Media

I’ve been moderated

Bernie Russell Media
I’ve been moderated
Non-fame at last – A Guardian moderator has deleted a comment I posted on the George Monbiot (aka The Moonbat) blog today.
The post was a long rant about how Tony Blair was a war criminal who should be arrested and dragged before a People’s Tribunal. (Sort of. See for yourself.)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/26/making-blair-eu-president-crazy?
Poster boy
I was vastly entertained by the post, as I always am by the Moonbat’s ravings, and I made the following comment:
The Moonbat speaks!
And this is way past his best.
My favourite bit:
To stimulate this process, I will put up the first £100 of a bounty (to which, if he gets the job, I will ask readers to subscribe), payable to the first person to attempt a non-violent arrest of President Blair. It shouldn’t be hard to raise several thousand pounds. I will help set up a network of national arrest committees, exchanging information and preparing for the great man’s visits. President Blair would have no hiding place: we will be with him wherever he goes.
So the Moonbat is financing a Guardianista goon squad? A kind of N4 Dog the Bounty Hunter posse?
Just hilarious!
Please, George…no more. My stomach hurts from laughing.
Laugh … I thought I’d never start …
OK, Oscar Wilde it ain’t. But it was just a lunch-break dig, and some of the other posts were way beyond pompous. I thought it was a fair pop.
And I only mocked. Usually, the Guardianistas just mock back.
Imagine my surprise, therefore, when I hit Reload and saw the following in place of my witty riposte:
This comment has been removed by a moderator. Replies may also be deleted.
Carrying moderation to excess
I dunno. Seems a bit much. Can’t they take a joke? And it makes me wonder what else they’re moderating, and why they’re moderating it.

Non-fame at last – a Guardian moderator has deleted a comment I posted on the George Monbiot (aka The Moonbat) blog today. Continue reading →

Purl of a job for Charlotte

Bernie Russell Media
Purl of a job for Charlotte
LSJ graduate [2008] Charlotte Moorby has got a job as a production assistant on  Future Publishing’s CrossStitcher magazine, published by .
http://www.crossstitchermagazine.co.uk/
Hard craft
It’s a tough job – she sources stories and images for the magazine, writes all the copy, and also manages the web site.
But it’s a labour of love for Charlotte, who told us:  “I love magazines and I love crafts so it’s perfect”.
CrossStitcher is the most successful crafts title on Future Publishing’s books, with a readership of more than 20,000.

LSJ graduate [2008] Charlotte Moorby has got a job as a production assistant on  Future Publishing’s CrossStitcher magazine. Continue reading →

Good news?

Bernie Russell Media
Good News?
What’s it like to be a religion correspondent? Is the religion beat still worth pounding?
To find out, listen to this excellent talk from The Times Religion  correspondent Ruth Gledhill about reporting on religion.
She  makes a very good case for its being central to any modern news organisation, and by implication, something we should be looking at with our journalism students.
Pressing the point
Pedagogy aside, the talk is entertaining and very thought-provoking. Her opening is brilliant:
“The only place the press is mentioned in the Bible is in Luke 19 when Zacchaeus the tax collector has to climb a tree to see Jesus because of the crowds. The King James Version renders this: ‘he couldn’t see because of the press’.”
Keeping the faith
And it did  make me think that maybe we’re missing something here. Too many of our debates are about how to deliver content, rather than about what content to deliver. So:
Are we neglecting this and other subjects?
Are we following an agenda that’s too narrow, driven by things like accreditation criteria?
Should we be trying to find space to bring issues like this to the curriculum?
Thoughts?
http://www.cumberlandlodge.ac.uk/Resources/Cumberland%20Lodge/Audio/Ruth%20Gledhill.mp3

What’s it like to be a religion correspondent? Is the religion beat still worth pounding? Continue reading →

iNews

Bernie Russell Media
iNews
The web has been awash for a while with rumours about the arrival of the Apple Tablet. When (if?) it comes, will it save the news business?
http://mashable.com/2009/09/30/apple-redefining-print/
iHear…
The latest – and most interesting – is that the NY Times may have struck a deal with Apple to provide content for the Tablet. New York Times’ executive editor Bill Keller talked about “delivering our best journalism in the form of Times Reader, iPhone apps, WAP, or the impending Apple slate…” in a recent off-the-record speech clocked by a blogger.
http://gawker.com/5389636/bill-keller-apple-tablet-impending
iBelieve
Apple is said to be signing deals with the NY Times and other news content providers – and may be about to do for news what the iPod and iTunes did for music.
iTold you so
And not a subsidy in sight…

The web has been awash for a while with rumours about the arrival of the Apple tablet. Now there’s speculation that, when (if?) it comes, it might save the news business. Continue reading →

Word from web 2.0.

Bernie Russell Media
Whither web 2.0?
Morgan Stanley analyst Mary Meeker has a regular slot at the Web 2.0 summit to present on internet developments and the economic context.
http://www.web2summit.com/web2009/
http://www.morganstanley.com/institutional/techresearch/internet_ad_trends102009.html
Key points from this year:
mobile internet is big, bigger, biggest thing
growth of Apple’s mobile share will surprise
social media will drive huge change in comms and commerce
regulation will be key to boosting/slowing mobile internet ( = government, just get out of the way?)
You can download the report here. As well as more on the above, it has key data on the global economy, and is very readable and approachable – so a great lesson on how to present data as well?
Follow the web 2.0 summit on Twitter
http://twitter.com/web2summit

Morgan Stanley analyst Mary Meeker has a regular slot at the Web 2.0 summit to present on internet developments and the economic context. Continue reading →

Make me rich: steal my content

Bernie Russell Media
Make me rich: steal my content
The more people download songs illegally, the more money publishers make, argues this post from the TorrentFreak blog.
Proof – if you need it – that you can’t buck the market, no matter how hard you try.
http://torrentfreak.com/illegal-downloads-150x-more-profitable-than-legal-sales-091009/

The more people download songs illegally, the more money publishers make, argues this post from the TorrentFreak blog.

Proof – if you needed it – that the market will find its own solutions.

Another digital champ steps into the ring

Bernie Russell Media
Another digital champ steps into the ring
Apologies for missing this, but it turns out that Martha Lane-Fox isn’t the only digital champion – the BBC has one as well: Seetha Kumar, current controller of BBC Online.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2009/04_april/17/champion.shtml
The BBC’s Chief Operating Officer Caroline Thomson told the Digital Britain summit that Seetha was to become the BBC’s first Online Access Champion.
Seetha won’t have a task force like Martha, but there will be an online access forum.
Go figure
But she’ll hace a much bugger job on her hands than Martha – the BBC has found 17 million adults still not using computers and the internet -seven million more than Martha tracked down.
Licenced premises
The BBC saya they are building on “existing BBC efforts to inspire and help people get online”, and claims that “nearly one in 10 internet users say that bbc.co.uk was one of the main reasons they first accessed the web”.
Of course, 10 in 10 licence fee payers fund bbc.co.uk.
Whether they’re online or not.

Apologies for missing this, but it turns out that Martha Lane-Fox isn’t the only digital champion – the BBC has one as well: Seetha Kumar, current controller of BBC Online. Continue reading →