Thoughts of Nigel

Shopping

2010-05-31T16:51:00.006+01:00

I recently took part in Manchester Open City afternoon.

The project involved photographers walking around Manchester capturing images that give the feel and look of the city.

The group I was with was given the theme of shopping and instead of trying to take photographs of shops,I decided to try and capture the downside of shopping which for me is the boredom as you drag yourself around the shops.

Out photographer guide Mark Page gave me a good tip,just shoot and see what you come up with.You can read Mark's write up of the event here

But for the moment here are some of my efforts

Israel's unprovoked attack

2010-05-31T16:23:00.003+01:00

It is difficult to understand the motivation behind Israel's attack on the aid flotilla this morning.

For those that haven't heard the news,the Israelis decided that it would be a good idea to board the lead ship in the "peace flotilla which has been heading for Gaza carrying essential supplies from Cyprus.

The Israelis claim that they were shot at first,but the action has resulted in at least 15 deaths.

Israel has been villified over the attack with many countries calling their ambassadors in and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is in Canada, having cancelled a scheduled visit to Washington on Tuesday to return to Israel.

Israel's deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon,accused the convoy of a "premeditated and outrageous provocation", describing the flotilla as an "armada of hate".

Here in Britain,William Hague has put out the following statement”I deplore the loss of life during the interception of the Gaza Flotilla. Our Embassy is in urgent contact with the Israeli Government. We are asking for more information and urgent access to any UK nationals involved.

Meanwhile hundreds of activists blocked Whitehall shouting "Free Palestine" and carrying flags and banners with slogans such as "Stop Israel's War Crimes in Gaza" and "End the Criminal Siege of Gaza".

In Istanbul, 10,000 protesters gathered outside the Israeli consulate chanting "Murderous Israel you will drown in the blood you shed!"

French President Nicolas Sarkozy condemned what he described as a “disproportionate use of force.”

“All light must be shed on the circumstances of this tragedy, which underlines the urgency of resuming peace talks,” Sarkozy said in a statement.

A wind down for the moment

2010-03-18T16:15:00.003Z

This blog started back in the autumn of 2006.It was really a way of keeping up with the media news and gossip as I began my journalism degree at Uclan.

Well three and a half years later,it has produced a lot of contacts,led to opportunities and introduced me to many friends and concepts.

But now it will be taking a back seat as I concentrate on my two new journalistic concepts.

North West Scenes began last summer and has been on the back burner for some time but things are gearing up for it.Secondly as I wrote on this blog a couple of weeks ago,InsidetheM60 will be launching soon providing news and information for the Manchester community.

The blog will continue but not with such great frequency and will talk more about the issues of setting up two hyperlocal sites,aimed at two distinct markets.

It will be an interesting adventure and I do hope you will keep following.

Don't forget you can always find me on twitter

@nigelbarlow

@northwestscenes

@insidetheM60

The downside of Linkedin

2010-03-16T06:46:00.002Z

One of the concerns of Linkedin must surely be the easy collection of data and contacts for someone to steal.

As the register reports

An ex-employee of recruitment firm Hays has been ordered to disclose details of his profile at social networking site LinkedIn. Mark Ions set up a rival agency and is accused of using LinkedIn to steal clients. He says Hays encouraged his use of the site.

As the report continues

Hays alleges that while still an employee Ions copied and retained confidential information about clients and contacts of Hays. The firm says that Ions used that information for his own venture and that he breached his contract of employment. Hays went to the High Court in London to seek pre-action disclosure from Ions and his firm, i.e. an order to disclose information that Hays could use as the basis of a subsequent lawsuit.

Hyperlocal in Poland

2010-03-16T06:39:00.003Z

Now here is a heartening news story about regional titles going hyperlocal.

It comes from Poland courtesy of Editors weblog and the village of Jano,an 850-person village in north eastern Poland.

a dozen people - mostly teenagers or over 40s - were gathering in a multi-activity meeting hall. They were listening to Igor Hrywna, a journalist at Gazeta Olsztynska, the dominant newspaper in this "Warmia-Mazury voivodship" (Varmia-Masuria). That day he left his base in the regional capital of Olsztyn to meet this group for the third time in one month. With his assistance, they are learning how to contribute to the recently launched hyperlocal website janowo.wm.pl, covering the 3,000 people "gmina" (commune) centered on Janowo, one of the smallest of the region.

Could this model work in the UK? well

Edytor is already managing 35 such hyperlocal websites, as a way to get closer also to small advertisers. In the villages, the biggest companies are often the bakery which employs only eight persons, or the hairdresser with a staff of four. "We want to reach the places where print is not profitable, asking our advertising salespersons to monetize potential markets which have been ignored until now

Grim reading for Pew's state of the media report

2010-03-16T06:23:00.004Z

Pew's annual state of the media report was released yesterday and once again for followers of media statistics it doesn't make particularly good reading.

For the economics of the media industry 2009 has once again seen some quite astounding figures

1.In newspapers, ad revenue (for print and online combined) fell 26 per cent a rate of decline that was more than 50 per cent steeper than a year earlier.

and more worryingly

2.Online, advertising during the year declined for the first time since 2002, according to data from eMarketer. The firm’s updated August projections called for online ad spending to fall 4.6 per cent to $22.4 billion.

As for paywalls

The findings suggest there is a difficult hill to climb in putting content behind a pay wall. Most people graze the Web for news rather than rely on primary sources. Only about a third (35%) can even identify a favorite news website. And of those that do, only 19%3 said they would continue to visit if that site put up a pay wall.

and for those in the industry

Newspaper staffs continued to shrink in 2009. We estimate that by year’s end 5,900 more full-time newsroom jobs were lost,

As the report says,the worry now is two fold.How much of the lost revenues can be clawed back as the economy starts to recover from the recession and secondly what are the prospects for the alternative journalism projects that are springing up?

She's back

2010-03-15T07:07:00.002Z

Quite unbelievable that the Daily Express has reverted to having a Diana story on its front pages.

Quoting the results of a new book,the paper reports that

chauffeur Henri Paul was not drunk when their car crashed in a Paris tunnel.
Blood samples used to verify the amount of alcohol he had consumed were taken from another corpse,

What Monday's papers are saying

2010-03-15T06:31:00.002Z

According to an exclusive in the Times this morning,Labour wants to promise five guarantees in its manifesto aimed at winning over a sceptical electorate in the post-expenses world.

The party hopes to tackle voter mistrust with new legally binding rights on public services, jobs and Britain’s deficit. This is part of a “personal offer” designed to rebuild confidence with the electorate and accountability in government.

Politics on the front of the Telegraph as well as it reveals that Lord Adonis has become the first Cabinet Minister to speak out against the trade union behind the British Airways strike,a subject that also makes the front of the Guardian which reveals that

Gordon Brown has intervened personally in the British Airways industrial dispute in an attempt to avert a walkout by 12,000 cabin crew next weekend.

The Independent reports on the far-reaching conclusions on how to tackle the crime of rape which finds failures to investigate and prosecute effectively and recommends that Forensic and medical evidence should be gathered by the NHS,and not police.

The Mail reports on what is calls the betrayal of 20,000 cancer patients who says the paper have died needlessly early after being denied cancer drugs on the NHS.

What really happened on Bloody Sunday asks the Independent.

More exclusives this time in the Guardian which reveals that the income of thousands of the most senior British academics has soared over the past decade, far outstripping growth in average lecturers' pay,
Twelve years ago Lord Saville began his inquiry into one of the darkest chapters in the history of Northern Ireland. Now, £200m later, he will finally deliver his report

The leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland resisted calls for his resignation yesterday reports the Times,despite admitting that he took part in meetings where the victims of a paedophile priest were forced to take a vow of silence.

There is much coverage from the Lib Dems spring conference.

Nick Clegg was forced to quell dissent from within his own ranks and fight off attempts by Labour and the Tories to woo his party yesterday,reports the Independent whilst the Guardian says that

Speaking over the heads of the party faithful, the leader encouraged wavering voters to vote "with your heart" and not dismiss the Lib Dems because the electoral maths where they lived suggested the party would not win a seat outright.

Whilst the Telegraph reports that The Liberal Democrats would be the ‘guarantor’ of the economy if the general election results in a hung Parliament,

Most of the papers report that David Beckham's world cup is over.

The former England captain wept after rupturing his Achilles tendon while playing for AC Milan last night, and told a doctor: "It's broken, it's broken."reports the Sun

According to the Mirror,Jon Venables has been transferred to a new jail to keep him safe from other prisoners.

He's now being kept in an isolation unit and guarded by a hand-picked team of 20 prison officers who are sworn to secrecy. A source said: It was getting harder to guarantee his safety where he was. No one can get at him where he is now.

Meanwhile the Mail says that pressure to sack an official who dismissed the James Bulger murder as 'unpleasant' was mounting last night.

Finally reports the Telegraph

Millions of Georgians wrongly thought their country was being invaded after a spoof prime time news broadcast showed Russian tanks heading towards the capital Tbilisi and said the president, Mikheil Saakashvili, had been killed.

adds the Guardian

For the next half an hour there were scenes of absolute panic, as the mobile network collapsed, Georgians spilled on to the streets, and friends and relatives desperately tried to reach each other and seek out information.

"Student journalists are sidelined to being like ancillary press officers"

2010-03-12T12:47:00.003Z

I,ve met Joseph Stashko a couple of times now.

He is a student at Uclan who along with his colleague Andy Halls is working on a new hyperlocal news site for Preston.

I wish them luck with that but on this blog post he looks at a couple of issues regarding student journalism and subjectivity but I particually liked his take on writing for the student paper

I saw time and time again editors hand out stories, almost ready made for print, just needing a few rewrites and possibly quotes. Student journalists are sidelined to being like ancillary press officers, simply reduced to moving phrases around and adding a few minor embellishments.

The distinction between the private and the professional has largely broken down online

2010-03-11T17:10:00.003Z

Reuter's new handbook warns journalists not to be over reliant on social media for news gathering purposes.

Its latest guidelines warn that

Internet reporting is nothing more than applying the principles of sound journalism to the sometimes unusual situations thrown up in the virtual world. The same standards of sourcing, identification and verification apply. Apply the same precautions online that you would use in other forms of news gathering and do not use anything from the Internet that is not sourced in such a way that you can verify where it came from.

But perhaps it is this comment that is the most pertinent

The distinction between the private and the professional has largely broken down online and you should assume that your professional and personal social media activity will be treated as one no matter how hard you try to keep them separate.

Tories promise most "tech friendly government in the developed world"

2010-03-11T16:57:00.004Z

The big digital news of the day is the launch of the Conservative manifesto on technology which aims to make the British government the most technology-friendly in the world to create new jobs and kickstart the recovery.

At its centre is a pledge to create the fastest high speed broadband network in Europe, helping to create 600,000 additional jobs.

Britain will become the first country in Europe to extend superfast 100 mbps broadband across most of the population. That pledge is up to 50 times faster than Labour's planned broadband network.

But the document also promises to open up government data and spending information whch according to the Tories will cut wasteful spending and also create an estimated £6 billion in additional value for the UK.

Amongst the pledges on that

1.to publish online every item of central government and Quango spending over £25,000 — including every contract in full.

2.all government tender documents for contracts worth over £10,000 via the existing Supply2Gov website. and

3.every item of local government spending over £500 — including every contract in full.

RTL writes down value of Channel 5

2010-03-11T10:13:00.002Z

RTL may be satisfied with its results but the news that it has halfed the value of Channel 5 television in its blance sheet will raise worries about the state of the UK independent TV market.

The Group announced that its revenue in 2009 was down 6.3 per cent to €5,410 million with profits down 17 per cent which included restructuring costs in the UK, Germany and Greece totaling €34 million, and a significant programme write-down at Five amounting to €22 million.

According to Media Guardian,

after several years of growing its share of the UK TV ad market Channel Five's share dropped from 9.6% to 8.4%.

S4C officially recorded zero viewers on 196 of its 890 programmes.

2010-03-11T09:59:00.001Z

This morning's Daily Express takes a pot shot at the Welsh broadcaster S4C.

A WELSH language television channel funded with £100million of public money showed nearly 200 programmes in the last month which were watched by no one, it was revealed yesterday

.reports the paper.adding that

A soccer show called Sgorio scored a zero with viewers when it screened highlights of European football.
Sgorio – Welsh for score – turned into a no-score draw on the night despite regularly pulling in tens of thousands of viewers on other nights.

A silver lining for Johnston Press

2010-03-11T08:44:00.003Z

The latest results are out this morning for Johnston Press.

The regional newspaper publisher has reported that operating profit fell to £71.8m for the 53 weeks ended 2 January 2010 from £128.4m the year before. Revenue fell to £428m from £531.9m.

However a little bit of a silver lining as advertising revenues appear to be reversing their falling trend,as the rate of decline reduced throughout the period with the first quarter down 33.9 per cent and the final quarter was down 11.2 per cent.

According to their chief executive

The year ended with the group in a much stronger position than it began: advertising is more stable; circulation trends have improved; digital revenues are growing; our cost base has reduced significantly and we have renegotiated finance facilities for 3 years."

The compnay also confirmed that debt reduction was its biggest priority.In accordance with the provisions of its revised financing arrangements, no dividend is proposed for the year.

What Thursday's papers are saying

2010-03-11T08:21:00.002Z

Many of the papers report on the case of how a father was allowed to continually rape and abuse two of his daughters over a 35-year period.

The executive summary into the case described how the family had been in contact with 28 different agencies between 1973 and 2008, and that they had been seen by more than 100 professionals including social workers, police and housing officials.says the Guardian

Slammed social services chiefs issued a grovelling apology yesterday - for letting an incest monster rape his terrified daughters for a hellish 25 years.says the Sun

whilst the Times adds

Agencies involved with the family failed to confront the man even though they strongly suspected for many years that he was the father of the girls’ seven babies, some of them born with severe genetic defects.

Both the Mail and the Express choose to lead on what they call death taxes.The former reports that

Millions of middle income families are facing a 10 per cent 'death tax' levy to pay for social care of the elderly.

The levy would be charged on all estates up to the current inheritance tax threshold of £325,000.says the Express

According to the Times,Britain’s leading criminal judges are warning that a shake-up of sentencing guidelines could push prison overcrowding to crisis levels.

To politics and the Telegraph leads with news that a fifth Labour MP is being investigated by police over his expenses,

The Metropolitan Police has begun a criminal inquiry into Harry Cohen after he claimed more than £70,000 for a “second home” while renting out his main property.

says the paper

The Independent features Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg who in an interview with the paper

will this weekend announce the four "tests" he would set for Labour and the Conservatives in return for the support of the Liberal Democrats if neither main party wins an overall majority at the general election.

