|
Our
other mags
Main
Guidomedia index
|
Media trends digest
– December 2007
The Beeb is coming 20 December
The BBC has made no secret of intentions to expand into the local media market, recently buying a share in travel publisher Lonely Planet and gaining an interest in TV production house Freehand Productions.
It’s most high profile move will soon be on our screens, as SBS and Freehand start production of a local version of Top Gear, the Beeb’s wildly successful motoring program that has spawned its own magazine.
The British or international version, which SBS will continue to run alongside the local product, is in fact a top-rating program for the local broadcaster.
A casting call has gone out for local presenters and you’ll no doubt be hearing a lot more from the BBC in the near future.
Top Gear UK, Casting call
Plus…
The ABC Media Report recently profiled BBC Worldwide: First off, there's the BBC's traditional TV and Radio service, which is what we often think of as the BBC. Then there's a separate, but of course interconnected operation called BBC World, which is the Corporation's international 24 hour news and information channel. And then, in addition to that, there's BBC Worldwide, which is a commercial subsidiary that not only takes in merchandising, but also manages the sale of BBC programs and formats to overseas markets. There - clear as mud!
More
We’re in a media rich environment -- report
ACMA media release: Australian families with children are media-rich, with multiple communications devices in the home; they value the internet and are striking a comfortable balance in their children’s use of media, according to research released today by the Australian Communications and Media Authority.
The Media and Communications in Australian Families 2007 report surveyed a representative sample of 751 family households with children aged between 8 and 17 to gauge media use in the home, how young people divide their leisure time and how parents view their children’s use of media and communications technologies. The report also includes a review of academic research about the influences of media and communications activities on children.
"It is natural for parents today to be concerned that their child may be vulnerable to media risks,' said Chris Chapman, ACMA Chairman.
"And there are many groups and individuals in society who are very concerned that there are not enough checks on access to media content that may be harmful to children.
"It's also natural for the communications sector to be worried that government regulation is going to stifle innovation and impede existing and emerging business models.
"Ultimately it's the government’s role to address all of these concerns and strike an appropriate balance.
"I believe this research gives the government a first-rate snapshot of Australian families with children aged 8-17, the group of households that is leading the charge into the new communications world and therefore the households most vulnerable to any potentially negative media influences.
"As such, the study provides a sound empirical base for thinking about children and young people’s use of electronic media and communications and informing policy settings in regulating content across media platforms."
The report found that in relation to the families surveyed:
* Most families with children aged 8 to 17 have three or more televisions in their home and three or more mobile phones. Almost every family home has a computer (98 per cent) and DVD player (97 per cent);
* Nine-in-ten family homes with children have the internet, and 76 per cent of these homes have broadband compared to just seven per cent in 1995. More than three-quarters of family homes have a games console;
Almost all parents with children aged 8 to 17 see the internet as beneficial for their children, mainly as providing learning or educational opportunities. Similarly, four-fifths of these parents see benefits in their child’s use of a mobile phone, particularly for safety and security.
* Families say electronic media and communications activities take up around half of young people's total discretionary time – a proportion that has not changed since 1995. Children themselves demonstrate a balanced attitude to the use of electronic media and communications. When given a preference, young people often prefer to do non-media activities and socialise with other people.
Report; Also located here
2013 the end for analogue TV
New Federal Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has confirmed the end of 2013 as the shutdown date for analogue TV, in favour of digital.
“Setting a firm date of 2013 for the switchover from analogue to digital television transmission in Australia has given industry the certainty it needs to drive consumer uptake of digital television.
“Until now, industry has had no declared end date and has been unable to plan effectively for digital television,” he said.
More
Newspapers not dead
More from the ongoing debate (Forbes via Benton): Credit Suisse analyst John Klim: "tell the
chaplain to save his eulogy, erase the 'Dust In
The Wind' lyrics from your short-term memory, and
pull the obituary from tomorrow's edition,
because newspapers are not dead." The reasons for
his tempered optimism? For starters, investors
have hammered down the valuations of newspaper
stocks amid concerns about sliding circulation
and advertising revenue. And while newspapers are
experiencing a secular loss in advertising to
other platforms, Klim estimates that about 64% of
the downturn in print advertising is cyclical,
particularly in classified real estate and retail
ads. More fundamentally, Klim believes that
newspapers will survive in the new media
landscape because they retain extensive reach
among consumers and remain the dominant source of
local news and information. He noted that total
audience levels are up over the past five years,
as growth in unduplicated online readers has
offset losses in print circulation. "What we do
know is that millions of Americans will continue
to seek local news and information, advertisers
will want to reach these consumers, and the
newspaper, in whatever form, fashion, or
iteration, will continue to bring these two
separate groups together,'' he said.
