Our fear is that this campaign is being waged not because the tabloid press truly believe that Capello is in the wrong (…) but largely out of spite because they didn’t get their way after the summer and he stayed on.
The site is of course part of the 365 Media Group, which is owned by BSkyB, part of the Murdoch empire that also includes the Sun.
The News of the World website will go behind a paywall in October, with the Sun to follow, according to a report today by newmediaage.co.uk (article requires subscription). News International are refusing to comment on the claim.
The news was also picked up by mad.co.uk who reported that the paywalled sites will be offered at an “introductory” rate during the first month.
News of the World’s transition to a paid content model will hinge on exclusive video content, distributed across an overhauled site and app.
Yesterday Media Week reported on figures from ComScore, which suggested that unique users of the the Times and Sunday Times websites, which were put behind a paywall in July, have fallen from 2.79 million in May to 1.61 million in July.
Writing on the BBC College of Journalism site, Simon Ford flags up the very questionable descriptions of Raoul Moat used by the Sun to caption images of him as a baby and young boy:
“Ginger top,” mused one underneath what looked like a school photograph, “but at five his eyes already have intense look.”
“Awkward,” concludes another under a photo of, “Moat aged 13 at mum Josephine’s wedding.”
And the most absurd of all: “Cute baby … but two-month-old Moat clenches his fists.”
On 8 July – day-six of the hunt – the Sun decided to throw everything it had at “THE PSYCHO COMMANDO”.
In five pages devoted to the story, the Sun portrayed Moat as a “self-pitying monster”, a “6ft 3in brute”, a “gun spree hulk” capable of living “wild for weeks”. His campsite, discovered by police on farmland, was described as a “lair”.
Bad news for News International as they start charging for online editions: The Sun’s page three girls, whose ranks once numbered Melinda Messenger could be forced to cover up for the iPad. The German tabloid Der Bild has complained of being censored by Apple from running topless girls on its iPad applications software. Apple recently removed the gallery of nude photos from the site of Stern magazine, and forced Bild to put clothes on the “Bild girl”. “Today they censor nipples, tomorrow it’s editorial content,” said a spokeswoman. Rupert will not be happy.
According to MediaWeek, the Sun is to publish a 3D issue. But its report mentions nothing of ‘augmented reality’ – just good old 3D glasses.
The News International-owned red-top is to be the first national newspaper to run ads and editorial in this format. The one-off title will be published on 5 June, when Sun readers will see a chunk of its editorial, including Page 3, ads and a World Cup Fixtures Wall Chart in 3D. Sun readers will receive a pair of 3D glasses with the paper.
But a story headlined ‘No Prez-ence’, which suggested no one turned up to hear Prescott speak at a visit to Southampton, appears to be the straw that’s broken the camel’s back. Prescott says he is now going to expand his campaigning for Labour to ensure it’s the Sun and Murdoch’s Son “wot lost it” on 7 May, he says.
This morning I was leafing through an old guide to subbing from 1968. There were a couple of pages in it stressing the importance of ensuring articles do not clash with adjacent adverts. Weight loss advert next to an anorexia story, cigarette advert next to a lung cancer report, that kind of thing.
Well, it seems that, 40 years on, not everyone is paying attention to their text books. Or their website. Not satisfied with putting images of a plane emerging from a ball of fire adjacent to a story about today’s terrorist bomb attack in Moscow, the Sun’s website made use of some nifty graphics to have plane and fireball emerge from the story itself, leaving behind a charred hole.
Although my book has an additional chapter on new forms of ‘electronic sub-editing’, it doesn’t cover this kind of thing in any detail. I checked. It is however called ‘The Simple Subs Book’, so it may, after all this time, still be ideally suited to some.
Just as we like to supply you with fresh and innovative tips every day, we’re recommending journalists to follow online too. They might be from any sector of the industry: please send suggestions (you can nominate yourself) to judith or laura at journalism.co.uk; or to @journalismnews.
The committee opened an investigation into phone hacking following a series of stories by the Guardian last summer, said that News International senior staff called to the committee had suffered “collective amnesia” and were unwilling to provide detailed information about activities at the paper up to 2007.
Labour MPs wanted to smear Tory communications boss Andy Coulson, an ex-News of the World editor. But the report found “no evidence” he knew phone hacking was taking place.
The report uncovered no new evidence of phone hacking at NOTW, says the Sun. But the committee did draw new conclusions by looking into existing evidence:
It is likely that the number of victims of illegal phone-hacking by Glenn Mulcaire
will never be known. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that there were a significant
number of people whose voice messages were intercepted, most of whom would appear
to have been of little interest to the Royal correspondent of the News of the World. This
adds weight to suspicions that it was not just Clive Goodman who knew about these
activities.
Tom Newton Dunn’s story made it onto page 2 of the print edition and op-ed on page 8 (next to a feature on ‘How to tell if you’re being lied to’) weighed in with the headline “No honour”:
Today is another dark day for parliament (…) members wasted seven months – nearly half their time – on unfounded claims made by the Guardian newspaper against News International (…) Parliamentary select committees are important but only work if MPs on them behave with fairness and honour. Some on this committee have not. Its report is accordingly worthless.
The Sun’s story toes the same line as the official statement from News International in response to the report [in full below], which suggested that certain members of the cross-party committee had pursued a party-political agenda.
They have worked in collusion with The Guardian, consistently leaking details of the Committee’s intentions and deliberations to that newspaper.
Elsewhere, sister title The Times reports on the committee’s recommendations offering up two stories on page 15 of the print edition.