The row over defence spending continues.Lord Guthrie, the first chief of the defence staff under New Labour

last night said plans to replace the Trident nuclear missile system and build two large aircraft carriers should be abandoned and the money saved spent on alternatives more relevant to future conflicts, including a bigger army.

reports the Guardian

As the row continued in the Commons the Telegraph reports that

Gordon Brown has hit back at former military chiefs who accused him of starving the armed forces of funds when he was Chancellor, describing the criticism as "wrong" and inappropriate.

The number of billionaires has soared in the past year, and dozens of people who lost that elite status in the credit crisis have won it back as stock markets and commodities prices have rebounded.reports the Independent

The Devil is lurking in the very heart of the Roman Catholic Church reports the Telegraph.

The Vatican's chief exorcist claimed yesterday that

the assault on Pope Benedict XVI on Christmas Eve by a mentally unstable woman and the sex abuse scandals which have engulfed the Church in the US, Ireland, Germany and other countries, were proof that the Anti-Christ was waging a war against the Holy See.

Finally a shock for those escaping to the Med as the Mail reports that

A rare blizzard has struck the Spanish coast and Balearic Islands in some of the worst weather seen in 50 years.
The snow storm swept in on the holiday island of Majorca after causing havoc in Barcelona, the Costa Brava and parts of the French Mediterranean coast.

Newspapers have never made money from news

2010-03-10T11:23:00.002Z

“Newspapers could save a lot of money if the primary access to news was via the internet."

That's the opionion of Google's chief economist Hal Varian speaking to a workshop on the changing economics of the newspaper industry. (via Techcrunch)

He continues by saying that

“The fact of the matter is that newspapers have never made much money from news, They make money from “special interest sections on topics such as Automotive, Travel, Home & Garden, Food & Drink,, and so on.” The problem is that on the Web, other niche sites which cater to those categories are a click away, leaving the newspapers with sections which are harder to sell ads against, such as sports, news, and local.

Facebook under attack

2010-03-10T07:00:00.003Z

The fallout from the Ashleigh Hall murder case is continuing this morning.As mentioned in the previous article,the Mail leads with the story that Facebook is putting children at risk' by snubbing the paedophile panic button.

Meanwhile the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre is calling for social networks to adopt an online abuse reporting button.

The button was launched back in 2006 and it allows young people to report online abuse and danger straight to the police from social networks and websites.

According to the Mail,human rights laws are stopping the Government from implementing powers to force sex offenders to disclose their online identities.

There is an interesting piece on his very subject in the Independent this morning.Rhodri Marsden writes that

While websites such as Facebook usually play a passive, benign role in crimes that headlines might suggest are entirely attributable to them, this is one case where the death of a young woman was indeed caused by the ease of constructing a false Facebook identity, coupled with a tragic ignorance of the signs we should all look for, and the rules we should all follow.

The debate fuelled by the tragic consequences of the death Of Ashleigh will rumble on.

What Wednesday's papers are saying

2010-03-10T06:32:00.003Z

Facebook is getting a fair amount of crititism led by the Daily Mail this morning which reports that

Facebook was accused last night of putting children at risk by snubbing the official paedophile 'panic button'.

adding that

Both the Home Secretary and the mother of murdered schoolgirl Ashleigh Hall condemned the website for refusing to implement the system.
Alan Johnson said he could not see 'any good reason' why - unlike other social networking sites - Facebook will not sign up to it.

The social networking site also make the front of the Daily Star which says that a man has spoken of his terror after he was falsely accused of being James Bulger’s killer Jon Venables on the social networking site.

27-year-old David’s Calvert's torment has been going on for five years after neighbours mistook him for the murderer because they are the same age

Meanwhile the controversy over Venables continues.The Times reports that apsychiatric report that paved the way for his release concluded that he posed a “trivial” risk to the public,

The Independent reports that the failure to rehabilitate tens of thousands of serial criminals is costing the country up to £10 billion a year,according to a report by the National Audit office

On the medical theme,the Telegraph leads with the story that doctors’ leaders have warned that Patients’ confidential medical records are being placed on a controversial NHS database without their knowledge.

doctors have accused the Government of rushing the project through, meaning that patients have had their details uploaded to the database before they have had a chance to object.

reports the paper

The Independent leads with the story that

A legal firm that had campaigned alongside the actress Joanna Lumley has been dragged into an investigation into charges levied on Gurkha veterans seeking to settle in Britain.

For the Guardian the top story is Afghnaistan and a speech to be delivered in the US by the foreign secretary, David Miliband,in which he will

urge the Afghan government to put more effort into the pursuit of peace talks amid fears that the war could be prolonged

Meanwhile many of the papers report the verdict of a coroners court which found that Special forces troops were sent to Afghanistan in unsuitable vehicles and without sufficient training and bomb-detecting kit,

Wiltshire Coroner David Masters said he would write to the Ministry of Defence to raise concerns about "theatre-wide" equipment shortages and gaps in training which led to the deaths reports the Telegraph

According to the Independent,A former head of MI5,Baroness Manningham-Buller, has accused intelligence services in the US of deliberately hiding the mistreatment of terror suspects from their British allies.

The Sun leads with the story of Macmillan nurse Sara Dale who cared for cancer-stricken wives then bedded their husbands after they died.

The attractive divorcee, 39, has been fired by hospital bosses over allegations she had three such romances.

reports the paper

According to the Telegraph,Millions of householders will have to wait until 4pm to receive their mail under a controversial new contract for postmen.

Meanwhile the Independent reports that

The threat of a national rail strike at Easter came closer yesterday as Network Rail revealed it had drawn up contingency plans to deal with a walk-out by thousands of workers.

The Mail reports on the speed camera trap on the M6 that's racing towards record £3m haul in fines.

An astonishing 5,569 motorists have been caught breaking the 50mph speed limit by the fixed cameras at roadworks at a junction of the M6 near Carlisle.

Finally the Telegraph reports that rumours that French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy are both having affairs are gaining momentum in France.

The suggestion that the couple were both committing adultery first emerged on Twitter, the microblogging website. It was followed by a report in the Sunday newspaper le Journal du Dimanche.

Murdoch tells Abu Dhabi to ride the creative wind

2010-03-09T16:53:00.003Z

Rupert Murdoch's attention has now turned int seems to the Middle East as today he launched an attack on the unliberal attitudes of the media.

Speaking at the the inaugural Abu Dhabi Media Summit which opened today,the News International chairman told the conferenece that censorship is counterproductive and that the region's citizens should be free to unleash their creative talents.

the Arab world can adhere to traditions and values, while also investing in a thriving creative industry and avoiding over-regulation and hurdles that keep out foreign players.

and added

"As I speak, there is a powerful creative wind blowing through this region," he said, according to a copy of his speech. "Ride this wind and you will raise from these desert sands something extraordinary: a capital of creativity that is modern...that is global...and that is fully Arab."

The event will represents an opportunity to showcase its existing media infrastructure and outline its future plans and Murdoch's remarks make clear that the region must embrace the free market.

Scottish council's transparency on FOI requests

2010-03-09T16:48:00.003Z

A local authority in the north-east of Scotland has become the first local authority in Scotland to publicise details of who is making Freedom of Information requests from it - with an estimated 40 per cent coming from the media.reports Allmedia Scotland

The authority,Moray Council has put the information for requests on its website along with its responses and performance rate which it says is currently 97 per cent.

The Council currently receives more than 500 FOI requests each year.

Liverpool's MP's given a platform

2010-03-09T16:37:00.003Z

News of a great new initiative from the Liverpool Daily Post in the run up to the general election.

It has launched Liverpool Party Central tasked with the role of getting the city's candidates blogging.

According to How do media

MPs have been given direct access to the site via a content management system, so the blogs aren’t moderated editorially by Echo or Post staff

Now isn't that a good idea

Visiter helps out Southports Library

2010-03-09T06:54:00.002Z

Praise indeed for the Southport Visiter which has stepped in to provide a temporary home for the town's Library.

Hold the front page reports that

Southport Library faced a lengthy closure as a result of a £15m refurbishment, sparking a furious reaction from residents and a 7,000-signature petition.

Latest survey shows online revenues to overtake print

2010-03-09T06:49:00.002Z

This morning's FT carries news of one of the latest surveys of advertising spend from America which predicts that

US online advertising and marketing spending will overtake print this year as traditional media spending continues to decline,

According to the survey by Outsell

Online spending is forecast to rise 9.6 per cent to $119.6bn, while print spending will fall 3 per cent to $111.5bn, according to a survey of 1,000 advertisers by Outsell, a publishing research company.

and Chuck Richard,its Vice President and Lead Analyst was quoted as saying that

“Advertisers are directing dollars toward the channels which generate the most qualified leads and most effective branding. As they emerge from the recession, they need more accountability, and they’re spreading their spending over a widening set of options,

What Tuesday's papers are saying

2010-03-09T06:20:00.003Z

Mothers betrayed says the headline in the Sun as it refers to the latest on the Jon Venables story and yesterday's news that a convicted rapist was given a 35-year sentence for killing girl he met on a social networking site.

As he began a 35-year jail term last night, it emerged Ashleigh was one of the 6,000 friends - ALL women - he was in contact with through TEN social networking sites.says the paper

Whilst the Mirror reports that Peter Chapman murdered 17-year-old Ashleigh Hall after police failed to lock him up for an arson attack weeks earlier.

According to the Independent,

Police officers also raised the possibility that he was responsible for other, unsolved, sex crimes. But the revelation that he was on the sex offenders' register at the time of the offence – which happened in October 2009 – has raised questions about how, while supposedly being monitored by the police, he was able to use the internet to find a victim for an even more horrific attack.

Who's your child talking to on Facebook tonight? asks the Mail

But back to the Jon Venables story and the Sun claims that he came under suspicion of having child porn only after a member of the public realised who he was,

The person became angry and blew the 27-year-old's cover - forcing cops to pluck Venables to safety.

Meanwhile the Times reports that Jack Straw signalled a major inquiry into the supervision of Jon Venables last night as he rejected pleas to disclose why the child killer was back in custody.

It leads with its latest opinion poll which shows that Labour and the Conservatives are neck and neck in the marginal seats that will determine the outcome of the general election,

The poll shows that the switch of voters from Labour to the Tories is about 1.5 to 2 points higher in the battleground seats than nationally

The true scale of how violent crime has grown under Labour has been disclosed by Whitehall officials. reports the Telegraph.According to the paper

The study, by the independent House of Commons Library, shows violence against the person increased from 618,417 to 887,942 last year.

The Guardian leads with rather a political twist.It reports that

The former US president George Bush has made a direct plea to David Cameron to support the Northern Ireland peace process, amid widespread concern in the US about the Tories' new electoral pact with the Ulster Unionists.

The latest from the Chilcott inquiry and the Independent reports that

Sir Bill Jeffrey, head civil servant at the MoD since 2005, told the Iraq inquiry that problems persisted within the department because of the growing costs of operations overseas and as a result of spending restrictions placed on it by Mr Brown shortly after the March 2003 invasion.

According to the Telegraph,Royal Mail has been accused of buying off postal workers ahead of the general election by agreeing an inflation-busting pay deal which will see postmen working less for more money.

One of the results of the deal according to the Guardian will be the ending of the restrictions of delivering junk mail and the paper predicts a deluge.

The Express reports that owners of dogs will be forced to fork out up to £600 a year for insurance under new Labour plans to tackle so-called “devil dogs”.

The Independent reports from the high-rise flats where a Russian family jumped to their deaths which it says are, for many, the last stop before deportation.

According to the Mail

the family of three asylum seekers tied themselves together with rope before jumping 200ft to their deaths when their application to stay in Britain was rejected.

The Times reports that

Fabio Capello was dismayed to discover that England’s preparations for the World Cup finals had been undermined yet again last night after conversations involving players and coaching staff were secretly recorded.

Finally staying with football,the Guardian reveals that Britain is to give 42m condoms to South Africa in response to a request for an extra billion as part of an HIV prevention drive before the World Cup, the government will announce today.

Thompson too dominant says Hunt

2010-03-08T08:06:00.003Z

More conjecture on what will happen to the BBC if the Tories win the next election comes from this mornings Indy.

Media editor Ian Burrell interviews shadow Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt who tells the paper that Director General

Mr Thompson was too dominant within the corporation and suggested that the director general should face greater internal scrutiny on whether he was worth his annual remuneration package of £834,000.

If editorial oversight comes at a premium, investigative journalism is simply out of reach for most publications.

2010-03-08T08:01:00.002Z

In the current online-only business model, true investigative journalism is unsustainable.

That's according to The Business Insider who out went and practiced some true investigative journalism in a story about Facebook.via the Editorialist

The problem with online is that

pages need to be made every day. Who's going to turn over pageviews while all your reporters are off doing stories that -- while immensely helpful to your publication's reputation and brand -- eventually don't pay off in terms of pageviews?

Telegraph claims MOD will censor war reports in the run up to the election

2010-03-08T06:54:00.002Z

Allegations in the papers this morning that the MOD is planning a gag on the media reporting bad news from Afghanistan ahead of the general election.

The Telegraph leads with the story that

British journalists and TV crews are to be banned from the Afghan front line once a date for the election has been set, while senior officers will be prohibited from making public speeches and talking to reporters

. adding that according to a memo leaked to the paper

MoD websites will also be “cleansed” of any “non-factual” material including anything containing troops’ opinions of the war

I sincerely hope that this is a non story

What Monday's papers are saying

2010-03-08T06:29:00.003Z

The Independent leads with the story that Labour has been accused of rushing through huge contracts before the election to safeguard the party's 'pet projects'.According to the report it is spending up to £11b

to prevent its pet projects being scrapped by an incoming Conservative government.

There is plenty of other political specualtion.The Times says that a Conservative government could find itself at war with police chiefs amid accusations that some are too close to the Labour Party.The paper has seen a Tory briefing document which attacks the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), which represents the 350 most senior officers in England and Wales.

Meanwhile the Guardian continues to chase Lord Ashcroft.It leads with the story that Lord Mandelson,in a highly personal attack,said that

Ashcroft had Cameron "by the balls", the affair showed Cameron was "too weak to pick a fight with his own party" and the Tories were "fundamentally unchanged".

The Telegraph claims that The Ministry of Defence has been accused of ordering a “truth blackout” over the war in Afghanistan amid warnings it is attempting to “bury bad news” during the election campaign.

The elections in Iraq get a fair amount of coverage.

Bomb blasts and grenade fire failed to deter millions of Iraqis from voting yesterday in an election crucial to the country’s fragile young democracy. says the Times in its lead story whilst Robert Fisk writing in the Independent describes how Once again, a nation walks through fire to give the West its 'democracy'

According to the Guardian meanwhile

The government will attempt today to have a case about torture heard entirely behind closed doors in a move that some lawyers say would extend secrecy to a new area of hearings, overriding ancient principles of English law.