More
US adopts controversial new ownership rules
Boston Globe: The Federal Communications Commission approved rules yesterday that allow publishers to own both newspapers and broadcast stations in the biggest US cities and that limit growth for cable companies.
Chairman Kevin Martin and the other two Republicans on the five-member panel backed the loosened rules for newspaper owners, which modify a ban adopted in 1975
More
From Broadcast & Cable via Benton…
The commission will presume that
newspaper-broadcast combinations in the top 20
markets are in the public interest so long as
eight independent voices, including newspapers,
remain and the stations are not among the top
four in the market. It will also allow
newspaper-radio combinations but require no
voices test. Newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership
would also be presumed to be in the public
interest in markets smaller than the top 20 so
long as at least seven hours of local news is
added to a station that did not do it before, or
if the station or newspaper is in financial
distress. The latter is defined as a station or
newspaper that has gone dark at least four months
before a waiver is filed for, or a station that
has less than 4% of the audience, where there has
been negative cash flow for at least three years
(newspaper or station) and where no out-of-market buyer wants it.
More
Back to basics for would-be website builders
Melbourne IT has put up a nice little article on building websites for business that applies to many areas. It begins begins asking the most basic question: why am I doing this?
See this link
Web 2.0 is mainstream
Edelman via Crikey: Everyone knows the interactive web (Web 2.0 if you like Americanisms) is changing the way we gain information on products, services and subjects we like, or just buy an increasing number of things. However, Australian business is getting left behind in this evolving interactive online world as consumers forge their own paths.
Online conversation (two-way interaction and engagement, not just one-way posting of a point of view) is no longer the domain of nerds or internet-addicts. It now incorporates mainstream Australia. However, Australian business and government is largely ignoring this opportunity to speak directly and interact with their customers and consumers.
More; Edelman report
But there are traps…
Web guru Jakob Nielsen also warns there are traps for young players when it comes to Web 2.0. He says: “AJAX, rich Internet UIs, mashups, communities, and user-generated content often add more complexity than they're worth. They also divert design resources and prove (once again) that what's hyped is rarely what's most profitable.”
More
Murdoch purchase confirmed
Reuters via Benton: Dow Jones & Co Inc shareholders voted to approve
a $5.6 billion buyout by News Corp on Thursday,
giving Rupert Murdoch control of one of the
world's most influential newspapers, the Wall
Street Journal. The purchase cements his position
as gatekeeper of media outlets spanning from his
hometown in Australia to London to New York.
More
Kath & Kim in limbo 13 December
Network 7 may be less than delighted with the decision by Kath & Kim stalwarts Gina Riley and Jane Turner to take a break until March next year, which rules out any hope of a new series in the first half of 2008.
The comedy has proved to be Australia’s most successful in recent years and there has been talk of a stage show version. It has been seen as pivotal to the network’s recent ratings win over 9.
Home page
Battle lines drawn for local broadband
With last month’s election of a new federal government, the battle lines are being drawn over how the Rudd administration’s promised 4.7 billion investment in upgrading the national broadband network will be distributed.
Telstra, which had a poisonous relationship with the Howard government, has sent conflicting messages – saying on one hand that it welcomes the new regime, while on the other saying it wants nothing to do with a shared government/private enterprise.
Meanwhile a consortium lead by Optus is going through a kind of mating dance over the idea, promising greatly reduced internet charges.
