Monday 30 November 2009
IFJ launches global solidarity campaign over massacre of journalists in the Philippines
The International Federation of Journalists is calling for a global solidarity campaign in support of the journalists massacred in the Philippines last Monday.
It is now thought that as many as 30 journalists were killed - which the IFJ says is "the world’s biggest single atrocity against journalists".
The IFJ is sending an international mission to Manila from December 7 to 10. The mission, co-ordinated by the IFJ Asia office, will support the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, provide solidarity to journalists and their families, and lobby the government "that this is an outrage that they will not be allowed to forget".
The NUJP has asked the IFJ to request all colleagues, affiliates - which include the NUJ, partners and interested parties to join a global solidarity campaign. The first phase of the campaign will culminate on December 9, 2009 (ahead of International Human Rights Day on December 10).
A joint press conference will be held by the NUJP and the IFJ-led international mission to release the initial findings of NUJP investigations into the massacre.
The IFJ is also calling on affiliates and partners to meet Philippine Ambassadors and Consulates in their home countries to demand "that the killers of our colleagues are brought to justice".
United Arab Emirates blocks Sunday Times
The National Media Council ordered the paper blocked by distributors without providing a reason, an executive at the paper in Dubai said.
The Sunday Times' Business section featured a double-page spread graphic illustrating Dubai's ruler Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum sinking in a sea of debt. The Sunday Times wasn't given a reason for the block, or a timeframe when it will be lifted, the executive said.
A government official in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the U.A.E., said that the picture of Sheik Mohammed, which accompanied a story entitled: The sinking of Dubai's dream, was "offensive."
The Wall Street Journal says under the U.A.E.'s media code, publications are prohibited from criticising the sheikdom's rulers.
Via journalism.co.uk
New London free planned
MediaGuardian has seen a media pack for the new paper and says it is a free that plans to distribute 250,000 copies of the title twice weekly, on Fridays and Saturdays, outside rail and tube stations.
It says the company behind the launch is called Global Publishing Group which claims to have raised more then £5.5m to launch the title, along with a website and online radio station and TV channel.
There is speculation the London Weekly could launch in February.
Credit agencies where credit is due
They will welcome the view of Guardian readers' editor Siobhain Butterworth, who writes in her Open Door column today that the paper's journalists should follow its editorial code on attributing stories.
Butterworth says she became aware that the Sport site of the Guardian "routinely publishes stories without attribution" when mistakes in stories needed to be corrected.
Sunday 29 November 2009
Don't tell Mark Watts but...
"Mum married again – Roy Greenslade, who used to edit the Daily Mirror, and I am so glad and grateful he came along. He was a tremendous influence on me. Roy was a great activist; I have lots of memories of going on marches on his shoulders, and playing in our sitting room, next to Socialist Worker placards, during meetings of the Brighton Marxists."
Saturday 28 November 2009
Photographer dedicates his prize to 'fixers'
Friday 27 November 2009
YEP apology to Roman Abramovich
Roman Abramovich: An Apology
"In the Yorkshire Evening Post of June 11th, we reported that a court had been told that Roman Abramovich had threatened to kill Ken Bates.
The allegations were repeated in our online articles.
We now accept that such threats were not made and should not have been published in this manner.
We wish to set the record straight.
We apologise for any distress caused to Mr Abramovich and his family and as a mark of our regret, we have agreed to pay Mr Abramovich substantial damages which he will be donating to charity, as well as his legal costs."
Irish Times 'punished' for protecting sources
Miles Barter quits NUJ campaigns post
Barter told me: "I've done a year in the job and that's enough. I want to go back to freelancing."
He denied claims by defeated Journalist candidate Mark Watts that he had been "forced out" because of his links to NUJ Left.
Barter said: "Watts couldn't have got it more wrong if he was entering a 'getting it wrong' contest. I think Mark Watts is best ignored."