The Mail devotes its front page to the Jon Venables case as it reveals the horror image drawn by Venables just weeks before he killed James Bulger

The Sun meanwhile claims that on a scale of 1-5,Venables' porn images rate 4.According to the paper

Cops seized a laptop after a search at the home of the 27-year-old, who was freed with a new identity after serving time for the murder of James.

Cut spending now is the headline in the Telegraph as it reports that the country’s leading business organisations will warn today that the future of the economy is in jeopardy unless public spending cuts begin within months.

On the same theme the Times reports that Alistair Darling is at loggerheads with business leaders because of his perceived “leisurely” approach to the final Budget before the election.

A crazed man hacked his mother-in-law to death after flying in to Britain to hunt his estranged wife - armed with a "torture kit".reports the Sun

The Express claims that 1000's of prisoners who can’t find work in jail are claiming millions of pounds of tax- payers’ money in unemployment and sickness benefits.

Finally according to MI5 files released today,Cycling tours by Hitler Youth groups and Nazi attempts to establish close links with the Boy Scout movement caused a security panic in prewar Britain.

Whilst the Mail is concerned that we aren't getting enough sleep

The average person sleeps for just over six hours a night, well below the traditionally recommended eight hours.

The Guardian reports that

Police officers were alerted to monitor German students on bicycle holidays in the late 1930s as they stopped at schools, Rotary clubs, factories and church services.

What the Sunday's are saying

2010-03-07T08:22:00.006Z

According to the Sunday Times,damning reports on the state of the NHS, suppressed by the government, will reveal a neglect of patients’ needs

The harsh verdict on the state of the NHS, after a spending splurge under Labour between 2000 and 2008, raises worrying questions about the future quality of the health service as budgets are squeezed. says the paper

Meanwhile the Sunday Telegraph says that millions of pounds promised for respite breaks for carers has been mis-spent and diverted to plug NHS deficits,adding that

Ministers pledged £150 million to allow those looking after sick, infirm and elderly relatives short periods away from their duties, to prevent them reaching "breaking point".

As Gordon Brown visits Afghnanistan,the Independent repports that

Hundreds of soft-skinned "snatch" Land Rovers of the type implicated in the deaths of at least 36 British troops over the past decade are finally to be phased out after a bitter five-year campaign.

The Sunday Times reports that Britain's special forces have suffered the worst blow to their fighting strength since the second world war, with 80 members killed or crippled in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile the Observer reports that

Gordon Brown was embroiled in a furious row when former prime minister John Major accused him of using British troops as a "party political prop" on a surprise visit to thank soldiers in Afghanistan. Major condemned Brown's decision and said he had orchestrated a "cynically-timed political stunt".

It leads with an exclusive claiming that senior City financiers allied to the wealthy consortium planning a takeover of Manchester United claim Sir Alex Ferguson is supporting the controversial bid.

The Telegraph meanwhile says that the imposition of VAT on groceries is being actively considered by Whitehall officials as a radical means of reducing the national deficit.

So politically-sensitive is the move that all the talks are occurring "under the radar", according to retail industry insiders.

says the paper

Meanwhile according to the Mail on Sunday,o of the Camerons' closest friends, senior Tory MP Ed Vaizey, raises the extraordinary possibility that Samantha Cameron could vote for Labour in a film to be broadcast tomorrow.

The story of Jon Venebles continues to dominate.According to the Sunday Mirror,James Bulger’s killer Jon Venables was sent back to jail on suspicion of child porn offences,

The Observer reports that it has been told that Venables had descended into a "persistent state of self-disclosure" in which he felt compelled to tell others his real identity in the months before his return to prison,

The week's other big story gets a lot of pages.According to the Independent,The Lord Ashcroft affair is causing deep divisions at the heart of David Cameron's inner circle,

According to the Telegraph,The key civil servant who oversaw the terms on which Lord Ashcroft took up his seat in the House of Lords,Sir Hayden Phillips, said yesterday that the Tory peer had done nothing illegal.

However the Observer says that questions were raised over whether the Queen and the former prime minister, Tony Blair, had granted him a peerage under false pretences.

The News of the World reveals that Jade Goody has made certain her playboy widower Jack Tweed wasn't left a penny of her £3million fortune.

Despite naming him as a beneficiary - which saved more than £1million in inheritance tax - tragic Jade's carefully written deathbed will ensures the 22-year-old nightclub promoter can't touch any of the cash she salted away for her two precious sons.

Finally the Independent dedicates its front page to the 100th International Women's Day tomorrow reporting that

Just 19.5 per cent of the MPs in Britain are women; a record so poor that it puts the UK 69th in the world for our proportion of female parliamentarians – behind Afghanistan, the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan

Testing the boundaries

2010-03-06T14:21:00.002Z

Yesterday's wrap around cover for the LA Times certainly came close to the boundaries of what is advertsising.

It featured the face of Johnny Depp in the film Alice in Wonderland superimposed over what looks like the usual front page complete with masthead.

According to the New York Times

The top editor of The Times, Russ Stanton, and several of his deputies vigorously opposed the ad before it was published, but they were overruled by the paper’s business executives, according to people with direct knowledge of the dispute, who were granted anonymity to discuss private conversations.

What Saturday's papers are saying

2010-03-06T04:48:00.003Z

Gordon Brown's appearence before the Chilcott committee is the main subject for some of the papers.

The Times claims that

Former commanders accused Gordon Brown of deliberately misleading the Iraq inquiry after he blamed the military for failing properly to equip the Armed Forces for war.

and according to Admiral Lord Boyce

“He’s dissembling, he’s being disingenuous. It’s just not the case that the Ministry of Defence was given everything it needed

The day Gordon Brown came clean on Iraq is the headline in the Guardian as it reports that he told the Chilcot inquiry that Tony Blair did 'everything properly' and rejected criticisms over equipment

Meanwhile the Independent reports that

Iraqis go to the polls tomorrow in an election which has led to increased tensions between the country's three main communities after a fierce campaign in which some candidates were banned as former supporters of Saddam Hussein's party.

The other story of the day continues to rumble on.The Telegraph reports that Jack Straw has agreed to meet with James Bulger’s mother to discuss the return to prison of Jon Venables, one of her son's killers.

Meanwhile the Mail reveals that Jon Venables worked for years as a nightclub bouncer despite his violent past

His bosses had no idea he was one of the country's most notorious killers and were happy to hand him the responsibility for ejecting troublemakers from a series of venues.

The Sun claims that Jon Venables was thrown back in jail over an allegation that he committed a sickening sex crime,

Whilst the Mirror says the 27-year-old hit the nightclubs to get smashed on cider and cocktails while snorting cocaine and popping ecstasy pills.

The Independent leads with the story that Bob Geldof and the Band Aid trust are to report the BBC to the broadcasting regulator Ofcom over a World Service report that millions of pounds raised for famine victims in Ethiopia in 1985 were actually spent on weapons.

Election fever in the Telegraph which says that plans that could lead to the closure of hundreds of hospital wards are being drawn up but will not be made public until after the general election,

Meanwhile the Times continues to persue Lord Ashcroft as it claims the Tory Party’s last general election campaign was partly financed with a £750,000 loan from an offshore haven

As in the Guardian which reports that the Conservative party deputy chairman is accused of providing loans of more than $5m to the disgraced former premier of the Turks and Caicos, Michael Misick, through the local bank Ashcroft controls. According to his opponents, he "ought to have been aware that Mr Misick was corrupt".

Record numbers of the over-55s want to move abroad because they are fed up with Britain's soaring crime rates, its creaking economy and the rotten weather.

reports the Mail

The weather makes the front of the Express as well as it reports that the Met Office is to stop making seasonal forecasts after coming under fire for getting everything wrong.

The Guardian reports the increasing row between Turkey and the US as the former has threatened to downgrade its strategic relationship with the US amid nationalist anger over a vote in the US Congress that defined the mass killings of Armenians during the first world war as genocide.

The mother of a five-year-old British boy abducted at gunpoint in Pakistan has made an impassioned plea to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to save her son as the kidnappers’ silence raises fears for his safety. reports the Times

According to the Telegraph his denied that it was an "inside job" involving people connected with members of his own family.

More football revelations in the Sun as it shows pictures of Man United's Patrice Evra gets a kiss from a leggy blonde in a budget hotel at nearly 2am and in the Mirror on th night that John Terry tried to bed me

Finally reports the Telegraph,a German tabloid has advised Greeks to adopt a more Germanic work ethic – by rising earlier and working harder – in order to solve the country's financial crisis.

Trinity to continue with cost focus as advertisng revenues continue to fall

2010-03-04T09:47:00.003Z

Results out this morning for Trinity Mirror confirm the continued impact of the advertising downturn on local papers.

Reporting its 2009 preliminary results,the company reported a 41 per cent drop in profits down to £72.7m, from £124.2m, with revenues down 11.8 per cent.

The group announced that its total costs had been reduced by over £60m with £40m of that being down to what it termed structural reorganisation.

It expects advertising revenues,already showing upward trends towards the end of last year, to improve in the current year.

Its chief executive Sly Bailey says that the board anticipates a satisfactory performance in 2010 whilst recognising the economic difficulties,and promised to keep the focus on cost cutting.

IPL live on ITV

2010-03-04T09:35:00.002Z

Quite an unexpected cricketing coup for ITV.

The Independent station has just announced that it has picked up the rights to the IPL and ITV4 will be showing 59 of 60 live matches over 45 days.

There is a fair chance that it secured the rights for a nominal sum after the collapse of Setanta last year.

The tournument,the richest cricketing festival in the world is already being show on You Tube.

It all begins on the 12th March

Journalists should engage in conversation

2010-03-04T07:10:00.003Z

When i first started this blog around the end of 2006,so many of the tags were to do with citizen journalism and user generated content.

The words seem to have fallen in to disuse in recent times sometimes maybe unfairly.

Kellie Maddox reports on the comments of the Editorial Development Director at RBI, a big B2B magazine and website publisher in the UK,Karl Schneider.

The benefits of UGC – aside from the obvious financial benefits of UGC (lots of content at little cost), Karl emphasised how important ‘community’ engagement around a website is in the production of UGC. He also pointed out that there was no set model of UGC that would work for users across the board – depending on the publication/topic, different groups respond differently when engaging with media products. He said, in order to understand users’ motivation to produce content, we should identify common threads e.g. why do users respond to that? In what way do they respond?

Ht-Suw Charman-Anderson

Is it more invasive just because some of us don't have a press pass

2010-03-04T07:04:00.002Z

An interesting prespective over at Media Shift which asks if journalist's photos from Haiti are an invasion of Privacy.

Michelle May,who has just returned from the country says that

a rumor is circulating among volunteers that we should remove any photos of our time at the hospital from Facebook and other websites, unless we had received permission to take photographs.

This ethical debate is inspired by the ability of anyone to easily create and distribute media such as photos, videos or blog posts. Professional media have long been training their cameras and mikes on the victims of natural disasters, but now anyone can do it, too. Is it more invasive just because some of us don't have a press pass?

What Thursday's papers are saying

2010-03-04T06:31:00.003Z

Lord Ashcroft,what did Jon Venables do, and the death of Michael Foot are the main themes this morning.

According to the Telegraph,Jack Straw has said that it is not in the public interest to disclose why the killer of James Bulger, was sent back to jail despite the Home Secretary saying that people have a right to know.

A theme taken up by the Express which reports that

Government officials have slapped a worldwide injunction on disclosure of any details about murderer Jon Venables breaching the terms of his release.

The Sun leads with a report that the father of murdered toddler James Bulger last night led demands for the TRUTH about killer Jon Venables' return to jail.

Acording to the Mail though,he was sent back to jail after a workplace brawl,

The 27-year-old was said to have been recalled to prison after 'flipping' and attacking a work colleague.

Meanwhile according to the Mirror,hislife has descended into one of drug abuse and brushes with the law since he left jail nine years ago.

The 27-year-old began snorting cocaine and popping ecstasy pills while throwing himself into his local night club scene.

Both the Independent and the Guardian turn up the heat on the events surrounding Lord Ashcroft

Lord Ashcroft kept William Hague in the dark for years about his controversial tax status, the shadow Foreign Secretary admitted last night as new details about the peer's donations to the party emerged.

reports the former.

Hague's disclosure put pressure on himself and the party to explain why they have repeatedly evaded questions about the matter in a succession of recent interviews.

says the Guardian

The Times leads with the story that the families of troops who were killed in poorly protected Land Rovers have urged the Iraq inquiry to challenge Gordon Brown tomorrow on his funding of frontline forces.

The death of Michael Foot at the age of 96 is covered in most of the papers

Baroness Thatcher, who faced Mr Foot in many fiery clashes across the despatch box in the House of Commons, said she was "very sorry to hear the news" of his death. says the Telegraph

His legacy is significant says the Independent

Not many British politicians have been more reviled than the donkey-jacket wearing, unpatriotic, election-losing Foot. And yet there was not the faintest edge of ancient grudge in any of the generous tributes paid to the former Labour Party leader yesterday from across the political spectrum.

An incorrigible rebel, the former Labour leader failed politically but always followed his mighty heart is how the Guardian describes his legacy.

The Times reports that cChildren’s heart surgery has been suspended at one of the country’s leading cardiac centres,The John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, after four patients died during operations.

According to the Mail,Headteachers will be forced to list children as young as five on school 'hate registers' over everyday playground insults.

Meanwhile according to the Telegraph,

Traditionalist bishops and peers fear that vicars could be taken to court and accused of discrimination if they turn down requests to hold civil partnerships on religious premises.

News from America and the Guaradian reports that Republicans have rejected Barack Obama's offer of compromise over his health reform bill and prepared for one of the biggest battles of recent US political history

The Times says that the president has declared for the first time yesterday that he was prepared to steamroller his troubled health reform legislation through Congress with only Democratic support

According to the Independent

The prospects for the first negotiations involving Israel and the moderate Palestinian leadership for over a year have increased after the nations of the Arab League gave qualified support to a US proposal for indirect talks between both sides.

Finally Maddie is back in the news.The Sun carries pictures of ittle girl's rag doll whichcould have been given to Madeleine McCann by those who snatched her.

According to the paper

The cuddly plaything was among evidence suggesting Maddie was held at a remote house - but Portuguese cops abandoned the line of inquiry.

Inside the M60 -A Manifesto

2010-03-03T07:10:00.006Z

Hyperlocal is the thing now and for the past couple of months,myself and fellow Manchester journalist Louise Bolotin have been working on the concept of a new hyperlocal project for Manchester.

