Author Archives: Rachel Bartlett

About Rachel Bartlett

Rachel Bartlett is editor of Journalism.co.uk

Full Leveson inquiry statements from NUJ and Guardian

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Guardian's Alan Rusbridger speaking to the Leveson inquiry. Still taken from video

The Leveson inquiry into press standards heard from key industry figures today, including representatives for the National Union of Journalists, the Guardian and the legal representative of alleged “victims” given core participant status.

Michelle Stanistreet, general secretary of the NUJ spoke first, describing the Press Complaints Commission as “little more than a self-serving gentleman’s club, and not a very good one at that”.

She also accused the system of having “failed, and abysmally so”. Her full statement to the inquiry has been published on the NUJ’s site here.

The inquiry also heard from editor-in-chief of the Guardian Alan Rusbridger, who has posted his statement in full online.

Near the beginning of his statement Rusbridger highlights the shifts which have taken place within the industry and are affecting journalists:

We also live in a world in which every reader becomes a potential fact checker. Social media allows anyone to respond to, expose, highlight, add to, clarify or contradict what we write. We have the choice whether to pretend this world of response doesn’t exist, or to incorporate it into what we do.

The more we incorporate it, the more journalism becomes, as it were, plastic. There will be less pretence that we are telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth about a story, frozen at the moment it is published – what Walter Lippman in 1922 called the confusion between “news” and “truth”. A journalist today lives with the knowledge that there will be an external reaction to much of what she or he writes within minutes of publication. Journalism today is often less a snapshot, more a moving picture.

Video of today’s hearing is available to view on the Leveson inquiry website here.

RSF: Three reporters arrested in one week in Rwanda

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In a report on three journalists being arrested within days of each other in Rwanda, Reporters Without Borders describes the “extreme vulnerability” of the press in the country. According to the RSF report two of the reporters have since been released, but one is still being held.

“This series of arrests has again highlighted the extreme vulnerability of journalists in Rwanda,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We call on the authorities to publicly explain why these journalists have been held, and to release the third one immediately. We also urge the government to move forward with its proposed reform of the press law, which hopefully will protect journalists from arbitrary arrest and detention.”

Read the RSF report on the arrests here.

Journalisted Weekly: Armistice, Berlusconi and James Murdoch

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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.

Armistice, Berlusconi and James Murdoch

for the week ending Sunday 13 November

  • Coverage of the Armistice commemorations led the week’s news agenda
  • Silvio Berlusconi’s resignation and James Murdoch’s Select Committee appearance covered lots
  • EDL arrests, Tendulkar run record, second Northampton nightclub death and Welsh Assembly deadlock covered little

Covered lots

Covered little

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

Celebrity vs. serious

Arab spring (countries & current leaders)

Who wrote a lot about… the IAEA’s report exposing Iran’s nuclear ambitions

Long form journalism

Journalists who have updated their profile

  • David Newbury is music editor at Londonist and also works as music critic for The Line Of Best Fit, and as a freelance music, arts and fashion writer at Quietus. He has experience at The Scotsman, Northern Echo, Leicester Mercury, The Guardian and Scotland On Sunday. He has an NCTJ Preliminary Certificate in Newspaper Journalism from Lambeth College and a BA in Geography from the University of Leicester. You can follow David on Twitter @HiDavidNewbury
  • Rob Langston is associate editor at Fundweb.co.uk. He has previously worked as deputy editor at What Investment, senior reporter at Investment Adviser and FTAdviser.com and reporter for Investment Adviser, Insurance Insider and Niche Personal Loans. He has a BA in English with Italian from the University of Sussex at Brighton and won the Headlinemoney Trade Journalist of the Year award in 2010. Follow Rob on Twitter @rob_langston

The Media Standards Trust, which runs journalisted, won the ‘One to Watch’ category at this year’s Prospect Think Tank Awards

Read about our campaign for the full exposure of phone hacking and other illegal forms of intrusion at the Hacked Off website

Visit the Media Standards Trust’s Churnalism.com – a public service for distinguishing journalism from churnalism

Read the MST’s submission to parliament’s Joint Committee on Privacy and Injunctions and the House of Lords Communications Select Committee on investigative journalism

The Orwell Prize 2012 is now open for entries following a launch debate on ‘Writing the Riots’

For the latest instalment of Tobias Grubbe, journalisted’s 18th century jobbing journalist, go to journalisted.com/tobias-grubbe

CNN launches new iReport site

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CNN this week unveiled its new iReport site which, according to a blog post about the changes, will offer greater personalisation, an enhanced community through “groups” and a “favourite button”.

iReport is CNN’s platform for user-generated content, where non-journalists submit video stories, the best of which are broadcast on the news channel.

