch making a speech about the media in Edinburgh.

Murdoch speeches in Edinburgh are designed to be – how should I say – thought provoking. And James’ certainly was. Among his most striking assertions were that profit is the only guarantor of independence; that people are better informed if broadcasting is left to the market; that regulation needs sweeping away; and what he called state sponsorship – by implication the BBC – must be far, far smaller.

Profit the only guarantor of independence? I’m not sure that the market has secured the independent quality broadcasting that citizens in some modern democracies might expect. As for the market informing people better – that has not been my experience travelling around the United States, compared with the more regulated mixed media economies of Europe.

No, I do not believe that the market alone can deliver the plural sources and high standards of independent and impartial news and current affairs, let alone the richness of innovation and quality in other areas like drama, comedy, natural history and children’s programmes for which Britain is envied worldwide. There are important areas of content as well as infrastructure that the public says it values, wants and expects, and that the unregulated market will simply not provide.

Future of public service broadcasting

I challenge James Murdoch’s use of the term Orwellian to describe Britain’s media landscape. Being publicly funded or subject to statutory regulation does not equate with state control. East German TV was state controlled. That’s why those East Germans valued the BBC – it was free, diverse, self critical.

And the British people understand the distinction between publicly funded and state controlled too. Otherwise they would not consistently say they trust the BBC more than any other media organisation – more than ever according to the latest survey, in spite of the summer media onslaught on
the corporation.

So James said things with which I profoundly disagree. But he also did us all a favour by asking legitimate questions and raising genuine concerns that our public discourse has been skirting around for too long. He was right to raise questions about the BBC’s size, its remit and its impact on the rest of the British media industry.

In the 20 years since I was reporting Berlin, the BBC has gone from being a service of two television channels, four national radio stations, a local radio network, a teletext service and some videotape sales, to a BBC with eight linear TV channels, several interactive and high definition channels, nine national radio stations and a dominant local radio network, the iPlayer, a world-leading online presence, and a commercial publishing, DVD , television and multimedia empire of some scale.

And if it were to continue on anything like that trajectory, the rest of the industry would be right to be worried and the mixed economy would be seriously imbalanced. 

Since James Murdoch’s speech the BBC has another review of itself, including, we are told, looking at its size.

And then Sir Michael Lyons comes up with his £5.50 ‘give-a-way’ and appears to be arguing he would rather the licence fee were smaller than the BBC share any of it to save regional news. What’s to be made of this? Is this really about the long term interests of public service content? I would just like to point out that the £5.50 is not the BBC’s to give away.

It was agreed on top of the current licence fee income for the BBC to fund help with digital switchover. However, Michael, if you want to return £5.50 from the BBC’s share of the licence fee to the public – or more if you wish – let me know and I’m sure it can be arranged!

This is not a serious or sensible way to have a debate about something as important as the future of the BBC and public service broadcasting. 

I happen to think the BBC probably has reached the limits of reasonable expansion.

 I believe the corporation is right to be looking more carefully at what it pays its stars and executives.

It is time for the BBC to allow the National Audit Office access to its accounts. 

I’m also concerned about the regulatory structure of the BBC.

Although the Trust has performed better than its predecessor, I don’t think it is a sustainable model in the long term. I know of no other area of public life where – as is the case with the Trust – the same body is both regulator and cheerleader.

And finally, there may indeed be a case for a smaller licence fee. But there is a proper timetable for determining that. One of the unbroken conventions adhered to by successive Governments, to avoid the suggestion of political interference in or pressure on the BBC, has been to respect the multi-annual settlement system. I resolutely believe that to be right. Any attempt to break that convention would rightly be seen as a direct assault on the BBC’s independence.

However, there will need to be a decision in around two years time on the licence fee after 2012. During the next Parliament the shape of the new Charter with the BBC will need to be agreed. This will beg even bigger questions than those I’ve already just posed. Do we as a nation still value public service broadcasting? Do we want the BBC to survive and, if so, what do we want it to do and how do we want to pay for it?

These are very profound and hard questions to answer. Harder than at any time since the BBC was born given the speed with which the media environment is now changing. They cannot and should not be resolved by the BBC reviewing itself. Nor by speeches by media moguls or politicians. The public also needs to be heard in this discussion. They pay for it after all. They are the customer.

