Tag Archives: Evening Standard

Newspaper magnate Lebedev: “I should be ready to go to jail”

He likes to eat papaya for breakfast, wants to set up an investigative journalism foundation and wakes up every morning prepared for arrest – welcome to the world of newspaper billionaire Alexander Lebedev.

Speaking to the Sunday Times for its ‘A Life in the Day’ feature, Lebedev, says his ownership of three British newspapers – the Evening Standard, Independent and Independent on Sunday – prompted some “absurd” suspicions at the start.

When I bought the Evening Standard and the two Independent titles, people thought I was some kind of Trojan horse for the Russian government. That’s absurd. I bought them because I truly believe in newspaper and a free press. An independent press that holds those in power to account is a vital part of a democratic society.

In fact he claims his “dream” now is to set up a foundation that will finance journalistic investigations into international corruption.

The free media can change the world. My idea is for some of the biggest titles around the world to pool resources to uncover the schemes and money flows used to sustain massive corruption.

But, he warns, life in the media elite is a risky business.

I sleep like a log and rarely dream. But as a big businessman in Russia who sees things differently from those in power, I tell myself every night and every morning that I should be ready to go to jail. The risk is always there.

Mobile plans for London Evening Standard announced at Mobile World Congress

The Standard will launch an application for smartphones later this month, an announcement by developers Handmark to coincide with this week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

According to the launch release, “content within the London Evening Standard mobile application will be refreshed automatically and available for offline reading”.

Handmark’s mobile publishing platform has already been used by Thomson Reuters, Forbes and the Wall Street Journal.

There are no details about the cost of the app – the Standard’s print edition went free in October.

MediaGuardian: Associated backs Standard move; what now for London Lite?

Associated Newspapers, which stayed as a minority shareholder in the Evening Standard after its acquisition by Alexander Lebedev in February, has financially backed the title’s decision to go free from next Monday.

Standard editor Geordie Greig has also denied the move will mean redundancies for existing employees.

Full story at this link…

Elsewhere, MediaGuardian’s Stephen Brook considers the future of fellow Associated freesheet the London Lite in the wake of the Standard’s announcement.

thelondonpaper’s closure – tell the rivals or readers first?

Journalism.co.uk couldn’t help but part with 50p on the way back from London last night after seeing the Evening Standard seller’s newspaper boards at Victoria Station loudly declaring the death of newspaper rival thelondonpaper.

The front page was also dedicated to the story: “Free London paper to close”, “Murdoch axes loss-making title”, “Staff shocked at sudden decision”.

(This must be the new ‘positive’ direction for the paper Geordie Greig mentioned when he took over as editor in February)

Still the ES, as far as the print edition yesterday went, refrained from commenting further on the demise of a rival. And it must have been tempting given thelondonpaper’s full-page advert last January, which taunted the ES over its sale for ‘the price of a chocolate bar’.

As a collector’s edition – the last will be issued on September 18 – Journalism.co.uk also picked up yesterday’s thelondonpaper. No mention of the closure in print (perhaps news was released after it had gone to print – anyone who sees today’s edition is welcome to correct me) and it seems to be business as usual on the website. Journalism.co.uk towers received the release from News International around lunchtime yesterday, which begs the question: is it right to let your rivals and the rest of the industry know before your readers (and, indeed, staff – see yesterday’s NMA report about new launches for thelondonpaper website and the recent job ads for online staff)?

Express under fire for advertorials again

Only last week Journalism.co.uk reported how the Daily Express was criticised by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for masking advertorials as features.

Yesterday, as reported by MediaGuardian and others, the Express again came under fire for a similar incident.

An advertisement for Goldshield’s Rozip took up the bottom half of a page, with an article on the qualities of the product sitting on top.

Previously the ASA investigated as to ‘whether the features had been controlled by the advertiser and also whether the claims made by the products were true or exaggerated’.

They came to the conclusion that ‘both publisher and advertiser were purposefully trying to get around elements of the advertising code by presenting the articles and adverts in this way’.