It is understood Barter sent a letter of resignation and has already stopped working for the NUJ. He is the union's former Northern organiser and was recruited to the London HQ of the NUJ last year to work in the campaigns and communications department.
Quotes of the Week
Andrew Neil, also in the Independent: “As an industry we took a huge wrong turn. It was a new technology and we didn’t quite understand it. We had been told that if we got the eyeballs – in the usual digital dotcom jargon – the money would follow. Well, we got the eyeballs and the money hasn’t followed.”
Jeff Jarvis on his Buzz Machine blog: "News Corp. leaving Google would be a mosquito bite on an elephant’s ass. Unnoticed by Google or by the audience. For there will always be – as Murdoch laments – free competitors: the BBC and Australian Broadcasting Corp, which he and his son complain about, not to mention the Guardian, the Telegraph, NPR, CBC, and any sensible news organization worldwide."
Jo Glanville on the Index on Censorship website on libel law reform: "Cosmetic surgery will not be sufficient. What’s required now is reform that addresses the chilling effect of libel on every level."
Thursday 26 November 2009
29 journalists now feared dead in massacre
RWB quotes a reporter based in the nearby city of Koronadal saying: "All the bodies have been located and identification is almost complete. According to the local media’s tally, we lost 29 colleagues in this tragedy.”
Attack on Sunday World editor condemned
McDowell was beaten to the ground and kicked about the head in an assault by four men in the middle of the busy Continental Market.
The assault happened less than a fortnight after supporters of four loyalists accused of murdering Sunday World journalist Martin O'Hagan smashed up McDowell's car. The vandalism happened while McDowell was inside Craigavon Court House attending a bail hearing for the men facing charges connected to the O'Hagan murder.
NUJ Irish Secretary Séamus Dooley said: "Jim McDowell is a brave editor of exceptional courage and he has never been afraid to take a strong stand. Neither Jim McDowell nor the staff of the Sunday World will be intimidated by this type of behaviour - from whatever quarter it has come.”
Online is lifeline for flood-hit Cumbria
Ian Brogden, online editor for Cumbria Newspapers, said: “The live blog was intended to act as a means for people to interact with the paper, ask questions and get the information they needed back in real time. Information was gathered from the police very quickly by our team of reporters, and we then wrote stories off the back of this for publication online and in print.
“One of the great benefits of the live blog was that it turned the website into something of a self-help site. Advice was being passed between readers to help one another."
New editor for Telegraph as Lewis moves on
Lewis, who will remain editor-in-chief of the Telegraph newspapers and website, will set up and run the new "entrepreneurial" digital division which will have a staff of 50 and be based in Euston away from the company's main office in Victoria.
As managing director, digital, he will also oversee the Telegraph Media Group's existing digital businesses. Lewis was appointed Daily Telegraph editor in October 2006 and the paper is a clear favourite to be named Newspaper of the Year for its scoop on MPs' expenses.
Gallagher has been deputy editor of the paper since September 2007; he was previously executive head of news and edited the paper this autumn while Lewis was at the Harvard Business School. Gallagher was previously news editor of the Daily Mail.
Telegraph assistant editor and chief political commentator Benedict Brogan has been promoted to deputy editor of the Daily Telegraph. Executive head of news Chris Evans is now number three on the paper.
More at MediaGuardian and Press Gazette
Coma man story a hoax says Huff Post
"'I screamed, but there was nothing to hear,' said Mr Houben" "tells of 23 lonely years".
Shermer says: "He's doing no such thing. These reporters are watching these same videos are reporting something that did not happen. He did not say anything, nor did he describe or tell. Houben is just sitting there in a chair looking like he's in a coma, with the facilitator standing next to him, his hand firmed gripped by hers, guiding his hand over the keyboard. And yet the reporters report that he is guiding her hand! Watch it again. It's as clear as can be!"
Suspect held over massacre in Philippines
Andal Ampatuan Jr, a local mayor, surrendered to the authorities but denied organising the killings, the BBC reports.
