These are some of the things that have caught my attention lately. It’s a more eclectic mix than just the news business, but then so’s life:

• BBC content sharing: it’s a start, but is there more to come? | The Guardian – [I]n a web oriented world, what about access to the BBC's programme database in open APIs with all that lovely metadata exposed to the world? This would certainly make our technology director and many others like him extremely happy. It would also have the further benefit of making available the BBC archive to everybody who can then work on it gratis to present it in a more beneficial way.

  Ditto your news footage. It should really be on an open server where people who want to take the news and distribute it through any channel necessary can. Of course it would carry BBC branding and it can come with any conditions you like attached, around re-use, or sale, or cutting, or even advertising. But it would be enriching for the users and publishers to have such a marvellous resource available.

• Google News won’t list neighborhood news site | Lost Remote – "[T]his is the new model of community journalism: neighborhood reporters working out of their homes, providing a layer of journalism over a vibrant community (something, I might add, does not always require “multiple writers and editors.”) This is the future of low-cost, high-relevancy, community-powered local coverage. But oddly, Google News enforces the old definition of a news organization. It’s discriminatory, narrow-minded and exclusive."
• Press freedom increasingly under threat in France – The Irish Times – Tue, Dec 09, 2008 – PRESIDENT NICOLAS Sarkozy's government tempted fate by hosting a two-day conference entitled Freedom of Expression: Cornerstone of Democracy to mark its EU presidency and the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

  Sackings, searches of newspaper offices, the detention of several journalists, legislation that inhibits press freedom and the concentration of media in the hands of Mr Sarkozy's friends are blighting press freedom here. Some 50 French journalists declined invitations to the conference.

• A tale of two publishers | News after Newspapers – [I]n 1954, U. S. newspapers garnered 32.94 percent of all advertising revenue, while broadcast television got 9.93 percent. Total advertising that year was 2.14 percent of GDP. By 2007, newspapers' share had "dwindled" to 15.07 percent of alll ad revenue, while broadcast and cable TV got a combined 25.34 percent. Total advertising in 2007 was 2.03% of GDP—in other words, the size of the pie stayed about the same, but TV gained most of what newspapers lost. And then there's this thing called the internet which has grown from nothing in 1996 to 3.77 percent in 2007. (Sources and graphs at my prior post on these trends.) The reason for this is simple: Broadcast TV, cable and internet today command a far greater share of consumers' time than newspapers do.
• The Importance of Newspapers | Students Esssays – Why not to get your essay online: "The newspaper, today, plays a vital role in human affairs. Its importance has not been diminished by the appearance of the radio or the television. Men no longer have travel to get information. The newspaper has become the main source of information. The newspaper has become the main source of information about local and foreign affairs."
• ECHR overturns television political advertising ban… | Ofcomwatch – "A friend just alerted me to the case of TV Vest AS v. Norway.

  The ECHR basically finds that Norway’s ban on political advertising on television falls afoul of Article 10 of the Convention.  I personally think it is a big case — and may in part over-rule the UK case Animal Defenders International.  It’s difficult for me to say because I am not a European lawyer, but I read TV Vest as essentially saying that the rationale for banning political expression on television is just not convincing."