Expert Eye: The new vids on the block

Posted by Ian Reeves on 24 May 2007 at 09:45
Tags: Belfast Telegraph, Computing, Eastern Daily Press, FHM, Financial Times, Guardian, Haymarket, Hull Daily Mail, ITN, InStyle, Journalism, Lancashire Evening Post, Magazines, Media Week, Mirror, Nationals, New Scientist, Newspapers, Northern Echo, Nuts, Roo, Sun, Telegraph.co.uk, Times Online, VNU, YouTube, Zoo, icBirmingham, video

Ian Reeves looks at how he printed press is experimenting with video, from locals to the big players.

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@Society of Editors: On poofs, whores and comic singers

Posted by Ian Reeves on 6 November 2006 at 17:02
Tags: Journalism

Alastair Bonnington, a lawyer for BBC Scotland, produced one of the most entertaining turns of the conference so far. Straying gloriously off topic, he raised eyebrows with his slightly less than politically correct views on the Tommy Sheridan libel win against the News of the World.

He was rather surprised, he said, that the NoW could have been quite so gobsmacked by the jury’s verdict in Sheridan’s favour.

The NoW’s procession of witnesses testifying against Sheridan, he said, put him in mind of an old legal saying in Scotland involving “poofs, whores and comic singers”.

“To produce a procession of prostitutes, people you’ve bunged money to and politicians and then be surprised when the verdict goes against you… well, shockarooney, as Frank MacAvennie might say.”

He did end with a serious point, however. At the end of the day, the public likes privacy, he said. There is a line to be drawn. That line must of course not affect genuine investigative journalism, but the era of wall-to-wall tales of who’s shagging who is coming to an end.

Trust in us: The industry should own Press Gazette

Posted by Ian Reeves on 26 October 2006 at 09:37
Tags: Journalism

For more than four decades, Press Gazette has provided an independent voice for the UK’s journalism industry.

It has reported, campaigned, cajoled, analysed, gossiped and debated the issues that matter to journalists from national newspapers, regional newspapers, consumer, B2B and customer magazines, news broadcasters and more recently from digital platforms.

In recent years, however, its ownership has been something of a hot potato. Seven different owners have, for various reasons, bought and sold it.

So today we are proposing a radical alternative. We believe that the industry itself should own the title.

Our proposal is the establishment of a Trust, the aim of which would be to publish Press Gazette as a profitable enterprise while ensuring its editorial independence — much in the way the Scott Trust does for the newspapers it owns.

We believe, after taking soundings from some of the industry’s key players, that the proposal could win widespread support. This week we are outlining our plans to around 40 journalism industry chief executives — and to other organisations with an interest in UK journalism— and inviting them to become founding members of the Press Gazette Trust.

The proposal requires a modest seed funding from each of the founding trustees, but also outlines the benefits that they would see from their involvement. Fuller details can be found on this web site.

The men and women who run the major journalism organisations in this country will not always see eye to eye with us. From time to time they will have been infuriated by what is written in these pages, just as they will have been pleased to be praised. But we hope they will recognise how important it is for us to reflect the tribulations as well as the triumphs of this vibrant, creative industry.

In a world where journalists are not always valued as they should be by the public they serve, Press Gazette provides a voice that speaks up for them and their freedoms — regardless of whether they’re tabloid or broadsheet, glossy or weekly, news or features, frontline or back bench, paid-for or free, investigative or paparazzi, digital or analogue.

You, the industry, can help make sure that voice remains strong and independent for the next four decades and beyond.

Update: Listen to Ian Reeves discuss the Press Gazette Trust on the Guardian’s Media Talk podcast (mp3).

Katz caught on tape

Posted by Ian Reeves on 15 March 2006 at 14:03
Tags: Guardian, Journalism, Nationals, Newspapers

Guardian associate editor Ian Katz was one of the people whose conversations were controversially taped by Met Police boss Sir Ian Blair - and for which the top cop has been rapped. So was Katz “shocked and outraged” by the intrusion? Er, no. He knew already - he’d had to borrow the tapes because parts of his own recordings of the conversations were inaudible.

