Editors' Blog | Journalism.co.uk » Olympics

Government launches ‘virtual media centre’ for 2012 London Olympics

Rachel McAthy — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 11:09:07 +0000

The government has launched the first few web-pages which will in time form its online media centre for the 2012 Games, giving the press a “single point of access for all government-related news stories”.

Content offered on the pages will include background information, logistics information and an image library. In a press release, culture secretary Jeremy Hunt, who has responsibility for the Games, said:

With London 2012 set to be the biggest media event in history, the UK Government is doing all it can to ensure the world’s media have everything they need.

Delivering an outstanding Olympic Games is not just about building world class facilities and infrastructure; it’s also about making sure the media can bring the sporting, cultural and human interest stories to homes across the world as quickly as possible.

These pages, plus the Government Olympic Communication Media Centre next year, will play crucial parts in making this Games the easiest to access for the media and their audiences. Between now and the start of the Games we will continue to work with media partners to ensure we’re doing all we can to meet their needs.”

The pages went live yesterday (24 October) and journalists can now sign-up and subscribe to the news alerts at www.culture.gov.uk/2012newsroom.Similar Posts:

Media accreditation process open for Paralympic Games

Rachel McAthy — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 11:22:18 +0000

The Newspaper Society issued a reminder this morning that media accreditation has now opened for the Paralympic Games. The first stage of the process, called Press by Number, opened earlier this month and media organisations have until 28 November to complete a document to indicate how many people they would to request accreditation for.

There are more details and documentation at the British Paralympic Association website. Successful media organisations will be contacted early next year to progress their applications to the second stage.

The NS adds that it is currently working with regional and local newspapers and the British Olympic Association (BOA) to put in place a regional press pool for the Olympic Games, which runs a separate accreditation process.

The Olympic Games process has come in for some criticism in recent weeks after it emerged many local London papers have not yet been approved despite certain aspects of the games taking place on their patch.

The NS reports that the minister for sport and the Olympics Hugh Robertson said he would write to the BOA about the matter after being questioned by MPs, but said it was “massively oversubscribed”.

He added: “There will be a level of public interest that I do not think we have remotely started to get our minds around. Spots will be tight, but I will absolutely do all that I can.

“There is a possible second channel for non-accredited media, and considerable provision is being made for those who cannot get formally accredited. The mayor of London has done an enormous amount to help that take place.”

Under the pooling system titles would be able to share material on the Games.Similar Posts:

Journalisted Weekly: Breivik in court, Winehouse funeral and Olympics countdown

Sarah Booker — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 13:32:48 +0000

Journalisted is an independent, not-for-profit website built to make it easier for you, the public, to find out more about journalists and what they write about. It is run by the Media Standards Trust, a registered charity set up to foster high standards in news on behalf of the public, and funded by donations from charitable foundations. Each week Journalisted produces a summary of the most covered news stories, most active journalists and those topics falling off the news agenda, using its database of UK journalists and news sources.

Breivik in court, Winehouse funeral and Olympics countdown

for the week ending Sunday 31 July

Norway remains prominent in the aftermath of the terror attacks
Amy Winehouse (in the week of her funeral) and the Olympics (with a year to go) also covered lots
Cyprus’ credit rating, ITV’s profits and South Korean landslides covered little

Covered lots

Anders Behring Breivik, making his first court appearance after twin terror attacks in Norway, 513 articles
Olympic countdown, with one year until London 2012, 309 articles
Amy Winehouse, whose funeral took place this week, 250 articles
President Obama and House Speaker Boehner address the nation as the US debt crisis deepens, 175 articles

Covered little

Cyprus’ credit rating is cut by Moody’s rating agency, 15 articles
Broadcaster ITV announced a rise in pre-tax profits, 10 articles
Torrential rain in South Korea causes landslides, killing at least 32 people, 8 articles

Political ups and downs (top ten by number of articles)

