To complement its liveblogged coverage of election day, which is still going at time of writing, Guardian.co.uk has changed its homepage design to the below:
This is a template that could be used for other major news events. As BBC News online editor Steve Herrmann told Journalism.co.uk earlier this week the election has been a great opportunity for news sites to experiment with coverage and layout, developing features for future use.
Journalism.co.uk was very happy to make the acquaintance of Jim Oldfield, one of the runner-ups in the Paul Foot Award, last night. He is the editor of seven community newsletters in South Yorkshire.
He was nominated for the Rossington Community Newsletter, South Yorkshire Newspapers, for coverage of opposition to the proposed construction of an ‘eco-town’ in Rossington.
Oldfield very keen to emphasise the talents and commitment of his reporting team (which consists of one full-time and two part-time journalists), who were also there last night.
After hearing about the Newsletter’s various scoops over a canape or two (J.co.uk now has his ‘The Killer in My Cab’ splash decorating its desk), we got this pic:
Meanwhile, the prize for the biggest cheer of the night definitely went to another runner-up’s supporters: those rooting for the Observer’s Dan McDougall (he is pictured with host Ian Hislop, below). McDougall was nominated for his investigation of child labour in South Asia.
UPDATE (May 2009) – details of the 2008 Paul Foot award winners – Camilla Cavendish and Richard Brooks – can be found at this link
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.
Little did the architects behind the office/hotel complex at the heart of the Nixon affair (doesn’t sound right does it?) know what an impact the building’s name would have on the British media.
It’s a legacy which has given British newspaper journalists an easy way to coin a name for the latest ‘scandal’ (scandal defined in its broadest sense: we have Flakegate, after all).
But when it comes to last week’s BBC outrage no-one seems to know which gate to stick with:
Media Guardian alone refers to Sachsgate, Granddaughtergate and Manuelgate.
We’ve seen Rossgate from the Telegraph, Brandgate from the Independent. For readers’ sake, since the coverage really doesn’t seem to be letting up, let’s have an agreed gate.
And some consistency please: should the named gate namesake be the perpetrators, or the victims of the ‘scandal’? That particular detail often bothers me: we’ve had Queengate, but also Cherie and Camillagate (Nipplegate of Justin Timberlake fame is a particular favourite).
Reuters and most of the papers/blogs are going with Manuelgate but my vote’s with ‘whatnewanglecanwepossiblytakenowgate’ (she says, fully aware of the irony as she pens her own tenuous angle for this blog post).
Mainly because Rossgate could lead to confusion for the poor pupils at this school in Hemel Hempstead.
Any gates on this particular story I’ve missed? For those that care and are thinking of writing their Masters thesis on the subject, there’s actually a Wikipedia page dedicated to ‘scandal-gates’ (which actually already lists Manuelgate, fyi).
Guardian News & Media has this morning announced the heads of ‘its new integrated production, media and environment teams’, which are to be called pods. Appointments to its sport and picture desks were also announced.
New editorial roles are as follows (quoted from original article):
The student journalist who was accused of blasphemy after distributing anti-Islamic material, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison after an Afghan appeal court overturned his death sentence.
The Liverpool regional papers, the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo, continue their comprehensive coverage of the Rhys Jones murder trial using Cover It Live technology, which allows the reporter to feed back detailed information about what is happening in the courtroom.
The liveblog of the Rhys Jones trial is currently on standby, but should be going again at 14.30 today. The Rhys Jones coverage can also be viewed together on one page.
For ease of reading back through, it would be good to have the live court coverage more clearly marked with dates and days of trial in the left hand margin next to the times.
On October 9 the Liverpool Daily Post’s editor, Mark Thomas, asked for feedback, but it seems none has been offered.
It’s an impressive feat, which has been going since October 9, and brings up questions of modern day court reporting: it will be interesting to see if it enters the public panel discussion at this week’s POLIS debate at LSE. They’re debating ‘Respect for Contempt: Keeping Speech Free and Trials Fair’.
