Hitwise’s Robin Goad takes a look at trends in UK internet visits over the last three years. The figures suggest that traffic to social networking sites, news and media, and entertainment sites is outpacing that to transactional sites e.g. shopping and classifieds sites.
“[J]ust because people are using the web more, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are spending more money online,” he writes.
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.
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As reported by HoldtheFrontPage yesterday, some photojournalism graduates from Sheffield College have been told they must resit one of their end of year exams after a mistake made by their college. More than half of the students are reportedly boycotting the proposed retake.
The college recently wrote to around 20 students to inform them that they would need to resit a law paper taken on June 4 2009.
The National Council for Training of Journalists (NCTJ) invalidated the paper because of a ‘procedural blunder’, it told Journalism.co.uk. This is thought to centre around the fact that the computers used to sit the exam had access to the web. This is the first time the college has used computers for the law exam.
In a press statement given to Journalism.co.uk, Andrew Cropley, executive director of the Norton College campus, which is home to the photography, media and journalism courses, said an investigation into how this error had occurred had been launched. He emphasised that the students were in no way to blame for the mistake.
“The college will ensure that future exams are taken in strict compliance with NCTJ procedures,” added Cropley.
“The college is totally committed to getting this right. We are proud of our press photography and photojournalism course, which has a national reputation for training some of the best media photographers in the country.”
Many students are now busy in full-time jobs, some are even thought to have left the country. Paul Johnson, now working as a press photographer at the Times and Star in Workington, told HTFP: “I am supposed to be doing my NCE in November, but I don’t now when I’m going to be able to fit it all in.”
The Sheffield course is thought to be the longest running photojournalism course in the UK.
To reduce inconvenience as much as possible, the college will reimburse all travel expenses and will create individual exam dates for students. Despite this, students are forming a protest against the ordered retake including a Facebook group against the move.
A spokesperson for the NCTJ gave the following statement to Journalism.co.uk: “In fairness to all candidates, and to protect the integrity of the exams and the industry’s standards for journalism, centres must ensure candidates sit NCTJ exams under the required conditions.”
As of yet there is no further information regarding the status of the protest.
If you are affected by the exam retakes please do get in touch with either office [at] journalism.co.uk or laura [at] journalism.co.uk.
A call to action on behalf of the Online Journalism Blog, which with the help of Matt Wardman, is attempting to build a map of locally-focused blogs in the UK.
You can submit the name of any local blogs you know of via an online form.
Matt has some interesting thoughts on the opportunities for local news blogs in this post too.
“I think group blogs with varied teams of contributors may be best placed to provide a decent level of coverage and draw a good readership, while competing effectively with other media outlets. That is a trend we have seen in the political blog niche over several years – the sites which have established themselves and maintain a position as key sites have developed progressively larger teams of editors, and provided a wider range of commentary and services,” he suggests.
In this interview with Catherine Gluckstein, the VP of Getty Image’s iStock, which the photo agency bought back in 2006, discusses the difficulties of finding a business model for images from citizen journalists.
Getty’s own foray into the cit-j space saw it buy and later shutdown Scoopt.
“[A] lot of people who take the pictures are not necessarily trying to monetise them – it works best when they send them to the news organisations,” explains Gluckstein.
iStock, which is a pro-am microstock play, is finding success with timeless images, she says. Contributors receive up to 40 per cent commission with images sold to users from $0.95 each.
Gluckstein, who is also CFO of Life.com – the resurrected photo magazine, also comments on the role of social media as a significant driver of traffic to the site.
The Norwich-based publisher Archant has announced a 61.1 per cent fall in operating profits for the year up to June 2009, despite a rise in digital revenues.
Archant, which runs a range of daily and weekly titles in East Anglia, London and the south west of the UK, made £14.8 million in operating cuts so far this year, according to the figures released over the weekend.
