Free weekly newspaper trial launched by Telegraph

Posted by Jenny Williams on 7 July 2009 at 11:41
Tags: Journalism

Telegraph Media Group has teamed up with Gordons gin to produce a trial free newspaper called “The Friday”.

The tabloid-sized, 16-page newspaper will be feature and lifestyle focused, including home, food, lifestyle, trends and fashion, will make its debut on 7 August and will run for six weeks.

It will be handed out at 25 UK railway stations. Although initially a promotional item, it has not been ruled out as a regular product.

The Friday is aimed at high-spending men and women aged between 30 to 55, and will also be distributed free with Friday’s issue of The Daily Telegraph.

This product will mark the first time TMG has launched a free title.

IPC launches one-off home cooking magazine

Posted by Jenny Williams on 7 July 2009 at 11:27
Tags: Journalism

IPC’s Woman & Home magazine is launching a one-off magazine called Dinner Tonight.

The 156 page magazine will be launched in September, priced at £2.99, sold nationwide and will include a collection of recipes and advice on home cooking.

The magazine has been created to capture the current mood of the credit crunch, which is seeing more people staying in and cooking instead of dining out.

SunTalk taps into Spanish holiday and expat market

Posted by Jenny Williams on 7 July 2009 at 11:19
Tags: Journalism

News International’s internet radio venture, SunTalk, has expanded into Spain.

The online-only station is planning to tap into the holiday and expat market in the country.

Jon Gaunt’s daily three-hour SunTalk show will be aired on Bay Radio and Spectrum FM on the Costa Blanca between 11am and 2pm Spanish time.

The expansion comes two months after the station’s UK launch. SunTalk has already had a number of high-profile guests including David Cameron, Jack Straw, Boris Johnson and Terry Leahy.

Gaunt said: “The show has had such a great response since its launch and I can’t wait to take it to Spain. Hopefully it will prove just as popular as in the UK.”

News International has set a target of 15,000 listeners within its first year on air.

New PCC guidance on journalists’ use of Facebook pics

Posted by Jenny Williams on 6 July 2009 at 12:15
Tags: Journalism

Today’s PCC ruling against the Scottish Sunday Express comes with new guidance on the use by journalists of images taken from social networking sites such as Facebook without permission.

The Press Complaints Commission ruled today that the newspaper made a “serious error of judgment” by publishing a front-page story about the survivors of the Dunblane massacre, based on Facebook photos.

Here’s the PCC guidance in full:

The Commission considers that it can be acceptable in some circumstances for the press to publish information taken from such websites, even if the material was originally intended for a small group of acquaintances rather than a mass audience.

This is normally, however, when the individual concerned has come to public attention as a result of their own actions, or are otherwise relevant to an incident currently in the news when they may expect to be the subject of some media scrutiny.

Additionally, if the images used are freely available (rather than hidden behind strict privacy settings), innocuous and used simply to illustrate what someone looks like it is less likely that publication will amount to a privacy intrusion.

Circumventing privacy settings to obtain information will require a public interest justification.

Radio 4 uni journalism workshops to win new audiences

Posted by Jenny Williams on 6 July 2009 at 10:32
Tags: Journalism

BBC Radio 4 has launched an initiative to win over younger audiences, station controller Mark Damazer has told the Guardian.

The pilot scheme will take place this summer, and will take Radio 4 to three universities - Cardiff, Derby and Bedfordshire.

Damazer said: “What I am trying to do is make Radio 4 attractive to all sorts of people who might be interested in intelligent speech, and not to exclude because of our tone and choice in subject matter, the younger end of our audience.”

Each university tour will last five days and will offer students a range of workshops in areas such as stand-up comedy, writing and journalism.

Emergency debate on Midlands journalism job cuts

Posted by Jenny Williams on 3 July 2009 at 11:10
Tags: Journalism

An emergency debate has been called by the Birmingham Press Club in the wake of the recent closures and redundancies which have been hitting the region’s local newspapers, TV and radio.

The National Union of Journalists website broke the story last week, claiming to have seen internal documents about the closure of a number of Trinity Mirror weeklies.

Trinity Mirror has since confirmed that it is closing nine of its regional weeklies, with up to 94 jobs at risk.

Press Club Chairman John Lamb said: “Not only will the cuts result in job losses, but the overall effect would pose a serious threat to the credibility of the whole of the region’s news media.”

The debate will be chaired by former television presenter Llewela Bailey, and will include a panel featuring a number of leading media commentators, including Chris Bullivant, founder of the Observer Standard newspaper group, former Birmingham Post editor Nigel Hastilow and Chris Morley, regional organiser for the National Union of Journalists.

The debate will take place at 6pm on Monday 13 July at Austin Court, Cambridge Street in Birmingham city centre.

Journalists against the war: ‘We are reading rewritten MoD press releases’

Posted by Jenny Williams on 1 July 2009 at 17:58
Tags: Journalism

Media Workers against the War and the Stop the War Coalition have organised a public meeting on 13 July for journalists and others who are opposed to the war in Afghanistan.

According to FT journalist David Crouch, who is one of the organisers, “the public is being mis-informed, Afghanistan is very under reported in the British press, the MOD has clamped down very strictly and what we are reading is no more than rewritten MoD press releases”.

Speakers will include photographer Guy Smallman, investigative journalist Stephen Grey and Guardian columnist Seumas Milne amongst others.

The event starts at 7pm and is taking place at the Friends Meeting House on Euston Road in London.