Dog eats dog: Mail approaches NoW advertisers

The publisher of the Mail on Sunday is offering to help advertisers and newspaper retailers move business away from News International, publisher of the News of the World, underlining the commercial threat from the escalating phone-hacking scandal, according to a blog post by Sky News' City editor Mark Kleinman.

He writes: "An email sent yesterday by sales executives at Associated Newspapers offered to 'work with' advertisers and major retailers in the event that they 'want to follow public opinion and boycott the News of the World completely'."

Kleinman adds: "It's clear that the Mail publisher is tapping into a potentially significant commercial opportunity given the widespread public revulsion over allegations that NoW journalists accessed the voicemails of murder victims and the families of dead soldiers."

• Another Matt cartoon in the Telegraph today on the battered image of the press shows a dog turning his nose up at a newspaper.

Some newspapers are still popular on Merseyside

Liverpool has recognised the contribution to the life of the city made by its two daily newspapers and paid tribute to the work of generations of journalists.

The Echo and Daily Post have been granted the Freedom of Liverpool, marking 200 years since the first newspaper printed in the city, the Liverpool Mercury, rolled off the press. It was later acquired and merged with the Daily Post following its 1855 launch. The Echo, which came later has been in print for 132 years.

The official investiture, attended by civic dignitaries and community leaders from all over Merseyside, was staged in the atrium of the newspapers' building in Old Hall Street.

Trinity Mirror regional managing director Warren Butcher officially signed-in to the Roll of Honour watched by Echo editor Alastair Machray and Daily Post editor Mark Thomas.

Looking on were long-serving members of staff Maria Breslin, Val Woan, Peter Grant and Joe Riley.

Lord Mayor of Liverpool, Cllr Frank Prendergast presented an illuminated scroll to mark the occasion. He said: "The Post and Echo have both run valuable campaigns which have made a real difference to people's lives."

Echo editor Alastair Machray said that both the Post and Echo have a wonderful future in store as "trusted brands". He added: "Our future prosperity and success is linked to that of this city region. We are the LIVERPOOL Echo. We are the LIVERPOOL Daily Post. We are here for the long haul.

" I promise that we will continue to fight on its behalf. Here's to the next two hundred years!"

• Pic: Echo editor Alastair Machray and Daily Post editor Mark Thomas
• Pic and copy Mercury Press.

Tower Hamlets Cabinet to review East End Life

Councillors at Tower Hamlets have referred the decision to keep the council’s weekly East End Life paper back to the decision-making Cabinet, the East London Advertiser has reported.

At the Council’s overview and scrutiny meeting on Tuesday, seven out of eight committee members voted in favour of sending the decision to carry on with the weekly publication back to cabinet for an independent and impartial review.

Addressing the committee, the Conservatives’ David Snowdon branded the cabinet’s decision to keep East End Life on a weekly basis “unlawful” in light of new government guidelines, stipulating that council titles should go quarterly.

Cllr Snowdon said: “The council can’t just pick and choose which regulations to stick to and sweep others under the carpet.”

The East London Advertiser also reports that he told the meeting that the costs of producing East End Life, estimated at £1.5 million a year, were “flawed”. He suggested that savings that could be made on office rental, IT and HR by closing down the freesheet were not included in the report, along with competitive advertising quotes for putting council notices in other publications instead, such as the East London Advertiser.

Along with Labour councillors he went on to say that the council’s review into East End Life, led by its own communications chief Takki Sulaiman, was neither independent nor impartial.

But defending the report, Sulaiman said they felt East End Life was the best way of reaching residents in the “most cost-effective way”.

And addressing the committee Independent cabinet member Alibor Choudhury argued that the report had been “objective” and “impartial”. He said some editorial changes are being made and £200,000 is being cut from the freesheet’s budget.

Via the Newspaper Society

'Don't blame all the press for hacking scandal'

The Independent today argues that MPs' indignation over phone hacking by the News of the World has led to the inference that the whole of journalism, and the press in particular, was defined by such reprehensible practices.

