Richard Peppiatt: Journalists who resign on points of principle should not stay out of work for long

Posted by Dominic Ponsford on 9 March 2011 at 10:09
Tags: Journalism, Journalists

I have an untested theory that journalists who leave publications on points of principle ultimately prosper – because such people are a rarity.

I won’t retell the story of Richard Peppiatt here, The Guardian has done a good job of that. And I won’t get into the murky claims, and counter claims that are being made.

The quick summary is that Peppiatt left his job as a reporter at the Daily Star by writing an extraordinary letter to proprietor Richard Desmond to denounce the paper’s journalism – and did so publicly by leaking the letter to The Guardian.

In the letter he admits to being involved in made-up showbiz stories, but says his decision to leave the paper followed coverage of the English Defence League, and a controversial front-page story about it becoming a political party – which he believes was wrongly hyped-up.

Many a morning I’ve hit my speed dial button to Muslim rent-a-rant Anjem Choudary to see if he fancied pulling together a few lines about whipping drunks or stoning homosexuals.

Our caustic “us and them” narrative needs nailing home every day or two, and when asked to wield the hammer I was too scared for my career, and my bank account, to refuse…

He is now facing threats and intimidation from we know not where following his stand.

Whatever the rights or wrongs of the case Peppiatt is clearly a brave and principled journalist (OK, albeit one who has only become brave and principled after being involved in some fairly mucky stuff). And  his resignation letter shows he can write. I don’t think he will stay out of work for long. I believe he can be contacted via Twitter.

BSkyB deal: Murdoch should make undertakings to secure political independence of The Sun

Posted by Dominic Ponsford on 4 March 2011 at 11:22
Tags: National Newspapers, newspapers

It’s great for British journalism that the future of Sky News has been assured for the next ten years by yesterday’s Government deal with News Corp safeguarding both its independence and bottom line (losses are said to be up to £30m a year).

In today’s turbulent times how many other news organisations can say that?

If proof were needed about the vital importance of well-resourced news channels such as Sky  we have seen an abundance of it during the Arab revolts of the last few weeks.

Sky News has a professional, award-winning and and well-resourced foreign news operation which has not only borne witness to the historic events of the last few weeks – but been a catalyst for change. Journalists have told me that in some Arab countries they were embraced and given flowers by the locals like a liberating army.

It’s clear to see why. When the video cameras (and note-books, but cameras in particular) turn up – the violence from governments against the populace dramatically reduces while the pace of political change goes into overdrive.

But the many opponents of Rupert Murdoch have a point. He does exercise too much power in the UK and that influence will only get greater if he takes total control of BSkyB.

David Cameron had barely unpacked his bags at Number 10 in May when who should pay him a visit entering via the backdoor? Rupert Murdoch.

The suspicion has to be that what they talked about was how Cameron could re-pay Rupert for the vocal support the UK’s most popular daily newspaper had given the Tories ever since it turned on Gordon Brown the day after his Labour Party conference speech in September 2009.

The Sun is a fantastic paper created by brilliant journalists. Today’s story about the MoD paying £22 for lightbulbs that should cost 65p is just one example of the tabloid genius on display every day in its pages.

But it has to be said that no other UK national newspaper is used by its owner to exert political influence in the way that The Sun is.

Former Express editor Peter Hill told Press Gazette that Richard Desmond has never told him what to appear in the paper and he insists that the decision for his title to change allegiance from the Tories to Labour was his alone. I have no idea if Daily Mail proprietor Lord Rothermere has a political thought in his head: Metro is neutral and the editorial stance of the Mail appears to be entirely down to editor Paul Dacre.

The Mirror has always supported Labour, because that reflects the views of its core readership.

If Murdoch is serious about protecting plurality, and about dispelling the suggestion that he is a foreign media mogul corruptly pulling the strings on the British Government – he should take measures to ensure a more politically independent Sun. It wouldn’t be easy to do. It might involve the appointment of an independent ombudsman for the paper and an editorial board.

Even if it was just an undertaking to write into journalists’ contracts that when it comes to politics they are bound to report the news without fear or favour, independent of proprietorial influence, it would be at least a step in the right direction. Such a change would be good news for British democracy and would make The Sun and even better paper than it already is.

