Media News

Italian alien film tries to ape Orson Welles radio play in web marketing

Posted by John Hooper on August 8, 2011 Comments Off

Real TV newsreader Maria Cuffaro fronts YouTube attempt to trigger same panic as 1938 adaptation of The War of the Worlds

If anything can be said to have "gone viral" in the pre-digital age, then it was Orson Welles's 1938 radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds. Telling HG Wells's story of an alien invasion by means of realistic news bulletins, Welles created genuine panic.

But what would happen if the same stunt were pulled using the awesome, scare-spreading capabilities of the

Fish Fight returns as sustainable species sales rise

Posted by Media news, UK and world media comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk on August 8, 2011 Comments Off

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall returns to Channel 4 with his fishing campaign, as Sainsburys, Waitrose and Birdseye record a marked increase in sales of sustainable fish

As Channel 4 prepares to air an update of Hugh's Fish Fight on Monday evening, retailers have today revealed how sales of fish have changed as a direct result of the high profile campaign.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's campaign has garnered support from more than 700,000 people since the programme first aired in January, demanding the EU reform its Common Fisheries Policy in order to end the controversial practice of discarding and better protect European fish stocks.

As a result of the campaign, retailers also came under pressure to promote less fashionable fish varieties and provide clearer information to customers about the environmental impact of the fish they choose to buy.

A number of supermarkets responded with a series of initiatives designed to encourage shoppers to switch to alternative fish varieties where stocks are more healthy.

Sainsbury's has today revealed it has sold 46 extra tonnes of alternative fish varieties such as coley, pouting, rainbow trout, hake and megrim following the launch of its Switch the Fish campaign in June.

The campaign encouraged shoppers to try new species and take the pressure off the 'big five' - cod, haddock, salmon, prawns and tuna.

Waitrose said it has also seen a marked and long term change in fish sales trends since January, with demand for white fish alternatives to cod and haddock soaring.

Sales of Cornish pollack increased a massive 207 per cent, Cornish brill fillets 64 per cent, Anglesey seabass fillets grew 31 per cent, while Icelandic whiting fillets increased 35 per cent, the supermarket said.

Shoppers also took Fearnley-Whittingstall's advice to eat more mackerel, which is native to Britain and boasts a healthy population. Sales at Waitrose are up 105 per cent since January.

Similarly, Birdseye said total sales of Pollock products are up six per cent partly as a result of the Fish Fight campaign, while sales of battered and breaded XL Pollock grew by 41 per cent.

Hugh's Fish Fight: The Battle Continues, will broadcast at 9pm this evening, and will provide an update on the campaign, and emphasise the work that still needs to be done to secure future fish sources.

Despite the fact that the European Commission last month published proposals for a new Common Fisheries Policy, including recommendations for a discard ban, there is still another 18 months to go before the new policy becomes law.

The proposals have been broadly welcomed by environmental groups, but representatives of the fishing industry have warned that the plans could have a negative impact on fishermens' income.

Martin Glenn, chief executive of Birds Eye Iglo Group, hailed the changes in consumer buying habits but he also called for decision makers to boost their efforts to drive change.

"The success of [Hugh's] campaign has been directly reflected through the growing popularity of our Pollock fish fingers," he said.

"However, a lot of work still needs to be done to secure our future fish sources, which is why we are continuing to drive collaboration between the government and the wider industry to encourage better fisheries management."

FishingFishMarine lifeOceansChannel 4guardian.co.uk

Tottenham riots: ‘Live blogging’ in 1985

Posted by Katy Stoddard on August 8, 2011 Comments Off

The Guardian's live blog is covering the London riots that started in Tottenham at the weekend. In 1985, when riots engulfed the Broadwater Farm estate, the timeline was much more low tech

The London riots that started in Tottenham on Saturday night are being tracked on the Guardian live blog.

These days, the live blogging team can keep up with any event as it happens, but in days gone by it wasn't so easy.

When riots broke out in Tottenham in October 1985, technology hadn't yet caught up with the Guardian reporting team and their love of a timeline.

Alongside articles on the Broadwater Farm incident and PC Keith Blakelock's death, the Guardian coverage on 8 October 1985 included a "timetable of the Tottenham riots" compiled by Guardian reporters.

It bears a striking resemblance to today's live blog; the Guardian's reporters were clearly ahead of their time.

London riotsLondonBloggingNewspapersKaty Stoddardguardian.co.uk

How Murdoch should spend $12bn…

Posted by Roy Greenslade on August 8, 2011 Comments Off

My item on News Corp's cash pile prompts a reader to suggest how the company boss, Rupert Murdoch, might spend some of the $12bn.

It should be placed into a trust with the following objectives...

