Editor's desk: Week of July 17, 2006

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Friday July 21, 2006


The stats are in and here are the most-read stories this week on nzherald:

1. Mum in hot water at public pool over child nudity ban

2. Woman bashed to death in classroom named

3. Policewoman who worked as prostitute censured

4. Father told to stop filming son on pool slide

5. Bush and Blair's chat caught by microphone [video report]
- - - posted 2.00pm by Neil Sanderson

Wednesday July 19, 2006

Sorry, but no blogging today or tomorrow as I am in all-day meetings here at nzherald. But you might like to

read what people think

of the All Blacks team named yesterday.

- - - posted 7.47am by Neil Sanderson

Tuesday July 18, 2006

Bush and Blair comments caught by microphone.

As reported this morning on nzherald:

A microphone has picked up an unaware US President George Bush saying Syria should press Hizbollah to "stop doing this shit" as he and Tony Blair discussed the upsurge in violence in the Middle East.

We've posted a

video recording

of this conversation plus a link to a

text transcript

.

- - - posted 11.40am by Neil Sanderson

Headlines on the covers of "women's magazines"

should stick to the facts, says the NZ Press Council in upholding a complaint against

Woman's Day

. But, as NZPA reports:

A minority dissenting view said it was not prepared to apply an "acid test of accuracy when the magazine's intent is a diet of gossip and escapism and, in the minority's view, not necessarily in facts".

- - - posted 9.45am by Neil Sanderson

Who do you think should be in the

All Blacks

team to play the Springboks this Saturday? Visit our

Readers' Views

page to have your say.

- - - posted 9.16am by Neil Sanderson

Monday July 17, 2006

Google chief executive Eric Schmidt

talked to reporters during Friday's Herb Allen Conference for media moguls. Among his quips, Schmidt asked journalists to please refer to his executives as "idiots" saying the last time that happened - while the company was launching an IPO in 2004 - business went through the roof.

Reuters journalist Kenneth Li covered the conference in Sun Valley, Idaho - although no one, not even participants, was permitted to blog during the event. Li's reports include

an MP3 audio file of Schmidt

responding to questions, starting with "What do you think of YouTube?".

- - - posted 2.00pm by Neil Sanderson

Reader comment:

Re

Condemnation of Israeli action mounts

, my comment is that the content of the article does not support the headline nor the statement in the opening paragraph that the conflict has "stirred growing international condemnation".

The article has one quote from the French President that is critical of Israel, one comment from a UN relief co-ordinator Jan Egeland stating that attacking civilian infrastructure is wrong and a comment from the Finnish foreign minister that the conflict could spread. This hardly constitutes "growing international condemnation", especially considering the other comments quoted in the article - from President Bush, the Canadian PM, Saudi Arabi and Jan Egeland - supporting Isreal and criticising Hizbollah.

I believe that the accuracy of headlines is important because they communicate a tone that can often influence the way people view an issue more than actual facts. I am disappointed that the Herald has either not demonstrated greater precision in characterising this article, or, alternatively, has not provided a more comprehensive summary of facts that support the headline.

- - - posted by Mark Thomson, Chicago, USA

Response:

Thanks for the comment Mark. This headline was supplied with the story by Reuters news service and I have no reason to think it was innaccurate in and of itself. Nevertheless, I agree that the headline ought to have been changed by our editors to reflect the theme of the report, i.e. that some world leaders are speaking up against the Israeli actions while others remain supportive. We have altered the headline to refer to the comments of President Chirac.

- - - posted 1.28pm by Neil Sanderson

Michael Urlocker

, who writes on the subject of disruptive technology, says newspapers need to worry less about their customers and more about their non-customers. Urlocker says a task force set up recently at Dow Jones (owner of the

Wall Street Journal

and Dow Jones business newsire) to consider the publishing giant's future in the digital age is likely to fail.

"A committee structure designed to boost efficiency and effectiveness of the current operations is focused on the wrong thing. Its like moving the deck chairs on the

Titanic

. Or worse, arguing about who is in charge of the deck chairs.

"The iceberg was in charge of the Titanic.

"The customers are in charge of the news business. And the customers by and large have spoken: Newspapers are less relevant today than ever. The most important group that newspapers should pay attention to are not their customers. It is the non-customers."

Urlocker's blog posting has lots more to say on the subject as well as some excellent links.

- - - posted 9.32am by Neil Sanderson

Reader comment:

The most important comment in the blog site from was by Rupert Murdoch, below my comments here. The blog described Wall Street journal as the most successful and profitable, but Wall Street Journal isn't for thinkers. It's for people who only want to live in the current paradigm of big dollars equals big success. Wall Street Journal rarely comes up with "investigative" journalism, but is very good at parrotted reportage, which is what the business sector wants.

However, the average reader would be more included to agree with Rupert Murdoch, and in this respect the Herald has a long way to go. I read the Herald every day and have long since got to the point of not expecting really good investigative journalism on any issue where controversy might not fulfill the standard criteria of win/win journalism. The Herald lacks both initiative and "balls", in my opinion, when it comes to the REAL issues that affect people's lives. Herald reporters should attend deBono type thinking courses, and learn to ask the "right" and hard questions, or else people will close their pocketbooks.

In this, Murdoch is right. You need to ask questions of yourself, that Murdoch puts below. Are your readers actually interested in much of the information you put in the paper? If not, why not? Like Wall Street Journal, there will always be those who suck in anything that is really just 200 words someone got paid for. But where do you want the Herald to go? Do you want it to be the cutting edge of the thinking community's voice?

*** quote from blog *** Rupert Murdoch, who knows a bit about the media, is optimistic but says newspapers and journalists condescend to their readers: "What is required is a complete transformation of the way we think about our product. Unfortunately, however, I believe too many of us editors and reporters are out of touch with our readers. Too often, the question we ask is "Do we have the story? rather than “Does anyone want the story?"****

- - - posted 10.15am by Hilary