This means that the process, the discussions and consultation in the run up to the end of this licence fee and charter period will need to be even more open, even more fundamental than those we conducted before the current settlement. A proper national conversation, certainly not a stitch up behind closed doors between BBC management and politicians. Only that way will whatever is agreed have the legitimacy to withstand the onslaught from the BBC’s enemies and critics and stand the test of time.

The regulatory structure

I have spoken about one way in which government intervenes in the market for public benefit – public service broadcasting, now let me turn to the other, regulation.

There are those who argue that because of the revolutionary changes to the broadcasting landscape the traditional approach to regulation is outdated. I agree: but our approach is not traditional. At the same time, however, this does not mean to say that we can or should do away with regulation all together.

It is often those who call loudest for deregulation and non-intervention in areas that affect them who are quickest to call for intervention and regulation where it benefits them. The fact that we have some of the lowest wholesale broadband prices in Europe is not an accident or the product of the market. It is the product of regulation that has enabled vigorous competition – including from new entrants.

There is a serious point here about the right kind of regulation. When it comes to regulating for convergence, it is worth remembering that in establishing Ofcom Britain led the way in Europe by bringing content, delivery and wireless spectrum regulation together in one place. Ofcom has done so with two-thirds of the staff and lower costs then the five bodies that preceded it. And it is our approach to wireless spectrum, of liberalisation, deregulation and market mechanisms that have become the new European model.

Of course regulation needs to evolve as consumers’ habits change. The key is to move with the public. They expect broadcasters to have a duty of care when running phone-in programmes. They still value the watershed. They still expect protection against offensive material beamed unbidden into their living room, as opposed to what they actively go and get from walking to the newsagent or surfing the internet. They enjoy the rumbustious opinion and style in the print media. But they trust the impartiality of broadcast news.

This is the strength of the mixed economy. However, that does not mean we are interested in regulation for regulation’s sake, which is why I want to change our approach on product placement. We’ll consult on this shortly and would hope to have any change in place in the New Year.

To the critics of our regulatory structure I ask the simple question: if regulation were a problem in itself, how is it our media market is amongst the most successful in the world? It is because we have got the right balance between public and private. We have stayed ahead of the game and, as our Digital Britain plans show, we are determined to maximise the future potential of the broadcasting industry.

A draft Digital Economy Bill is taking shape, ready for the next session of parliament. In addition to tackling unlawful file-sharing it paves the way for universal broadband – future-proofed – and for delivering digital radio and next generation-mobile services. Digital Britain commits us to a new remit for Channel 4, building upon the vision of Next on 4, moving it firmly into the digital age.

Andy Duncan was, of course, the driving force behind Next on 4 and I’m very grateful to Andy for the leadership he has shown Channel 4 through a period of unprecedented change in the media world. He has been instrumental in repositioning  Channel 4 for the digital age and I’m sure we all wish him all the best for the future.

This time last week the switch to digital TV reached its millionth home. The analogue system is only three years away from being switched off entirely. Three out of every four sets in the country now receive multichannel television – nine out of 10 households. And the Switchover Help Scheme we established has now helped more that 100,000 older and disabled people to switch, providing equipment, installation and aftercare.

Next month we will have many of the most influential global figures around the table at the inaugural c&binet conference – our Davos of the creative industries – aimed at identifying and supporting the most effective way of protecting, producing and commercialising creative work.

Regional and local media

I mentioned earlier the threat to plural news programmes in the regions and nations. As a former local newspaper and local radio journalist I would be acutely aware of the importance of good local news to the public, even without my constituents reminding me on a regular basis.

The high viewing figures for regional news are no accident. People want to know what’s happening in their patch. It helps maintain a sense of local and regional identity and pride. It plays a vital part in a democracy at holding local authorities, the NHS and other public organisations to account. It’s reporters and presenters have a far more intimate relationship with the viewers than those on the network.