1. Finding out what went wrong at News International

2. Funding a proper Press Complaints Commission

3. Setting up university courses in journalism ethics

4. Funding the training of would-be journalists

5. Freeing BSkyB from its Murdoch dependence and giving the poor user a better deal

6. Reinstating BBC World on Chinese satellites

Thank you to Charles Norrie for that. I can't turn on comments, but you can email ideas to me at roy.greenslade@guardian.co.uk

11am update: Here are some more just in (the printable ones).

David writes: "Perhaps some might be put aside for the innocent and hard-working people whose lives he wrecked and whose families he endangered by the cynical closure of the News of the World."

And Mark, on a similar theme, writes: Oddly, you never suggest paying compensation to all the people whose lives he damaged and/or destroyed."

He adds: "He should spend his money seeing how the poor and the socially deprived live."

Rupert MurdochNews CorporationNews InternationalPhone hackingPress Complaints CommissionJournalism educationBSkyBChinaBBC WorldwideRoy Greensladeguardian.co.uk

Brooks is still a News International director

Posted by Roy Greenslade on August 8, 2011 Comments Off

I asked on Saturday, Is Rebekah Brooks still on the News International payroll? Now comes further evidence suggesting that she well might be.

On 15 July, she resigned as chief executive of News International and issued a statement saying:

"I have given Rupert and James Murdoch my resignation. While it has been a subject of discussion, this time my resignation has been accepted."

But a blogger known as Dephormation, working for the NoDPI site, yesterday decided to search the companies house records.

He located the current appointments report for News Int and discovered that she was still listed as a director of the company, as the screen shot below indicates.

By law (see chapter 1 of the companies act relating to a change in a company's directors), a director's resignation must be notified to companies house within 14 days.

The termination should be notified using a certain form and, given that Brooks resigned on 15 July, it should have reached companies house before 29 July.

No such form was listed on the companies house site. But it appears that her resignation as chief executive has been treated by News Int as a separate matter from her directorship.

When I inquired today, a News Int spokeswoman emailed to explain:

"Rebekah Brooks resigned as CEO of the company on 15th July 2011. The process for her to resign as a director of the Company is currently underway and will be filed at Companies House shortly."

Well, I'm glad that little matter has been cleared up. We'll check with companies house soon to see that the deed has indeed been done.

Rebekah BrooksNews InternationalRupert MurdochJames MurdochRoy Greensladeguardian.co.uk

Big Brother’s paper trail | Media Monkey

Posted by Monkey on August 8, 2011 Comments Off

There have been no shortage of papers claiming to be the "official Big Brother paper" in previous seasons of the far-reaching reality show. The Daily Star is the only one doing it these days, and frankly there's no arguing with it. Being owned by the same bloke who owns the channel it's going to broadcast on – well, it doesn't get any more official than that. Richard Desmond's paper climbs back on the bandwagon on Thursday, offering the mouth-watering prospect of Kerry Katona – and her mum – in the Big Brother house. The Daily Express joins in, quoting presenter Emma Willis who has "heard the rumours about Charlie Sheen" being on the Channel 5 show and it "would be dynamite". Yeah. She read them in the Daily Star.

Richard DesmondChannel 5Television industryDaily StarNewspapers & magazinesNorthern & ShellNational newspapersNewspapersDaily ExpressMonkeyguardian.co.uk

If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done correctly | Mind your language

Posted by David Marsh on August 8, 2011 Comments Off

Don't get in a bad mood over the subjunctive - as Shakespeare would confirm, it will add elegance to your writing

"Does no one use the subjunctive any more?" a reader asks, prompted by one of many Guardian stories revealing at best a passing acquaintance with, and at worst complete ignorance of, what is technically known as the subjunctive mood.

The subjunctive is a verb form expressing hypothesis, typically to indicate that something is being demanded, proposed, imagined, or insisted: he demanded that she resign, I wish that she were honest, she insisted Jane sit down, and so on.

You can spot it in the first and third persons singular by the use of were rather than was: if I were you, I'd tell the truth; if she were honest, she would quit.

Thus, as another reader pointed out, when we wrote "if News Corp was a liberal outfit" it should correctly have been "if News Corp were a liberal outfit". (As I said, we are in the realms of hypothesis.)

The subjunctive is more common in American than British English, and often found in formal or poetic contexts – in the song If I Were a Rich Man from the musical Fiddler on the Roof, for example. (If you think "If I Was a Rich Man" sounds as good, I can recommend a good tin ear specialist at my local ENT department.)

The excellent Orange Crate Art blog notes that the subjunctive "is appropriate in stating conditions that are contrary to fact", contrasting Tim Hardin's song lyric "If I were a carpenter and you were a lady, would you marry me anyway?" with the distinctly more prosaic "If I train as a carpenter, I will get to wear safety goggles."

Fowler noted that the subjunctive was most likely to be found in formal writing or speech but was "seldom obligatory". Some writers seem to get away without it, but then some people get away with murder. Look at these examples from the same issue of the Guardian:

"If every election or ballot in which there are cases of bad practice was [sic] to be invalidated, democracy would soon become a laughing stock ..." (leading article); "If this was [sic] the centred Conservative party that Cameron claims, its strategists wouldn't be half as worried as they are ..." (column).

