Tag Archives: observer

Journalism Daily: Indico News, confessional journalism and the Observer’s future

1 Reply

Journalism.co.uk is trialling 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

#FollowJourn

On the Editors’ Blog

Update: Internal memo says Observer closure ‘actively being considered’

3 Replies

In an update to this weekend’s reports about a possible change of format for Guardian News & Media Sunday title the Observer, Times Online is reporting on an internal memo from Carolyn McCall, chief executive of Guardian Media Group, suggesting the closure of the title is ‘actively being considered’.

The memo also reminded staff that the ‘core purpose’ of the Scott Trust, which safeguards the future of sister title The Guardian, was to secure the daily’s long-term future – not that of the Observer.

Full post at this link…

Liz Jones on confessional journalism: “I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone”

2 Replies

Liz Jones, a confessional journalist who needs little introduction, got to plug her book and share the most recent of her woes and pets in an Observer Woman feature yesterday.

Rachel Cooke, who once worked with her, took a shrewd and not exactly flattering look at Jones and the ‘Faustian pact’ the former Marie Claire editor seems to have with her personal columns (eg. an account of her single life in the Sunday Times, the ‘Wedding Planner’ series in the Guardian, and currently in the Sunday Mail.)

Confessional journalism as a trade has generated some criticism lately (Hadley Freeman here, for example; Jill Parkin here, for example); here was our latest chance to find out just why columnists do it. Cooke wrote:

“(…)The trouble is that the kind of writing she does leaves her marooned on a sad little island of self from which there is, apparently, no way back to shore. “I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone,” she [Jones] says. Well, why not stop, then? No one is forcing her to skin herself in public. “I could stop now, but I’ve destroyed lots of things already, so what would be the point? But if I was given the choice again, I probably wouldn’t have written about myself. It’s so difficult!” Difficult? “You have to be very brutal: you have to talk about your failings.”(…)”

In a related aside, that other doyenne of confess all to all, Tanya Gold, took part in BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions last week. Her final comment:  “I despise Twitter – I would like to talk to a real person.” Funny that. Maybe the bride berated by Gold for compiling a wedding list might have liked to receive criticism in person too, rather than via Guardian.co.uk.

What do you think of female-orientated journalism in the UK? Are sections like Observer Woman and Femail necessary or relevant in 2009? Where are the best places to find representative portrayals of female subject matter? The best blogs? Or is there even such a thing as ‘female subject matter’? Journalism.co.uk is pulling together some thoughts for a forthcoming feature. Please do get in touch with yours.

FT.com: GNM considers Observer’s future in digital age

2 Replies

The Financial Times isn’t the only site reporting on the future of the Observer, which according to inside sources could cease publication in its current format.

Roy Greenslade has a round-up of the speculation here (no inside track from the Guardian blogger, however, he says).

According to an FT source, Observer staff discovered a secret mock-up of a weekly news magazine carrying the title’s branding.

Last week owners Guardian News & Media reported a pre-tax loss of £89.9 million for 2008-9.

“They [GNM] came up with a similar plan to close us down five years ago, and it was fought off. This time it seems to be couched in terms of saving The Guardian, so you have to think it is much more serious,” a ‘senior Observer journalist’ told the FT.

Full story at this link…

The Observer: ‘Painful decisions’ about what it can print as advertising revenue and circulation fall

Leave a reply

Readers of the Observer might have noticed that the paper no longer prints a full television guide each week. Many have written to the paper to complain. One said that a full guide would be ‘infinitely preferable to part two of a Spanish or Italian CD, which is both incomplete and of absolutely no use to me.’

Yesterday Stephen Pritchard, the readers’ editor for the Observer, part of Guardian News&Media, explained:

“The figures are stark. With advertising revenue set to plummet 26 per cent this year and circulation down 6.9 per cent on last year, the Observer, like other newspapers, is having to make painful decisions about what it can afford to print. Loyal readers have displayed remarkable forbearance recently as the news, business and sport sections have gradually slimmed down but they could contain themselves no longer when the TV guide disappeared.”

(…) “This is not a decision we took lightly and it is a source of real regret to us,” wrote the editor, John Mulholland, in reply to complainants. “This was just one of the host of difficult decisions we have had to make in recent weeks. Newspapers and media groups are facing the most difficult trading conditions imaginable. Not only are we suffering from the catastrophic fallout from the credit crunch in terms of severely reduced advertising revenues but, additionally, our industry is undergoing structural change which is causing enormous disruption.”

Full story at this link…

Theregister.co.uk: Liberty challenges Observer article on mobile operators

Leave a reply

The Register reports that civil rights group Liberty has ‘rubbished’ a story in Sunday’s Observer, which said that the group was approached by several UK mobile operators in an attempt to win its public support for their data protection policies. Liberty told The Register that if such an approach had been made it would have been rejected on principle.

Are you on the Journa-list? Probably not if you’re a blogger

2 Replies

A new website has been launched by the Media Standards Trust, purportedly to provide info on and links to UK national newspaper journalists. The blurb says:

“Journa-list is an independent, not-for-profit website that makes it easy for people to find out more about journalists and what they write about.”

Then later:

“It is the first UK website to offer a fully searchable database of UK national journalists (who write under a byline), with links to their current and previous articles, and some basic statistics about their work.

“It contains all journalists from 12 national newspapers – The Times, The Guardian, The Independent, The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Mail, The Daily Express, The Mirror, The Sun, The Sunday Times, The Sunday Telegraph, The Sunday Mirror, The Observer – and BBC News Online. The site can only index those articles which have bylines. We started indexing the articles in May 2007.”

An admirable attempt – you can even be emailed or take an RSS feed to alert you to a new article – except that it doesn’t quite do all this yet.

While the list is expansive, my quick, random search revealed a few missing journos (there also seems to be a few teething problems as the alphabetical list, whichever way I look at it, seems to only go up to B or C). Reklama: kriolipolizė, biorevitalizacija, depiliacija lazeriu, LPG masažas Vilniuje už gerą kainą https://oblakasalon.lt/lpg-masazas/

What about the Beeb’s Nick Robinson? Roy Greenslade of the Guardian?

It might be the blogging efforts of these two that’s throwing the list off – but that throws up another question. If they aren’t listed, shouldn’t blogging journalists be included too?

Shane Richmond is listed for a single article, not for his numerous and excellent blog posts. If a journalist is blogger and article-writer both, then is it very indicative if half their output isn’t listed?

If anyone finds examples of blogs in the list, please would they get in touch.