David Cameron: 468 articles (-42% on previous week)
George Osborne: 270 articles (+34% on previous week)
Vince Cable: 177 articles (+111% on previous week)
William Hague: 143 articles (+96% on previous week)
Ed Miliband: 109 articles (-54% on previous week)
Tony Blair: 88 articles (-41% on previous week)
Ed Balls: 88 articles (+132% on previous week)
Gordon Brown: 73 articles (-47% on previous week)
Nick Clegg: 72 articles (-56% on previous week)
Michael Gove: 56 articles (+17% on previous week)

Celebrity vs serious

Zara Phillips’ wedding on Saturday, to rugby player Mike Tindall, 137 articles vs. the death of BBC journalist Ahmed Omed Khpulwak, killed in an insurgent attack in Afghanistan on Thursday, 9 articles
L’Oreal’s airbrushed make-up ads, featuring stars like Julia Roberts, are banned, 7 articles, vs. resignation of Polish defence minister, Bogdan Klich, following a report on the 2010 plane crash that killed President Kaczynski, 3 articles
David Beckham launches an underwear range, 14 articles vs. Iranian nuclear scientist shot dead in Tehran, 5 articles

Arab spring (countries & current leaders)

Libya and Colonel Gaddafi: 199 articles (+188% on previous week)
Syria and President Al Assad: 54 articles (+42% on previous week)
Egypt and ex-President Mubarak: 36 articles (+3% on previous week)
Tunisia and ex-President Ben Ali: 19 articles (+19% on previous week)
Yemen and President Saleh: 10 articles (-17% on previous week)
Turkey and Prime Minster Erdogan: 9 articles (+200% on previous week)
Saudi Arabia and King Abdullah: 8 articles (-27% on previous week)
Egypt’s Military council: 8 articles (-43% on previous week)
Iran and President Ahmadinejad: 7 articles (-22% on previous week)
Gaza and Hamas: 6 articles (-40% on previous week)
Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu: 6 articles (-54% on previous week)
Iraq and Prime Minister Al Maliki: 6 articles (from 0 articles previous week)
Jordan and King Abdullah: 4 articles (+300% on previous week)
Bahrain and King Al Khalifa: 2 articles (-67% on previous week)

Who wrote a lot about…’Famine in Somalia’’

Mike Pflanz – 5 articles (Daily Telegraph), Mark Tran – 3 articles (The Guardian), Emily Dugan – 3 articles (The Independent), Daniel Howden– 3 articles (The Independent)

Long form journalism

4,285 words: ‘Jude Law: “I was a great champion of the human spirit. I lost that for a time”‘ – Carole Cadwalladr, The Observer, 31 July 2011
3,784 words: ’9/11 Ground Zero: why has its rebirth turned sour?’ – Rowan Moore, The Observer, 31 July 2011
3,642 words: ‘Charity cash should go to starving children, not to fire me: Former Unicef boss blasts poverty charity’ – Warren Swords, Mail on Sunday, 31 July 2011

Visit the Media Standards Trust’s new site Churnalism.com – a public service for distinguishing journalism from churnalism

Churnalism.com ‘explore’ page is available for browsing press release sources alongside news outlets

The Media Standards Trust’s unofficial database of PCC complaints is available for browsing at www.complaints.pccwatch.co.uk

For the latest instalment of Tobias Grubbe, journalisted’s 18th century jobbing journalist, go to journalisted.com/tobias-grubbeSimilar Posts:

Guardian: Police files investigated and News International to lose exclusive Olympic access

Rachel McAthy — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 16:22:11 +0000

The Guardian reports today (21 July), that Scotland Yard has been asked to look at “thousands of files” to investigate whether officers unlawfully obtained mobile phone-tracking data for journalists.

There were half a million requests by public authorities for communications data in the UK last year – of which almost 144,000 were demands for “traffic” data, which includes location.

In other phone-hacking related news, newspapers under the News International umbrella are to lose exclusive access to British athletes in the lead up to the Olympics next year, also according to the Guardian. This is due to the closure of the News of the World and the impact of this on the partnership contract, according to the report.

Team 2012, the Visa-backed project supporting potential British Olympians, had signed up News International as its official partner.

But Team 2012 has said in a statement, that “as a result of the closure of News of the World the contract can no longer be fulfilled as originally envisaged”.

