Editors' Blog | Journalism.co.uk » Independent

Independent backs Paul Dacre’s press card proposal

Paul McNally — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 10:13:20 +0000

Paul Dacre giving evidence to the Leveson inquiry yesterday

The Independent has supported Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre’s suggestion to create a register of accredited journalists and toughen up access to the press card.

In a leader article today, the paper agreed that the “kitemark” system had potential, claiming: “Some information sources are more reliable than others.”

Mr Dacre was right that the idea that journalists should be licensed by the state is repellent to the fundamentals of press freedom. But there is merit in his suggestion for a body replacing, or sitting alongside, the existing Press Complaints Commission, which would be charged with the wider upholding of media standards.

One of its functions might be the issuing of a press card which could be suspended or withdrawn from individuals who gravely breach those standards. And while some people will argue that a kitemark for professional journalism might threaten freedom of expression in an age when much news and comment originates with bloggers and social networks, there is no danger to that freedom in giving the public what might be called a quality reassurance. Some information sources are more reliable than others.

Dacre admitted yesterday that he hadn’t given much thought to whether digital journalists would be eligible for the scheme.

The Guardian’s Dan Sabbagh says Dacre’s proposal risks pushing bloggers “right to the fringes of the system”

Meanwhile, where would foreign media, with their own rules, fit in? Nor is it certain that a Dacrecard system would be effective. Whilst some of the reporting closed shops, most obviously the political lobby, confer benefits, being outside it does not hamper quality political journalism. It could be surprisingly easy to make a mockery of the Dacrecard system.

TheMediaBlog agrees:

This self-serving suggestion is a clear attempt to ostracise whole swathes of the predominantly online media industry who would eat Dacre’s lunch given half the chance.

Similar Posts:

Guardian’s Facebook app delivering 1m extra hits a day

Sarah Marshall — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 11:24:17 +0000

The Guardian’s Facebook app is generating almost a million extra page impressions per day, according to figures released by the news outlet and by Facebook.

Two months on from its launch at Facebook’s f8 conference in London the app has been installed by over four million users.

The news outlet also believes that the app is engaging a younger audience, as over half (56.7 per cent) of the app’s users are 24 and under and 16.7 per cent are 17 and under.

Andrew Miller, chief executive officer of Guardian Media Group, said in a statement:

As well as increasing traffic, the app is making our journalism visible to new audiences. Over half of the app’s users are 24 and under – traditionally a very hard-to-reach demographic for news organisations

The Independent, the other UK-based news outlet to launch a Facebook app following f8 on 22 September, is reporting that it has more than one million monthly active users connecting their Facebook accounts.

The integration has bumped up older articles that have gone viral through social distribution, according to the Facebook post detailing the statistics.

The news organisation found that many of the “most shared” and “most viewed” stories on the site have been from the late 1990s, “a result of the increased social virility”.

The Guardian and Independent both took a different approach when building their Facebook appshe Guardian focused on the reading experience within Facebook, the shared reading experience for the Independent takes place on the news site.

Yahoo! News, which like the Independent integrated the app into its site, has reported that 10 million people are using the app, with Yahoo! News experiencing a 600 per cent increase in traffic coming from Facebook as a result.

People who connect to Facebook on Yahoo! read more articles than the average user, the Facebook post states.

Like the Guardian, the Washington Post built a social reader app for Facebook as a companion for its website with the social sharing taking place within Facebook. It has drawn more than 3.5 million monthly active users so far. The Facebook post states that the social reader is growing, especially among international audiences and younger readers, with 83 per cent of readers under 35 years old.

According to Facebook, the statistics released last night show that the apps do five things:

1. Show recommendations to increase engagement. Keep people engaged by prominently showing friends’ recent activity on your main pages and pages with high exit rates. When no social content is available, surface personalised recommendations based on users’ interests on Facebook and clearly explain why you’re showing each recommendation.

2. Create compelling objects. Maximise the click through rates of your stories by specifying Open Graph tags for all your articles and including compelling images, titles and descriptions. Avoid misleading images or titles to prevent your app from being marked as spam, which will negatively impact your app’s distribution in news feed.

