Peter Sissons: I was no longer comfortable at BBC News

Posted by Paul McNally on 13 July 2009 at 13:01
Tags: Journalism

Veteran TV newsreader Peter Sissons has explained in a piece for the Mail on Sunday what prompted him to leave BBC News after 20 years.

Here are some selected quotes:

“At today’s BBC, a complaint I often heard from senior producers was that they dared not reprimand their subordinates for basic journalistic mistakes - such as getting ages, dates, titles and even football scores wrong - it being politically incorrect to risk offending them.”

“The BBC’s huge newsroom has too many people in it who are more interested in the technology of the multimedia world, rather than boring old things such as words. For many of them, it is not a newsroom but a news-processing plant.”

“When things go well those leading the BBC’s journalism are quick to share the credit, but when things go wrong they can hang you out to dry.”

“I was no longer comfortable at BBC News. It remains an iconic organisation, but it stands at the crossroads. The many good friends of mine in the newsroom always complain privately about the surplus of bureaucracy and the lack of leadership. The people at the top of the BBC seem to confuse the two.”

ITV newsreader suspended over £5.75 expenses claim

Posted by Paul McNally on 13 July 2009 at 12:35
Tags: Journalism

An ITV regional newsreader is reported to have been suspended from her job after allegedly making seven wrongful expenses claims - including a £5.75 dry cleaning bill for a child’s top.

According to the Daily Telegraph, Lisa Aziz has not appeared on ITV’s West Country Tonight for more than a month. Sources said she faced accusations of gross misconduct.

An ITV spokesman said: “ITV never comments on ongoing investigations and follows established and recognised employment procedures.”

Will Lewis tops Hospital Club’s journalism power list

Posted by Paul McNally on 7 July 2009 at 15:32
Tags: Journalism

Daily Telegraph editor-in-chief Will Lewis has been named the most influential and powerful figure in journalism in an industry poll.

The Hospital Club 100 is a list of media movers and shakers, voted by members of the private club for media and creative types in central London.

Lewis is followed by newly promoted News International chief executive Rebekah Wade in second place and Grazia editor-in-chief Jane Bruton in third.

Twitter co-founder Evan Williams takes fourth place, with BBC Worldwide chief executive John Smith in fifth.

Telegraph Media Group claims 3.2% revenue dip

Posted by Paul McNally on 7 July 2009 at 12:08
Tags: Journalism

Telegraph Media Group has claimed a 3.2 per cent drop in group revenue and a 6.7 per cent drop in operating profit in 2008.

TMG said it had filed its full-year accounts yesterday. The accounts have yet to be processed and published by Companies House, and TMG would not provide the full PDF accounts to Press Gazette when we asked.

According to a press release issued by TMG, the accounts show a £32m operating profit on group revenue of £343.4m.

We’ll have a fuller story once we get access to the actual numbers.

Sunday Times: Channel 4 looking for new chief exec?

Posted by Paul McNally on 6 July 2009 at 10:41
Tags: Journalism

Is Channel 4 chief executive Andy Duncan on his way out? The Sunday Times claims the broadcaster has begun quietly sounding out potential successors.

A number of media executives have told the paper that they have been contacted informally. No headhunter has been officially appointed yet.

C4 chairman Luke Johnson said: “I have not made any approaches to any individuals to discuss the chief executive’s position at Channel 4, and have not had any contact with headhunters, formally or informally.”

Daily Mirror confirms football website launch

Posted by Paul McNally on 3 July 2009 at 12:22
Tags: Journalism

Trinity Mirror has confirmed it is launching a standalone football website, MirrorFootball.co.uk, that will include video, blogs and access to reports and photos from the Mirror Group archive.

News of the launch first emerged last month in Media Week. According to Media Guardian, the site launches next month, in time for the new Premier League season and will be included in the monthly Mirror Group ABCe audit.

ITV Anglia head of news switches to the BBC

Posted by Paul McNally on 3 July 2009 at 12:17
Tags: Broadcast

The head of news for ITV’s Anglia region, David Jennings, is joining the BBC as the head of region for East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire.

Jennings replaces David Lloyd, the former LBC managing director who spent about a month in the job before returning to commercial radio.

He takes up the new post in September and will be responsible for BBC Look North, BBC Humberside, BBC Lincolnshire and the local online offering.

Jennings began his journalism career in 1985 as a trainee on the Eastern Daily Press in Norwich, working as a reporter and sub-editor.

Ben Bradshaw: ‘Why this obsession with Today programme?’

