Media Quotes of the Week: Police protect pig's privacy to is it time to end post-match interviews?

PA reporter Catherine Wylie‏@wyliecatherine on Twitter: "@WestYorksPolice said they couldn't give out further info about an incident involving an escaped pig on the M62 citing 'data protection'."

Nick Cohen in City University's XCity magazine: "There is massive over supply. There are 74 schools offering graduate journalism degrees in the UK. They're taking the money of thousands of students each year when there aren't the jobs to go to.If bankers were doing the same thing they'd be arrested for mis-selling."

News Corp ceo Robert Thomson in The Times [£]: "Google’s commodification of content knowingly, wilfully undermined provenance for profit. That was followed by the Facebook stream, with its journalistic jetsam and fake flotsam. Together, the two most powerful news publishers in human history have created an ecosystem that is dysfunctional and socially destructive. Both companies could have done far more to highlight that there is a hierarchy of content, but instead they have prospered mightily by peddling a flat-earth philosophy that doesn’t distinguish between the fake and the real because they make copious amounts of money from both."

Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Tal Smoller: "Worries about the spread of fake news on Facebook, and the backlash against YouTube's inappropriate advertising placements, may inadvertently boost publishers' near-term monetization of online content. The proliferation of news from unverified publishers could spur readers to subscribe to publishers' established paid-for publications. Moreover, the arguably more controlled, predictable content on publishers websites and apps may prove a safe haven for brands reevaluating their digital ad spending on social media."

(((Dan Hodges)))@DPJHodges on Twitter: "Trump's spokesman said Hitler never used chemical weapons. And they accuse us of peddling fake news."

Those were the days: New York Times newsroom 1942 [Wikipedia]

From Yahoo Tech: "More than half of the jobs at US newspapers have disappeared since 2001, with a large portion of the losses offset by employment gains at internet firms, government figures showed Monday. The data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed US newspaper employment fell from 412,000 in January 2001 to 174,000 in September 2016. In the internet publishing and portal segment the number of jobs grew from 67,000 in 2007 -- the earliest for which data was available -- to 206,000 last year."

Peter Wilby in the New Statesman on the Mail's Legs-it front page: "You can call all this shameful, demeaning and sexist, and you would be right. But it is also brilliant: an example of political comment (or propaganda, if you prefer) wrapped in a package that many people will enjoy, laugh at and talk about. It is what tabloid newspapers do. They humanise news that most people might otherwise find dull and abstract. If you don’t like it, don’t read them."

Tom Utley in the Daily Mail on the possible return to Manchester by the Guardian: "Chins up, Polly, Zoe & Co. If you are sent back to Manchester, it’s too much to hope your paper will re-connect with reality. But at least you’ll be reunited with your old friends at the BBC, the prodigals exiled to Salford before you. As the great echo chamber of the subsidised Left moves north, you can be sure that they, at least, will welcome you with that proverbial fatted calf."

Steve Busfield on the International Business Times calls for the end of the post-match interview: "Back in the dark ages the only football manager you would regularly hear of having spoken to the media was Brian Clough – and that was because he was tremendously entertaining. Of course there was also an awful lot less football on television back then. Nowadays the pre and post-match interview is a staple of sport on the box, a function of the need to fill endless hours around every game...Fans watch football for the sport not for the eloquence of the players and managers. Sportsmen and women are admired for their physical skills rather than their loquaciousness. Let's end the inanity of the post-game interview and accept that the reason Clough was so famous was because he was the exception and not the rule."

[£]=paywall

Here's a good news story about the regional press

Steve Busfield, Guardian News and Media's head of media and technology, asks in MediaGuardian today: "Can you remember the last time you read a good news story about the regional press?"
He then goes on to provide one by praising the standard of journalism in this year's Regional Press Awards, which have been rescued by the NUJ.
Busfield, who is helping judge the awards writes: "Last week, while judging for the 2010 Regional Press Awards, it was clear to me that quality journalism is alive and thriving in the regions. Those still working for the big regional media are still talented, and now ever more willing to experiment with their journalism.
"Meanwhile, new publications, organisations, online collectives are sprouting. I've been judging the regional press awards for a few years, but after last week, I think the standard is as good as ever, with even more variety too. Wilmington – the information group which earlier this year shamefully abandoned the regional awards after it sold Press Gazette while keeping the cash-generating British Press Awards – may just regret its decision."

• See: NUJ: 'We've saved the Regional Press Awards'
  

