2005-2014

Speculation is growing that The Guardian is to launch its new Berliner-style format by August, nearly eight months ahead of schedule. Officially, the paper's line this week was that the changed format – 6cm narrower than a broadsheet and 10cm longer than a tabloid – will not hit the streets before next year. Unofficially a Guardian insider said: "If we can do it earlier than 2006, then we will."...

Little newspapers, otherwise known as tabloids or "compact format" editions, are all the rage in Europe. Will they someday come to dominate U.S. newspapers? Or, while we were looking the other way, have alien formats already made gains in the U.S. market? Are we facing, in other words, the Invasion of the Broadsheet Snatchers? It’s no secret that U.S. as well as European newspaper readership and...

"What if Rupert is hit by a bus tomorrow?" That’s a question that recurs when the subject of Rupert Murdoch and the future of his global, Rube Goldberg empire comes up. What happens to News Corporation, the Brobdingnagian contraption he virtually willed into existence by the power of his ingenuity and his willingness to place huge, risky bets? More than any other media baron Murdoch is the walking...

Which American newspaper greeted Hitler’s diplomatic victory at Munich with a recommendation that the world place its hopes in the Kellogg Briand Peace Pact? And when, in 1940, the great Jewish journalist and Zionist prophet Vladimir Jabotinsky gave his famous speech in New York calling for an emergency rescue to take the 6 million Jews of Europe to Palestine before they were killed, which...

The decline of our media system has been well documented. Every week seems to bring with it news about how the news is screwed up. Media concentration, commercial imperatives and a clear conservative tilt is tuning out and turning off viewers, readers and listeners. Journalists are under fire from every side of the partisan divide. You get the feeling that we are living in the last days of our...

Anyone interested in newspapers is probably aware that this is a tough time for a medium that has been a central feature of American history and democracy since the founding of our republic. Newspapers have thrived since those first few dozen were established in the colonies. Their successors have withstood the challenges of radio and television. But things are more complex now. The challenges are...

The Hull Daily Mail and twin title the East Riding Mail have unveiled a host of changes after conducting research into reader habits. The new approach, labelled the 'Newspaper for Now', aims to build on the Mail's current daily circulation of 71,000. It includes 'in short' boxes on all page leads, which readers can use to pick up the main points of the story. There is also a 'paper in a page' on...

Andaman and Nicobar Islands authorities are planning serious action against some journalists for entering reserve areas and taking photographs of the highly endangered aboriginal tribals without legal permits during news coverage of the tsunami tragedy. "At least two journalists of different national news channels had illegally entered the tribal reserve areas with cameras. The administration has...

If information and Broadcasting Minister Jaipal Reddy has his way, television censorship will pass into the hands of an independent Broadcast Regulatory Authority of India, minimising the Union Government’s role in scanning content. But any such regulation will come only after the programme has been beamed, as the Ministry does not believe in pre-broadcast censorship. That will mean the panel...

News Corporation - the Ruppert Murdoch empire from The Times of London to Fox News in the US - President Peter Chernin challenged fellow executives to face the media industry’s biggest problems through a forward-thinking speech entitled "10 rules for Media Survival" at the Forrester Consumer Forum last week. Chernin explained that networks and advertisers need to work together on new formats, and...