Weekend news roundup

Posted by Martin Stabe on 7 January 2008 at 09:23
Tags: BBC, Journalism

Thompson’s BBC expenses: BBC director general Mark Thompson has spent more than £40,000 on flights and hotel bills since taking the job, according to documents released to the Sunday Telegraph under the Freedom of Information Act.
More digital growth needed In his Observer column, Peter Preston warns that digital revenue is still not growing fast enough to offset other declines at news organisaitons. An impressive-sounding 20 per cent growth rate on digital operations, really only increases a 5 per cent share of total newspaper company revenues into 6 per cent, after all. No doubt this will be one of the key issues of 2008.
The interviews that terrify HumphrysAppearing on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, Today programme presenter John Humphrys confessed that two interview subjects had terrified him: One was Maragret Thatcher. The other was Ella Fitzgerald, whom Humphrys failed to interview while he was a young reporter on the Cardiff and District News.
City Paper struggling online Sindy City diary notes the online struggles of “one City-based newspaper”. “Its ‘interactive’ forum for readers has, so far, attracted a measly five posts since it was launched a month ago, all of them apparently from spammers.” For those keeping count, it’s up to six now.
Lunch video boosts traffic US online publishers are finding that posting videos at lunchtime boosts traffic as workers eat lunch at their desks, the New York Times reports.