Telstra; Optus story (The Australian)
Howard regime turned suppression into “art form”
Media Alliance: Fairfax chairman slams coalition government for FoI -- Former Liberal Party treasurer and current chairman of Fairfax Media, Ron Walker, has condemned the defeated Federal coalition for its stance on Freedom of Information (FoI). At the Fairfax annual general meeting in Sydney, Walker stated, "In the past 11 years of the previous government they have made the suppression of public information an absolute art form. We look forward to working with the Rudd Government to implement the constructive proposals they have made to strengthen our Freedom of Information laws and other key reforms."
Mr Walker also reaffirmed the support of the Fairfax board for the Fairfax Charter of Editorial Independence. He told shareholders at the Fairfax AGM that the board had always supported the editorial independence of the Fairfax papers. Mr Walker was answering a question put by staff representative and Media Alliance house committee co-convenor Matthew Moore, FOI editor at the Sydney Morning Herald.
Media Alliance web
Have your say in digital TV
ACMA release: The Australian Communications and Media Authority is seeking the views of interested parties on how ACMA and the industry should approach the development of codes and standards for digital television.
‘We encourage industry participants to share their views with ACMA, particularly about how it should approach the making of mandatory requirements in the digital television area,’ said Chris Chapman, ACMA Chairman.
More
Grazia Oz
 ACP is to publish a local edition of Grazia magazine from late next year.
The weekly gossip and fashion title began in Italy in 1938 and has more recently launched successfully in the UK.
Web to overtake mag ad revenue
Guardian: The internet is set to overtake magazines to become the world's third largest advertising medium in 2010, according to a new report.
Media planning and buying agency ZenithOptimedia's global advertising report estimates that in 2010 the internet ad market will be worth almost $61bn (29.5bn), compared with the magazine market at around $60.5bn (29.3bn).
By 2010 the internet will account for 11.5% of global ad spend, trailing just TV, at a 37.5% share, and newspapers with 25.4% of an estimated $530bn (£257bn) total spend, according to Zenith.
More
Print gloom overdone
Editors Weblog: "You could be forgiven for being very gloomy about the prospects for the newspaper industry at the present time. Indeed, if you listened to the financial community you would receive a very grim analysis with cyclical declines driven by weakness in the economy exacerbated by the structural challenges which our industry faces. They would emphasise declining circulations and the failure of several recent attempts to sell regional newspaper titles. Share prices have been badly affected; Johnston is at half the level it was at the beginning of the year. One analyst, who chose to remain anonymous, described the industry as being in its ‘death spiral’.
“I am in no doubt that the gloom expressed by the financial community and others is greatly overdone, much of it based on a poor understanding of our industry…I have no doubt that the regional press will play an important role in the media industry for many, many years to come and that print will remain a vital part of the local media mix.” – Tim Bowdler, CEO of Johnston Press.
More
Nielsen offers digital copyright protection service
Information Week: Nielsen, best-known for its rankings of TV programming, said Wednesday it is developing a system that would police Web sites for copyrighted material, and notify site owners and content providers when video has been posted without authorization.
Nielsen is developing the system with Digimarc, a provider of digital watermarking technology.
More; Nielsen media release
Bureau of one
American Journalism Review: With an arsenal of technology — including handheld digital video cameras, satellite dishes and laptops — seven ABC News journalists who took on new posts around the world this fall may be set to change the definition of "foreign correspondent."
"We are fixers, shooters, reporters, producers and bureau chiefs," says ABC correspondent Dana Hughes from her home office in Nairobi, Kenya.
More
Horwitz sells
The Australian: After nearly 90 years in publishing, Sydney's Horwitz family has sold most of its business to private equity firm Wolseley for an undisclosed sum.
Among the 16 titles included in the acquisition are Inside Sport, TV Soap, Golf Australia, Geare, Sound & Image, Australian Hi-Fi, Pro Photo and Australian Camera, plus the rights to the local version of satirical magazine Mad.
More
Black day for former Fairfax owner
Former Fairfax owner Conrad Black has been sentenced to jail in the Usa after being found guilty of fraud in his dealing with the newspaper empire he headed.
The Toronto Star carries a comprehensive set of reports
NBC refunds for poor ratings
Advertising Age: NBC has taken the unusual step of giving cash back to a sampling of its advertisers, owing to ratings shortfalls in the 2006-2007 programming season.
When TV networks miss agreed-upon ratings targets, they typically offer marketers additional advertising time, also known as a "make-good."
