Hull City Council monthly mag goes out of print

Hull City Council has axed its monthly magazine Hull in print in a cost saving move and says the way forward is online.

The decision to scrap Hull in print fits in with Government plans to restrict council publications to quarterly publication after complaints that they were unfair competition for the local press.

Hull in print says on its website: "This is the last issue of Hull in print after a decision was taken to cease production as a way of helping the council to meet savings targets of £65 million. However the good news is that you can still get all the same information and more on the council's website."

• HoldtheFrontPage reports that Hammersmith and Fulham Council has axed its fortnightly H&F News and agreed a six-year deal with the Fulham and Hammersmith Chronicle to publish public notices and other adverts in the paper.

Sun goes to war with Cameron on defence cuts

The Sun today gives David Cameron the same front page treatment it gave the Labour government in August 2009 (top right) in strong criticism of defence cuts at a time when the armed forces are involved in actions in Libya and Afghanistan.

The Sun says on its front page: "David Cameron was blasted last night for hailing the bravery of RAF Top Guns over Libya - just as forces heroes were sacked back home."

In a leader it says: "David Cameron has embarked on his own Mission Impossible in trying to sell Britain the need for sharp troop reductions when we are fighting two wars... The spectacle of a Prime Minister slashing the Armed Forces even as he commits them to more fighting is utterly bizarre."

The Sun is encouraging comments from readers and suggesting the Government cuts its overseas aid budget rather than defence spending.

The 2009 Sun front page slammed Labour over its handling of the war in Afghanistan and urged Gordon Brown to sack defence secretary Bob Ainsworth.

Galleon on Moon: Grubbe goes Sunday Sport

Gentleman journalist Tobias Grubbe, the creation of Michael Cross and Matthew Buck, features a Sunday Sport-style London Gazette today on telegraph.co.uk. Top tales are: Galleon spotted on the moon, "my house looks like Count Richelieu" and a boy kidnapped by finger of herring.

Beckett: 'The scandal the nationals won't touch'

Francis Beckett has a tantalising post on his blog, headlined : "The scandal the nationals won't touch".

Beckett, who is a spokesman for the Fire Brigades Union, claims the national press is "hardly touching" the financial problems and controversies surrounding AssetCo, a company with multi million pound contracts to own and maintain all London's and Lincolshire's fire engines.

Beckett says: "If it [AssetCo] goes under, we could lose all our fire engines to the company's creditors. The London Fire Brigade says there's a clause in the contract which protects the fire engines - but it won't show us the clause. When it eventually, unwillingly, released the contract, the relevant clause was 'redacted'."

He argues the story is getting little national publicity because the demise of labour and industrial correspondents means the story is ending up on city desks.

Beckett says: "City journalists are terrified of writing anything which might bring down a company's share price. They are also instinctively unwilling to take anything from a trade union, and it's the Fire Brigades Union which helped expose this story. When there were industrial corrs, they'd say: 'It comes from the union - but it's a good story.' Now city desks say: 'It's a good story - but it comes from the unions'."

'Scandal-hungry media don't care about privacy'

Columnist Libby Purves in The Times today argues that the moral case over privacy is "gleefully ignored by scandal-hungry media which don’t give a damn about the boundary between private and public."

She claims: "There is no moral value whatsoever in the tabloid theory that once somebody has mentioned their personal life or marriage in an interview or memoir, they lose for ever the right to keep anything to themselves. That is like saying that because you once had dental treatment, anybody may kick your teeth in.

"Many stories printed about individuals, not just famous ones, constitute in morality (not law) a kind of mental trespass. Almost an assault."

Purves, in reference to privacy injunctions, adds: "The whole area is a mess, not least because both sides behave badly. Weaselling celebrities and companies with their tame judges are doing something very wrong; but so are media who profit by revealing things that aren’t our business. For legal improvements we can campaign; but when it comes to journalism, alas, the only remedy is the market. If prurient gossip didn’t sell papers and draw mouse-clicks, it wouldn’t happen."

• The Times is behind a paywall.
• The Times has run a leader criticising the increasing number of super-injunctions protecting privacy (see post below).
  

Porter wants commission on privacy and freedom of speech following 'hyperinjunction' revelations

Observer commentator Henry Porter, looking at the increasing number of gagging orders on the press, has called for a commission to investigate the competing interests of privacy and freedom of speech.

Porter says the revelation by the Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming of a new breed of "hyperinjunction", which forbids the recipient talking about it to MPs, is one of the most disturbing developments in the contest between legitimate privacy and the need for open justice.

He writes: "In an age when accusations can be made anonymously on the internet, ways have to be found to guarantee privacy and provide protection from malicious allegations, but these oppressive court orders are not the answer. As the Times said, there are at least 30 orders blocking publicity in high-profile cases, as well as a new type of order – the hyperinjunction – which affects parliamentary privilege by preventing discussion between an MP and his constituent."

Porter concludes: "We need a commission to investigate the interests of privacy and freedom of speech and a commitment from the government to act on its findings in a way that preserves so many different virtues of British life. It will be terribly hard but parliament needs to concern itself with more than the day-to-day argument over cuts and this issue is crying out for a creative and intelligent collaboration from all our legislators."

