Category Archives: Editors’ pick

Pentagon Papers released in full on 40th anniversary of leak

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It was 40 years ago when parts of the ‘Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force’, or more widely known ‘Pentagon Papers’, were first leaked to and published by the press.

First by the New York Times, on this very day, 13 June, in 1971, before a court order was won by the government to prevent further publication. Other newspapers followed the Times’ lead, but were soon also restrained. Then at the end of the month the United States Supreme Court ruled publication could resume.

And today, 40 years on from the Times’ first publication of the leaked documents, the report is being released in full by the National Archives, along with the Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon Presidential libraries, filling 48 boxes with around 7,000 declassified pages. According to the National Archives about 34 per cent of the report is being made available for the first time, with no redactions and with all the supplemental back-documentation included.

In an Associated Press report on the release, Daniel Ellsberg, the former private foreign policy analyst who leaked the papers, gives his thoughts on the significance of today’s release.

Most of it has come out in congressional forums and by other means, and Ellsberg plucked out the best when he painstakingly photocopied pages that he spirited from a safe night after night, and returned in the mornings. He told The Associated Press the value in Monday’s release was in having the entire study finally brought together and put online, giving today’s generations ready access to it.

BBC: Journalists protest against killing of investigative reporter

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The BBC reported today that journalists had held a protest to demonstrate against the killing of Jyotirmoy Dey, an investigative journalist who worked for Mid Day newspaper in Mumbai.

According to reports, Dey was killed after being shot by four men on motorcycles on Saturday, as he returned to his home. Sachin Kalbag, executive editor of the Mid Day newspaper, was quoted as saying Dey brought depth to its investigative reporting and that he worked “with honesty and integrity”.

India appeared on the Committee to Protect Journalists’ Impunity Index earlier this month, ranking at number 13, based on the number of unsolved journalist murders per 1 million inhabitants.

Ed Balls denies Telegraph accusation of ‘plot’ to overthrow Blair

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The Telegraph today published a series of documents including letters said to have been sent between former prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, revealing what the newspaper called “the extraordinary rift at the heart of Labour”.

The cache of documents show for the first time Mr Brown’s feelings towards Mr Blair in his own words and handwriting, material which has previously only been the subject of speculation and second-hand reports from anonymous sources.

In its report on the contents of the files, more than 30 memos reportedly belonging to Labour MP and former education secretary Ed Balls, the Telegraph accuses the MP of being involved in a “plot” to overthrow Blair, an allegation which he told the BBC today is “not true”.

Look I’m not going to deny to you there weren’t tensions, there weren’t arguments. It was hard during that period … But the allegation there was a plot, that there was nastiness, brutality, is just not true. It’s not justified either by the documents themselves or by what was actually happening at the time.

The Cabinet Office has since confirmed it is looking at whether the particular set of papers was in the possession of any government department, and only then would it look at whether a breach had occurred. Following this announcement the Guardian reports that education secretary Michael Gove said he was “confident his office will be cleared”.

‘Having blog in our name was causing problems’: Lichfield Blog renamed

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Hyperlocal news and community site the Lichfield Blog has been renamed Lichfield Live.

Writing on the Lichfield Community Media blog today, director Philip John says that he had previously blocked the name change, concerned that it was “too risky, potentially losing the reputation we had built up”.

But it became “hard to escape the fact that having ‘blog’ in our name was causing problems with how we were perceived”, he says.

Philip explains some of the other reasons behind the name change:

“Lichfield Live” is more suitable for several reasons;

  • It sounds new. We’re very much a “new media” operation.
  • It sounds timely. We’ve built a reputation for being first to have the news about what’s going on in Lichfield.
  • It fits with what’s on. Our most popular section is “What’s On” and nicely ties into events.

The Lichfield Blog isn’t dead though, it’ll carry on as a place for comment and opinion pieces from columnists “who live in, work in or represent Lichfield”. A new site is also due, which will cover the Burntwood & Chasetown region.

See the new Lichfield Live site at this link.

Guardian: Ministers agree on terms of reference for privacy committee

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The Guardian reports today that culture secretary Jeremy Hunt and justice secretary Ken Clarke have agreed on terms of reference for the committee of MPs and peers to look at the balance between the rights to privacy and freedom of expression.

David Cameron called for a joint committee to be established following the celebrity injunction furore. The terms include looking at the issue of enforcement in online publishing, which has been at the heart of recent events and controversies.

According to the Guardian the full terms of reference are:

  • To consider the operation of the current law in relation to privacy and the use of anonymity injunctions and superinjunctions and to advise the government on any improvements that should be made.