More
Have faith…News Corp will buy
Online Publishers Association: You gotta have faith. That's the lesson for religion portal Beliefnet's founder, Steve Waldman, who started the site in 1999, went through Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2002, and then recovered to be bought recently by News Corp, becoming part of Fox Interactive Media (FIM). Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but FIM will cross-promote other religious News Corp properties and make the site part of the new “FIM Serve” advertising network. Next year, that network could include non-FIM sites, according to honcho Peter Levinsohn. “We're well down the path in terms of discussions with some of the other News Corp properties to do ad serving,” Levinsohn said at the Reuters Media Summit. “Ultimately we'll take the company off network and become an ad network for assets outside of [News Corp].”
Rumors were flying that News Corp might also buy business social networking site LinkedIn, though a source told Reuters those talks weren't happening. The rumors had pegged a buyout price of $1 billion, but LinkedIn CEO Dan Nye told Fortune the price would be “a lot more than that”. Forbes speculated on other Net startups that might be overrun by Starship Rupert, including Digg and Flixster. As for the Dow Jones takeover, which was set to be finalized this week, current execs such as CEO Richard Zannino and publisher Gordon Crovitz are headed for the exit, with News Corp tapping Les Hinton and Robert Thomson to replace them. Meanwhile, Rupert's 34-year-old son James Murdoch was tapped as his successor, taking over the conglomerate's operations in Asia and Europe.
OPA; Beliefnet
Online video continues to soar
Online Publishers Association: Two different research firms recently came to the same conclusion: Online video usage is booming. comScore reported that nearly 75% of US internet users watched an online video in September 2007, with Google sites (including YouTube) making up 28.3% of the videos watched. comScore said that users watched an average of 68 videos and 181 minutes of video in the month. Meanwhile, Horowitz Associates found that 61% of broadband Internet users watched online video at least weekly, with the top categories of content being news (36%), amateur videos (30%), and movie previews (21%). Surprisingly, even the viewership of entire TV programs online was up, with 16% saying they had done that vs. 8% in a study from last year. “The data suggest that broadband video is not cannibalistic to linear video, but rather, an enhancement to the consumers' 'traditional' TV experience,” said Howard Horowitz, president of Horowitz Associates.
OPA
5 ways to improve a mag’s website
Market Watch:
Five ways that magazines can improve their web sites:
1. Take a page out of the playbook of what differentiated MSNBC.com from the pack. Have almost as many graphics and design experts as writers on staff.
2. Provide a feature that you simply don't have space for in your newsstand product: namely, the back story. Readers love to know the inside story on a big event. Let your reporters explain how they covered big news, and give them an opportunity to tell their stories. Yes, some blogs do this, too, but not often or well enough.
3. Make the sites as interactive as possible. Time took a good step in this direction by having its readers pick the questions it asks celebrities in its regular feature.
4. Use the web to explain the news as comprehensively as possible. Don't simply report the story on the Internet -- give such information as a chronology. The Wall Street Journal's web site routinely does this, and it pays off.
5. Keep the staff nonbelievers as far away from the web as possible. If editors or reporters are ambivalent about or hostile to the web (like many have been at Time Inc, and you can't fire them all), don't let them corrupt your site with their lethargy or disapproval. Listen, the web is the most exciting part of a modern journalism enterprise for ambitious writers and editors. If they haven't figured it out by now, to hell with them.
More
Is e-ink the savior for print?
Crosscut: Papers like The Seattle Times are in a tough spot. Online advertising revenue is a long way from covering expenses. Meanwhile, print advertising is vanishing. So why not ditch the presses and trucks and go electronic? It just might pencil out.
More
Draconian media laws for Pakistan
NY Times via Benton: Nearly all private television channels blacked
out last month by President Pervez Musharraf’s
emergency decree are back on the air. But the
country’s once-thriving television news media
remain largely muzzled by sweeping new
restrictions that journalists and Western
diplomats say stifle criticism of the government.