3. Leverage your existing user base. If you have an existing site, be sure to make connecting a prominent option for existing users. And if people are already sharing your content on Facebook, consider sending referral traffic from Facebook into a flow that makes it easy for people to have a social experience on your site.

4. Make the benefits of sharing clear. Open Graph apps are designed for people that want to share. In your app, you should clearly explain how your app works and the benefits of adding your app to their timeline. Choose an approach that makes the most sense for your users, whether that’s an informative dialog, in-line marketing messaging, house ad inventory, and/or a learn more page.

5. Keep users in control. As we’ve previously highlighted, people are more active when they are in control. In addition to the privacy controls on Facebook, we encourage you to build controls into your app that fit how people use your app.

Similar Posts:

Independent launches site redesign and new iPad app

Sarah Marshall — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 11:14:28 +0000

The Independent has today launched a revamp of its website, the same day as it released a new iPad app .

The site redesign follows a makeover of the layout of the print edition of the paper and a new masthead and also takes place in the same month the Independent launched a metered paywall outside the UK.

Martin King, editor of Independent.co.uk, explains the changes to the site in a post:

We have introduced greater flexibility in our use of images. This not only means a homepage and channel pages that can better reflect the variance of our daily coverage, but also a more dynamic use of images in articles.

There is a smoother and more flexible integration of video that better matches the YouTube and 24-hour TV world.

There are clearer ways to express yourself – comment on an article, share it with your Facebook friends or Tweet your view about it.

Meanwhile Jack Riley, our head of digital development, has devised some further advances. These include: a new tagging system for the site; dynamic pages for all of our writers; and a more intelligent automated system for related content. We’re also extending our use of Facebook’s Open Graph to include more topic pages and all writers. His article will follow shortly.

The most recently released ABC-audited web figures show Independent.co.uk had 14,675,273 unique browsers in September.

The Independent’s new iPad app is free for an initial trial period and will then charge users £19.99 a month for access to “premium” digital content from the Independent and Independent on Sunday.

This compares to £9.99 a month for the Guardian’s new iPad app, which provides content six days a week as it excludes the Observer; £9.99 for the Times iPad edition, again providing content six days a week; and £9.99 a month for the Telegraph iPad app which, like the Independent, provides content seven days a week.

Similar Posts:

‘We wanted to make ourselves more Facebookey’, says Guardian

Sarah Marshall — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:40:04 +0000

The Guardian and Independent are two of the first news sites to build a new breed of Facebook apps, which were unveiled at the f8 conference yesterday (Thursday, 22 September).

Here is director of Facebook’s platform partnerships Christian Hernandez explaining how the apps and the new ‘recommend bar’ work.

Facebook’s Christian Hernandez on the launch of the Guardian and Independent Facebook apps by journalismnews

News sites will be watching to see whether the new apps result in a jump in Facebook referrals to the Guardian and the Independent.

Outlets will also be keen to discover whether Facebook users prefer the Independent and Yahoo News approach of the social engagement happening on the news sites, or whether the Guardian, the Washington Post and the Daily have the winning formula, with the experience happening within Facebook.

The Guardian’s theory is that Facebook users like the experience of being on Facebook so rather than direct readers away, they want them to explore the Guardian within the platform.

Head of digital engagement at the Guardian Meg Pickard told Journalism.co.uk:

We wanted to make ourselves more Facebookey. We also know that if people come to the Guardian via Facebook they often bounce back to Facebook see what else a friends are recommending.

She said despite the Guardian’s being an app within Facebook it is incorrect to think most users will access it as they would a smartphone app.

The starting point is your friend’s timeline, not the app.

The single opt-in to the app – where users agree to share everything they are reading – is an interesting development and both the Independent and Guardian have been quick to assure users they have full control.

Pickard said:

You might be happy for friends to see that you’ve read an article on tarte citron but less comfortable with a public note to say you have read an article called “my husband is a cross-dresser”, so you can quickly click the cross to hide that from your friends.

She explained conversations between the Guardian and Facebook took place throughout the summer with the news organisation’s in-house developers building the app, making the most of the open technologies.

