Category Archives: Editors’ pick

Telegraph: New court order bans journalists from approaching witnesses

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The Daily Telegraph’s health correspondent Martin Beckford has reported an order has been made in the Court of Protection banning approaches to witnesses in a case involving an individual referred to only as ‘M’ and addresses linked to the main parties.

The injunction warns: “If you disobey this order you may be found guilty of contempt of court and may be sent to prison or fined or your assets may be seized.”

It goes on to say that the order – which will remain in effect “during the lifetime of M” – bans anyone who is sent it from “communicating with M or with any other member of M’s family, whether orally in person, or by telephoning, text message, email or other means”.

According to the Telegraph the injunction lists 65 different people who must not be contacted, except through a solicitor.

The order also allegedly bans reporters from going within 50 metres of four properties listed.

The full Telegraph report can be found here…

BBC: West Midlands Police Tweet from court

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The BBC reported today that West Midlands Police sent members of staff to Birmingham Magistrates’ Court to Tweet cases during the course of the morning.

Ch Supt Stephen Anderson said there had been a decline in court reporting in recent years.

He said the initiative was designed to make the public more aware of the cases police deal with.

The force sent its own staff into court for a morning on Tuesday to cover the cases and post them online minutes after they had concluded.

See the full BBC report here…

Are newspapers still sending people to cover court on a regular basis or are only the high profile cases covered?

New focus for relauched TBD.com and WJLA.com

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Local news and community website for Washington DC TBD.com and its sister site WJLA.com are planning to relaunch next week, following the downsizing of TBD.com in February.

In a post on TBD.com outlining the changes, it is said the new WJLA.com will offer stories from regional crime, weather and transportation reports and in-depth looks at health and medicine to features on big national and international stories.

TBD.com on the other hand will look through information from news sources across the area and offer them up alongside original reporting “on the area’s arts and entertainment scene, news, crime, sex and gender, groceries and transportation”.

Earlier this year Journalism.co.uk reported that TBD.com was shedding most of its staff after just six months and would stop most of its general news and sports coverage.

Slovakian media goes behind the paywall

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Yesterday nine news outlets in Slovakia joined together to put up a joint paywall in front of parts of its content – some more than others – as part of a new premium content subscription model by Piano Media.

The platform means users pay a monthly fee of €2.90 ($4.20) for unlimited access to all sites.

Once users have subscribed they will automatically be logged in to all of the participating sites, which in Slovakia currently includes Pravda and SME, along with video portals, tv stations and magazines.

Publishers have decided how much content they wish to place behind the paywall, some closing almost all their content to non-paying users while others are leaving general news free and instead selecting content such as commentaries as premium material to be paid for.

The paywall launched yesterday with a free two-week trial, with charges coming into effect from 2 May.

We spoke to Piano Media CEO Tomas Bella, about the reaction from within Slovakia so far.

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In the coming weeks and months there are plans to incorporate the subscriptions within Internet Service Provider packages, to be offered to users when they sign up for their connection, as well as launches in other countries such as the Czech Republic.

Bella told Journalism.co.uk the aim is for after the first year to have 0.8 to 1.5 per cent of internet users paying subscriptions to the system and five to 15 per cent after three or four years.

Brand Republic: ComScore data sees Mail Online overtake HuffPo

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ComScore unique visitors data for March suggests news and aggregation site the Huffington Post was overtaken by MailOnline in the same month the Post was sold to AOL for $315m, Brand Republic reports today.

According to the global market researcher, MailOnline achieved a 27 per cent rise in unique visitors between February and last month, to 39,635,000, while a 20 per cent lift at the Huffington Post took it to 38,429,000.

Both titles are still behind the New York Times through which, according to the report, saw traffic rise by 41 per cent to a record 61,964,000 unique users around the world.

See the full Brand Republic report here…

Media release: Al Jazeera launches new social media show The Stream

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Al Jazeera this week confirmed the launched its new social media show The Stream, which will aggregate stories from online sources and discussions.

