Mark Skipford-journalists have two bosses now

We had the pleasure of the Telegraph's executive editor Mark Skipford at UCLAN earlier today.

In what turned into a lively debate at the end with questions that could have gone on for several hours,Mark maintained that despite the climate he considered the prospects for journalists to be good.

"Opportunities are so much greater in the global market,especially for places that are not fully served by a western style media.

Perhaps his most interesting comments though were reserved for the digital/print divide.For Telegraph journalists were subjected to having two bosses,one for online content and one for printed content.

This brought much anguish from the audience who saw this as putting further pressure on the journalist profession.

Mark reiterated what many others have said.Newspapers had behaved arrogantly in the past,believing that they knew what was best for their audience.

Interestingly he thought that newsprint still had an audience citing the weekend editions as the basis for exclusives and background stories.

He concern though, as with most of the industry, is that vexed question of who pays for content? Advertising departments, he believed ,were unable to break the shackles of selling for the print model.The skills of selling for the net should be easily transferable,but for some unknown reason they were not.

Craig Brown-how the golden days are over for columnists

There has been much discussion about the Telegraph's current policy of getting rid of their comment and opinion writers.

This morning's Indy takes a look at one such casualty Craig Brown who is not unduly concerneed with his fate

"Why shouldn't they get rid of me?" he muses. "I'm a freelancer; I have no loyalty to them, they have no loyalty to me."

But he adds

Two years ago he was approached by the Daily Mail but stayed at the Telegraph when they offered him more money to do less work. "I think the golden days are over for columnists," he says. "Now I'll have to write 10 columns a week for half the pay. I'll probably have to pay for them to appear."

The battle of the comment pages-Which is the most free

There has been a fair amount of criticism over the Telegraph's attempts at creating its own version of citizen journalism.

My Telegraph is essentially an area where Telegraph readers can post their own articles.

The Guardian has been particularly critical concerning the comments written by those espousing the views of the extreme right.

Shane Richmond responds to the criticism by pointing out that the Comment is free site on the Guardian is not a lot better

Jews who support Israel are "false Jews", Condoleezza Rice is an "Aunt Jemima on the Bush plantation" and Robert Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe is no worse than that of Ian Smith. These are just some of the views that can be found on the Guardian's Comment Is Free website.

He points out that while

the Telegraph's position is that readers should be free, within the law, to express their views, the Guardian's censors meanwhile eliminate as many as one in ten posts, which they consider to be unsavoury.

My view for what it is worth.If you are advertising a comment is free section then if articles break the rules they should be deleted,if they simply break your opinion then let them survive.

Lancashire Telegraph launches free local text updates

Via the Wire

The Lancashire Telegraph has launched a series of text alerts giving local news and sport to subscribers

Another effort by a local paper to win customers thru hyperlocal news.You can select the area that you want covering and pay for just one text message when you activate.

According to How-do

The team at the paper said there are numerous services from newspapers currently available in the UK but all are commercially-driven. Only in the States has the team identified papers which offer free to receive texts for readers.

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Its editor,Kevin Young was reported by the same outlet that

Our new text service means we can get the latest stories out to readers at the press of a button and this latest step forward follows the exciting improvements we've made to our website in recent months."