Newsworthiness

FIFA has abandoned plans to restrict the use of images from the World Cup finals on media internet sites following a meeting between president Sepp Blatter and Timothy Balding, CEO of the World Association of Newspapers (WAN). TIME TO SMILE: Franz Beckenbauer, left, President of the German organising committee for Word Cup 2006, with FIFA President Joseph 'Sepp' Blatter at a party on the occasion...

Panos London, Internews Network and the International Centre for Journalists (ICFJ) have launched a one year pilot phase of the Health Journalism Partnership, to build better health journalism in countries with the most acute public health crises. In the past decade, global funding to address critical health issues such as malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and childhood diseases has grown...

HERE’S a quiz. Which UK newspaper printed a headline last week about John Prescott, the deputy prime minister, using yellow type on a lurid green background? Which newspaper asked on its front page: Is Oprah really a Zulu? And which had Catwalk Cattiness billed as its most enticing item? Anyone nominating the Sun, the Daily Mirror, or the Daily Star should remain in class and pay attention. The...

THEIR headlines are as captivating as ever: "Jessica & Jude Steamy Hotel Romp!" (the Star); "Hillary Attacks Bill's Secret Lover" (Globe); "Farrah Fawcett: My Drug Hell!" (National Enquirer); and, most thrilling of all, "Giant polar monster attacks cruise ship!" and "10 New Commandments Found!" (Weekly World News). Viewed in a vacuum, American Media, the owner of these publications, has never been...

Away from the main Congress venue at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, a group of media editors and CEOs huddled for a day to ponder the future of news. Will the quality journalism they take pride in practising today continue to have the resources needed to nourish it? The Americans were clearly anxious. Wall Street is punishing them for the print media's lack of growth prospects in the...

Little surprise accompanied my reading that Coreweekly, one of Madison’s alternative weekly publications, was ending its 18-month run because of apparent financial difficulties. In the saturated news environment that is Madison, publications that have a hard time defining themselves and their product usually have a hard time attracting readers and advertisers. Coreweekly’s demise, however...

Last month, two UCLA professors produced a study alleging liberal bias in the mainstream media. In their study, titled “A Measure of Media Bias,” the professors first tallied how often members of Congress cited 200 prominent special interest groups. Then the researchers assigned these special interest groups ratings based on the voting patterns (liberal or conservative) of the members of Congress...

NEW YORK – If you made a list of today's great media innovators you'd probably fill it with people whose dazzling ideas are shaping the Internet, television and even radio. Not newspapers, though. The industry is famously risk-averse. You might not need both hands to count the big ideas that have wowed the public with their originality since 1880 when dailies began running photographs, or possibly...

Move over, People magazine. The Wall Street Journal is invading your turf. Yes, the business newspaper in the gray flannel suit is emphasizing its human side. Starting today, The Journal is expanding its coverage of people and running a comprehensive index of all the people who are mentioned significantly in that day's newspaper. You probably won't see an article about how Jen is coping with the...

India's first newspaper, Hicky's Gazette, more formally titled the Bengal Gazette, appeared in Calcutta on January 29, 1780, an occasion now fittingly celebrated nationally as Newspaper Day. The weekly enjoyed a short but tempestuous life, reflecting the rumbustious nature of its publisher, James Augustus Hicky. However, the event gave birth to the modern Indian press. The transformation in the...