Interactive quiz: Who do you think should win scoop of the year at The Press Awards?

Posted by Dominic Ponsford on 2 March 2011 at 10:28
Tags: Journalism, National Newspapers, Quiz

By any standards there is a bumper crop of entries in The Press Awards (the new national newspapers awards event organised by the NPA and the Society of Editors). And scoop of the year promises to be a particularly hard-fought category.

There were so many good contenders for this one that the organisers felt compelled to put eight in the shortlist, rather than the usual six.

The Treasury Chief, his secret lover and the £40k claim at The Daily Telegraph was a great story – prompting what is believed to be the quickest UK cabinet minister resignation from a government in history.

Lib Dem Tapes at The Daily Telegraph was another great story, albeit one which is still tinged with controversy over the use of subterfuge when there was no advance evidence of wrongdoing and over questions about why key information was omitted from the initial story.

Cricket Corruption at the News of the World was by any standards a stonker – the revelation, in the middle of a test match, that Pakistan players were involved in match-fixing has had wide-ranging ramifications.

WikiLeaks at The Guardian involved a historic series of revelations about the conduct of the war in Iraq and about the contents of classified US embasssy communications.

Hacking at The Guardian has been an impressive and dogged investigation, albeit one where the initial revelations were made back in 2009 (rather than 2010).

World Cup: Cash for Votes Scandal for The Sunday Times was another superb example of undercover journalism in the public interest – in which two Fifa officials were filmed by journalists offering to sell their influence over the location of the 2018 and 2022 football World Cups.

News that England star Wayne Rooney had slept with a prostitute was a biggy for the Sunday Mirror, although the News of the World also carried the story – evidently the Sunday Mirror has claimed it as its scoop.

The Secret Life of John Venables for The Daily Mirror provides the other red-top contender.

The Press Awards judges have a tough job on their hands picking a winner. Take part in this fun quiz to have your say about who you think should take the top prize, and give your reasons why at the end of this story.

(NOTE: Press Gazette is not involved in organising The Press Awards. I was  a judge in one of the categories, but not this one.)

(PS: It goes without saying that the results of this poll will have no bearing whatsoever on the judging process!)

Press Gazette magazine: Peter Hill, Phillip Knightley, top-50 environment journalists…

Posted by Dominic Ponsford on 1 March 2011 at 19:31
Tags: Journalism, Press Gazette

Here’s my six of the best from the March edition of Press Gazette magazine which is now on its way to subscribers.
Former Express editor Peter Hill talks in-depth about his 50-year-journalism career, what it’s really like to work for Richard Desmond and who he thinks is Fleet Street’s greatest editor.  Whether or not you agree with the views espoused by the Daily Express – Hill is a journalist with unrivalled experience who almost never gives interviews so he is well worth listening to.

Here’s a snippet of what he said about Desmond: “He is not a person who intervenes in the editorial content. He certainly makes his own views felt but he has never,  ever, instructed me to put anything in the paper.”
We name the top-50 environment  journalists, as rated by their peers.
For the first time we tell the inside story of the London free newspaper war in “The Last Days of Thelondonpaper.”
We have an exclusive interview with Reuters News editor-in-chief Stephen Adler – one of the most powerful journalists in the world, with a 3,000-strong editorial team spread out over 200 bureaux. He explains why great journalism underpins the recession-busting financial performance of information giant Thomson Reuters.
And we are particularly honoured to feature journalism legend Phillip Knightley in this month’s If You Ask Me column:

“Journalists have always known in their heart of hearts that their reporting of government has only been half the story. How to get the other half? How to learn what is really going on – as distinct from what our leaders tell us is going on? Wikileaks and the whistleblowers who have provided its material have answered this.”

To subscribe to Press Gazette (£40 for students, £90 full-price – plus a 2gb USB stick) click here.

Work experience: Time publishers shaped up and treated today’s graduates with more respect

Posted by Dominic Ponsford on 22 February 2011 at 11:39
Tags: Journalism, Journalists

The journalism industry appears to be moving backwards – retrenching into a world where only the most privileged members of society can gain access to the trade.

More publishers than ever are breaking the law by asking young graduates to work for months on end without pay, trading on the fact that in the current economy people will do anything to get a foot on the ladder into a media career.

