Ishan Nandra Unit 3 Exam Blog: 2015

At some stage, I hope to write the intimate story of a Sun reporter who has been cleared by a jury on charges following Operation Elveden. It might change the perception of those who confuse hacking with the paying of public officials. There is an enormous difference.

But I am glad to see that Press Gazette’s editor, Dominic Ponsford, has now interviewed another Sun reporter, John Troup, who was similarly found not guilty by a jury of a charge that, to be frank, would be regarded as laughable if its consequences were not so serious.

It also happens to be an indictment of Rupert Murdoch’s flawed Management and Standards Committee (MSC), which supplied the flimsy information on which Troup was arrested and charged.

Will.i.am stars in Wall Street Journal's global ad push

Will.i.am in the Wall Street Journal's 'Make Time' ad

The Wall Street Journal has recruited Will.i.am for a global ad campaign urging people to “make time” to read the business title.

Fashion designer Tory Burch also features in the campaign, which suggests subscribing to the WSJ “puts you in a community with other ambitious people”.

The campaign launched on digital, print and social channels on Tuesday before launching on TV and outdoor ads.

Other businesspeople to appear in the campaign include Mike McCue, co-founder and chief executive of social magazine app Flipboard; Bill McDermott, chief executive of software company SAP; and Zhang Xin, co-founder and chief executive of property group SOHO China.

It comes as the WSJ faces increasing competition, not just from established business news sources such as the Financial Times, Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg, but also from new players such as Atlantic Media’s Quartz.

Suzi Watford, chief marketing officer of Dow Jones, said: “This campaign highlights the value of making time to read the Journal, no matter how busy people are. It also confirms that subscribing to the Journal puts you in a community with other ambitious people who prioritise being at the top of their game. Our subscribers are in very good company.”

Press regulator to look at Daily Telegraph and HSBC allegations

Ipso chairman Sir Alan Moses: seeking more information about allegations against the Daily Telegraph

The press regulator is to look at allegations that the Daily Telegraph allowed commercial pressures to dictate editorial decisions following Peter Oborne’s resignation over its coverage of HSBC.

Sir Alan Moses, the chairman of the Independent Press Standards Organisation, said he wanted to hear from Oborne, the paper’s former chief political commentator, other journalists and Telegraph management over claims that the Barclay brothers-owned newspaper refused to run stories about the banking giant because of concerns over advertising.

“We haven’t had multiple complaints … we should look at it but we haven’t had the meeting or got in the information that we should have got in,” Moses told MPs on the House of Commons culture, media and sport select committee on Tuesday.

Daily Mail coverage of Cliff Richard raid report highly inaccurate, says author

A BBC umbrella covers a TV camera outside the Berkshire estate where Sir Cliff Richard has an apartment.

The author of a report on a deal between the BBC and a police force which led to the filming of a raid on Sir Cliff Richard’s home has said the Daily Mail’s coverage of his inquiry was “highly inaccurate”.

Under the deal between the broadcaster and South Yorkshire police, the BBC agreed to delay, by a month, publishing details of an investigation into an allegation that Richard sexually abused a 16-year-old boy in the 1980s. In return, the force tipped off the broadcaster about the timing of the raid on Richard’s Berkshire home, allowing it to broadcast live helicopter footage of the operation in August 2014.

Richard has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. He had not been interviewed by the police before the raid, which he watched unfold on TV while he was on holiday in Portugal.

Peter Molyneux interview: 'It's over, I will not speak to the press again'

When things go wrong for modern game developers they go spectacularly wrong. This is an era of endless rolling news and mass social media judgement. There is no respite. Peter Molyneux knows this now – if he didn’t before. The veteran designer, famed for inventing the “god game” genre with his 1989 title, Populous, has spent the last three days under intense press scrutiny. His latest project, Godus, is in disarray, his reputation in tatters. Everyone wants a piece.

“The only answer is for me to retreat,” he says, speaking via Skype from his office in Guildford. “I love my games and I love sharing them with people. It’s this amazing incredible thing I get to do with my life, creating ideas and sharing them with people. The problem is, it just hasn’t worked.”

