WSJ.com runs a short interview with BBC Worldwide chief executive John Smith:
“The commercial arm of the British Broadcasting Corp., BBC Worldwide, and public service broadcaster Channel 4, could agree a joint venture within weeks, although it would be a scaled down version of the original proposals, BBC Worldwide chief executive John Smith told Dow Jones Newswires Tuesday.”
MediaGuardian is also running news of the tie-up at this link.
The National Union of Journalists announced today that its members at Trinity Mirror in Birmingham have ‘unanimously passed a motion of no confidence in the company’s management of its regional titles.’
The motion was agreed by the chapels from the Birmingham Post, Mail, Sunday Mercury and Midlands Weekly Media, it said in a release.
“The big newspaper companies are following a policy of slash and burn – and the people who work there have had enough,” said Chris Morley, NUJ Northern organiser and a former father of the Post and Mail chapel.
“Trinity Mirror would rather close titles than put them up for sale – giving them the chance to survive under another owner.
“The Walsall Observer used to sell more than 30,000 copies a week. It is a much-loved local institution.”
NUJ members at the Birmingham titles are currently balloting for action, following the announcement of job cuts and closure of weekly titles.
At the weekend, the Financial Times reported that the Birmingham post might soon cease daily publication.
The chapels sent this letter to Trinity Mirror chief executive Sly Bailey:
Dear Ms Bailey,
The Birmingham and Midlands NUJ Chapels find ourselves in dispute with the company over cuts and redundancies.
Regretfully the unanimous view of members is that while some difficulties are expected in a recession, the successive assaults on this business goes way beyond that and in fact continue a trend of cutbacks which began long before the economic downturn.
Therefore the BPM Media and Midlands Weekly Media chapels have unanimously backed a proposal from the floor for a vote of no confidence in Trinity Mirror’s management of its regional titles.
The motion, which will be issued to the newspaper trade media, states:
“Journalists, already having recently suffered a major round of redundancies. massive structural change and being the testing ground for new, unproven IT systems, have responded to these greater workloads and longer hours, with professionalism and much good will to ensure deadlines are met and quality is maintained.
“This has been thrown back in their faces and they have been betrayed by a management with a single aim – the pursuit of short term profit through cost reduction, asset sale and redundancy. This one-trick pony has no plan for the future and no concept of how to grow the local news, advertising and publishing business.
“Under this management we fear that within a few years there will be no Birmingham Post, Mail, Mercury and weeklies. Titles which have served communities and made profits for decades in the face of recession, depression, war, the advent of radio, television and recently the internet, are either being closed now or are in immediate danger if the present policy of cut, cut, cut continues.
“The company has accused the union of ignoring the disputes procedure in immediately calling a ballot for industrial action in the face of these cuts. However, the company broke its agreements with the recognised unions in imposing a pay freeze without negotiation or consultation at the start of this year.
“We believe closing titles such as the Walsall Observer, which has been published for more than 150 years, and proposals we believe are being considered to cut publication of the Birmingham Post and stop same day publication of the Birmingham Mail are reckless and negligent as it sends out the message that this company is failing and will scare advertisers away.”
Will the PCC question News of the World’s Stuart Kuttner, who yesterday stepped down as the paper’s managing director, if it re-opens the investigation into phone hacking?
[Update 10.07.09: News International said the ‘departure of managing editor Stuart Kuttner has no connection whatsoever’ with events referred to in a statement]
In evidence given to the House of Commons culture select committee in April, Nick Davies criticised the PCC for failing to hold the News of the World to account on charges of phone hacking:
Mr Davies: If you say to [Andy] Coulson, “Come and give evidence even though you are no longer an editor” and if he says, “No” then that is an interesting tactical failure on his part. It is not just the editor of the paper; what about the managing editor? Why not call Stuart Kuttner, the managing editor of the News of the World, who has been there for years and who has a special responsibility for contracts and money? Why not call him to give evidence? There was a real will on the part of the PCC to avoid uncovering the truth about phone hacking.”
The PCC is now looking at the case again in light of Nick Davies’ exclusive report for the Guardian and could re-open the investigation. So who will they question?
Stuart Kuttner, as Davies suggested? “Kuttner will remain at the News of the World part time to work on special projects for the tabloid, including its Sarah’s Law campaign,” the Guardian reported yesterday.
The PCC decided not to question former News of the World editor Andy Coulson (as we write, he is still the Conservative Party’s communications director) for its 2007 inquiry, citing that he was not longer ‘answerable to the PCC’. But would they question Kuttner, in his new part-time role?
