Reed Business Information (RBI) is hosting an event for journalists and programmers interested in working together on data visualisation. The one-day “hack day”, which will take place on 29 November, will be run with the help of data scraping project ScraperWiki.

Speaking on the ScraperWiki blog, Karl Schneider, editorial development director at RBI, explains the thinking behind the event:

Data journalism is an important area of development for our editorial teams in RBI

It’s a hot topic for all journalists, but it’s particularly relevant in the B2B sector. B2B journalism is focused on delivering information that it’s audience can act on, supporting important business decisions.

Often a well-thought-out visualisation of data can be the most effective way of delivering critical information and helping users to understand key trends.

We’re already having some successes with this kind of journalism, and we think we can do a lot more. So building up the skills of our editorial teams in this area is very important.

You can register for the event at this link.

• Hacks and Hackers play with data-driven news
• #bbcsms: Use data to inform newsroom decisions, says panel
• #jpod: Data journalism – what’s driving the trend?
• #ddj: Follow the Data Driven Journalism conference
• Hacks and Hackers look at health, education and leisure

Reed Business Information is to close 23 B2B magazine titles in the US. FOLIO reports:

About nine months after putting the brands published under the U.S. arm of Reed Business Information on the block again, Reed Elsevier announced today that it is closing down the magazines it has not been able to sell or does not intend to keep. In total, the number of magazines to be closed down is 23.

According to FOLIO, parent company Reed Elsevier declined to comment on the number of job losses as a result.

Full post at this link…

• FT.com: RBI publisher may extend loan debt
• Timeline of RBI sale
• RBI Divestment Watch blog closed?
• DutchNews.nl: RBI to grow online income by 50 per cent in three years
• MediaGuardian: Bertelsmann will bid for RBI magazines

Reed Business Information (RBI) has sold its Furniture Today group of titles to Sandow Media, part of private equity firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson.

No financial terms have been disclosed for the deal, which includes Furniture Today, Casual Living and Interior Design magazine, according to a media release from Sandow.

The sale is the latest in a series of deals as part of the piecemeal divestment of a number of RBI’s B2B and trade titles, after the company’s attempt to sell the whole of its magazine publishing arm failed in December 2008.

• Timeline of RBI sale
• Media Week: H Bauer and Bauer Media in joint bid for BBC magazines
• FT.com: Reed Elsevier sells Nordic division of RBI
• RBI Divestment Watch blog closed?
• Media Business: New bidder in talks to buy RBI’s US magazines

#FollowJourn: Adam Tinworth

Who? Head of blogs for Reed Business Information.

What? A blogger from the early days, Tinworth monitors the media industry and its digital developments via social media.

Where? Follow him via his blog, or Twitter account.

Contact? Via Twitter: @adders.

Just as we like to supply you with fresh and innovative tips every day, we’re recommending journalists to follow online too. They might be from any sector of the industry: please send suggestions (you can nominate yourself) to judith or laura at journalism.co.uk; or to @journalismnews.

• #FollowJourn: @seanhargrave/freelance journalist
• #followjourn: @chriscondron/head of digital strategy
• #followjourn: @willcooper – Will Cooper/news editor
• #Followjourn: @iburrell/media editor
• #FollowJourn: @andyoakes/publisher

Reed Elsevier has sold another piece of trade magazine arm Reed Business Information (RBI). The group’s Nordic arm has acquired by private equity firm GMT for around €10 million, the FT reports.

Reed failed to sell RBI as a whole unit last year.

It has since sold its travel publishing division TWgroup and announced it will offload some of its US controlled circulation titles.

Full post at this link…

• Media Release: RBI sells Travely Publishing Group
• Media Business: New bidder in talks to buy RBI’s US magazines
• FOLIO: RBI to close 23 magazines in US
• RBI sells off furniture titles in US
• RBI Divestment Watch blog closed?

An internal document from Reed Business Information, publisher of Estates Gazette and New Scientist, says the company wants to grow its revenue from online activities by 50 per cent within three years.

Full DutchNews.nl story at this link…

According to a Dow Jones report on the document, the publisher specifically wants to raise the sale of online publications by 50 per cent in three years.

The division also needs additional cost cutting and an end to duplication of costs, chief executive Keith Jones said in the memo to staff.

Earlier this year RBI’s parent company Reed Elsevier announced the sale of several US magazine titles; in April RBI announced plans for 50 redundancies in the UK – you can see a full timeline of recent events at the company at this link.

• Dow Jones: RBI buyer to be announced by October, says Reed Elsevier
• RBI staff vote against further industrial action
• Digital ad revenue up 30 per cent at Wall Street Journal
• Press Gazette: Ian Smith quits as Reed Elsevier chief
• Johnston Press chief executive million pound earnings revealed in annual report

Reed Business Information has sold its travel publishing division, which includes Gazetteers.com, Travolution and Travel Weekly, to entrepreneur Clive Jacobs.

Simon Ferguson, former publishing director of the group’s travel portfolio, who left RBI in March, struck the deal and will become chief executive of the newly created TW Group Ltd.

Full release, as reported by Travel Weekly, at this link…

• Former PPA chair Helen Alexander wins Marcus Morris Award
• Future websites attracting over 11m unique users per month
• GMG sells regional media business to Trinity Mirror for £44.8m
• Despite group redundancies and pay freeze, Johnston Press CEO’s pay package nears £1m
• #jpod: The top news stories from Journalism.co.uk, 1 April 2011

An update from Community Care on its ‘Stand Up Now for Social Work’ campaign (covered by Journalism.co.uk last month): the RBI title’s efforts have been picked up by Take A Break magazine.