Going under the title of Inside the M60 will be a local hyperlocal site supplying relevant news and information to the community of Greater Manchester with the expressed purpose of giving a voice to the opinions of the disenfranchised community.

Inside the M60 will fill a niche created by the failures of local journalism, taking advantage of the low entry and running costs of the today’s media platforms and fully utilising the tools of modern journalism.

It will address the issues of concern to the general population of the city, scrutinising the policies of local government and other public and private bodies within the city but also unafraid to tackle even the smallest issues that affect the population of Greater Manchester.

We both firmly believe that as we approach the end of the first decade of the 21st century, the country stands on the cusp of dramatic social and economic changes. The causes and consequences of the financial crisis of 2007-08 have yet to be resolved, there are massive social issues to address and our lifestyles need to adapt to the pressing environmental issues threatening the planet.

Next year’s elections will see the country make a choice for the future as distinct as those made in 1945 and 1979.

There will be a focus on community, with whoever wins the next election pledging to initiate community action driving change upwards.

This coincides with the collapse of local journalism as the newspaper industry has failed to respond to the challenges of the internet and the decline of advertising.

As a result of cost-cutting measures, local papers have by nature become more insular, relying more and more on “churnalism” and breaking that crucial relationship with their readership and their customers, the advertisers.

There are, therefore, opportunities for niche journalism projects with a small cost base that take advantage of the low cost of entry and can act as the voice for these communities.

At the same time, there are many communities that have become essentially disenfranchised from their city and society in general. Voting in local and national elections is at an all-time low, reflecting both apathy for the political system (for example, exasperation with this year’s parliamentary expenses scandal) and a consensus that “my vote has little or no effect”.

There exist communities where three generations have effectively slipped out of the work ethic, living on benefits as a matter of course and creating almost an underclass of society that exists in parallel to the economy.

In Manchester, the poorest communities live almost within shouting distance of the bright lights and investment of the city centre and yet have little or nothing in common with it. At the same time, technology has become alien to them and they are in danger of being on the wrong side of an increasing digital divide.

Keep reading this blog for more announcements and ways in which you can take part

What Wednesday's papers are saying

2010-03-03T06:43:00.002Z

One of the killers of James Bulger is back in prison and the tabloids this morning cover the story intensely.

Jon Venables, now 27, was locked up after breaching his parole. Depending on the reasons for the recall, he could now be facing a life sentence.says the Mail

He broke strict rules which include a ban on him contacting his fellow murderer Robert Thompson or the Bulger family

.says the Sun adding that

The mother of murdered James said last night that Venables' arrest was "justice" for her son.

Laurence Lee – Venables’ solicitor at his trial – said he was “shocked”.
He said: “If someone said to me that one of James Bulger’s killers had been returned to prison I’d have put a lot of money on it not being Jon, because he was by unanimous agreement the less evil of the two.”

reports the Mirror

The row over Lord Ashcroft continues.According to the Guardian,revenue investigators were last night facing demands to launch an inquiry into the tax status of Lord Ashcroft,

whilst the Independent reports that

William Hague has come under pressure to explain why he stretched his powers as Tory leader "to the very limits" in 2000 by begging Tony Blair to ensure that Lord Ashcroft was granted a peerage.

According to the Times,

Senior Tories expressed growing unease over the Lord Ashcroft tax saga as new evidence emerged to contradict the billionaire donor’s account of how he became a peer.

Events at the BBC are the main subject for the Telegraph.Acording to the paper,it will be forced to disclose its stars’ pay under a Conservative government as the centrepiece of measures to cut the cost of the public broadcaster.

The Sun reports that up to 600 jobs will be cut, with the £600million saved going into "quality" programming but adds that

last night 52 per cent of viewers insisted the cuts are NOT enough, and only 12 per cent said the BBC should increase the licence fee instead.

Whilst television matters also dominate many of the other papers.The Independent reports that

General elections will be transformed by an historic agreement reached last night under which Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg will face questions from voters in three 90-minute live television debates.

The Mail chooses to concentrate on the fact that it will take place in near silence after the broadcasters were forced to agree to a ban on clapping.

According to a joint study by the Guardian and the thinktank Civitas.

More than a third of NHS primary healthcare trusts, which fund hospitals in England, are running deficits that have led to a cutback in surgical operations and seen calls to close casualty departments,

Many of the papers report that South African President Jacob Zuma has urged the lifting of sanctions against Zimbabwe if progress is to be made in resolving Zimbabwe's political crisis.

The Mail follows up its lead story from yesterday as it reveals the gang of teens that stalks the streets around 'arson death' home

Last night neighbours pointed the finger at the notorious Overslade Crew, a gang of about 30 teenagers who have been known to set fires and smash bottles around Rugby, in Warwickshire.

Finally ahead of tonight's England friendly the Times reports the comments of their manager who has blamed the off-field problems that have threatened to undermine England’s World Cup hopes on the vast wealth accumulated by many of his players.

Why I am not lamenting 6Music but why I worry about local news

2010-03-02T15:26:00.005Z

So the news is out.

The BBC's Mark Thompson has announced plans to scale back its £3.5bn a year operations,pledging to the public that the corporation with its guaranteed licence fee income, did not “try to do everything”.

So what won't it be doing? Well it will slash its radio budget by closing the digital radio stations 6Music and Asian Network.It will reduce by around a quarter its budget for running online operations and will pledge a new cap of spending for 2.5 per cent of the licence fee on overseas acquisitions and 9 per cent on sports rights.

It has also pledged to bring its overheads into line from around 12 per cent of the licence fee to 9 per cent

The middle classes are up in arms about 6Music.Quite frankly I have never listened to it,so don't share the twitterati clamour about defacing the memory of John Peel.Anyone surely Radio 1 is the place for breaching the barriers of new music.

I am more concerned about why there isn't such a clamour for the closing of the Asian network.

I am also concerned that the corporation has not addressed other areas where it is playing on a lopsided arena,notably its magazine arm and its acquisition of Lonely planet magazine last year.

As for the website,I also have worries.Which information is going and who will fill it.The BBC for all its critics supplies news and information which commercial operations are unwilling or unable to provide.

It says it will allow local papers to develop local services but I worry.Local websites, it says

" will be refocused, meanwhile, to carry only news, sport, weather, travel and local knowledge content.

Whether this gives an opportunity to those of us who want to serve the hyperlocal market remains to be seen.Maybe a sweetener would be to give us some of the license fee that they will save?

The rush to go online

2010-03-02T06:26:00.002Z

A survey of of magazine web sites by the Columbia Journalism Review has shown that there are varying standards between the print and online editions of many magazines.

In particular,over nearly 60 per cent of respondents admitted to either less or no copy editing online as well as less vigorous fact checking and no indication to readers that mistakes had been made.

There was also evidence that decison making structues for online sites varied dramatically with people working for the print side expected to work online without being given adequate training in writing for the web.

The survey also found a number of advantages in using Independent web editors.They was a correlation between their use and profitablity as well as a tendency to use dedicated web staff.

Interestingly most publications didn't distinguish between selling advertising online and for print.

Although those involved with magazines and their Web sites have varying levels of knowledge and sophistication about their métier, it’s fair to say that the proprietors of these sites don’t, for the most part, know what one another is doing, that there are no generally accepted standards or practices, that each Web site is making it up as it goes along, that it is like the wild west out there.

Seperating fact from fiction

2010-03-02T06:18:00.003Z

Since the dawn of reporting,journalists have come under scrutiny for how much of their copy is fact or fiction.

Today's Independent looks at the story of Ryszard Kapuscinski where yesterday,

a biography was published in Kapuscinski's native Poland which portrays much of his work as invention. Kapuscinski – Non Fiction, by the Polish journalist Artur Domoslavski, says he "consciously built on his status as a legend" and "extended the boundaries of reportage far into the realm of literature".

Ryszard Kapuscinski who died in 2007,dedicated forty years of his career to Africa and became famous for books, such as The Emperor (1978), on the fall of t Haile Selassie of Ethiopia and Another Day of Life (1976), a closely observed account of the collapse of Portuguese colonialism in Angola, .

Domoslavski says that the journalist famed for books such as The Soccer War and Imperium never met Guevara and many other figures he claimed to have known as a globetrotting reporter. His claims that he narrowly escaped death by firing squad are dismissed as fantasy; his insistence that his father was a prisoner of war in Russia, a lie.

How far we have come -Part 2-the net ends that directional tyranny

2010-03-02T06:12:00.003Z

News is no longer just a report. It's a conversation, a broad process in which many people contribute to varying degrees.

The words of Steve Yelvington who continues to push the idea of participatory journalism.

As he says

This is not new, but rather a restoration of normalcy that was disrupted by Gutenberg and Marconi. We humans evolved in tribes, and we digest news and information by sharing it and talking about it with our friends and family. The one-way flow that is characteristic of print and electronic broadcasting is at odds with our nature. The Internet ends that directional tyranny.

Remember how far the web has allowed us to come

2010-03-02T06:04:00.003Z

A great article from Tech Flash which is entitled a world without newspapers.(H-t Sarah Hartley

It looks at print's increasingly fractious relationship with technology and some of its consequences,including thatWeb journalism is fast becoming the dominant form of news media and that nothing is ever final online.

However this for me is its most important contribution

The Internet has democratized media by shifting power from institutions to individuals.

It's worth a read just to remember how far technology has allowed us to come

The media world has evolved from a top down, command and control model into a complex ecosystem of mainstream media, blogs and user-generated content. It was once relatively clear where news came from (your local paper), when it would arrive (each morning) and who was the messenger (the longtime beat reporter).

and adds

Today, the news can come from anywhere, anybody, anytime. News, gossip, and rumor move instantly through the Web—often without the benefit of an editor attempting to separate fact from fiction. One important scoop can turn an obscure blogger into an influencer virtually overnight.

Dyke turns on Thompson

2010-03-02T05:58:00.003Z

As the BBC prepares outline its strategic plans for the future which despite rumours of closures and job losses,could see an extra £600m diverted into programme-making,its Director general comes under fire from a former holder of the office.

Greg Dyke accused his successor of being overpaid and out of touch with his staff,

According to the Guardian,he

said the BBC's programming was "in pretty good shape" but the way management was handling the reshaping of the corporation had failed staff.

adding

It is a good job, and Mark earns more than twice what I earned when I was doing it. The staff are whingeing. Mark is doing some great things, but he is not taking them with him."

What Tuesday's papers are saying

2010-03-02T05:23:00.003Z

Lord Ashcroft and the pound are under attack this morning.

The unanswered questions says the Independent,which include On what grounds was Lord Ashcroft's non-dom status granted? and How can a British citizen who claims to be a permanent resident of the UK gain non-domicile tax status?

Whilst the Guardian reports that the Conservative leadership was facing fresh demands to reveal what they knew about the tax status of Lord Ashcroft.

Meanwhile the Times says that he struck a private deal ten years ago to save himself tax on his overseas income,

Other papers from the right choose to focus on the pound which says the Telegraph fell sharply on Monday as financial markets took fright at the growing possibility of a hung parliament.

The Guardian describes how

In frenetic morning trading, sterling at one stage dropped by more than four cents against the dollar to a nine-month low of below $1.48, but rallied slightly to end the day 2.5 cents down.

Whilst the Express says that holidaymakes and shoppers were dealt a severe blow yesterday as the pound tumbled to a 10-month low and experts warned that sterling was “staring into the abyss”.

The pound wont be helped by the latest opinion poll in the Indy which suggests that Labour would have 17 more seats than the Tories in a hung parliament.

The Mail leads with the story of an elderly couple were killed in a suspected arson attack after they challenged yobs terrorising their sheltered housing complex,

Albert and Kath Adams, both 77, died after a gang set fire to a mobility scooter in their porch.

10,000 troops have been deployed on the streets of Chile to enforce a military curfew and crack down on looting following Saturday's massive earthquake. reports the Telegraph

Whilst the Times reports from the coastal town of Constitución,where

“The sea came and covered everything. It was 30 metres high. There were two waves. When we saw the sea coming in, everybody ran. I climbed up the hill.”

Meanwhile the Independent says that four Britons were reported missing last night by a website for surfers in the resort of Pichilemu, including Scottish couple Kirsty Duff and Dave Sandercock.

There is a great deal of coverage of the appearance of Phil Jones in front of a parliamentary inquiry.He says the Guardian

admitted he had sent "awful emails" but said he expected to be cleared of accusations that he tried to pervert the scientific process.

Whilst another appearance this time in the Hague also gets headlines.

Radovan Karadzic has answered genocide charges for the first time since the Bosnian War with a claim he fought a "just and holy" war against Muslim extremists.

reports the Telegraph

According to the Times,the Yorkshire ripper,Peter Sutcliffe

was wrongly convicted of murder and may be safe for release less than 30 years after admitting killing 13 women, medical evidence presented to the High Court concluded yesterday.

The death of BBC presenter Kristian Digby is widely reported.

The To Buy Or Not To Buy host, 32, is thought to have suffocated while starving himself of oxygen for a thrill.says the Sun

More from the BBC in the Guardian which reports that its former director general Greg Dyke,has said his successor is overpaid and out of touch with his staff,

The Yorkshire Ripper returns to the headlines.According to the Mail,Peter Sutcliffe is using taxpayers' money in an attempt to win his freedom.

The Times reports that one of Peter Sutcliffe’s psychiatrists believes the paranoid schizophrenic killer may now be safe for release

Yesterday was the day in which 11 year old find out which school they will be attending next Septemeber and the Telegraph reports that half of children in some areas have been rejected from their preferred secondary school amid fierce competition for the most sought-after places.

Finally the Independent reports from Warsaw where free round-the-clock concerts are being held to mark the composer Chopin's 200th birthday.

You could have heard jazz star Grazyna Auguscik as she improvised over Chopin melodies, or an unknown young pianist playing nocturnes at 3am to curled-up couples and solitary night-owls. Nearly 300 musicians signed up to play at "The Longest Birthday", the idea for which came from the doubt surrounding the composer's actual date of birth.

How mobile is changing America

2010-03-01T09:30:00.004Z

A new study out from Pew this morning suggests that Americans want their news portable personalized and participatory.

According to the report

The internet is at the center of the story of how people’s relationship to news is changing. Six in ten Americans (59 per cent) get news from a combination of online and offline sources on a typical day, and the internet is now the third most popular news platform, behind local television news and national television news.

In terms of Portable: 33% of cell phone owners now access news on their cell phones.

In terms of Personalized: 28% of internet users have customized their home page to include news from sources and on topics that particularly interest them.

In terms of Participatory: 37% of internet users have contributed to the creation of news, commented about it, or disseminated it via postings on social media sites like Facebook or Twitter.