The update comes five years after iReport was launched and, according to CNN’s post, now has a community of “nearly a million people”.

Last month at news:rewired – connected journalism, CNN digital producer Dominique van Heerden shared some interesting statistics on iReport, such as that CNN had published 912,000 iReports since its launch, with 15,000 iReports published on average every month and 2.4 million unique users in June 2011. PVC piepūšamās gumijas laivas labas cenas, laivas, benzīna dzinēji un citi aksesuāri – Argo Drive

In an article on the new version iReport, lostremote’s Natan Edelsburg said the aim was “to create the largest ‘social network for news,’ according to Lila King, participation director at CNN”.

Read lostremote’s report here.

#soe11: Winners of NCTJ awards for excellence

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The National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ) today announced the winners of its awards for excellence in journalism, before an audience of editors at the Society of Editors conference.

The 11 winners are listed below:

Student news journalism of the year: Scarlett Wrench, junior sub- editor at Men’s Health

Trainee news journalism of the year: Rachel Butler, trainee journalist at the Derby Telegraph

Student sports journalism of the year: Tim Groves, Planet Rugby/freelance

Trainee sports journalism of the year: Rob Setchell, the Cambridgeshire Times/Wisbech Standard

Student features of the year: Jessica Baldwin, freelance features writer

Trainee features of the year: Kate Proctor, chief writer for Limited Edition, Westmorland Gazette

Student top scoop of the year: Larisa Brown, Daily Mail graduate trainee

Trainee top scoop of the year: Andrew Dickens, Cambridge News trainee

Photographer of the year: Matthew Harrison, freelance

Reporter of the year: Robert Alderson, online editor for It’s Nice That

Student journalist of the year: Rosie Taylor, Daily Mail trainee reporter

#soe11: Editors of the Mirror and Times on phone-hacking coverage

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Editors of the Mirror and the Times were today questioned at the Society of Editors conference about their coverage of the phone-hacking scandal.

Editor of the Times James Harding said earlier on in the scandal that the newspaper’s decisions were informed by “a combination of the company denying it, police saying there was nothing to see and an issue of rivalry”.

I look back and think why didn’t we jump on it? There’s often the sense that there’s an agenda there so I think when that story broke in the Guardian there was a tendency to see that and when news broke the police came out and said there’s nothing to see here. That did inform the thinking.

It was only as a few more pieces fell into place … I remember thinking there is something that is seriously wrong here.

He said following more allegations of wrongdoing the “engines fired up a bit” at the Times and there was “a real attempt to ensure we were reporting on it as any other story.”

Editor of the Mirror Richard Wallace added that when it first started “it was very much a meeja story”.

We didn’t think our readers were interested in it and frankly they weren’t.

#followjourn – @mexicoreporter Deborah Bonello/video journalist

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Who? Deborah Bonello

Where? Deborah is founder of MexicoReporter.com and a video journalist for outlets including AFP and FT.

Twitter? @mexicoreporter

Just as we like to supply you with fresh and innovative tips, we are recommending journalists to follow online too. Recommended journalists can be from any sector of the industry: please send suggestions (you can nominate yourself) to rachel at journalism.co.uk; or to @journalismnews.

‘Silencing the messenger is all too often the name of the game’: Mark Austin speaks at St Bride’s

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The address given by ITV News at Ten presenter Mark Austin at St Bride’s Church yesterday (Wednesday), for the service to commemorate journalists who have died while covering conflicts across the world, has been published online.

He opened by talking about his own recent travels with a cameraman to Mogadishu in Somalia, and the “considerable risk” faced. He said the need to resort to protection from armed men “to watch our backs every step of the way” was a cause of “considerable sadness, and in a sense, guilt”.