The campaign started by drawing attention to the shortlisting of the Sun’s Baby P campaign for the British Press Awards.

TAB has launched its own campaign, ‘Thank God for Social Workers’, as a follow-up. Unfortunately, the mag’s article on the new initiative isn’t online, but Community Care deputy editor Emma Maier tells Journalism.co.uk that TAB is giving away 500 campaign badges and has also criticised the Sun’s ‘name and shame approach’.

TAB editor John Dale told Maier in her report on the development that the title is looking for more stories from social workers, who would have their details protected, and is keen to run more articles on the issue.

Read: Community Care’s Simeon Brody on ‘Why social workers deserve better treatment by the press’

• Community Care asks journalists what they know about social work
• Media ignorance of social work industry suggested by ComCare survey
• Dear Deidre invite sparks criticism from Community Care magazine
• #followjourn: Bronagh Miskelly/group editor
• CNN launches badge system for iReporters

National Union of Journalist (NUJ) members at Reed Business Information (RBI) have voted against further industrial action following a strike ballot at the publisher.

In the Wednesday ballot, 111 voted against further action being taken in response to proposed merger of production desks at Flight International, ICIS and Contract Journal and issues of compulsory redundancies.

According to an internal memo seen by Journalism.co.uk, the NUJ chapel will meet with the company again on March 4 to discuss new offers to staff, with separate meetings to be held for members at New Scientist and Estates Gazette.

In the ballot, 64 NUJ members voted in favour of taking industrial action.

Last month the group announced 35 staff redundancies in the UK, citing ‘long-term structural needs’ and the new challenges of the economic downturn.

Parent company Reed Elsevier recently extended loan arrangements for its $2 billion debt.

In December Reed terminated the sale of magazine arm RBI, as a result of ‘the recent deterioration in macro-economic outlook and poor credit market conditions’.

• NUJ: More strife for Newsquest as four more NUJ centres vote to strike
• NUJ members ballot for strike at north-east Newsquest titles
• FOLIO: RBI to close 23 magazines in US
• DutchNews.nl: RBI to grow online income by 50 per cent in three years
• Strike dates announced at Newsquest South London

Missed this great post from Dan Blank last week looking at what impact using Twitter has had on the School Library Journal, published by Reed Business Information (RBI).

Full post at this link…

• FOLIO: RBI to close 23 magazines in US
• FT.com: Reed Elsevier sells Nordic division of RBI
• FT.com: RBI publisher may extend loan debt
• Freelance Unbound: ‘How the social web has changed the journalist’s working day’
• MediaGuardian: Bertelsmann will bid for RBI magazines

Reed Elsevier, parent company of Reed Business Information (RBI), is close to completing a deal that would grant a three-year extension of $2 billion of loan debt.

Full story at this link…

• FOLIO: RBI to close 23 magazines in US
• RBI staff vote against further industrial action
• Timeline of RBI sale
• DutchNews.nl: RBI to grow online income by 50 per cent in three years
• FT.com: Reed Elsevier sells Nordic division of RBI

RBI’s Karl Schneider on implementing new digital operations at the magazine publisher.

Full post at this link…

• Freelance Unbound: ‘How the social web has changed the journalist’s working day’
• In defence of aggregation: Journalists stand up for maligned practice at university event
• Journalism’s future at the Frontline: ‘The snails attacked us!’
• The last #jeecamp in pictures
• Editor&Publisher in exile

Since announcing the ‘divestment’ of magazine publishing arm Reed Business Information (RBI), the sale by parent company Reed Elsevier has been the centre of much speculation.

Below is a timeline (created using Dipity) of the events so far – if there are any missing, let me know:

• RBI Divestment Watch blog closed?
• DutchNews.nl: RBI to grow online income by 50 per cent in three years
• FOLIO: RBI to close 23 magazines in US
• FT.com: RBI publisher may extend loan debt
• RBI sells off furniture titles in US

A buyer for Reed Elsevier’s B2B publishing arm RBI is expected to be announced in October, a memo from Marianne van Leeuwen, the chief executive of Reed’s Dutch operations, has said.

• MediaGuardian: Bertelsmann will bid for RBI magazines
• Press Gazette: Ian Smith quits as Reed Elsevier chief
• FT.com: Reed Elsevier sells Nordic division of RBI
• FOLIO: RBI to close 23 magazines in US
• DutchNews.nl: RBI to grow online income by 50 per cent in three years

Journalism.co.uk wrote a story last week about comments RBI managing director Jim Muttram made to the PPA conference about performance related pay for journalists.

Back on his own blog Jim has posted about the hubbub surrounding the issue.

“If any pay for performance scheme were ever to be implemented in a blanket fashion that very well might be the result – which, for the record, would be a bad thing!

“However, in an online world where attention is firstly more valued and more difficult to get, and secondly increasingly measurable it surely comes as no surprise that questions about how to maximise it arise from time to time.”

I recommend a click through to read the whole post.

• Alan Rusbridger on relationship with WikiLeaks: ‘things are quite difficult’
• Trials of a redundant journalist: Don’t forget the contacts
• FromtheFrontline: More Twitter conventions would have aided Mumbai coverage
• MediaMemo: Time Inc. on paywall plans and print/iPad-only content
• Traditional story structures not suitable for new ‘heavy media multitaskers’, says communications professor