Over on his blog, Jon Slattery reports that Unicef took out adverts in the national press today to urge readers “to move the news agenda on from phone hacking” and instead be alert to the famine in parts of southern Somalia.

The ad, in the form of a letter from UNICEF UK executive director David Bull, states: “I am writing for your support in moving the news agenda on. The story about phone hacking does matter, but there’s another, far bigger and vital story that’s going unreported.”

Read more here…Similar Posts:

• #jpod in depth: Reporting the phone hacking scandal
• MediaGuardian: Les Hinton stands by past phone hacking evidence
• The Guardian: Met asks News of the World for new phone-hacking evidence
• MediaGuardian: Max Clifford plans legal action over NOTW phone hacking
• Comment is Free: Phone hacking – select committee must move quickly, says Paul Farrelly

An MP urged the government to set aside time for a Commons debate on gagging orders today, suggesting there are rumours circulating that another member of Parliament has taken out a super-injunction to prevent discussion of their activities, Jon Slattery reports in this blog post.

The allegation was made in the Commons as MPs discussed future Parliamentary business – including whether to debate judge-made privacy laws and gagging orders.

Conservative MP for Hendon, Matthew Offord reportedly said:

“Is the Leader of the House aware of the anomaly this creates if, as has been rumoured, a member of this place seeks a super-injunction to prevent discussion of their activities?”

Leader of the House Sir George Young was said to reply that it was “a very important issue about how we balance on the one hand an individual’s right to privacy and, on the other hand, the freedom of expression and transparency”.

He said the government would wait for the report from Lord Neuberger’s special committee on the issue, before deciding the next step.

“It may then be appropriate for the House to have a debate on this important issue,” he added.Similar Posts:

• ‘Super injunctions’ parliamentary debate: kicks off 2.30 pm
• Independent: Poll finds judges ‘too ready’ to gag newspapers
• BBC CoJo: When a super injunction is not a super injunction
• John Bercow calls the Daily Mail a ‘sexist, racist, bigoted, comic’
• Richard Wilson: ‘No one knows how many secret super-injunctions are currently in force’

Kelvin MacKenzie’s rubbishing of journalism courses has sparked a heated debate across numerous websites.

“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 wrote in today’s Independent, saying he would shut down the colleges.

This post on Wannabe Hacks gives four reasons why MacKenzie is wrong and makes this interesting observation of why the former Sun editor – who has only one O-level – ended up in journalism.

This is key for me: the fact Mr MacKenzie had no choice but to scrap at a local paper when he was 16. He had few prospects and no options beyond an early entrance to the newsroom. But when you have the chance to go to uni or do a postgrad course, I think it’s natural to want to do so and to push yourself academically. It’s not for everyone and the jury’s out as to whether courses do you good. But let’s not take advice from a man who didn’t have a choice.

Over on Jon Slattery’s blog, he points out it is not the correct climate for newspapers to take on trainees.

The trouble with the local press route into journalism is how are regional newspapers going to take on trainees when they are cutting staff? Look at today’s news. Midland News Association, publisher of Britain’s biggest selling regional, the Wolverhampton-based Express & Star, is planning 90 [95] redundancies.

The National Council for the Training of Journalists agrees. HoldtheFrontPage has this interview with the chief executive of the NCTJ, Joanne Butcher.

She said: “Kelvin MacKenzie, of course, exaggerates to make some valid points about media degree courses and the value of learning the journalist’s craft by cutting your teeth on a local paper.

“But he does seem stuck in a time warp. Unlike when Kelvin trained on the South East London Mercury and was sent away to college, newspapers simply don’t take on many raw recruits these days.

In this post, a journalism student from University of Central Lancashire, Wordsmith, also argues the difficulties in being accepted on a paper directly from school.

On papers you don’t have time to fail, because of the pressure on you and the hundreds of people waiting to take your job.

A blog post on Rantings of a Sub Editor suggests a non-journalism degree first does help and some training, in a sub’s case the “basics of libel, copyright and privacy law, which are essential, a grounding in public affairs – local and national – and a working knowledge of Quark” and Substuff has some pretty good advice for wannabe journalists too.

Roy Greenslade also believes it is important to get a university education before going on to take a postgraduate journalism training course and, in this blog post, responds to MacKenzie’s jab at Greenslade’s City University lectureship.

I came up by the same route as Kelvin. He is right about it having been a terrific combination of learning-on-the-job and fun. But that was then, and this is now.

