Tag Archives: Journalism.co.uk

The Candy Box fake news billboards: the pics and video

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It’s had widespread coverage elsewhere, but Journalism.co.uk thought it worth contacting Horsham’s Candy Box owner, John O’Sullivan, for some images of those now nationally notorious fake news billboards, that the local council took such issue with (see Journalism.co.uk main site for an update.) Perhaps even better, is O’Sullivan’s lament on YouTube, inspired by the Anthony Hopkins Sky HD adverts. See end of this post for videos.

Here are some examples of the billboards (taken on O’Sullivan’s mobile phone):

pitfbull2 mps2 firestation2

And O’Sullivan’s lament on YouTube, a la the Anthony Hopkins Sky HD adverts:

Another one here:

Opposition to BBC’s newspaper video-sharing plans grow (the links)

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Journalism.co.uk feels like its gone back in time today – specifically to autumn last year when regional newspaper groups, unions and industry bodies were voicing unanimous opposition to the BBC’s plans to increase its local video news content.

Well, another year, another video plan – and more opposition.

Yesterday the corporation announced an agreement to share news video from four subject areas with the Guardian, Telegraph, Daily Mail and Independent websites. The clips will appear in a BBC-branded player and run alongside the papers’ own news coverage.

In the announcement, the corporation suggested it would extend the plans to other newspaper websites – and asked third parties to register their interest.

The reaction

Welcomed by its launch partners (The Telegraph described the deal as ‘a step in the right direction’) – the plans were quickly denounced by commercial rivals ITN:

“The BBC’s plans to offer free video content to newspaper websites risk undermining the demand for content from independent news providers, potentially undercutting a very important revenue stream,” said ITN CEO John Hardie in a release.

“The pressure on commercial news suppliers has never been greater which is why ITN has led the way in opening up valuable new lines of business, and the BBC’s latest move risks pulling the rug from under us.”

According to a MediaGuardian report, News International says the arrangement is far from a ‘free deal’ for the papers, but rather free marketing for the BBC, which will lead to less diffentiated content on newspaper websites in the UK.

Meanwhile the Press Association said it had spoken with the BBC Trust about the plans before they were announced and was hoping for a market impact assessment – a process it says cannot now be completed because of yesterday’s launch. In a statement given to both Press Gazette and MediaGuardian, a spokeswoman for the PA said there were other ways for the BBC to work with commercial rivals, such as by sharing facilities.

The PA launched its own video newswire for newspapers earlier this year and has said the BBC’s plans undermine investment in video by commercial players.

The questions

Arguably, providing a pool of news video for diary events/supplementary content could free up the titles’ staff to cover original content and produce more multimedia of their own. A similar argument to the PA’s recent announcement of a ‘public service reporting’ trial.

One question that should be asked – hinted at in Alick Mighall’s blog post on the matter – how will the commercial details be hammered out? Will the BBC add pre-roll ads for BBC programming to the clips; and what if a pay wall is erected in front of the video players?

BJP: Photographers sue Met Police for treatment at Greek embassy protests

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“Two photographers have filed a legal claim against the Metropolitan Police after they were unlawfully prevented from reporting the protests outside the Greek embassy last year,” the British Journal of Photography reports.

Photojournalist Marc Vallée and videojournalist Jason Parkinson are seeking an apology and damages from the Metropolitan police. Vallée makes the announcement on his blog here.

“The photographers were covering protests outside the Greek embassy in London on 08 December 2008 when a police officer deliberately obstructed them in their work. They also claim they were physically removed from any area from which they could document events.”

British Journal of Photography story at this link.

More to follow from Journalism.co.uk.

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

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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.

News and features

Ed’s Picks

Tip of the Day

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On the Editors’ Blog

Econsultancy: An A-Z guide to online copywriting

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A really useful guide for freelance journalists (and the rest of us) looking to diversify into copywriting. The basics here are largely applicable to any online writing in fact, whether it’s F for formatting an article for a web reader to M for metadata standards.

