Brand Republic is reporting planned job losses at Centaur title Mad.co.uk, as the publisher converts the site into a news aggregator for its marketing titles.
Editor Branwell Johnson is likely to remain in place, says the report, but the jobs of its three reporters are under threat.
Roger Alton, former editor of The Observer, has been appointed editor of The Independent.
Simon Kelner, who has edited the title for the last 10 years, has been promoted to managing director and editor-in-chief of the daily and Sunday titles.
George Blake, chief news officer of hyper-local news service OurTown, says editors of the sites can earn up to $60,000 (£30,306).
Content on the network of 70,000 websites is provided by the local editors and through content deals.
As such revenue from local advertising on a site is shared with its editor.
“We will continue to sell the national ads, which we will split with the local editor, but the local editor retains all revenue generated by local ads after paying a monthly fee to the company for ad serving,” Blake explains.
But will this model be enough to lure and retain local editors and help OurTown emulate the success of competitors like Topix?
Local editors, who oversee the content of their sites, keep almost all of their local ad revenue and a good local editor can make between $45,000 and $60,000 each year once they have built up a regular clientele in their area.
UPDATE: take our poll on whether or not video journalism can save the newspaper
The Mirror‘s partnership with Roo Media to deliver more video content on its site has been described as ‘a bloody mess’ by former site editor Steve Purcell.
His comments, which form part of Neil Thurman and Ben Lupton’s academic report into multimedia storytelling by British news websites, were made last year – shortly after a video player supported by Roo’s technology was introduced to the site.
“The promises that were made by [our content partner, Roo Media] didn’t materialize…. It was a bloody mess, relying on American led stuff,” Purcell told the report, which questioned leading editors on newsroom convergence, video and audio content, multimedia training and the potential for advertising within digital content.
An additional interview with Anne Spackman, editor of TimesOnline, highlighted similar concerns over the launch of video with Roo on the site.
“We didn’t have a sense of ownership of the player… When those early deals were done nobody knew what people would want to watch on a site like ours…”
Part of the problem, said Spackman, was that providers did not understand what video content would work well alongside a text story on the site.
Digital surfing magazine Drift has decided to switch to a printed format and its editor has said that he believes digital magazines have ‘had their day’.
Howard Swanwick told Press Gazette: ‘As a medium to put features in, they don’t work.’
Associated Newspaper’s financial news website This is Money is claiming to have hit a record readership last month.
Quoting internal traffic data, staff claim that nearly 1.2 million people used the site in March 2008, clicking on more than nine million pages.
Staff said the unique user figure (1,166,561) represents a 30 per cent year-on-year traffic rise and a month-on-month increase of nearly 20 per cent – with February see 978,000 visitors.
Andrew Oxlade, editor, told Journalism.co.uk: “The March to April period is crucial to financial websites as millions of savers make decisions about Isas before the end of the annual deadline on 5 April.
“We’re also seeing a surge of interest from people concerned about the health of banks and the safety of their savings. Vivasex.ch Borrowers are also worried about their ability to find a new mortgage deal and are hunting around for views on whether the value of their home will fall this year.”
The BBC News and Sport websites have today launched their revamped websites. Both editors admit the sites, which are the results of months of development in response to reader feedback, are works in progress.
It’s not a complete redesign, says Steve Herrmann, editor of the BBC News website, on his blog, but more of a ‘site refresh’. Here’s what has changed on both sites according to blog posts from Herrmann and Ben Gallop, head of BBC Sport Interactive:
BBC News
BBC Sport
We give developers the opportunity to tell us journalists why we should sit up and pay attention to the sites and devices they are working on. Today it’s ‘next generation wire services’ for independent journalists from Reporterist.
1) Who are you and what’s it all about?
Hi, I’m Hemant Bhanoo. Reporterist is about bringing together journalists on a common platform where reporters can sell their pieces and editors can source reliable, quality work.
There is enough demand for original news content around the world that we believe this will grow into a next generation wire service for independent reporters.
2) Why would this be useful to a journalist?
As a starting point, journalists can put up their work on our public portfolio. Right now we enable you to set up rules like “send my story (or story idea) to Editor A. If they don’t bite within 3 days, send it on to Editor B”.
You can specify different prices for each editor, and see if/when they have looked at your work.
3) Is this it, or is there more to come?
This is definitely not it. There’s a lot more to come, and it’ll hopefully evolve a lot faster as we bring on engineers to help us accelerate development.
A preview of some our features:
4) Why are you doing this?
I’m a big fan of public radio, and have been really moved by investigative/enterprise stories that I’ve heard. It scares me that there are fewer ways to earn a living actually doing investigative or enterprise reporting. Given today’s political climate, we need more people going out of their way to hunt down stories and bring them to the world.
When I found out how many good stories don’t actually see the light of day because journalists can’t find the right outlet or because they go stale while waiting for editors to take a look at them, I was taken aback.
I hope Reporterist will enable some of those important, untold stories to reach people.
5) What does it cost to use it?
We will take a percentage (10 per cent) of the transaction, though it’s free right now. There’s currently no listing fee – but we’ll charge one for large media (audio, video, pictures) once we fully roll out multimedia support.
6) How will you make it pay?
We can build a sustainable business from the transaction and listing fees. However, we plan to expand our offerings in various directions. We will also be building premium portfolios for journalists, and tools for news publishers that we will charge for.
Our core focus has been, and will be, on helping reward quality journalism.
Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger has written to the Chinese ambassador in the UK attacking China’s censoring of foreign news websites – including Guardian.co.uk – in the wake of the Tibetan riots.
Mr Rusbridger asked for the ambassador’s assistance in unblocking his website back online and ensuring that access to it remained free of interference.
“As you will be aware, the blackout has coincided with media coverage of the recent unrest in Tibet, forcing the conclusion that this is an act of deliberate and wholly unacceptable censorship,” wrote Mr Rusbridger.
“We are dismayed that Beijing should curtail international press freedom, particularly in Olympic year.”
The move comes in the wake of a violent crackdown on protests in Tibet by Chinese authorities that have also attempted to block the media from reporting what was going on.
Tibetan exiles say at least 80 protesters died in the clashes as reporters were being forced to leave.
The Foreign Correspondents Club of China reported that as many as two-dozen reporters have been turned away from or forced to leave Tibetan areas and government censorship of the internet and television broadcasts was also hampering journalists’ work.
“Reporting interference is not in the interest of the Chinese government which is trying to show a more open, transparent and accountable image to the world,” said FCCC President Melinda Liu, in a piece carried on the FCCC website.
“Such interference is not in keeping with reporting regulations adopted during the Olympics period – and is especially not in keeping with the international community’s expectations of an Olympic host nation,” added Liu.
Writing for the Telegraph.co.uk Richard Spencer claimed to have been ordered to leave the Tibetan town he was staying in by local police (Spencer also points to some bloggers who are managing to get information onto the net about the crackdown)
The Honk Kong Journalists Association (hat tip Roy Greenslade) is also reporting that journalists from at least six Hong Kong media organisations have been placed under escort and ordered out of Lhasa, the Tibetan capital.
The Hartlepool Mail is using two interactive maps to back its campaigns against potholes and derelict areas of the town.
The Plot the Pots and Plot the Grots maps let users flag up of potholes in need of repair and streets and buildings requiring attention. Readers can also submit photos and update the maps when problems have been fixed.
Also worthy of note is that the newspaper’s site carries the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) kitemark-like logo and provides links for submitting complaints to the editor.
Looking through the paper’s sister sites, this seems to be a common feature across Johnston Press sites – though not common to all news publishers as requested by PCC chairman Sir Christopher Meyer last year.