A university education is far better for journalists – and for journalism. It sharpens their critical faculties. It provides a great grounding in the basic skills. It is so good that many graduates are able to step straight into national papers.

Over on the Press Gazette blog, Dominic Ponsford argues MacKenzie “has a point about the ballooning cost of journalism training”.

MacKenzie does highlight a looming problem for the journalism industry, and one which it desperately needs to address. On the whole journalists are nowadays expected to fund their own training (the industry used to provide it on the job via block-release schemes). With first degrees costing up to £9,000 a year, and post-grads another £10,000 on top, and with food and board added in,  you are looking at spending £50,000 to to bag a job which, in the regional press, offers starting pay of £15,000.

How many aspiring journalists are realistically going to do that?

Journalism.co.uk’s earlier comment post – where you can tell us why you think MacKenzie is right, or wrong.Similar Posts:

• Comment: Response to Kelvin MacKenzie on shutting journalism colleges
• Independent adds attribution to controversial MacKenzie article
• New journalism training site launched by regional news veteran
• Daily Echo journalist defends Bournemouth Uni after Kelvin Mackenzie swipe
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – get journalism training updates

Writing on his blog, SEO expert Malcolm Coles claims the disparity in price between the Guardian’s digital services and print product is a problem for the company’s revenue.

Responding to a comment piece by former Sun editor Kelvin McKenzie, which predicts the Guardian’s print edition will be dead in a decade, Coles asks the paper: “Please, let me give you more money”.

A newspaper buyer until he got an iPad, Coles now pays £3.99 a year instead of £230 to read the Guardian everyday in print.

The collapse in what I pay is because I read most of the news for the next day’s newspaper on the Guardian website on my iPad the evening before. And I read anything new on my iPhone on the way to and from work. The newspaper has nothing in that I need.

Read the full post on Coles’ blog at this link.Similar Posts:

• Guardian launches Kindle edition and outlines new mobile plans
• Communicate.ae: Digital experiments at the Guardian – successes and failures
• Developer’s ‘easy to browse’ version of the Guardian
• Sydney Morning Herald tries to shore up print sales with iPad app
• Guardian to launch ‘reflective’ iPad app at £9.99 per month

A council newspaper currently under review, will continue to be published weekly while the local authority considers a revised code of practice passed by parliament last night.

Tower Hamlets Borough Council, which publishes East End Life, said the code would “be considered as part of the review” due to go before the council’s cabinet on 11 May.

The Code of Recommended Practice on Local Authority Publicity – of which there is no legal obligation for councils to follow – was put forward in an attempt to crack down on “wasteful” use of council resources. It was passed by parliament last night.

Tower Hamlets’ review, which was launched in January, will “fully take into account the views of residents, businesses, schools and anyone else with an interest in the paper”, the council said in a statement. In February Jon Slattery reported that the Conservative opposition leader at Tower Hamlets said the council is ‘fighting to the death’ to preserve East End Life.

Commercial newspaper for Tower Hamlets, the Archant-owned East London Advertiser, today welcomed the revised code.

“The problems that we face, not just in the East End but across other areas too, are that the councils are out to control the papers by starving them of revenue in some cases and also being able to control messages they are putting out,” group editor Malcolm Starbrook told Journalism.co.uk.

The Newspaper Society has also welcomed the new code, highlighting the importance of ensuring the new rules are effectively enforced.

“We hope that all local authorities will be encouraged to use the local media, which remain the best-read and most trusted form of local news and information,” Lynne Anderson of the Newspaper Society said in a statement.

The National Union of Journalists, which had called for an independent review to establish the impact free council newspapers have on commercial titles, dismissed allegations of blame placed on local authority publications.

We reject the assertion – made by the Communities and Local Government Secretary, that local authority publications are responsible for the decline in local newspaper sales. We believe that attempts to maintain profit margins by cutting overheads, rather than by investing in quality journalism lies at the heart of the current decline in circulation amongst many local and regional newspapers.

The union also pointed out that some commercial newspaper groups such as Trinity Mirror have “lucrative printing contacts” for several London borough publications.

The NUJ does not recognise the Communities and Local Government Secretary’s description of biased, politically motivated local government publications, lacking editorial integrity, which he claims are so prevalent. The day-to-day reality for journalistic staff working on these publications is one of habitual struggles to resist attempts by local authority cabinet members and chief executives to dictate content. Indeed, NUJ members working in Press and PR – both in and outside of local authorities, are bound by both defamation law and the union’s ethical code.

