The Tickle File is ftm's daily column of media news, complimenting the feature articles on major media issues. Tickle File items point out media happenings, from the oh-so serious to the not-so serious, that should not escape notice...in a shorter, more informal format.

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Week of July 30, 2007

It Hurts, Really Hurts, To Get Such Stories Wrong

Reuters ran a story Wednesday saying a rescue attempt was in progress to free the Korean hostages being held by the Taliban in Afghanistan. It turned out the story was false and Reuters withdrew the story a couple of hours later explaining there had been some “miscommunication”. But even had the story been true would it have been right to go with it while the operation was in progress and perhaps telling the terrorists what to expect?

A news agency obviously wants to put the news out first to enhance its reputation (when it get it wrong, on the other hand, it can destroy years of goodwill in getting other stories right). But where does an agency draw the line between being first and possibly putting people in danger?

AP International editor John Daniszewski said that in this particular case if it had known about such a story the AP “might have waited to report (news of a rescue operation) until there was some indication that our reporting wasn't going to cause additional danger. The general policy is we would not want to inject ourselves into the story and cause danger to people."

It is precisely because of cock-ups like this that major broadcasters such as the BBC World Service Radio used to have policies of never going with an agency story unless it had been corroborated by another agency. It was not unusual for the BBC people at Bush House, for instance, to phone a competing news agency’s London office to say “Agency A has this story and we would like to see your version.” Often that phone call was the first the competing news agency knew of the other story. Sometimes if the story was one the BBC felt it just had to go with without corroboration then it would say Agency A reports … not because the BBC liked to credit news agencies but rather because it was a cya (cover your  a..) operation and if the story  was wrong let the agency get the blame. It was about the only time the BBC would give credit where credit was due.

“We See Things Now We Never Would Have Gotten Otherwise” – A CNN Anchor Speaking About Citizen Pictures Received of the Bridge Collapse

The tragedy of the Minneapolis bridge collapse was brought even closer to viewers around the world because of the large number of citizen journalists who snapped pictures with their mobile phone or other cameras and then sent them off immediately to news organizations.

Many contributors said that within minutes of hearing the noise of the collapse they raced to the bridge and had started snapping away, well before professional media hit the scene.

And for most of the day anchors on the domestic and international 24-hour cable news networks were urging viewers to continue sending in more pictures. Colleen McEdwards,  a CNNI anchor, told her viewers that because of citizen journalist contributions to CNN’s “I Report” that “We now see things we would never have gotten elsewhere.”

There can be no doubt that coverage of human tragedy such as the bridge collapse, or the failed terrorist plots in the UK last month, and the like has now entered into a brand new journalistic world. It’s as if anybody with a mobile phone camera is now a photo journalist, and whereas accepting these pictures a couple of years back had some editors complaining about poor technical quality, and asking whether the pictures could be trusted to be true, that debate is now seldom heard.

On the other hand, the news organizations still, for the most part, aren’t paying for the citizen journalism coverage that could set their news programs apart from anyone else’s

China Again Accuses Media Of False Reporting On Its Food Quality Issues

Vice Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng says the foreign media are making up stories about the quality and safety of China’s food and other products, continuing a string of statements by other government officials that foreign media are basically making a mountain out of a mole hill.

"We are completely opposed to this type of hearsay, generalized, made-up, malicious reports,” the minister said as quoted by Xinhua News Agency.

China’s quality problems continued Thursday when Fisher-Price in the US announced the recall of some 1 million toys made in China because they were covered in lead paint. Children, of course, love to put toys in their mouths.

In July,Li Changjiang, Minister of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, blamed that “some foreign media, especially those based in the US, have wantonly reported on so called unsafe Chinese products. They are turning white to black." Li conceded that there were problems with certain domestic companies, but said: "One company's problem doesn't make it a country's problem. If some food products are below standard, you can't say all the country's food is unsafe." He said more than 99% of Chinese food exports to the US in the past three years had met quality standards, at, or even higher, than the equivalent figure for US food exports to China.