We’ve got our open API, Facebook has this open graph.

The Independent has taken a different approach – its app encourages Facebook user engagement on its site rather than within a user’s personal profile on the social network.

Here’s head of audience and content development at the Independent Jack Riley explaining more on the soon-to-be-released app:

Jack Riley from the Independent discusses the newspaper’s new Facebook app by journalismnews

Similar Posts:

Independent: January launch ‘highly probable’ for Sun on Sunday

Sarah Marshall — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 11:28:19 +0000

It is “highly probable” that the Sun on Sunday will launch in January, media commentator Stephen Glover predicted in the Independent today.

In his article on the rumoured new Sunday paper, Glover also explains why he thinks a Sun on Sunday makes better business sense than the News of the World, which “despite selling some 2.8 million copies a week, was barely breaking even”.

Glover argues that the Sun will need to recruit a fraction of the 160 News of the World journalists in order to “produce a seventh-day edition of the newspaper”.

If it sells at 50p (half the price of the News of the World, and cheaper than Sunday red-top rivals) it would probably be profitable with a circulation of a million. In the event, it may well sell many more copies than that.

Glover describes the axing of the News of the World and anticipated creation of the seven-day Sun as a “cynical charade” by the Murdochs.

In other words, far from being a sacrifice, shutting down the Sunday red-top and launching a seventh-day edition of The Sun carries a significant economic benefit. The Murdochs were able to represent themselves as acting decisively and almost altruistically – rather as a farmer might regretfully shoot a rabid dog that has been a cherished family pet. Now it turns out that the dog was old, unloved and expensive to keep, and there is a young puppy waiting in the wings which will be a much better proposition. The whole process has been a cynical charade.

He also argues the case against the launch of a red-top title from Associated Newspapers, publishers of the Daily Mail. After an initial boost for the Mail on Sunday, sales have now slowed, according to August circulation figures, and Glover suggests “Associated would probably be wise to stay away”.

Glover’s full post is at this link.Similar Posts:

Independent: Plan hatched by media figures to rescue News of the World

Rachel McAthy — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 12:57:23 +0000

According to a report in the Independent today a group of media and business figures are putting together a plan to rescue the News of the World which published its last edition on Sunday.

This followed a week of shocking revelations and allegations made against the Sunday tabloid relating to both phone hacking and payments to police. According to the Independent’s report the group of figures is attempting to “revive the title as a responsible investigative newspaper”.

At the centre of the group is Susan Douglas, a former editor of the Sunday Express, a former deputy editor of the Sunday Times, and a former executive in numerous media organisations.

… Ms Douglas has been holding talks with leading media owners and venture capitalists, but said that a rescue attempt would need to be made quickly before the opportunity to save the 168-year-old title was lost.

You can read up on all the latest in the phone hacking scandal at this link.Similar Posts:

#jpod: How journalists can best use Facebook pages

Sarah Marshall — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 11:29:22 +0000

In this week’s feature podcast Journalism.co.uk’s technology correspondent Sarah Marshall looks at how journalists can use Facebook pages to connect with sources and readers and increase traffic to news sites.

Vadim Lavrusik, Facebook’s new journalist programme manager explains how pages can be used for showcasing their work;
Visiting professor at City University, London and part time course leader for the MA in Online Journalism at Birmingham City Paul Bradshaw tells us what he has learnt from a month-long experiment of using his Facebook page as a blog;
Jack Riley, head of digital audience and content development at the Independent, explains how the news site has cracked the Facebook code with a 430 per cent rise in referrals from Facebook to its website.

Similar Posts:

Former Panorama reporter calls for ‘searching inquiry’ into Primark documentary

Rachel McAthy — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 12:43:53 +0000

In an opinion piece in the Independent yesterday former chief correspondent of Panorama Tom Mangold called on the BBC to conduct a “searching inquiry into why its system of firewalls broke down”, in reference to last week’s finding of the BBC Trust’s editorial standards committee that certain footage within a Panorama documentary was “more likely that not”, not genuine.

