Tag Archives: Independent on Sunday

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

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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.

Independent.co.uk: John Rentoul on how Twitter transforms political reporting

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John Rentoul, or @JohnRentoul, chief political commentator for the Independent on Sunday, sums up how he uses Twitter and the impact he believes it has had on political reporting in the UK (managing to avoid the hyperbole of many other love notes to Twitter from journalists):

Most of the time, however, Twitter is like a news service. It is different from social networks in that links are not necessarily mutual. People can choose to follow each other, but the Korean research found that four-fifths of links were one-way. This means that hub Twitterers with a lot of followers act as diffusers of news. When I started on this newspaper as a political reporter in 1995, the main source of UK “breaking news” was the Press Association wire – short bulletins of news, as it happened. Now Twitter fills that gap, as journalists and citizen-reporters let each other know when someone has left their microphone on, or has ruled out standing for the Labour leadership. When Adam Boulton started to lose his temper with Alastair Campbell on live television during the post-election negotiations, people tweeted to tell others to put Sky News on – to catch the best bits. William Hague announced that the talks with the Liberal Democrats were back on on Twitter. It is a way for politicians to speak to – or beyond – the conventional media. But it also offers journalists other ways of reporting.

Full article at this link…

Independent on Sunday offers blogger damages over ‘hooker’ headline

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The Independent on Sunday has offered blogger Zoe Margolis “substantial” damages after the newspaper called her a ‘hooker’ in the headline of an article she had written.

The headline, ‘I was a hooker who became an agony aunt’, published in both the paper and online on 7 March 2010, was later corrected to ‘I’m a good-time girl who became an agony aunt’. The original version remained live on the mobile site for some time, before being removed.

On 12 March the IoS apologised for the error, which it said was written by the newspaper not Ms Margolis: “We accept that Ms Margolis is not and never has been ‘a hooker’ or otherwise involved in the sex industry. The wording of the headline was a mistake and seriously defamatory of Ms Margolis. We offer our sincere apologies to Ms Margolis for the damage to her reputation and the distress and embarrassment which she has suffered.”

A statement issued today, on behalf of Margolis, who writes the ‘Girl With a One Track Mind’ blog, said the author and blogger had been seriously defamed.

“The resulting affect of this libel was immeasurable, and Ms. Margolis was forced to issue legal proceedings against Independent News & Media Ltd,” says the release.

“These proceedings have now come to a conclusion and substantial damages have been offered to Ms. Margolis for the distress and impact to her reputation, both personal and professional, that this libel caused.”

A statement will be read out in court 13 at the Royal Courts of Justice in front of Mr Justice Eady tomorrow, Friday 21 May 2010 at 10.30am. Further information can be found at this link.

Margolis, who writes about her sex life on her blog and in her two books, told Journalism.co.uk that the amount of damages was substantial for a case of its kind, “but in no way vitiates the harm done by the libel, which is still having an effect on my life and no doubt will continue to do so”.

“I’m satisfied with the outcome, in that the Independent on Sunday have admitted that their printing that headline was ‘seriously defamatory’, and that they now have to state this on public record in court. But the damage and distress they’ve caused me are far greater than any apology they can make.

“So often, it seems, the media makes a conflation between women who talk about sex and sexual desire, with those who work in the sex industry.

She said that through her writing she had tried to show that this perspective was sexist. So, she said, “it was incredibly insulting and hurtful to then be described in this way in the article I wrote for them.

“It undermined everything I’ve ever written about and did indescribable damage to my reputation.”

Margolis said she thinks newspapers need to be “much, much more careful” about what goes up online.

“Print runs can be stopped, but as soon a libel exists on the web – as it did in my case, both in the title and in the URL itself – it’s impossible to halt that once it’s gone live via RSS.

“Editors and sub editors need to check, double-check and triple check the URLs and headers of articles before they get automated to the newspaper’s RSS feeds. I hope lessons can be learned by my case – but I doubt I’ll be the last person to be libelled in this way.”

Independent apologises for ‘seriously defamatory’ headline

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Independent News & Media has apologised for a “seriously defamatory” headline on a comment piece by blogger and writer Zoe Margolis published in the Independent on Sunday [see background here]. In a correction published on its site today, the newspaper said:

On 7 March 2010, we published an article by Zoe Margolis. In part of the first edition of the newspaper and online, this article carried the headline, “I was a hooker who became an agony aunt”. This was written by the newspaper not Ms Margolis. We accept that Ms Margolis is not and never has been “a hooker” or otherwise involved in the sex industry. The wording of the headline was a mistake and seriously defamatory of Ms Margolis. We offer our sincere apologies to Ms Margolis for the damage to her reputation and the distress and embarrassment which she has suffered.