Posted by Paul McNally on 29 June 2009 at 07:25
Tags: Journalism

Ministers must stop “dancing to the tune” of Radio 4’s Today programme and show more “respect” for announcing policy decisions in parliament first.

That’s according to Ben Bradshaw, the new culture secretary and a former BBC journalist, in an interview with the Independent on Sunday.

“The BBC will have to change its news timings to fit in with the new respect that we’re going to give parliament,” Bradshaw says.

“Why this obsession with the Today programme? Why should we dancing to the tune of the BBC, of Radio 4’s news agenda?”

Sunday Mirror apologises for Paul Scholes betting story

Posted by Paul McNally on 29 June 2009 at 07:22
Tags: National Newspapers

The Sunday Mirror has apologised to footballer Paul Scholes over a story published last week with the headline: “Paul Scholes puts £46k on three horses and wins £240k”.

The paper said yesterday: “Last week, relying on a source we believed to be credible, we claimed that Manchester United star Paul Scholes placed bets totalling £46,000 on three horse races within two days and won £240,000.

“We now accept that Paul did not place bets on any of these races and therefore did not win the sum set out. We offer Paul our apologies.”

The original article has been taken down from the mirror.co.uk website - but the headline and intro still show up in search results and on Google News.

BBC defends 400-plus staffing at Glastonbury Festival

Posted by Paul McNally on 29 June 2009 at 07:17
Tags: Broadcast, Television

The BBC has defended its decision to send 405 people to cover the Glastonbury Festival - almost as many as the 437 it sent to last summer’s Olympic Games in Beijing.

125 staff, 150 freelances and 130 short-term contractors were at the event this weekend, according to the Mail on Sunday.

The BBC produced 111 hours of television coverage, more than 60 hours of radio output and a website featuring 600 pages and 57 hours of video.

A spokesman told the Sunday Times: “Our coverage of the festival is not comparable with the Olympics. We are the official broadcast partner to Glastonbury and are responsible for all broadcast infrastructure and transmission. Our pictures will be used around the world.”

Student hoax wins magazine photojournalism prize

Posted by Paul McNally on 29 June 2009 at 07:14
Tags: Magazines, Photography

It was a worthy winner of Paris Match magazine’s annual €5,000 prize for student photojournalism - a powerful black-and-white double-page spread documenting how impoverished French students were prostituting themselves and foraging through bins for food.

Until the winners admitted that all of the photos had been faked.

In their acceptance speech, Guillaume Chauvin and Rémi Hubert said they did it to expose the “voyeurism” and gullibility of the press.

“There was nothing in the rules of the competition to say that rigged photos were banned,” Hubert said.

Independent News & Media looks to sell Irish Daily Star

Posted by Paul McNally on 29 June 2009 at 07:09
Tags: Media Business, National Newspapers

Independent News and Media is considering selling its 50 per cent stake in the Irish Daily Star, a move that could raise about £12.5m.

According to the Mail on Sunday, INM told potential buyers last week that it would listen to offers for the 105,000-circulation tabloid and its Sunday sister title.

The company has until 24 July to raise enough cash to pay back a £170m bond with interest.

Elisabeth Murdoch makes the Grade for ITV top job

Posted by Paul McNally on 29 June 2009 at 07:06
Tags: Broadcast, Television

Rupert Murdoch’s daughter, Elisabeth, is being tipped by the Sunday Telegraph as a potential candidate for the job of ITV chief executive.

Murdoch, the founder of TV production company Shine, is being talked up because of her “understanding of international media and her entrepreneurial skills”, the paper says.

Michael Grade announced in April that he would be stepping down as ITV executive chairman but hoped to stay on as non-executive chairman.

According to the FT, the global search for a new chief executive will result in a shortlist of six candidates. The internal candidates are reported to be commercial director Rupert Howell and chief operating officer John Cresswell.

Other names linked to the job include former GCap Media chief executive Fru Hazlitt, Google’s European operations director Nikesh Arora and BBC Worldwide chief executive John Smith.

The FT and the Sunday Times both say that former BSkyB chief executive Tony Ball, who was tipped to be a suitable candidate, is not on the list.

An announcement is expected within weeks. The Sunday Telegraph says ITV wants to name a replacement for Grade in time for its half-year results on 6 August.

Mandelson topples Evan Davis from Sindy ‘pink list’

Posted by Paul McNally on 29 June 2009 at 07:01
Tags: Journalism

More than a dozen figures from broadcasting and publishing are named in this year’s Independent on Sunday “pink list” - a list of the 101 most influential gay and lesbian people in the UK.

Last year’s number one, Today presenter Evan Davis, slips to 12th place - replaced at the top by business secretary Lord Mandelson.