• The Times said in a leader on Saturday: "It is beyond time that this tide of secrecy was reversed. Even Donald Rumsfeld would be shocked at how the British public are being kept in the dark. As judges grant more super-injunctions to frisky millionaire footballers, high-flying bankers and tycoons that enable these men (and they are mostly men) to shield their affairs from the public’s gaze — for no better reason than that it would embarrass them, or might dent their sponsorship deals were their affairs to come to light — the public not only don’t know who these people are, they don’t even know they don’t know."
• The Times in a news story estimated: "The rich and famous have won at least 30 “gagging” orders blocking publicity about their private lives from being exposed in the media. . . In a sign that the courts are becoming increasingly sympathetic to celebrities, sportsmen and high-profile businessmen, eight of the orders have been granted in the past three months alone." (The Times is behind a paywall.)
  

Orwell Prize: Nominated bloggers and journalists

Organisers of the annual Orwell Prize have announced that 22 bloggers, rather than the usual 12, have been longlisted from a record 205 entries by judges David Allen Green, who blogs as Jack of Kent, and Gaby Hinsliff, journalist, blogger and former political editor of The Observer.

The longlisted bloggers are:

Adam Wagner: UK Human Rights Blog (http://ukhumanrightsblog.com)

Andrew Sparrow: Politics Live with Andrew Sparrow (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/series/politics-live-with-andrew-sparrow)

Anton Vowl: Enemies of Reason (http://enemiesofreason.co.uk)

Carl Gardner: Head of Legal (www.headoflegal.com); and Comment is Free, The Wardman Wire, Anglotopia.

Cath Elliott: Too Much To Say For Myself (http://toomuchtosayformyself.com/); and Liberal Conspiracy, Comment is Free.

Cathy Newman: The FactCheck Blog – Channel 4 News (http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/)

Crispian Jago: Science, Reason & Critical Thinking (http://crispian-jago.blogspot.com/)

Dan Hodges: Labour Uncut (http://labour-uncut.co.uk)

Daniel Hannan: Daniel Hannan – Telegraph Blogs (www.hannan.co.uk)

David Osler: David Osler (http://www.davidosler.com/) and Liberal Conspiracy.

Dr Petra: Dr Petra’s Blog (http://www.drpetra.co.uk/blog)

Duncan McLaren: Visiting Mabel (http://www.saga.co.uk/health/carers/blog/visiting-mabel/archive.asp)

Graeme Archer: ConservativeHome (http://conservativehome.blogs.com/centreright/graeme_archer/index.html)

Heresiarch: Heresy Corner (http://heresycorner.blogspot.com)

Juliet Jacques: A Transgender Journey (http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/series/transgender-journey)

Molly Bennett: Mid-Wife Crisis (http://mid-wife-crisis-blog.blogspot.com/)

Osama Diab: The Chronikler (http://chronikler.com/) and Comment is Free, New Statesman, Worldpress.

Paul Mason: Idle Scrawl – BBC Newsnight (www.bbc.co.uk/paulmason)

Paul Waugh: Paul Waugh (http://waugh.standard.co.uk) and The Waugh Room (http://www.politicshome.com/waughroom.html)

Penny Red: Laurie Penny – pop culture and radical politics with a feminist twist (http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/laurie-penny)

Prisoner Ben: Ben’s Prison Blog (http://prisonerben.blogspot.com/)

Sunder Katwala: Next Left (http://www.nextleft.org/) and Left Foot Forward, The Staggers (New Statesman).

Andrew Sparrow and Paul Mason were both shortlisted for the first Orwell Blog Prize in 2009 (Mason was also cited when Newsnight was presented with a Special Prize in 2007), while David Osler (longlisted last year), Heresiarch (longlisted in 2009) and Penny Red (Laurie Penny, shortlisted last year) make the longlist for a second time. Cathy Newman was longlisted for last year’s Journalism Prize.

Director of the Orwell Prize, Jean Seaton, said: "Blogging is evolving under our eyes, its purposes shifting. Public service watchdog? Clever reporting from new spaces in the political process? Telling it like it is in uncomfortable places? Different blogs are all of those and other things: it’s an increasingly sophisticated world.

This year’s longlist of 15 journalists (rather than the usual 12) for the Journalism Prize has come from a record field of 87 journalists.

The longlisted journalists are: Rory Carroll, The Guardian; The Observer; David Cohen, Evening Standard; Phillip Collins, The Times; David Gardner, Financial Times; Amelia Gentleman, The Guardian; Andrew Gilligan, Sunday Telegraph; Channel 4; The Guardian; The Spectator; Dominic Lawson, The Independent; Catherine Mayer, TIME; Douglas Murray, Standpoint; The Spectator; Literary Review; Wall Street Journal Europe; Gideon Rachman, Financial Times;Jenni Russell, Sunday Times; The Guardian; Rachel Shabi, The Guardian; Jack Shenker, Prospect; Guernica; The Observer; The Guardian; New Statesman; Jonathan Steele, The Guardian; London Review of Books; DeclanWalsh, The Guardian; Granta.

This year’s shortlists will be announced on 26th April, before a debate on the question, ‘Is it time to make monarchy history?’. The winners of the Orwell Prizes – each worth £3000 – will be announced at an awards ceremony at Church House, Westminster, on 18th May.