Technology is the servant of journalism, not its master.Discuss

As if the Barclay twins do not have enough on their plates with the problems over Sark,now they have Roy Greenslade to contend with

Day by day, in print - and, especially, online - the Daily Telegraph is desperately trying to be the Daily Mail, but it cannot achieve it because it lacks the political and social passion that drives the Mail (and its readers).
Not that the Barclays show signs of understanding that. They have bought an institution and probably think they have been "modernising" it simply by making a lot of noise about engaging with the digital revolution.
But technology is the servant of journalism, not its master. There is no point in putting yards of editorial on a website merely to attract hits if that material is inimical to the paper's ethos. It undermines a news brand's trust and credibility.
Before it's too late - and maybe, just maybe, it already is - someone needs to explain to the brothers where they are going wrong. Anyone prepared to tell them, I wonder?

Why my £50 is safe

Just back in Manchester after a long weekend with a group of friends in the village of Litton in the Derbyshire Dales.

I will put some pictures up later.

However scanning my RSS feeds quickly before setting off for Preston,I see that Dave Lee is convinced that the bet that I had with him back in the summer that one of the UK nationals will go free may come to fruition

Dave believes that the merging of the back room operations between the Mail and the Independent announced on Friday

now that the Indy is moving to Northcliffe House — and sharing the same subs that put together the Mail, as well as being only two doors up from the aforementioned Metro — I reckon there’ll be a free print edition very soon. This time next year.

I'm not sure whether the move will lead to a free Indy.I would have thought that this is purely a cost saving exercise designed for both publishing houses to halve their high fixed costs.The Indy will surely want to keep its brand distinct.Producing a free copy will diminish the power of its brand

Mail and News International putting Brown under pressure

The government has been put under pressure to drop certain clauses from Criminal Justice & Immigration Bill relating to the buying of personal data


Iain Dale follows up a story in this morning's Guardian which suggests that the might of Paul Dacre and Rupert Murdoch are putting pressure on Gordon Brown

Gordon Brown has demanded the scrapping of longstanding plans for a clampdown on newspapers that illegally buy personal data, such as health, bank and telephone records, the Guardian has learned. This has provoked criticism that he has bowed to pressure from the media.

Iain points out that

About eighteen months ago it was revealed how many times different national newspapers had effectively stolen people's personal data, using middle men to do it. Three hundred journalists had used agencies to uncover details illegally, most of them from the Mail Group and News International.

and claims

News International, owned by Rupert Murdoch, and the Mail Group have been lobbying the government hard to remove Clause 76 from the Bill.

But according to Iain tomorrow the Information commissioner will

issue a stark call to politicians to resist attempts to water down new penalties for deliberate breaches of people’s health, financial and other personal details.

Harman compromised in the Mail

Harriet Harman is rather upset about her treatment in this morning's Mail.

The paper reports that the leader of the House feels so unsafe to walk her consituency that she has to wear a flak jacket.

It describes that

Despite being surrounded by a phalanx of police officers, Harriet Harman chose to wear a kevlar-reinforced jacket, proof against guns and knives.
The occasion - a death-defying tour of her own constituency.

But talkiing on the Today programme this morning,Harriet claims a set up saying that the police told her to put the jacket on

Romanies and conspiracy theories

The papers seem fascinated by the invasion of Romanies close to Tessa Jowell's residence.

The Sun broke the story yesterday under the headline gipsy hell for Tessa

A GROUP of 64 gipsies has set up camp just yards from the country home of government minister Tessa Jowell.
About 30 caravans swarmed on to the 2½-acre field, along with three diggers and a fleet of lorries and vans. They quickly laid on water and electricity.
The travellers secretly bought the Warwickshire site a year ago, but moved in over Easter knowing council enforcement officers would be on holiday.
The crafty gipsies moved in after plotting their “invasion” for FIVE MONTHS

This morning the same paper tells us that

GIPSIES were digging in yesterday just yards from government minister Tessa Jowell’s £1million house – and said: “It’s our home now.”
The 64 travellers ignored protests from horrified local residents and began putting up fences round the 2½acre field.
Burly men wearing high-visibility jackets could be seen digging drainage ditches, connecting water supplies, laying electric cables and installing a sanitation system

