ITV Exec Chairman Michael Grade has confirmed that News At Ten will only run four nights a week. He told the House of Lords Communications Committee, “we are going to go four nights a week at ten o’clock on ITV, we will go head to head with BBC1 and the audience will make their choice.” He was giving evidence this morning.
The former BBC reporter behind the Hutton Inquiry, Andrew Gilligan, was lecturing in Bristol recently [HT: Roy Greenslade]. Regular readers will know my thoughts on Gilligan.
Gallingly, I share many of the concerns he articulates (I say “articulates” but you can judge for yourself here). I say “gallingly” because Gilligan frames those concerns as part of an attack on journalism which began with … an attack on him and the BBC.
Here are a few random quotes:
On the power of the press
A minority of journalists and proprietors might want to pursue their own agendas, undermine democracy, change the truth, but they have much less power to do so than they like to think. It just doesn’t work if it goes against the grain of the facts. Journalism can amplify public feelings that already exist, but it cannot create them from scratch.
On the need for something like Roy Greenslade’s blog, Press Gazette…whatever
What we also need is … a newspaper or a magazine about the press, reporting about reporting — turn the spotlight on ourselves … a weekly or a monthly publication that would expose, mock and humiliate the bad, forensically investigate dodgy stories, shame people [note: requires people to feel ashamed] … root out some of the dodgy practices that absolutely plague our trade… [like, yes?] nepotism and things.
On journalism under attack
One of the things I noticed when I was in trouble over Hutton was how few journalists … well quite a few journalists were prepared to come to my support … but quite a few were deeply hostile and critical…and I thought that was silly, it wasn’t in their interests either because it was the whole of journalism that was under attack.
Gilligan would make a better defender of journalism if he prefaced some of his occasional sensible points with an admission of his own shortcomings. But there you go…
The Times (of London) should have found itself generating big web traffic thanks to its print edition making the front page of Drudge.
So how did it (nearly) happen? With a little help from unfounded allegations of a lesbian affair involving Hillary Clinton and an aide.
Last week the Drudge Report originally linked to this Times story from 22 November, which detailed some of the smears being levelled at various presidential candidates.
The piece began:
The anonymous e-mails and letters began dropping into inboxes and through front doors this summer.One claimed that Hillary Clinton was having a lesbian affair with Huma Abedin, her beautiful aide. Another online mass-mailing cautioned of the “dark secrets” of Mitt Romney’s Mormonism. A blogger claiming to support John McCain said that Rudy Giuliani’s wife supported the killing of “innocent puppies”. Flyers appeared on cars accusing Barack Obama of being a Muslim extremist. An anonymous website said that Fred Thompson was a corrupt playboy.
Welcome to South Carolina, the foulest swamp of electoral dirty tricks in America. This state’s primary race has already become the sleaziest leg of the 2008 presidential campaign.
The Drudge link generated some modest traffic. So far, so straightforward. But then Drudge got hold of the paper itself.
That main photo (of Clinton walking with aide Huma Abedin) is captioned: “Hillary Clinton has been accused of having an affair with Huma Abedin.” And, on the strength of that caption, the story made Drudge’s main page.
DON’T GO THERE: BRIT PAPER STARTS ‘UGLIEST MONTH’
Sun Nov 25 2007 20:45:12 ETThe TIMES of London starts ‘The Ugliest Month’ with a full page photo takeout on Hillary Clinton and her beautiful personal assistant.
“Hillary Clinton has been accused of having an affair with Huma Abedin,” reads the caption.
The splash stunned British readers and angered campaign insiders.
“This does not even qualify as tabloid trash… it’s ridiculous and reckless,” a Hillary confidante explained over the weekend.
Taking the whisper from the underground to the overground, the paper made no claims to knowing any truth of the relationship between Hillary and Huma…
But Drudge didn’t link to the original online story that puts the caption into context. So, no extra traffic for the Times.
Is this a little disingenuity by the US site? Or a case of not looking back to see that — caption aside — this is in fact the same story you already linked to?
Still leaving politics to one side — with David Montgomery dissing sub-editors, what better illustration of their ability to sell stories than this?
And finally, a print edition that could have driven online traffic (well, almost).