When criticised for unsubstantiated claims made by the Express journalist about the healing properties of the products, Goldshield’s Rozip responded that ‘they were not responsible’ for the contents of the article.

Monitoring staff at the ASA said that the advertisement and the article were clearly linked. As with the previous cases reported last week, Goldshield had booked the ad on the understanding that the editorial would also appear.

The ASA state that because of the ‘reciprocal arrangement’, Goldshield in fact had implicit control over the top half of the page and as such Goldshield was responsible for ensuring the contents of the entire page complied with the Code.

In the latest issue of Private Eye (August 21 – September 3) it was suggested that the Express might not be the only newspaper guilty of this tactic. On August 5, the Evening Standard printed a piece about a world cruise that the Eye described as an ‘unmarked advertorial’ – it fell opposite a full-page ad for the very same cruise. The Evening Standard article in question can be found at this link.

It seems no action has yet been taken against the Evening Standard; the Daily Express on the other hand has been told ‘the ad must not appear again in its current form’.

Journalism Daily: BBC video plans, Trinity Midlands strike and perfecting the press release

Journalism.co.uk is going to trial a new service via the Editors’ Blog: a daily round-up of all the content published on the Journalism.co.uk site.

We hope you’ll find it useful as a quick digest of what’s gone on during the day (similar to our e-newsletter) and to check that you haven’t missed a posting.

We’ll be testing it out for a couple of weeks, so you can subscribe to the feed for the Journalism Daily here.

Let us know what you think – all feedback much appreciated.

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On the Editors’ Blog

Evening Standard: Andrew Gilligan on council ‘propaganda’ newspapers

Some interesting figures to be pulled out of Andrew Gilligan’s tirade against council-run newspapers in the UK:

  • In London more writers are currently employed by local authority titles than by the local independent press (which has around 350 editorial staff).
  • According to Gilligan, weekly council paper, Greenwich Time, has a total annual gross cost of £708,000 – £532,000 of which is supported by public money.
  • East End Life – the council freesheet for Tower Hamlets – has almost 50 per cent more staff than its independent rival, the East London Advertiser, and almost double the pages.
  • Public sector organisations pay a total of £980,000 to advertise in East End Life a year, according to Standard research.

The comments from readers are also worth a read with both the impact of dwindling resources on independent newspapers’ ability to cover local news and the ‘brain drain’ of journalists to local authority titles touched upon.

Would be great if the Standard could release the figures from it’s research in full…

Full story at this link…

Newsnight: Paxman interviews Huffington on ‘curation’ and editing of reports from Iran

Jeremy Paxman interviews Huffington Post founder Ariana Huffington and the Evening Standard’s Anne McElvoy on the use of non-traditional media/amateur reports from Iran and the concept of ‘curating’ this information as opposed to traditional editing.

McElvoy usefully describes the intersection of as a complex mosaic with each piece contributing subjective information – but information that requires an overview/comparison that can be added by an editor or professional journalist.


BBC NEWS | Programmes | Newsnight | Has internet journalism come of age?.

Northcliffe’s operating profits drop 81 per cent

Regional newspaper publisher Northcliffe posted an 81 per cent drop in operating profits in the six months up to March 29 2009, according to figures released today.

Operating profits for the group, which publishes the Bristol Evening Post and Hull Daily Mail, fell by £33 million to £3.2 million over the period. Advertising revenues also fell by 31 per cent to £103 million.

The publisher has reduced operating costs, however, by 11 per cent compared to the last period – including a reduction of its headcount by 500.

On the digital front, revenues were reportedly in line with the same period last year. Unique ‘visitors’ to the network of ‘thisis’ sites rose by 42 per cent year-on-year to 4.2 million.

Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT)

According to the figures, DMGT’s revenue fell by 7 per cent year-on-year – from £1,168 million to £1,085 million.

The group’s outlook:

“Within our UK local media operations, revenues continue to be stable which is encouraging, when combined with increasing cost reductions. Within our national consumer media operations, the positive impact will be felt of the cost reductions made to date and of the sale of the Evening Standard at the end of February. As a consequence, DMGT’s operating profits will be weighted more than last year towards the second half of the year.”