Twitter ads business model

2010-03-01T09:23:00.002Z

Twitter is planning a new ad funded business model according to Charles Arthur writing in the Guardian this morning.

He quotes a story coming out of All things digital which claims that

1. Ads will be tied to Twitter searches, in the same way that Google’s (GOOG) original ads were. So a search for, say, “laptop,” may generate an ad for Dell (DELL). The ads will only show up in search results, which means users who don’t search for something won’t see them in their regular Twitterstreams.

2. The ads will use the Twitter format–140 or fewer characters–and will be distributed via the third-party software and services that use Twitter’s API. The services will have the option of displaying the ads, and Twitter will share revenue with those that do.

3. Twitter will work with ad agencies and buyers to seed the program, but plans on moving to a self-serve model like Google’s, down the road.

Over 4 million U streams dedicated to the Chile and the subsequent Tsunami

2010-03-01T05:05:00.002Z

Some quite remarkable figures courtesy of Mashable

Yesterday video streaming site Ustream ran live video of local news broadcasts covering the earthquake in Chile and the ensuing Hawaii tsunami warning. Today Ustream announced that it has delivered 4.35 million streams related to the events.

Lebedev about to spend £1 on the Indy

2010-03-01T04:55:00.002Z

According to yesterday's Sunday Times,

Alexander Lebedev, the former KGB agent turned media mogul, will this week pay a token £1 to take control of The Independent — the same price as buying one copy of the paper from the newsstand. But he will pledge to invest millions in the loss-making title and the Independent on Sunday over five years.

The report adds that

The final hurdle to a sale is close to being overcome this weekend after Independent News & Media agreed to take part of the pain of a 10-year printing deal with rival publisher Trinity Mirror.

What Monday's papers are saying

2010-03-01T04:16:00.003Z

David Cameron's speeech to the Tory spring conference makes many of the front pages.

According to the Telegraph he insisted that he has what it takes to run Britain,

Speaking confidently without notes at the party’s pre-election conference in Brighton, he said: “Every day that goes by I feel I have what it takes to turn this country around and get it moving again. And that is what we badly need to do.

The Guardian reporrts that in his speech he

was forced to admit today that Britain harbours doubts about the Conservatives and conceded the party still faces a "real fight" if it is to persuade voters that the Tories are ready for government.

Mr Cameron admitted that time was running out to win over a sceptical public says the Independent.

But says the Mail, insisting he has 'what it takes to turn this country around', he vowed to do all he could to avoid the 'incredible dark depression of another five years of Gordon Brown'.

David Cameron yesterday vowed to tear Gordon Brown's "dark"record apart in the election campaign says the Sun.

Whilst the Times chooses to lead with the fact that he propelled marriage to the centre of the election campaign after surprising the Tory party faithful with a promise to spell out his flagship policy before polling day.

The other main news from the weekend is the earthquake in Chile.Accordong to the Guardian,the death toll from Saturday's devastating earthquake in Chile rose to more than 700 as rescue workers fanned out across a 600km-long stretch of the country

The increase in the death toll came as officials revealed as many as 300 people had perished in the small coastal town of Constitucion alone.reports the Independent

President Bachelet desribes 'a catastrophe of such unthinkable magnitude that it will require a giant effort for Chile to recover'says the Times

Meanwhile many of the papers report that storms swept through western Europe at the weekend, killing up to 50 people in France

Three people were killed in Spain, two in Germany and one in Portugal, but France was the worst hit as heavy rains, strong gusts of wind and high tides destroyed Atlantic coast sea walls, killing 25 people in the town of l'Aiguillon sur Mer alone, the mayor told French television

says the Telegraph

Back home and the Times reports that a lack of 24-hour nursing cover and poor planning by doctors is threatening government plans to give the terminally ill a right to die at home, campaigners say.

Meanwhile a murder tragedy in Southampton.The Mail reports that the suspect on the run after the death of his girlfriend and baby daughter was described by police as 'armed and dangerous' yesterday.

Stephanie Bellinger, 24, and her eight-month-old daughter Lily were brutally stabbed to death in the semi- detached home they shared with Anthony Marsh, 21.

The Express lead with news that a poison as harmful as arsenic is contaminating fruit juices and cordials drunk by millions of people every day across Britain.According to the paper

The toxin called antimony, which is lethal in large doses and has been linked to cancer, was discovered in 16 of the most popular brands of juice and squash.

For the Sun,its the Coles that once again dominate the front pages as Cheryl Cole has opened her heart and confessed she is terrified about single life.

The Mirror says that Cheryl Cole has finally dashed love rat Ashley’s lingering hopes of a reunion – in a phone chat with his mother Sue.

Finally many of the papers report on the latest from Silvio Berlusconi who has reports the Guardian,unveiled a selection of candidates for election that includes a Miss Italy contestant, a former TV weathergirl and a showgirl turned dental hygienist.

Doing more with less in the B2B sector

2010-02-28T07:59:00.002Z

Are B2B magazines lagging behind their customer colleagues when it comes to digital media?

Well the answers yes if you believe the survey by the American Society of Business Publications Editors (ASBPE).

They found that 80 per cent of respondents in the sector complained of a lack of training in the tools and techniques of digital media.

While b2b editors are working without much, if any, training for the digital world, their workload increasingly involves online publishing. The survey found that 38% of editors spend at least half of their time now working on digital content, and even more (62%) feel that spending more time on digital would benefit their publications.

Ht-Martin Stabe

European privacy threatens American freedom of expression

2010-02-28T07:52:00.003Z

An interesting take from the New York Times' Adam Liptak on the Italian google ruling earlier in the week.

He writes that whilst in

one sense, the ruling was a nice discussion starter about how much responsibility to place on services like Google for offensive content that they passively distribute.

in another,

it called attention to the profound European commitment to privacy, one that threatens the American conception of free expression and could restrict the flow of information on the Internet to everyone.

What the Sunday's are saying

2010-02-28T07:24:00.003Z

More bullying revelations,the army in crisis and the handshake that never was.

The Mail on Sunday is in possession of tape recording which shows a bullying Prime Minister in action.

one of his closest aides revealed in a sensational tape-recording how the Prime Minister shoved him on the stairs inside No10.

It adds

The adviser says Mr Brown’s staff have made excuses for his bullying behaviour for years. And, damagingly, he questions whether they had been right to do so, arguing a ‘core part’ of being Prime Minister is to treat people properly.

Meanwhile in the Observer it's week 2 of the Rawnsley revelations.According to the paper

Tony Blair descended into such a deep depression after the Iraq war that he told Gordon Brown and John Prescott he would quit No 10 the following summer

The head of the army has warned that British troops are facing a crisis of deteriorating morale on the home front that risks undermining the war in Afghanistan is the lead in the Sunday Times.

In a confidential draft memo prepared for ministers, General Sir David Richards, chief of the general staff (CGS), said that recent cuts to the defence budget are having a “cumulative and corrosive effect on our soldiers and their families”.

Yesterday's Chile earthquake is covered in all the papers,the Independent says it killed

at least 210 people, bringing down homes and hospitals, and setting off a tsunami that triggered warnings and evacuations across the entire Pacific

In the Chilean capital,says the Telegraph,

some five million woke up to "hell" as the earthquake, which struck in the small hours of Saturday morning, collapsed tower blocks and bridges and swallowed cars as it ripped cracks in the roads. Rescue teams worked throughout the day to dig out people buried alive in the rubble.

There is much political coverage.The Sunday Telegraph leads with the story that a Labour minister says his party has been infiltrated by a fundamentalist Muslim group that wants to create an “Islamic social and political order” in Britain.

The Independent claims that The Conservatives would abandon Labour's belief that "pumping" money into the most deprived areas is the way to solve Britain's social problems,

The Telegraph says that David Cameron will declare that he will not retreat into the "Conservative comfort zone" and will carry on with his modernising crusade as he attempts to arrest his party's dip in fortunes.

The Express claims that disruptive pupils will be put back on track by a task force of ex-Army officers under ground-breaking Conservative education plans.

According to the Sunday Times,disgraced MPs will retain their privileged access to the House of Commons even after losing their seats in parliament.

Hundreds of the best-performing comprehensive schools appear to be covertly selecting pupils from more affluent backgrounds and blocking those from more deprived families,reports the Observer

A double story on the front of the News of the World.As Wayne Bridge

refused to shake hands with his former friend and team-mate when the pair lined up against each other at Chelsea yesterday.

the paper turns it attention to Peter Andre and reports how

ex-model Maddy Ford reveals how the Mysterious Girl star swept her off her feet only eight days after his divorce.

Meanwhile the Sunday Mirror reports that Simon Cowell has told Cheryl Cole she must not go back to cheating husband Ashley, telling her: Its time to think of yourself, kiddo. He's had enough chances.

According to the Sunday Times,exam watchdogs secretly downgraded the GCSE results of thousands of pupils last summer to avoid a damaging public row over grade inflation,

Finally,The Sunday Telegraph reports the comments of Hilary Mantel, who has announced that girls are ready to have babies when they are 14 years-old.

The 57-year-old novelist said that society ran on a "male timetable" which dictated that women should have babies at an older age.

Addiply to the fore

2010-02-27T09:16:00.003Z

I’d encourage other geographical hyperlocal start-ups to sign-up to addiply as we have done. You might just find it makes sense.

The words of Bournville blog's founder and now Guardian Cardiff local blogger Hannah Waldram who celebrates the blog getting its first advert through the Addiply business model.

For those who don't know the Addiply story,it essentially offers publishers a chance to allow businesses to target a focused readership generated by hyperlocal sites so that the two can meet and hopefully generate a long running relationship between the two parties.

And whilst as many recognise at the moment it's not going to turn those being hyperlocal sites in publishing millionaires,as more and more sites get signed up synergies will begin to take place.

I am currently in the process of setting up a couple of hyperlocal sites and am planning to take on board the Addiply model.

Keep watching this blog for more developments.

The power of twitter at Sony

2010-02-27T09:11:00.003Z

Sony have clearly demonstrated the power of using twitter after it revealed that it has generated over £1m in sales through its twitter account.

New Media age reports that

Speaking at Marketing Week’s Social Media for Brand Building event yesterday, Sony head of corporate communications Nick Sharples said the company sees Twitter as a viable sales platform as well as a tool to amplify PR activity.

adding that

Sony launched a campaign for a special edition of its Cyber-shot camera range last year and used social media to extend PR coverage over nine months, resulting in over £12.5m in revenue.

What Saturday's papers are saying

2010-02-27T08:42:00.002Z

With renewed rumours of an early general election,many of the papers return to political themes on their front pages.

According to the Telegraph,the Conservatives are planning tax cuts,George Osborne will unveil an emergency “enterprise” budget within 50 days of a Conservative election victory which will sharply cut taxes for business,says the paper

The Guardian claims that the Tories are planning for a hung parliament.Ahead of their spring conference says the paper

David Cameron has established a special unit to prepare for a hung parliament, amid growing fears among senior Tories that they will struggle to win an overall Commons majority.

The Independent meanwhile looks at the activities of lord Ashcroft claiming The Tories have spent £6m over two years in the parliamentary seats that hold the key to election victory.

According to the Times,Alistair Darling is set to reveal details of how he plans to cut £11 billion from Whitehall spending in the pre-election Budget including

Some hospital buildings face closure as the government seeks to save billions of pounds from more efficient services,

It leads with its exclusive yesterday though reporting that unions at the BBC are threatening industrial action over 600 possible job cuts as two radio stations and half the corporation’s website may go.

The Guardian claims that the

decision to dramatically cut the BBC's scope and expenditure follows increasing pressure from the Conservatives, who have threatened major cutbacks if they come to power at the general election, and rival media organisations struggling to compete with the corporation's activities.

The High court ruling on the Binyam Mohamed case continues to attract headlines.As the Independent reports it has emerged that a senior judge had suggested MI5 officers could not be trusted to tell the truth.

The Telegraph reports on the comments of the head of the Army, General Sir David Richards who says British forces could be pulled out of Afghanistan within five years,

Sir David said they have reached a “turning point” in the battle against the Taliban.

But there were more problems in Afghnanistan yesterday as when 17 people died in a car bomb attack in Kabul apparently aimed at Indians working in the Afghan capital.

The Mail turns its atention to the postal service reporting that First class post has plunged to its worst performance in more than a decade.

Nearly one in four letters sent by first class post did not arrive the next working day.

The Express meanwhile leads with news that staff at the Met Office have been awarded £12million in bonuses despite repeatedly getting forecasts wrong,

A big sporting showdown at Stamford Bridge today as the Sun reports that Wayne Bridge last night vowed to snub John Terry's handshake before this lunchtime's big match.

The seven-hour verdict that cost Thaksin $1.4bn is the headline in the Independent as it reports that

The Thai authorities were last night braced for demonstrations after the country's highest court seized $1.4bn of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra's assets and ruled that the exiled tycoon had abused his power in office.

Finally the Telegraph reports that whilst Charles de Gaulle famously bemoaned the difficulties involved in running a country with 246 different types of cheese the French are failing out of favour with the industry.So in an effort to fight back

The Association Fromages de Terroirs (AFT), which aims to protect France’s traditional cheese culture, is now trying to fight back with a series of posters of “Fromgirls”, displaying scantily clad women working in the industry.

Crossroads of civilisation

2010-02-26T10:52:00.005Z

A lovely find from Richard Sambrook

Needed to celebrate desire to contribute for free rather than question it.

2010-02-26T10:48:00.001Z

Just love this quote from Arianna Huffington

"Self expression is the new entertainment, We never used to question why people sit on the couch for seven hours a day watching bad TV. Nobody ever asked, 'Why are they doing that for free?' We need to celebrate [this desire to contribute for free] rather than question it."

Thanks to Seth Godin

Media under attack from Home Office report.

2010-02-26T10:29:00.005Z

Also in the news this morning is a report out from the Home office which warns that that children are 'over-exposed' to sexual imagery, and that parents have little power to stop it.

In an attack on the media,the report advocates tougher regulation of adverts and the placing parental controls on mobile phones.

It has created headlines such as Sexy videos should be banned until after TV watershed in the Telegraph.

The report, by psychologist Dr Linda Papadopoulos, also recommends the banning the sale of lads' magazines such as Zoo from under-15s, and restricting them to the top shelves to keep them out of children's eyeline.

But should we in the media be concerned.Toby young certainly doesn't think so.Writing this morning in the Telegraph he says that the report

feels like a bit of cheap electioneering rather than a serious piece of research.

and questions whether indeed

there’s a “clear link” between sexual imagery and violence against women

The report he concludes

is a not a serious investigation into the causes of violence against women. Rather, it posits a link between that violence and various things that Dr Popadopoulus disapproves of — such as lad mags and airbrushed photographs — in a spurious attempt to either ban them or regulate them on grounds of public safety.