Similar Posts:

• Jon Slattery: Tower Hamlets scraps press table but fights to save East End Life paper
• Council news round-up: ad revenue shortage for East End Life and plans for new council TV
• Evening Standard: Andrew Gilligan on council ‘propaganda’ newspapers
• Council publications axed days after restrictions agreed by parliament
• Greenslade: MPs reject code to restrict council-run newspapers

Former Brighton Argus deputy editor Frank le Duc guest posts on Jon Slattery’s blog about the recent strikes at the Argus and other Newsquest titles, and about the challenges facing regional publishers from new local competition.

The difficulty for companies like Newsquest is that their profits are not coming from a resurgence in advertising revenues but a ruthless cutting of costs.

Newsquest has used a salami-slicing technique which has its limitations. You can slice the salami only so many times before there’s no meat left.

Full post at this link…Similar Posts:

• Newsquest ad revenue drops almost 8% but digital revenue is on the rise
• InPublishing survey: ‘Behind the turnover figures, the industry is essentially still in profit’
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• Roy Greenslade: Brighton’s Argus and saving local newspapers
• Brighton Argus printing presses could close; 53 jobs threatened

Unless Johnston Press executives do something quickly, internal pressure could rival Eyjafjallajokull’s. Week after week the resentment bubbles up. A summary of recent events, according to the National Union of Journalists and previous reports:

• The company’s executives received juicy bonus packages while its staff endured (and continue to endure) an ongoing pay freeze.

• JP staff stuck abroad due to the ash cloud were asked to take it out of their holiday allowance, or as unpaid leave.

• Johnston Press journalists in Scarborough voted in favour of industrial action, and last Friday (30 April) took to the streets for the first strike in over 30 years at the Scarborough Evening News, Whitby Gazette, and Mercury.

• On the same day NUJ members attended the Edinburgh shareholders’ meeting, asking the board “questions about executive pay, staff morale and the pressures on journalists to continue to produce quality newspapers in the face of 12 per cent staff cuts, a pay freeze and inadequate training on the Atex editorial production system.” (NUJ May 2010)

Across the group, there was a 70 per cent vote by NUJ members for industrial action “to combat job losses and  increased levels of stress and workload caused by the introduction of the Atex content magagement system,” according to the NUJ.

New content management system, Atex, is causing embarrassment for its journalists, resulting in misaligned pictures, or even missing pictures. They have difficulties with formatting the content properly.

Jon Slattery hosts a candid and sensibly anonymous account from a Leeds-based Johnston Press journalist this week:

Here in Leeds, on the Yorkshire Post and Yorkshire Evening Post, we have been waiting for months now to be told we are going Atex – i.e. replacing subs with templates for reporters to fill. We have heard from smaller centres all over the group what is likely to happen. It started to get close when we heard Scarborough subs had been “offered” redeployment to Sheffield – a two-hour drive on a good day.

Much of a recent NUJ meeting agenda was taken up by Northern divisional manager, Chris Green, says the anonymous correspondent. He adds:

We have seen a lot of nice suits pass through this place and walk away with pockets bulging, leaving the papers thinner and crappier.

JP’s recent strategy would suggest that the ‘suits’ aren’t really prioritising the web, after its failed pay wall trial – with reports of very (very) few subscribers. Journalists aren’t even asking for that much. Slattery’s man on the ground says:

…I do not want to make a stand for standards in journalism. I want to make the best of a bad job. I am not even sure I want to make a stand for strict demarcation between subs and reporters. But however you carve it up, somebody has to do the bloody work…

Similar Posts:

• Headline mishaps at Johnston Press and Newsquest titles
• Headline headghgh-ache
• NUJ: Johnston Press blocks staff strike with legal action
• Johnston Press: Dismantled paywalls are part of year of ‘discovery’
• NUJ: Bolton strike on, Sheffield strike off

Media blogger Jon Slattery has persuaded an anonymous editor of a council-run newspaper to reveal his publication’s agenda and motivation.

In a specially commissioned post, the editor who does not describe himself as a journalist, is critical of new and expanding ‘council rags’ – as well as local newspapers for their cost-cutting measures.

[I]f you look at what some of the boroughs, like Hammersmith and Fulham, are doing with their faux newspaper, complete with motoring, gardening and sports pages and property supplements, they have crossed the line between a council rag and a thing that you would pick up casually, and think ‘this is a real newspaper’. I think that is dangerous.

