Main Page Content:
Latest NewsRSS feed
-

Dash or semi-colon? Ban them both

Posted by Dominic Ponsford on 5 May 2009 at 07:00
Tags: Subbing, newspapers

Never mind the debate over the future of the regional press and public service broadcasting. The latest issue of Standpoint magazine has tackled an issue which we journalists can really get stuck into.

It’s the dash versus the semi-colon.

Citing an example from the Sunday Telegraph of the increasing use in journalism of the em-dash, Lionel Shriver writes that it is “a punctuation mark that is raging through contemporary prose as rapaciously as clostridium difficile is contaminating our hospitals…The em-dash is eating semicolons for breakfast.”

And she has a point. I’ve been guilty myself. But no more.

As for the semi-colon, I have to say that I am with Kurt Vonnegut on that one. As he said:

“Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college.”

While I have absolutely nothing against hermaphrodites, I do agree that semi-colons are neither fish nor fowl. And what’s more they are ugly.

They have absolutely no place in a news story, and very little place in a news feature.

Journalists should keep it simple. Commas and full-stops should suffice. Sometimes semi-colons are unavoidable, such as when you are writing complicated lists, but overall they are to be avoided. Especially in, God forbid, intros.

Over-use of the em-dash does encourage a sloppy approach to grammar, so let’s ban them too. Or at least use them a lot less.

-

Press Gazette May issue: A new dawn

Posted by Dominic Ponsford on 1 May 2009 at 17:01
Tags: British Press Awards, Journalism, Press Gazette

At Press Gazette we’ve come to learn that it really ain’t over until the fat lady sings.

So when last month’s announcement that Press Gazette was closing coincided with Susan Boyle’s now legendary appearance on Britain’s Got Talent - the signs appeared ominous.

So I am delighted to be previewing the May issue of the magazine not as our swansong, but as the dawn of a whole new era for Press Gazette - following the news last week that we have been bought by Progressive Media.

pgmay by you.

Apologies for the May issue being a few days late to subscribers - but it should be with everyone by the middle of next week after going to the printers tonight.

Highlights include:

  • Using facebook to go undercover: “Drug dealers were using the site to tout for business…stupid, but a great story.”
  • Peter Kirwan on why the salvation of Press Gazette could light a beacon for the regional press.
  • David Singleton on the culture of “client journalism” in parts of the political media.
  • Jeremy Leslie on the “new ugly” in magazine design.
  • And Peter Sands on how editors can deal with newsroom conflict.

pgmay_2 by you.

There’s also:

  • A souvenir supplement showcasing the award-winning work from the 2009 British Press Awards
  • A farewell interview with outgoing Press Complaints Commission Chairman Sir Christopher Meyer in which he hits back at suggestions that the PCC cannot survive the lawless online age.
  • McCanns’ spokesman Clarence Mitchell reflects on life two years after the three-year-old’s disappearance in Portugal.
  • BBC magazines boss Peter Phippen explains why the future is bright for the magazine industry.

To subscribe to Press Gazette call CDS Global on 01858 438872.

-

Burnham: Do not let big regional news players squash competition

Posted by Dominic Ponsford on 30 April 2009 at 12:46
Tags: Journalism, Journalists, regional newspapers

Culture secretary Andy Burnham must have the most challenging in-box of just about any government minister at present – with the possible exception of chancellor Alastair Darling.

He is simultaneously facing a meltdown in the regional newspaper industry coupled with ITV’s wholesale retreat from regional news and a massive question mark over the whole viability of public service broadcasting outside the BBC in the post analogue TV age. That’s without even mentioning the many problems facing commercial radio.

So far there has only been fairly vague talk from the government about what it can do to tackle these various problems.

And as Grey Cardigan once aptly put it “fine words butter no parsnips”.

But when he gave Press Gazette an exclusive interview following this week’s Local Media Summit at Westminster he persuaded this correspondent at least that his government really is intent on taking action to help save the regional news industry.

