Author Archives: Judith Townend

Lance Knobel: ‘Sour taste’ over Bay Citizen funding

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A name and URL has been announced for the San Francisco based Bay Area News Project: the Bay Citizen to be launched at the end of May, with initial funding of $5 million from the Hellman Family Foundation.

But news entrepreneur and journalist Lance Knobel says its call for individual donor funding leaves a “sour taste” in his mouth.

If The Bay Citizen were really a grassroots effort it would make a lot of sense. But it’s not. I find it bordering on deceptive that The Bay Citizen is seeking individual donations without noting clearly that the Hellman Family Foundation gave $5 million in “seed” funding (that information can be found on the site’s FAQ). Warren Hellman, one of the richer people in the Bay Area, is chairman of the board.

(…)

I still want The Bay Citizen to be wonderful and to succeed. But there’s a very sour taste in my mouth. I still think our modest, bootstrap approach, building readers and community organically and then finding our way to sustainability once we have something to show is the right way to do things.

Bay Citizen’s membership director replies to his criticism in the comments.

Full post at this link…

Liberal Conspiracy: Why Tom Watson opposed libel costs reform

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MP Tom Watson yesterday was criticised for his opposition to libel cost reform.

As reported by PA Mediapoint, Labour MPs voted against reform proposals to reduce libel success fees (conditional fee arrangements) from 100 to 10 per cent. Watson was among them.

He outlines his reasons for his vote, here, on Liberal Conspiracy.

But his critics are not satisfied. Jack of Kent, aka Allen Green, a legal blogger currently longlisted for the Orwell Prize, shared his take on Conditional Fee Arrangements here.

Under Watson’s piece he writes:

The crucial statement in this blogpost is “it could significantly reduce the chances of people receiving justice”.

There is no evidence put forward in this blogpost to substantiate that claim.

Johnston Press: Dismantled paywalls are part of year of ‘discovery’

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We’re sure Johnston Press sub-editors on the brink of losing their jobs and staff enjoying an ongoing pay freeze will be glad to know it’s all part of a year of “discovery” for the company.

Yesterday it was reported by HoldtheFrontPage and Press Gazette that local newspaper pay walls, first introduced as part of a three month trial at the end of last year, were coming down.

The Southern Reporter, Northumberland Gazette and Whitby Gazette are no longer offering paid subscriptions and have opened up their content in full. It is not clear if the other titles in the trial will continue to restrict their content online (Carrick Gazette, Worksop Guardian and Ripley and Heanor News were experimenting with directing readers back to the newspaper after a summary of each story).

There are reports of very low subscription rates indeed. HTFP reports:

[A] a source at one of the titles involved in the trial said it had been a “disaster” and that the number of people subscribing had been in single figures.

But Johnston Press refused to reveal any more details: of subscription rates or its future plans. A spokesperson said:

We are not commenting on the test results. We see this year as one of discovery as we test various ideas and learn from the experience of others.

Last week we noted on this blog that despite the redundancies and pay freeze Johnston Press’ top bosses were taking home rather juicy pay packages for 2009 – significantly bigger than those in 2008.

SuperPower Nation: how the BBC translation experiment fared

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We recently reported on an innovative departure from normal BBC broadcasting practice: a six hour live translation experiment called SuperPower Nation.

Various BBC International News channels broadcast from the event on 18 March 2010, where speakers of different languages tried to communicate without relying solely on English. It involved music and theatre, as well as face-to-face and online discussion.

While the SuperPower Nation ‘hub’ was in London, participants also gathered in cafes and centres around the world  – or took part from their own homes.

A live message board simultaneously translated the conversations into Arabic, Chinese, English, Indonesian, Persian, Portuguese and Spanish using Google translation software.

A breakdown of some of the conversations can be found at this link.

Now the BBC reports on how it did: it received 11,711 messages, from 2,078 locations around the world.

English, unsurprisingly, still led as the dominant language, with 5626 messages, followed by 2767 in Spanish and 1781 in Portugese.

Less popular were Arabic (208); Persian (146); Chinese (simplified) (126) and Indonesian: (31).

