Our topsy-topsy media world

February 12, 2010

Topsy-Turvy

Plenty of action in the media world this week, not least at the Guardian, where rumours of financial problems and looming staff redundancies had almost approached Independent levels. Now we learn that  Guardian Media Group (GMG), which lost £89.8m last year, is selling sell GMG Regional Media for £44.8m, but at least the buyer comes with a proven record in UK media. Trinty Mirror picks up 22 titles in the North-west including GMG’s flagship 1821-launched Manchester Evening News, as well as S&B Media, with 10 titles in the South.

So as the BBC’s move north continues, a major national newspaper severs its historic links with Manchester. Ours is a topsy-turvy media world indeed, one of relocation, relocation, relocation, an endemic inability to predict the future and a ‘make it up as we go along’ policy for pay walls and social media. Few things appear to be certain, with this week also having seen a swathe of editorial changes at the Telegraph and uncertainty prevailing over what seems to be the covert redesign of the Times’ ‘Weekend’ section.

But amid all the mayhem, one thing stayed the same: Northcliffe made a profit.

Anyone (save Northcliffe employees) for the topsy-turvy media bus? OK, no one knows where it’s going but the ride will be interesting. If you don’t fall off, that is. Image courtesy of kaszeta.

 

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From the inside of the maze, ethically outwards

February 9, 2012

Curious times in the media; strange days at The Times.

Would ‘Dacre Cards‘ – the system of licensing journalists proposed by Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre – have prevented the embarrassment now palpable at the Times over the NightJack story?

Times editor James Harding’s evidence to the Leveson Inquiry seemed heartfelt and contrite, albeit that the paper’s former long-serving and much-respected lawyer, Alastair Brett, seems to have been, er, rather dropped in it. Clearly, mistakes were made with regard to NightJack by young reporter Patrick Foster who, once he had hacked into NightJack’s account and thus discovered his identity, then embarked on a quest to expose it via legitimate methods. This, as Inquiry counsel Robert Jay QC put it, was “rather like working from the inside of the maze out”.

But had Foster been licensed via a Dacre Card, would this unsavoury episode in the Times’s history have been avoided?

We suspect not. A raft of laws were in existence at precisely the time when many News of the World journalists seemed to believe that they were entitled to hack any phone they liked. Those laws forbade them from doing so, and yet made no difference. Aside from the obvious objection to them – that they will squeeze out freelancers and citizen journalists – Dacre Cards would simply amount to something to circumvent.

What is really required is an ethical shake-up, from top to bottom. Society generally – not just journalists – needs a sense that some things are just plain wrong.

Supreme Court on Twitter

February 6, 2012

Something remarkable happened today. Yes, the Supreme Court launched its Twitter feed. It even has a Twitter policy, one of caveats, disclaimers and little by way of illumination but regardless: who would have thought that the successor body to the House of Lords would stoop to engage with the world of tweets, hashtags and retweets?

We look forward to the day when court business will be conducted via Twitter. Meantime, check out this link for an excellent blog on the Supreme Court.

Not so right said Fred

February 2, 2012
fred hat

So Farewell, then, Sir Fred Goodwin.

Now you are just Fred.

Not Right Said Fred, but plain Fred.

The Forfeiture Committee did for you.

No one had heard of it before,

But Dave said it had to act, and it did.

Trouble is that no one knows what to think.

Is it ‘Alas, poor Fred‘,

Or ‘Hurray! Sir Fred is dead!’?

We don’t know.

Do you?

By A. Mob, aged 1,378 and a half.