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Italian newspaper joins Times safer cycling campaign

Paul McNally — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 10:29:59 +0000

The Times’s widely praised safer cycling campaign has been picked up by an Italian newspaper.

The Gazzetta dello Sport is taking part after one of its journalists, Pier Luigi Todisco, died while he was cycling to work last October.

The title is urging professional sportspeople to join the roll call, and for ordinary readers to support the campaign as well. A Twitter hashtag, #salvaciclisti is being used to spread the word.

According to the paper, 2,556 cyclists have died on Italian roads in the past ten years – double the number of bike deaths in the UK (1,275).

The Times launched its campaign earlier this month, three months after Times journalist Mary Bowers was knocked down by a lorry while cycling to work. She is still not conscious and remains in a trauma unit.

Some 33 MPs have signed an early day motion in parliament praising the cycling campaign.Similar Posts:

NUJ invites News International journalists to meeting

Rachel McAthy — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 16:59:12 +0000

The National Union of Journalists is due to hold a meeting tomorrow (Wednesday, 2 November) to discuss the recently announced cuts to editorial within the Times and Sunday Times, which is open to member and non-member freelance, casual and staff journalists at the publisher’s titles.

Last month the Times announced it was to cut around 100 staff from the newspapers’ editorial workforce, with the bulk of those said to be to casual staff. It was also confirmed that 20 compulsory redundancies are due to be made from full-time staff at the Sunday Times, which is cutting 30 per cent of its casual editorial workforce.

Following this announcement the NUJ set up a meeting, which is open to any staff who wish to seek advice. It will be held from 1 to 3pm at the Captain Kidd pub, 108 Wapping High Street, E1W 2NE. The union has also invited representatives of the company’s in-house union NISA to attend if interested in working with the NUJ.Similar Posts:

FleetStreetBlues: Roger Boyes on reputation management after unfortunate byline

Rachel McAthy — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 12:27:01 +0000

It certainly caused a snigger or two in the Journalism.co.uk office when, more than a year ago, we came across the unfortunate byline placement on this story in the Times, which happened to be about the Vienna Boys’ Choir sex abuse scandal – a story written by Roger Boyes, Berlin correspondent for the newspaper.

Since then, as reported by FleetStreetBlues, Boyes has had to bring in reputation management to clean up the damage caused to his online profile. In an article for the Times today, as FSB reports, Boyes writes about about how he had to perform “a kind of digital exorcism”, whether he liked it or not.

Here’s the hitch though: I never wanted to join Facebook. Now I am signed on (and have no access to it), accumulating friends who presumably have been put up to it by the reputation managers. It’s not me, it doesn’t feel like me. And the YouTube video, though duly positive, just looks daft. So it seems that the only way I can fight the lasting effects of my Twitter ambush is by exposing myself more online.

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Clay Shirky on the Times paywall, commodity markets and a ‘referendum on the future’

Laura Oliver — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 11:10:41 +0000

Media commentator, digital soothsayer and all-round interesting read Clay Shirky gives his views on News International’s paywalls at the Times and Sunday Times, the first figures for which were released last week.

‘Paywall thinking’, he suggests, may not be possible in a world where “the internet commodifies the business of newspapers”:

Over the last 15 years, many newspaper people have assumed continuity with the analog business model, which is to say they assumed that readers could eventually be persuaded or forced pay for digital editions. This in turn suggested that the failure of any given paywall was no evidence of anything other than the need to try again.

What is new about the Times’ paywall – what may in fact make it a watershed – isn’t strategy or implementation. What’s new is that it has launched as people in the news business are rethinking assumed continuity. It’s new because the people paying attention to it are now willing to regard the results as evidence of something. To the newspaper world, TimesSelect looked like an experiment. The Times and Sunday Times look like a referendum on the future.

Full post by Clay Shirky at this link…Similar Posts:

James Harding: Times paywall is a revolution for its journalism

Laura Oliver — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 10:37:44 +0000

After months of waiting, News International released figures for its much-discussed Times and Sunday Times paywalls today.