When I interviewed outgoing Daily Express Peter Hill last week he revealed how he was able to work his way up through the industry after leaving school at 16 – a publican’s son from Saddleworth outside Oldham who ended up editing two national newspapers. He admitted that sort of social mobility would be impossible today.

The law is pretty clear on the issue of work experience. As I understand it up to two weeks is work experience, and fair play on both sides. But when it extends to months on end and interns are relied upon to carry out roles which are vital to the business, then the law states that they should be paid the minimum wage.

Now there may be a grey area in between, where expenses are paid, training is given and interns do work which would otherwise just not get done. But at the extreme lies sheer exploitation.

Today’s graduates leave university with much greater debts than the current generation of editors ever had to incur. They need to pay for expensive MA courses, or at least the cheaper NCTJ-accredited short courses. And then they are racking up yet more debt in order to work for nothing in London to gain experience.

The likely outcome is that only those with the most well-off parents can afford to get into many jobs in journalism today.

Many of today’s editors benefited from paid-traineeships and student grants (both of which have now largely disappeared) to enter an industry which was in any case comparatively better paid twenty years ago than it is today.

It’s time the journalism industry started treating the younger generation of job-seekers with a lot more respect.

And while they are about it, publishers could look at slimming down some of the ridiculous application procedures graduates are expected to go through. Many tell me about filling out application forms which take a day’s work for media positions which they know hundreds, if not thousands, will apply for (charities such as Amnesty International are among the worst culprits) only to be told that the employer is too lazy to invest the few minutes of time it would take to send out a group email to those applicants who have been unsuccessful.

Would a brief covering letter and CV not be sufficient for at least the first sifting of applicants?

Interactive timeline: A difficult decade for Newsquest

Posted by Dominic Ponsford on 14 February 2011 at 12:03
Tags: Newsquest, newspapers, regional newspapers

As the subject of regional press ownership is again a subject of debate – we chart a decade of Press Gazette’s coverage of the UK’s fourth biggest local newspaper publisher, Newsquest.
The group publishes 191 titles and, as this interactive timeline shows, it has often been a controversial owner. There have been frequent strike action as journalists have complained about redundancies and low pay.
Most recently, an ongoing pay freeze and reduction in pensions benefits has prompted a wave of strikes.

Last week DMGT finance chief Peter Williams said more consolidation was needed in the regional press (though he noted that his company’s Northcliffe local newspapers division would not be doing the consolidating).

Many journalists fear that the record of big publishers such as Newsquest, Johnston Press and Trinity Mirror is one of cost-cutting in pursuit of high profit margins which undermine the long-term future of the businesses. There are concerns, as raised today by independent publisher Paul Henderson, that this trend would just continue if these national conglomerates were allowed to get even bigger.

Most of the work for this timeline was done by Linda Sharkey. (Note, it is possible to view the timeline events on a map – but due to glitch in the third-party software, only one event is listed on the map per location).

Press Gazette calendar of journalism-related events

Posted by Dominic Ponsford on 4 February 2011 at 12:06
Tags: Journalism

Welcome to Press Gazette’s new calendar of UK journalism-related events.

There are so many conferences, talks, seminars and meetings going on nowadays centred around the future of journalism that we thought it would be a handy service to the industry to stick them all in one place.

We aim to make this list comprehensive, so want to list brief details of every single event which is going on. To send in your event’s details for inclusion please email pged@pressgazette.co.uk.

If you would like to further promote your event with Press Gazette – on our home-page (120,000-plus unique users a month), on Twitter (14,500 followers) and on our daily email newsletter (5,500 subscribers) – contact James Morritt on 0207 936 6876 to find out about advertising opportunities.

Five fabulous reasons to read the February edition of Press Gazette magazine

Posted by Dominic Ponsford on 2 February 2011 at 13:03
Tags: Journalism, Journalists, Press Gazette

The February edition of Press Gazette is now out.

Here are some tasters from my five favourite features:

Exclusive interview with Scottish News of the World editor Bob Bird on his amazing six-year legal fight with shamed, and now jailed, Scottish politician Tommy Sheridan:

“He threw my cloths out of the back door and asked: ‘Do you know who I am? I’m Tommy Sheridan’s best man’, at which point my blood ran cold and I thought Tommy Sheridan himself was going to burst in with a video camera and two Russian vice-girls.”

