Tag Archives: the World Cup

Journalisted Weekly: More snow, big leaks, and World Cup bid fury

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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. From now on we’ll be cross-posting them on Journalism.co.uk.

for the week ending Sunday 5 December

  • An avalanche of snow and a WikiLeaks flood deluged the news
  • England’s World Cup bid failure generated anger at FIFA
  • Attempted assassinations in Tehran, and a US school hostage-taking received little attention

See new profiles for UK national newspaper editors on Journalisted

The Media Standards Trust’s unofficial database of PCC complaints is now 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-grubbe

Covered lots

  • WikiLeaks, which released 250,000 secret US diplomatic cables into the public domain, 851 articles
  • More snow, with airports closing and Scotland worst affected, 699 articles
  • England’s bid losing out in the voting for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, causing outrage and sparking critcism of FIFA, 577 articles

Covered little

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

Celebrity vs serious

  • Ann Widdecombe, in the week she finally left ‘Strictly Come Dancing’, 43 articles vs. former MP David Chaytor, facing imprisonment on admitting expenses fraud, 25 articles
  • Cheryl Cole, who has been chosen to be a judge on America’s X Factor in £3 million deal, 98 articles vs. Haiti’s election, characterised as fraudulent and badly organised, 16 articles
  • Angelina Jolie, premiering her new film ‘The Tourist’, 32 articles vs. a huge forest fire in northern Israel, killing 41 and prompting aid from foreign fire crews including Palestinians, 29 articles

Who wrote a lot about…’Putin’s Russia’

Luke Harding – 17 articles (The Guardian), Andrew Osborn – 10 articles (The Telegraph), Tony Halpin – 8 articles (The Times), Sam Wallace – 7 articles (The Independent), Tom Parfitt – 6 articles (The Guardian)

Long form journalism

‘I became the scapegoat for their blunder’, says Sunday Mirror journalist over England dressing room story

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The journalist accused of organising the security breach of the England football team’s dressing room during the World Cup, has called his arrest a “sick joke” in a first-hand account of the events.

Sunday Mirror reporter, Simon Wright, gave his story in an article for the tabloid, insisting he legitimately bagged an interview with the intruding fan, Pavlos Joseph, after the story had broken.

Every journalist at the World Cup wanted to interview the fan. And I was fortunate enough to get to him first. Even colleagues on other national newspapers were sending me kind texts telling me I’d had a great hit and that the beers would be on them.

I still had a satisfied glow as I flew out of Bloemfontein on my way back to Cape Town a week later. England had crashed out of the tournament against Germany and in two days I would be at home with my family. Or so I thought.

But before he could fly home, Wright was charged with “defeating the ends of justice” as well as an offence under the Immigration Act. He suggests that he was arrested as a scapegoat for the authorities’ failings with security.

They said I had “harboured” Pavlos from the police – yet they had known who he was and where he was from the moment he had been led out of the England dressing room.

Wright adds that reports that he had been seen on CCTV with Joseph in the players’ tunnel before the fan entered the dressing room were false:

The false claims were reported all over the world and my professional reputation was tarnished.

The truth is that Pavlos’s sister in London rang several newspapers in Britain just a few minutes after he’d rung home to tell her what he’d done after the England-Algeria game. My news desk woke me at 3am in the morning and gave me Pavlos’s number. I rang him instantly and we arranged to meet a few hours later, when I was able to persuade him to talk exclusively to me. That was the first time we had ever met.

Read the full story here…

Rebekah Wade’s first public speech in full

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If the Wordle and other coverage isn’t enough, here’s the Hugh Cudlipp speech by the editor of the Sun, Rebekah Wade, in full [note: may have differed very slightly in actual delivery]:

The challenging future of national and regional newspapers is now the staple diet of media commentators.

If you have been reading the press writing about the press you’d all be forgiven for questioning your choice of career.

I’m not denying we’re in a tough place – we are.

But I don’t want to use this speech to make grand statements on the future of our industry.

I want to talk to you about journalism.

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Online Journalism Scandinavia: lessons in UGC, follow the crowd

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Image of Kristine LoweKristine Lowe’s (left) Online Journalism Scandinavia this week looks at the (weird and wonderful) challenges of soliciting readers’ contributions.

Local newspaper readers more keen to submit photos of their own kids than of world champions, that’s what one online newspaper in Norway found out last month.

Mecom-owned Drammens Tidende (DT) invited its readers to help them cover this year’s World Cup Ski Sprint in Drammen, but found their readers were more interested in the Children’s Ski Cup that took place a day prior to the international event.

image of reader submitted photo from ski race

(Reader-submitted picture (above) and the pro snap (below) – both courtesy of DT)

image of world cup ski racing

“In retrospective, we might have done better to put more of our resources into soliciting pictures from the Children’s Cup,” said Geir Arne Bore, editor-in-chief of DT, a Norwegian regional newspapers headquartered in Drammen.

“The traffic to our news site doubled on the day of the World Cup, and the shots submitted by readers garnered quite some interest, but people were particularly interested in viewing and submitting pictures from the Children’s Cup.

“Our experiences confirm the general impression which is taking root in Norwegian media: user generated content does not come unsolicited, and if it does come it is on issues people are very passionate about, or as a result of substantial marketing.

“I guess you could say this in line with the trend described in ‘The state of the news media 2008’,” Bore added.

DT is one of the early testers of ‘The Readers Newspaper’, an online portal where readers can upload text, pictures and video. It’s developed by Edda Media, Mecom’s Norwegian arm, and is still in Beta.

So far, DT’s readers have mostly uploaded text and pictures about entertainment events, while Budstikka.no, another early tester, has attracted more content about local sports events.

The portal is expected to be rolled out to all of Edda Media’s regional and local papers over the coming months.