Sport sites and SEO on digital editors’ agenda

Posted by Martin Stabe on 7 January 2008 at 15:39
Tags: Associated Northcliffe Digital, Sport, seo

The next meeting of the Digital Editors Network will be held at the University of Central Lancashire on 29 January.

The topics up for discussion at the meeting, which will feature will be the potential of sport on news media websites search engine optimisation.

Robert Hardie, managing editor of Northcliffe Digital Integrated Media, will update the group on his company’s strategy of building websites of major football and rugby clubs in Northcliffe newspapers’ regions.

More details are available on the Digital Editors Network Facebook group.

Norwich journalist relaunches self-published football site

Posted by Martin Stabe on 2 July 2007 at 18:08
Tags: Archant, BBC, Rick Waghorn, Sky, Sport

Rick Waghorn, the ex-Norwich Evening News football correspondent who set out on his own online after being made redundant, has relaunched his website in the the first step of a plan to take his solo-publishing model nationwide.

Last year, Waghorn used a redundancy payout to set up a web site to cover Norwich City FC, the same patch he had covered for the Evening News.

Now Waghorn has moved his site, which had been located at RickWaghorn.co.uk, to NorwichCity.MyFootballWriter.com.

The new site has scrapped it’s mobile WAP service in favour of mobile Internet browsing. Beginning next month it will offer a subscription service that will provide full access to the site for £1.50 per month. The site also aggregates news feeds from the BBC Sport, Sky Sports and Archant’s local sports web site the Pink ‘Un,. A podcast is also in the works.

In April, Waghorn said he is hoping to franchise his model of solo-publishing regional sports journalism to cover other football clubs in the same way.

“There are about 40 or 50 regional newspaper football writers who have covered clubs for years and have strong personal brands,” he said in April.

“If you go through all the provincial clubs in the country, they’ve all got one of me at their local morning or evening paper.”

Waghorn said today that he remains in talks with other members of “the pack” of regional football writers.

More links for Tuesday

Posted by Martin Stabe on 26 June 2007 at 09:29
Tags: Guardian News & Media, ITV, Media Law, Sport

Sport titles for sale? … Sir Trevor draws complaints … Aussie Football in latest journalist access row … New barrister for Guardian.

Ashley Cole uses Internet to find libel witnesses

Posted by Martin Stabe on 9 March 2006 at 11:58
Tags: Journalism, Libel, News of the World, Photography, Privacy, Sport, Sun, copyright

Lawyers for footballer Ashley Cole are turning to the Internet to find potential witnesses for his libel case against News of the World or Sun.

In February, the NoW claimed two footballers and a “pal in the music industry” had been involved in a “homosexual orgy” involving a mobile phone. The paper later ran a heavily-pixelated image of two men along with further insinuations.

Pink News, the web site which appears to have prompted the case by publishing the original and unobsured image showing Cole and Ian Thompson, also known as DJ Masterstepz, carries an advert linking to the online survey, which is being run by law firm Teacher Stern Selby.

As we reported earlier this week, Thompson will also be suing the tabloids. In a new twist to the case we report in Press Gazette today, the Thompson is also considering an action for breach of copyright because the picture belonged to him.

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.

Straight from the horse’s mouth

Posted by Zoe Smith on 3 March 2006 at 13:19
Tags: Journalism, Libel, Privacy, Sport, Sun

So now we have a chance to find out what’s really going on with Ashley Cole.

In an amusing twist of fate, The Sun today revealed that future Mrs. Ashley Cole, pop star Cheryl Tweedie, will feature in an exclusive Sun webchat next week.

Tweedie and her fellow Girls Aloud band mates will take part in an online Q&A session courtesy of the The Sun.

The paper cheekily states:

So if there’s something you’d like to ask Sarah, Nadine, Cheryl, Kimberly or Nicole just go to www.thesun.co.uk/bizarre and give us your questions.

In a statement issued today Cole’s lawyers said: “There is no truth whatever in these allegations. Ashley Cole will not tolerate this kind of cowardly journalism or let it go unchallenged.”

“It is disgraceful that he should be faced with this kind of unpleasant insinuation and innuendo at a time when he is trying to focus on this summer’s World Cup and his forthcoming wedding.

Ashley Cole roundup

Posted by Martin Stabe on 3 March 2006 at 11:25
Tags: Ethics, Journalism, Libel, News of the World, Online, Privacy, Sport, Star, Sun

Our exclusive report yesterday that Arsenal and England footballer Ashley Cole is suing the News of the World and the Sun (for harassment, libel and “false privacy” over stories about gay footballers in which he was not even named) has been widely picked up by other papers.

The Star tastefully splashes with the story (but strangely not on its web site). It’s also in the Daily Mail, Evening Standard, and Daily Telegraph.
The Times and Independent analyse the potential consequences for media law and what the Guardian calls the “implications for the tabloid press and their Faustian pact with the celebrity world”:

Legal experts view the case as an important step in taking the temperature of libel and privacy law in cases where the aggrieved parties are not named but the public is able to build up a “jigsaw” identification via tabloid hints that spark gossip via email, blogs and chatrooms.

They said the privacy part of the claim was “unique” because it relied on an untested concept known as “false privacy” - even though Cole says he is not gay, he will argue his privacy has been invaded.

Best of all is the Sun’s own front page report. In the intro, we learn that:

SOCCER star Ashley Cole has instructed lawyers to sue two newspapers — claiming he has been wrongly linked to gay sex allegations.

Fast forward to paragraph six:

He instructed lawyers to sue the News of the World — who originally reported that two Premiership stars had been caught romping on camera with a music industry pal.

Oh! That newspaper. Onward to paragraph 10, the last of the story:

Cole’s lawyers have filed writs against the News of the World and The Sun. He is suing for libel, harassment and breach of privacy.

Nice of them to mention that little detail.

2 comments

Footballer Ashley Cole sues tabloids

Posted by Martin Stabe on 2 March 2006 at 19:00
Tags: Evening Standard, Journalism, Libel, News of the World, Privacy, Sport, Sun

“Ashley Cole sues over gay orgy claim”, as reported in Press Gazette.

Update: The Times reports that the DJ shown in the pictures with Cole will also be suing.

ESPN sports network to launch in UK

Posted by Martin Stabe on 27 February 2006 at 10:26
Tags: Journalism, Sky, Sport

In a major challenge to Sky Sports, Disney will today launch a UK version of ESPN, the cable sports news channel that has over 90 million subscribers in the United States.

Sky journalists in RAF plane drama over Olympics

Posted by Caitlin Pike on 22 February 2006 at 14:56
Tags: Olympics, Sky

Sky News reporter Jonathan Samuels and cameraman Neil Morris found themselves fearing for their lives when the RAF plane they were reporting from on 10 February caught fire over the Italian Dolomites and was unable to make an emergency landing.

Samuels and Morris were thrilled to have been invited onboard an RAF AWACS early-warning aircraft which was patrolling the skies above the winter games to search for any terrorist activity.

Samuels (pictured) said: “It was meant to be an eight hour mission circling over the Turin Olympic site as the opening ceremony got underway with Cherie Blair and Laura Bush in attendance. It turned out to be a completely different story — a terrifying drama at 30,000 feet as the plane caught fire.�?

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