The broadcaster claims the show is “the first of its kind” and demonstrates its “commitment to using new media as a key source for news and information”.

At the media140 conference last week, Al Jazeera’s head of social media Riyaad Minty spoke about the value of online sources such as bloggers within the country before and during the revolutions. He said that at its peak Al Jazeera’s citizen media platform Sharek was receiving up to 1,600 videos per day, prompting the broadcaster to work on building its resources to dealing with, and verifying, this material.

The Stream, which launched this week in beta form with broadcasting due to begin in May, will monitor activity on the web and use live breaking accounts to present its viewers “with real-time development from around the world” a release said.

There is also a microsite for the show which “will allow the conversation to continue 24-hours per day”.

Visitors are encouraged to take part in the editorial direction of the show by adding comments and links and will have the opportunity to watch the final programming preparations in the five minutes before the show goes live on air.

Citizenside: Al Jazeera Talk blogger responsible for Facebook page that took down Mubarak

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According to a video report from citizen press agency Citizenside, it was an Al Jazeera Talk blogger, a member of the Egyptian army, that created and managed the Facebook page central to the uprisings in the country.

So far only Google engineer Wael Ghonim has been credited with administrating the page.

In the video, Ahmed Ashour, managing director of Al Jazeera Talk, speaks to Citizenside editor-in-chief Philip Trippenbach.

Shortlist announced for 2011 Professional Publishers Association awards

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The Professional Publishers Association has published the shortlist for its PPA Awards 2011 online, which can be found here.

The awards cover 22 categories in total, with the winners due to be announced at a ceremony on 15 June.

In the consumer magazine of the year category titles by Hachette Filipacchi UK, National Magazine Company, Conde Nast, IPC Media, BBC Magazines, ShortList Media, Dennis Publishing and Which? all made the cut.

Vince Cable on Telegraph recording: “I thought about resigning”

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Business secretary Vince Cable had thought about resigning following the exposés by the Daily Telegraph on comments he made while being secretly recorded by undercover journalists, the BBC reported today.

Cable was stripped of the responsibility for making a decision over News Corp’s bid for BSkyB following the comments he made, which included him saying he had “declared war on Mr Murdoch”.

Cable was being recorded by the reporters, who posed as Lib Dem voters in his constituency. The Press Complaints Commission said in January it would be investigating the “use of subterfuge”.

Asked by BBC World At One, broadcast today, reporter Becky Milligan if he had thought at the time that he should resign Cable said he had “certainly thought about it”.

The people who I’m closest to and have the most respect for, including my own family of course, thought that wasn’t the right thing to do.

… That six weeks or so was quite dreadful. You’re under a lot of pressure, political and emotional, you discover you’re friends.

Later asked if David Cameron and Nick Clegg were supportive he said they wanted to keep him in the government, but “were not happy about what had happened”.

Judge calls for test civil cases for phone-hacking victims

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On Friday the High Court heard a number of phone hacking cases brought by a group of public figures against the News of the World, at a case management conference.

On Saturday the International Forum for Responsible Media blog reported that Mr Justice Vos suggested there should be four test civil cases “at a well-advanced stage”.

The selection is to be discussed by the claimants’ lawyers, Inforrm’s report by Judith Townend added, ahead of the next case management conference due to take place on 20 May.

Mr Justice Vos said he was most interested in finding out what happened, the extent of the interception activity, and what damages should be awarded.

He was keen to find the most time efficient way of doing this, with minimal cost: “Otherwise we will be going on forever. Some people may want to, but I don’t”.

The court had got to try a specific case and “can’t just try it in the ether”. There should be a guide as to what damages should be given in specific circumstances. For this reason, the cases selected would cover a range of issues. A trial – which would also cover generic issues – should be held at the end of 2011, or the beginning of next year.

Earlier this month News International admitted liability in a number of cases brought against the News of the World for phone hacking between 2004 and 2006.

In an announcement the owner of the tabloid said it would be making an “unreserved apology” to some of the claimants taking civil action against the title, in cases meeting “specific criteria”.