According to a release from the group, the Times and Sunday Times have more than 105,000 “paid-for customers to date”. This figures includes subscribers to the websites and to the Times’ iPad app and Kindle editions. Around half of these are monthly subscribers, News International says, adding that “many of the rest” are either single copy or pay-as-you go sales.

Speaking on Radio 4′s Today programme this morning, the Times’ editor James Harding said it was “early days” but that he was “hugely encouraged” by the figures so far:

What we’ve seen is for the first time in 225 years we’re selling copies of the Times on something other than paper; we’re seeing that those people who read the digital editions of the Times and the Sunday Times really like them, if they sign up for a trial they tend to stick with us; and most importantly we’re able to say something that very few papers can say which is that we’re growing …

What you get now is you see over a couple of million people who look at the front page of the Times online … we’d engaged in quite a suicidal form of economics which was giving our journalism away for free and we knew that if we continued to do that we couldn’t invest in reporting. So what our concern was was would be cut off from the internet conversation and the truth is that we haven’t been, because a) the media works as a huge echo chamber so our stories get picked up and the other thing we’re seeing is that our readers engage with or stories and comment on our stories in a much deeper way …

What you’re seeing here is something at it’s very early stages, but also a revelation as well as a revolution in journalism. The iPad edition for us has changed the way we are doing our journalism and technology as we all know can be a tricky business.

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Media Week: Times website loses 1.2m readers

Laura Oliver — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 09:04:27 +0000

Media Week reports on figures from ComScore, which suggest that unique users of the the Times and Sunday Times websites have fallen from 2.79 million in May to 1.61 million in July.

The new websites were launched on 25 May with compulsory registration introduced in June and the paywall for both sites going up on 2 July. According to the report, page views for the sites dropped from 29 million in May to 9 million in July.

Prior to the launch of the new websites, News International withdrew from the monthly Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic (ABCe) reports for newspaper website traffic.

Full story on Media Week at this link…Similar Posts:

Times joins forces with Applied Works to create iPad interactives

Laura Oliver — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 11:53:24 +0000

While many newspaper publishers see the iPad as a place for digital replicas of their print editions, the Times has joined forces with brand-strategy company Applied Works to create a series of interactive graphics for its iPad application.

The video below from Applied Works on Vimeo shows the range of interactives – from a World Cup planner to coverage of the the UK’s emergency budget earlier this year:

Full post on Applied Works’ website at this link…Similar Posts:

Murdoch hails iPad as ‘perfect platform’

Laura Oliver — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 10:10:48 +0000

Rupert Murdoch is bullish about the role that the iPad and tablet computers will play in the future of publishing and journalism. According to a report by the Australian, Murdoch told an industry event this week in Sydney that tablet computers were “a perfect platform for our content”.

Murdoch added that subscriber levels to the newly paywalled Times website were “strong”:

It’s going to be a success. Subscriber levels are strong. We are witnessing the start of a new business model for the internet. The argument that information wants to be free is only said by those who want it for free.

Full story on the Australian at this link…Similar Posts:

Can writers take their own brick out of the paywall?

Rachel McAthy — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 16:38:45 +0000

Putting up the paywall has seen the Times lose the odd blogger along the way, but what about writers who are still commissioned, but make their content available elsewhere?

The Guardian’s Martin Belam flags up a post by George Brock, who today republished in full a review he wrote for the Times, which fell behind the paywall online.

Wanting to link to his work in a post, without directing his users to a paywall, he posts the full review as he submitted it to the paper.

As an experiment, I’ve pasted the text I filed to the Times at the foot of this post. You can read it for free as long as the Times doesn’t object.

Let’s be clear why I doing this test. I’m not against charging for editorial content, just as I’m not against paying cash for a printed paper. Copyright belongs to the paper since the review was commissioned and submitted normally.

But, he adds, this should not apply to the “unbundled” journalism.