"The fatalities could include four UNTV reporters – Joy Duhay, Victor Nuñez, Macario Ariola and Jimmy Cabillo. Philippine news media have also named Leah Dalmacio of Mindanao Focus, Gina de la Cruz and Marites Cablitas of Today, Andy Teodoro of the Mindanao Inquirer, Bienvenido Lagarte of the Sierra News, Neneng Montaño of the weekly Saksi and Rey Merescon of MindaNews.
Northcliffe profits down by £45 million
Journalists freed in Somalia after 15 months
The agency said that the freed journalists are in a hotel in the capital Mogadishu, according to a Somali member of parliament and hotel sources.
"We have now brought both foreign journalists to the Sahafi hotel. We have been working for eight days on their release, but finally succeeded," MP Ahmed Diiriye told Reuters. "I don't want to comment on how we released them now."
Lindhout and Brennan were taken hostage by an armed group as they were returning to Mogadishu from Afgoye refugee camp, 20 km west of the Somali capital, on 23 August 2008.
Wednesday 25 November 2009
Aid pledge for families of massacred journalists
Most news reports put the death toll at 46, with at least 12 of the victims preliminarily identified as journalists. Among the press corps victims, most appeared to be reporters for local media or stringers for national outlets.
CPJ says it is heartened by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s strong response, which included pledges for full investigation and prosecution of the apparently politically motivated killings. But CPJ also said that the state of emergency declared in the province must not interfere with journalists seeking access and information to report on the killings.
“The Philippines has a long history of impunity in the case of the deaths of journalists — a history it had started to work to reverse in recent years. Now the country needs its press corps to fully cover this story of wanton political violence, which took so many lives, including those of journalists,” said Bob Dietz, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator.
“The president might not be able to reverse the culture of violence that surrounds so much of political life in the Philippines, but she can certainly use this terrible incident to fight the impunity that surrounds journalists’ deaths,” he said.
NUJ threatens strike at Trinity in Brum
A ballot of union members at the Birmingham centre concluded on Monday with a 75 per cent majority in favour of strike action, the NUJ said today.
Trinity Mirror is looking to make cuts to the papers after deciding to switch the Birmingham Mail to overnight printing and take the Birmingham Post weekly.
In October the company said it was looking to cut 40 editorial jobs across its Midlands operations, having already announced 70 job cuts at the end of 2008.
NUJ Northern regional organiser Chris Morley said: "It is clear that the chapel are in no mood to accept colleagues being thrown out of work into the worst recession in living memory - and for them to absorb the work on their already overburdened shoulders."
Johnston Press in pay wall experiment
It adds:"Managers have told staff that JP intends to roll-out the paid-for model across the company in line with what they are calling 'industry moves in this area to find a sustainable business model going forward'."
The initiative being launched next week will restrict users of selected JP sites from viewing content beyond the homepage without payment of a £5 three-month subscription - the equivalent of 40p per week. The subscription system will be the same as that already being used by the Scotsman to view "premium content" on its website.
An internal memo circulated by senior managers in one JP division that has been seen by HTFP stated: "Customers are used to paying for content in-paper and we are simply transferring this thinking online."
Johnston Press has declined to comment publicly on the plan.
Mark Watts hits back at NUJ general secretary
Watts writing on his FOIA website says: "Many tricky issues about the state of journalism in Britain today need to be addressed by the National Union of Journalists. But before the NUJ can tackle these urgent problems with credibility, its general secretary, Jeremy Dear, has to deal with the far-left faction seeking to take over the union."
Watts claims "Most journalists have shared my astonishment at the threat to the union posed by this faction, “NUJ Left”. However, the “NUJ Left” gang deployed a version of the scientologists’ “fair-game” strategy in which anyone who dares to criticise them are treated with an array of hysterical smears."
Watts has also taken the opportunity to hit back at NUJ general secretary Jeremy Dear who in a post-Journalist election comment on his blog criticised Watts for his attack on rival candidate Rich Simcox, who was supported by NUJ Left.
