Dave Lee on why he won’t be joining the UK’s National Union of Journalists (NUJ) any time soon.
Dave Lee: ‘The NUJ is a cowardly union’
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Digital Britain: this time you can comment
Lord Carter’s Digital Britain report last month was debated, discussed and pondered far and wide in media land. Now (HT @tom_watson) there’s an open version of the document with a commenting feature built in.
Writetoreply.org has the report in sections and any comments left are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 UK: England & Wales Licence.
The authors of the report are encouraged to subscribe to the comments RSS…
Digital Britain – a round-up in 10 bullet points
Today’s the UK government’s ‘Digital Britain’ interim report provided quite a lot to digest, so here’s a ten point link round-up of the most important parts:
- A BBC News video of the Culture Secretary, Andy Burnham, outlining the report.
- Lord Carter called for broadband in every UK house by 2012, probably at a speed of 2Mb/second (Guardian.co.uk)
- Here’s the Guardian report on the subsequent opposition, and the Telegraph’s, broken down by topic.
- Guardian.co.uk’s Emily Bell looks at the significance of the report’s ‘interim’ nature. She examines how ‘we are caught between two worlds’.
- The Telegraph talks to Lord Carter about Channel 4 funding: “if there is left over cash from television switchover, it could be put to numerous uses, not just to fund the broadcaster [Channel 4],” the paper reported.
- Brand Republic on the possibility of a Channel 4 / BBC Worldwide tie-up.
- ZDNet gives a chattier breakdown here. And the title of the TechRadar post lures you in: ‘The Good, the Bad, and the WTF?’
- It’s hard to resist a good old Wordle (we’re as guilty as everyone else) and here is the Guardian’s depiction of the report, along with an explanation of how Lord Carter vows to force ISPs to crack down on piracy.
- Helpfully, the Guardian (by far the most comprehensive and easy-to-navigate news coverage of the afternoon) brings all its Digital Britain content together here.
and an eleventh:
- The BBC Trust’s reaction, which says the body welcomes the report and its proposals.
Early Day Motion support for New Statesman negotiations not really needed
Update: The National Union of Journalists met with New Statesman management today and talks on a recognition agreement will continue, the NUJ has confirmed.
27 MPs have signed an early day motion supporting recognition of the UK National Union of Journalists by the New Statesman magazine management, but their support isn’t really needed anymore after the New Statesman owners agreed – last week – to meet the union after all.
The NUJ originally reported that the magazine management was refusing to recognise the union. In response, an Early Day Motion, proposed by MP John Cummings, was submitted on January 20, and asked for ‘the owners of the New Statesman to recognise the NUJ, to suspend the redundancies and to begin negotiations with the union over the future of the magazine.’
But on January 15 it had been announced that New Statesman management members will meet with the union to discuss the right to negotiate pay and work conditions.
Journalism.co.uk asked NUJ campaigns officer, Miles Barter, if the MPs’ support was a bit redundant. “It is yes,” he said. “The EDM was put in when they [New Statesman] weren’t [meeting with NUJ],” he said, but added that the NUJ is ‘grateful for their solidarity.’
allmediascotland: Voluntary redundancies put on hold at Herald
Staff who had applied for voluntary redundancy packages, as part of a reorganisation of the group’s titles, are now being asked to reapply for other roles by management after talks with the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) broke down.
Just under tenth of UK Twitter traffic diverted to news and media sites
Today’s Hitwise report showing that UK internet traffic to the website has increased by 974 per cent over the last year (now the 291st most popular website in the UK), brings with it significant statistics for media and news sites:
- “The amount of traffic it sends to other websites has increased 30-fold over the last 12 months.”
- “Almost 10 per cent of Twitter’s downstream traffic goes to news and media websites.”
- “BBC News is currently the seventh most popular site visited after www.twitter.com.” (i.e through re-directs)
(Hitwise report, January 2009)
As PaidContent flags up, Twitter is proportionally more popular in the UK than in the US. “This frankly could be because there are more websites or more diverse interests in the US,” comments Robert Andrews.
FT.com: Lebedev to buy Evening Standard for £1?
Owners of the paper, Daily Mail & General Trust, are expected to confirm the sale to the Russian oligarch later today.
Press Gazette: Wired UK names website team
The UK edition of Conde Nast technology magazine Wired has named the editorial team for its website – set to launch in April to coincide with the print title.
Former online technology editor for Times Online, Holden Frith, takes up the reins as editor of Wired.co.uk; while the site’s news editor will be Katie Scott from Pocket-Lint.
NUJ Releases: New Statesman to discuss recognition / Irish NUJ urges Indy News&Media staff to resist wage cuts
Two more releases from the NUJ: the New Statesman is to meet to discuss NUJ recognition; and the the Irish Executive Council of the NUJ is urging members at Independent News and Media Plc not to sign up to a company-wide campaign to reduce wages.
NUJ Release: Union urges MPs to help journalists refuse unethical work
“UK MPs are being urged by the union to give journalists a chance to report more responsibly by refusing unethical instructions from editors without losing their jobs,” the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) has announced on its site.
“The NUJ has been trying to persuade the Press Complaints Commission to adopt a ‘conscience clause’ in journalists’ contracts, to allow them to decline to undertake work they consider in breach of the union’s Code of Conduct,” a statement on the NUJ site says. Full release…