The future should not be televised

I have an enduring soft spot for the Cross City Line.
It might get consistently criticised, but many of these problems are basic human failings rather the fault of the trains or the line itself.
There is, however, one major irritation about the Cross City Line guaranteed to make me feel rather miffed…find out what it is [...]

BBC should stick to what it does poorly

So the BBC Trust has spoken, not finally as yet, on the corporation’s £68m proposals to increase local news coverage.
The Trust isn’t impressed with the proposals, which have caused a good deal of consternation amongst regional newspapers.
But whereas the majority of the criticism directed at the plan from regional publishers focused on the commercial impact, [...]

Core skills still needed in the brave new world

Trainee journalists lack core skills such as news gathering and writing when entering the workplace.
That is the headline grabbing conclusion of a new survey, with more than 70% of employers who took part in the research claiming increased focus on multimedia lessons as part of the curriculum means the basics are not being covered.
I really [...]

This is local news for local people

I admit I’m struggling with the debate surrounding the BBC’s £68m plans to dramatically increase its online coverage of local news.
The proposal has, inevitably, met with criticism from regional newspaper groups who are unimpressed that the Beeb would use licence payers money to fund the significant expansion to a network of 65 local sites.
Ofcom has [...]

Hunting, gathering and Birmingham’s journalistic talent

Over the last few weeks I’ve been focusing on various issues relating to journalism and the way I hunt and gather news these days.
It started with a new client asking me to help generate a fortnightly, subscription e-newsletter for the members of his organisation, developed with the TrinityMirror shake-up of its regional titles in the [...]

Google vs The Belgians

The all-seeing search engine giant Google is facing a £39m damages claim from Belgian newspapers for publishing and storing their content without paying or asking permission.
In 2007, Google lost a lawsuit filed by a number of French-language Belgian newspapers and was forced to remove their content which had been posted on Google News and stored in its search engine [...]

Snobbery, an Apprentice failure and BBC News rebranding

Well, it looks like it is working.
He may have got unceremoniously and deservedly booted off The Apprentice in week one, but Nicholas De-Lacy Brown is managing to grab his 15 seconds of fame while he can.
The double-barrelled fledgling barrister and tortured, frustrated artist turned up on BBC Breakfast this morning to talk about snobbery.

He was [...]

Life immitating art

The BBC’s psuedo-news output on BBC1 this morning had an item on the search for the best football chant.
The item, brought to us in the usual superficial style we expect from the Beeb’s various info-tainment programmes, was by sports news hound Mike Bushell.
There were various renditions of witty (sic) terrace chants.
But it got me thinking [...]

Say bye to Y Byd

Ambitious plans to launch a Welsh language daily newspapers have been abandoned after the company behind the publication failed to secure sufficient funding.
Y Byd (The World) was originally due to be launched on March 1, St David’s Day, but after the Welsh assembly government offered just £200,000 a year in funding the decision was taken [...]

“Churnalism” has a familiar ring

A new book claims that national newspapers mainly recycle newswire copy and PR puff for their home news sections.
Describing this trend as “churnalism”, the book’s author says research shows that around 80 per cent of news stories in the quality UK national newspapers is not original copy generated by in-house journalists.
Nick Davies, a journalist with [...]