Author Archives: Joel Gunter

About Joel Gunter

Joel Gunter is a senior reporter at Journalism.co.uk.

BuzzMachine: ‘Cable companies, add Al Jazeera English NOW!’

Leave a reply

Writing on his BuzzMachine blog, Jeff Jarvis has called for US cable networks to start carrying Al Jazeera’s English-language network.

Qatar-based broadcaster Al Jazeera has been covering the civilian unrest in Egypt but was effectively shut down by the Egyptian government on Sunday, according to reports. In the following days Al Jazeera journalists have been reportedly arrested and detained in the country.

Jarvis acknowledges that Al Jazeera English is available to stream online but tells cable companies that this just isn’t enough.

Yes, we can watch AJE on the internet. But as much of an internet triumphalist as I am, internet streaming is not going to have the same impact–political and education impact–that putting AJE on the cable dial would have. I can watch AJE in the Zurich hotel room where I am now; I want to be able to watch it on my couch at home.

Full post on BuzzMachine at this link.

The New York Times’ Media Decoder blog has also picked up on the difficulty of accessing Al Jazeera English from within the US. Media Reporter Brian Stelter talks about the issue in an NYT video.

As the uprising in Egypt nears its second week, a lot of people are calling this Al Jazeera’s moment. The Qatar-based broadcaster has been showing us pictures that most US broadcasters haven’t been able to get … Al Jazeera also has an English-language channel, but a lot of people don’t know it because it’s very hard to access in the United States … Most of us can’t watch it in the US unless we watch on our computers.

Channel 4 News: Benjamin Cohen’s life torn open by Wired

Leave a reply

Benjamin Cohen, technology editor at Channel 4 News, has blogged about the experience of being sent the latest, personalised edition of Wired magazine.

Well, personalised for some. “Opinion formers” around the UK have been sent a copy of Wired, titled “Your life torn open”, with personal information about them splashed over the front cover. Cohen was shocked by the information that they printed – and it is shocking at first. But then it is all publically available through Facebook, Twitter, Companies House and the Land Registry.

What’s shocking though is seeing all of this printed in black and white (or yellow in this case). Everything was available from Facebook, Twitter, Company House and the Land Registry but it shows the information is so readily available. It also shows how powerful these resources can be for private detectives or government agents.

Read his post in full here…

Tune in next week for the return of TNTJ

Leave a reply

After a short spell in the wilderness, Journalism.co.uk’s Tomorrow’s News, Tomorrow’s Journalists blog (TNTJ) will be active again from next week.

TNTJ is a great place for young journalists to make their voice heard, either by responding to the blog’s monthly debate topics, cross-posting content from their own blogs or flagging up content elsewhere that adds to the conversation.

Next week is also Hyperlocal Week over on the Wannabe Hacks site. To coincide with that we’ll be running a hyperlocal-focused debate this month on TNTJ, so start thinking small.

If you are under 30 and want to register for TNTJ, simply follow this link. If you are already a TNTJ member, simply carry on as normal.

If you are interested in helping with organising or promoting TNTJ please get in contact via joel [at] journalism.co.uk or @joelmgunter.

Follow TNTJ on Twitter: @TNTJ

MediaWeek: How long can News International hide its ABCe figures?

Leave a reply

News International has been keeping its ABCe figures – the audited traffic figures for its news websites – close to its chest for ten months now, MediaWeek reports.

That means it has just two more months before having to either pull out of ABC membership altogether or restart publishing traffic figures for the Times, Sunday Times, Sun and News of the World.

News International withdrew from the ABCes after the launch of its Times and Sunday Times paywall. The News of the World is also now behind a paywall.

A spokesman from ABCe confirmed that despite reports to the contrary last year, News International is still “absolutely a member of ABCe”.

Full post on MediaWeek at this link.

Guardian: The anguish of swapping to wapping

Leave a reply

The Guardian has dipped into the archive and dusted off a 15-year-old article from by Guardian editor – then features writer – Alan Rusbridger about News International’s move to Wapping.

Rusbridger’s article charts the bitterly disputed move from Fleet Street in 1986, which he describes as “the new dawn of the newspaper industry”.

Journalists were reportedly given a choice between a pay rise and a move to Wapping, or the sack. There was rancour, but eventually they agreed and made the move.

And what a world awaited them. When they had left work on Friday night they had left behind them a slightly seedy office – paper-strewn, dog-eared desks with ageing typewriters and half-drunk cups of coffee. And there on Monday morning was a gleaming dust-free open-plan room. A clinic more than an office. The whole of it was bathed in soothing computer-compatible light. For there in front of them stood row upon row of gleaming dust-free computers.

Full story on Guardian.co.uk at this link.

Greenslade: MPs reject code to restrict council-run newspapers

Leave a reply

A Commons committee has rejected a plan by communities minister Eric Pickles designed to restrict council-run newspapers, reports Roy Greenslade.

