Was there a ‘veil of silence’ over international media when it came to covering the buildup up to Israel’s recent invasion of Gaza or has coverage been biased in favour of Palestine, readers’ letters to E&P ask.
Speaking on the Radio 4 Today programme this morning, Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, and the Independent’s first editor Andreas Whittam Smith, expressed their concerns, as well as tentative optimism about the current UK newspaper climate.
“I think we have to face up to the prospect that the first time since the Enlightenment you’re going to have major cities in the UK, in Western democracies, without any kind of verifiable source of news,” said Rusbridger.
“That hasn’t happened for two or three hundred years and I think it is going to have very profound implications,” he said.
Whittam Smith referred to an ‘extremely tough’ environment and said that he was once again being asked on a daily basis whether the Independent will survive.
“The risks to all newspapers are very great,” he said, “[but] the Independent has always been innovative.”
“It has to be innovative again in these circumstances,” he said. Moving into the Daily Mail building ‘is an example of that’ he added. Like other businesses, newspapers will have to ‘share the facilities the customers don’t see’ he said.
He said that people still liked to read print, and that if free newspapers were taken into consideration circulations in the UK are only down by one million: from 14 to 13 million a day.
“People do like the stuff on the printed page – what they don’t like so much any longer is paying for it,” he said.
Rusbridger said that newspaper companies with paternalistic or maternalistic owners would fare better than those ‘with big debt’ and other types of ownership structures.
The Scott Trust [the Guardian’s owner], he said, ‘to some extent protected [the Guardian] from immediate effects of the market’.
Both agreed that there would be newspaper casualties in the near future.
Editor of the News & Record, John Robinson, says that he is often asked why he is not taking up the generous severance package.
“The easy answer is also the true answer: I love what we do. If you believe, as I do, that the purpose of journalism is to provide people with the information they need to be free and self-governing then no other job will do,” he writes.
Stewart Kirkpatrick, former editor of Scotsman.com, and Iain Bruce, former Herald technology editor, say Scotland’s newspaper industry will be dead in five years.
A list of experts ready to comment on breaking news stories is being compiled from which the paper can get ‘instant op-eds’ after a story breaks, says Andrew Rosenthal, editorial page editor.
A section of the website will be given over to these op-eds, adds Rosenthal, and readers and opinion writers will be encouraged to react and contribute to the instant feature.
Well, we could have brought you ‘Flocking Around the Twitmas Tree’, ‘We Three Nings’ or just a straightforward end of the year list (if only to add to our list of lists), but instead we chose this: your sing-along treat to round-up 2008 is the ‘Twelve Days of Online Media Christmas’ (hyperlinked to relevant stories, but bear in mind it’s a selection of picks and not comprehensive…).
On the first day of Christmas my feed read’r brought to me … An editor in a law court
Colin Myler, News of the World
On the second day of Christmas my feed read’r brought to me … Two arrested hacks
Milton Keynes Citizen’s Sally Murrer / ITV’s John Ray (video below)
… And an editor in a law court.
On the third day of Christmas my feed read’r brought to me … Three web gaffes
Steve Jobs and CNN / United Airlines stock collapse / AFP photo ‘altering’
… Two arrested hacks, And an editor in a law court!
On the fourth day of Christmas my feed read’r brought to me … Four journo forums
Wired Journalists / Journalism Research / Visual Editors / Journalism.co.uk forum
… Three web gaffes, Two arrested hacks, And an editor in a law court!
On the fifth day of Christmas my feed read’r brought to me … Five Tweeeeeetin’ friends
Stephen Fry / Paul Carr / John Cleese / Mark Mayhew (Hurricane Gustav) / the Mad Men
… Four journo forums, Three web gaffes, Two arrested hacks, And an editor in a law court!
On the sixth day of Christmas my feed read’r brought to me … Six news sites out-linking
WashingtonPost.com, BBC, NYTimes.com, CNN.com, Drudge Report, Not the AP (they didn’t even want to be linked to)
… Five Tweeeeeetin’ friends, Four journo forums, Three web gaffes, Two arrested hacks, And an editor in a law court!
On the seventh day of Christmas my feed read’r brought to me … Seven feeds a-mashing
Publish2.com, Daylife, Delicious, Digg, Technorati, FriendFeed, Yahoo Pipes
… Six sites out-linking, Five Tweeeeeetin’ friends, Four journo forums, Three web gaffes, Two arrested hacks, And an editor in a law court!
On the eighth day of Christmas my feed read’r brought to me … Eight maps a’plotting
Hurricane Gustav tracker, BBC Beijing Olympics map, PaperCuts newspaper job losses map, Economist pre-election map, NYTimes.com post-election map, Managingnews.com’s newstracker during Chinese earthquake, Interactive maps of Canadian tornado damage, Journalism.co.uk new timeline-maps.
… Seven pipes a-mashing, Six sites out-linking, Five Tweeeeeetin’ friends, Four journo forums, Three web gaffes, Two arrested hacks, And an editor in a law court!
On the ninth day of Christmas my feed read’r brought to me … Nine strikers strikin’
Le Monde, Writers’ Guild of America, Australian Fairfax newspapers, Express Newspapers, Sheffield Star.
(or at least thinking about it…) Trinity Mirror Midlands, Telegraph Media Group, ITV regional, BBC Scotland.
… Eight maps a-plotting, Seven pipes a-mashing, Six sites out-linking, Five Tweeeeeetin’ friends, Four journo forums, Three web gaffes, Two arrested hacks, And an editor in a law court!