He knows regional newspapers particularly well, he explained, having worked on a local newspaper for free as his first job out of university.

Burnham insisted said that he and all MPs are acutely aware that without local newspapers, democratic accountability collapses.

It seems likely that the government will do something to bolster local newspapers through the rules over the placing of statutory advertising notices. And movement is also expected soon on merger and competition rules.

One of the big questions is the extent to which the government acts to help the big regional press players – such as Trinity, Johnston Press, Newsquest and Northcliffe – and how much it looks to foster new mini-media projects, run by individual journalists.

I’m deeply suspicious of the big regional newspaper players’ calls to do away with regulation.

Former Johnston Press chairman Roger Parry told me last month that there was no case in editorial terms for saying that regional press mergers will harm plurality of coverage.

He said: “Every piece of evidence demonstrates that local editors remain locally autonomous.”

Yet just the next day it emerged that the long-serving group editors of his company’s Eastbourne and Hastings-based local newspaper groups had both been sacked to be replaced by a group managing director from another part of the country.

The fear that the big regional newspaper groups aren’t the best custodians of local journalism comes from the fact that even in the boom years they cut editorial costs to the bone in pursuit of ever higher profit margins of 30 per cent plus.

Many believe that private owners who are more committed to journalism and their local communities - and who are willing to invest while taking out sustainable profits - would be a better bet.

It may be that it takes companies with the clout of Trinity Mirror and Johnston Press to make the investment needed to create new multimedia newsrooms – as they are doing in places like Birmingham and Preston.

But I hope that Burnham and the Office of Fair Trading ensure they protect smaller independent local news players when they reform press merger and competition rules.

The big regional newspaper groups are used to playing hardball when it comes to competition – and it would be a tragedy if they were allowed to squash the many new local news start-ups which are bound to follow as a result of their current retreat from many communities.

-

Press Gazette

Posted by Dominic Ponsford on 15 April 2009 at 11:26
Tags: Journalism, Press Gazette

After 43 years in print, the May edition of Press Gazette is set to be the last issue of the only independent magazine for British journalists.

Following parent company Wilmington’s announcement last week, there will be no news stories added to this website until further notice.

Wilmington does however plan to continue to run the British Press Awards and similar events, and there are also plans to add new community functionality to this site.

The archive of news stories, features, photos, blog posts, audio and video will continue to be accessible - and it remains an awesome resource for anyone interested in UK journalism.

Working for Press Gazette over the past six years - the last two of which as editor - has given me a ringside seat for the most dramatic changes in British media since Caxton set up his first printing press in Westminster more than 500 years ago.

And more than being just a spectator, Press Gazette has itself plunged into the information revolution.
Just over a year ago we launched our news aggregation blog The Wire - based on the principle that with limited resources you report everything you can on your website and then point to the rest.

Then in August, the magazine went monthly and the news team focussed purely on breaking news online, helped by a new roster of bloggers.

Subscriptions increased despite the annual subs fee staying the same following the move from weekly to monthly.

Meanwhile, web traffic has increased rapidly, typically up by more than 50 per cent year on year to as many as 150,000 unique users a month.

All this unfortunately failed to restore the fortunes of the magazine, prompting the publishers to decide to close it.

The success of the webste was in large part down to the efforts of our incredibly hard-working news editor, Paul McNally, helped by determined news reporter Owen Amos.

Big thanks are also due to deputy editor Julie Tomlin and associate editor (production) Pamela Horne whose talents and professionalism have kept up the high standard of the print magazine.

-

British Press Awards 2009: Follow the action online

Posted by Dominic Ponsford on 30 March 2009 at 12:45
Tags: British Press Awards, National Newspapers, Press Gazette

For those who can’t make it to Grosvenor House tomorrow night for the British Press Awards, Press Gazette will be pulling out all the stops to provide unrivalled online coverage.

On the night, we will be revealing the winners minute-by-minute on a special British Press Awards blog. You can follow this on our news blog The Wire.

