The big questions for the Scottish media in 2008

Posted by Martin Stabe on 5 January 2008 at 21:12
Tags: Herald, Scotland, Scotsman, Sun, The Herald

The Sunday Herald yesterday took a look at the issues that will be facing the Scottish media in 2008:

• What will News International’s pricing strategy be under James Murdoch? Will the price war that saw the Scottish Sun sold at 20p continue?
• How will the Scottish Executive’s plans to launch a jobs portal affect newspapers’ recruitment revenue?
• What are the Scottish papers doing online? The Herald papers are preparing to announce a new joint portal for their titles as they become more integrated. The Scotsman and Daily Record have both also recently relaunched their web sites.
• Will SMG follow ITV’s lead and acquire independent production companies?
• How will redundancies affect output at STV and BBC Scotland?

The podcast gatekeepers

Posted by Martin Stabe on 22 February 2006 at 14:37
Tags: Podcasting, Scotsman

As more British news organisations dabble with pod- and vodcasting — the Scotsman is the latest — it is becoming more important for them to understand how the major podcast directories like Yahoo or Apple’s iTunes chose what to spotlight.

Being featured by these directories can make all the difference between obscurity and download stats like those achieved by Ricky Gervais’ Guardian podcast. Fact.

Mark Glaser of PBS’s Mediashift has done some digging and has answers.

Defamation - what are the risks for news sites’ blogs?

Posted by Julie Tomlin on 13 February 2006 at 13:12
Tags: Blogs, Libel, Scotland, Scotsman

Steven Vass, the Sunday Herald’s media correspondent says media lawyers will be swallowing hard at The Guardian’s plans to massively increase reader interaction on its website this year. Having already been the only newspaper to allow readers to post messages straight on its site, it is about to take the risks to a whole new level, he argues.

In Scotland, the Herald, Scotsman and the Daily Express have all decided not to let readers add comments. Only the Press and Journal in Aberdeen and the Daily Record are allowing any reader contributions on their web sites.

But the Guardian’s Simon Waldman responds in his blog that these risks are nothing new as the newspaper has run open talkboards and other comment systems for almost ten years. As well as defamation, the challenge is also about cntempt, he argues.

Journalist’s FOI victory forces publication of surgeon data

Posted by Martin Stabe on 7 February 2006 at 10:28
Tags: Freedom of Expression, Newspapers, Scotland, Scotsman

A Scottish journalist’s successful Freedom of Information appeal yesterday bore fruit, as NHS Scotland began publishing Scottish surgeons’ mortality rates.

In December The Scottish Information Commissioner, Kevin Dunion, had ruled in favour of the Scotsman’s Peter MacMahon, who had been refused the data by the Scottish Health Service.