Full post at this link…
Similar Posts:

• Council publications axed days after restrictions agreed by parliament
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• #FollowJourn: @rupertbates/sports and property writer
• MediaGuardian: MPs slam council newspapers as councillors defend freesheets
• Peter Kirwan on newspaper editors and where they live

Missed last night’s BBC Four drama about American journalist Heather Brooke’s fight for the disclosure of MPs’ expenses?

Catch up here: BBC iPlayer at this link.

Jon Slattery praised the show on his blog, saying it showed how much the public owed freelance journalist Brooke, for expenses exposure.

Brooke told Journalism.co.uk she hoped the film would help people understand the importance of investigative journalism and the role they play in holding political leaders to account: “If we don’t want corruption then we each have some responsibility, if only to care about where our taxes are going.”Similar Posts:

• Heather Brooke and Telegraph named in PSA Awards
• Small victory for Heather Brooke in ongoing fight for transparency
• #newsrw: Heather Brooke – ‘How do any journalists in the UK do their job?’
• NOTW’s reporting on Max Mosley was out of context and unethical, says undercover reporter
• MediaGuardian: British Press Awards results

It is thought that Marc Reeves, former editor of the Birmingham Post, is to launch a West Midlands franchise of TheBusinessdesk.com.

First publicly reported on Jon Slattery’s blog and on the Drum (in a story with a dead link), the news follows industry speculation and hints of pastures new on Reeves’ blog.

Journalism.co.uk has learned the site will be run by Reeves – who left the Post at the end of 2009 when the the Trinity Mirror title went weekly – and two other journalists. One of the journalists involved is believed to be the former Birmingham Post deputy business editor, Duncan Tift.

It is understood that Reeves has begun offering banner advertising for the new site.

Reeves, who we were unable to contact today, was recently appointed to the panel to decide the Independently Funded News Consortia pilots.

The Business Desk, who could not be contacted for comment today either, was launched in 2007 as business online-only news site for Yorkshire, by former Yorkshire Post business editor, David Parkin. Former Yorkshire Post journalists Ian Briggs and Anastasia Weiner also joined the site.

In 2008, the Business Desk also launched in the north west. At the time Parkin told Journalism.co.uk:

“We think it can work in every region in the country. We’ve got to see how it goes in the north west, but we don’t want to stop here.”

“We are purely online, that’s all we do. All the other players in the area have a print product to support,” he added.Similar Posts:

• Former Birmingham Post editor launches West Midlands business news site
• NUJ Release: Journalists thank the people of West Yorkshire
• TheBusinessDesk expands with iPhone app for regional business news
• A video every regional newspaper editor (and journalist) should watch
• New Birmingham Post website goes into beta

With the proviso that journalism blogs and bloggers come and go, we have selected our own personal favourite journalism bloggers and tweeters. These are our absolute must-reads. We realise this is a somewhat subjective exercise, so please add your own in the comments below, or via Twitter to @journalismnews.

Top five UK journalism blogs and Tweeters of 2009

As chosen by John Thompson, founder, Journalism.co.uk:

Best to follow on Twitter:
@GordonMacmillan, @malcolmcoles, @adamwestbrook, @paulbradshaw, @mikebutcher, @marcreeves

Best blogs:
Malcolm Coles,  Jon Slattery, Adam Tinworth, OJB, Adam Westbrook (pictured below, left to right)

As chosen by Laura Oliver, editor, Journalism.co.uk:

Best to follow on Twitter:
@georgehopkin, @nigelbarlow, @MrRickWaghorn, @gordonmacmillan, @psmith

Best blogs:
Sarah Hartley, Alison Gow, Adam Tinworth, Martin Belam, Jon Slattery (pictured below, left to right)

As chosen by Judith Townend, senior reporter, Journalism.co.uk:

Best to follow on Twitter:
@gingerelvis, @samshepherd, @badjournalism, @jowadsworth, @digidickinson

Best blogs:
Jon Slattery, Martin Moore, Charlie Beckett, The Media Blog, Sarah Hartley (pictured below, left to right)

As chosen by the Journalism.co.uk team:

Five blogs to watch in 2010

• The Media Blog: Fairly new on the blogging scene and quick off the mark.

• Psmithjournalist.com: the former paidContent reporter has gone freelance. Watch this site.