The winners will be announced from around 9pm onwards, culminating with the premiere awards of international journalist of the year, journalist of the year and newspaper of the year at around 10.45pm.

We will also be putting up more detailed reports with photos from the night on the main Press Gazette homepage.

And we plan to have video reports from the night up the following day on the British Press Awards microsite - with the help of our partners Silverstream TV.

It looks set to be a great night - hosted by Jon Snow, with special guest Vince Cable MP and entertainment from glamorous classical quartet Escala.

There were 540 entries representing all the UK national newspaper groups and they have been judged by more than 80 leading journalists.

Around 700 are expected to attend tomorrow night’s ceremony, making it the biggest event in Fleet Street’s social calendar.

They will be celebrating award-winning work which may not be making bumper profits, at the present anyway - but which is fuelling a readership boom the likes of which Fleet Street has never seen before, as last week’s ABCe figures show.

The 22 awards categories recognise the full range of journalistic excellence - from young journalist of the year to newspaper of the year.

And it will be fascinating to find out which of the finalists have been singled out by the judges as the best of the best.

3.15pm update:

To receive updates via Twitter - you need to follow bpa2009.

-

Without regional press journalism will lose its foundation

Posted by Dominic Ponsford on 25 March 2009 at 09:48
Tags: Journalism, Journalists, local, newspapers, regional newspapers

Regional press journalists aren’t just essential to ensure that local democracy works – they are the foundation of our national journalism network.

In fact they are a big part of enabling us to know anything about day-to-day national life at all.

That’s why the Newspaper Society and the Society of Editors’ plea for Government action to help local papers matters so much, as does the NUJ’s lobby of MPs at Westminster today.

At least 1,000 editorial jobs have been lost from UK local newspapers since the summer. The last time the Newspaper Society counted up the number of local newspaper journalists, several years ago, there were around 12,000 of them.

That total could well now be below 10,000.

They are the foot-soldiers of our industry and the source of much of the news every other journalist covers.

In terms of local coverage, no other sector does anything like as much work to tell us what is going on.

Local paper reporters attend the meetings, answer the phones and knock on the doors to break the stories which are followed-up by local radio and TV, and flogged on by the news agencies to the national press.

Without them, these stories just won’t get told.

In a big town like, say, Swindon where I used to work, the local daily and weekly papers might employ 20 journalists as opposed to maybe one TV reporter, a couple of radio reporters and one or two agency hacks.

Every local paper journalist who loses their job means there will be more council meetings subject to no media scrutiny, more scandals and cock-ups from big business and local authorities which are not exposed and countless stories covering the gamut of everyday life in the UK which are never told because there was no-one there to look for them.

In addition to the big headline-grabbing cutbacks at the bigger news centres – countless piecemeal job cuts are being made at Britain’s 1,300-odd local weeklies, each one of which is a little tragedy.

A friend from the regional press recently told me about the cutbacks at his newspaper office.

All the subs have gone, as has the long-serving editor who, asked to re-apply for a group managing editor role, missed out in favour of the managing director.

A handful of reporters are left, filing stories into the ether to be laid out at a remote subbing production plant more than 50 miles away to be stretched over four newspaper titles.

It’s difficult to understand why the big local press publishers feel it necessary to make such drastic cutbacks across the board, when we have yet to see one report an actual loss. Profits are down, but not out, and they could yet return.

Presumably, titles have slipped into the red in recent months and that has yet to be reflected in reported profits.

But even so, to say: “We’ve had a century of enormous profits, but lost money for the last few months, so let’s sack everyone”, seems particularly cut-throat.

Government action is urgently needed to save the regional press, but in return the publishers need to look again at a business model which has always been about extracting the maximum possible profit return from the minimum editorial expenditure.

If the regional press is to have a future publishers need to abandon the impossible quest for perputual profit margins of 30 per cent plus, in favour of a more sustainable business model which delivers sensible profit margins built on the back of solid editorial investment.