Dear wrote: "I am angry at the way Richard Simcox was attacked and the union's reputation rubbished by Mark Watts. Richard didn't deserve that.”
But Watts says of Dear: "He is simply wrong to say that I attacked Simcox and rubbished the union’s reputation. I did attack “NUJ Left” for fielding candidates in this and other NUJ elections without their declaring political affiliations."
He adds: "Dear said nothing about the outrageous smear campaigns mounted against me by several “NUJ Left” members and cheerleaders."
Watts concludes: “I call on our general secretary and deputy general secretary to condemn publicly the stated aims of ‘NUJ Left’. I understand that Dear is in a tricky spot. He needs to make clear his own position on “NUJ Left”. And then perhaps he will be able to focus on leading the NUJ to tackle the serious issues that arise from the parlous state of journalism in Britain."
Washington Post to close three bureaux
Big regional press groups launch new way of measuring reach of print and online combined
NS president David Fordham, told agency planners, MDs, digital heads, clients, research experts and publishers at the launch event tonight: “More than 80% of adults read a local newspaper in print and ironically, at a time when our revenues have been under such challenge, local media audiences have been growing across multimedia platforms.”
Fordham added: “The development of a robust and reliable system of multimedia audience measurement has been one of the biggest challenges facing all media today. Locally Connected now gives advertisers a unique cross-media planning system, allowing them to effectively target local communities across the UK in print as well as online.”
NS communications director Lynne Anderson, who led the project, said “Both buyers and sellers were agreed on the need to move away from the historic focus on a newspaper’s paid circulation and towards a more meaningful measurement of total reach. Agency planners told us their clients were increasingly looking for multimedia solutions at a local level but that it was hard to convince them to invest without hard data to back it up.”
Tuesday 24 November 2009
Denver and Dallas papers may block Google
Political agenda award for Heather Brooke
The judges said they chose Heather Brooke for her "tireless and inspiring" campaign to bring details of MPs’ expenses to light.
The PSA said: "The parliamentary expenses scandal that has dominated the news since the Daily Telegraph began its exposés in May might never have come to light if it had not been for the work of Heather Brooke. "
Quote of the Day
IFJ calls for international action following the massacre of journalists in Philippines
The IFJ call came after the journalists were murdered when a political convoy of over 36 people was ambushed and slaughtered by gunmen in the Maguindanao province of Southern Philippines.
“This is an event which shocks journalists around the world to the core,’ said Aidan White, IFJ general secretary. “We need a strong and urgent response from the Philippine government and the international community.”
The political convoy was led by Genalyn Tiamzon-Mangudadatu, who was on her way to file her husband’s nomination as a candidate for the forthcoming election for governor of Maguindanao province. Journalists were part of the convoy along with several members of her family.
The convoy was ambushed Monday morning by around 100 armed men, who took them to a remote location before massacring them all. Most were shot; some were beheaded and driven over by vehicles.
According to the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) among the victims were at least 12 journalists who were accompanying the political convoy.
The IFJ said; "This is the darkest day in the history of journalism in the Philippines, which, outside of Iraq, has topped the tables of countries where journalists are most at risk in recent years."
'Libel reform needs more than cosmetic surgery'
"The government has already shown that it can set the agenda when it recently repealed seditious libel and criminal defamation. Let us hope it can be similarly enlightened on this question too."
Monday 23 November 2009
12 journalists killed in Philippines' massacre
“Never in the history of journalism have the news media suffered such a heavy loss of life in one day,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We convey our condolences and sympathy to all journalists in the Philippines, who are in state of shock after this appalling massacre.”
The press freedom organisation added: “We have often condemned the culture of impunity and violence in the Philippines, especially Mindanao. This time, the frenzied violence of thugs working for corrupt politicians has resulted in an incomprehensible bloodbath. We call for a strong reaction from the local and national authorities.”