The Mail senses a conspiracy

Although the gipsies claimed yesterday to be unaware she has a home so near until after they moved in, there is an undoubted irony in their choice of location. For Miss Jowell was involved in the controversial eviction of gipsies from Newham and Hackney, East London, to prepare for the 2012 Olympics

And it is not just the fields of Warwickshie that have a problem,back to the Sun

SINGER Gary Barlow and pop producer Pete Waterman were reeling last night after gipsies set up a camp with military efficiency.
A convoy of diggers, tipper trucks and lorries poured into a field near Pete’s home – and close to Take That star Gary’s parents.
The travellers swiftly linked themselves up to the mains water supply, while the trucks delivered 40 loads of builders’ rubble to provide a solid hard-core standing for four caravans and a luxury motor home in leafy Barnton, Cheshire.

Poles turn on the Mail

The masses are turning on the right wing press.Yesterday the Express was forced to remove its coverage of the McCanns and today the Mail is under attack from the Polish community.

Media Guardian reports that

The Federation of Poles in Great Britain has "reluctantly" filed a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission accusing the Daily Mail of defaming Polish residents in the UK.
In its letter of complaint to the PCC the federation accused the Daily Mail of printing articles that gave rise to "negative emotions and tensions between the new EU immigrants and local communities

And who can blame them?

What the media commentators are saying

Not suprisingly the Harry affair dominates.In the Independent Steven Glover reflects on the episode

A surprising number of people, not all of them diehard republicans, think the media were wrong not to report Prince Harry's front-line role in Afghanistan. They point out that there was no issue of national security at stake.

But he thinks that the blackout was justified

After Prince Harry was prevented from fighting in Iraq last year, it was clear that he could only avoid unacceptable risks in Afghanistan if his presence there was not publicised..... It is difficult to see how anyone, apart from the Taliban, has suffered."

Peter Wilby in the Guardian though is less complementary and perhaps a touch cynical

Kings and princes used to go into battle at the head of their soldiers, standards flying. Nobody thought it right to hide Henry V or Richard III while they were doing battle with the enemy. But the modern military wants the symbolic benefits of royal leadership without undue risk to the royal personage. In the case of Prince Harry, the Ministry of Defence had its cake and was allowed by the media to eat it as well.

Staying with the Guardian Emily Bell asks

What happens when anyone can publish anything, about anyone, anywhere at any time? It is an interesting philosophical and legal minefield which we pick our way through on a daily basis, tin hats awry. One thing in a world of uncertainty is certain - the old levers of control are inadequate - and this is becoming apparent to the most obtuse controller.

Refering to

Nick Robinson's online comments on the row about House of Commons speaker

she says the furore surrounding it was

an intense overreaction to a new type of journalism - Robinson, after all, was summing up the issues around the case on an open blog rather than presenting them as a bulletin item.

Matthew Norman at the Independent looks back to the Mail's campaign on bin bags and asks

Has there ever been a more spectacular smash-and-grab raid on any issue than the Daily Mail's thunderous campaign against the plastic carrier bag? Suppressing a wry grin at the chutzpah isn't easy. Papers such as this one bang on about green matters day after day, year after year, while the Mail prefers the insights of such revered global warming sceptics as Richard Littlejohn, Mad Mel Phillips and Professor Tom Utley, FRS, the climatological autodidact who slew false fears about melting ice caps with the observation (regarded in the scientific community as the most important of its kind since Archimedes took his bath) that when the ice in his G&T melts, the liquid doesn't flood over the side of the glass

FinallyMaggie Brown at the Guardian gives some useful tips to Peter Fincham on what to do with ITV,

Fincham will need more than good luck - that is no secret. But what exactly lies in store? And what do senior figures in the television industry see as the greatest challenges facing him?

Mail launches Bin the Bag

Is it Poles or Romanian's,the BBC,Social do gooders or fat cat employers.

No the Mail this morning launches its campaign to rid the country of Plastic bags?