Awarded an OBE in 2004, Molyneux is one of the most prominent members of the UK games industry. In the 26 years following Populous, he oversaw classic strategy and adventure titles like Dungeon Keeper, Black & White, and most recently the Fable series. But ever since leaving his seminal studio Bullfrog in 1997, he has become just as well-known for enthusiastically hyping his projects, only to deliver products that fail to live up to the impossibly grand expectations.

Google warns sex bloggers: clean up or get out

A man observes the window of a porn shop in Copenhagen in 1969.

Google is banning public explicit photos and videos from its blogging service Blogger, and giving affected users just one month to comply.

The new rules require any blog with “sexually explicit or graphic nude images or video” to take them down by 23 March, or the blog will be made private by Google. A private blog can only be seen by the owner or admins of the blog, and people who the owner has shared the blog with.

Google promises that the majority of users of the service, which Google acquired from Twitter co-founder Evan Williams’ Pyra Labs in 2003, won’t see any change from the new rules. But many users are concerned that the new rules represent a huge about-turn from Google’s previously stated support of explicit material on its platform. The company’s previous policy said: “We do allow adult content on Blogger, including images or videos that contain nudity or sexual activity … All blogs marked as ‘adult’ will be placed behind an ‘adult content’ warning interstitial.” Its only exceptions were to ban illegal explicit content, explicit images shared without the subject’s consent (commonly known as “revenge porn”) and making money on adult content.

Apple ordered to pay $530m for iTunes patents

Apple has been ordered to pay more than $530m after a federal jury in Texas found its iTunes software infringed three patents owned by a patent licensing company called Smartflash.

Although Smartflash had been asking for $852m in damages, the verdict handed down on Tuesday night was still a blow to Apple.

The jury, which deliberated for eight hours, determined Apple had not only used Smartflash’s patents without permission, but did so wilfully.

The patents concerned digital rights management, data storage and payment systems.

Apple, which said it would appeal, said the outcome was another reason that reform was needed in the patent system to curb litigation by companies that do not make products themselves.

“Smartflash makes no products, has no employees, creates no jobs, has no US presence, and is exploiting our patent system to seek royalties for technology Apple invented,” said Apple’s Kristin Huguet. “We refused to pay off this company for the ideas our employees spent years innovating, and unfortunately we have been left with no choice but to take this fight up through the court system.”

Reddit and Blogger tighten up rules on pornography

Social network site Reddit and Google’s Blogger service will not allow naked images where the person involved has not given consent.

Social networking and news site Reddit has said it will remove photos, videos and links with explicit content if the person in the image has not given permission for it to be posted.

Google, meanwhile, is going to ban most nude photos and video from publicly accessible sites on its Blogger service.

The crackdown marks a shift in attitude for two services that have traditionally been freewheeling forums.

The lax approach has opened the door for nude and sexually explicit photos and video to be posted on Reddit and Blogger, even if the subjects featured in the images intended them to remain private.

Until now, Reddit has had a hands-off approach to privacy, largely allowing its 160m users to police their own forums within certain guidelines such as no child pornography or spam.

The change comes about six months after hackers obtained nude photos of Jennifer Lawrence and other celebrities and posted them to social media sites including Reddit and Twitter.

Without specifically calling out Reddit or Twitter, Lawrence lashed out at the sites that permitted nude photos to be posted of her. She likened the unauthorised use of photos of her body as a “sex crime.”

Wednesday 4 February 2015

INDEX

13 Video games are not making us more violent, study shows

14 Spotify CEO speaks out on Taylor Swift albums removal: 'I'm really frustrated'

15 Jennifer Lawrence: 'I will never get Twitter. The internet has scorned me'

16 Copywriting is dead? Don’t tell the journalists

17 YouTubers ads for Oreo banned for not making clear purpose of videos

18 What’s the right relationship between technology companies and journalism?

19 Digital journalists have great chance to develop much-needed transparency

20 Microsoft and Yahoo respond to European 'right to be forgotten' requests

21 The future of marketing depends on ideas, not tinkering with technology

22 Government must fund hyperlocal news, urges new report

23 Instagram now has 300m users sharing 70m photos and videos a day

24 More than 200 journalists in prison worldwide for third consecutive year

25 Yemeni reporter killed - the first journalistic fatality of 2015

Sky profits rise 16% after strong UK customer growth

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/feb/04/sky-profits-rise-uk-and-germany-pay-tv

Sky’s highest customer growth in the UK in nearly a decade helped the satellite broadcaster post a 16% rise in adjusted operating profit in its first results since its £5bn acquisition of Sky Italia and Sky Deutschland.