According to the Guardian Team 2012 “is now looking for potential new media partners”.Similar Posts:

Reuters: Athletes can tweet at 2012 as long as not in manner of journalists

Rachel McAthy — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 10:50:04 +0000

According to Reuters, athletes due to perform at the 2012 Olympics in London, have been told they can blog and tweet about their experiences of competing in the games, as long as it is “not done for commercial purposes”.

The decision comes from the International Olympic Committee, Reuters reports, which was said to actively encourage and supports athletes “to take part in ‘social media’ and to post, blog and tweet their experiences”.

Bloggers and tweeters must, however, restrict themselves to “first-person, diary-type formats”, must not report on events in the manner of journalists and must ensure their posts do not contain “vulgar or obscene words or images”.

According to the report, broadcasting of video and audio taken inside the venues remains banned but athletes may post videos taken outside the venues.

The IOC gets much of its revenue from the sale of television and online media rights and is therefore highly protective of their intellectual property in that regard.

Times named sports newspaper of the year

University professor aims to create citizen social media network to cover Olympics Similar Posts:

Calls for local media to apply for Olympics accreditation

Rachel McAthy — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 11:05:45 +0000

Local news organisations are reminded they can now apply for accreditation to cover the 2012 Olympics in London in a release from the Newspaper Society.

Companies wishing to send journalists and photographers to the games must apply to the British Olympic Association (BOA) by the final deadline of 15 October.

The Society says it has held talks with both the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (LOCOG) and BOA to remind them how “uniquely placed” local media are to cover the event.

The NS has re-iterated that it is vital that the organisers of the Games should take full account of the particular role and needs of the local and regional press both in terms of those applying for full accreditation and in respect of non-accredited journalists, including as regards access to local venues and facilities to follow and report on particular athletes’ progress. The NS has also raised the issue of balancing broadcast rights against the needs of legitimate reportage on newspapers’ own websites, including blogs.

Applications for accreditation must be made using the downloadable form on the BOA website. According to the NS, accreditation for non rights-holding broadcasters is managed by the International Olympic Committee with application forms available in March next year.Similar Posts:

Schlesinger: Reuters’ ‘multimedia gospel’ and a new media Olympics

Laura Oliver — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 12:55:41 +0000

On Tuesday Reuters editor-in-chief, David Schlesinger urged the International Olympics Committee to rethink its accreditation rules and strategy for media/news coverage of forthcoming Games to take into account new forms of newsgathering, publishing and the democratisation of both in the hands of the non-journalist.

Schlesinger (or @daschles) is well placed to comment on such issues – during this year’s World Economics Forum, the Reuters head beat one of his own correspondents to a report by tweeting his own updates from George Soros’ speech.

Last night, he also described to the IOC how he had been pressured to remove a Reuters blog post after he took pictures of the Beijing Games without proper editorial photographer accreditation.

His comments also builds on the debate ahead of last year’s competition over whether athletes should be allowed to blog/report from the Games.

Some key quotes from the speech:

“The old means of control don’t work. The old categories don’t work. The old ways of thinking won’t work. We all need to come to terms with that.”
“More and more, we’re issuing a multimedia report to multimedia-savvy consumers who no longer make a distinction between information they receive from text and information they receive from images.”
“That means understanding what really can be exclusive and what really is insightful. It means truly exploiting real expertise. It means, to my earlier point, using all the multimedia tools available and all the smart multimedia journalists to provide a package so much stronger than any one individual strand. It means working with the mobile phone and digital camera and social media-enabled public and not against them.”

You can read Schlesinger’s full speech on Reuters’ blogs.Similar Posts:

Sportsbeat agency puts content online

Katarina Witzheller — Fri, 22 May 2009 13:54:50 +0000

National press agency Sportsbeat, which provides more than 20,000 stories a year to over 150 newspaper clients in Great Britain, has made its sports news available online for the first time.

New website www.morethanthegames.com will provide articles and blogs covering over 40 sports, excluding football, cricket and rugby union.