Its front page headlines

Banish The Bags: The Mail launches a campaign to clean up the country ... and the planet

A rather strange campaign you would have thought for the Mail to run,at last finding a green consciousce

According to the paper

An astonishing 13billion free single-use plastic bags are dished out by Britain's High Street stores every year. These flimsy bags - a byproduct of crude oil - are issued at the rate of more than 800 a year to every family in the land.
Typically they are used for only 20 minutes before being thrown out. But they will take up to 1,000 years to rot away. If the Normans had used plastic bags in the 1066 invasion, archaeologists would still be digging them up today.

and amid numerous tales of wildlife being killed by ingesting these items,you can sign a petition to Gordon Brown

we would welcome urgent action to force supermarkets to do more to reduce the number of bags that they hand out and encourage people to switch to re-usable alternatives

and get

an eco-friendly super-strong cotton carrier bag to give away FREE for every reader.
Instead of packing your shopping in carrier bags from the supermarket, just take our reusable bags with you every time you go and you'll be doing your bit for the environment.
Made from 100 per cent unbleached natural cotton, each one carries a "Bags of Ethics" label inside, which means it has been ethically produced in a fairtrade facto

So does this mean a change for the paper of Middle England.Let's wait and see

ABCE's show that there is an alternate market for online news

Yesterday's ABCe's contained some suprises perhaps none more so that the Mail's website rising up the hits chart and getting close to the Guardian site.

If this illustrates anything it is something that a lot of rush to new media forgets.It is not just the young that should be embraced.The older generation and obviously readers of the Mail ,and a lesser extent the Telegraph,do use the net,they have a lot of spending power and a lot more time on their hands than many of the younger generation.

The Mail saw its unique user numbers up by a staggering 164% year on year and 31% up on the previous month.

Yes we can all point to the death of Heath Ledger which sent people to the Sun's website but the Mail's success story shows that there is a market for a different sort of content.

And on the subject of the end of the World.

Headline of the day must surely come from The Mail which asks

Will beaming songs into space lead to an alien invasion?

It's not as though Nasa is beaming out the Cheeky Girls back catalogue or the collected works of Florence Foster Jenkins.
Nevertheless, scientists warn that transmitting songs into deep space could put the Earth at risk of an alien attack.
They voiced fears that advertising humanity's place in the universe - as happened last week when Nasa broadcast a Beatles track towards the North Star - could attract the attention of aliens who are less friendly than ET.

and yes this is not a spoof

Dr Douglas Vakoch of the SETI Institute, which has been leading the search for extraterrestrials, told New Scientist magazine: "Before sending out even symbolic messages, we need an open discussion about the potential risks."
They voiced fears that advertising humanity's place in the universe - as happened last week when Nasa broadcast a Beatles track towards the North Star - could attract the attention of aliens who are less friendly.

More on THAT book

Nick Davies' book has created quite a stir amongst journalists.

Mary Riddle's review in the Observer on Sunday,whilst agreeing with many of Nick's sentiments

Much of Davies's analysis is fair, meticulously researched and fascinating, if gloomy

takes issues with some of his attacks on the Observer and on the Mail

Davies is wrong, however, to suggest that the Mail's investigation of Stephen Lawrence's murder, a campaign of courage and commitment, was purely based on the rumour that Stephen's father had once done some work on Dacre's house

Moreover his assertion that Roger Alton lifted chunks of Alistair Campbell's memos to form the basis of the paper's pro war editorials has irked Riddle greatly


Stephen Glover in the Indy yesterday suggests that

Whatever we may think of the journalist Nick Davies, we should take his new book seriously.

And further tells us

Unsurprisingly, plans to run excerpts of Flat Earth News in The Guardian have been abandoned. The Guardian Media Group is behaving as though it would like the controversy to go away

Adrian Monck takes issue with the research that forms the basis of the book whereby

your average Fleet Street reporter now is filling three times as much space as he or she was 20 years ago. Turn that round, look at it from the reporter’s point of view: we only have one third of the time to do our job.

Yet Adrian suggests that this does not take account of technological improvements,freelance workers and the like.Her writes this on the issue of journalists reliance on PR.

The real filler in newspapers (and online) is wire copy. This is presented as something of a shock and Nick conflates this misleadingly with PR material (at least he does on the Today programme). Actually the only shock is that newspapers have hidden their reliance on the agencies for so long.