The pay-TV company, which now has a customer base of nearly 25 million across Europe, reported first half adjusted operating profits of £675m in the six months to the end of December last year, ahead of forecasts of £644m.

Sky, which captured exclusive live rights to the Open golf for the first time on Tuesday and will table its bid for live Premier League football rights on Friday, added another 204,000 domestic customers in the final three months of 2014, its strongest growth in nine years.

Revenues were up 5% to £5.6bn for the six-month period. It said there had been a significant group wide reduction in churn – the proportion of customers leaving the business - was 9.2%, its lowest level for a decade.

Wednesday 28 January 2015

The Sun’s Page 3 is surviving on nothing but a necklace and a wink

Thursday's Page 3 slot was headlined 'clarifications and corrections'

“I don’t think it’s immoral or indecent or anything,” said Rupert Murdoch of Page 3. “But show it to me in any other newspaper I own. Never in America, never in Australia. Never. Never. Never. It just would not be accepted.”

Even in the super soaraway Sun, he admitted to an interviewer from India Today, the daily parade of topless lovelies was “getting a bit old-fashioned. One day it will come out.”

That was in 1994. And this week, 45 years after the first flash of unadorned boob in the tabloid, 29 years after the Labour MP Clare Short attempted to ban the feature, 26 years after the launch editor said he regretted introducing it and an impressive 21 years after the proprietor himself admitted it was well past its time, the Sun at last set on Page 3.

David Beckham's TV ad for whisky cleared by advertising watchdog

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jan/28/david-beckhams-tv-ad-for-whisky-cleared-by-advertising-watchdog

David Beckham’s TV ad for whisky brand Haig Club has been cleared by the UK advertising watchdog, despite complaints that the former footballer’s endorsement promotes drinking among children.

The commercial, from Sherlock Holmes director Guy Ritchie, features Beckham and a well-groomed group of trendy friends converging on what looks like a Highland estate to share a weekend and a tipple of scotch together.

As a global youth icon who spent most of his football career teetotal, Beckham’s appearance in the ad prompted a critical response from Alcohol Concern, which accused him of sending a “confusing message” about drinking to children.

I think that as David Beckham is now more of a celebrity the media should allow to him to take part in such adverts, also scotch whiskey is normally appeals to an older audience anyway

Wednesday 21 January 2015

Charlie Hebdo launches app version featuring prophet Muhammed cover

Demand for printed copies of Charlie Hebdo has outstripped supply.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/20/charlie-hebdo-app-apple-google-play

A new app for French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo has been released for iOS, Android and Windows devices, letting readers worldwide get hold of a copy without queueing at newsagents.

The app is illustrated with the current cover, a cartoon of the prophet Muhammed, in a change from the norm for Apple’s notoriously censorious App Store which has previous banned satirical and controversial apps.

The launch of the app on Apple’s store comes after the firm put a Je Suis Charlie banner on its French homepage, a rare move for a company with a typically conservative web presence.

Shortly after the banner appeared, Apple reportedly fast-tracked an app called Je Suis Charlie through its approval process. The app let users find vigils for the magazine’s murdered staff happening near them, and show their support using social media.

Currently, only the most recent issue of the magazine is available, in both English and French editions. But the app also offers annual subscriptions starting at £69.99, alongside the individual issues for £2.29.

Paris mayor: I'm suing Fox News over false report on Muslim 'no-go' zones

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/20/paris-mayor-anne-hidalgo-muslim-no-go-zones

The mayor of Paris plans to sue Fox News for its reporting on the city in the wake of the attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

“When we’re insulted, and when we’ve had an image, then I think we’ll have to sue, I think we’ll have to go to court, in order to have these words removed,” Mayor Anne Hidalgo told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Tuesday. “The image of Paris has been prejudiced, and the honor of Paris has been prejudiced.”