Earlier in July Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told a news conference, “One aspect of this (product quality problem) is a misunderstanding which in large part is a result of media exaggeration. That creates a psychology of fear."  He added, “Can we base our criticisms on individual cases? We understand the concerns of the foreign consumers of the safety of food and drugs because it is a matter of life and health. But we also hope the international community especially the media should adopt a constrained and rational attitude in their coverage of the issues."

CME buys Czech tele-shopping channel

Central European Media Enterprises (CME) will buy Czech tele-shopping channel Top TV, according to several sources. No details on the transaction were given…but, CME is scheduled to release its second quarter results today and certainly details will follow. Analysts are expecting net profits tripling over last year.

Would Leonid Brezhnev Turn In His Grave If He Saw Mikhail Gorbachev Hocking Louis Vuitton Luggage?

Mikhail Gorbachev, the first and last President of the communist Soviet Union, has made clear very often that while Vladimir Putin’s Russia may not express democracy in the same ways as the West, there is no going back to the old system.

And one proof of that  is that the  former Soviet President  is now hocking Louis Vuitton luxury luggage to the rich.  It’s subtle – he’s pictured sitting in the back seat of a limo with a Vuitton bag on the seat next to him.

Why Gorbachev? Don’t forget there are a lot of very wealthy Russians these days, many of them living outside their own country. In Geneva, for instance, along the street said to have some of the most expensive rents in the world are all of the major European luxury brand shops and it is doubtful that any of them do not have at least one Russian speaker. It used to be the shops wanted Japanese speakers, now it’s Russian.

And indeed anyone who has visited Moscow recently will certainly have seen that the very rich love to flaunt what they have. Nothing is too expensive for them. And they have to be seen to have it. If Louis Vuitton is seen to be good enough for Gorbachev then …

Reminds one that in a corner of Red Square, across from where Gorbachev and others used to stand watching the military’s May Day parade, stands a Christian Dior shop. Christian Dior in Red Square! Considering that, why not a former Soviet premier selling luxury luggage.

McClatchy Outsources Circulation Customer Service And Chances Are A Call Will Be Handled In The Philippines

McClatchy says it has signed an agreement with APAC Customer Services Inc. to handle circulation customer services at most of its 31 newspapers.

APAC provides customer services for health care, financial services and the publishing and communications industries and already handles calls for more than 40 newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, Orange County Register and Minneapolis Star Tribune.

It has operations in the US and the Philippines and the McClatchy calls will be handled by workers in both countries.

Russian journalists awarded damages

In two separate decisions (July 31) the European Court of Human Rights awarded damages- €1000 - in claims brought by three Russian journalists.

The journalists charged local Russian officials with harassment under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Quoted in The Moscow News, Andrei Richter, of the Center for Law and Media, said, “This, unfortunately, means nothing.”

FT Improves Revenues

With most of the financial news about financial newspapers centered on the Wall Street Journal, it’s worth noting that the Financial Times has had a very positive first half report with subscriptions up 12% and subscribers to FT.com up 12%, too.

Advertising revenue was up 5% and apparently the June 18 30% price increase from £1 to £1.30 has not caused any problems.

Pearson, publisher of the FT, says the newspaper division profits were up 28%. It is in the process of trying to sell its French financial newspaper Les Echos, but says it has no plans to sell the FT.

UK Government Reduces Its Advertising Overall, But Boosts Its Digital Spend

The UK reduced its advertising spend by 12% in the past year to March compared to the same period a year before, but it has increased its digital spend by 85%, mostly at the expense of television.

The Central Office of Information (COI) which coordinates the UK government’s advertising is the third largest advertiser in the UK – only Procter & Gamble and Unilever spent more. .

“Our figures show that government, like the private sector, is following audiences online as more and more people access information and services via the web,” said Alan Bishop, COI chief executive.

Digital received £22.5 million, 16.5% of the government’s total advertising spend.