While a newspaper has a legal right to restrict access to all of that material as one whole bundle, this can’t be the best way to go in the future. If charging is going to be part of the survival of quality journalism, something more flexible and agile is required. Digital technology allows journalism which was packaged together in print to be “unbundled”. Once unbundled, it can be copied, distributed, swapped, commented on and its message can multiply.

But Belam is curious as to what the Times will have to say.

One wonders what that will do to his chances of future commissions from the paper.

See Brock’s full post here…Similar Posts:

David Mitchell breaks ranks to question Guardian paywall stance

Laura Oliver — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 09:53:47 +0000

As the Times and Sunday Times’ paywalls went up earlier this month, the Guardian welcomed a former Times blogger and readers to its website with some cheeky editorial.

The Times has done the same with columnists from the paper writing and blogging about their support for paid content. But interesting space on Comment is Free on Sunday was given over to some-time Guardian writer and comedian David Mitchell, who took the title’s strategy to task:

By implying that it thinks content should be free for moral reasons, the Guardian website is playing an extremely dangerous game. It’s an approach which not only makes it hypocritical to charge for the printed newspaper and the iPhone app, but also gives hostages to fortune: what if the Murdoch paywall, or some other “micropayment” system, starts to work? Are we to believe that the Guardian wouldn’t institute something similar? Or would it be happy to be reduced to the online equivalent of a freesheet?

Full post on Comment is Free at this link…Similar Posts:

The Times and Sunday Times: What a paywall looks like

Laura Oliver — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 08:31:57 +0000

And it’s up – the long awaited News International paywall for the new Times and Sunday Times websites has gone up today. This is the screen you get when you try to go beyond the sites’ homepages – thetimes.co.uk and sundaytimes.co.uk. It’s interesting to see what’s not included in the £1 day pass option: email bulletins, mobile access and daily puzzles.

What the web and world is saying about it:

ExchangeWire.com asks what impact the paywall will have on CPM (Cost per thousand impressions) rates and where it will drive traffic to;
Science writer Ed Yong laments the paywall’s effect on science journalism from the Times;
BBC Breakfast describes the paywayll as “a tollbooth in the middle of the ocean”;
The Guardian cheekily offers a “warm welcome” to “former Times readers” on its News Blog;
And The Beta Blog looks at paywalls and “game theory”.

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TheGame: How World Cup journalism works

Laura Oliver — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 09:17:18 +0000

The phone goes. It is the newsdesk. “We need you to go and find North Korean fans now,” comes the instruction. “There aren’t any,” I helpfully reply. “Don’t care. There must be at least one. Go and find him.”

Hmmm. I am in Soccer City, the North Koreans are at Ellis Park across the City. I have only a couple of hours to kick-off, no North Korean contact – but then, who has? – and no ideas, except for simply standing outside the ground and waiting for a North Korean to arrive. This is not time quibble because the message from the newsdesk is that this is a “must-have” story. Foreign correspondents in South Korea and Japan are filing dispatches and Jonathan Clayton, our correspondent in Johannesburg, has been stationed outside the team hotel. I have 800 words to write on the mysterious North Korean fans. Oh dear.

Times reporter Kevin Eason gives a great, first-hand account of tracking down stories – and North Korea fans – at the World Cup. It’s a story of shoe leather, pressure and a little bit of luck as a reward for doggedly chasing leads. Would be interesting to know if any World Cup reporters are using social media shoe leather too?

Full post at this link…Similar Posts:

MediaGuardian: 20 more job cuts at Times as 40 take voluntary redundancy

Laura Oliver — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 07:53:13 +0000

The Times will make 20 compulsory redundancies after completing its voluntary redundancy scheme. Forty editorial staff took voluntary redundancy. Details of where further cuts will be made will be announced in 48 hours, according to the Guardian.

The Times recently launched a new website as part of plans to introduce a site-wide paywall later this month.

Full story at this link…Similar Posts:

George Brock: ‘The judgement about The Times wall can’t be made for months’

Judith Townend — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 08:53:37 +0000

Professor and head of journalism at City University London (and former Times international editor) George Brock muses on the implications of the Times’ forthcoming paywall, following the departure of the blogger BabyBarista. Despite the departure, the judgement about the Times paywall “can’t be made for months,” he warns.