Previously, Steve Emerson, a “terrorism expert” talking-head also on Fox News, went one step further, labelling Birmingham – a city of more than a million people – as being a place where “non-Muslims simply don’t go in”.

UK prime minister David Cameron told ITV news that he “choked on his porridge” when he first heard the comments, before saying that Emerson was “clearly an idiot”.

The Sun's move away from topless page 3 models may entice new advertisers

The Sun replaced its usual topless page 3 model in Tuesday's paper with pictures of Hollyoaks actors in swimwear

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jan/20/the-sun-topless-page-3-models-advertisers

The Sun’s decision to drop topless models from page 3 could lead to a boost in the tabloid’s advertising revenues, according to industry experts who said the nudity had put off a string of global brands from buying space in the paper.

Disney and Apple are among a group of major advertisers who had a policy – either official or “unwritten” – of not running display ads in the Sun, with page 3 being the main issue of contention.

Other companies that largely avoid adverts the Sun for brand perception reasons include John Lewis and Waitrose – despite a number of its major rivals doing so – and the French cosmetics giant L’Oréal.

“With some brands there is not just a single reason for not advertising in the Sun, it is about the whole tabloid issue per se,” said one senior media industry executive. “But for some, the scrapping of page 3 represents the removal of a major barrier to entry. Conversations that wouldn’t, or couldn’t, happen before might become possible.”

Last year the Sun made about £112m in display advertising across its Monday to Friday editions, which carried page 3 models, according to unofficial industry figures.

Wednesday 14 January 2015

News Corp

· The Sun

· The Times

· Sunday Times

· MasterChef Magazine

· SmartSource Magazine

· Super Food Ideas

· Vogue Australia

· Foxtel

· Magazines and inserts

· All titles sourced from News Limited - NewsSource: Magazines on 15 October 2010.

· Best of the Gold Coast Magazine

· Big League

· Country Style

· Donna hay

· Inside Out

· Lifestyle Pools + outdoor design

· Newspapers and information services

· United Kingdom News UK

· Press Association

· Sky News

In July 2011, News Corp closed down the News of the World Newspaper due to allegations of phone hacking's in the UK. The Sun had a circulation of 2.2 million in March 2014, however between July 2013 and December 2013 they had 5.5 million. 31% readers are ABC1 social demographic and 68% C2DE demographic group. Also, The Times had an average daily circulation of 394,448 in March 2014; in the same period, The Sunday Times had an average daily circulation of 839,077 Sunday times.

Wednesday 7 January 2015

John Snow // Owen Jones Notes

Owen Jones

Owen Jones had a strong argument against the elite leaders where he suggested excellent ideas on how the media is used in order to exploit those at the bottom of society. A major point that he made was that took place due to the rise of student fees rising , the front pages were images of students created chaos however the fact that student university fess rose 3 times as much per year from £3000 to £9000. Benefit Street is another program used to exploit people at the bottom of society however a program such as “tax avoidance” was never created about people who are powerful and don’t pay tax.

John Snow

He stated that journalist are not as employed as they used to be they can still take part in being a jourbnalist as it is easy in today’s society to write anywhere. John Snow explained that the freelance journalists will be the future and will be used as and when needed by companies, however some people may still choose to branch out specialise. “New is now new” explained that news it now information that is up to date and which means that information is “new” and the most recent. The reason for this is because previously without tools such as the internet it meant that information such as video footage would have to have to be sent by plane or parcelled which could take a few days making the information out dated or reliable.