When in the South West earlier this year Carlton amalgamated its former two news regions into one – based in Bristol – my constituents were not happy. They lost their dedicated ITV evening news programme produced and edited from Plymouth with an even more local opt out from Exeter. While the Carlton journalists do a valiant job of reporting their vast new region with limited resources, we all know that the economics of local and regional news are getting less and less sustainable. The poll we published yesterday showed 84% of the public think it’s important to have a choice of sources of regional and local news.

Seven out of 10 people want regional news on more than just one channel. And one cannot will the ends without the means. Two thirds of those questioned supported our idea of using the equivalent fraction of the licence fee that’s currently ring-fenced for switchover to secure plural regional news for the future. We said when we announced this in Digital Britain that we thought this was a fair, transparent and sustainable solution, but that we were open to other ideas.

We still are. I note Mark, your interesting suggestion of floating some of BBC Worldwide and I look forward to hearing more about this proposal. But we are determined not to lose plural news provision in the regions. It seems crazy that people all over the world can access the brilliant BBC website if we cannot provide a choice of quality regional news to people here at home.

The consultation closes 22nd September – after which it’s essential we press on with plans for three pilots of local news consortia, one each in Scotland, Wales and an English region, which we hope can begin in the course of next year.

Skills and talent

Plurality is not the only virtue of the local news consortia idea. They will also provide a valuable opportunity to find new skills and talent, opening up opportunities in the media to young people in cities like mine.

I very much hope that the Government can help you help the next generation of local journalists using not just these new consortia but in all the good work you already do to encourage young people and build skills.

The creative industries, the digital economy and the media are areas where this country is by nature and history strong. They make a large and increasing contribution to our national economy and will provide a significant proportion of the employment growth in the future.

That’s why, as part of the Government’s future jobs fund – my colleague Yvette Cooper and I have agreed to fund between 5,000 and 10,000 new jobs in the creative sector. I know some of you are already involved in this venture and I would urge more of you to come on board. The scheme will not only help thousands of young people whose employment prospects have been the worst hit by the global down turn – but they will help you and us find and nurture the creative and media talent of the future.

Conclusion

I have argued tonight that public service broadcasting has informed, entertained and enriched Britain, and generations of Britons. The BBC has been central to that in the past and I hope will continue to be in the future.

Equally, the market has brought huge benefits. When those East Germans were streaming through the Berlin Wall 20 years ago, there were no mobile phones, let alone blackberries or multi-channel digital televisions. High-speed broadband, downloads and video-on-demand were glints in the eyes of the visionary few rather than central to all of your business models. It is the market that has driven and delivered this change.

This mixed economy – free but regulated, public service and private – has served Britain well.

In his Edinburgh speech, James Murdoch described it – actually you, Britain’s broadcast media – as the ‘Addams Family’ of the world’s media. I don’t know how you felt about that. And I assume he didn’t mean it kindly. But aren’t the Addams family a well-loved, long running, world-wide hit? And haven’t you, this British Addams family, won seven out of the 10 international EMMYs two years running? And don’t you export £1 billion of TV content every year? So, maybe on this definition of the Addams family, I finally find something on which James and I wholeheartedly agree.

Thank you.

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Glyn Mottershead teaches newspaper journalism at the University of Cardiff. He blogs at http://egrommet.net/ and is @egrommet on Twitter.

Journalism will survive – but there’s no simple solution for how it gets there, or who is going to pay for it. That was the key message that underpinned the Future of Journalism conference at the Cardiff University School of Journalism, Media and Cultural studies last week.

Delegates from 42 countries gathered in the city to hear over 100 papers looking at the industry from a range of aspects:

• New media technologies, blogs and UGC;
• Sources; Ethics; Regulation; and Journalism practice;
• Global journalism;
• Education, training and employment of journalists; History
• Business; Citizen/activist journalism

James Curran (professor of communications at Goldsmith’s College) and Bettina Peters (director of the Global Forum for Media Development) kicked off proceedings with their plenary address.

Curran’s plenary focused on different views of the future: the survivalists, the new media romantics and those who believe there is a crisis of democracy afoot.

Being passive is not an option for the industry or academics, he argued. It is futile to try and predict the future: the focus should be on moulding and shaping the future where the two can work together to keep journalism alive.