The BBC was ordered to make an on-air apology after a Panorama documentary about retail outlet Primark was found to have breached editorial guidelines on accuracy and fairness. The ESC said it had examined a “substantial body of evidence”, including rushes tapes, emails to the programme team from the freelance journalist who obtained the footage and witness evidence, in relation to a specific piece of footage which appeared in the film.

Although it admitted it was not able to say beyond reasonable doubt, the committee concluded that it was more likely than not that the footage was not genuine.

Writing in the Independent Mangold claimed the delay in this admission has caused “an editorial catastrophe”.

It is only now, three years after the programme was broadcast, that the BBC Trust has forced Panorama to admit the error of its ways. In the meantime, the BBC’s arrogant refusal to admit it was wrong has resulted in an editorial catastrophe not only for Panorama, the flagship, but for all the corporation’s journalism.

I joined Panorama from Fleet Street, where none of us had entirely clean hands. We coloured our stories as much as we could and thought nothing of doing things our editors never wanted to hear about. But, whatever we did, we never lied, deceived or made stories up. It was the short cut to the dole. And if a story wasn’t good enough or couldn’t be made to work – then there was always another round the corner. I know what it means to have to deliver with a tiny budget, but I also know when to give up.

Independent: Rebekah Brooks has some explaining to do, says Burrell

Sarah Marshall — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 13:57:08 +0000

Ian Burrell, the Independent’s media editor, provides further insight into the close relationship between Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson, both former News of the World editors and both caught up in the ongoing phone-hacking affair.

He discusses Brooks’ 2003 admission to MPs that the paper had illegally paid police officers for information. Eight years on and this week Brooks has denied knowledge of specific payments.

I was there that day in March 2003 and saw Brooks (then Rebekah Wade) arrive in apparent high spirits, joking with Coulson and Piers Morgan, editor of the rival Daily Mirror but an old friend. All three had sat in the editor’s chair at the News of the World. All three would tell MPs that press regulation was working just fine. Morgan said tabloid reporters had not been so well behaved in 15 years; Brooks that the PCC had “changed the culture in every newsroom in the land”.

Then she admitted paying the police. Ian Hargreaves, a former editor of the Financial Times, later commented that she had “clip-clopped into a big hole in the ground”. Her error seemed borne of a lack of experience in the political arena and intoxication with the power of the tabloid press in which she had spent her working life (she tried to put MP Chris Bryant in his place by reminding him she had 10 million readers).

Burrell then brings us up-to-date, following recent arrests and News International’s apology.

With two more of Coulson’s senior staff being arrested by police and one of them sacked by NI, his previous claim to have been let down by a single rogue reporter is thoroughly discredited.

MPs, including Bryant, are furious that, eight years on, they still haven’t been told the truth about tabloid intrusion. The Operation Weeting team, investigating phone hacking, wants to speak to Brooks about NI’s past behaviour. Those inseparable pals, Rebekah and Andy, both remain in the gun sights – and this time neither seems capable of pulling the other out of the line of fire.

Ian Burrell’s full comment is at this link.Similar Posts:

Independent adds attribution to controversial MacKenzie article

Rachel McAthy — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 14:03:41 +0000

A piece in today’s Independent by former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie, in which he claimed “there’s nothing you can learn in three years studying media at university that you can’t learn in just one month on a local paper” was bound to stir up some debate.

But the controversy ended up going beyond the comments he made to the publication of the article itself, when MA Magazine Journalism student from City University Harriet Thurley claimed on Twitter that she in fact originally wrote the piece in question.

And here is a link to her feature, published in the university’s alumni magazine XCity last month. The two are indeed very similar. So what happened? As far as Journalism.co.uk understands, the article was submitted by MacKenzie to the Independent’s media editor Ian Burrell, who told Journalism.co.uk today that he was aware the piece had started out as an interview but felt that that it had been “considerably” rewritten by MacKenzie in his own style.

A line has since been added to the article online to say it is “an amended version” of the interview with MacKenzie by Thurley.