I'd be surprised if schools were still teaching the subjunctive, but we still have plenty of readers for whom those two instances of "was" instead of the subjunctive "were" will have jarred enough to distract them from the point the writers were trying to make.

Compare that with the elegance that can be added to your writing by proper use of the subjunctive, as seen in this column by Gary Younge: "It was as though Charlie Brown's teacher were standing for leader of the opposition ... " (one of three examples of the subjunctive mood in the piece).

As with the hyper-corrective misuse of whom instead of who, however, using the subjunctive wrongly is worse than not using it at all. Many novelists randomly scatter "weres" about their pages as if "was" were going out of fashion, presumably having heard vaguely somewhere that this is correct.

Perhaps that is why Somerset Maugham, a superb writer, was no fan of the subjunctive. He declared half a century ago: "The subjunctive mood is in its death throes, and the best thing to do is put it out of its misery as soon as possible."

Were that ever to happen, however, our language would be the poorer.

LanguageDavid Marshguardian.co.uk

Angolan journalist arrested for reporting on ‘mass fainting’

Posted by Roy Greenslade on August 8, 2011 Comments Off

Angolan police arrested radio journalist Adão Tiago for reporting on a bizarre nationwide wave of mass fainting.

Since April, more than 800 people, mostly teenage schoolchildren, have fainted after complaining of sore throats and eyes, shortness of breath and coughs.

Amid news reports of unidentified toxic substances, Angola's interior minister ordered an investigation into the cause. There have been claims that the media is to blame for creating mass hysteria.

Tiago was detained in Luanda over a 29 July report on Radio Ecclesia about the fainting of some 20 students at a local school where he happens to teach English. He was released after 23 hours of questioning.

Mohamed Keita, the Africa advocacy coordinator of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said Tiago's arrest of "highlights the Angolan government's obsession with controlling information... instead of focusing on addressing a very serious national crisis."

Source: CPJ

Press freedomAngolaAfricaRoy Greensladeguardian.co.uk

New iPlayer app launches on PS3

Posted by Josh Halliday on August 8, 2011 Comments Off

BBC launches redesigned version of its iPlayer catchup service for TV viewers, debuting on Sony's PlayStation 3 console

Diehard Doctor Who fans have grown used to catching up on the latest episode of their favourite programme on their smartphone or iPad. But most viewers are set to swap their smartphone for the living room as the BBC predicts TV will dominate iPlayer catch-up within three years.

The BBC on Monday launched a new version of iPlayer for the TV, in a fresh attempt to woo an older generation of viewers.

The app – launching initially on the Sony PlayStation 3 games console, which has run the browser-based version of iPlayer since 2008 – has been built from scratch and includes new features such as viewer recommendations.

Daniel Danker, the BBC's general manager of programmes and on demand, said that iPlayer viewing on internet-connected TVs increased five fold in the six months to July, reaching 3.1m programme requests a month.

"We're going beyond the tech-savvy. We're making iPlayer easier to use for the mainstream audience," Danker said. "With today's announcement, we're transforming iPlayer in its most natural home."

He said the BBC aims to boost iPlayer viewing among the over 35s, to bring its catch-up audience broadly in line with traditional BBC demographics.

BBC fans made 157m programme requests on the iPlayer in June – a 34% rise on the same month last year – according to figures released last week.

The catch-up service's iPad app, which launched in February, is set to reach 1m downloads in coming days. About a third of iPad owners in the UK stream live TV on their device, which Danker attributes wholly to the iPlayer.

The BBC is also set to unveil a series of design changes to the online iPlayer, including a potential move away from its distinctive black and pink look.

Asked about the colour change, Danker said: "I'm not religious about colours … There will be an evolution in the look and feel – but it's evolutionary not revolutionary."

Most of the corporation's TV and radio content online – like channels, programmes, TV guide and archives – will be brought under the iPlayer umbrella over the coming year.

Ofcom last week said that one in 10 new TVs (about 1m) bought last year were internet connected – with average viewing time rising to four hours a day.

According to forecasts, almost 36m new-generation TVs will be installed in British homes by 2016.

iPlayerBBCTelevision industryDigital mediaSonyPlayStationPS3TelevisionJosh Hallidayguardian.co.uk

Today’s media stories from the papers

Posted by Media news, UK and world media comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk on August 8, 2011 Comments Off

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Media News

Italian alien film tries to ape Orson Welles radio play in web marketing

Fish Fight returns as sustainable species sales rise

Tottenham riots: ‘Live blogging’ in 1985

How Murdoch should spend $12bn…

Brooks is still a News International director

Big Brother’s paper trail | Media Monkey

If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done correctly | Mind your language

Angolan journalist arrested for reporting on ‘mass fainting’

New iPlayer app launches on PS3

Today’s media stories from the papers

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