You can see the full report from Cardiff University HERE

http://www.mediawise.org.uk/files/uploaded/Quality%20and%20Independence%20of%20British%20Journalism.pdf

Extracts from Flat Earth News

I am looking forward to reading Nick Davies' new book Flat Earth News,having heard the man himself give a sneak preview of his book in November of last year.An extract appears in this weeks' New Statesman


This takes a fresh look at the much critised Daily Mail including this blog,Nick says that

A lot of people misunderstand the Mail. They see it as a right-wing rag driven by an addiction to the Conservative Party and to the defence of the rich and powerful. That is not where the drive comes from at all

Outbreak of EU Xmas cheer at the Mail

A remarkable occurrence in the papers this morning.I had to look twice but the Mail is actually praising some EC legislation.

Yes

Shoppers get £1bn Christmas present after EU tells Mastercard to scrap illegal fees says the paper

Credit card companies have been told to slash the fees they charge shops for authorising sales.
The EU ruling should mean a fall in prices of up to £1billion a year in the UK.
Tesco alone pays £100million a year to the banks for processing credit and debit cards.
Brussels Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said she was delivering "an early Christmas present to consumers".

And not once but twice as its leader column praises the proposed rules on health care

You can bet your bottom euro that UK taxpayers will end up out of pocket, paying for British patients' treatment abroad while foreigners take advantage of "free" care on the NHS.
But couldn't there also be a positive side?
For the first time, NHS patients would be able to shop around for health care all over Europe. A competitive market would start dictating the cost of different treatments

.


It must be the spirit of Xmas because the Times also has a positive EU story

Luxury car prices to soar as EU cracks down on exhaust fumes

With several commissioners dissenting, the European Commission set a four-year phase-in period from 2012 for fines on manufacturers whose fleets exceed an average of 120 g/km of the main greenhouse gas blamed for global warming.

Mail breaks another political scandal?

Just weeks after the revelations of Mr Abrahams the Mail tries another political exclusive on its front page this morning.

This time it is one of Gordon Brown's men of all talents Lord West,who according to the paper

appointed personally by Mr Brown to lead the War on Terror, had admitted to an extramarital affair.

But it is who the affair is with that may raise eyebrows

Speculation was fuelled by the fact that the 59-year-old former First Sea Lord had formed an implausible but genuine friendship with Anni-Frid Lyngstad, 62, the dark-haired singer from the Seventies Swedish supergroup.

A classic Mail front page

The paper has been rather quieter on the immigrant front recently being distracted by Foxy Knoxy and Maddy but excells itself this morning with the front page lead

The paper claims that

Hospitals and schools are struggling to cope with a huge influx of Eastern European children, new figures show.
The number of Polish babies born in UK hospitals has almost quadrupled since the 2004EU expansion.
On current trends, there will be more than 13,000 such births this year, costing the NHS more than £20million.

Dacre on the way out

Just picked this up from Guido's blog

Rumours are flying around that the dark days of the Dacre regime may be coming to an end at the Daily Mail. The colony of ex-Mail hacks at the Telegraph is speculating feverishly that an announcement could be made as early as next week. Dacre would they believe be moved upstairs, keeping all perks, as is the tradition since Sir David English

Mail gets closer and closer

So more eveidence of the Mail's cosying up to Gordon Brown.

Paul Dacre has been appointed to oversea the review of the thirty year secrecy bill.

Guido makes the comment

Dacre's other public services; warning the public about gypsies, immigrants, alco-pops and such-like are deemed not good enough to earn him the ermine. Guido thinks editors should sup with politicians with a long spoon, getting in their tent and having a cozy breakfast in the morning with them is unwise

How the papers report the same news

For a really good analysis of the news values of our nationals,this morning's reports on Government's Migration Impact Forum

All report it,but concentrate on different ways on what they believe is its impact.

I have produced the first three paragraphs of the reports below


Guardian

Migrants are more skilled and often more reliable and hardworking than British workers, and are fuelling the country's economic growth to the tune of £6bn a year, according to the first official study of their impact published yesterday.
The report for the government's Migration Impact Forum also concludes that migrants on average earn more and so pay more tax than UK workers.

