In this week’s Press Gazette – Journalism Weekly (click here to subscribe)
1. Daily Sport set for print relaunch. Grant Miller, the entrepreneur who bought the tabloid from administration in 2011, tells Press Gazette about plans to relaunch the paper as a free newspaper next year.
“We are still in discussions with various stockists for a relaunch as a free paper and hope to make a further announcement by the end of 2012. Online has been phenomenally successful with free sport and babes so we’ll be looking to replicate our current success.”
3. Lebedev titles to take on teenagers. The Evening Standard and Independent titles reveal plans to take on at least three year school-leaver apprentices who will be employed on a ‘living wage’ of £8.55 per hour. Managing editor Doug Wills says:
“This is rather back to the future – not dissimilar to the old indentures,”
4. ‘The brightest journalist of his generation’. Ian Skidmore pays tribute to former Leicester Mercury editor Neville Stack.
"He died as he lived – writing on a keyboard and endlessly giving himself for the good of others."
6. NUJ comes under attack over regulation stance. A difficult year for the National Union of Journalists took another twist this week when it found itself under attack over its divisive stance on press regulation. Here, we look at the background to this week’s furore.
8. BBC should be ashamed by what has clearly gone on. Ex-BBC correspondent Michael Cole on scenes of abandon at the BBC “that might have made Caligula blush”.
Savile was often in the Club. I found his public adulation of his old mum, “The Duchess”, a bit creepy but there was no shortage of odd people wandering around television centre then. I interviewed Savile once. Any probing question made him immediately defensive.
9. Kimmage in legal fightback againsy UCI. Former Sunday Times journalist Paul Kimmage has lodged a criminal complaint against International Cycling Union (UCI) president Pat McQuaid and honorary president Hein Verbruggen in a move which will subject the leadership of the world governing body to further scrutiny.
“I have initiated these proceedings not for myself – this is not about Paul Kimmage, but on behalf of the whistle blowers – Stephen Swart, Frankie Andreu, Floyd Landis, Christophe Bassons, Nicolas Aubier, Gilles Delion, Graeme Obree and every other cyclist who stood up for truth and the sport they loved and were dismissed as ‘cowards’ and ‘scumbags’ by Verbruggen and McQuaid.”
10. The cheeky, sceptical press has been hated by our ruling cadre for decades. The Daily Mail’s Quentin Letts writes exclusively for Press Gazette on the political fallout from the Leveson Inquiry.
Yes, politics has been threaded through all this the way fat marbles good beef. It is political in the way it has been covered by the hyperactive Beeb and their friends at The Guardian and (does anyone still read it now Simon Carr has gone?) The Independent.
Biff the right-wing inkies. Tear down Rupert and his transatlantic son. Screw Cameron. I don’t recall the BBC giving the Hutton Inquiry or the Iraq Inquiry and certainly not the cash-for-peerages episode nearly this level of coverage. Quelle surprise.
12. We are not backing state control of the press – far from it. Michelle Stanistreet hits back at her detractors over the union’s controversial stance on press regulation.
"So The Sun genuinely believes the NUJ is backing Stalinist-style state control of the press? That the NUJ is hellbent on surrendering centuries of hard-won press freedom because what we really want is a Zimbabwe-style clampdown on free speech, where journalists are routinely monstered by Mugabe-esque state stooges dictating what can or can’t appear in the pages of our press?
"That as general secretary of the NUJ, I’ve now officially reached the dizzy heights of the most dangerous union leader in Britain?"
13. NUJ must hold ballot on state regulation. NUJ activist Chris Wheal makes the case for a referendum on members over the union’s backing for statutory underpinning to press regulation.
"The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) must ballot its members over whether or not to support statutory regulation (or regulation underpinned by statute). It must announce that referendum now to stop members resigning."
14. Ireland has not gone the way of Zimbabwe. Seamus Dooley, the secretary of the NUJ in Ireland, makes a fervent defence of the Irish model of press regulation.
"The NUJ does not favour statutory regulation of the media. Not in the UK. Not in the Republic of Ireland. Not anywhere. We do not have statutory regulation of the newspaper industry in Ireland and no matter how many times the word is mangled by those who oppose change to the current flawed UK system – or advocates of a PCC Mark 2 – statutory underpinning does not mean state control."
16. I hear tutor’s voices in the field working for ITV News. Rohit Kachroo was sponsored by Carlton Television to do a postgraduate course in broadcast journalism at Cardiff University and was later named Young Journalist of the Year at the Royal Television Awards. .Here he shares his tips on breaking into the industry.
"Most post-graduate journalism courses cost several thousand pounds. It’s a huge outlay to make, particularly when many news organisations are shrinking rather than growing their workforces, and so there are far fewer opportunities for newcomers to journalism."
"It is, however, a useful test of your passion for journalism: are you willing to spend thousands of pounds to pursue a career in this field, or would you rather do a job that may be better paid but, perhaps, less fulfilling?"
18. Ofcom rules against Russian Channel for Syria conflict report. Ofcom has ruled that a government- owned Russian television station breached the broadcasting code in its coverage of a conflict in Syria.
Russia Today (RT), which broadcasts on Sky in the UK, was found to have breached guidelines on accuracy and impartiality.
19. Barrister-turned-freelance: Australia beats Milton Keynes Country Court. Freelance of the week Patricia Carswell tells Press Gazette:
"I’ve been self-employed for most of my working life, so when I started writing for a living it actually never occurred to me to get a proper job.
"Working from home can make you slightly eccentric, though, especially when you live in the depths of a Welsh valley, so I try to get out and about fairly regularly to keep me sane."
24. Axegrinder: Not a mice situation at Express offices. The Express Newspapers offices on Lower Thames Street are infected with vermin (namely mice) and pest control can do nothing about the problem because hard-working hacks are lunching at their desks.
The situation has got so bad that Environmental Health have paid a visit to the offices after being tipped off by a fed-up staffer.
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