-

April highlights from Press Gazette magazine

Posted by Dominic Ponsford on 24 March 2009 at 12:50
Tags: Press Gazette

pg_april_2009_front by you.

Here’s a snapshot of the best bits from this month’s mag:

(Click here for a multimedia version of this preview)

We take a look at one of the toughest journalism sectors - regional dailies - and find out why, despite sliding sales and disappearing ad incomes, editors believe they do have a future.

We find out why customer magazines could be the best place for journalists to ride out the recession, in a special report on the sector.

Tabloid hack turned would-be global web entrepreneur Rob McGibbon takes us through a year in the life of his online start-up Access Interviews.

Outgoing Sunday Times magazine editor Robin Morgan takes aim at the pernicious influence of celebrity PR and reveals why editors are wrong to neglect on-the-ground reporting in favour of comment.

Design expert Michael Crozier provides a guide to the best-designed newspapers in the world.

We have a breathtaking photography spread from World Press Photo winner Mashid Mohadjerin - who reveals the secrets behind her award-winning shots.

Lawyer Christina Michalos provides a guide for journalists on the legal pitfalls of using Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites.

Wired UK editor David Rowan privides a guide to his must-have high-tech tools for journalists.

There’s also an eight-page Reporters’ Guide to Obesity - and a guide for journalists on how to make the best use of PR distribution services.

As usual we have exclusive mag-only columns from David Banks, Axegrinder, Grey Cardigan, Daisy McAndrew, David Singleton, Peter Kirwan and Popbitch editor Camilla Wright.

Other regulars include our two-page freelance section and three pages of insider training and tips in The Knowledge.

All of this content is only available to Press Gazette magazine subscribers.

To get hold of a copy you need to call 01858 438872 and quote WDO1 to order 12 issues for £115. Or click here to subscribe online.

-

Regional press cuts savage but not the end of the world

Posted by Dominic Ponsford on 16 March 2009 at 10:32
Tags: Johnston Press, Journalism, newspapers, regional, regional newspapers

Jon Slattery paints a grim picture of life today in the regional press in today’s Media Guardian cover story.

More than 900 regional press journalists made redundant since July, an industry “being butchered by some international newspaper conglomorates” as one ex-editor puts it and journalists losing their jobs wondering “where the hell do we go from here?”.

We live in tough times indeed. And it is particularly galling that these jobs cuts in the regions come despite the fact that supposedly hard-hit companies like Johnston Press are still making big profits (albeit dramatically lower ones than last year).

Johnston’s profits of £128.4m (a margin of 24.1 per cent) would be considered very healthy by most businesses in the current climate.

But despite the job cuts and the downsizing, this is not the end of life in the regional press.

If you doubled the NUJ estimate of 900 editorial redundancies, to include non-replacement, if as many as 2,000 journalists had gone in the regional press - that would make up perhaps as many as 20 per cent of the editorial workforce. A savage reduction - but not an apocalyptic one - and probably comparable to cutbacks experienced in many other industries hit by the current recession.

Journalists made redundant fear for their futures. One tells Slattery: “There’s simply nothing out there.”

But although the job market may be tough at present, I’d argue that most journalists will probably find themselves much better paid jobs in the long term.

The skills they have learned in the newsroom - negotiation, writing, management, interviewing, organisation - will equip them well for all sorts of new career opportunities, if they decide to leave the profession. The senior ranks of politics, PR, academia and many other industries are filled with ex-journalists.

As to where do we go from here?

These cutbacks come at a time when technology has made the cost of becoming a publisher cheaper than ever before - online and in print.

The big publishers are retreating from the communities their newspapers have served, often for more than a century. But people still need news, they still need to buy and sell things - and in an increasingly fragmented world there will be more value than ever placed on media which can deliver big audiences (or small audiences which represent a large proportion of a community).

The current stock market model of local newspaper ownership may well be failing - as companies eat themselves in order to satisfy short-term profit targets.

This could provide an opportunity for more locally owned and managed regional media to emerge.

