In an exclusive report the Guardian reveals that the oligarch Alexander Lebedev will buy the Evening Standard newspaper – ‘in a dramatic move that would see him become the first Russian oligarch to own a major British newspaper,’ the Guardian says. … Full story…
The paper’s ‘Londoner’s Diary’ column had speculated that the new World Service director job, advertised internally, was being kept open for the BBC’s News Director Richard Sambrook, allegedly annoying ‘ex-BBC types’.
Sambrook was quick to correct it on his own blog: “I’m not a candidate for the job, because … it reports to me and I will be deciding who gets it.”
The Londoner subsequently corrected it like this, omitting to mention where the ‘fears’ had originated:
“There were also fears that the BBC’s Director of Global News, Richard Sambrook, was said to be eyeing up the post himself and how he would have been a shoo in for the job. The BBC press office hotly denied my suggestion that the post was being kept open for Sambrook, claiming that as Director of Global News, the new Director of World Service would report to him and that Sambrook will be involved in appointing someone to the job himself.”
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.
The Observer’s Women’s Special in the Review section, spanning 80 years of history, made interesting reading over the weekend: apparently men still dominate the top levels of media, politics, finance and … church. Of note were the ‘big lists’ split into male/female ratio. Here are those relevant to the media sector (percentages refer to the female portion of the list):
• Sunday Times Rich List: 1%
Of 95 women listed in the top 1,000, 56 are half of male-female partnerships.
• Vanity Fair ‘New Establishment’ 100: 9%
Three women feature as part of male-female partnerships; only one woman – Angelina Jolie – in top ten.
• Telegraph 100 Living Geniuses: 15%
No women feature in top 30.
• Media Guardian Top 100: 21%
One woman, BBC’s Jane Tranter, in top ten.
• Entertainment Weekly 50 Smartest People in Hollywood: 24%
Two women in top 25.
• Evening Standard 1001 Powerful Londoners: 27%.
“I can’t find any celebrities, or any breaking news, just endless prattle from people with too much time and too little imagination. After two hours, I log out, and I won’t be back.” The Evening Standard’s Nick Curtis describing his ‘trial’ of Twitter.
@paulcarr does a brilliant job over at Guardian.co.uk, complete with drunken Laguna Beach and toga-wearing anecdotes (not sure how he worked those in), so Journalism.co.uk won’t re-tell the whole story here.
In short: @nickcurtis, film critic at the Evening Standard tried out Twitter for all of two hours. Yes, two hours, before dismissing the whole entire thing. Nick, please listen to Paul. You need to try it out for a bit longer than that to see how it all works and bear with it. For a start, you might need to actually follow some people (at time of writing – followers: 0).
Journalism.co.uk and aficionado of Twitter (@journalismnews / @journalism_live / @lauraoliver / @jtownend) wonders if Curtis would review a film by just watching an equivalent fraction (about 1/8 of its trailer at most).
@Chrisgreen sums it up nicely: @nickcurtis – ‘Just read your article on Twitter. Your lack of research & sloppy conclusions are an embarrassment to journalism & the Standard’.
But then, it looks like Curtis won’t be logging back in to read the reactions.
“INM must scrap printing in favour of uploading,” argues the media commentator Roy Greenslade.
“It will save trees, save ink, wipe out all production costs and eliminate the expense of distribution. It will enable INM to prune its marketing budget. In so doing, the paper will take a giant step into the digital age.”
Tonight is the pinnacle of the investigative and campaigning journalism year, when one (or three in last year’s case) journalists walk away with the prestigious Paul Foot Award, which rewards the best of campaigning journalism.
We’ll do our utmost (dongle/Wifi/mobile signal permitting) to Twitter the proceedings: follow us @journalism_live.
The shortlist for this year’s Paul Foot award, which aims to celebrate the very best in campaigning journalism, are as follows:
Peter Mandelson had to be a last minute addition to the list because the magazine had already gone to press: being offline seems to be a recurring theme for the London Evening Standard’s 1000 most influential Londoners list, out this evening.
Can we get an online version? Can we heck! After time wasted going round the editorial houses through the Evening Standard switchboard, Brighton-based Journalism.co.uk is getting sent a print version.
So in the meantime (till the print copy arrives) here’s the online media and general media types we’ve spotted on the list of 50 that are featured on the website. And it looks like new media gets a fairly good representation.
The little ‘see new media’ under the names almost had us thinking we could click on links… no chance. Well, we’re not in London; we don’t really exist, clearly.
Shiny Media’s three founders are included – and quoted as being “highly influential in the UK online world”. They aren’t among the very top 50, but you can see a scanned in bit of the list on the Shiny blog.
Media/Online types from the top 50:
Outside of the big 50 we’ll have to rely on the Guardian’s Media Monkey for information:
“…chief exec James Murdoch, Ashley Highfield, chief exec of the Kangaroo on-demand TV project and, drum roll please, Evening Standard owner Lord Rothermere, chairman of DMGT! Who’d have thunk that thisislondon.co.uk was such a groundbreaker?
Other media bods on the list were Paul Darce, Rebecca Wade, Ed Richards, Mark Thompson, Simon Cowell, Simon Fuller, Nick Ferrari, Emily Bell, Eric Huggers, Evan Davies, John Humphrys, Jay Hunt, Peter Horrocks, Alexandra Shulman and Gok Wan.”
Stephen Glover criticises Professor Roy Greenslade’s London Evening Standard column about the Independent’s revamp.