Bettina Peters of the Global Forum for Media Development questioned whether it was appropriate to try and export business models from the developed world to the developing world. She discussed the need for collaboration between the northern and southern hemispheres. Journalism needs to be looking at mixed funding models, she said.

She too was concerned that journalists and educators needed to engage in a global discussion to share ideas and solutions and that the conversations shouldn’t just be about money or tools – two key strands of current industry discussion both on- and off-line.

Jon Bramley from Thomson Reuters, John Horgan the Irish press ombudsman, and Kevin Z. Smith, president of the Society of Professional Journalists, were among the participants presenting papers. A full timetable can be found at this link [PDF].

Conference organiser Professor Bob Franklin, of the Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, was keen to stress that this wasn’t an academic talking shop – but a key place where journalists and those studying journalism can get together to share research and ideas from around the globe, something crucial given the massive changes taking place in the industry.

His view was that the conference showed there is no single future for journalism. This was echoed in roundtable talks with journalism educators who were finding it difficult to determine what media organisations need, while journalists in the room stated that the media didn’t know what it wants.

Professor Franklin, like many others at the conference, believes the key to the future of journalism depends on the platform and location: while newspapers are in decline in Europe and America they are thriving in India, and there is a rise in daily tabloids in urban South Africa – with a thriving market in used copies of newspapers.

“The conference was about the future of journalism, and that future looks very different from where you are standing,” said Franklin. “We were talking about possibilities, not about sowing gems of wisdom. There is a future for journalism, but it is a very expansive future.”

Video: Professor Alfred Hermida on the Future of JournalismSimilar Posts:

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An update on Journalism Online, the venture started by Steve Brill, Gordon Crovitz, and Leo Hindery with the aim of helping news organisations charge for content.

• Nieman Journalism Lab reports that the company will take a 20 per cent cut of subscription revenue (after credit card fees).

• The document [PDF] submitted to the Newspaper Association of America reveals the plans and is published by the NJL.

• The Associated Press reports how IBM Corp., Microsoft Corp., Oracle Corp. and Google Inc. ‘responded to a request by the Newspaper Association of America for proposals on ways to easily, unobtrusively charge for news on the web,’ according to the report.

• ‘Lots of fee ideas for media online’ reports the New York Times.

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Google has announced plans for a micropayment system that would be available to both Google services and non-Google properties within the next year.

The outline of the system is given in a document submitted to the Newspaper Association of America (NAA).

“Google believes that an open web benefits all users and publishers. However, ‘open’ need not mean free. We believe that content on the internet can thrive supported by multiple business models – including content available only via subscription. While we believe that advertising will likely remain the main source of revenue for most news content, a paid model can serve as an important source of additional revenue. In addition, a successful paid content model can enhance advertising opportunities, rather than replace them,” said the search company in the document, which looks at how Google’s expertise could help the newspaper industry.

The paper discusses the problems of introducing a paid content model, but suggests a micropayment system – built as a development of its existing Google Checkout product – could work for the news industry.

Here’s how it would look as written in the document:

• Single sign-on capability for users to access content and manage subscriptions;
• Ability for publishers to combine subscriptions from different titles together for one price;
• Ability for publishers to create multiple payment options and easily include/exclude content behind a paywall;
• Multiple tiers of access to search including 1) snippets only with ‘subscription’ label; 2) access to preview pages; and 3) ‘first click free’ access;
• Advertising systems that offer highly relevant ads for users, such as interest-based advertising.

“Google already works with a number of premium content providers in a manner similar to the vision above. Combining our e-commerce system with our search capability and advertising platform will allow for even more flexibility for publishers and users alike,” explains the document.

The search firm also suggests the potential for more money for publishers from syndication using Google’s existing technology for both better distribution and advertising around syndicated content.

Full report at this link…Similar Posts:

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Homeless Tales reports that one of its US bloggers, Bri, has been offered a four month internship at Elle magazine, with columnist E.Jean Carroll.

It came about after Bri wrote into Elle, after failing a screen test for a reality TV show offering an internship with the publication.