Beeb-getting its house in order before a Tory government does it for them?

2010-02-26T07:06:00.006Z

If correct then this morning's Times has usurped the BBC with reports of its strategic plans.

According to the paper,the corporation plans to close two radio stations, shut half its website and cut spending on imported American programmes.

The radio stations to close are 6music and the Asian network as the paper says

Mark Thompson, the Director-General, will admit that the corporation, which is funded by the £3.6 billion annual licence fee, has become too large and must shrink to give its commercial rivals room to operate.

adding that

It will be seen as an attempt to show a potential Tory government that the BBC understands the effect the deep advertising recession has had on commercial rivals and that it does not need outside intervention to get its house in order.

It is interesting that one of the proposals is to halve the content of its online presence,no doubt trying to calm the nerves of local newspaper groups who see the continued moves of the Beeb as unfair competition.

The BBC have yet to comment on the story.According to the Times,the document goes before the Trust and will be announced next month

What Friday's papers are saying

2010-02-26T06:36:00.003Z

Both the Telegraph and the Guardian lead with what the former calls frightening echoes of the Baby Peter case,in which a seven-year-old girl starved to death by her mother might still be alive if she had not been failed by social services, a High Court judge has ruled.

Khyra Ishaq, who weighed just 2st 9lb (16.8kg), was said by a paramedic to be like a concentration camp victim when she was finally rescued from her home.reports the Guardian

The Mail says that

Khyra Ishaq was beaten with a cane and allowed to die a slow and agonising death, despite being monitored and visited by at least nine social workers, education officers, teachers and police

Meanwhile the Times claims to have got sight of awideranging strategic review at the BBC in which it

will close two radio stations, shut half its website and cut spending heavily on imported American programmes

According to the paper

Mark Thompson, the Director-General, will admit that the corporation, which is funded by the £3.6 billion annual licence fee, has become too large and must shrink to give its commercial rivals room to operate.

RBS stands accused of creating 100 millionaires on the front of the Independent despite says the paper making a loss of £3.6bn.

the bank will reward its 16,800 investment bankers with £1.3bn in bonuses. The average that each of them will pocket comes to £160,000, made up of a basic salary of £80,000 and the same again in bonus, although that will be paid in shares. That compares to the national average full-time wage of those whose taxes are propping up the bank of about £25,000.

Meanwhile says the Guardian,

Fears of a double-dip recession and a sterling crisis in the run-up to the election were raised last night amid news of collapsing investment in British industry and a warning from one of the world's leading financiers that the pound could plummet within weeks.

The latest opinion poll in the Telegraph shows that Labour could still win the most number of seats at the general election

The latest survey indicates there will be a hung parliament, but it would be Gordon Brown who would be in the position to try and form a government as leader of the largest party.

and the Independent reports that George Osborne is seen as "lacking experience" by Britain's business leaders but still outscores the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, according to its latest survey.

Professor David Kerr reports the Times, one of the architects of Labour’s NHS reforms is to become a key adviser to the Conservatives.

Many of the papers report that Italy's highest appeals court have quashed the four-and-a-half year prison sentence handed to Tessa Jowell's estranged husband, David Mills,

However says the Times, the court ordered Mr Mills to pay €250,000 (£220,000) to the Italian state for “damaging” its image.

Insult to the 7/7 victims is the lead in the Mail as it says that families of the July 7 victims reacted furiously yesterday to the decision to include the deaths of the four bombers at the inquest.

More climate change controversy in the Express as its front page reports how climate scientists yesterday stunned Britons suffering the coldest winter for 30 years by claiming last month was the hottest January the world has ever seen.

War seems to have broken out on the football field

Wayne Bridge's dramatic international retirement has caused the simmering tension between the Manchester City left‑back and his former best friend John Terry to erupt into open warfare.

reports the Guardian

I cant forgive Terry he makes me sick says the front page of the Mirror

However the Sun says that Wayne Bridge was last night accused of damaging England's World Cup hopes by the ex- lover who broke his heart.

Back to more important matters and the Telegraph's headline "Barack Obama health care summit descends into bickering" is covered in many of the papers

It did not take long for the bipartisan health care summit to degenerate into the kind of bickering and points-scoring that has created a crescendo of anger about the conduct of politics in Washington.

reports the paper

Staying on the subject of America,the Mail reports that

America's refusal to support Britain in the Falklands oil drilling row was last night blamed on the UK's decision to release sensitive U.S. intelligence on a terror suspect.

Finally watch out Switzerland,Muammar Gaddafi has appealed for jihad against the country after its referendum in November to ban the construction of minarets on mosques.reports the Times ,

Though Gutenberg's invention made possible our modern world no one, much less Gutenberg himself, could have foreseen his press would have this effect

2010-02-25T06:41:00.005Z

This blog has written on many occassions about the changing business models for content.

Forgive me therefore for pointing you in the direction of a piece that sums up what has happened in publishing.

It comes from Jason Epstein who writes in the current New York review of books

“The transition within the book publishing industry from physical inventory stored in a warehouse and trucked to retailers to digital files stored in cyberspace and delivered almost anywhere on earth as quickly and cheaply as e-mail is now underway and irreversible. This historic shift will radically transform worldwide book publishing, the cultures it affects and on which it depends. Meanwhile, for quite different reasons, the genteel book business that I joined more than a half-century ago is already on edge, suffering from a gambler’s unbreakable addiction to risky, seasonal best sellers, many of which don’t recoup their costs, and the simultaneous deterioration of backlist, the vital annuity on which book publishers had in better days relied for year-to-year stability through bad times and good. The crisis of confidence reflects these intersecting shocks, an overspecialized marketplace dominated by high-risk ephemera and a technological shift orders of magnitude greater than the momentous evolution from monkish scriptoria to movable type launched in Gutenberg’s German city of Mainz six centuries ago.”

Ht-Stephen Abram

Italian ruling threatens Internet freedoms

2010-02-25T06:25:00.005Z

Yesterday's ruling in Italy could be regarded as a threat to internet freedom or another step in trying to curb the power of Google.

Three Google executives were convicted of violating privacy laws by allowing disturbing footage of a disabled Italian boy being bullied to be posted on the internet.

The decision stems from back in September 2006 when footage was posted of an autistic teenager and who was being bullied by four other boys, at a Turin school.

It remained online for two months before being taken down but the event was prior to You Tube being taken over by Google in Italy.

Google's defence was that it was nigh on impossible for individual videos to be checked due to the sheer volumes being loaded on a daily basis.

America's ambassador to Italy, David Throne said of the ruling that

This founding principal of internet freedom is vital for democracies which recognise freedom of expression and is safeguarded by all who take this value to heart.

Google executives pledged to appeal, saying if the verdict was allowed to stand, "the Web as we know it will cease to exist."

They added that

"If intermediaries like Google or the person who hosts your Web site can be thrown in jail in any country for the acts of other people and suddenly have a legal obligation to prescreen everything anyone says on their Web site before putting it online, the tools for free speech that everyone uses on the Net would grind to a halt.

Obstacles for hyperlocal in Ventnor and Leeds.

2010-02-25T06:14:00.003Z

As the growing move towards hyperlocal continues,two rather worrying stories emerged yesterday seemingly putting up barriers to journalistic independence.

Down in the Isle of Wight,the husband and wife team of dedicated reporters at the Ventnor blog were prevented from entering a coroners court.

We were told by the coroner’s officer, Richard Leedham, that the coroner, John Matthews, didn’t recognise us as a member of the press (despite VB publishing articles for four and a half years and NUJ membership for longer) and he didn’t want us in “his court.”

Judging from the comments on the blog, 56 so far,this issue is going to run and run.It seems that this dispute centred around controversy around a previous report back in 2008 as the coroner made it clear that they would not be admitted even into the public gallery as public members.

Meanwhile in Leeds,it seems that local councillors no longer want their meetings tweeted.As the council agreed a 2.5 per cent increase in council tax,Guardian Leeds reports that

Lord Mayor Judith Elliott told everyone at the start of the meeting to 'switch off all electrical equipment' and said there should be 'no Tweeting' on social networking site Twitter.

What Thursday's papers are saying

2010-02-25T05:47:00.002Z

The worse hospital scandal for 10 years says the Independent as it reports that Andy Burnham, the Health Secretary, announced an unprecedented five separate reviews of measures to protect patients yesterday.

Up to 1,200 people lost their lives needlessly because Mid-Staffordshire NHS Trust put government targets and cost-cutting ahead of patient care.says the Mail but adds that not a single official has been disciplined over the worst-ever NHS hospital scandal, it emerged last night.

No one on the board at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust has faced censure and all of them were either paid off, walked into another job or allowed to remain in post. The man who ran the hospital trust received a large pay-off despite his part in the scandal. adds the Telegraph

The Guardian says that the appalling picture painted by the commission - which described how some patients drank water from vases because they were so thirsty and how many had to rely on their families for food - was not exaggerated.

The Times leads with an exclusive reporting that a night-time raid in eastern Afghanistan in which eight schoolboys from one family were killed was carried out on the basis of faulty intelligence and should never have been authorised,

Bullygate continues to hog the headlines.The head of the civil service has admitted discussing with Gordon Brown how he should treat his staff reports the Telegraph whilst the Guardian reports the latest revelations of Rawnsley's book

Gordon Brown repeatedly shouted at Tony Blair "you ruined my life" in the final confrontation that forced Blair to agree to announce a date by which he would stand down as prime minister

Meanwhile the Independent reports that the Tories received more than £10m towards their election war chest in just three months,far more than the other parties combined.

Though says the Times,the Electoral Commission revealed yesterday that The Conservatives have arranged to borrow up to £5 million from a boutique private bank once run by Jonathan Aitken.

According to the front of the Express,one in four mothers nowadays is single and 57 per cent of women with a child under 13 have never married or lived with a man.

Three Google executives were convicted on Wednesday of violating privacy laws by allowing disturbing footage of a disabled Italian boy being bullied to be posted on the internet reports the Telegraph.

The company vowed to appeal against the ruling, which it described as "an attack on the fundamental principles of freedom on which the internet was built" says the Guardian.

Meanwhile it folows upo its lead yesterday claiming that while Andy Coulson was still editor of the News of the World, the newspaper employed a freelance private investigator even though he had been accused of corrupting police officers and had just been released from a seven-year prison sentence for blackmail.

The big news from the redtops is that Cheryl Cole's divorce will be a quicky.

According to the Sun

The Girls Aloud beauty is also throwing herself into removing all traces of the Chelsea and England soccer ace from their Surrey mansion, especially photos.

Meanwhile according to the Mirror,Ashley thinks all this is Cheryl's fault for working too hard.

Finally the Mail is on hand to see the Queen's latest foray into public transport

the Queen is the last person you'd expect to see nipping through the gates on the Tube.Yesterday, however, she was spotted nosing around Aldgate Underground station.

In praise of the foreign reporter

2010-02-24T17:23:00.005Z

This blog will often put the way towards great journalism and there is a great piece of international reporting in the New Statesman courtesy of Tristan McConnell who reports from the Somalian capital of Mogadishu.

It begins

After dark, the dull thud of mortars and the staccato popping of machine guns come more frequently. Sometimes the explosions make it hard to sleep, so I lie awake counting, learning to read the Mogadishu soundscape: one . . . two-three . . . four. Pauses follow sequences of explosions like Morse code, each bullet and mortar landing somewhere, ending or ruining a life.

The end of the political poster?

2010-02-24T16:48:00.002Z

Reuter's Mark Jones believes that social media's proliferation in the political agenda could spell the death of the political poster.

Whilst social media is changing the advertising landscape generally,for political campaigning he points out

Rising doubts over the power of political advertising have been underscored by the emergence in recent weeks of sites and social network groups aiming to channel the wit of party supporters to disrupt the expensively created messaging of centralised political campaigns.

and with the electin fast approaching at the very least he adds:

it might add some fun to the campaign?

Just watch this-Gordon Brown is turned into avatar

2010-02-24T09:30:00.001Z

Great spot-Malcolm Coles

"We just carried on snuffling up the profits like pigs around a trough.”

2010-02-24T09:13:00.003Z

Press Gazette's Grey Cardigan,the parody of the old fashioned newsroom has been thinking about the future

“You know, Grey,” my ex-boss says, “I remember meetings back in the early nineties when we didn’t know what to do with all the money we were making. We had to find cunning ways of hiding it from the shareholders. We were hitting margins of over 30 per cent and were turning advertising away despite constant rate increases.
“The daft thing is, we all knew that it was going to end. We knew that the internet would eventually take away our ad revenue; that classified would go first, followed by property and sits vac. And yet we did nothing about it. We didn’t plan for the future or invest in innovative content and means of delivery. We just carried on snuffling up the profits like pigs around a trough.”

Social media and the government portal

2010-02-24T09:07:00.003Z

Some interesting comments from Andrea DiMaio who is a member of the Gartner Blog Network who talks about the future of generalist government portals.

He asks whether in the age of social networking they are irrelevant citing one whom he visited saying that

“Should we stop caring about the user interface, which has been sucking so much of our efforts, and rather focus on APIs and build widgets that would be used wherever clients want?”.

Claims of regional bias not borne out by study

2010-02-24T08:54:00.005Z

We often hear the complaint that regional news is heavily bias towards the South Eastern corner of the country.

So news of the Newsography project is welcome.

It has set out to

see what basis there is for this argument? And is it possible to determine the extent of regional under representation whilst proving London enjoys near constant attention from the UK media?

They have come up with this splendid visualisation based on stories from the Guardian

which suggests that

the results challenged the initial proposition with London appearing to be under represented given it’s population size whilst cities such as Oxford, Cambridge and Brighton feature much more prominently than larger cities.

You can download a PDF to see how where you live features on the news agenda and Manchester,perhaps not surprsingly comes fairly high up.

Ht-Martin Belam

Committee recommends reform of libel laws and more powers for a toothless PCC

2010-02-24T07:59:00.004Z

Whilst the headlines from the Commons committee will be about News International,let's nor forget that the main body of this report concerns privacy.

In particular the issue of the Press Complaint's council (PCC) which it describes as "toothless".

It recommends that it should be able to levy fines on publications or even suspend them for a day.

The Libel law should also be looked at with its key recommendation that lawyers should no longer be able to claim the 100% "success fees" for winning cases against the media, but should be limited to an extra 10%.In addition it recommends limiting the scope of the so called "libel tourists".

The committee added that if a defendant in a libel case is in the right, it "should not be forced into a settlement which entails him sacrificing justice on the grounds of cost."