“The prospect of the 2012 Olympics has already seen an increase in appetite for content from the editors we supply,” said managing editor James Toney, in a press release.

“We are dedicated to providing coverage of these Olympics sports all year round – and not just the big international events but competitions at national, regional and local level.”Similar Posts:

Legacy problems for Olympics media centre?

Laura Oliver — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 14:45:36 +0000

News from Estates Gazette’s Paul Norman

that Tom Russell, London Development Agency group director of Olympic Legacy, has left his job after just over a year.

Not the usual Journalism.co.uk territory you might think. But it seems Russell was heavily involved in the ‘legacy’ plans for the Olympic media centre.

“Russell it seems has been fighting the corner for idea that the media centre ought to be built to a high enough standard to attract media occupiers to Hackney Wick post Games,” writes Norman.

When Journalism.co.uk attended an event about new media, Beijing and the London Olympics last year, some pretty impressive plans for the media centre were brought out. Among the journalism/media union representatives in the audience, however, the size and temporary nature of some parts of the building were challenged.

Indeed, it seems some aspects of the design may have been scaled back since this event in October – as Norman writes:

“Potential tenants looking at the space from the media world and Hackney council are all understood to be concerned that in its haste to get the building completed the ODA has jettisoned important design features and by implication the legacy impact of what after all was intended as the main jobs driver post-Games.”

Similar Posts:

AP: Top 10 news stories of the year

Laura Oliver — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 10:00:40 +0000

Barack Obama’s election victory named top news story of 2008 in Associated Press’ annual poll, voted for by US editors and news directors.

Oil prices, the Beijing Olympics and Mumbai terror attacks all feature in the list.Similar Posts:

‘Twelve Days of Online Media Christmas…’ Journalism.co.uk’s melodious 2008 list

Judith Townend — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 09:37:19 +0000

Well, we could have brought you ‘Flocking Around the Twitmas Tree’, ‘We Three Nings’ or just a straightforward end of the year list (if only to add to our list of lists), but instead we chose this: your sing-along treat to round-up 2008 is the ‘Twelve Days of Online Media Christmas’ (hyperlinked to relevant stories, but bear in mind it’s a selection of picks and not comprehensive…).

On the first day of Christmas my feed read’r brought to me … An editor in a law court

Colin Myler, News of the World

On the second day of Christmas my feed read’r brought to me … Two arrested hacks

Milton Keynes Citizen’s Sally Murrer / ITV’s John Ray (video below)

… And an editor in a law court.

On the third day of Christmas my feed read’r brought to me … Three web gaffes

Steve Jobs and CNN / United Airlines stock collapse / AFP photo ‘altering’

… Two arrested hacks, And an editor in a law court!

On the fourth day of Christmas my feed read’r brought to me … Four journo forums

Wired Journalists / Journalism Research / Visual Editors / Journalism.co.uk forum

… Three web gaffes, Two arrested hacks, And an editor in a law court!

On the fifth day of Christmas my feed read’r brought to me … Five Tweeeeeetin’ friends

Stephen Fry / Paul Carr / John Cleese / Mark Mayhew (Hurricane Gustav) / the Mad Men

… Four journo forums, Three web gaffes, Two arrested hacks, And an editor in a law court!

On the sixth day of Christmas my feed read’r brought to me … Six news sites out-linking

WashingtonPost.com, BBC, NYTimes.com, CNN.com, Drudge Report, Not the AP (they didn’t even want to be linked to)

… Five Tweeeeeetin’ friends, Four journo forums, Three web gaffes, Two arrested hacks, And an editor in a law court!

On the seventh day of Christmas my feed read’r brought to me … Seven feeds a-mashing

Publish2.com, Daylife, Delicious, Digg, Technorati, FriendFeed, Yahoo Pipes

… Six sites out-linking, Five Tweeeeeetin’ friends, Four journo forums, Three web gaffes, Two arrested hacks, And an editor in a law court!

