Category: News
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Protesters in the West End
It’s all been a bit lively in the West End of London today, with protesters occupying a nearby building in Beak Street, before being forcibly evicted by police. More protesters have been moving about the West End, all followed by large numbers of police (and a not insubstantial number of media). We had something of…
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National Newspapers on Friday
I’ve had a couple of days to think about this, but here’s the response I wrote to a piece Andrew Collins published on his blog in reaction to media coverage of the death of Gadaffi. I refused to buy a newspaper on Friday, because I found the editorial judgement of many of our newspapers –…
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It’s Not Rioting – It’s Looting
I’ve been a bit disappointed in the coverage we’ve had so far about the events of Sunday evening. What became very clear from following reports on news media and the internet is that this was organised criminality. I was returning to Enfield Town station from a lovely day out cycling when I saw reports of…
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Phone-Hacking Media Talk
Last night I spent a fascinating hour at a “live” recording of The Guardian’s Media Talk podcast, presented by Matt Wells, in a packed room with somewhere around 100 Guardian readers in attendance. It was devoted completely to the hacking scandal, and featured some of the key players in the case including Nick Davies, the…
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The News of the World
I’ve been following this week’s events with dropped jaw horror, as finally, after two years of solid reporting from Nick Davies and The Guardian, it all came home to roost for News International and the News of the World. I hate to see people lose their jobs. We keep hearing about how 200 fine men…
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New BBC News Blogs – A Retrograde Update
BBC News is seemingly completing its movement of correspondents’ blogs across to the a new system. And frankly, they’ve made some significantly retrograde steps. I’d happily acknowledge that previously the blogs were somewhat hidden, and lots of website readers were probably missing out. And I know that this has meant a shift in the backend…
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The Independent & i
I could start this talking about how I bought the first edition of The Independent in 1986, and how for years I read it pretty religiously – if not exclusively. These days, I’m more of a Guardian man, still buying paper editions of it and its Sunday stablemate every day without fail. I still like…
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Photographers Not Terrorists
Last night I was out trying to take photos of the Geminid meteor shower. It was a bit cloudy as you can see from the above photo which shows precisely no meteors. But as I set out on foot to a nearby field a bit away from the city lights, wrapped up warm with a…
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London Papers
Newspapers haven’t been having the greatest time recently. Circulations continue to fall, and there’s a generation growing up who gets its news from the web, perhaps with the odd bit of a 24-hour news channel thrown in. But that’s really paid-for newspapers. We also now have the free titles. Starting with Metro, and added to,…
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Copyright Extension
A great film explaining why extending sound copyright is not in performers’ interests but just record companies’. And, of course, our worst interests. More at soundcopyright.eu.
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The Independent
A new year seems to mean that every newspaper worth its salt has to run some kind of promotion, and this Saturday’s Independent had a very good offer: a free DVD of David Frost interviewing Richard Nixon about Watergate ahead of the release of Frost/Nixon in a week’s time. That was enough for me to…
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Follow The Inauguration on CNN?
A news report announces the fact that CNN launches on Freeview this week – effectively replacing Nuts TV. That’s got to be good news for Freeview viewers, giving them an additional news service alongside the BBC News channel (never News 24!) and Sky News (will it remain on Freeview?). But The Guardian’s report (perhaps based…