On the tenth day of Christmas my feed read’r brought to me … Ten blogs a-blooming
10,000words.net, Adrianmonck.com, Jay Rosen’s PressThink, OnlineJournalismBlog, BBCJournalismLabs, BusinessMediaBlog, RegretTheError.com, Publishing2.com, Spokesman Review’s Daily Briefing, Tomorrow’s News Tomorrow’s Journalists
… Nine strikers strikin’, Eight maps a-plotting, Seven pipes a-mashing, Six sites out-linking, Five Tweeeeeetin’ friends, Four journo forums, Three web gaffes, Two arrested hacks, And an editor in a law court!
On the eleventh day of Christmas my feed read’r brought to me … Eleven papers packing
(up for new offices) The Guardian, the Birmingham Mail, the Independent.
(away their desks forever) NY Sun, Belfast’s La Nua, Kazakhstan’s Law and Justice, Moscow’s The Exile, US Post newspapers, Trinity Mirror weekly titles, Switzerland’s Mittelland, three editions of Spanish Metro.
… Ten blogs a-blooming, Nine strikers strikin’, Eight maps a-plotting, Seven pipes a-mashing, Six sites out-linking, Five Tweeeeeetin’ friends, Four journo forums, Three web gaffes, Two arrested hacks, And an editor in a law court!
On the twelfth day of Christmas my feed read’r brought to me … Twelve sites a-starting
Trinity Mirror mobile sites, outside.in UK, Spot.Us, Hubdub.com, Coventry Telegraph, FT’s Alphaville Long Room, Magicalia, DailyPostCymraeg.co.uk, Time Out Kuala Lumpur, the BusinessDesk Northwest, the Daily Beast.
(and re-focusing) CSMonitor.com.
… Eleven papers packing, Ten blogs a-blooming, Nine strikers strikin’, Eight maps a-plotting, Seven pipes a-mashing, Six sites out-linking, Five Tweeeeeetin’ friends, Four journo forums, Three web gaffes, Two arrested hacks and an editor in a law court!
Having set up a timeline dedicated to reporting on the sweeping job cuts affecting both senior and junior journalists alike, a trend is emerging for laid-off staff to use blogs, Twitter and other online sites and tools to capture their redundancy.
Reports such as Martin Gee’s set of Flickr images from his last day at the San Jose Mercury give a highly individual picture of how these cuts are being felt on a personal level beyond the redundancy figures and prediction stats.
In the summer, the Columbia Journalism Review started its ‘Parting Thoughts’ series, posting responses from journalists leaving the industry or facing redundancy.
At the Gannett Blog, former Gannett editor Jim Hopkins crowdsourced a blogpost of lay-offs by the publisher, listed by newspaper area – at time of writing redundancies at 72 of Gannett’s 85 US titles affected by the company’s latest round of job cuts were accounted for in Hopkins’ post.
In an open blog post last week, Ryan Carson, co-founder of web application design and events agency Carsonified, used the company’s blog to share his thoughts about staff cuts and give the reasons for making them.
Carson went on to give tips for companies looking to recession-proof their business (points that some commenters on the post argue are common sense no matter what the economic situation).
The Spokesman-Review has used its Daily Briefing blog to cover staff leaving in an equally personal and open way. News of senior staff exiting the paper, such as editor Steve Smith and assistant managing editor Carla Savalli, was broken on the blog and posts have also been penned by outgoing journalists, including Thuy Dzuong:
“Folks, it’s been fun but The layoff list for non-managers has been finalized, and I’m on it.”
Last week Silicon Alley Insider built a ‘real time’-style page to cover lay-offs at parent company Yahoo, updating it as new info came in.
(UPDATE – The Rocky Mountain News has launched iwantmyrocky.com to canvas support for the newspaper)
Despite the sad circumstances, the way in which journalists and media workers are facing redundancy in these examples shows a real engagement with online tools. A personal picture of what is happening to the industry is being documented for future reference by these staff members expressing themselves so openly (and perhaps significantly being ‘allowed’ to express themselves by their past/present employers).
What is more, while they may not hold the answers to the problems currently faced by the media industry, they shed light on how these issues are perceived and felt on the frontline. Something which employers should read and learn from.
It’s the season of good will, so here’s a plug for two worthy events:
In aid of Leonard Cheshire Disability, newsreaders Nicholas Owen, Emily Maitliss and Katie Derham will take part in a fundraising Christmas concert.
Music at the event, which will be held on Thursday December 11 at the Royal Festival Hall on London’s Southbank, will come from the London Chamber Orchestra, London Philharmonic Choir and stars of stage and screen.
Tickets are priced from £10-£50 and are available from the Southbank Centre on 0871 663 2500 or can be booked online.
Can’t make that? You can take part in the Evening Standard’s ebay auction from the comfort of your own desk (or lap, depending on what you use…):
To raise money for charity Greenhouse, the ES is auctioning off a host of meeja-related prizes from dinner with editor Veronica Wadley, lunch with Robert Peston to accompanying Sir David Frost to a screening of Frost/Nixon.
The auction closes at 12pm (GMT) on Monday 15 December, so get bidding: lunch with Andrew Gilligan is already up to £259.00 or you can get an audience with Brian Sewell for £101.00.
‘Online-only news outlets’ will be eligible for Pulitzer prizes for the first time.
Submissions must, however, be text-based and website of magazines and broadcasters will not qualify for the awards.
LA Times employee entrance, Dec 21 2007:
via Eric Ulken (former interactive technology editor at the LA Times).
‘Those signs seemed a bit disingenuous even then, given the structure of the deal to take the Tribune Company private. Now they seem, well, ridiculous’, he writes.