After the blackout cost leading channels tens of
millions of dollars in lost advertising revenues,
owners of all but one channel agreed to stop
broadcasting the country’s highest-rated
political talk shows and signed the
government-ordered “code of conduct.” And under a
new ordinance, unilaterally enacted by Mr
Musharraf, television journalists face up to
three years in jail for broadcasting “anything
which defames or brings into ridicule the head of
state” and other restrictions. The law will
remain in place after Mr Musharraf ends the
state of emergency, which he has promised to do on Saturday.
More
Music company gambles on web ads
LA Times via Benton: Universal Music Group made virtually
its entire catalog available for free this week
on Imeem, an online social network, in exchange
for a cut of the company's advertising revenue.
It's a risky bet, the kind of move that none of
the major record companies were making even three
years ago. But all the labels are making them
now, in the hope that revenue from the web and
wireless networks will offset their sliding CD
sales. Meanwhile, in Hollywood, the studios and
the writers union aren't even talking about a
deal. Until last week, the biggest stumbling
block seemed to be the formula for paying writers
when their works were used online. But
negotiations broke down again on Friday after the
studios objected to the writers' demands on
several old-school issues like accounting practices and union representation.
More; Imeem
Web thinking too short term – Berners-Lee
Financial Times: Internet companies are taking a dangerously short-term view and ignoring big potential risks and opportunities as the online medium becomes a more central part of everyday life, according to the man who invented the worldwide web.
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who now oversees the development of new technology standards for the web as head of the World Wide Web Consortium, also criticised the lack of support for long-term research into these issues, which he said marks a break from the traditional approach technology companies have taken.
More
Nobel laureate joins internet critics
Winner of this year’s Nobel prize for literature, Doris Lessing, has joined a long line of people concerned over the effect of technologies such as the internet.
In her acceptance speech, she said: “What has happened to us is an amazing invention, computers and the internet and TV, a revolution. This is not the first revolution we, the human race, has dealt with. The printing revolution, which did not take place in a matter of a few decades, but took much longer, changed our minds and ways of thinking. A foolhardy lot, we accepted it all, as we always do, never asked “What is going to happen to us now, with this invention of print?” And just as we never once stopped to ask, How are we, our minds, going to change with the new internet, which has seduced a whole generation into its inanities so that even quite reasonable people will confess that once they are hooked, it is hard to cut free, and they may find a whole day has passed in blogging and blugging etc.”
The main thrust of her speech, however, concentrated on inequality of opportunity and its effect on how we appreciate cultural assets such as libraries.
Full speech
India Today drops web pay model
Exchange4media: India Today Group is planning a big digital move, creating a single Website that is to showcase all of its properties. The group is also shifting from a subscription-based model to free access.
More
Convergence not matched by investment in reporting – NUJ
National Union of Journalists, UK: Employers are putting quality journalism under threat, by failing to put sufficient investment into the journalists who staff their multi-media newsrooms.
That's the finding of an NUJ report published today.
The Commission on Multimedia Working, established by the NUJ to investigate the implications of media convergence, has found widespread concern about the impact of new media working on journalistic standards.
The report, called Shaping the Future, follows months of consultation with journalists working across the industry. It finds that the significant sums that have been spent on new technology haven't been matched by investment in journalism.
More; report
News to swallow ACP/CMH?
Mark Day in The Australian recently speculated that News Limited might be in the market to buy up ACP.
See this link
Kid Nation airs locally
Controversial US lab rat show Kid Nation began airing locally last Friday.
Here’s our coverage of the series from last August
Telstra rules out broadband consortium 5 December
Telstra has said it will not join a federal government consortium to build a new national broadband infrastructure.
The incoming government promised $4.7 billion in funding for the project in its first year, and will be seeking a similar contribution from private industry.
New Communicastions Minister Stephen Conroy said, prior too the election,"We will have an economic equity injection in this venture, we're not ceding control."
In recent years, Telstra has expressed strong opposition to government control over its assets.
See this story in The Age newspaper
OECD to examine digital economy
OECD Observer via Benton: Can you remember life before the Internet? Though
quite a new technology, already a world without
the web has become as unthinkable for many of us
as a world without telephones. But what of the
future? Can the benefits of this extraordinary
technology be multiplied, and how can the
thornier challenges be met? The Future of the
Internet Economy will be the subject of the first
OECD ministerial meeting ever to be hosted in
Asia. Taking place 17-18 June 2008 in Seoul,
Korea, it will examine the implications of the
rapid growth in the use of the Internet for our
economies and societies and the policies needed for continued growth.