INDEX

13 Video games are not making us more violent, study shows

14 Spotify CEO speaks out on Taylor Swift albums removal: 'I'm really frustrated'

15 Jennifer Lawrence: 'I will never get Twitter. The internet has scorned me'

16 Copywriting is dead? Don’t tell the journalists

17 YouTubers ads for Oreo banned for not making clear purpose of videos

18 What’s the right relationship between technology companies and journalism?

19 Digital journalists have great chance to develop much-needed transparency

20 Microsoft and Yahoo respond to European 'right to be forgotten' requests

21 The future of marketing depends on ideas, not tinkering with technology

22 Government must fund hyperlocal news, urges new report

23 Instagram now has 300m users sharing 70m photos and videos a day

24 More than 200 journalists in prison worldwide for third consecutive year

25 Yemeni reporter killed - the first journalistic fatality of 2015

Samsung pledges over $100m to make an open Internet of Things finally happen

Samsung’s chief executive BK Yoon promised more than $100m in funding for developers and to create an open system to kickstart an Internet of Things (IoT) revolution.

Samsung sold 665m devices last year, many of which already have internet connectivity. But Yoon promised that by 2017 90% of those devices will plug into the IoT ecosystem, and 100% in five years.

“I’ve heard people say they want to create a single operating system for IoT, but these people only work with their own devices. We can deliver the benefits of IoT only if all sensors can talk to each other,” said Yoon in his opening keynote for CESin Las Vegas where he laid out Samsung’s vision for the future of IoT. “I’m making a promise that our IoT devices and products will be open. We will ensure that others can easily connect to our devices.”

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a buzzword that essentially describes an environment where everything is connected to the internet creating “swarm intelligence” from individually dumb devices. Bins, toasters, roads and lights will be able to talk to each other for automatic, more efficient control and monitoring.

A bin could tell the council when it is full and needs collecting, rather than just on a set schedule, for instance. A fridge could detect when the milk is empty and order another pint. The central heating system could track its owner and only turn on when they are on their way home.

Yemeni reporter killed - the first journalistic fatality of 2015

The reporter died on Sunday (4 January) in the city of Dhamar, south of the Yemeni capital, Sana’a. He was one of the four victims of a roadside bomb blast, allegedly carried out by a group called Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

The other three victims were members of a local police force created by the Houthi militia. Houthis are a Shia sect of Islam.

In a statement, the Yemeni Journalists’ Syndicate called for the perpetrators to be brought to justice, as did the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ).

Its president, Jim Boumelha, said: “We condemn the killing of al Washali … This killing is a reminder of the mindless violence which continues to prey on unsuspecting members of the public attending events and journalists covering them.”

The IFJ also asked the leader of the Houthis, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, to withdraw his forces from media organisations that they are currently occupying. These include the biggest state-owned newspaper in Yemen, al-Thawra.

News on the tweet questions

1. Respected news brand can be seen good for twitter as they may benefit by gathering more twitter users as the news brands may have their own followers who wish to engage with them on twitters platform.

2. Twitter will help news brand gain more exposure as twitter is a massive platform which is free and open to the public. By a news brand being on twitter it is likely that the news brand will gain more views on its stories and articles. Their stories will also be seen quicker and therefore users will be able to be up to date more efficiently.

3. I think that old and new media together are able to provide good consumer experience as the consumers are able to compare both types of media and see what one or what source they find most reliable.

4. Tweets from Tom Newton Dunn state "Biggest cheer at the Emirates tonight by #AFC? To an announcement for the MUFC away fans that no more trains leaving Euston." This is an example of journalist using banter to engage his audience. Tweets from daily mail celebrity also provide gossip by tweeting "Do these pants make Kim Kardashian’s bum look big? http://dailym.ai/1aS7Sfy pic.twitter. com/QEdkYMxdkD" They also provide a photo in which the users can see a photo of Kim Kardashians bum. A topic like this is likely to have retweets that will further make the twitter page more popular.

5. I think an increase in banter ant gossip is likely to give journalists more attention and therefore it is likely their popularity will increase however depending on the story it could effect their reputation.

6. “I follow more journalists than newspapers. I follow a few Guardian journalists but also Dan Hodges, Emma Barnett and Tom Chivers who write for The Telegraph, Kevi Maguire who writes for The Mirror and Matthew Parris for The Times.” It basically says that journalists and twitter are a strong combination as it allows journalists to give their view aswell with a bit more of a personal opinion

7. I think that twitter has had a negative impact on the traditional newspaper simply because the news can outbreak a lot more faster and the audience does not have to pay for this information.