The paper says in a leader: "That slur – and it is a slur – needs to be scotched before it becomes a new verity, drawing to itself all manner of calls for tougher regulation and restrictions. There was more than a sense, too, that some MPs were seeking vengeance for the exposure of the expenses scandal.

"It is probably not reasonable to believe that phone hacking and other unethical and illegal practices were restricted either to the News of the World or to the News Corp stable. The chairman of the Commons culture, media and sport select committee, John Whittingdale, spread the net somewhat wider in yesterday's debate.

"But he also allowed that, just as the expenses scandal had tainted all MPs, even though many had not abused the system, so many journalists were appalled about the activities of some members of their profession.

"We were, and we are. But it is also crucial to defend the honour of this and other newspapers, especially at a time when the press as a whole is coming under acute financial pressure. Most journalists and most newspapers well know the difference between ethical and unethical, legal and illegal, right and wrong.

It adds: "Let's not forget that it was not only the MPs' expenses scandal that newspapers exposed, but the phone hacking whose ramifications are being minutely chronicled in some newspapers, including this one, even as others did their utmost to keep it under wraps.Freedom and responsibility in the British media turn bad only when cut-throat ambition spawns illegality and when journalists or proprietors neglect their responsibility to keep a distance from power.

"What the phone-hacking scandal has shown, as it has evolved, is that – for all the scum that sticks to some journalism – Britain still has a free, independent and ethical press, and it remains as essential to the nation's wellbeing as ever."

• Hull Daily Mail editor John Meehan has tweeted: "Sick of references in TV #phonehacking coverage to 'the press' as if we're all the same. Local papers are blameless & a force for good."
• Ipswich Evening Star editor Nigel Pickover has written to David Cameron urging him not to judge the newspaper industry by the standards of the News of the World, reports HoldtheFrontPage

• This comment came in via email from a journalist who wants to be anonymous:"Good piece drawing on the Indy comments on the trade and reputation this morning. I've been wanting to post something but, perhaps feebly, I'm worried about getting it in the neck for saying what people think I'm saying rather than what I am saying. And that is that, while plenty of journalists didn't and never would do the stuff the scumbags at the Screws did, plenty more of the public who are now so outraged bought the paper when it was stitching people up. Where do they think they got the info? A lot of the outrage seems to be from people who enjoyed the Screws sticking it to other people but now don't like it when it's being stuck to them. Which doesn't make any of the sticking to right, but is a point. Such is the nature of public discourse that if I say that in public I'll be dismembered by the mob."

  
  

Churnalism debate defeat for proposal to mark news stories based on press releases as advertorials

A motion calling for news stories based on press releases to be marked as "advertorials" was defeated in a debate on churnalism, organised by the Media Standards Trust in London last night.

Opposing the motion, David Higgerson, head of multimedia at Trinity Mirror regionals, argued that the churnalism debate "demonised" press releases and did not take into account whether journalists had checked out the facts contained in them.

He said that within journalism "advertorial" was already used to describe articles and supplements that were guaranteed a place in a newspaper and were paid-for by a client.

Filmmaker Chris Atkins, who has hoaxed the press with fake press releases to highlight churnalism, spoke for the motion.

He claimed that by marking articles based on press release material as advertorial would help "rebuild" trust in journalists and encourage people to "go to news sources that weren't churning as much as others".

James Randerson, the Guardian's environment and science editor, also supported the motion. He argued that it was "about being honest with the reader". Randerson argued that journalists who failed to link to or credit sources were guilty of a paternalistic attitude to their readers which was out of kilter with the times.

"Linking to things is now so easy," he said and warned that if journalists didn't: "Lots of people out there are keen to see journalists trip up and they will be found out."

Visiting professor in PR at the University of Westminster Trevor Morris argued that without PR and press releases there would be less media and advertising revenue to support journalism.

He claimed the vast majority of press releases, around 90%, got no coverage. "PR is not that powerful. If you like the message you call it a campaign. If you hate it, you call it propaganda."