With a panel that includes Maxine Mawhinney from BBC News 24 as chair, and contributions from Joshua Rozenburg (Legal Affairs Editor, Daily Telegraph), Jonathan Kotler (US Attorney and USC Annenburg School of Journalism), Mark Haslam (partner, BCL Burton Copeland, and Nick Davies (Guardian, author of Flat Earth News), it should make for an interesting set of much-needed discussions.
An London employment tribunal has dismissed a compensation claim made by Jo Burgin, the former executive at Al Jazeera English. She was seeking substantial compensation from the television network on grounds of discrimination.
Caroline Little, this year’s keynote speaker at the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) Digital Revenue Goldmine event, used her experiences at the Washington Post and Guardian to talk about the future of the web for newspapers.
Most delegates had probably heard the sentiments of Little’s speech before, unless they’ve been living on another media planet for the past five years, but were eager to ask how she had implemented changes at her two workplaces.
[audio:http://www.journalism.co.uk/sounds/carolinelittle.mp3]What was her budget? How would she have coped without the strength of brand? How to manage economically while making the changes?
Little did not really give concrete examples and afterwards she told me it was perhaps too early in the day to talk specifics – she’s only been in the role at the Guardian since August. I’ll be sure to follow up with her in a few months time… The news report on her speech can be read here.
It was all a bit kids in a sweetshop at yesterday’s AOP Digital Publishing Summit, if we forget all the problems with wifi, of course.
The main aim, for most attendees, In all likelihood, was to talk to all the people they know in online life, but rarely get the chance to talk to in person – over coffee (and odd looking cake/pastries) and lunch during the day, and drinks in the evening.
The programme ranged from panels to energetic speakers with a broad range of digital publishing topics covered – though perhaps not as much new discussion was initiated as some participants hoped, despite Peter Bale from Microsoft attempt to get some answers from YouTube’s Jonathan Gillespie.
A few additional highlights to add to our coverage so far:
Emily’s Bell’s vision for Guardian’s international reach: In the panel introducing ‘the digital pioneers,’ Bell, director of digital content for Guardian News & Media, said the group sees now as a ‘uniquely’ timed opportunity for the brand to expand internationally – and to do so before their rivals do.
Speaking to Journalism.co.uk afterwards, Bell elaborated on her example of the Economist’s well-established grasp of the international market. Although it happened for the Economist over a 20-year period, she told me that a similar endeavour in 2008 is ‘compressed’ by the web.
Bell also pointed out during the panel that the Chinese words for ‘crisis’ and ‘opportunity’ are one and the same (I tried to keep that in mind as my laptop charger physically broke and the wifi went down).
The Guardian’s move stateside was also referred to by Saul Klein, partner of Index Ventures and moderator of later panel ‘Growing in the Digital World’.
Quoting Simon Waldman, Guardian Media Group’s director of digital strategy and development (and Emily Bell’s boss), Klein said the Guardian’s acquisition of ContentNext was ‘well set up to exploit’. Waldman explained how moves like that prepared the group for a US audience.
The ‘Unlocking the mobile internet’ panel: In the spirit of the thing, TechCrunch’s Mike Butcher gave out his mobile number for questions before probing the panel on their respective views on mobile internet’s future.
Is 2009 the year of mobile? Melissa Goodwin, controller of mobile at ITV says not: “I don’t think it’s next year, I’m hoping it’s 2010.”
“We just want to give you anything you may want,” she said of ITV’s mobile strategy, though she admitted that building advertising revenue was very much an ongoing issue.
Goodwin also revealed that consumers can look forward to Friends Reunited on two iPhone applications in the first part of next year, as reported in more depth over at PaidContent.
Stefano Maruzzi, president of CondeNet International, on outlining Conde’s digital development: As reported over at MediaGuardian and PaidContent, CondeNet, the online arm of Conde Nast, has got lots of ideas about lots of things: