Media News
Friday, July 03, 2009
Washington Post says publishers’ conference won’t be held
The Washington Post asked lobbyists and business leaders
to pay USD 25,000 to attend a dinner discussion with government officials
and journalists at the home of its publisher, and then canceled the
event after the invitations became public.
The newspaper's executive editor, Marcus Brauchli, said Thursday that no
one in the newsroom had vetted the invitation and its journalists would
not participate. Existence of the flier shows the pitfalls faced by news organizations
trying to find ways to make money in tough business times. The
Washington Post Co.'s newspaper division reported an operating loss of
USD 54m during the first three months of the year. The flier advertised a 'Washington Post salon' on health care reform at
the home of Publisher Katharine Weymouth on July 21, according to a copy
obtained by The Associated Press. The Web site Politico first reported
its existence. The dinner party was to have 20 or fewer guests, including Obama
administration officials, members of Congress, business leaders and
lobbyists, according to the flier. Brauchli and other Post journalists,
including those who cover health care, were promised as hosts and
discussion leaders. Participants were offered a chance to 'build crucial relationships with
Washington Post news executives in a neutral and informal setting,' the
flier said. Each salon would have one or two sponsors who would pay USD 25,000 to
underwrite the event and invite guests. The Post envisioned a series of
11 salons that could be sponsored for a total of USD 250,000. Weymouth on
Thursday canceled the whole series.
(AP)
Other stories:
EJC Press Releases
EJC leads CAR course in Bosnia-Herzegovina
Set in the Bosnia-Herzegovinan city of Mostar, the EJC led its first advanced computer assisted reporting course over three days earlier this month. The project was funded by the Fritt Ord Foundation of Norway and implemented by EJC local partner, Media Centar Sarajevo.
Veteran Aftenposten daily newspaper journalists Jan Gunnar Furuly and Per Anders Johansen led the course. They focused on providing the latest in practical tools to investigative journalists from the West Balkans. The group of 15 was selected specifically by the trainers for their aptitude from three earlier courses run in the region. The journalists were all from print/electronic media from Serbia, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
According to Josh LaPorte, senior project manager at the EJC, there was a good reason to do an advanced course for journalists from the earlier groups: “We wanted to go deeper with this kind of project and really focus on those journalists who are most motivated to do the hard-hitting investigative stories that are so important to maintaining transparency in government and business in the region. The long-term idea is to build up a network of journalists that can be part of the same professional peer group as our trainers.”
Participants discussed recently published investigative pieces and how new online tools such as Twitter, Google maps can couple with database research and self-surveys to deepen and make any news story more relevant.
Working groups were utilised during the seminar so teams could come up with scenarios for tackling new types of investigations, looking into cybercrime, for example, with each team writing mock stories and presenting to the group.
A constant refrain was the lack of resources available to journalists in the Balkans where budgets and salaries are tight. The trainers paid attention to this on the final day, presenting low-cost ways of doing investigations and emphasising the importance of building networks among investigative journalists in the region. They also discussed utilising the region’s new freedom of information laws whenever possible to obtain data from local government institutions free of charge. Other options discussed during this component were organisations that make grants available to journalists in the West Balkans for extended investigative projects, such as Scoop.
A project website will be established to maintain such a network of journalists in the region. A follow-up course for five participants to do an actual investigation in Norway later this year is in the works.
Posted on June 13, 2009 by EJC
Filed under development.
Armenian students awarded Dutch internship
Press freedom is not a given in Armenia, rated No. 151 of the 195 countries analysed in Freedom House’s 2009 Freedom of the Press Index.
So events celebrating journalistic achievement in this landlocked former Soviet state are a big deal. And for five Armenian students, the World Press Freedom Day of 3 May, 2009, brought an opportunity for enrichment of their experiences with journalism.
The students and a duo of professors from Yerevan State University won a study trip and internship programme at the University of Tilburg in the Netherlands.
The award ceremony was held in the Assembly hall of “Vazgenyan” Seminary on the shores of Lake Sevan in central Armenia. The European Journalism Centre and Media and Law Institute organised the afternoon to recognise the outstanding achievements in the second annual Investigative Journalism Competition held among eight leading Armenian universities. The competition is part of the two-year Journalism Practices Enhancement Project, funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Karen Andreasyan, the author of the competition, opened the award ceremony with an overview of the two-month competition. Marjan Tillmans, project manager from the EJC, outlined the impact of the investigative competition on the professional development of the future journalists and lawyers. Speeches from the various project stakeholders followed.
