Interesting to spot this, late Friday afternoon. Is it because the Telegraph had the exclusive, so people went there to read about it, or because BBC users just weren’t all that interested in the subject?
MPs’ expenses was top of the list for the Telegraph’s ‘most viewed’…
But rather lower (7th), for the BBC’s most read (below), even though it was running as the site’s main story…
It has not been officially confirmed or denied, so speculation is rife as to whether the Telegraph paid for the information that has provided a whole host of stories for the newspaper on MPs’ expenses.
The Press Association reports here on the Commons Authority’s call for a police investigation of the leak.
“(…) [L]awyers said that, if claims the paper paid up to £300,000 for the information ‑ reportedly contained in a computer disk stolen from the parliamentary fees office ‑ were accurate, both the mole and the paper remained at risk of criminal prosecution.”
The Telegraph press office directed Journalism.co.uk to the television interviews with TMG’s assistant editor, Benedict Brogan, when we asked them for the official response to the claims.
“The Daily Telegraph declined to say how it obtained the information amid speculation the paper may have paid up to £300,000 for the leak.”
Roy Greenslade says his knee-jerk reaction was to think ‘scandal,’ upon the reports of the payment.
But, on second thoughts, Greenslade decides the contents of the disc ‘are definitely in the public interest’ and concludes:
“Finally, let’s also admit that the Telegraph story has dominated the rest of the media ever since it broke. We have all benefited from the story. Isn’t that justification enough, both for its publication and the way it was obtained?”
Greenslade is also clear in his view that the story is a ‘revelation’ rather than an ‘investigation’. Also, in a later comment he states:
“My posting is based on the premise that the Daily Telegraph paid. There is no proof of that, as yet, however. I certainly think the idea that the paper paid £300k or even half that is absurd. I’d imagine, if money has changed hands, it’s much more likely to be five figures.”
Benedict Brogan, Telegraph assistant editor, on his blog, urges his readers not to be ‘steered off course’ by allegations:
“There’s been a lot of speculation about the sourcing of this undertaking, and allegations thrown about by Sir Stuart Bell and Peter Mandelson. The politicians quite understandably want this to become a story about the media. Treat what they say as chaff, mere puffs of silver shredded paper designed to steer you off course and away from the central issues which they continue to misrepresent.”
Please leave your comments, and other relevant links below…
More twists and turns in the Independent and Mecom sagas today.
Independent News and Media (at time of writing) has failed to reach an agreement with bondholders – the company was meant to reach a deal on the £179 million bond by May 18, but is now seeking a ‘standstill’ period.
Meanwhile newspaper publisher Mecom has secured yet another convenant extension, raising about £140 million in new equity from shareholders, but also announced 500 job cuts.
The news has triggered a memory for blogger Kristine Lowe of a journalism conference in 1997 2007, where Mecom boss David Montgomery responded to an assertion by the Telegraph that there was no reason for the Independent or Guardian to exist:
“I didn’t say that. The Telegraph did. But in general I think companies should make money. I think it’s demeaning for people to work for companies that don’t,” he told Lowe at the time.
How very apt.
The latest ‘Twackdown’ seems unlikely to be the end of the Telegraph-Guardian or, to be absolutely fair, Guardian-Telegraph frictions.
After all, in just under an hour we’ll know who is top of the ABCe pops for this month…
So, this week’s Twitterfall spat from Malcolm Coles: ‘That Shane Richmond / Charles Arthur Twackdown in full’.
Guardian technology editor Charles Arthur has the last word [to date] in a comment beneath the post: “I’d only point out that this was a far more multidimensional discussion than this portrays.”
Another row a’brewing with this? The Guardian reports ‘anger’ at the Telegraph over Guido’s Spectator article.
(And while we’re on Guido, it’s interesting to note that Guido himself was in the Guardian building this week – via Jon Slattery)
Update: In the March 2009 ABCe audit, as released at midday, the Telegraph tops the table of six national newspaper titles with the highest number of unique users, followed in second place by the Guardian.
Today’s budget announcement is being billed as the most significant of recent times given the UK’s current financial woes.
This is both a breaking news story, but one that requires closer analysis and follow up – and, perhaps most importantly, the ability to make it relevant to the reader.
So how are news organisations covering it online and who’s ticking these boxes?