BBC World reporter Dave Lee, says that the event was “perhaps the toughest scrutiny” of Google’s translation software to date. He reported:

“This is the largest translation project I’ve ever worked with,” said Chewy Trewhella, new business development manager for Google.

(…)

The translations were far from perfect in places, but Mr Trewhella added: “It’s about trying to get the message across… [users] are happy with 80-90 per cent effectiveness.”

More information and links can be found here.

#askthechancellors: How important was the digital audience in the UK Chancellor debate?

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Last night I enjoyed lurking on the Twitter backchannel while watching Channel 4’s Ask the Chancellor debate – trivia mixed with observational insight.

I liked Evening Standard journalist Paul Waugh’s tweet about George Osborne’s ‘invisible pedal’ left-foot habit, as much as the economic 140-character analysis and Channel 4’s live poll via tweets, as the Chancellor hopefuls and incumbent fought it out (Vince Cable was the eventual winner, with 36 per cent; leaving Osborne and Darling with 32 per cent each).

Twitter also gave us an insight into the Channel 4/BBC political debate rivalry – spotted in tweets between Channel 4’s Faisal Islam and Radio 4’s Evan Davis. This, from Islam, for example:

amused by @r4today s licence-fee funded sniffiness about #askthechancellors Obviously nowt to do with this: http://bit.ly/aoc4MH

Probably worth noting this too, spotted via @the_mediablog:

RT @DominicFarrell: Those who will decide the #election were watching Coronation Street #askthechancellors

That was a sentiment supported by this morning’s TV stats: Brand Republic reports that Ask the Chancellors peaked at 2.1 million, while 9 million watched Eastenders.

So how important was this backchannel and the digital audience? That was the question Jim Naughtie posed to POLIS director Charlie Beckett on this morning’s BBC Radio 4 Today programme (audio at this link). Beckett said:

I think the real winner (…) despite some of the media cynicism, was in a sense ‘democracy’. I detected a lot of people who were quite pleased to hear a lengthy debate in detail, in public, by these people.

Beckett elaborates here, on his blog:

It all makes for much richer, multi-layered reportage. The TV debate alone would have been worth it. But the fact that tens of thousands of people were taking part reminds us that citizens do care about politics. And they want to be part of reporting the debate as it happens.

PCC upholds complaint over Rod Liddle’s Spectator post; first ever blog censure

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Just in from the Press Complaints Commission: its first ever magazine/newspaper blog censure – for Rod Liddle’s 92 word Spectator post on 5 December 2009, that claimed an “overwhelming majority of street crime, knife crime, gun crime, robbery and crimes of sexual violence in London is carried out by young men from the African-Caribbean community”. A reader’s complaint of inaccuracy was upheld.

“This is a significant ruling because it shows that the PCC expects the same standards in newspaper and magazine blogs that it would expect in comment pieces that appear in print editions,” said PCC director, Stephen Abell.

“There is plenty of room for robust opinions, views and commentary but statements of fact must still be substantiated if and when they are disputed.  And if substantiation isn’t possible, there should be proper correction by the newspaper or magazine in question.”

[Update: Listen to PCC director Stephen Abell discuss the ruling on the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme at this link]

Here’s the PCC’s statement:

The Press Complaints Commission has upheld a complaint about an entry by Rod Liddle in his blog for the Spectator.  This is the first time that the PCC has censured a newspaper or magazine over the content of a journalistic blog.

The piece in question was published on 5 December 2009 and claimed that “the overwhelming majority of street crime, knife crime, gun crime, robbery and crimes of sexual violence in London is carried out by young men from the African-Caribbean community”.  A reader complained that the statement was incorrect.

In concluding that the article was indeed in breach of Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice, the PCC recognised the magazine’s argument that the nature of a blog post is often provocative and conducive to discussion.  It was certainly true in this case, for example, that a number of readers had taken issue with Mr Liddle’s claim and had commented on the blog.

However, the Commission did not agree that the magazine could rely on publishing critical reaction as a way of abrogating its responsibilities under the Code.  While it had provided some evidence to back up Mr Liddle’s position, it had not been able to demonstrate that the ‘overwhelming majority’ of crime in all the stated categories had been carried out by members of the African-Caribbean community.