• Angry People in Local Newspapers: very funny and simply done.

• Marc Reeves: former Birmingham Post editor, with new projects on the go.

• Hannah Waldram: recently trained at Cardiff; experimenting with hyperlocal news and online technology.

Five Tweeters to watch in 2010

• @timesjoanna, for her excellent social media and online journalism links.

• @michaelhaddon, former City student with an interest in political online media; now working at Dow Jones.

• @joshhalliday, at the centre of the UK student journalist blogging conversation; lots to look at on his own blog.

• @coneee, the NUJ’s first full-time blogger member, currently completing an MA at City University.

• @marcreeves, for the latest on what the former regional editor is up to.

Similar Posts:

• New blog to track UK’s student media
• FollowJourn: @adders/RBI head of blogging
• Journalism.co.uk’s top five journalism bloggers and tweeters in 2010
• #followjourn: @marcreeves – editor
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – media law tweeters

There’s been much debate amongst regional and local newspaper representatives in the UK about the impact of local authority ‘newspapers’ or freesheets on their advertising revenue, role in the community and news coverage.

Yet much of this debate has been difficult to frame, with exact details of staffing numbers, cost and output of these publications varying between authority.

In London, Andrew Gilligan suggested that local authorities in the city employed more staff writers than the capital’s newspapers.

This week some more stats can be added to the picture:

Press Gazette reports that Tower Hamlets’ Borough Council paper, East End Life, will need an extra £400,000 of tax payers’ money to keep it going.

According to a mid-year budget report from the authority, the freesheet is suffering from a £396,000 shortfall in advertising for the current financial year.

Deputy leader of the council, Joshua Peck, reportedly told the East London Advertiser that this lack of ad revenue would be made up for with cuts to the authority’s communications budget.

Add to this HoldtheFrontPage’s report on the cost of East End Life, which states:

“A previous investigation by the Advertiser showed that public-sector organisations paid a total of £980,000 to advertise in East End Life, making the true cost to the public purse £1.1 million a year.

“An alternative budget put forward by Tory councillor Tim Archer earlier in the year suggested the council could save £670,000 or 1pc off the average council tax, by scrapping the paper and taking out advertising with the Advertiser instead.”

Elsewhere, plans for a new TV station launched by Carmarthenshire Council (link spotted via Jon Slattery’s blog) have come under criticism.

According to a report on thisissouthwales.co.uk, the station would cost £30,000 a year to run. In a move to fund the new station, the authority is planning to drop one of its bi-monthly news magazines, which currently costs more than £114,000 to produce and distribute.

Industry groups have called on the Audit Commission to investigate the impact of local council newspapers on the regional media industry, as part of the government’s recommendations to the commission in the Digital Britain report. But the commission said such an assessment should be made by the Office of Fair Trading.

The commission will however review all aspects of council communications including press offices, publications, websites and expenditure on advertising jobs.Similar Posts:

• Evening Standard: Andrew Gilligan on council ‘propaganda’ newspapers
• Jon Slattery: Tower Hamlets scraps press table but fights to save East End Life paper
• New code for council newspapers being ‘considered’ in review of East End Life
• Darlington Councillor: Council newspapers and a ‘one-eyed’ local press
• PCC should not regulate Council-run newspapers, says finance board

A daily round-up of all the content published on the Journalism.co.uk site. You can also sign up to our e-newsletter and subscribe to the feed for the Journalism Daily here.

News and features:

• Comment: ‘Why ‘membership’ is an old media solution to a new media problem’ Benji Lanyado, freelance journalist
• Regional reporter crowdsources ideas for Trafalgar square fourth plinth via Twitter
• Media industry must look to other sectors to grow digitally, says forum
• FT.com’s online launches ‘paying for themselves’ says product manager
• Journalist support scheme offered for investigative journalists
• Smart moves: Jeremy Grant appointed editor of new FT Trading Room

Ed’s picks:

• Editors Weblog: Election candidates must pay for campaign coverage, says US editor
• Jon Slattery: NUJ ‘out of date’ for new media journalists, says mag branch
• Sarah Hartley: Help investigate local authority news coverage
• paidContent.org: Interview with Google News’ Josh Cohen
• Seeking Alpha: Why you should invest in newspaper stocks

Tip of the day:

• Looking for a career in online journalism?