An extract (full letters on Elle.com)

Dear E. Jean: I’m currently homeless and living in a Wal-Mart parking lot. I’m educated, I have never done drugs, and I am not mentally ill. I have a strong employment history and am a career executive assistant. The instability sucks, but I’m rocking it as best as I can.

(…)

My question: How does one get another shot when one screws up a job interview? —Homeless, but Not Hopeless

And an extract from E.Jean’s reply:

“You knocked me out with your courage and spirit. I am therefore, Miss Not Hopeless, offering you a four-month internship. Of course it’s the most hideously humdrum internship in America. (…) At the end of the four months, if you don’t have a job and an awesome place to live, I will become your intern.”

Full post at this link…

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‘Now that Walter Cronkite has passed on, who is America’s most trusted newscaster?’ asked a poll on the Time website.

44 per cent of the 9409 users who responded named the Daily Show’s Jon Stewart.

Full poll at this link…

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America has lost a top celebrity anchorman, whose news delivery was so influential, he came to be called ‘the most trusted man in America’.

He died peacefully at his home, on Friday July 17, at the age of 92.

Walter Cronkite was an anchorman for CBS Evening News from 1962 to 1981, reading news including a wide range of historical events: the moon landings, Watergate, John F. Kennedy’s assassination and the Vietnam war.

He had a reassuring manner of delivering the news that inspired confidence and trust in the audience. Every evening 70 million Americans heard him deliver his broadcast, which invariably concluded with the parting words “And that’s the way it is.”

He was born Walter Leland Cronkite Jr on November 4th, 1916 in St. Joseph, Missouri, the son of a dentist. As a teenager, his family moved to Houston, where he had his first junior reporter job at The Houston Post – and at the same time delivering the very paper for which he worked.

Known for his trademark clipped moustache and grave voice, he was affectionately known as Uncle Walt, owing to a resemblance to Walt Disney. Despite his popularity, Cronkite was uncomfortable with his celebrity status and declined a proposal for a Walter Cronkite fan club saying: “I don’t think news people ought to have fan clubs.” He also brushed aside suggestions for him to stand for vice-president, even president. The only job he had ever wanted was that of reporter.

No amount of friendship or adulation could compromise Cronkite’s journalistic integrity. Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once said, “When I wanted to make a point Cronkite was the first person I would call. I was sure I was getting a fair interview – tough but fair.”

Some of Cronkite’s finest moments:

• 1963: Assassination of President John F . Kennedy: Walter Cronkite famously displays a rare show of emotion, taking off his glasses to fight back tears as he announces the death of President Kennedy. Video below:

• 1968: Vietnam War: After visiting Vietnam in 1968, he called the war ‘a stalemate’ and made his pro-peace stance clear. His views were so influential that, having watched the broadcast, the then US President Lyndon Johnson reportedly said, “I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.” Two weeks later  Johnson resigned and announced he would not stand for re-election. Walter Cronkite on the Vietnam War.

• 1969: Apolo 11′s landing on the moon: His coverage of the landing made CBS’ footage of the first moonwalk a favourite in America. Walter Cronkite and the landing on the moon.

• 1977: Cronkite’s interview with Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin led to Sadat visiting Jerusalem and signing the peace accords the following year at Camp David.

Cronkite retired from from the CBS evening news programme in 1981, handing it over to Dan Rather, but continued producing special reports for the CBS network and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honour. In 1983 he covered the general elections in the UK for ITV and interviewed Margaret Thatcher.

He is survived by a son, two daughters and four grandsons.

Useful related links:

• CBS News Special Pays Tribute to Cronkite

• ‘Walter Cronkite, 92, Dies; Trusted voice of TV News’ – NY Times obituary

• Walter Cronkite 1916-2009 : a slideshow (HCBS TV)

• ‘Legendary Newsman Dies at 92′ – The Huffington Post

• ‘He inspired trust in a way today’s news anchors can never repeat’ – Dan Kennedy (Guardian)

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UK based digital publishers PageSuite have landed a deal with America’s largest publisher of metropolitan business newspapers, American City Business Journals. The company will launch of all 40 of their bizjournal titles online, using PageSuite as their provider.

Bizjournals cover 40 industries, distributed across 41 cities and their websites have more than eight million unique visitors per month. “Our production teams have found the software to be very flexible and user friendly,” commented Eric Mick from bizjournals, in a release.