MPs on the communities and local government select committee argue that a revised code drawn up by Pickles to prevent the publication of so-called “town hall Pravdas” should be reconsidered.

In a lengthy report released today on the proposed code of recommended practice on local authority publicity, the committee accuses the minister of failing to provide proof that council-run papers threaten commercial newspapers.

Full report on Greenslade blog at this link.

New York Times considers creating own in-house WikiLeaks

2 Replies

The New York Times is considering setting up its own in-house version of WikiLeaks, according to editor Bill Keller.

Keller told Yahoo’s The Cutline blog that he is “looking at something along the lines” of Al Jazeera’s Transparency Unit, which was instrumental in the recent publication of the Palestine Papers by Al Jazeera and the Guardian.

“Nothing is nailed down”, according to Keller, but he has sketched out the idea behind the possible division:

A small group from computer-assisted reporting and interactive news, with advice from the investigative unit and the legal department, has been discussing options for creating a kind of EZ Pass lane for leakers.

The New York Times was one of three media partners – including the Guardian and der Spiegel – that worked with WikiLeaks on the release of the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs.

The NYT was also one of five newspapers that had advanced access to WikiLeaks’ next release, the US embassy cables. It was subsequently revealed however that the NYT was forced to obtain its copy of the cable from the Guardian, having been cut out of the loop by WikiLeaks.

Given the difficulty Keller had in obtaining advanced access to the embassy cables, and the general risks of relying on organisations such as WikiLeaks, we may yet see many more national news organisations following suit and establishing their own sections to deal directly with leaks.

Full story on The Cutline at this link.

AP: WikiLeaks looking to enlist up to 60 more media partners

1 Reply

WikiLeaks is seeking up to 60 additional media partners to help speed up the publication of its massive cache of US embassy cables, the Associated Press reports.

Editor-in-chief of the whistleblowers’ site Julian Assange told the AP that he wants to reach beyond traditional media organisations such as the Guardian, the New York Times and der Spiegel, with which he has worked on previous releases.

Assange has previously expressed frustration with the slow pace of the release of the secret diplomatic cables, and said releasing country-specific files to selected local media would serve to push them out faster.

Sometimes, that could mean doing what Assange called “triangulating the politics of a country” — giving documents to a left-wing paper in a country with a right-wing government, or offering cables to conservative titles in countries with a left-leaning administration.

Full story on Associated Press at this link.

h/t: Jon Slattery

HuffPost: Obama’s State of the Union address, now with real-time fact checking

Leave a reply

In the latest political fact-checking innovation, Obama’s State of the Union address last night was subjected to live fact-checking.

The Huffington Post, working with the National Journal, the Center for Public Integrity and the Sunlight Foundation, using their Sunlight Live platform, cross-checked Obama’s statements as he spoke.

Other news organisations followed suit, including the Washington Post and PolitiFact.

See additional live updates from the Huffington Post at this link.

Journalisted Weekly: Resignations, Tunisian fever, and Blair returns

Leave a reply

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.

for the week ending Sunday 23 January

  • Domestically, Alan Johnson, Andy Coulson and Tony Blair dominated coverage
  • Internationally, the press focused on Tunisian-style protests across the Middle East and North Africa
  • A massive mafia crackdown, suicide bombs in Iraq, and controversy over counter-terrorism against students received little attention

Covered lots

  • Shadow Chancellor Alan Johnson resigns due to ‘personal reasons’ and is replaced by Shadow Home Secretary Ed Balls, 179 articles
  • No.10 Director of Communications Andy Coulson resigns, citing coverage of News of the World phone hacking, 176 articles
  • Tunisia-style protests spread across North Africa and the Middle East, with cases of self-immolation reported in Egypt, Algeria and Mauritania, 142 articles
  • Tony Blair faces the Chilcot Inquiry on the Iraq war for a second time, 121 articles

Covered little

  • Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen, surviving a confidence vote, resigning as party leader, and calling an early election as the Green Party pulls out of the coalition, 58 articles
  • The FBI makes 127 arrests across north-eastern US, reported to be one of its largest mafia crackdowns in history, 15 articles
  • Controversy over a counter-terrorism police officer contacting universities for inside information on future student protests, 4 articles
  • A wave of bomb attacks in Iraq, killing up to 130 people in the same week Blair reappears at the Chilcot inquiry, 3 articles

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

Celebrity vs serious

Who wrote a lot about…’Andy Coulson’

James Robinson – 8 articles (The Guardian), Roy Greenslade – 7 articles (The Guardian), Nicholas Watt – 5 articles (The Guardian), David Maddox – 4 articles (The Scotsman)

Long form journalism

The Media Standards Trust’s panel event ‘Libel reform: in the public’s interest?’ is now available to watch on our website

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-grubbe