On the eighth day of Christmas my feed read’r brought to me … Eight maps a’plotting

Hurricane Gustav tracker, BBC Beijing Olympics map, PaperCuts newspaper job losses map, Economist pre-election map, NYTimes.com post-election map, Managingnews.com’s newstracker during Chinese earthquake, Interactive maps of Canadian tornado damage, Journalism.co.uk new timeline-maps.

… Seven pipes a-mashing, Six sites out-linking, Five Tweeeeeetin’ friends, Four journo forums, Three web gaffes, Two arrested hacks, And an editor in a law court!

On the ninth day of Christmas my feed read’r brought to me … Nine strikers strikin’

Le Monde, Writers’ Guild of America, Australian Fairfax newspapers, Express Newspapers, Sheffield Star.

(or at least thinking about it…) Trinity Mirror Midlands, Telegraph Media Group, ITV regional, BBC Scotland.

… Eight maps a-plotting, Seven pipes a-mashing, Six sites out-linking, Five Tweeeeeetin’ friends, Four journo forums, Three web gaffes, Two arrested hacks, And an editor in a law court!

On the tenth day of Christmas my feed read’r brought to me … Ten blogs a-blooming

10,000words.net, Adrianmonck.com, Jay Rosen’s PressThink, OnlineJournalismBlog, BBCJournalismLabs, BusinessMediaBlog, RegretTheError.com, Publishing2.com, Spokesman Review’s Daily Briefing, Tomorrow’s News Tomorrow’s Journalists

… Nine strikers strikin’, Eight maps a-plotting, Seven pipes a-mashing, Six sites out-linking, Five Tweeeeeetin’ friends, Four journo forums, Three web gaffes, Two arrested hacks, And an editor in a law court!

On the eleventh day of Christmas my feed read’r brought to me … Eleven papers packing

(up for new offices) The Guardian, the Birmingham Mail, the Independent.

(away their desks forever) NY Sun, Belfast’s La Nua, Kazakhstan’s Law and Justice, Moscow’s The Exile, US Post newspapers, Trinity Mirror weekly titles, Switzerland’s Mittelland, three editions of Spanish Metro.

… Ten blogs a-blooming, Nine strikers strikin’, Eight maps a-plotting, Seven pipes a-mashing, Six sites out-linking, Five Tweeeeeetin’ friends, Four journo forums, Three web gaffes, Two arrested hacks, And an editor in a law court!

On the twelfth day of Christmas my feed read’r brought to me … Twelve sites a-starting

Trinity Mirror mobile sites, outside.in UK, Spot.Us, Hubdub.com, Coventry Telegraph, FT’s Alphaville Long Room, Magicalia, DailyPostCymraeg.co.uk, Time Out Kuala Lumpur, the BusinessDesk Northwest, the Daily Beast.

(and re-focusing) CSMonitor.com.

… Eleven papers packing, Ten blogs a-blooming, Nine strikers strikin’, Eight maps a-plotting, Seven pipes a-mashing, Six sites out-linking, Five Tweeeeeetin’ friends, Four journo forums, Three web gaffes, Two arrested hacks and an editor in a law court!Similar Posts:

MediaGuardian: Report predicts that web ad spend growth will drop by 50 per cent next year

Judith Townend — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 11:36:39 +0000

A new forecast from eMarketer UK predicts internet ad spend growth will be cut by more than 50 per cent next year and that the digital media sector will not fully recover from the economic downturn, until the London Olympics in 2012, reports MediaGuardian.Similar Posts:

World Association of Newspapers calls for press freedom in China

Stuart Goodwin — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 13:00:41 +0000

The World Association of Newspapers (WAN) and the World Editors Forum have written to the Chinese government about international standards of press freedom in the country.

Laws in China restricting foreign journalists were temporarily relaxed during the Olympic Games in Beijing and have recently been extended by authorities.

In a letter dated October 21, WAN wrote to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in an attempt to change the laws permanently:

Your Excellency,

We are writing on behalf of the World Association of Newspapers and the World Editors Forum, which represent 18,000 publications in 102 countries, to welcome the extension of the relaxation in media regulations, but also to call on you to take further steps to uphold international standards of press freedom.