We have not yet been able to reach MacKenzie for comment, but Thurley has since tweeted claiming that he was not aware of her missing accreditation.Similar Posts:

Media release: ITN signs new video content deal with Independent

Rachel McAthy — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 12:49:13 +0000

ITN announced today it has signed a deal with the Independent to provide video content for its website news player.

The deal with the Independent involves the delivery of bespoke content taken daily from across ITN’s UK, world, entertainment, and financial news feeds. In signing up to the service the Independent joins news title stable mates that include the Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, Daily Express and Daily Star who all receive ITN’s award-winning content.

According to a release from ITN it already supplies content to daily freesheet Metro and several other regional titles from the Illife and MNA publishing groups.

In addition to the deal announced today, ITN Productions has also signed a new multi-year deal with the Daily Telegraph to supply video content for Telegraph.co.uk.Similar Posts:

Comment: Response to Kelvin MacKenzie on shutting journalism colleges

Sarah Marshall — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 10:37:56 +0000

Media law, 100 words a minute shorthand and how to shoot and edit a video, these are just some of what I probably would not have learned in my first month on a local paper.

But according to former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie, writing for the Independent this morning, “there’s nothing you can learn in three years studying media at university that you can’t learn in just one month on a local paper”.

He believes aspiring reporters should start on their local newspaper at 18 and be on a national by 21. Perhaps he is unaware local newspaper editors, radio stations and TV newsdesks are not exactly falling over themselves to take on teenagers with no training.

Learning on the job may be a highwire act but it will be a lesson you will never forget compared with listening to ‘professor’ Roy Greenslade explaining why Wapping was a disgrace. No amount of academic debate is going to give you news sense, even if you have a PhD. It’s a knack and you’ve either got it or you haven’t.

There are more than 80 schools in the UK teaching journalism. These courses are make-work projects for retired journalists who teach for six months a year and are on a salary of £34,000- £60,000. Students are piling up debts as they pay to keep their tutors in the lifestyles they’re used to. I’d shut down all the journalism colleges today. If you want to be a print journalist you should go straight from school and join the local press. You will have a better career and you won’t owe a fortune. Good luck.

This is not the first time MacKenzie has rubbished journalism courses.

The Independent’s full story is at this link.

So, fellow journalism graduates, are you shouting at your computers/phones/iPads yet? Or has MacKenzie got it right?
Please comment and let us know what you think.Similar Posts:

April Fools’ Day: Headline hoaxes from the morning’s news

Sarah Marshall — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 11:31:44 +0000

Midday has brought another April Fools’ Day to a close, and the UK media has gone to town as usual. We’ve taken a look at some of this year’s spurious stories.

Jeremy Paxman is quitting University Challenge because of a move to multiple choice questions, if this article in the Radio Times is to be believed.

Teams will be given three lifelines, to be used once only per match: “switch”, “clue” and “phone a Professor”. They will also be permitted to confer on starter questions. It is thought that this last change was what persuaded Paxman to tender his resignation.

The Telegraph has gone for this Labour party memo urging members to celebrate the wedding of Ed Miliband and Justine Thornton with “street parties, trifles and bunting”.

BBC Radio 4 opted for a breakthrough in 3D sound that threatens to put John Humphrys inside your head. (Not quite their April Fool a few years ago, in which Brian Eno reworked the Archers theme tune.)

Now the musician and sound pioneer Robert Fripp and Simon Heyworth, a leading sound engineer who produced Tubular Bells, have been working with the BBC so that for the first time 3D sound should be available to Radio 4 listeners.

The Independent reports that Portugal is to sell Ronaldo to raise €160 million to help alleviate its national debt.

In a move which some observers claimed “will lead to the destruction of the World Cup”, Cristiano Ronaldo has agreed to “act like a patriot” and be sold to neighbouring Spain for €160m.

According to this article on Pulse, patients will be staffing GP surgeries.

Romford patient Rick Dagless was one of the first to hail the move, which he described as ‘dangerously progressive’. He said: ‘I may not have been to medical school, but I am a fast learner and a good people-person. How hard can it be?’

The Sun – always good for an April Fool gag - has gorillas running around with iPads in “Planet of the Apps”. The article claims that gorillas at Port Lympne Wild Animal Park have been given iPads (though presumably not the iPad 2, unless the gorillas have had better luck than most getting their hands on the sell-out device).

Fathers’ groups are taking legal action against Mumsnet on this mock BBC News site. “To clarify, this April Fools’ hoax story has nothing to do with the BBC”, a tweet from the official BBC News Twitter account said.

A number of groups representing male parents, including Justice for Fathers, Men Can Be Mothers Too and Fathers Need Forums, have launched a class action, believed to be the biggest of its kind in protest against the site’s growing influence over politics and popular culture.

An edible edition was this morning’s page three hoax from UK freesheet Metro.

In a move that might suggest Willy Wonka has taken over the editor’s chair, newsprint and food experts have combined to cook up a sweet-tasting paper that will soon be sugar-rolling off the Metro presses.

The EU is to appoint a high-level truth teller, if this euobserver.com article is to be believed.

Other tasks include throwing custard pies at prime ministers whose economies require an EU-IMF bailout and sounding a klaxon whenever anybody uses the phrases “shared values” or “human rights” in reference to EU foreign policy.

Builders will no longer be tempted to wolf-whistle according to this blog entry on Builder Scrap.

The “Stop That Hard Hat” comes with tiny speakers which play pre-recorded messages to the offending builder whenever they detect a wolf-whistle.

The first whistling offence prompts a warning about site behaviour.

And any further whistling leads to recorded readings from the works of famous feminist writers like Germaine Greer and Andrea Dworkin.

The Bookseller reports that bookshops are to have a quota on foreign authors.

The Bookseller has learned Prime Minister David Cameron is set to give a speech today outlining his latest iteration of the “Big Society”. A DCMS spokesman said: “The publishing industry needs protecting from the Browns, Larssons and Meyers of this world. We think British literature should be celebrated, not swamped.”

The Guardian – which went Twitter only in 1999 - has launched this live blog on the royal wedding.

Prince William and Kate Middleton are due to be married at Westminster Abbey in four weeks time. In something of an about turn, the Guardian today pledges its “full throated support” for the monarchy [which is a contribution form Comment is Free]. Follow here for live coverage of all the latest royal wedding news, build up and reaction.

And Will and Kate are going to Cleethorpes for their honeymoon, according to this article on This is Grimsby.

The Grimsby Telegraph can exclusively reveal that The Pier will be hosting the party for the royal newlyweds, which will also be attended by the groom’s best-man, his brother Prince Harry.

A delighted Jack Smith, spokesman for the nightclub said: “We’ve got a special event that’s taking place where the Prince and Princess will be attending.”

And from the so-called ‘Marmite couple’ to Grazia’s Marmite Vaseline.

Thus, it’s altogether very exciting news that Vaseline have sent us their new lip therapy with (wait for it!) a hint of MARMITE! Yummy scrummy and perfect for an elevenses top up. Give it a try and let us know whether you love it or hate it…

With thanks to everyone who sent April Fools’ pranks to @journalismnews. We’ve included suggestions from @BeckieOwens @stevenowottny @GMPrendergast @crimeticreader @Le_Chat. Keep the tweets coming as we’ll be doing another April Fools’ pranks round-up at the end of the day.

Similar Posts:

Editors' Blog | Journalism.co.uk » Independent

Independent backs Paul Dacre’s press card proposal

Top 10 Twitter news stories of 2011

Top 10 Facebook news stories of 2011

Guardian’s Facebook app delivering 1m extra hits a day

Independent launches site redesign and new iPad app

‘We wanted to make ourselves more Facebookey’, says Guardian

Independent: January launch ‘highly probable’ for Sun on Sunday

Independent: Plan hatched by media figures to rescue News of the World

#jpod: How journalists can best use Facebook pages

Former Panorama reporter calls for ‘searching inquiry’ into Primark documentary

Independent: Rebekah Brooks has some explaining to do, says Burrell

Independent adds attribution to controversial MacKenzie article

Media release: ITN signs new video content deal with Independent

Comment: Response to Kelvin MacKenzie on shutting journalism colleges

April Fools’ Day: Headline hoaxes from the morning’s news