Tag Archives: the UK news

The Latin America news gap: what do you think?

Nuria Leon, a journalist and postgraduate student at the University of Westminster, recently demanded an explanation from BBC director-general Mark Thompson regarding the lack of varied BBC news content from Latin America. You can listen to the encounter here.

Now she needs journalists’ help: for her MA dissertation in media management she wants to find out what journalists think about coverage of Latin America in the UK. [NB: Latin American countries listed here, and UN information on the Americas here.]

So, if you think there is a hole in English-language reportage from that part of the world, please help her out. Here are her questions. Please leave your thoughts below, or email her directly: n.leon at my.westminster.ac.uk.

  • 1. Given your own experiences:
  • a. What do you think causes a gap between between Latin America and the UK in regards to the distribution and production of news?
  • b. What would help create a direct link between both markets for the production and distribution of news?
  • 2. What do you think about international news agencies and their service from Latin America?
  • 3. Do you think there is a demand for customised news services, rather than homogeneous news packages offered by international news agencies?
  • 4. What benefits would you see if both markets started to conduct direct, continuous and permanent business?
  • 5.  Do you think the UK would be receptive to more Latin American news content?
  • 6. Do you believe there is a niche for such a service? A need?
  • 7. More generally, what could help reduce the gap between Latin America and the UK news industry?

How the news sites are treating the phone tapping story

Yesterday afternoon in a powerful Guardian exclusive, investigative journalist Nick Davies reported that the Murdoch News Group papers paid £1m to ‘gag’ phone-hacking victims.

Rupert Murdoch, who owns News Group, recently argued he had little influence on his publications’ editorial content; it would be interesting to see how his other UK papers would treat the story about their sister title today.

Let’s see how each of the UK news websites is running the story [as around 9.30 – 10 am]. [News organisations owned by Murdoch are labelled (M).]

Note: Observations correct at time of writing; subject to updates.

  • The BBC has headlined many of its bulletins across radio and TV with the story. Channel 4 ran with the story yesterday. Both news sites feature the story as the main article. Sky News (M) ran it last night and its main (breaking) story on its website is “Cameron: ‘Coulson’s Job Is Safe'”.
  • Guardian: Top story with several supplementary features and stories
  • Sun.co.uk (M): Not running the story
  • NewsoftheWorld.co.uk (M): Not running the story

The Murdoch empire (source: BBC website / News Corp)

NEWS CORP BUSINESSES

HarperCollins
New York Post
Fox News
20th Century Fox
Times and Sunday Times
Sun and News of the World
BSkyB
Star TV
MySpace
Dow Jones Co. (incl. Wall Street Journal)
The London Paper

Australasia:
Daily Telegraph
Fiji Times
Gold Coast Bulletin
Herald Sun
Newsphotos
Newspix
Newstext
NT News
Post-Courier
Sunday Herald Sun
Sunday Mail
Sunday Tasmanian
Sunday Territorian
Sunday Times
The Advertiser
The Australian
The Courier-Mail
The Mercury
The Sunday Mail
The Sunday Telegraph
Weekly Times