PageSuite already publishes digital editions for some of the world’s biggest newspapers including Metro Canada, Metro UK & Ireland, San Francisco Examiner, Express Newspapers, The Guardian Weekly & Brazil’s largest daily newspaper Zero Hora.Similar Posts:

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“In case it wasn’t obvious that newspapers are struggling, a new report by the Newspaper Association of America shows just how dire the situation has become,” Media Post reports.

“In the first quarter of this year, [newspaper] ad revenues plummeted to $6.62 billion, marking a 28 per cent drop from last year, according to the NAA. And it wasn’t only print ad revenue that fell. Web ad revenue also dropped 13 per cent, to $696 million.”

Full story at this link…Similar Posts:

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Sign of the times? The Newspaper Association of America (NAA) in the US is ceasing publication of its print edition to move online-only ‘to adapt our organisation to the realities of today’s newspaper business’.

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Heather Brooke, journalist and Freedom of Information specialist, has picked up on the Hansard report from the committee session in April 2009 which heard evidence from Roy Greenslade and Nick Davies. MP Alan Keen used to opportunity to ask who exactly this Heather Brooke was.

From Hansard:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmcumeds/uc275-vi/uc27502.htm

Q484 Alan Keen: There is a woman who has frequently been on television and in the press who appears to me to be a campaigner for freedom of information, an American I think.

Mr Davies: Heather Brooke?

Q485 Alan Keen: Yes. Does she earn a living from this?

Mr Davies: She is a journalist. She is a specialist in freedom of information. I think she is actually British and she worked in America and used their Freedom of Information Act, came back to this country just as ours was about to come into force so wrote a book which is a guide.

Q486 Alan Keen: I have seen her being interviewed.

Mr Davies: You are wondering whether she has some vested interest.

Q487 Alan Keen: Yes, because I have seen her on television being interviewed.

Mr Greenslade: I know her quite well. She teaches the students at City. She is a single interest journalist in the old tradition of having one niche interest and following it to its logical conclusion. She lives, in monetary terms, on the margins.

Heather Brooke now responds:

“It was not without a chuckle at his chutzpah that I saw my detractor was the Member for Feltham & Heston, Alan Keen. With his wife, Ann, the couple are known as ‘Mr and Mrs Expenses’” … Full post at this link…

(via Jon Slattery)Similar Posts:

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Another dose of Fry this morning, in an earlier post we reproduced yesterday’s comments to the BBC about journalists and expenses.

Courtesy of Malcolm Coles, here is the full transcript [below video] of Stephen Fry’s presentation at Digital Britain on April 17. Fry’s appearance caused a little stir that day, not least for the way he was introduced onto the stage by the BBC’s Nick Higham:

“Stephen is, one of the organisers told me beforehand, the representative at this conference of the ordinary person, frankly: if that’s what someone thinks the ordinary person is like, then someone needs to take them aside and fill them in…”

Some of Fry’s comments relate to technology more broadly, but some interesting points on media, and keeping the web ‘organic’:

“You talk about the BBC doing a digital switchover, as if that’s the same thing as the world-wide web.”

“We’re moving from a world, in which no-one knew or saw the point of, online world, into something [where] everybody has reserved to themselves some special insight into how it’s to affect us.”

Stephen Fry:

It’s very puzzling. A few years ago, people talked about ‘Web 2.0′ (and user-generated content) as being somehow a new development for the world-wide web and how it enabled individuals to contribute (to send up, if you like), to upload not just to download content.

And of course YouTube, and many of the social network sites and so on, have been prominent examples of net citizens, if you like, making their mark, providing their content, improving their existence.

This whole world of skills is something that is completely alien to me.

• ‘I literally don’t understand’

I don’t understand what a digital skill is. I literally don’t understand.

I am not been funny or smart, I don’t know what we’re talking about.

Do you mean how to operate a mouse, how to access a website?

It’s not a digital skill – it’s how to drive a car that you are talking about.

We live in a world which is entirely dominated by the car. I don’t remember a debate in which people earnestly sat together, talking about how you had to teach people to use traffic.