In the run-up to the Beijing Olympics, your government introduced new rules that allowed foreign journalists greater freedom to travel in the country without prior government permission and to talk to anyone who was willing to be interviewed. Those regulations were set to expire on 17 October, however, shortly before they expired new regulations were introduced that recognise these rights.

While welcoming the extension of the more relaxed regulations for foreign journalists, we are concerned that they do not extend to domestic journalists and that many fundamental rights necessary for the proper functioning of a free press are not observed. For example, there is no protection of news sources, it is not possible to report freely on Tibet and hotels are obliged to report the arrival of a foreign journalist to police. Furthermore, with more than 30 journalists and at least 50 cyber reporters imprisoned, China jails more journalists than any other.

We respectfully call on you to extend the relaxed regulations to domestic journalists, to introduce further reforms so that your country might fully respect international standards of press freedom, and to ensure that all
those detained for exercising their right to freedom of expression are immediately released from prison.

We look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience.

Yours sincerely,

Gavin O’Reilly
President
World Association of Newspapers

Xavier Vidal-Folch
President
World Editors Forum

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Daylife targets online publishers with new multimedia service

Laura Oliver — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 14:58:25 +0000

The software engineering company behind Sky News’ recent online revamp, Daylife, has launched a new product aimed at online news publishers.

Sky used Daylife’s products to create topic pages of related multimedia content called ‘in depth’ pages.

The new Daylife Enterprise API will similarly let publishers re-purpose blog posts, text, data and audio-visual content in new ways online.

How does it do this? The service will collect this content and then create feeds which the publisher can put to use a variety of ways – as per their request.

For example – the Enterprise API was trialled by the Washington Post to create picture galleries from the Beijing Olympics – searchable by sport and country – and to accompany its US presidential campaign coverage.

Daylife took all the incoming photos from Post photographers around these subjects and made them available to the paper as an API, ready for use to create new pages on its website.

Utilising existing content in this way can be a success in terms of web traffic – making sites a more attractive prospect for advertisers, says Daylife CEO Upendra Shardanand.

As part of the product, publishers can make these content feeds open to the public and third-party developers – a feature which Shardanand hopes will lead to more collaboration on news content between publishers and users.

“In terms of e-commerce and advertising there’s been so much innovation in the last 10 years online, in comparison there’s not been so much in news,” he told Journalism.co.uk.

“How do you innovate if you don’t do software? I don’t know what the next best concept is but a service like ours can be shared.”

Publishers should not dismiss outsourcing this work, says Shardanand, after all it’s not their job and with the amount of content they have available would be extremely time consuming – the company has over 200 machines running to process the content. It’s not for free, but licences are decided on a customer-by-customer basis.

Instead, he told us, the aim is to get the most value out of the content that publishers are already producing for both online and other editions – such as the photos taken by WaPo staff – by doing the backend work for them.

Crucial to the success of the project will be the say that publishers have over what is done with their content – something which Shardanand is keenly aware of.

“These have to be content portals that are still customised and match your brand and voice,” he says.

“It wouldn’t work if the editors couldn’t do exactly what they want. Advertisers wouldn’t value it either.”Similar Posts:

Gawker alleges computer cut-backs for WSJ.com staff

Judith Townend — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 15:48:57 +0000

So Boris might give out Blackberries (well, ‘blackberry-type gizmos’) to Olympics spectators in 2012, but over in the States Wall Street Journal journalists are finding that their technology allowance is being cut back.

Or so this ‘internal memo’ on Gawker.com would have us believe. Is it for real? Apparently, all WSJ news staff have been told that a new money-saving measure is in place: ‘at its core is the concept of “one person/one machine.’

“If you are an office-based editor, you’ll get a new desktop. If you are a reporter or editor who travels on assignment, you’ll get a new laptop with a docking station, keyboard and monitor for office use.”

That’s what the alleged internal memo reads. Comments below the Gawker article are sceptical: surely the typos in the memo are a bigger story than the computer cuts, writes ‘drunkexpatworker’.

Hmmm. Authentic or not? It seems an odd kind of prank if not: it wasn’t that funny.Similar Posts: