Peter Preston puts forward the idea of a broadband licence fee to pay for jouralism in his Observer column today. Whatever the initial reactions — mine is favourable — it is something which deserves extensive debate.
How to pay for journalism in the future in the UK has become mired in the similar but different debate [...]
The end of the Press Gazette is sad but not unexpected. Back in November 2006 when it closed previously I wrote: “Perhaps the title will survive in some form.” A future on the web looked like the best chance it had
But then it was bought out of receivership by Wilmington who continued the print edition. [...]
Opposition among smaller publishers to calls for changes in the rules to allow for greater consolidation are detected by Roy Greenslade. He says Chris Bullivant, chairman of the family-owned Observer Standard Group, based in Worcestershire, has written to the Office of Fair Trading to register his “total objection” to the call for a relaxation of [...]
The bleak news from across the Atlantic continues today with the Chicago Sun-Times filing for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection. A big problem for the paper seems to be a tax bill dating back to the time Conrad Black (former Daily Telegraph owner too) owned the business.
Tribune, owner of the city’s larger paper and the LA [...]
All Fools day has come early this year with The Telegraph and The Sun among those hoaxed by sightings of a bear in Rendlesham forest, Suffolk, previously best known as a landing place for aliens from another world.
The East Anglian Daily Times which ran the story yesterday, today revealed that it was all a stunt [...]
Finding out where a business is making a profit or not is always difficult, especially between annual reports. Within groups of companies it is even more difficult even by examining annual reports, let alone between reports. So it is not entirely surprising that that journalists working for for Guardian Media Group in the Manchester area [...]
I have seen some pretty silly schemes to save local newspapers but the idea trumpeted in the lead of today’s Observer Media and Business section takes the biscuit. The idea is that the publishers will ask the government to relax takeover rules so that super groups could be formed. “Let us merge or we will [...]
Thank goodness Andy Burnham, the secretary of state for culture, media and sport, has ruled out a subsidy for newspapers. It is an idea which has always worried me deeply, a cure that was worse than the disease.
But in his interview with the Scarborough Evening News he does say that he will look at other [...]
Not too long ago the idea that the government should distribute leaflets with details of offenders in the courts would have been totally ridiculous. That was the job of local newspapers.
Yet the idea of “naming and shaming” offenders is floated on the front page of the Guardian today. It is seen, by Home Office officials, [...]
The rebranding of Norwich Union Insurance as Aviva makes it sound like an unreliable rail network, as the Guardian points out today. Just a pity one of those traditional Guardian literals took East Anglian name changing a little bit further. I look forward to my next bracing walk along the Suffolk coast at Warbleswick. So [...]