Its chairman John Whittingdale said:

"A healthy democracy requires a free press. It is essential that newspapers should be able to report and comment on events, public figures and institutions, to be critical of them and to be a platform for dissenting views.
"At the same time, the press must be seen to uphold certain standards, to be mindful of the rights of those who are written about and, as far as possible, be accurate in what they report.

A damning verdict and where next

2010-02-24T07:37:00.004Z

Making the headlines this morning is the verdict of the Commons culture committee on the News of the World's phone tapping which the Guardian says

News International could face a judicial inquiry after a highly critical parliamentary report today accuses senior executives at its top-selling newspaper of concealing the truth about the extent of illegal phone hacking by its journalists.

NoW executives are accused of having "collective amnesia" and of"deliberate obfuscation" whilst Scotland yard should have

have broadened its original investigation in 2006, and not just focused on Clive Goodman, the NoW's royal reporter.

The committee claimed that some of the celebrities involved might well have had their silence bought and whilst New International is adamant that the select committee had been hijacked by MP's with a political agenda,there is no doubt that the News of the World's activities have gone a lot further than simply Clive Goodman.

Surely then the spotlight will once again fall on Andy Coulson who jumped ship when this story first broke to join the Tories.

Noodles with your I-phone sir?

2010-02-23T16:19:00.002Z

It was going to happen sooner rather than later.Now there is a I-phone app where you can order your noodles.

Wagamama,reports Brand Republic,has introduced an app that

allows users to place an order for take-out directly from the handset.
The app also enables users to locate their nearest branch of Wagamama and browse the menu to place their order.
The order is then sent straight to the kitchen in a similar way to the wireless hand-held devices used by Wagamama restaurant staff. Users can state a preferred collection time and pay for the order via the app.

The digital divide -is broadband tax funding the wealthy?

2010-02-23T16:10:00.002Z

The Commons Business Committee has criticised the government plans to introduce a 50p-per-month tax on households to fund superfast broadband as 'regressive', saying it will result in the poor paying for a service used mainly by the wealthy.

In what will be seen as a rebuff to the method of funding the next generation of internet coonections,the committee said that the charge would have a much greater impact on the less well off who will pay for an enhanced service which only a minority will enjoy.

They added that if public funds are required for next generation access, they should be raised through general taxation, in the same way as for any other national infrastructure programme."

Tory MP Peter Luff joined the debate saying ‘market will determine the roll out of super-fast broadband.’ and urging the government to focus on getting people who are offline online instead.

Eurosport launches mobile app

2010-02-23T06:20:00.003Z

Eurosport has joined the clamour for this year's top media must have.

It has announced that it will be releasing its mobile app version of its streaming device at the cost of £2.39 a month.

Last week the BBC finally got its act together announcing that the I-player will be available to sports fans in time for this year's world cup.

Paid Content's Andrew Roberts explains the business rational behind the move

Media operators are gaining in confidence that they can charge on mobile where they don’t through other media.

—The recurring-subscription adjunct offered by Apple’s iPhone OS 3.0 is proving highly attractive to publishers and broadcasters.

—This is an example of how content owners can go direct to viewers, routing around traditional platform gateways like pay-TV operators.

Palestinian journalist sentenced to 18 months by West Bank court

2010-02-23T06:13:00.003Z

Tareq Abu Zayd, the correspondent of Hamas-run TV station Al-Aqsa was found guilty by a Palestinian Authority military court last week.

He was found guilty of charges of seditious acts and impart information and smuggling money to parties hostile to the Palestinian National Authority in a manner contrary to the provisions of Palestinian law.

A group of Arab human rights organizations in a public statement said that the court ruling about the Palestinian journalist Tareq Abu Zeid by a special military court is illegal and unfair and considered a precedent and contrary to the standards of protection of Freedom of speech and expression.

According to RSF

The supreme court in Ramallah ordered his release on 12 January but the order was ignored. Zayd was arrested several times last year by militias loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Hu keeps the Chinese Twittersphere hanging on

2010-02-23T06:05:00.003Z

Twittermania has overtaken China as the country's president Hu Jintao has registered himself for its equivalent of a Twitter account.

According to the Telegraph,

Within hours of appearing as a registered user on the micro-blogging platform of the People's Daily, the main mouthpiece of the Communist Party, Mr Hu was garnering followers at the rate of 600 per hour all waiting for his first pronouncement.

However says adds the report

24 hours later, Mr Hu, now with 16,687 followers, had yet to make his first post, or decide which of his many fans he might like to follow on the site.

Tuesday's papers

2010-02-23T05:39:00.005Z

Bullying not surprisingly features in the papers this morning.The independent reports that Downing Street's top civil servant made an extraordinary plea to staff yesterday to come forward if they had been bullied.

It adds that Labour's poll recovery is being jeopardised as the PM's behaviour is questioned.

The Times says that most civil servants working at the heart of Gordon Brown’s Government are afraid to challenge the way Downing Street is run.It has seen an internal survey of cabinet staff that suggests a third want to leave, and 6 per cent want to quit “as soon as possible”.

But there is good news from the polls for the party in the Guardian which publishes its latest ICM poll which suggests that we are heading for a hung Parliament.

The Telegraph chooses to lead with the news that British Airways crew have voted to strike and could throw the travel plans of hundreds of thousands of passengers' into chaos as early as next week.

Results of a second strike ballot released last night showed that more than 80 per cent of cabin crew, on a turnout of 79 per cent, were prepared to strike over changes BA has introduced to its in-flight service.

says the Times

The Mail turns its attention to the energy companies which it says are are making more than £100 out of every customer by refusing to cut bills during the record freeze.

A bungled airstrike in Afghanistan has dealt Nato's effort to woo hearts and minds the third such blow in a week, with Kabul claiming the bombing killed 27 civilians reports the Independent

Meanwhile the Guardain reports on moves afot by the Afghan President to tighten his grip on the country.

According to the Telegraph,Barack Obama is scaling back his plans for far-reaching legislation in an attempt to save his party from disaster in elections later this year.

the president is trying to dissociate himself from complex bills which have been held up by political disputes and tarnished his image as an agent of change.

The saga of the Coles continues in the tabliods,the Sun reveals that Cheryl has been dating dancer Derek Hough since walking out on cheat husband Ashley.

The Mirror's 3am girls report how there was

Plenty of chitter-chatter was apparently the order of the night for Cheryl and her cute new mate Derek Hough, before he was spotted leaving her hotel (clutching his ickle wickle pet dog - aww, we like him already) at 4.15am.

The Mail reports that serial criminal Walid Salem has walked out of court for the third time since invading a businessman's home with two knife-wielding thugs.

Twittering for a living

2010-02-22T18:20:00.002Z

I have spent the day back at my old stomping ground at Uclan taking part in a seminar organised by Francois Nel on twittering for a living.

It's part of three workshops aimed at getting students from both the media and business faculties to enter the entrepreneurial world of work.

This,the second of the three was aimed at showing how social media can be used to build a brand both a personal one and a business one and how social media can help to build a network.

I used by experiences at Innovation Manchester as a case study in point whilst my co presenter Simon Harrow looked at the theory behind networks.

One of the questions that came up was the time factor and we both made it clear that creating a social media brand was not something you could do overnight.In fact we both agreed that the strategy could easily take six to twelve months.

It was interesting to note how few of the assembled audience used social media tools other than facebook and as I pointed out in the question and answer session,converting some of that facebook time to social media sources could well benefit them.

We were joined on webcam by Joanna Geary from the Times who told the audience that she had always been more comfortable using social media as a medium for communicating with her audience and emphised how building a brand is so important now especially in the world of journalism.

The exact science of measuring web traffic

2010-02-22T06:34:00.004Z

Web-traffic measurement, despite recent advances, remains fraught with conflicting numbers. The Internet's inherent accountability, stemming from the digital trace left by every Web site visit, has spawned a multitude of measures, but little clarity.

That's the conclusion of the Wall Street journal which over the weekend took an in depth look at the science of measuring web flow.

Amongst the problems identified,hits could be the same person from different machines,whereas smaller sites are saying that these inflated figures could cost them when advertisers seeking a broad reach dismiss them because of their seemingly paltry audience sizes.

Surely you keep blogs out of pay walls?

2010-02-22T06:28:00.003Z

As the New York Times prepares for paywall territory,Arthur Sulzberger, Janet Robinson, and Martin Nisenholtz of the NYT all took the opportunity to talk at length about their paywall plans.

Reuters reports that

Nisenholtz did say quite clearly that he expected ad revenue to go up rather than down, which implied to me that that paywall was going to be pretty porous.

However the biggest shcok seems to be that the blogs will be behingd the wall and this could really be a bad move.

blogs rely on loyal readers who come back to read them often. But few blog readers are loyal enough to pay for the privilege of reading that blog.

Later says the report,the NYT's confirmed that yes blogs would indeed be behind the paywall

What Monday's papers are saying

2010-02-22T05:57:00.003Z

Yesterday's claims of bullying by the Prime Minister dominate the papers this morning as the Telegraph leads with the story that an anti-bullying charity said several Downing Street employees had called its helpline seeking advice and counselling.

Christine Pratt, the chief executive of the National Bullying Helpline, made the claims hours after reports that Sir Gus O’Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, had approached Gordon Brown about his treatment of personnel. says the Times

Acording to the Mail,Christine Pratt said she decided to go public after being incensed by Lord Mandelson's denial of lurid allegations about Mr Brown's treatment of his staff.

The Guardian says that Sir Gus O'Donnell is under pressure to launch a formal investigation into Gordon Brown's treatment of his staff.

The Independent is the only quality not ot lead with the story instead reporting that an end to Aids could be in sight.

An aggressive programme of prescribing anti-retroviral treatment (ART) to every person infected with HIV could stop all new infections in five years and eventually wipe out the epidemic,

The Telegraph says that a cure for peanut allergies could be available within three years,

According to the Times,Ministers are to crack down on excessive housing benefit payments.

Yvette Cooper, the Work and Pensions Secretary, plans to cap the highest rates paid to private landlords — as much as £1,800 a week — to stop families on benefit living in palatial homes at the taxpayers’ expense,

The Indy claims that the CPS is underinvestigation for segretating black and white lawyers.According to the paper,

Some of the most disturbing claims centre on a Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) office in south-east London, where the botched investigation into the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence led to findings of institutional racism against the police.

Meanwhile the Guardian reports that an interim report by the children's charity 4Children shows that families believe public services are failing to meet their needs and politicians do not understand the reality of their lives,

A shopkeeper has been killed while trying to repel members of a teenage gang who were trying to rob him. reports the Telegraph

Gurmail Singh, 63, was found in a pool of blood by customers after being bludgeoned with a sledgehammer.

says the Mail

According to the Express,even the dead will have to pay council tax.It says that the Gordon Brown

will clobber the elderly with a savage pay-as-you-die tax bombshell that could force people to give up their home on their death,

The death toll in Madeira continues to rise and the Telegraph reports a British woman was among dozens of people swept to their death in flash floods and mudslides.

More problems for Eurostar after hundreds of passengers became stranded when a train broke down on its way into London says the Guardian.

and staying with travel,the same paper reports that British Airways passengers face prolonged travel disruption next month as cabin crew push for a strike lasting at least 10 days if a ballot endorses industrial action.

The week will see more controversy over bank bonuses although the Independent reports that the chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland has agreed to go without his £1.6m bonus and as the Times reports the chief executive of Lloyds Banking Group was under intense pressure yesterday to give up his bonus .

Finally according to the Sun,aliens could be among us - but we just cannot recognise them, Britain's top astronomer has said.

Lord Martin Rees said the visitors might be in a form beyond human understanding."They could be staring us in the face and we just don't recognise them."

What the Sunday's are saying

2010-02-21T07:13:00.002Z

It was always going to be the big story of the morning as the new look Observer previews Andrew Rawnsley's book The End of the Party,which charts Labour's second and third terms in power.

The big revelation is that Gordon Brown's abusive behaviour and volcanic eruptions of foul temper left Downing Street staff so frightened that he received an unprecedented reprimand from the head of the civil service.

The Mail on Sunday has uncovered new evidence of Mr Brown’s extraordinary eruptions, including an incident in which he hurled a tirade of foul-mouthed abuse at Bank of England Governor Mervyn King in a stand-up row.

The Independent also leads with the story but it has an exclusive interview with the PM in which he reveales his frustration at the way he is portrayed by what he sees as a "hostile" media.

he dismissed the suggestion that he once assaulted a senior aide while rushing to a Downing Street reception.

Poliitics features in fact of many of the front pages.The Telegraph carries the comments of Lord Hesletine who says that David Cameron will not win a general election outright and will struggle to form a government.

Meanwhile the Sunday Times claims that the Tories faced with declining popularity are planning a bank shares bonanza for millions of families.

The “people’s bonus” plan comes as a Sunday Times/YouGov survey today reveals that the Tories’ lead over Labour has slipped to the narrowest gap in more than a year.

Most of the papers report from the island of Madeira where floods and mudslides have killed at least 32 people and left hundreds of others homeless.

More than 60 others were also hospitalised as torrential streams of water and liquid mud swept through the capital, Funchal, destroying homes, overturning cars and felling trees

.reports the Telegraph

Sports stars continue to dominate the tabloids.However the Sunday Times reveals that the football stars are going to come under scrutiny for their earnings by the taxman

Some 20 tax inspectors from HM Revenue & Customs’ (HMRC) special civil investigations unit in Solihull are writing to top players who receive part of their income from their clubs in return for “image rights”.

The News of the World reveals the latest Ashley Cole problem as it reports

love rat Ashley Cole sobbed down the phone to his American one-night stand as he suddenly realised their secret fling was in danger of being exposed.

The People claims Cheryl Cole has vowed to take revenge on her wayward husband Ashley by imposing a lengthy sex ban,until she makes up her mind whether to leave him or not.

The Mirror says the singer is sick of being made to look an idiot by him and wonders is there anything left to salvage.

Staying with showbusiness,the Mail reports on the tragic death of Channel 4's high-flier who was behind How To Look Good Naked

Sarah Mulvey, a Channel 4 commissioning editor and a highly regarded TV producer, was found dead in her flat in North London by police who broke down her door after they were alerted by a concerned relative.

The Observer reports that there is new evidence that one of Britain's most notorious multiple murderers Jeremy Bamber may be innocent.According to the paper

Analysis of police negatives by one of Britain's most eminent photographic experts has found them incompatible with the principal prosecution case used to imprison Bamber for the White House Farm murders 25 years ago.

One of the week's big stories is still on the front pages.The Telegraph claims that ministers were told that Israeli immigration officials at Tel Aviv airport secretly copied the British passports which were then used by the hit squad which assassinated a leading Hamas official.