There was a consensus that the idea of marking stories based on press releases as advertorial was a "blunt tool" that did not take on the more complex relations between journalists and PRs.

But there was also agreement among the speakers that journalists need to be more transparent about where their stories come from and to link to original sources.

Overshadowing the debate were the latest phone hacking revelations and the damage they have done to the public image of journalists and how much they are trusted. The Media Standards Trust has been calling for a public inquiry into phone hacking.

Matt sums up tarnished image of UK journalists

The brilliant Matt Pritchett in the Telegraph today sums up the damage caused to the image of UK newspaper journalists by the ever growing phone hacking scandal.

On a similar theme, Reed Business Information's editorial development manager Adam Tinworth tweeted today: "From now on, I'm a blogger not a journalist. Don't want my credentials dragged down by association with newspaper hacks."

Hacked Off inquiry campaign kicks off today

Hacked Off - the campaign for a full public inquiry into phone hacking - launches today as the News of the World is engulfed in allegations that the phones of relatives of the victims of the July 7 London bombings were hacked as well as those of Milly Dowler and the parents of Soham murder victims Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.

Lord Fowler, Lord Cunningham, Chris Bryant MP, lawyer Mark Lewis, Adrian Sanders MP, Professor Brian Cathcart, and the Media Standards Trust's Martin Moore will officially launch the campaign at the House of Lords.

Supporters of the campaign already include: Francis Wheen, Tom Watson MP, Dr Ben Goldacre, Baroness Helena Kennedy, Sir David Bell, Roy Greenslade, Professor Ian Hargreaves, John Lloyd, Isabel Hilton, Ian Jack, John Pilger, Andreas Whittam Smith, Neal Ascherson, Professor Chris Frost, Polly Toynbee and Kevin Marsh.

The campaign is calling for a full public inquiry into phone hacking and other forms of illegal intrusion by the press. It says the inquiry should cover:

• The extent of the use of illegal information-gathering methods by the press, directly and through intermediaries;

• The conduct of the Metropolitan Police Service in investigating these matters, and its relations with the press;

• The communication between press and politicians in relation to these matters;

• The conduct of the Press Complaints Commission and of the Information Commissioner, and of other relevant parties such as mobile telephone companies;

• The lessons to be learned from these events and actions to be taken to ensure they are not repeated.

Hacked Off has a petition at www.hackinginquiry.org.

The NUJ has backed the call for a public inquiry into phone hacking at the News of the World.

NUJ general secretary Michelle Stanistreet said: “The NUJ has repeatedly called for a public inquiry into the systemic problem of phone hacking at the News of the World. This can no longer be brushed aside as the actions of a couple of rogue reporters.

"The latest sickening revelations happened under the hands-on leadership of key senior figures in Rupert Murdoch’s News International. It is simply unbelievable that they were unaware of the existence and the scale of this abuse.

"Rebekah Brooks may claim it is 'inconceivable' that she was aware of the depths her paper was prepared to plummet to – it is frankly inconceivable that she was not aware of the systemic reliance on hacking as a source of information for the stories in the paper she edited.

“The latest allegations lay bare a moral and ethical abyss at the heart of Murdoch’s operation at the News of the World. It is imperative that a public inquiry takes place, one that involves scrutinising the actions of executives at the title at the highest level. It is vital that the inquiry also examines the broader issue of press regulation in the UK."

The NUJ is demanding the government halt any decision on the future of BSkyB until a public inquiry into the conduct of "Murdoch’s key lieutenants at the News of the World.”

• MPs are to hold an emergency debate on phone hacking today.
• Information Commissioner Christopher Graham suggested on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning that a custodial sentence should be introduced for those who are found guilty of "blagging" [obtaining] phone numbers illegally, rather than the maximum £5,000 fine currently imposed for the offence.
  
• Northern Echo editor Peter Barron has called on the public to boycott the NoW over the phone hacking scandal, HoldtheFrontPage reports.