Sadness, because of what it says about what has happened to our trade. Where once the neutrality and independence of the media was widely recognised and respected, now it’s clear journalists are being specifically targeted or sought out by those who fear the truth emerging. It’s no longer enough to blame the messenger, it seems. Silencing the messenger is all too often the name of the game now. And guilt because of the glaring inequality that now exists in journalism. I can insist on that security in Somalia, I am insured and have the backup of a large organisation with considerable resources and which makes safety a priority. But by and large the journalists we should be thinking about and honouring tonight have no such protection . They are the local reporters and photographers and freelancers in places like Somalia, who put their lives on the line every single day.

See his full address here.

Editor of BBC News website outlines live coverage trial

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Over on the Editors blog BBC website editor Steve Herrmann discusses how the broadcaster is currently trialling some changes to its use of live pages to develop the format from simply being built around big news stories, to becoming a more regular feature.

The format has been a big success in terms of usage, so we’re thinking about what more we could do with it. We think the pages are not necessarily just about breaking news – they are also a real-time showcase of the best of what we (and others) are doing, so we’ve been wondering whether – and how – we could make this approach work as a regular feature on the site rather than just something we use around big stories. What would it take and how would we need to organise ourselves differently in the newsroom and beyond?

So we’re currently trying some of this out – you can see an example here. This isn’t the first trial we’ve done, and it won’t be the last, and the approach and format may change, because these tests allow us to get valuable insights into how we might develop it, what works and what doesn’t.

Herrmann adds that part of this trial will also look at bringing the BBC’s news and social media output closer together, referring to a recent move by the BBC to reduce its use of automated feeds on its @BBCNews and @BBCWorld twitter accounts.

 

Journalisted Weekly: Greece in crisis and cricket match-fixing

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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.

Greece in crisis and cricket match-fixing

for the week ending Sunday 6 November

  • Greek politics and economics dominated this week’s news
  • Vote of confidence in Greek PM and cricket match-fixing guilty verdict covered lots
  • Gaza flotilla, alcohol minimum pricing and China mine explosion covered little

Covered lots

  • Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou announces a referendum on a new EU bailout package, subsequently calling it off, 522 articles (including references to ‘Greek Tragedy’, 18 articles)
  • Papandreou survives a vote of confidence, leading to coalition talks and his eventual decision to step down, 252 articles
  • Three Pakistani cricket players are convicted of match fixing, 192 articles
  • More than thirty vehicles are involved in a huge crash on the M5 motorway, 82 articles

Covered little

  • Israeli naval forces intercept flotilla en route to Gaza Strip, 14 articles
  • Scotland could become first EU nation to introduce minimum pricing for alcohol, 13 articles
  • 45 miners rescued and 8 killed in mine explosion and cave-in near Sanmenxia city in China, 10 articles
  • Alasdair McDonnell elected leader of Social Democratic and Labour Party in Northern Ireland, 10 articles
  • 14 civilians killed in Colombia landslide, 4 articles

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

Celebrity vs. serious

Arab spring (countries & current leaders)

Who wrote a lot about… the negotiations between Occupy LSX protesters and St Paul’s clergy

Long form journalism

Journalists who have updated their profile

  • Catriona MacPhee is Lochaber district reporter at the Press and Journal. She has freelanced for the Big Issue, Glasgow Evening Times, Sunday Herald, The List and The Scotsman, as well as working as web editor and media officer for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, press assistant for Edinburgh International Festival and a reporter for the Oban Times. She has a BA (Hons)in Journalism Studies and Politics from Stirling University and won NUJ Scottish Student Newswriter of the Year in 2009. Follow Catriona on Twitter: @CatMacPhee
  • Hannah Scott is a book reviewer for the Irish Culture Magazine supplement to the Sunday Times and sub editor in features and live news iPad production. In addition she has held several editorial roles for the Sunday Times and has reported and edited for the Brighton Argus, The Times, Merton Matters, the University of Reading student newspaper and Business in Berkshire. She has an NCTJ in Journalism from News Associates and a BA in English Literature from the University of Reading. She won the NCTJ shorthand award for best 100wpm transcript in 2011 and the Reading University Reporter of the Year in 2008.

The Media Standards Trust, which runs journalisted, won the ‘One to Watch’ category at this year’s Prospect Think Tank Awards

Read about our campaign for the full exposure of phone hacking and other illegal forms of intrusion at the Hacked Off website

Visit the Media Standards Trust’s Churnalism.com – a public service for distinguishing journalism from churnalism

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