More
Recession to hit US media
Reuters via Benton: US economic recession could hammer those
media and entertainment companies that rely
heavily on advertising next year, curtailing
experimentation when the industry needs it most.
Just how severe the impact of a sinking US
housing market, global credit crunch and possible
slowdown in consumer spending will be depends on
many factors, including how deeply embedded a
company's product are in people's homes. Goldman
Sachs predicts the risk of recession in '08 is
45% and that could cause ad revenue among
traditional media companies to tumble 10%,
compared with current estimates of flat to 1% growth.
More
The perils of organic site structure
Jakob Nielsen: Information architecture (IA) poses a tremendous challenge in designing any navigational system. Historically, intranets have had little in terms of systematic IA efforts; designers typically "structured" intranets according to the organic growth of pages and features provided by different departments. Employees suffered the consequences, repeatedly getting lost in confusing structures with inconsistent navigation options.
More
UK pushes for faster broadband
Guardian via Benton: Telecoms executives have been summoned to a
meeting today with the government and the
regulator, Ofcom, to thrash out a plan to stop
Britain slipping behind in the global broadband
league. The summit, organized by Stephen Timms,
the competitiveness minister and former
e-commerce minister, will tackle how to increase
Internet access speeds, paving the way for
services such as high-definition Internet TV, and
who will pay the £7bn or so for the
infrastructure. The creation of a next-generation
access network could mean Britain dumping the
traditional copper phone lines in favour of fibre-optic cabling.
More
Backgrounder – behavioral advertising
AP via Benton: Behavioral targeting, commonly accomplished by
depositing tiny data files on personal computers
to keep track of surfing patterns, is opening up
a privacy debate. From the perspective of Web
sites and advertisers, though, behavioral
targeting can bring to the rest of the Internet
some of the relevancy Google Inc. and others
successfully mined for billions of dollars with
text-based search ads. Although behavioral
targeting isn't right for all advertisers, it has
become increasingly important as companies try to
break through the clutter. The research company
eMarketer projects that spending on behavioral
targeting will nearly double to $1 billion next
year and hit $3.8 billion by 2011. Targeting has
been around as long as there has been
advertising.
More
Celebrity tops Yahoo rankings 4 December
This could prove to be depressing news for many web publishers: Yahoo says celebrity gossip ranked top in its web searches, though it may say more about the site’s audience than it does for the web as a whole.
From the Yahoo corporate bunker: From shaving her head, lashing out with an umbrella, custody battles and being caught without any underwear again, Britney Spears kept Australians interested in her every meltdown throughout 2007, and generated the most web searches according to annual rankings released today by Yahoo!7 Pulse – www.yahoo7.com.au/pulse.
Australians were searching for updates and information on the weather, making it the second most popular search for 2007.
It appears the Aussie dream of owning a home was alive and well in 2007, with searches for real estate ranking third on the list and proving to be even more popular this year than last, where it sat at number seven. Also ranking in the top ten were Jessica Alba, Anna Nicole Smith, Justin Timberlake and the celebrity couple `Brangelina’, proving that Australians just can’t seem to get enough celebrity scandal.
“Australians love their celebrity gossip and there didn’t seem to be a dull moment throughout 2007! Britney went from one catastrophe to the next, Angelina and Brad adopted yet another child amid controversy and the saga of Anna Nicole Smith continued,” said Lizzy Lovette host of Yahoo!7 Pulse’s weekly online video program.
Top searches – overall
1. Britney Spears
2. Weather
3. Real estate
4. Bebo
5. Jessica Alba
6. Anna Nicole Smith
7. Brangelina
8. iPod Nano
9. Bourne Ultimatum III
10. Justin Timberlake
Full release, with more rankings (PDF)
SMH sprung with dodgy conspiracy story?
The Sydney Morning Herald’s Sunday edition, the Sun Herald, appears to have been caught out by the Austrolabe blog, reworking a one-year old San Francisco Chronicle story for local conditions, while reinforcing a story saying there is an active al-Qaeda network in NSW prisons.