In 2007 the PCC stated in its report on subterfuge and newsgathering:
“Despite Mr Myler’s [new News of the World editor] appointment, the question arose whether the PCC should ask Mr Coulson to give an account of what had gone wrong. The PCC decided not to do so. Given that the PCC does not – and should not – have statutory powers of investigation and prosecution, there could be no question of trying to duplicate the lengthy police investigation. Furthermore, Mr Coulson was, following his resignation, no longer answerable to the PCC, whose jurisdiction covers journalists working for publications that subscribe to the self-regulatory system through the Press Standards Board of Finance.
“As a result, that part of the investigation involving the News of the World was conducted by the Director of the PCC with Mr Myler. The Chairman of the Commission also discussed the matter on a number of occasions with the Chief Executive of News International, Mr Les Hinton.”
“Any suggestion that further transgressions have occurred since its report was published in 2007 will be investigated without delay. In the meantime, the PCC is contacting the Guardian newspaper and the Information Commissioner for any further specific information in relation to the claims, published today about the older cases, which suggest the Commission has been misled at any stage of its inquiries into these matters.”
Reed Business Information has sold its travel publishing division, which includes Gazetteers.com, Travolution and Travel Weekly, to entrepreneur Clive Jacobs.
Simon Ferguson, former publishing director of the group’s travel portfolio, who left RBI in March, struck the deal and will become chief executive of the newly created TW Group Ltd.
David Fordham, chief executive of Iliffe News and Media, has been appointed as president of the Newspaper Society.
Georgina Harvey, Trinity Mirror Regionals managing director, has been named as vice president.
“Rebekah Wade, the editor of the Sun, is to become chief executive of News International from September.”
MediaGuardian predicted the move in March earlier this year.
In an interview with Dow Jones, reproduced by the Morning Star, Axel Springer chief executive Mathias Doepfner says customers will be willing to pay for ‘online quality content’ within the next five years.
Significantly, Doepfner adds: “However, our business cases aren’t based on a breakthrough of paid content but will work anyhow.”
The chief exec plans to generate 50 per cent of Axel Springer’s sales from online operations within the next 10 years, according to the report.
Amidst what was otherwise a fairly gloomy House of Commons select committee session on the future of local media in the UK [see Claire Enders’ prediction that half of the UK’s regional newspapers will close in five years and her comments on bloggers], Johnston Press chief executive John Fry remained staunchly optimistic about the cyclical/structural elements of the decline in local media.
While all members of the panel agreed that this was the worst crisis faced by local media in the industry’s history, Fry said the decline in advertising revenues for his group was more cyclical than structural.
“That implies that there will be a bounce in advertising when that changes. From here onwards we’re likely to bottom out. When the economy recovers we’ll see a recovery in advertising,” he said.
Guardian Media Group chief executive Carolyn McCall was quick to temper Fry’s optimism:
“I don’t believe the prospects for recovery, particularly in classified advertising are particularly strong. I don’t expect to see a great deal of those three big markets – I don’t think bounce is the right word – I think it will come back slowly, it will come back in a different form or shape,” she said.
“The structural change is too profound and the economic recession has just hammered it. Deregulation is one step towards helping. It’s not a panacea. It raises all sorts of important issues about jobs.
“One thing we’re going to have to face about this industry is that it’s going to be a smaller industry with less people in it. Consolidation will help because then the clustering of assets in the right place, will makes more sense, you’ll get more scale.”
All three panellists (Fry, McCall and Trinity Mirror’s Sly Bailey) taking part in the evidence session (which had earlier taken comments from Claire Enders and DC Thomson’s Christopher Thomson) supported consolidation and the relaxation of newspaper merger rules to help local newspapers.
Yet it was McCall again with the most sensible comments – a range of issues and possible solutions need to be considered: discussions about aggregators; consolidation; support for web development; the use of part-paid, part-free access; state-funding; and the problem of council newspapers.
The industry needs to move away from the display advertising model to – not just one business model – but lots of business models, she added.
If any of them can sustain quality local journalism, none should be ruled out, she said, echoing comments from the Society of Editor’s executive director Bob Satchwell to Journalism.co.uk last week.
Publically funded body, the Consumer Council, paid £1,730 for an article on its outgoing chief executive, Eleanor Gill, to appear in Northern Ireland’s Agenda magazine, the BBC reports – raising questions of editorial independence and the use of taxpayers money are raised by this.
But, says Rick Hill, chairman of the Consumer Council:
“It’s the Consumer Council’s role to make the consumer voice heard and make it count.
“We choose various methods to communicate that voice, one being buying editorial space in professional, trade or business magazines.
“The Consumer Council negotiated an annual block fee with Agenda NI of £7,415 in April 2008 to submit five articles over a 12-month period.”
The Washington Post’s chief executive, Donald Graham, has confirmed that the title has been holding talks with Google chief executive Eric Schmidt about a possible collaboration on new ways of presenting news.
No more specific details as yet.