Posted on May 7, 2009 by EJC
Filed under development.
Latest Updates
- Mastering the mobile phone frontier
- Where is Web 2.0 in Ukraine?
- Rowing the slaveships of online journalism
- Covering the G8: EJC prepares Italian journalists to cover L’Aquila summit
- Media Pluralism Monitor unveiled
Interfacing Innovation Podcasts
Hear three innovation experts disclose how to foster creativity, transform ideas into action, contemplate the social impacts of technological innovation. They spoke at the 2009 Interfacing Innovation conference.
Weekly Poll
Upcoming Seminars
- EU External Co-operation in Action: Special focus on Good Governance, Democracy & Peace
- ECFIN briefing for women media
- KPF-EJC FELLOWSHIP PROGRAMME
- Economic Priorities of the Swedish Presidency
- European Neighbourhood Policy: Migration and regional stability
- Press visit of Croatian journalists
- Press visit of Turkish journalists
- Join the NSK-EJC Fellowship Programme
- EU-Russia relations
- EU-Brazil relations
- Subscribe
Media News
Join the 12,000 media professionals who read the EJC's daily media news briefing each day.
Mastering the mobile phone frontier
Mobile news may be called a frontier, but smart content providers are already working in this space. There are popular iPhone applications for Le Monde, The Associated Press and the BBC. This comparison of each app highlights the importance of finding an attractive and simple way to make content available via mobile phones. A clear and consistent mobile strategy cannot be underestimated.
Featured Resource:
The Investigations Fund
Sitting on a story of systematic institutional abuse?
Veteran investigative journalists in England are trying to make sure the breakdown in business models for journalism does not prevent important stories from being told. The group of 12 journalists have started The Investigations Fund, a grant fund launched this month to subsidise investigative journalistic work.
Journalists who have a story in their notebooks begging for serious, considered investigation are invited to apply to the Fund in order to be able to afford to do the work of investigation.
“I think the idea of an investigation usually involves a story where somebody is actively trying to stop you from getting information, be it in high finance or government or politics,” said Nick Davies, one of the journalists supporting the Fund. He contributes to the Guardian and is the author of Flat Earth News.
“And it’s a story that’s important.”
Is there a European blogosphere?
Raymond Frenken asks Th!nkAboutIt.eu bloggers
Recommended
- BLDGBLOG: Resampled Space Belgian photographer Filip Dujardin makes images of unexpected buildings – that is, he "combines photographs of parts of buildings into new, fictional, architectonic structures," Mark Magazine explains.
- Letter from Europe The old compact between writer and reader needs recasting and reinforcing for a new age... It is hard to see how any business model can work unless the reader accepts some basic premises: news is vital to democratic society; it is the oxygen of freedom, the basis of critical decisions; and news costs money.
- Fighting for Internet freedom: Pirate party makes bid for German Parliament The German Pirate Party plans to run in the Bundestag election in September for the first time, and it already has most of the signatures it needs to qualify.
- Internet divides in Russia When variations among various educational and regional groups in Western countries are reported, the Western press speaks of “digital divides.” But these divides are so much deeper in Russia, the Public Opinion Foundation says, that it is better to refer to them as a digital “gulf” or “abyss.”
- Student hoax wins magazine´s top prize Amid its traditional mixture of glossy celebrity and gritty reportage, the magazine Paris Match published this week a searing double-page spread on student poverty in France.
- 5 Must-read online media books Each of these five books either fundamentally changed my outlook or gave me incredibly useful knowledge in my daily work.
- Schibsted’s hidden asset: multiple cultures for its media properties - INMA: Sharing Ideas, Inspiring Change Notes from a visit to the venerable media company Schibsted in Oslo, Norway. As you know, Schibsted is one of the most progressive newsmedia companies in the world.
- Bryanton Post: The best Philippine investigative and explanatory reports of 2008 The country's best investigative and explanatory reports published last year will be recognized this coming June 25 by the Jaime V. Ongpin Awards for Excellence in Journalism, one of the most prestigious journalism awards in the Philippines.
- Don't let yellow press standards define the future of journalism Bloggers have to accept that readers are looking for the rigor of traditional journalists. We have to figure out how to get enough money to do that properly or else do it much more efficiently.
- MySpace slashing two-thirds of international staff Social-networking giant MySpace is cutting 300 international jobs--two-thirds of its workforce outside the United States.