Spanish paper’s new sub

Posted by Ian Reeves on 7 March 2006 at 11:10
Tags: Newspapers, Sport

Mundo Deportivo, one of Barcelona’s two daily sports newspapers, has allowed a football player to design tomorrow’s front page, reports David Bond in the Daily Telegraph. Lionel Messi, the young Argentian star of the Barcelona team that takes on Chelsea in tonight’s Champion’s League showdown penned the, er, memorable headline: Through to the quarter finals.

Perhaps there’s something in this for British papers. The Sun could mend some bridges with Ashley Cole by giving him a job on the back bench.

Google news goes mobile

Posted by Ian Reeves on 1 March 2006 at 16:49
Tags: Mobile Phones, Online

Undeterred by yesterday’s revenue warnings, Google is still on the march — literally, with the launch of Google News Mobile.

The company says that “You can access top headlines, browse through news categories, or search for exactly the stories you want — all in a phone-friendly format that’s easy to read and navigate. All you need is a web-enabled phone.

Bad girl Gooding

Posted by Ian Reeves on 27 February 2006 at 15:39
Tags: Daily Mail, Magazines, Newspapers

Easy Living magazine would usually be absolutely delighted with a plug on page 3 of the Daily Mail. Probably not today, though. Its deputy features editor, Sarah Gooding, is blamed for the break-up of actress Amanda Burton’s marriage - and is pictured gazing into the eyes of the star’s estranged husband.

What future for football journalism?

Posted by Ian Reeves on 27 February 2006 at 14:50
Tags: Journalism

In his Observer sports column, journalist Paul Wilson recalls a diatribe made by Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson a few years ago to a collection of newspaper football reporters:

‘Your days are numbered anyway,’ he grumbled. ‘Television gets everything now. All you lot can hope for are the crumbs that remain when television has had its fill. That’s why you can’t tell a story straight any more.’

Ferguson was right, says Wilson. A similar point was made by Tom Humphries of the Irish Times when he said newspapers find themselves further and further from the action having to shout louder and louder to be heard. “That is why quotes are spun, paid for on a kiss-and-tell basis or obtained by deception via elaborate scams in Dubai. The process is undignified and counter-productive. The worse newspapers behave, the less reason footballers have to trust them and the safer television looks.”

But Wilson wonders whether the “golden goose” of television is turning into a turkey as games are played to half empty stadiums at times suited to television audiences - witness the timings of the FA Cup quarter finals, which will be played on four consecutive evenings later this month.

Television no longer ‘covers’ football in the way that newspapers were once able to, he notes. It presents it. It doesn’t dare upset its paymasters.

So television is cocking it up and newspapers are out in the cold. So where is the future for football journalism?

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Fact of the day

Posted by Ian Reeves on 22 February 2006 at 16:49
Tags: International

The planet’s population is projected to reach 6.5 billion at 12.16pm GMT on Saturday, according to Wired.

Blondes have more… news?

Posted by Ian Reeves on 22 February 2006 at 14:49
Tags: Television

American newscasters are lying about their true hair colour to get on in the business. That’s the conclusion of Jack Shafer in a pseudo-lecture on Slate.com. Shafer estimates that although blondes account for just one in 20 of the white US population, some 60 per cent of current newscasters could be categorised as such.

“Halos of honeydew yellow, strident gold, and silver birch radiate on the morning news shows, the afternoon gab slots, the business news on CNBC, prime time, and the overnight newsreader desks,” he says. “If you do the math, it’s clear that many female newscasters lie about their true hair color every time they appear on television.”

Shafer also classifies some of the best-known newsreaders according to a periodical table of blondeness — “bombshell blonde”; “sunny blonde”; “brassy blonde”; “dangerous blonde”; “society blonde”; and “cool blonde”.

A quick scan of the UK’s newsreading roll of fame reveals that similar trends may be afoot over here: Emily Maitlis, Sophie Raworth, Julie Etchingham, Mary Nightingale, Anna Botting, Kirsty Young, could all be part of the “Aryan TV Sisterhood” (as Shafer calls it). We should return to this with a more comprehensive study. We may even get European Commission funding to pay for it, if we play our cards right.