Telegraph.co.uk
Currently performing well in Google News search for budget, the Telegraph is going in big on online coverage today.
It will be updating throughout the day via its @Telefinance Twitter account (headed up by @hrwaldram). Meanwhile a trio of Telegraph reporters have been liveblogging budget news since 6:30am.
On the subject of Twitter – the Telegraph has reinstated its Twitterfall – an embed aggregating all Twitter updates marked #budget. The feature had to be taken down earlier in the week, because of some mischief, but so far so good with the tweaked (filtered?) version.
In addition there’s a nice ‘What to expect’ guide breaking down the issues that are likely to feature in the budget announcement.
FT.com
Arguably the go-to site for budget coverage given its specialism, the FT is building on tried and trusted features from last year (a budget day podcast, video analysis, a budget calculator) with a new liveblog from 12pm covering Alistair Darling’s speech, editor Robert Shrimsley, who will participate, told Journalism.co.uk.
The format is based on the site’s MarketsLive feature successfully developed and used by its Alphaville blog. As such it will ‘bring people people up to speed, but inform them in an entertaining way’. Financial analysis but entertaining – two styles that rarely meet, said Shrimsley, but that will be key to FT.com’s liveblogging of the budget.
“There’s a premium on getting that information out and telling people what its means. We feel at the FT that we have the right people to pass on that analysis,” explained Shrimsley.
There will be a Twitter feed too, but it’s crucial not spam people with updates, he added. Readers are encouraged to participate in both this stream and the liveblog though.
Alphaville isn’t being used as a lab for experimenting with new ways of coverage, he stressed, but there is potential for more liveblogging across the site. It’s important not to overdose on technology, however, but to use only when applicable, he added.
“Can we offer our audience what is worth reading? There’s lots of innovation on the internet and there’s lots that you can do – that doesn’t mean you have to,” he said.
Channel 4 News website
More use of Twitter by the Channel 4 news team – as introduced by presenter Krishnan Guru-Murphy in the vid below:
There will also be use of CoverItLive (CiL) for a liveblog starting at 12pm, which was similarly used in the site’s coverage of the G20 summit.
Some nice additional touches include the use of FactCheck to test the claims made by the chancellor in the budget; and a wordcloud (or Snowcloud) of Darling’s announcement.
Sky News Online and Times Online
A specially built budget page has been set up including a liveblog, live video streams of the budget speech, and analysis from bloggers, tax experts and taxpayers, the site told us. There’s a good guide to how to use Sky’s online coverage too – one particular highlight, the chance for users to get answers from PKF UK tax accountant Matt Coward.
Meanwhile Times Online will be following up its excellent liveblogging of the G20 summit with a version starting at midday today.
Liveblogging at regional level
Deciphering what the budget means for the average news reader is being tackled head on by the Newcastle Evening Chronicle with a liveblog taking place across a number of Trinity Mirror centres.
“We’ll be mainly trying to digest it for *normal* people with rx [reactions] from experts, rather than the scary £180bn debt figures,” said Colin George, multimedia editor, in a Twitter update.
Wales Online (bringing in a tax expert) and the Birmingham Post – under its dedicated Live! Section – also host budget day liveblogs (using CiL again).
Good old online altruism eh? Twitter users have seized upon the opportunity to get their uncensored Tweets published on the Telegraph’s Budget page.
A Twitterfall feature – which now seems to have been removed – embedded on the side of the Telegraph.co.uk Budget 2009 page, picked up Tweets which referred to the UK Budget 2009.
Funnily enough, the Twitter masses seemed more interested in expressing opinions on the Telegraph’s editorial content, or saying hello to their mums, than adding to the economic debate.
@DarkPhnx perhaps sums it up best.
A sample from earlier below – we seem to have captured it at a cleaner moment. Or check out this grab from @Noodlepie.
Appropriately enough a Twitter update from @BenLaMothe alerted Journalism.co.uk to an innovative new use of Twitter on Telegraph.co.uk’s sport pages.
After displaying Twitterfall, which can be set up to aggregate tweets containing multiple terms, on its big news screens, a stream of relevant Twitter updates are displayed in a widget on the right-hand side of the site’s live Premiership football match report pages.
Developed by a team of students, using Twitterfall could provide a neat way of following the conversations around certain players, transfer gossip or matches as they’re played.