#FollowJourn:

• @paulcockerton/web editor

On the Editor’s Blog:

• Telegraph journalist gets mauled in lion’s enclosure
• Stephen Farrell’s kidnap raises the ‘media blackout’ question: it’s time for a debate in the UK
• Overdue freelance payment? Make a You Tube video
• Monocle to launch daily Monocolumn online

Similar Posts:

• paidContent.org: Interview with Google News’ Josh Cohen
• Seeking Alpha: Why you should invest in newspaper stocks
• #jpod: How journalists are using Google+
• Toronto Star: Google News respects copyright, says content specialist
• paidContent 2010 conference livestream

This week’s operation in Afghanistan to rescue New York Times journalist Stephen Farrell, during which a British soldier, Farrell’s Afghan translator (Sultan Munadi) and two civilians were killed, has provoked national debate in the UK:

“One senior Army source told the Daily Telegraph “When you look at the number of warnings this person had it makes you really wonder whether he was worth rescuing, whether it was worth the cost of a soldier’s life.” (Telegraph.co.uk)

Many of the commenters on news stories feel very strongly that it was wrong for a journalist’s actions to lead to such tragic consequences, as Jon Slattery noted on his blog yesterday. Further still: “Members of the Armed Forces have expressed anger that he [Farrell] ignored warnings not to visit the site of an air strike on two hijacked fuel tankers that killed scores of Taliban and innocent villagers,” the Telegraph reported. Others defend the role of journalists in Afghanistan: for example, the Committee to Protect Journalists and the International Federation of Journalists.

This tragic incident also raised another issue, that of media silence. Today a special report by Joe Strupp on Editor&Publisher questions whether media blackouts are appropriate when reporters are kidnapped in war zones. It’s an excellent overview of recent events, that looks back at the case of another New York Times journalist, David Rohde – the paper managed to keep news of his kidnap off Wikipedia until his escape seven months later.

The question of media blackout is one Journalism.co.uk has raised in the past. In January, we reported on the silence surrounding the kidnap of the Telegraph’s Colin Freeman and José Cendon in Somalia. We had been asked not to report on the case by the Telegraph and the UK Foreign Office when the pair went missing at the end of 2008. The ban was lifted when they were released.

However, as we reported, some information was published before the blackout request was made clear: the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) released information relating to the journalists’ kidnap on November 26 2008 and Roy Greenslade subsequently blogged about it at Guardian.co.uk – the post was removed but it was still captured in the RSS feed.

It’s a complex issue that Strupp raises in his E&P article:

“With Rohde’s escape, a major debate ignited in and out of the journalism community about how responsible the coordinated secret had been. Was this a breach of journalistic ethics, sitting on a story for so long mainly because a colleague was involved?”

Strupp quotes Edward Wasserman, a journalism professor at Washington & Lee University in Virginia, who echoed claims of other critics, that the Times and similar news outlets would not do the same for a non-journalist: “Some people are in a position to implore the press for restraint better than others”.

It is a debate we need to have in the UK too: the London-based Frontline Club would be an ideal venue in which to hold a discussion with representatives from the UK foreign office, press freedom and safety organisations and news organisations raising the reasons for and against media blackouts. The practicalities of enforcement also need to be discussed. We understand that such an idea is in the pipeline, so we’ll keep you posted.

Please do share links to existing debate online.

In the meantime, here is a link to an item on this morning’s BBC Radio 4 Today programme, featuring Frontline Club founder and cameraman (and former soldier) Vaughan Smith and the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen discussing the Stephen Farrell case.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8247000/8247681.stmSimilar Posts:

• FishbowlNY: Atlantic Media announces 2010 Michael Kelly Award finalists
• Journalism Daily: FT.com’s innovations, plinth reporter plans a party and the need for media blackouts
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• Anger over army equipment motivated MPs’ expenses leak
• ‘Super injunctions’ parliamentary debate: kicks off 2.30 pm

Jon Slattery reports on a motion put forward by the National Union of Journalists’ (NUJ) magazine branch, which suggests new media journalists see the union as ‘out of date’ in its attitude towards online journalism and social media platforms.

“This ADM instructs the NEC [National Executive Council] to address this problem by working with the blogging community and Twitteratti to bridge this gap and create a framework that embraces the NUJ’s journalistic principles while maintaining the press freedom enjoyed by bloggers and twitterers,” the motion reads.

Full post at this link…Similar Posts:

• Online journalism at the NUJ ADM: The Journalist, Twitter and new blood
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• Police attitude to the press will improve says Home Office