Nor could it successfully argue that the claim was purely the columnist’s opinion – rather, it was a statement of fact.  As such, the Commission believed that “the onus was on the magazine to ensure that it was corrected authoritatively online”.  In the absence of such remedial action the Commission upheld the complaint.

BBC News: Canadian magazine The Beaver changes name – to avoid spam filters

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BBC News reports on how a Canadian magazine, the Beaver, has changed its name after 90 years, because its content was getting blocked by spam filters.

[I]n recent times the magazine’s attempts to reach a new online audience kept falling foul of spam filters – particularly in schools – because beaver is also a slang term for female genitalia.

The publishers of the magazine – now to be known as Canada’s History – also noticed that most of the 30,000 or so visitors to their website per month stayed for less than 10 seconds.

Full post at this link…

PS. Looks like LSE student newspaper the Beaver hasn’t yet given up on its name…

Evan Harris MP: ‘Missing ingredient’ in Jack Straw’s libel reform support

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Writing underneath Marcel Berlin’s Guardian commentary on Jack Straw’s pledge of support for libel reform, Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris suggests that the main “missing ingredient” is a commitment to limit big companies suing in libel:

…They should only have malicious falsehood where they must prove malice or recklessness and show actual damage. Trafigura, Tesco, Barclays, BCA, NMT, Nemsysco, etc, etc. The Lib Dems are proposing this in addition to the other measures and not tentatively!

Berlins had argued that Straw’s backing of the case for libel reform was not strong enough, especially on who should have the burden of proof.

[T]here’s no word from Straw – not even “consider” – about one of the most unjust aspects of the existing law, which obliges a newspaper raising the defence that its allegations were true to prove it, instead of making the claimant prove their falsity. That burden of proof, in fairness, should be reversed.

Full post at this link…

Disclaimer: Journalism.co.uk has pledged its support to the Libel Reform campaign.

Heather Brooke: ‘PR is infecting public institutions and destroying our democracy’

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In the latest extract of Heather Brooke’s book, ‘The Silent State’, published in the Mail on Sunday yesterday, the investigative journalist looks at the effect of PR in public institutions.

On council-run newspapers:

My prediction is this: the more officials take over the news the more our money will be wasted. Scrutiny by the public keeps the powerful honest.

And on trying to reach officials:

PR people have manoeuvred themselves to the top of the political pole. Even senior managers have to get clearance from the Press office to speak to the public.

Full post at this link…

Vanityfair.com: Business Insider’s Henry Blodget vs Reuters’ Felix Salmon

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Via Vanity Fair (and others) we learn of a tweet fight between former technology analyst and CEO of the Business Insider site, Henry Blodget, and Reuters’ financial journalist and blogger Felix Salmon.

It all started when Salmon poked fun – via Twitter – at Blodget’s business model and the way Business Insider had illustrated a banking story with a picture of two women kissing.

This kicked off a long dispute between the two over media strategy; not a simple old vs new spat, but an untangling of ethical issues for online publishers.

Never to miss a traffic opportunity, Blodget has posted the entire conversation on Business Insider here, in the form of a slideshow.

Blodget, fond of tweet by tweet mini-essays, also responded with a posting on business models.

Salmon then responded here, in length, on the Reuters blog.

Blogger and journalist Mathew Ingram has a thoughtful post on the whole episode at this link. An extract:

So what are smart online media outlets doing? Two things: One is focusing on building businesses such as conferences and events, as well as subscription-based, proprietary content (something Business Insider is also experimenting with). The other – and this is what I think Salmon was driving at – is thinking about traffic and pageviews in a different way. Not all pageviews are the same, and as a result not all CPMs are the same. Does forcing readers to click through multiple pages to view a slideshow add any real value? No. This is the digital equivalent of newspapers throwing extra copies into a ravine (or dumping them at a taxi stand) to boost circulation.

And elswhere on Twitter: Gawker’s founder Nick Denton backs Blodget, while writer Andrew Keen calls for the Business Insider CEO to return to Wall Street.