Ian Douglas, head of digital production at Telegraph.co.uk, explained to Journalism.co.uk that list of club names and key player names are currently being tracked, but if new trends or keywords emerge they can be quickly added.
Certain tweaks to avoid irrelevant updates have been made – #chelsea is being used as opposed to Chelsea to avoid tweets about nights on the Kings Road, for example.
The Telegraph wanted to trial Twitterfall on pages that have ‘a lot of activity and a lot of people talking’, said Douglas, but is being considered for other areas of the site and potentially topic pages. The appropriateness of the widget to a given page, because it updates so rapidly, must be taken into consideration, he added.
The title is happy to look outside of its own development team to third parties when necessary, said Douglas, with other recent collaborations including this interactive guide to new Formula One cars.
The Telegraph’s Kate Day asks whether Twitter and blogging lead to a different kind of ‘lazy’ journalism, or a different kind of ‘more open media’.
She was at the Financial Services Authority (FSA) conference and comments:
“I was struck by the subdued atmosphere amongst the experts and financial journalists in the room. There was a lot of shaking of heads and very few leapt to their feet when the floor was opened up for questions.
“But outside the room, the debate seemed much more lively. Bloggers such as Documentally and Sizemore covered the event live online and a number of questions from people on Twitter were fed into the discussion via Reuters journalist Mark Jones.”
Day asks: “So is this lazy journalism? It is certainly different journalism. It loosens the grip traditional media organisations have on covering events such as this and brings in people who would never have had the chance to ask questions to those in positions of authority before.”
Al Jazeera’s Richard Gizbert co-hosted this week’s Digital News and Affairs 2009 conference, leading sessions, asking questions and throwing in a bit of his own perspective. Journalism.co.uk managed to catch him for a quick chat.
Gizbert presents a weekly show called ‘The Listening Post,’ which looks at how the news is covered by the world’s media. The programme looks at the impact of blogs, online video and podcasts, as well as media in traditional formats. How did that come about?
In the 18 months between when Gizbert pitched the programme to Al Jazeera, and when the Channel launched in November 2006, all the online video sites really started taking off, he explains. It was a bit of a no-brainer, then, to use video and digital content in its programme: “let’s adapt to something where we don’t need people, and it doesn’t cost us any money – even I can figure that one out,” Gizbert jokes.
“In addition to that, the new media stuff keeps coming.” Gizbert has a ‘fairly young team on show’ and they respond to new material and ‘take it as it comes’. However, ‘we’re not really all that charged up with technology for technology’s sake,’ he adds.
Media is often too bogged-down by technological conventions, he says, citing as an example TV reporters’ obsession with reporting live from scenes where it makes no difference whether they’re there or not.
And why the media as a subject? Media is a powerful institution but compare that with coverage media does of media,” he answers. There simply is very little media analysis of media, he explains, adding that Al Jazeera English as a channel provided him with the freedom he wanted for the show. The channel ‘allows us to tell the stories we want to tell,’ he says.
The stories are there to be told, and it’s just as important right now, he said. “The media is misbehaving, and it’s going to get worse because everything is splintering. People are panicking (…) There’s an over-reliance on celebrity because that’s cookie-cutter stuff, they can get it and it’s cheap.”
Another gripe he has is with the concept of ‘media loyalty’. “I don’t want them to watch us [Al Jazeera] 24-7.” Watch other channels alongside, Gizbert says. “What I don’t get are ‘viewing habits’.
When people tell him ‘I take the Guardian’ or ‘I take the Telegraph’ he says ‘yeah, why don’t you read something else?’. “Why are consumers, who are so selective and open-minded about the other things in their life, so narrow-minded when it comes to media consumption?” Gizbert says.
Twitterfall, an app that lets you monitor new updates to Twitter on certain #tags or search terms, has been a fixture on the big screens in the Telegraph’s integrated newsroom for the last two weeks, according to this pic from Telegraph.co.uk editor Marcus Warren (courtesy of TwitPic):
The Twitterfall of #twitterfall is the first non-mainstream media news source to appear on the screens, Warren said in a Tweet, adding that it’s the same size as the projection of Telegraph.co.uk on the screens and given more space than Sky, BBC and CNN on the wall.