Tag Archives: Dan Sabbagh

The Guardian Awards for Digital Innovation open for entries

The Guardian has today (Monday, 24 October) launched its re-branded award scheme, with a focus of creative uses of technology.

The 2012 Guardian Awards for Digital Innovation has new categories including ‘best new website’, ‘tech guru of the year’ and the ‘best new app’.

Called the 2012 Megas, the scheme has adapted “to celebrate and recognise creative achievements and inspiring entrepreneurial spirit within the field of technology”, the Guardian said in a release.

The announcement said:

The 2012 Guardian Awards for Digital Innovation, which began in 2008 as the MediaGuardian Innovation Awards, will focus on cutting-edge digital accomplishments, in line with Guardian News & Media’s digital-first strategy, announced earlier this year. For the first time, one of the winners will get the rare opportunity to guest-edit the Guardian’s MediaGuardian website for a day.

Chair of the judging panel Dan Sabbagh, Guardian News & Media’s head of media & technology, said in the release:

These awards have championed a variety of digital innovations since 2008. Our past winners are testament to the creativity and entrepreneurial spirit of the UK’s digital scene, and with more free-to-enter categories than ever before, I’m looking forward to hearing about the wide range of inspiring projects that are out there. Offering one winner the opportunity to guest edit the MediaGuardian website is a new move for us, and I’m sure this will result in some fascinating issues being covered on our website once the winners are announced next year.

The judging panel for the awards includes Wired editor-at-large Ben Hammersley and TV presenter Aleks Krotoski.

The closing date for applications is 5pm on Friday, 20 January. The winners will be announced in March 2012 at a presentation ceremony in London.

The new categories are:

Free to enter

  • Tech guru of the year (sponsored by Creative Industries Knowledge Transfer Network)
  • Young innovator of the year (sponsored by Wired)
  • Best startup business (sponsored by Taylor Wessing)
  • Best startup leader / CEO

£200 per entry

  • Best new website
  • Best new app
  • Best digital campaign – communications, marketing & PR
  • Best use of technology for social change

There is more information at Guardian.co.uk/megas, including a list of previous winners.

MediaGuardian: PCC to regulate press Twitter feeds

Guardian media and technology editor Dan Sabbagh reports this afternoon that reporters’ and newspapers’ Twitter feeds are expected to brought under the regulation of the Press Complaints Commission later this year.

According to Sabbagh’s report, Twitter accounts that include the names of publications and are clearly “official” – he cites @telegraphnews and @thesun_bizarre as examples – are likely to come under regulation, but reporters’ individual work accounts could also be brought under the commissions’ ambit.

The PCC believes that some postings on Twitter are, in effect part of a “newspaper’s editorial product”, writings that its code of practice would otherwise cover if the same text appeared in print or on a newspaper website.

A change in the code would circumvent a loophole that – in theory – means that there is no form of redress via the PCC if somebody wanted to complain about an alleged inaccuracy in a statement that was tweeted. Last year the PCC found it was unable to rule in a complaint made against tweets published by the Brighton Argus.

Full post on MediaGuardian at this link.

MediaGuardian: What do the new phone-hacking developments mean for News Corp’s Sky bid?

Dan Sabbagh added a new angle to the News of The World phone-hacking scandal this morning, connecting the scandal to News Corp’s takeover bid for BSkyB. Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt is due to make a decision over the controversial bid this month.

Hunt, whose verdict is due this month, would have to argue that there is no danger of about the media power of an enlarged News Corp/Sky at a time when the tactics of its senior reporters are in the spotlight again.

He may yet do so, but the political risks of him letting the Murdoch deal go through at the first time of asking just multiplied – when he has the easier alternative of asking for the Competition Commission to look at the implications of the deal in more detail.

Sabbagh’s full comment piece can be found here.

Related content:

News of the World executive suspended over ‘serious allegation’ of phone-hacking

NUJ’s Journalist magazine gets a makeover

The National Union of Journalists magazine, has had its first proper redesign for 17 years, under new editor Christine Buckley. The Journalist worked with designers SurgeryCreations to make the publication more “modern, attractive, informative and engaging,” she said.

And from the electronic version we’ve seen, we think it looks rather nice with some good content, including pieces by former Times media editor Dan Sabbagh and former Guardian journalist David Hencke. “We’re keen that the publication produced for the journalists’ union is of the highest standard, since our audience of  media professionals expects a professional magazine,” said Buckley, in a release.

“I’ve sought to make the new magazine reflective of the diverse, active union that the NUJ is, and I intend that it should echo the voices of our members from across the union.”