Never mind the abuse: Save the whistleblowers

I've done an article for InPublishing about the moves by the Independent, The Times and Sunday Times to stop anonymous postings on their news websites.
On this site, I've already quoted the Independent's online editor Martin King stating: "Websites have been encouraging cowardice. They allow users to hide behind virtual anonymity to make hasty, ill-researched and often intemperate comments regardless of any consideration for personal hurt or corporate damage."
He urged posters: "If you are speaking up, then speak up proudly and with responsibility. Embrace this opportunity to come out from the cloak of anonymity. That’s for the cowards for whom “freedom of speech” is something to rant about rather than an expression to live by. With all its obligations."
Here are a couple of quotes from my article, which raise the question of protecting postings by whistleblowers and anonymous sources:
Steve Busfield, Guardian News and Media's head of media and technology, warned that stopping anonymous quotes would curtail whistleblowing. He said: "Removing anonymity from comment posting will undoubtedly result in a fall in user comments. If I were to be cynical I could point out that the Independent website generates few comments anyway (see its blogs page for instance http://blogs.independent.co.uk/ ), while the Times will already see a substantial fall in user interaction with the erection of its paywalls. "It might be that comments will become slightly politer if the mask of anonymity is removed. But does it really gain other readers to know the name of a member of the public posting a comment hundreds of miles away? Removing commenter anonymity will also make threads less interesting, less revealing. There will certainly be less whistleblowing."
Jo Wadsworth, web editor of The Argus, Brighton, said some of the most valuable comments on her site were anonymous. She said: "No system can guarantee real names, but only the most persistent trolls will go to the trouble of inventing personas to re-register - and shelling out for the privilege in the case of The Times.
"Having said that, most trolls like to develop a persona in any case, so I'm not sure that using a real-sounding name will make much difference to them. "However, some of the most valuable comments, news-wise, are left anonymously - tip-offs, personal accounts of traumatic experiences, etc. If I were implementing a real-names policy, I'd definitely want to retain a way for people to post these, even if these were post-moderated."

'Guardian may have had to close MEN'

Guardian News & Media's head of media and technology Steve Busfield (left)describes today's sale of the Manchester Evening News by Guardian Media Group to Trinity Mirror as the "least worst option" and claims it may have faced closure.

Writing on the Greenslade blog, he says: "Many northerners still refer to The Guardian as The Manchester Guardian. It hasn't been so since the early 1960s, but there was clearly an affinity and a pride that came with such a long-standing link.

"But the Manchester Evening News was not the Manchester Guardian. It is a regional newspaper, in an industry which is buckling under the twin pressures of the credit crunch and the growth of digital rivals. Guardian Media Group, with its small disparate regional network, was not the organisation to pull the MEN out of that hole.

"Trinity Mirror, on the other hand, has a large and still relatively successful regional newspaper business. Trinity Mirror's papers are not exempt from the pressures afflicting the industry, but it does have a larger portfolio, it can make economies of scale and it has other papers, such as the Liverpool Post, in the north-west of England.

"There will, inevitably, be cost-cutting, but, for the sake of the business, that has got to be better than closure. Just how far local newspapers can be cut back is a reasonable question to ask, though. The staff who remain and the readers are the ones who will find out just how damaging that might be"GMG clearly did not want to close the MEN, but, without the sale, it might have had no option."

• Trinity Mirror has told MEN Media staff they will be moving to Oldham, where the Manchester Evening News is printed. A spokesman for Trinity Mirror told Press Gazette: "Due to the lease requirements Trinity Mirror has only been granted a six-month license for the occupation of Scott Place. Therefore we are required to relocate operations and it is proposed to relocate to Trinity Mirror's Greater Manchester premises in Oldham."

Indy boss gives MediaGuardian a kicking

Simon Kelner, managing director and former editor of The Independent, gives MediaGuardian a kicking in the latest issue of the New Statesman, claiming it is deliberately damaging his paper.
Kelner claims: "The Guardian as an organisation proclaims the highest ethical values, but it is quite clear that they have used their media website purposely to damage their biggest commercial rival.
"Nothing could be further from the avowed aims of the Scott Trust, and I am compiling evidence of unsourced, biased and irresponsible journalism on the website to supply to the trust.
"Those who work in newspapers are aware that MediaGuardian is contaminated by the commercial values of GMG. The problem is that the wider media industry, particularly the advertising community, regard it as an objective and authoritative site when, of course, it is anything but."
Kelner makes his comment in an article (not online) by London Evening Standard business and media correspondent Gideon Spanier headlined: "Who Guards the Guardian" which contains complaints from a number of media executives against MediaGuardian.
Guardian News and Media's head of media and technology Steve Busfield responds in the NS article: "If the site is rubbing executives up the wrong way, then we are probably doing a good job."
Independent staff expressed their anger in postings to MediaGuardian last month after it carried an article about the paper's financial troubles headlined "How Long Can The Independent Newspaper Last?" to lead its Monday media print section.

Steve Busfield's Best of 2008

Steve Busfield, Guardian News and Media's head of media and technology, picks his Best of 2008.

Best old/trad media of the year: It has been a funny old year for old media, with so many cutbacks and redundancies. Would it be wrong of me to say The Guardian? We are moving to a new building (which is fabulous) and integrating (which as everyone knows is incredibly complicated, but I am optimistic that it will work well). Ask me again in 2009.

Best new media of the year: Surely that must be the emergence of an old media giant into shiny new media: http://jonslattery.blogspot.com/

Best story of the year: Hard to choose because in their different ways the Olympics in China, Zimbabwe, Shannon Matthews, the US elections and the global financial meltdown were all great copy. If I have to pick one then it will have to be the credit crunch, which still has a long way to go.

Prediction for 2009: The credit crunch will get worse. I'm fearing full-blown 1930s depression.


Tomorrow: Neil Fowler, former editor of Which? and a string of newspapers, picks his best media buys of 2008 and makes a dramatic prediction for the regional press next year. Don't miss it!

Rest of the Best of 2008 so far: Paul Linford, Adrian Monck , Grey Cardigan , Jean Morgan