What happened to the journalism graduates who emerged on to the job scene in the summer of 2009, probably the worst time in post-war history to be looking for a job as a journalist. The surprising answer is that most of them got jobs, well on the Kingston University MA course anyway. We tracked them down and found out how grit, determination and a willingness to work for free can get you a journalism job even in the worst of times.

Panorama versus Dispatches. Four years after the two broadcast current affairs heavyweights went head to head in prime-time – we find out who has come out on top. In-depth four-page feature including interviews with editors Tom Giles and Kevin Sutcliffe.

Exclusive interview with former Heat editor Sam Delaney:

“Heat is a guilty pleasure…The readers know that we go ‘we know this is bollocks too but it great fun’. Reading Heat is like eating a donut, you don’t expect it to do you any good but it’s great fun.”

Former magazine industry supremo Lori Miles on why the current crop of consumer titles have lost their lustre: “Same old ideas, same cover treatments, same old cover lines.”

Press Gazette is only available to subscribers. The deal is £90 plus a free USB stick (plus big discounts to attend journalism industry events like Paywalls 2011).

For students a year’s subscription is just £40.

I would be amazed if anyone subscribing to PG did not get their investment paid back many times over in terms of the professional advantage they get from reading the inside track on the journalism industry. All the content in the magazine is only available to paying subscribers, with only a tiny sample also appearing for free online.

Robert Peston points finger at Evening Standard on phone-hacking

Posted by Dominic Ponsford on 2 February 2011 at 10:47
Tags: Evening Standard, Journalism, Journalists, National Newspapers, News of the World

BBC business editor Robert Peston today states on his blog that an Evening Standard journalist was taped by private detective Glenn Mulcaire.

This is, in itself, old news. But it’s interesting that Peston – who appears to be the chosen channel for tips from the top of News International – is writing about it now. And he does have some interesting new detail about the affair.

Back in September 2010, one of the more amazing revelations from the New York Times investigation into phone-hacking at the News of the World was an audio recording of private investigator Glenn Mulcaire explaining how to hack a mobile phone.

At the time the News of the World was at pains to point out that the journalist at the other end of the recorded phone conversation was not one of theirs. The Independent speculated that the individual worked for the Evening Standard.

Now Peston writes:

“A while back, the Independent suggested that the journalist may have been working at the Evening Standard when the conversation took place. That is the case.

“…the journalist when interviewed by his current employer – which, as chance would have it, is News International – denied wrongdoing.

“In 2009, the journalist moved to the Times, which is owned by News International.

“When the tape was put on the internet by the New York Times in September 2010, the journalist disclosed to News International that he was the person talking to Mr Mulcaire on the tape.

“He also told News International that he was talking to Mr Mulcaire in his role as an Evening Standard  journalist, although there is no evidence that his conversation with Mr Mulcaire led to any story being published by the Evening Standard.”

This conversation – which does not prove that the journalist involved hacked anyone’s phone, merely that they were told how to do so – dates from four or five years ago to when the Standard was owned by Associated Newsapapers and so suggests that Mulcaire had dealings with other news organisations beyond the News of the World.

The current Evening Standard management declined to comment on the latest story. Insiders at the paper say they know absolutely nothing about the matter.

The belief at the Evening Standard is that the Peston story came from News International, which may be seeking to throw some muck around against the rest of Fleet Street – now the rest of the press has broken its code of silence on covering the phone-hacking scandal.

It’s worth noting that new News International director of corporate affairs Simon Greenberg started work this week, after previously working as spin-doctor for the failed England 2018 World Cup bid.

Meanwhile, high profile figures continue to line up with more privacy actions against the News of the World to find out if their phone was hacked by the paper during the Goodman/Mulcaire era. The latest to start formal legal proceedings is former Football Association chief executive David Davis (the Independent reports).

News of the World phone-hacking – the Press Gazette interactive timeline

Posted by Dominic Ponsford on 31 January 2011 at 17:04
Tags: Journalism, Law, National Newspapers, News of the World