-

Press Gazette magazine: Time to end the cutting culture

Posted by Dominic Ponsford on 23 February 2009 at 12:30
Tags: Journalism, Law

Sometimes you have to have to amputate a limb to save the patient – at least that’s what editors tell themselves when they are forced to make drastic cuts to their editorial teams.

Major surgery has been going on at news organisations across the country over the last six months.

Just totting up the big announcements – we’ve found that more than 1,000 journalists’ jobs have been cut.

Now the worst of the bloodletting appears to be over – Press Gazette devotes much of its March issue to looking for alternatives to the cutting culture. Contributors include Trinity Mirror regionals boss Georgina Harvey, Flat Earth News author Nick Davies, David Newell of the Newspaper Society, NUJ general secretary Jeremy Dear, journalism professor Peter Cole and former B2B chief executive Neil Thackray.

pg_march_front by you.

Also in this month’s issue:

Media Money columnist Peter Kirwan says the time has come for the NUJ to stop looking for someone to blame for the problems affecting journalism – and start coming up with solutions:
”Our industry’s mad experiment with financial engineering has become a sunk cost for our profession. Exposing it won’t change anything.”

Grey Cardigan tries his hand at a spot of search engine optimisation (although why he is doing it in a column which only appears in print beats me).

David Banks discusses the rights and wrongs of the G-word and reports on an innovative new micro-publishing venture based in his spare bedroom.

Investigative journalist Brian Deer explains why MMR was his Watergate – and why the sort of journalism he does isn’t possible if you are on the staff.

In gadgets – we provide a guide to the best laptops for reporters and photographers on all budgets.

Photographer Mark Ribaud talks us through some of the best images from his remarkable career – and reveals why the brand of camera you use is “completely irrelevant” to getting great pictures.

In the Freelance section there is a guide to boosting your online profile, and David Parsley grapples with the problem of dealing with late payments.

In The Knowledge, Paul Sutherland explains how he broke the world exclusive news that there was water – and therefore quite possibly life – on Mars.

Editor of Little White Lies Matt Bochenski provides a masterclass on writing film reviews.

And Peter Sands provides a guide for editors on how to restructure their newsrooms.

To mark International Women’s Day – Julie Tomlin talks to five female journalists from five different decades, including former Daily Mirror associate editor Felicity Green, Anne Pickles from the Yorkshire Evening Post and Guardian deputy editor Katharine Viner.

We talk to the editors of BBC Newsround, Radio 1 Newsbeat and children’s newspaper First News about getting young people interested in news.

There’s also two pages of reports from our Media Law conference – including four indispensable tips to help ensure a big libel claim isn’t added to your recession woes.

This is just a snapshot of the March print edition of Press Gazette.

To read the whole thing you have to subscribe.

To get hold of a copy you need to call 01858 438872 and quote WDO1 to order 12 issues for £115. Or click here to subscribe online.

For a slideshow with audio commentary previewing the new magazine - click here.

-

NoW and Sunday Mirror trade bragging rights over Jade Goody splash

Posted by Dominic Ponsford on 15 February 2009 at 23:27
Tags: Journalism

I was somewhat dismayed to see both the News of the World and the Sunday Mirror have on their front pages the first ‘exclusive’ interviews with Jade Goody since she was told her cancer was apparently fatal.

The NoW was the only title to have an exclusive official interview with Goody - while the Sunday Mirror and other titles played catch up with the story.

I think it gives the impression of crass insensitivity to be trading front-page bragging rights over such a sad story - with the ‘exclusive’ tag.

Jade has every right to deal with her private troubles publicly - just as many journalists over the years have dealt with cancer and other illnesses by writing regular columns and blogs.

Hers is a story which has enormous interest for tabloid readers and deserves to be told. But I fear the red-tops got the tone wrong with the way they displayed the story today.

Previous Posts |

-

Advertisement

E-mail Newsletter Signup

-

Advertisement

-

Advertisement