Author Archives: Joel Gunter

About Joel Gunter

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

Greenslade: What the papers did, and didn’t, say about Coulson

Media commentator Roy Greenslade has taken a look at the newspapers’ response to the resignation of Downing Street director of communications Andy Coulson on Friday.

Coulson, a former editor of the News of the World, cited the continued pressure from coverage of the phone-hacking scandal as the reason for his departure.

One of the government’s key aides departed amid controversy on Friday. So how did the weekend’s press cover the story of the resignation of Andy Coulson, No 10’s director of communications?

Answer: in most cases, with kid gloves. In other cases, hardly at all. And in a couple of instances, it was as if nothing of consequence had happened. What was that business about News of the World phone-hacking? Let’s start with the Saturday issues…

Full post on Greenslade’s blog at this link.

Al-Jazeera offices in Ramallah entered by security forces, reports correspondent

Al-Jazeera English correspondent Alan Fisher reports that the news organisation’s offices in Ramallah, Palestine were entered by security forces earlier this afternoon, followed by an “angry crowd” which has sprayed graffiti on the walls.

Fisher is reporting on the situation using his Twitter account: twitter.com/alanfisher.

Al-Jazeera began publishing leaked documents about the Israeli-Palestinian peace process today in partnership with the Guardian. The documents accuse the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) of making a secret agreement to accept Israel’s annexation of all but one of the settlements built illegally in East Jerusalem.

Martin Belam: My favourite comment spam

We get at lot of spam comments here at Journalism.co.uk. Some of them are uplifting:

This is really good stuff for me. Must admit that you are one of the coolest bloggers I’ve ever seen.

That kind of comment makes for a great start to the morning.

Some of them are confusing, but still basically positive:

A person essentially help to make seriously articles I would state. This is the first time I frequented your web page and thus far? I surprised with the research you made to create this particular publish amazing. Wonderful job!

We did do a lot of research to make that particular publish amazing, so it’s nice to have it recognised.

Some of them contain constructive criticism:

I have read your article, and I think that it’s a little bit biased. (maybe its just me.) Hmm… Maybe next time try be more objective, I know it’s hard to be good journalist, but it worth it.

That kind of thing reminds us about trying to be good journalists every day.

We are, of course, not the only ones to benefit from such feedback and guidance.

Guardian information architect Martin Belam has written about this kind of spam in the past, which uses these inane comments to try and sneak through links for SEO purposes. Belam posted some of his own favourite spam today with some responses, and its pretty funny.


“Alistair conditioning” is my favourite concealed keyword ever.


See the full post on currybetdotnet at this link.

AP: New report faults Daniel Pearl murder investigation

The four men imprisoned for the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl were not present at his beheading, according to a new report from the Pearl Project.

The report, the result of an investigation carried out by a team of US journalists and students and spanning more than three years, also accuses Pakistani authorities of knowingly relying on false evidence and ignoring important leads during the prosecution. It claims that US forensic evidence known as “vein-matching” points to al-Qaida commander Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who confessed to having killed Pearl after being arrested in connection with the World Trade Centre attacks.

Pearl was abducted in January 2002 while researching a story on Islamist militancy. In February a video of his execution was delivered to US officials in Pakistan.

Full story on AP at this link.

#followjourn: @stefanstern – Stefan Stern/director of strategy, Edelman

Who? Stefan Stern, management writer and director of strategy at Edelman, London.

Where? Formerly a weekly columnist for the FT on management, Stefan moved to Edelman last year and blogs for them at Stefan Stern on Management. He has also recently contributed to the Guardian.

Twitter? @stefanstern

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 laura at journalism.co.uk; or to @journalismnews.

Guardian: Online news service promotes false climate change study

An Online news service operated by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) unwittingly promoted a study making the false claim that catastrophic global warming would occur within nine years, the Guardian reports.

EurekAlert! carried a press release for the study, and the story was picked up by a number of international news organisations including the Vancouver Sun and the Economic Times of India.

“This is happening much faster than we expected,” Liliana Hisas, executive director of the Universal Ecological Fund (UEF) and author of the study, said of her findings.

But, in an episode recalling criticism of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), when the UN climate science body wrongly claimed the Himalayan glaciers would melt away by 2035, the UEF claims about rising temperatures over the next decade were unfounded.

Full story on the Guardian Environment pages at this link.

Knight Center: What the Waco Tribune-Herald has learned from its premium content model

Four months ago, the Waco Tribune-Herald launched a premium content payment model, keeping breaking news, obituaries and other sections free but introducing levies on more in-depth work.

Knight Digital Media Center blogger Michele McLellan has posted an interview with Tribune-Herald editor Carlos Sanchez, and although he can’t divulge the numbers it sheds some light on how communities may respond to such a model.

Q. How do you decide what content is for online subscribers only?

Our strategy from the beginning was to keep things as simple as possible. Generally, if it’s a wire story that is available at other websites, it’s free; if it is something locally produced, it’s behind a pay wall.

There are broad exceptions: staff written blogs, breaking news and, most important, obituaries (are free). Our thinking behind the blogs was that our reporters could offer more of a social media feel, with links to content behind the pay wall. Ideally, it would replicate the kind of banter that we hear every day in a newsroom in which the story behind the story becomes just as fascinating as the story itself.

Tim Radford: My 25 commandments for journalists

Tim Radford, a former Guardian science editor, letters editor, arts editor and literary editor, sat down 15 or more years ago now and wrote 25 commandents for journalists. Ahead of an appearance tonight at Imperial College London, Radford has published them on the Guardian language pages.

He may have got a bit carried away with the number – commandments being traditionally limited to 10 – but each and every one is worth a look for any working or aspiring journalist.

1. When you sit down to write, there is only one important person in your life. This is someone you will never meet, called a reader.

Read the full list on Guardian.co.uk at this link.

BBC News: Smoking out the illegal tobacco trade

BBC investigative reporter Samantha Poling has spent several months secretly filming the UK’s counterfeit tobacco trade for a documentary due to be aired tonight.

A clip from the documentary shows Poling and her camera crew being threatened by tobacco dealers with a metal pole in Glasgow’s Barras Market.

Investigating criminal gangs like these ones always carry risks. And these are risks you have to add up.

Are they worth taking in order to get the footage, to get the story told?

After looking back at the hours of evidence I had recorded, and knowing the level of criminality we had discovered, which affects each and every one of us, I knew the answer.

Read Poling’s report here.

BBC Scotland Investigates: Smoking and the Bandits will be broadcast tonight at 7.30pm BBC One Scotland. It will be available on the BBC iPlayer for a week afterwards. In the future we will explore the new regulations for vaping in public places. The article will discuss how these regulations may affect your routine and what you need to know about them. Samantha Poling has previously investigated new vape regulations and this time she’s going to give us her opinion on if it’s good or bad news.

h/t: Jon Slattery

Robert Cottrell: Four novels from the golden days of newspaper journalism

Newspaper journalism is on the way out, writes Robert Cottrell, former foreign correspondent and co-founder of the Browser.

Mourning its demise, Cottrell has picked out four novels and a style guide that “reflect the golden days”.

The list:

The Economist Style Guide

Scoop – Evelyn Waugh

Towards the End of the Morning – Michael Frayn

The Honourable Schoolboy – John le Carré

The Imperfectionists – Tom Rachman

See Cottrell’s post for a full list of the reasons behind his choices.