…I still believe that that a way not yet invented will be found round the central dilemma of finding a financial base for journalism while allowing writers to connect to as wide a community as possible. But unless and until that happens, the outcome of the experiment just starting will turn on the reactions of a group of writers who are about to communicate with a smaller fan base.

Full post at this link…Similar Posts:

Comment: Reaction to the new Times and Sunday Times websites

Laura Oliver — Tue, 25 May 2010 16:40:51 +0000

Having had a day to “browse and snack” on the new Sunday Times and Times websites, what’s the feedback so far? What’s the reaction to the new editorial layout, multimedia changes and approach to journalism behind a paywall?

Starting with those bloggers who were given a sneak preview of the sites the night before they went live:

Malcolm Coles on the Times:

Without the need to chase search engine traffic or page views for advertisers, the idea of covering fewer stories but in a better way sounds appealing (…) an article, for instance, with an information graphic and tabs to let you explore the history and different aspects of the story without leaving the page. This package of content is brilliant – it works much better as an experience than lists of related articles or auto-generated tag pages.

But, asks Coles, shouldn’t readers be allowed to subscribe to just one site with completely distinct sections and topics?

It strikes me that there is either sufficient distinction in the audience for the two brands that you let users subscribe to just one site; or the audiences cross over so much that you combine the two sites in one and think about what makes most sense from the user’s point of view.

Forcing people to subscribe to both sites but keeping them entirely separate, with no cross-linking, seems a bit odd.

Adam Westbrook on the experience of reading the Times and Sunday Times online:

Well, at first impressions I am not bowled over: black text on a white screen, size 12, serif font – just like every other news website out there (and even this blog!). A web page can be any colour and fully dynamic – a concept no major newsroom is yet to grasp.

Rory Cellan-Jones on how a smaller audience might offer a more engaged readership:

[T]he company is convinced that advertisers will find the smaller audience of committed readers more attractive than the 21 million promiscuous passers-by who flit through the free Times Online site each month at present. While there’s been plenty of sniping from the sidelines by News International’s rivals, I suspect they are all glad that someone is at least testing the waters.

Tim Fenton:

It’s a slick package, although whether well-bundled, good content is enough of a differentiator from everything on Google News remains to be seen. For me, the biggest surprise is that the Times is not planning a splashy ad campaign to launch the paywall – it is relying chiefly on promotion in the newspaper.

It’s a low-key – and very analogue – start to one of the biggest experiments in modern digital media.

Of those reviewing the sites today, TechCrunch Europe expands on concerns raised that the papers’ journalists will miss out on social media conversation around their work, with thoughts on what the paywall means for mobile and ecommerce developments:

I don’t know The Times’ development roadmap, but if it does not have an API for its content (I presume it won’t since the whole of the new sites will be paywalled and invisible to search engines) then there will be no opportunity to catch the Third Wave of social or indeed of mobile or commerce. The Times cannot possibly come up with all the ideas which will happen in the Third Wave, which is why third-party developers will be so important.

Will the Times and Sunday Times be taking themselves out of the social media conversation with paywalls that redirect deep links to a generic login page? (Interesting to note findings from a Pew Research Center study, which report that bloggers will share more links and stories produced by mainstream news organisations, Twitterers less so, suggesting there’s is still a reliance of the social media news world on traditional news outlets. Interesting also – digital director of Mirror Group Matt Kelly’s remarks last week about the importance of honing news sites to niches that their readers identify as the values of that particular paper or brand.)

Adam Tinworth provides food for thought on the issue with his post on the potential impact of a subscription wall on a site’s community:

People sharing what they think will be identifiable, and they will have paid an entrance fee to get in there. This is, in fact, a community model, just one that differs from the wide, inter-connected community model we’re used to on the open web.

I recall Lee Bryant saying at last year’s Social Media Influence conference that sometimes its the wall that defines the community. And that maxim will be tested on these sites.

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