Culture secretary Ben Bradshaw is in eighth place. But he tells the Independent on Sunday: “We will only have completed the journey when people find these sorts of lists completely ridiculous, and I don’t think we’re there yet.”

Also named in this year’s list:

Five chief executive Dawn Airey
BBC sport presenter Clare Balding
Tory blogger Iain Dale
Independent columnist Johann Hari
Monocle publisher Tyler Brûlé
Times columnist Matthew Parris
Telegraph assistant editor Andrew Pierce
Attitude editor Matthew Todd
Time Out journalist Paul Burston
Telegraph corporate affairs director Guy Black
BBC Radio 4 announcer Alice Arnold

Confirmed: Wan to merge with Ifra on 1 July

Posted by Paul McNally on 26 June 2009 at 16:17
Tags: Journalism

The merger of the World Association of Newspapers and Ifra was today confirmed.

The Wan board agreed to the marriage at a meeting in Barcelona recently. Now Ifra’s board has followed suit.

The merger comes into effect on 1 July. The new group will be called Wan-Ifra.

“The reasons are simple: the industry wants it, and a merged organisation will be stronger than each organisation alone,” the pair said in a statement today.

“Wan and Ifra have built up several similar and corresponding products and services in recent years.

“Therefore it is the right time to join forces to combine our strengths and expertise.”

There’s more on what the merger means for members here.

BBC threatens to scrap ITV regional news sharing offer

Posted by Paul McNally on 26 June 2009 at 16:05
Tags: Journalism

The BBC has threatened to abandon its offer to share news footage and facilities with ITV if it is forced to give up part of the licence fee, director general Mark Thompson has revealed.

According to the BBC staff magazine Ariel, Thompson has said the partnership proposal would be taken “off the table” if the Digital Britain proposal to take £130m a year away from the licence fee to fund regional news goes ahead.

It adds: “However, if non-licence fee funding is found to help either ITV or new IFNCs [independently financed news consortia], the BBC would extend a helping hand.”

The BBC refused to say whether the report was true. A spokesman told Broadcast: “Ariel is an in-house magazine and it was a report in an internal meeting. We never comment on internal meetings.”

The BBC and ITV signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding in March with a view to saving £7m a year by sharing newsroom and studio facilities and some non-exclusive footage on a pool basis.

Aggregators could sue Newspaper Licensing Agency

Posted by Paul McNally on 26 June 2009 at 15:48
Tags: Journalism

The Newspaper Licensing Agency is facing a backlash from paid-for online media monitoring services over plans to bring newspapers’ online content within the NLA’s licensing remit.

Press Gazette reported last week that the NLA was looking to extend its licences in September to cover “web aggregator services (such as Meltwater) that forward links to newspaper websites and for press cuttings agencies undertaking this type of activity”. Free sites such as Google News are not affected.

Now PaidContent claims that Moreover is considering legal action and “more commercial aggregators” might follow.

NLA digital managing director Andrew Hughes told the site: “It’s about large, commercial operations which are scraping the entire content of tens of thousands of websites and creating paid-for services from them.”

Deadline day for Independent News and Media debt

Posted by Paul McNally on 26 June 2009 at 08:05
Tags: Journalism

Still no official word on what’s happening with Independent News and Media’s €200m bond repayment, which is due today.

The loan was due to be paid back with interest on 18 May but a “standstill” agreement was reached, extending the deadline to today.

City AM claims this morning that the INM board has reached an agreement with the creditors to push back the deadline to 24 July, giving it another month’s reprieve.

One option being considered to raise the needed cash is a share rights issue, but City AM says INM’s second biggest shareholder, Denis O’Brien, will block that.

Muddy shite: Radio 4 weather presenter ‘corpses’

Posted by Paul McNally on 25 June 2009 at 15:03
Tags: Broadcast, Radio

It’s every presenter’s worst nightmare. Collapsing into an uncontrollable fit of laughter in the middle of a live broadcast.

Today it’s the turn of a Radio 4 weather presenter, giving listeners an update on what conditions to expect at this weekend’s Glastonbury festival.

Click here to have a listen if the player below doesn’t appear [downloadable mp3].

KM Group outsources its events business

Posted by Paul McNally on 25 June 2009 at 11:13
Tags: Regional Newspapers

Kent newspaper publisher KM Group has outsourced its events business, responsible for running local job fairs and exhibitions.

Event management company Ashcroft Services will take over the job and a number of KM staff will move over.

KM Group said in a statement that all the events would retain the KM branding. It said outsourcing would relieve the publisher of the organisational responsibility for bookings, leaving it free to focus on promoting the events.