The group’s newspaper and printing operations saw a 25.3 per cent decrease in profits over the same period to £49.1 million, while magazine profits were down by 22.2 per cent to £21.7 million.
In contrast, the company’s digital revenues increased by 18.9 per cent – but this rise was not enough to offset the downturn in traditional revenues for the publisher.
“Adjusting to this new and different world and restoring levels of profitability will take time. We remain confident of our ability to exploit the many opportunities to do so, utilising our powerful brands and building on our relationships with our readers and advertisers,” said chairman Richard Jewson in the release.
Despite previously predicting that half of the UK’s regional papers will close in the next five years, media industry analyst Claire Enders claims she’s an advocate and not a sceptic in this interview with Peter Kirwan.
Josh Halliday, an undergraduate journalism student at the University of Sunderland and InJournalism editor, takes a look at a new student organisation. A version of this post originally appeared on his blog. A disclosure: he launched Euro CollegeJourn, an online student community, earlier this year.
The UK-centric Student Publication Association will be a ‘national representative body’ for student publications ‘which supports student publications and their contributors by offering guidance, knowledge sharing, links in to the industry and become a forum for all involved,’ according to notes from a preliminary meeting last week, which I have permission to quote from.
These early developments suggest that online resources will be central to the SPA (or SJA according to their website.) Such online resources will seek to provide information and resources regarding good practice and legal issues.
Member publications will have the option to upload their content to the SPA website allowing for ‘affiliated publications’ and industry experts to see their work and, presumably, offer feedback and advice.
There is also plans for an ‘alumni association’ to allow for ‘strong industry contacts to be sustained and have a base of knowledge and experience which affiliated member publications can use to their advantage’.
Regarding the set-up, there will be nine regional representatives whose job it is to report back to a central body, enabling the Association to make ‘informed decisions about how it should operate and run itself’. The regions represented are: London and East Anglia, South East England, South West England, the Midlands, North East England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland.
Now my take. Any organisation which acts as a forum for student journalists and student journalism can only be a good thing.
I think the SPA would do well to get in touch with, and be inspired by, CoPress in the US. CoPress are, in their own words, an ‘organization dedicated to providing college news outlets with the technical resources and support network they need to innovate online’.
Look at what they’ve done with a wiki, a forum, published conference calls, engagement with the online community through social media; all ‘best practice’ essentials, in my opinion.
I admit, when I received the email from the SPA, it concerned me that it was the first I’d heard of their plans.
It would have been good to see mention of it on Tomorrows’ News, Tomorrow’s Journalists, a purpose-built forum for student journalists.
Similarly, with Euro CollegeJourn. Even though my project is currently on a summer hiatus it would have been good to see Association members involved with it.
In the hope the SPA will join the existing and evolving online conversation. I’ve reserved a Twitter account especially for them. It’s @StudentJournUK – take it, it’s yours.
Nonetheless, I wish the Association every luck. What better time can there be for meaningful collaborative work between journalism students?
What would you like to see a representative body for student journalists and student publications do? How could they help you out? Leave a comment below.
Pulse, the leading publication for the UK medical profession, has learnt that the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) is formally investigating a Daily Mail story that claimed GPs are earning as much as £380,000 a year.
“A spokesman for the commission told Pulse it had received ‘seven or eight’ complaints from doctors regarding the accuracy of the Mail’s front-page story on Tuesday.
“The story, based on figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act from 22 PCTs, claimed to have ‘found one GP earning £380,000 a year and a number pocketing more than £300,000’ – although it admitted that ‘in some cases the figures include cash GPs have to pay out for staff salaries and rents’.”
The British Medical Association (BMA) said that General Practitioners Committe (GPC) chair, Dr Laurence Buckman, had written a formal letter of complaint to the Daily Mail editor, but had not yet complained to the PCC, Pulse reports.
A Daily Mail spokesperson defended its report, in response to complaints about accuracy.
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 at this link
Tip of the Day
#FollowJourn
On the Editors’ Blog