In particular, to consider:

  • How the current law, both statutory and common, has operated in practice.
  • How issues relating to determining the balance between privacy and freedom of expression, including particularly determining whether there is a public interest in material concerning peoples private and family life, could best be decided.
  • Issues relating to the enforcement of anonymity injunctions and superinjunctions, including in relation to publication on the internet, parliamentary privilege and the rule of law.
  • The role of the press and issues relating to press complaints and self-regulation in the context of privacy matters, including the role of the Press Complaints Commission and Ofcom.

paidContent: Guardian News & Media director of international leaving later this year

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The director of international at Guardian News & Media, Stella Beaumont, is to leave later this year, it was announced this week. Beaumont has worked at the news group for 28 years and will depart after helping to launch and oversee the company’s new digital operation in the US.

In a report paidContent quotes Guardian Media Group CEO Andrew Miller as telling staff that reporting lines for ContentNext, publisher of GNM-owned paidContent, following Beaumont’s departure, “will be determined as part of the wider planning for our American operation”.

Read more here…

Reporters to get author pages with Google’s new authorship markup

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On its official blog this week Google announced it was to start supporting “authorship markup — a way to connect authors with their content on the web”. According to the post this will enable websites to publicly link within their site from content to author pages.

For example, if an author at the New York Times has written dozens of articles, using this markup, the webmaster can connect these articles with a New York Times author page. An author page describes and identifies the author, and can include things like the author’s bio, photo, articles and other links.

According to Google it has worked with sites including the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNET and the New Yorker, prior to the launch of the markup to help get them set up. The markup will also been added to everything hosted by YouTube and Blogger, Google added.

For a more detailed description of how authorship works see the neat description below by the Search Engine Journal:

Sites that have large portions of content written by a specific author can denote the author of each piece of content and can specify the author’s page on the site. The author page can then include markup that specifies what select data on the page is. Google can then display portions of the specified data from the search engine results page, giving direct links to the author’s page, other content from the same writer, and other pages that belong to the same author (such as social sites).

Curation tool Bundlr goes public

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Content curation tool Bundlr goes public today, making it accessible for people to sign up through Twitter and Facebook instead of by invitation only.

The new public version also boasts some additional features, including a embedding, timeline visualisation, and a search function for users and bundles.

Bundlr is based in Coimbra, Portugal, and has a three-strong team consisting of Filipe Batista, Sérgio Santos, and Pedro Gaspar.

The team came to Journalism.co.uk’s most recent news:rewired event, and created a bundle with blogs, quotes, tweets, audio and images from the day. See the news:rewired bundle at this link.

You can see more about the launch and sign up on the Bundlr site.

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Guardian launches Comment Network on Comment is free

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The Guardian today announced the launch of the Guardian Comment Network on Comment is free. The site says it has partnered with a range of websites which they will curate content from and cross-post, in a bid to break down “barriers between us and them”.

We hope to act as curators for the best of this content, while acknowledging that we as editors are not the only ones who can or should decide on the direction of Comment is free on any given day. We already draw on the inspiration and insights of our users through series such as You told us, the People’s panel and Anywhere but Westminster. We want to extend that to the many bloggers out there who are often just as good as Guardian journalists – if not better – at spotting stories and responding quickly and imaginatively to them.

This follows similar developments in content curation across other areas of the site, as outlined by Dan Sabbagh to Journalism.co.uk when he joined the Guardian last year as its new head of media and technology.

BBC responds to Chancellor’s criticism of financial reporting

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Yesterday on BBC Radio Four’s Today programme the Chancellor George Osborne seemed to suggest that the BBC‘s reporting on the economy had at times focused on more ‘bad news’ stories than positive, saying he wanted to see “more balance”.

I’ve listened to news bulletins on your programme for the last year. Every time there’s an unfortunate loss of jobs somewhere, a few hundred jobs, it’s on the news bulletin. I’ve not yet heard a single news bulletin that says 400,000 new jobs have been created over the past year, that just doesn’t appear on the news.

Last week there was a disappointing manufacturing survey, it was on the news, today there’s a more encouraging manufacturing survey, its not on the news. I think what I’m asking for is a bit more balance in the way we look at the British economy at the moment.

Later that day editor of the BBC News business and economics unit Jeremy Hillman responded via the Editors Blog to the specific claims.

… had the chancellor been listening carefully to Today just an hour earlier (he seemed to suggest he had been but may have missed it) he would have heard our economics editor Stephanie Flanders say clearly that over the last year employment has been very strong and that private employment was especially strong.

Viewers of our main Six and Ten O’Clock News bulletins will know that virtually every single time we report unemployment figures we also give the employment figure for fairness and balance. It’s also worth noting that in our heavily read online coverage we have reported on at least seven job creation stories in just the last few of weeks.

He did accept however that at times the BBC may over-emphasise or under-emphasise something.

That always ensures a lively and valuable editorial discussion in the newsroom. Very occasionally we may miss something interesting completely, though we’ll try to catch up as soon as we realise. While we understand the political context around all our business and economics reporting, our sole purpose is to report and put context around the data for the benefit of all our audiences, reflecting that there are differing points of view and analysis which may occasionally make uncomfortable reading from both sides of the political divide.