Complete Stock Market Tables A Relic Of History?

About 67% of the 1400 daily US newspapers still print some stock market tables, but virtually no newspaper now prints the full lists that were so common just a few years back, according to a new study.

Only 20% of newspapers with more than 100,000 circulation now print as much as two pages of tables, and less than one-third print less than a full page of stock tables, according to the research by the Dean W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism.

And fully one-third of business sections do not offer any stock market tables at all, with the average amount of space overall given to the tables being about one-third of a page.

And, the study says, cutting back on the stock tables did not result in a larger business news hole. Space given to business news is in deep decline – about 75% of US newspapers now provide just one page or less of business news.

Not Rocket Science – A Good Local Story and Up Goes Circulation

UK regional newspapers discovered last week that if you have a really big local story it’s the greatest key to increased circulation.  The town of Gloucester was one of the worst hit UK cities from the flooding that seemed to have much of middle England under water – the worst flooding in more than 60 years.  Electricity was out, clean drinking water had to be brought in by truck so residents had more than their hands full of trouble. But that didn’t stop them from buying their local newspapers in droves -- circulation of the Gloucester Citizen was up 14% on the Saturday and the same again the following Monday.

And how do you deliver newspapers in a raging flood?. Simple, you kayak down Main Street, which is what the Gloucester Echo’s distribution manager did to deliver several hundred copies of the newspaper.

Ian Mean, the Citizen’s editor,  reported that clean drinking water or not,  there was a “voracious appetite for news.”

Editor of Independent  Zimbabwe News Service In South Africa Shot

Abdel Mutsanki, editor of ZimOnline based in Johannesburg, South Africa, has been released from hospital after being shot by three attackers last week, but one of the bullets is lodged so close to the heart that surgeons decided to leave it where it was.

Police are investigating the motive for the shooting. While shooting robberies are frequent in South Africa, in this case it was just a shooting – in the lung and near the heart, and nothing was taken.

Mutsanki is a former managing editor of Zimbabwe’s leading Daily News that the government banned four years ago. He moved to South Africa and established ZimOnline, critical of the Mugabe government’s social and economic policies.

The Queen Is Not Amused By The BBC’s Botched  Promo And Wants The Film Canned

According to the Mail on Sunday newspaper, Queen Elizabeth is incensed with the BBC’s false promotion trailer for the documentary of a year in the Queen’s life and she wants the entire film canned.

The newspaper says a battle royal has broken out between Buckingham Palace and the BBC – the latter still wants to show the film and says there is nothing wrong with it except for that promotional trailer that has been canned.

The promo used a voice-over from the Queen as she was seen walking in her royal robes that implied that she was not happy at American photographer Annie Leibovitz asking her to remove her tiara or stately robes for the shoot and she was allegedly stomping out of the shoot. In fact the video really showed the Queen walking to the shoot – believe in the media that’s sometimes called literary license.

Apparently with Buckingham Palace there is no such thing!

Mobile TV offered in Ghana

Blackstar TV and GSM network Onetouch are testing T-DMB mobile TV in Ghana’s capital Accra. It’s a one-channel test, for now. The initial broadcast will target African heads of state attending the African Union conference. Up to six channels are planned.

Radio Liberty offered something in Armenia

It became reasonably clear last week that Radio Liberty – the Armenian service of RFE/RL – would no longer be broadcast on Armenian Public Radio. Negotiations broke down, as they say. RFE/RL said it wasn’t about the money, implication being that somebody doesn’t want Radio Liberty broadcasting nationwide with the Armenian presidential elections coming soon.

Late last week Radio Liberty was offered time on AR Radio Intercontinental. Best we can tell, this is a local Yerevan FM.

Austrian public broadcaster leads radio ratings

Radiotest results for the first half of 2007 – released last Thursday (July 26) – shows public broadcaster ORF still dominating the radio scene. Youth channel Ö3 was declared winner, once again. The channels share of the under 49 year old market is 45%, twice that of all private channels combined.