RWB said the massacre took place a few hours after around 50 gunmen led by Andal Ampatuan Jr., the mayor of Shariff Aguak, a municipality in Maguindanao province, and a police inspector identified solely by the name of Dicay kidnapped members of a large convoy of supporters of Esmael Mangudadatu, an Ampatuan clan opponent who wants to run for governor.
"This is a direct challenge to our efforts to strengthen democracy in this country," AFP news agency quoted NUJP spokesman Jaime Espina as saying.
The great British newspaper pay wall split
"Far greater than the ideological differences that have traditionally set apart the great national titles, this divergence in opinion – over whether the written word should be a free commodity or one that is charged for – will set the news industry at each other’s throats."
He says he battle lines became clearer last week following the speech by James Harding, editor of The Times, to the Society of Editors conference, in which he said that his site would begin charging in the spring, with subscription offers that included access for a single 24-hour period.
Tim Crook launches new media law blog
He says on his blog: "Students of media law in Britain, and certainly the country’s professional media communicators, can be forgiven for thinking that there is a bewildering state of confusion in the situation of the country's media law rights.
It would be fair to say uncertainty, insecurity and constant change on a week by week basis seems to be a fair description of the state of affairs."
SLP has lost £500,000 in ads to council paper
Many ads that used to appear in SLP are now being carried instead by the fortnightly council-published Lambeth Life, which is distributed free to residents.
SLP editor-in-chief, Hannah Walker, told the programme that Life carried propaganda for Lambeth Council.
Sunday 22 November 2009
Saturday 21 November 2009
Police PR does reporting job for tv news
NUJ ADM: turkeys finally vote for Christmas
Getting delegates to back such a motion, even at times when the union's finances were in a parlous state, proved impossible.
Delegates like going to ADM so getting them to agree to hold the conference less often was likened to trying to persuade turkeys to vote for Christmas.
But now the turkeys have voted for change after Motion 1 was passed at the conference in Southport which will make the ADM be held every 18 months - saving the union £195,000.
The move hasn't been welcomed in all quarters. I received an email about the decision which was tagged "NUJ democracy being destroyed in Southport".
Chris Wheal and his team of 25 students are doing a great job covering the conference http://www.nujadm.org.uk/ with words, video clips and superb pictures - even if some of the delegates objected to having their pictures taken after one of the student's shots of Socialist Worker being sold outside the conference hall was lifted and used by the far right website Redwatch.
Friday 20 November 2009
Grenade victim Guy Smallman wins case
NUJ Left accused of trying to take control of union's new London Photographers' Branch
Hoffman is one of the photographers who has campaigned for the new branch which was only approved this summer and is in the process of being set-up.
Now in a posting on an NUJ photographers' discussion site, he claims he has been "a useful patsy to disguise the real underlying aim of building a power base for NUJ Left"
Hoffman says in his post: "Over the last year the London Photographers' Branch (LPB) has become a reality. We've talked of a branch run "by photographers for photographers". I was proud to be building that with Jess Hurd, Marc Vallée, Jonathan Warren and other colleagues. I believed that we could accomplish a great deal that the NUJ has failed to do and that the time was right for a bold venture uniting photographers under the NUJ banner.
"I now need to make it clear why I am no longer a part of this initiative. The discovery last month that most of the people who would be central to LPB are committed to an NUJ Left agenda took me by surprise.
"I had thought that I had assurances to the contrary. Political pressure groups are entirely normal within a trade union. But NUJ Left is not just any old political force pushing their line within atrade union. The power and reach of the NUJ Left has ensured that their candidates have won every high profile election for many years.
"With members of NUJ Left including the General Secretary, the Deputy General Secretary, the Vice President,the (outgoing) magazine editor, the Campaigns Officer and many members of NEC as well as other influential committees, it's clear that this low profile self-selected group has considerable power within and control of the NUJ.
"I'd thought we were a group of colleagues working together to build a power base for photographers. In reality I was kept in the dark, and have been left feeling that I have been a useful patsy to disguise the real underlying aim of building a power base for NUJ Left. Not so much a branch "by photographers for photographers" but rather "by photographers for NUJ Left".