[Laughter]

• ‘It’s so peculiar’

It’s so peculiar to me that we’re sitting around saying people should learn to do this, we must tell people how to do that…

I went in the early 90s to the Director General of the BBC – tried to persuade him that the BBC should have a website.

He had no idea what one was. He didn’t know what the internet was. No-one at the BBC knew then. It had only just come into being.

I am not blaming him or trying to present myself as some prophet. All I’m saying is – go back a little further to the 1930s.

The boys’ bumper book of science, when the DC motor was invented, which was an extraordinary breakthrough in engineering, there’s a cut away picture of a home of the future in the 1960s, in which all kinds of items in the home are driven by electric motors.

The article in the 30s says how we must all become electric motor literate. Because electric motors will operate our society.

As it happens, electric motors DO operate our society. They operate every DVD, they operate everything that moves virtually in your kitchen, house, but you don’t have to know how they work. They are entirely transparent.

• ‘You merely have to know what it is you want them to do’

You merely have to know what it is you want them to do. You want to put washing in it, you want to make toast, you want to spin a CD. Fine.

But, yes, there will be nerds who can actually take apart an engine and motor for you. People who can build a website for you if you want one built – who know what a CMS is, who know what Java is, what hot Java is. They know all the coding and nerdy things.

That’s not what you’re talking about.

• ‘What are you actually talking about?’

You are talking about slaves, you’re talking about the fact that essentially we are slaves.

I love this technology but you go to an office now, people who used to have secretaries are their own secretary. They are operating things that an accountant used to operate, spreadsheets.

They are operating word processors that a secretary used to operate. They are using technology, as it were, to do things.

They are sitting in front of a screen, apparently being productive. Is that your digital skill? I don’t know. Is that what you mean by digital skill?

What are you actually talking about?

[Laughter] [applause]

You talk about the BBC doing a digital switchover as if that’s the same thing as the world-wide web.

• ‘It’s just altering your television. It’s nothing else.’

It’s just altering your television. It’s nothing else.

Yes there’s a bit of interactivity, yes there are settop boxes.

Yes, I can take out my iPhone and I can use Sky+ now to record something for when I get home, remotely, yes there are all kinds of whizzy toys.

I’m still a human being, I still have exactly the same urges and passion and things that all human beings do.

• ‘I don’t need to be re-skilled into anything.’

I don’t need to be re-skilled into anything.

Will’s absolutely right. We train on the job if a new piece of technical hardware comes on. But we’re moving from a world, in which no-one knew or saw the point of, online world, into something which everybody has reserved to themselves some special insight into how it’s to affect us.

If we had this conversation in 1994, I would have said ‘God what a prophetic bunch of people’. You see how this is going to change the world. I agree with you – how exciting.

Would have made no difference. Because in the 1990s, Ian McNaughton on the BBC was doing this ‘how you operate a micro computer’. We have the micro computer club.

It was a very good and noble thing for the BBC to do, to attempt to show people how to use microcomputer, a BBC computer.

It made not a blind bit of difference.

[Laughter]

It didn’t change anything.

Nick Higham: “Can I go back to your starting point – the driving analogy? Surely that’s absolutely appropriate. We do all have to learn to drive a car and that involves a couple of lessons in which you learn useful skills, like which way the steering and the gears go. And then you learn about traffic which is a higher order of skills. Surely it’s a very useful analogy?

[Fry] Good point. It’s a useful analogy except in as much the very phrase ‘being digital’, I don’t know whether consciously or not, is a phrase of a very influential book by Nicholas Negroponte, called ‘Being Digital’, which was published and hugely successful.

He made the point very long time ago now, round the same time Tim Berners-Lee was developing the world wide web. He made the point – you have to understand it shouldn’t be called ‘digital’. It should be called an earlier word that’s ‘electronic’.

That’s because the things we send back and forth are no longer molecular, they are no longer atomic.

If [I] sent you a picture, it’s made of electrons – if I sent to it you on the computer, it literally weighs nothing.

• ‘If they bump into each other there is death’

If I send you a picture by a courier on a motorcycle, it’s made of atoms and it weighs things.