Full post at this link…

[Ed’s note – Later today Journalism.co.uk will be publishing its crowdsourced guide to writing the perfect press release.]

Messy Media Ltd ceases trading

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As the story surrounding the end of Shiny Media’s blog network rumbles on, Journalism.co.uk took the opportunity to look at the state of other blog publishers in the UK. There will be more to follow on this, but worthy of note is this final post from Messy Media Ltd.

The one-time publisher of political blog Westmonster and London blog Glitterditch closed its blog business in July last year.

Now the company, Andrew Levy and Lloyd Shepherd’s Messy Media Ltd, has ceased trading too.

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‘Why Journalism Matters’ by Alan Rusbridger (@arusbridger): the video

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Journalism.co.uk coverage of ‘Why Journalism Matters’ by Guardian News&Media editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger at the British Academy on Wednesday evening:

Also worth a read:

You can now watch the speech for yourself, thanks to the Media Standards Trust (@newsmatters). Part one below, and the rest to follow on the organisation’s YouTube channel.

Media is Social: What the Herald’s new deal says about freelance journalism

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Craig McGill reflects on news reported on Journalism.co.uk and Allmediascotland regarding changes to freelancing terms at the Herald Group.

McGill suggests the changes, while meaning lower rates for contributors, aren’t as bad as they could be:

“The underlying issue here isn’t actually that of what the Herald titles are paying, it’s one simple fact: freelance journalists for years have allowed themselves to be systematically and consistently lowly paid,” he writes.

It comes down to market forces too, he adds: “If there are too many people (or products) in a market then prices will be low as labour is cheap. If someone has a USP or top skills (for example, bringing in tons of scoops) they should do better.”

But how many freelancers will confront editors offering lower rates with a record of their work and its success?

Full post at this link…

Update: Allmediascotland is reporting that the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) is now offering a consultation session with an intellectual property lawyer for freelancers affected by the Herald changes.

The Shiny Media story: what’s going on?

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Since news broke that Shiny Media had gone into adminstration, Journalism.co.uk has been trying to gather more information – especially in regards to the details of the new buyer. Unfortunately, calls and emails to its remaining founder Chris Price have gone unanswered. We’ve called the administrators, Wilson Field, and they promise to keep us posted if a statement is put out.

  • Also at at Telegraph.co.uk: Why Brightstation Venture’s Dan Wagner is fighting the Shiny Media administration.

We have not been able to reach Price’s co-founder Ashley Norris, who left the company last year. The other co-founder, Katie Lee, has provided some information via her Twitter feed and in the comments on paidContent, and now she’s provided even fuller detail about her experiences at Shiny for a blog post on Telegraph.co.uk.

We hope to post more news soon.

Alan Rusbridger (@arusbridger) on why Twitter matters

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Twitter got a big mention in Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger’s ‘Journalism Matters’ speech last night. Repeating his ‘future of newspaper’ Twitter recommendations made in Berlin in April (@amonck, @niemanlab, @jeffjarvis and @cshirky) he praised the way it could be used as a personalised filter for information consumption.

He used Guardian technology writer Jemima Kiss as one example of why to use it – she’s probably in labour, and twittering it, ‘as we speak’, he joked. Journalism.co.uk didn’t put its hand up to say ‘err, no – she’s already had all 10lb 6oz of it’ (we learned via Twitter, obviously).

He also mentioned @GuardianTech with its impressive 900,000+ followers, and showed how journalist Paul Lewis (@http://twitter.com/paul__lewis) had used his account to report from the G20 protests.

Before Rusbridger was reborn as @arusbridger he thought it was all a bit, well, ‘silly’, but now he’s well and truly converted. In fact he thinks all Guardian journalists should use it: “I”m trying to get everyone to twitter”. He told this to a room of newspaper journalists in Norway and they asked whether he, as editor-in-chief, would have to moderate all those tweets?…

John Mair’s report on last night’s Media Standards Trust event here, and tweets from @journalism_live, and others captured by the #journmatters tag, below.