Another big foreign story of the week is followed up in the Independent which reports that Argentina has excluded war but tensions continue to riserise as Buenos Ares recruits allies and promises to use all legal means to stop British oil drilling.

The Sunday Times reports that dozens of sailing students were forced to spend over 40 hours in life rafts being battered by huge seas, after their training ship sank off the coast of Brazil last Wednesday.

Many of the papers report on the death of Alexander Haig, a former US secretary of state and senior aide to President Nixon during the Watergate scandal,who died yesterday in a Baltimore hospital at the age of 85.

Finally back to showbusiness and the Mail report that Gabby Logan by her own admission went into ‘meltdown’ after anchoring coverage of the France-Ireland rugby clash in Paris last week.The cause?

The 36-year-old presenter was involved in an embarrassing altercation with station officials at the Gare du Nord after turning up 20 minutes too late to board the last train to England.

If you are going to charge for content then get your act together

2010-02-20T09:18:00.002Z

“71 per cent of global consumers say that if have to pay for online content it must be considerably better than what is currently available for free.”

That was the result of new research from Nielsen which in addition found that 79 per cent of users would no longer access a Web site that charges them.

It's an important consideration and one that sites need to consider before thinking paywall.

The net in 2020-how twitter will be on your reading list and how google will make us cleverer

2010-02-20T09:09:00.004Z

Pew have released another report into the future of the internet based on a survey of 900 Internet stakeholders.

It reveals some new perspectives on how the Net is affecting human intelligence and the ways that information is being shared.

The majority believe that that the Internet and search engines will enhance human intelligence by 2020.

Far from the saying that Google will make us stupid,many believe the ooposite.

The smartest person in the world could well be behind a plow in China or India. Providing universal access to information will allow such people to realize their full potential, providing benefits to the entire world."

that quote not surprsingly comes from Google.

As to the twitter effect,I liked this from Gene Spafford,

Most writing online is devolving toward SMS and tweets that involve quick, throwaway notes with abbreviations and threaded references. This is not a form of lasting communication. In 2020 there is unlikely to be a list of classic tweets and blog posts that every student and educated citizen should have read."

Introducing the social media treasure hunt

2010-02-20T09:04:00.003Z

Concerned that journalists spend too much time behind their desks in the virtual world.

Well Paul Bradshaw is as well so much so that he has devised a Social Media Treasure Hunt for students on his online journalism course.

The game says Paul will

* Get them meeting people in person rather than virtually – a much more effective way of building social capital

* Get them away from a desk. It seems to me that most people approach online journalism as a deskbound job – actually, it opens up enormous opportunities for production on the move: moblogging, liveblogging, photoblogging

* Get them to open their eyes, ears and noses. These students have spent 18 months learning how to be journalists – looking for angles, structuring a story. Now I’m asking them to unlearn some of that when they approach a blog: put out unfinished material; observations; raw material. Sharing – not processing. That can be a hard habit to get into.

Great news for the Indie-No Liddle

2010-02-20T09:00:00.001Z

Roy Greenslade broke the news yesterday that Ron Liddle negotiations with Russian billionaire Alexander Lebedev are understood to have ended yesterday.

Bloody good news-enough said

Nepalese media under pressure

2010-02-20T08:51:00.003Z

Journalists in Nepal who are supposed to cover the news are becoming the news themselves.

That's the claim of Kunda Dixit writing a guest blog at CPJ.

The latest threats have been directed at Nepal’s largest media company, the Kantipur group, for reporting on police investigations into the murder of media tycoon Jamim Shah on February 8. Shah was gunned down in broad daylight in a heavily guarded part of Kathmandu by assassins on motorcycles who blocked his SUV and fired on him in the front passenger seat.

Since starting its move from monarchy to democracy,four journalists have been killed or disappeared in the last three years.

Jamin Shah was the chairman of the Nepalese television station and satellite network Space Time Network.

Oops-AP's non profit distribution service has a few teething problems

2010-02-20T08:44:00.003Z

An interesting piece from Nieman Journalism Lab's Laura McGann who looks at the first six months of AP's non profit distribution project.

As she says it looked on launch to be a win win scenario

the wire service was going to begin distributing content from four top nonprofit news outlets: ProPublica, Center for Public Integrity, Center for Investigative Reporting, and the Investigative Reporting Workshop. Newspapers could run in-depth content from well respected outlets, and nonprofits could broaden their audience.

The reality though is that it appears that AP members have used little if any nonprofit content which may be down to the delivery platform AP uses to share the stories.

there’s no alert system to notify editors when something new has been added. Nonprofits’ stories are not distributed over the AP’s main wire services, as a major AP investigation would.

From the heart of Royston,angry locals in dog poo uproar

2010-02-20T08:38:00.003Z

There's nothing that seems to get people more uptight about their community than bin collections and dog poo.

The former is the lead story in this morning's Telegraph but for the latter,a great story courtesy of Angry people in local newspapers which reports from Cambridge where

Schoolchildren are being forced into the path of traffic by piles of dog mess on pavements,

Anna Greetham headteacher, from Tannery Drift First School in Royston,tells the paper

Over the last two weeks I've had quite a number of parents saying it has been a problem.
"Please could whoever it is pick up their dog's mess so that children aren't at risk from walking it into school and the classroom - there are health implications for the children.

What Saturday's papers are saying

2010-02-20T08:17:00.003Z

Every front page has pictures of Tiger Woods apologising to his fans for his behavior

The blue backdrop, the bare podium, and the respectful audience gave it the air of a presidential press conference. Except that presidents generally take questions. And instead of geopolitics, the newsflash that stopped the world spinning for almost 14 minutes yesterday was this: Tiger Woods has given up extra-marital sex. says the Independent

Tearful Tiger Woods yesterday apologised to his wife, his fans and his sponsors in a TV broadcast watched by billions – and admitted: “I have let you all down.”reports the Mirror

The Times says the golf star gave a sorry performance

Whilst the Sun puts him alongside Ashley Cole on its front page who it says bedded a girl during a Chelsea tour of America.

voters' 'submerged optimism' will stop a Tory win is the headline in the Guardian as the paper reports that Labour plans to stop the Tories winning the general election by tapping into a "submerged optimism" about the future and by applying Barack Obama's reliance on word-of-mouth campaigning,

According to the Telegraph,Labour candidates have been told not to campaign on the party’s record in office.

It though leads with the news that fortnightly bin collections are to be extended across the country to save money.

According to the Independent British soldiers have gone on the run from their posts on more than 17,000 occasions since the start of the Iraq war

Meanwhile the Times has learnt that The Government’s own human rights watchdog has demanded a public inquiry into claims that British intelligence agencies were complicit in the torture of more than 20 detainees in the War on Terror

Fresh questions have been raised about the date when ministers first knew British passports had been used by a hit squad that killed a Hamas leader in Dubai claims the Telegraph

A Daily Mail investigation has found speculators cashing in on the weak pound have created a shortage of at least 40 drugs,

NHS patients are being put at risk because profiteering pharmacists are selling prescription drugs to Europe says the paper

The Express claims that town hall chiefs are enjoying massive pay rises while millions face redundancies, pay cuts and soaring council tax,

Finally the question that has been on everyone's lips has been revealed.

Stacey Branning killed Archie Mitchell, it was revealed last night in EastEnders' first live episode.says the Sun

From schools to genealogy-the fall and rise again of Friends Reunited

2010-02-19T06:19:00.004Z

How short time travels in the world of social media?

It wasn't that long ago that Friends Reunited was the talk of the town.Everybody was on it,looking up their old school aquaintences,establishing who had made the most of their lives.

It was even being blamed for divorces and seperations as old aquaintences sparked into life.

And at the height of it all,ITV jumped on the bandwagon and paid £170m for it.

Yesterday that dream came to an end as the competition commission gave the go ahead for its sale for £25m to Brightsolid.

Brightsolid for those who haven't heard of them are in the geneology game,at its height at the moment with the grey pound meaning the older generation have mich time on their hands to research their family history.

It is estimated that up to 2m are currently reaserching their family origins

Better networking or information overload?

2010-02-19T05:44:00.002Z

The arguments have been heard many times but are we actually better off for all this technology?

As Vaughan Bell writes in a cracking article over at Slate magazine

Worries about information overload are as old as information itself, with each generation reimagining the dangerous impacts of technology on mind and brain.

As far back as the sixteenth century a Swiss scientist,Conrad Gessner,wrote of how the modern world overwhelmed people with data and that this overabundance was both "confusing and harmful" to the mind.

Maybe no different to the scare stories that we read about the internet today?

But it seems ecah technology brings it warnings.As Bell writes

When radio arrived, we discovered yet another scourge of the young: The wireless was accused of distracting children from reading and diminishing performance in school, both of which were now considered to be appropriate and wholesome. In 1936, the music magazine the Gramophone reported that children had "developed the habit of dividing attention between the humdrum preparation of their school assignments and the compelling excitement of the loudspeaker" and described how the radio programs were disturbing the balance of their excitable minds.

However all the evidence suggests contrary to what the Daily Mail might think,that those who use the net and social networks actually tend to have better offline social lives.After all being social is all about making connections,the net means that they are more easily made.

What Friday's papers are saying

2010-02-19T05:16:00.003Z

A debt crisis for Britain?

The Times warns that

Gordon Brown’s launch of a Labour election campaign promising economic recovery was in jeopardy last night as a record slump in tax receipts fuelled fears that Britain could slip back into recession.

whilst the Telegraph says that,Britain is at risk of a Govenment deficit crisis worse than that of Greece

Meanwhile a warning in the Independent whose survey has found that the number of town hall jobs to be axed as local authorities desperately attempt to cut running costs in the recession has risen to 20,000.

The other story of the day is the Mossad hit squad and the Mail leads with the continuing developments in the story with a report that says MI6 was tipped off that Israeli agents were going to carry out an 'overseas operation' using fake British passports,

Ministers are under pressure to explain whether they knew two weeks ago that British passports were used by a hit squad that killed a Hamas leader in Dubai says the Telegraph

The Guardian reports the comments of the emirate's police chief who said Interpol should help arrest the head of Mossad if Israel's spy agency was responsible for the killing of a Hamas commander in Dubai,

It leads with a report from the UN that says out the world's 3,000 biggest companies one-third of profits would be lost if firms were forced to pay for use, loss and damage of environment.

Two British soldiers have been killed while taking part in a major offensive against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan reports the Telegraph adding that the soldiers' families have asked for a 24-hour period of grace before more details are released.

The true face of the Tories says the front page of the Mirror as it reports how Sir Nicholas Winterton, the outgoing Tory MP for Macclesfield, has hit out at the new expenses culture at the House of Commons by saying he is "infuriated" he can no longer travel firstclass on trains.

Meanwhile according to the Guardian,The Conservatives have refused to back a proposed 200mph London-to-Birmingham rail route in a move that shatters the political consensus over a high-speed train network.

the Tories will not endorse a route proposal amid fears of a backlash from voters in the home counties and West Midlands whose homes may be blighted.

Many of the papers report that the court made famous for running a trial without jury has lost one of its defendants.

Peter Blake, 57, is being hunted by police after fleeing the Royal Courts of Justice yesterday afternoon. He is one of four men on trial accused of taking part in a £1.75m armed robbery at Heathrow Airport in February 2004.

says the Independent

Finally the Mail reports on the Pilot who'intentionally' slamned plane into an IRS building in Texas in revenge flight after feud with the taxman.

The pilot allegedly set fire to his house before taking his plane and aiming it at the government building in Austin, Texas.
One office worker was said to be unaccounted for and two more were taken to hospital with burns.

The Speccie leads with sport

2010-02-18T18:08:00.002Z

I wonder how often the Spectator magazine has led with a football story but this week it does and a cracking piece from former BBC man Mahir Bose who writes that the game is England may be beautiful but it is also broke

Last week’s Financial Times carried an advert seeking a buyer for the bankrupt Crystal Palace. Portsmouth FC, winner of the FA Cup just two years ago, is unable to meet players’ wages or pay for a website. Dozens of clubs are wrestling with their creditors, and the game is effectively divided into two financial leagues: those with, and without, a foreign sugar daddy to write the cheques.

and he adds

Worse still, the global success of the English game has done nothing to nurture English, or even British, talent. It has never been harder for an English player to make it in the English Premier League.

Labour's election machine prepares

2010-02-18T06:44:00.002Z

Beware if you are a journalist wanting to attend Labour functions during the election campaign.

According to Sam Coates writing in the Times

The Labour Party are organising accreditation so journalists can attend their general election press conferences.
In addition to home address, home telephone number, work or mobile telephone number and e-mail address, which is already stretching it somewhat, they have just ask for:

» Passport Number (if you have one)
» National Insurance number
» Driving Licence number (if you have one)
» Your private and company vehicle registration numbers
» A passport style photo in an appropriate digital format

Return to the 1980's

2010-02-18T06:19:00.003Z

The Sun must be happy this morning.

It has a throwback to its heyday at the time of the Falkland's conflict as the latest spat over the islands ramps up.

The paper announces on its front page that

A POWER-PACKED Navy warship has sailed to the South Atlantic in a re-run of the 1982 Falklands conflict.
Type 42 destroyer HMS York was last night in waters off the islands' capital Port Stanley - spearheading a new British task force in the escalating oilfield drilling row with Argentina.

How long befor e we get a GOTCHA

Saddleworth hyperlocal site launches

2010-02-18T06:08:00.002Z

I came across a great new hyperlocal venture in the North West yesterday.

Saddleworth News has been launched by Richard Jones covering a much neglected but exciting and vibrant area of the region.

Richard explains the concept on his site

This is a new website giving news and information about Saddleworth and the surrounding area. It’s for people who live in Saddleworth as well as those who like to visit. To use a trendy piece of jargon, it’s a ‘hyperlocal’ website, which basically means it contains information about what’s going on in a particular local area. Sites like this one are starting all around the UK, as local people fill the void left by cutbacks and closures in the traditional media.

Put another way, stop schmoozing and start listening.

2010-02-18T05:55:00.002Z

Andrew Haeg over at his blog,the future of news discusses how journalists can harness the power of social media and reminds us of this recent piece in the Harvard business review.

In the classical networking approach, the game is about presenting yourself in the most favorable light possible while flattering the other person into giving you their contact information. This approach quickly degenerates into a manipulative exchange where the real identities of both parties rapidly recede into the background, replaced by carefully staged presentations of an artificial self. These staged interactions rarely build trust. In fact, they usually have the opposite effect, putting both parties on guard and reinforcing wariness and very selective disclosure.”

As he points out

Put another way, stop schmoozing and start listening. The corollary for journalists: Stop source-hunting and start discovering.