The annual conference of the Society of Editors is in full swing – featuring star turns already from Alexander Lebedev and the society’s president Donald Martin.
More coverage from Journalism.co.uk is available at this link.
To follow tweets from delegates and speakers use the liveblog below. You can see full details of the programme at this link.
Leave your comments below: what do you think of the Sun’s feature on waterboarding and its related video? It’s not the first time a news outlet or magazine has done this feature – see Vanity Fair’s Christopher Hitchens’ article in 2008, but is what it shows to readers irresponsible?
Lord Triesman, former chairman of the Football Association, has made a formal complaint to the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) about the Mail on Sunday report into allegations of corruption in the World Cup bidding process.
Reports the Guardian:
In the extract that led to Triesman resigning the Mail on Sunday wrote that he “accused rival nations of corruption” in their bids to host the World Cup. The paper wrote that Triesman “accused” the Spanish and Russian football authorities of planning to bribe referees in this summer’s World Cup. Triesman was described as making “the extraordinary claim” that Spain’s FA might drop out of its joint bid with Portugal for 2018 in return for Russia helping to bribe match officials.
Triesman says the article has breached three clauses of the Editors’ Code of Practice – accuracy, privacy and subterfuge.
In an open letter to Wired magazine published on her blog, Cindy Royal, an assistant professor at Texas State University in San Marcos who teaches web design and multimedia journalism, “breaks up” with the magazine:
When I noticed this month’s issue in my mailbox, I approached it with the same breathless anticipation that I do every month. I didn’t even mind the naked picture of Jennifer Aniston on the GQ subscription insert. I mean, it’s just advertising. You’ve got to make a living, right? Then, I turned you over to see what fascinating topics I would be delighted by this month. Boobs. Right there on the cover. A pair of breasts, no head, no rest of body… just boobs. Sure it accompanied a story on tissue re-engineering, so what other possible way might you visually represent that, but with a pair of breasts? No other possible way?
This isn’t the first time. We’ve been through this before. Your covers aren’t all that friendly to women on a regular basis, and that makes me sad.
To his credit Wired editor Chris Anderson has posted a lengthy reply in the comments:
[T]his problem goes beyond women: we have trouble putting *people* on the cover. It’s the same reason: they have to sell, and what sells for us is either big ideas (sans people) or well-known, likable people with interesting things to say. The problem is that there aren’t enough geek celebrities, so we often end up going with celebrity geeks instead. Our Gates and Zuckerberg cover didn’t sell as well as our Will Ferrell cover. I’m glad we did both, but at the end of the day, we have to work on the newsstand to be a profitable business.
An interesting post on Rob O’Regan’s blog looking at how Conde Nast has developed best practice guidelines for advertisers who want to work on its iPad apps. To create the guidance for clients, the magazine publisher has been conducting extensive research on how readers are using and rating the apps:
To learn more about these early adopters, Conde Nast is combining its in-app and in-person research with usage software built into its apps. Results from the in-app survey showed that 80 per cent of users who downloaded a Conde Nast digital magazine app said the content and experience “met or surpassed their expectations”, and 83 per cent said they were likely to purchase the next month’s edition.
According to the Daily Mail, a married sportsman has won an injunction from the high court banning reporting on his private life. The Mail says its possible that the injunction will be modified to allow reporting of the individual’s name but not the secret.
Last night the New York Observer’s Media Mob broke the news that Newsweek and the Daily Beast will merge.
According to the report, the editorial staffs of the two titles will combine in a 50-50 merger of the two companies.
Full story on the New York Observer at this link…
The Daily Beast’s editor-in-chief Tina Brown confirmed the deal in a statement on the site late last night:
It’s a wonderful new opportunity for all the brilliant editors and writers at the Daily Beast who have worked so hard to create the site’s success. Working at the warp-speed of a 24/7 news operation, we now add the versatility of being able to develop ideas and investigations that require a different narrative pace suited to the medium of print. And for Newsweek, the Daily Beast is a thriving frontline of breaking news and commentary that will raise the profile of the magazine’s bylines and quicken the pace of a great magazine’s revival.
The Liverpool Post and Echo were part of an art installation today as the titles joined in with local arts space the Bluecoat as part of the Bed-In – a recreation of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s famous peace protest in 1969.
The Echo moved its news conference to the bed this morning. A Twitpic courtesy of Post & Echo journalist Alison Gow shows Echo editor Ali Machray and Post editor Mark Thomas’ version of the iconic protest.
The Echo ran a liveblog of the event, which was linked to today’s Armistice Day commemorations with guests invited to the Bed-In to discuss the role that war plays in achieving piece.
Founder of the whistleblowing website behind the Iraq war logs leak Julian Assange is in the running for Time magazine’s 2010 Person of the Year.
The WikiLeaks editor is part of a varied shortlist, which includes controversial broadcaster Glenn Beck, the Chilean Miners, Lady Gaga, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and “The Unemployed American”. The magazine will select a person, group, couple, idea, place etc that for better or worse has been most influential in 2010.
At time of writing, Assange was leading the polls in terms of total votes, but behind the Daily Show’s Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert in terms of influence rating.
Russian journalist Mikhail Beketov, who was left handicapped in 2008 after a beating by unidentified assailants thought to be provoked by his reporting, has been convicted of defamation.
According to the Independent’s report, Beketov, who lost a leg in the attack and was left unable to speak, was issued with a fine of 5,000 roubles (£100) for defaming an official that he criticised in his coverage of the destruction of the Khimki forest near Moscow as editor of the Khimkinskaya Pravda newspaper.
Full story on Independent.co.uk at this link…
Related reading: ‘The problem with journalism in Russia is not censorship, that would be easy to deal with’ by Alexey Kovalev