It seems to mix ‘borrowed’ with local content for dramatic effect.
Austrolabe reports:
It’s been a while since we last had a story about al-Qaeda expansion into New South Wales jails. However, today the Sun-Herald reports that Muslim prison inmates in New South Wales have been studying an al-Qaeda manual. And up to 40 inmates have apparently established…
…an internal organisational structure to maintain morale, resist interrogation and recruit members to Islam.
Hmmm… Where have we heard that before?
Oh, yes. In the San Francisco Chronicle last year! The Chronicle reported that detainees of the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba had created…
…their own internal organizational structure to maintain morale, resist interrogation and recruit members…
Amazing. Not only did they both create “internal organizational structures” but they both have the exact same objectives listed in the exact same order. What are the chances of that?
The Sun-Herald continues:
The al-Qaeda training manual was first obtained by the CIA in 1996.
And in the San Francisco Chronicle last year:
The al Qaeda training manual, obtained by the CIA in 1996…
Ed’s note: If there’s a moral to this story, it’s that, in this day and age of prolific web publishing and easy searches, editors and writers have a lot of people looking over their proverbial shoulders. You simply have to be out of your mind to fudge it…
Full story at Austrolabe; Sun Herald report, SF Chronicle report
WA journalists pressured to reveal sources 3 December
Media Alliance: ABC news has reported that the journalists' union in Western Australia has raised concern about the increasing number of reporters being pressured to reveal their sources to the state's Corruption and Crime Commission (CCC). An ABC reporter was threatened with a fine of $60,000 or a prison term if she did not reveal her source for a story regarding the Andrew Mallard case.
More
Report looks bad for minority station ownership
Media Alliance: Free Press this week released Out of the Picture 2007, an updated analysis of the impact of consolidation on minority and female television station ownership. The report updates the results from last year's Out of the Picture study - the first complete assessment of female and minority ownership of commercial broadcast TV stations. The data suggests the future of minority TV station ownership is in jeopardy.
More
Media Alliance
Is integration the right choice?
Editors Weblog: Several major newsrooms have chosen to integrate their print and online operations to adapt to the digital age, including the Daily Telegraph in the UK and Fairfax in Australia, and most recently The New York Times moving into its new building. But most newspapers remain non-integrated or consider – such as Le Monde in France or El Pais in Spain – that full integration is not the best choice. In light of this debate, the Weblog interviewed Bruno Patino, Vice President of Le Monde group and President of Le monde interactif, to figure out which is the ‘right’ way to rethink the newsroom, or whether or not integration should be the main concern altogether.
More
Print paper tries E-versions
Editors Weblog: SÜDKURIER, a regional newspaper in southern Germany, is experimenting with new technologies of news-distribution. SÜDKURIER offers a news-feed, an E-paper in pdf-format and a daily television program (suedkurier.tv) from 4.00 pm onwards. Furthermore, SÜDKURIER has developed its own mobile phone news service (SÜDKURIER-Blitz/SK-Blitz) in order to inform its readers on the latest news immediately. The Editors Weblog spoke with Thomas Satinsky about his experience so far with the mobile phone service.
More
Editors Weblog
Holmes takes over Media Watch
ABC’s Media Watch will be hosted by Jonathon Holmes in the news season.
From the corporate bunker: ABC TV Director of Television, Kim Dalton, said Media Watch continued to make an important contribution to the understanding and views about how the media conducts its business.
"It’s a watchdog role that is an irritant for some, but in our view the program makes a vital contribution to the media environment and journalistic practice in Australia," Dalton said.
"On top of that it's a very entertaining program with a regular and loyal audience across the country of over a million people each week.
"Jonathan Holmes is one of Australia’s most accomplished journalists and ideally suited to this very important role."
More
 Return
to top
See
our media trends archive for earlier stories. See our Benton
index for USA media stories.
Use this tool to search
our site or the web.
|
Job
Watch
See
our jobs page.
Free
Newsletter
Try our newsletter. Every week or so we email a free summary of media
trends stories and jobs. See our subscription page.
Movers
& shakers
See our selection of speeches & papers on media
issues... click
Spin
City
The Editor's occasional blog… click
|