This extraordinary exchange of information is all done at an electronic level – literally electrons, rather than atoms, are taking over the way we exchange things.

Now in traffic, yes, you have to get a driving test because we’re made of atoms. Our cars are made of atoms. If they bump into each other there is death.

[Laughter]

But, fortunately, we don’t need a licence to operate the internet.

But it’s useful to know how to drive. It is as simple as that.

• ‘I am literally baffled’

I assume that’s all you’re discussing. But when you talk about up-skilling, I am literally baffled.

I am astonished that pieces of paper are being produced and clever people are sitting round talking about upskilling workforces.

To me, I just want to go away and make a Charlie Chaplin satire about it.

It seems insane.

[Laughter]

(…)

Nick Higham: Stephen I will give you the last word on condition there is no driving analogies.

[ Fry] I am going to change my analogy.

But first I want to add to Will [Hutton's] point about the monopolisation and the constriction into a small numbers of brands, and the large number of content providers having dwindled to a small number. (…) Those very same content providers in many territories – not so much Britain yet – are also the ones that control the pipeline.

What Comcast has done in America, for example, has been absolutely disgusting, in the way they have throttled certain users because they see those certain users getting their content from another place, than themselves.

If Warner Brothers, Comcast as it is, and if Virgin Media continues on being a big player in it – if not a content manufacturer, certainly a provider – this a very worrying development.

But that’s [an] aside.

• ‘An analogy argues similarity not congruency’

Let’s forget the driving. I would only remind you an analogy argues similarity not congruency.

[laughter]

Let’s suggest here (..) I believe human beings do not change very much. I don’t believe that the internet, the digital economy, what computers can do, has altered us one whit.

And I would say merely that we have always had these abilities, to create structures that are quite bewildering to us.

• ‘The internet is more like a city than anything else’

A good example is a city, and I would say that the internet is more like a city than anything else.

Our ability to move round it may or may not be like driving, but we’re going to forget that.

In cities, there are slums, there are palaces of wisdom, there are libraries, museums, art galleries, theatres, places of entertainment, shops, endless rows of shops.

And we pass by them, we hardly look at them. We glance at newspaper headlines, we don’t pay much attention as we wander round – just as you were describing [how] we use the internet.

Increasingly those shops are becoming the same in every different city. Because they belong to single chains.

And there are places in those cities you would not yourself want to go down – dark alleys, let alone have your children alone.

• ‘We let our children learn to use the cities and they do’

But slowly we let our children learn to use the cities and they do.

And there are those historically who never moved to cities, who prefer the countryside, those who can’t afford to move to the city, those who can’t afford to a good part in it.

All I am saying, we recognise this the way humans are, it’s the way we structure our lives, the way we always have.

Let’s not pretend its a new thing that needs a new way of looking at ourselves.

• ‘I would look back at history to try to understand the internet’

If anything, I would look back at history to try to understand the internet, not try to look forward into some strange ‘New World’ that we need to understand, we need to develop a new jargon for.

That’s not necessary.

But, above all remember that the same social issues of justice and of decency and fairness, and of a right attitude to looking at our fellow citizens, still apply.

Those points made about those cut out of whatever profit, whatever joy, whatever knowledge, whatever extra excitement and pleasure can be gained from a digital world rather than a normal city – then, yes, it is our duty, I believe as citizens, but [also] my politics if you like, to help them.

And to help them by giving them free things, because we can all contribute to help make them free.

• ‘Let’s not try and make every city like a kind of Milton Keynes’

But perhaps I will end by saying let’s for God’s sake not pull them down, and try and make every city like a kind of Milton Keynes. Let’s keep them organic.

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Minnesota’s largest news source, the Star Tribune, was declared bankrupt three months ago and is now in danger of going under. The paper is the largest in the area and the 15th largest in America itself.

Yet another American paper facing closure, it brings to mind the ‘Rocky Road Mountain News’, closed down earlier this year.

Employees have launched an online campaign in the hope of saving the newspaper: “We believe the Star Tribune is an essential community resource that is too valuable to lose,” says the ‘Save the Strib’ site.

On the site, readers are invited to submit business proposals. Also featured are reader testimonials and a petition.

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