"Why does it matter? The aims of NUJ Left are not the same as the aims of LPB and at times are very likely to be quite opposed to those of LPB. Imagine an LPB committee planning a campaign for a Photographers' Organiser. A majority of the committee will have already discussed this on NUJ Left. The timing, the best way to get a NUJ Left candidate into the post, whether to support this faction or that plan - this will all have been decided by the NUJ Left membership.
"The Photographers' Branch discussion will be meaningless, fake. Whatever the views of the LPB membership the committee vote will be preordained by loyalty to NUJ Left discussions and decisions. The NUJ Left bloc will always prevail. I cannot present myself as a candidate to the new branch on the basis that I am putting forward and working for the interests of the membership when I know that in many important matters I will be powerless.
"The branch will in reality be directed by the demands of an entirely separate unelected group with its own very different aims and plans. I won't stand for a position on a committee where I can only fight and lose. Where my role is that of a shoe tied behind a wedding car - I get to be at the wedding and even to go to the honeymoon - but in a merely decorative role and only ending up battered .
"We could have built a branch incandescent with energy and bursting with achievement, but without a genuinely independent voice for photographers then I cannot have a part in it."
Hoffman has told me he has not resigned from the branch but will not take any post within it.
Quote of the Day
Follow NUJ ADM without going to Southport
Heather Brooke is 'Reformer of the Year'
Sun pumps up Rompuy headline
Goodwin defends Watts against Dear
Bill Goodwin, an NUJ hero for risking jail rather than reveal his sources, has defended Journalist editor candidate Mark Watts.
Watts was criticised by NUJ general secretary Jeremy Dear on his blog for "rubbishing the union" and making attacks on rival Rich Simcox, over his backing by the NUJ Left, during his campaign to be elected editor of the Journalist.
But Goodwin, in a posting on this blog, says: "Its not true to suggest that Mark Watts rubbished the union. That sounds to me like a case of shooting the messenger. The issue Mark highlighted – that a political group within the NUJ is, behind the scenes, trying to place its own candidates in elected positions– is something that NUJ members clearly need to know about.
"Mark came in from a lot of very personal flack from members of the NUJ Left, including some very bizarre allegations from its members, for raising this issue. The focus of Mark’s criticism was always the lack of transparency in the behaviour of the NUJ Left. He certainly hasn’t attacked Richard Simcox, or any other individual on a personal level."
Quotes of the Week
Nick Ferrari on Question Time about new EU president Herman van Rompuy: "If he does some some pumpy it will be a tabloid headline writer's dream."
Grey Cardigan on tabloid coverage of the 'Night Stalker' suspect case: "I know that the red-tops play fancy-free with Contempt of Court, but The Sun’s coverage of the Delroy Grant case doesn’t so much as drive a coach and horses through the 1981 Act but makes a complete fucking mockery of it."
Press Complaints Commission chairman Baroness Peta Buscombe agrees with Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger's claim that the PCC does not have investigatory powers:"He's right...We are not a police force. We must not tread on the toes of the criminal justice system. We are more of a moderator."
NUJ general secretary Jeremy Dear on the election campaign for the new editor of the Journalist: "I've kept as quiet as possible during the campaign about the relative merits of candidates but I am angry at the way Richard Simcox was attacked and the union's reputation rubbished by Mark Watts. Richard didn't deserve that."
Thursday 19 November 2009
News:Rewired aims to switch on journalists
BBC's Nick Robinson tops Total Politics poll
Second place is taken by BBC Radio 4 Today programme presenter Evan Davis, last year’s number one. Newsnight's inquisitor-in-chief Jeremy Paxman is third. Adam Boulton of Sky News is fourth and Eddie Mair of BBC Radio 4's PM is fifth.
The highest ranked political print journalist is Quentin Letts, the Daily Mail's Parliamentary sketch writer who comes in eighth.
BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg is voted the favourite among Tory MPs, while Labour MPs favour Michael White from the Guardian.
Paul Waugh from the Evening Standard was the biggest mover – not appearing in the top 100 last year but ranked 32 this year
Mayor of London Boris Johnson dropped 31 places, despite still penning his Daily Telegraph column.
The list of the top 100 political journalists appears in the latest issue of Total Politics out this week.
Injured AP photograher wins Frontline award
The media club, which champions independent journalism, will give its annual Frontline Club Award to AP photographer Emilio Morenatii who was injured in a bomb blast in Afghanistan.
This year, the Frontline Memorial Tribute award, given occasionally, will be presented to Lasantha Wickramatunga, the former editor of the Sunday Leader in Sri Lanka who was assassinated in January.
The awards recognise exceptional journalistic integrity, courage and the independence of spirit, regardless of nationality or media discipline and include the work of freelances.
The winners were chosen by a panel of judges including the New Yorker's Jon Lee Anderson, Anthony Loyd from the Times, Carlotta Gall from the New York Times, Jeremy Bowen and Allan Little from the BBC and Frontline Club founder Vaughan Smith.
All the funds raised at the awards ceremony go to the Fixers Fund, a charity set up by the Frontline Club to promote responsibility in the news industry for the welfare of fixers and translators.
Council shelves £300,000 plan for own paper
Thurrock Council’s performance and improvement overview and scrutiny committee met this week to discuss the authority’s new communication strategy, which was called in by Labour group chairman Coun. Carl Morris.
Tory leader Coun. Garry Hague defended the strategy as “fundamental for moving forward”, but conceded that the cost of a newspaper was too high."
He said: “We are looking to save money on communications, so anything we do will have to be done within our budget. I don’t think we can make a case for a fortnightly publication, its not something we will be pursuing.”
The report given to the committee on the cost of the newspaper said: “If the council produced a stand alone fortnightly newspaper, the likely costs would be in the region of £300,000. The concept would only be proposed on the basis of these costs being substantially or totally met by redirecting external advertising spend, ensuring we produce at nil or low cost to the council.”
The original council report for the proposal, which was leaked in June, estimated that the paper would cost £100,000 a year to produce.
The report also talked of spending £115,000 a year on the salaries of an editor, a designer, and an advertising manager.
Labour estimated that the costs would be nearer to £600,000.
Coun. Morris welcomed the decision to drop the newspaper from the strategy, he said: “Councils don’t do newspapers very well, whether Labour or Tory authorities, all they are is just propaganda sheets, they go straight in the bin."
Body in Lebanon could be abducted journalist
Wednesday 18 November 2009
Journalist ballot turnout was 17.7 per cent
Sunday World apologises over suicide pic
It has also offered £100,000 of free advertising to suicide prevention groups.
The paper was heavily criticised for using the photo in its November 1 edition. More than 50 complaints were received by the Press Complaints Commission.
Sunday World northern editor Jim McDowell at first justified using the picture as being in the public interest, but in a special editorial on 8 November, said that his apology was "unequivocal and unreserved, to anyone to whom we caused hurt or distress, and to anyone to whom we may have caused offence by publishing the picture."
He said the offer of free advertising was a genuine attempt to provide redress for the error.
"This is not a sop. It is not a stunt. Just like our apology, it is a genuine attempt to help," he said.
"In that regard, we hope to be sitting down with representatives of the Samaritans, Public Initiative for the Prevention of Suicide (PIPS), Forum for Action on Suicide Awareness (FASA), and any similar organisations who wish to talk to us and avail of the opportunity to promote their message or publish their help-line contact details."
Source: BBC Northern Ireland
PCC chair: 'We are not a police force'
IFJ to investigate PCC phone-hacking report
Tuesday 17 November 2009
Do contempt reporting restrictions still exist?
"Am I just out of touch? Do the reporting restrictions that were hammered into us by news editors past matter any more?"