Times

Migrants are more reliable and harder working than British-born workers and are boosting economic output by £6 billion a year, according to a government study published yesterday.
Immigrants have a better work ethic than the British and are willing to work longer hours with less time off sick. Weekly mean earnings of migrants are also £60 higher than their UK counterparts.
But while large numbers of migrants bring overall economic benefits, their arrival may be hitting the wage levels of the unskilled, the study found.

Telegraph

Immigrant workers are both higher paid and more reliable than their British counterparts and contributed £6 billion to economic growth last year, a Government study said yesterday.
Migrants earned £424 a week on average, compared with £395 for UK workers, and paid more in tax than they consumed in services.
However, a separate paper issued together with the study by the Home Office admitted there were complaints about the impact of immigration on housing and other public services. Liam Byrne, the immigration minister, said the research showed that ''in the long run, our country and Exchequer are better off with immigration rather than without it".

Independent

Migrant workers contributed £6 billion to the country's economic growth last year and earned higher wages than their British counterparts, Home Office figures revealed yesterday.
The study concluded that new arrivals were harder-working, brought sought-after skills and paid more in tax than they used in public services.

Mail

Immigrants are placing a huge strain on public services, Labour finally admitted last night.
Crime is up, schools are struggling to cope with Eastern European children, community tensions are rising, health services are coming under enormous pressure and house prices are being driven up, the Government said.
The findings, based on a survey of public sector workers, are the first published by ministers after ten years of an 'open door' immigration policy.

Express

Many UK regions have reported concerns about the impact of immigration on housing, crime and health, according to a study on migrants from eastern Europe.
Feedback from the Government's regional co-ordination groups, to be presented to the Migration Impact Forum (MIF) in Whitehall, said migrants are putting pressure on the housing market and driving up rents, creating increased demand on GPs and contributing to tensions in the community.

Sun

LABOUR admitted last night that mass immigration strained our housing, schools and healthcare.
Immigration minister Liam Byrne said the influx had been “unsettling” for some areas.
And he admitted removing exit checks was a “mistake” – as now we do not know how many illegal immigrants are here.
He said the checks would be started again.
His comments came as a Home Office report revealed migrants boosted the economy by £6billion last year

Interesting.Only the Times led with the story,but the Guardian covered it on its second front page piece.Both those papers concentrated on the benefits in their openings,but the Times brings a negative effect on wage levels.The Indy was similar in its positive outlok as was the Telegraph which also introduced the second report on the impact on housing and public services.

Then to the red tops,no sign of the report in the Mirror,the Sun leading with the negatives as did the Express and the Mail which made no mention of the positives.

Surprising,not really

Straws in the wind

Guido is reporing that Paul Dacre had breakfast with Gordon Brown on Thursday morning and points out the coincidence that the Mail’s leader praised Alistair Darling’s tax and spending plans.

despite the magpie taunts, it would be utterly wrong to deny that some of Alistair Darling's measures deserve support. Yes, he stole the inheritance tax plans from the Tories and his scheme is nowhere near as generous as he would like us to believe.
But it will free countless Britons from a pernicious tax on aspiration, and marks a Rubicon moment for Labour, which has accepted the right of hard-working people to pass on wealth (on which they have already paid tax) to their children.

Meanwhile in this morning’s Guardian Polly Toynbee turns against Gordon Brown,the straw that broke the camels back being the party’s move on inheritence tax.

This was more than a horrible humiliation for the prime minister. This was the week that social democracy ebbed away in England. Those words had already slipped from Labour's lexicon, never spoken by its leaders in public, rarely spoken outside the privacy of Fabian meetings and Celtic parliaments.
And she continues
To give the children of the well-off a £1.4bn inheritance bonus while the children of the poor only got another 48p a week in tax credits is symbolically far worse than that notorious 75p for pensioners. The halfway mark to abolish child poverty by 2010 will be missed by miles. Holding down public sector pay rises to 2% for three years, only half next year's expected private sector increase, will increase inequality. To cut capital gains tax on buy-to-let property, antiques, paintings and jewellery is as shameless as it is dysfunctional.

How the Daily Mail sees BBC spending.

Three thousand job cuts,strike action,what does the Mail make of this?