All posts tagged: journalists

Fake experts and SEO: Journalists adopting new checks

Fake experts and SEO: Journalists adopting new checks

Published by Sam

Barbara Santini Journalists and PRs have changed their habits around verifying sources in the wake of a Press Gazette investigation which revealed that one of the UK’s most widely-quoted psychologists does not exist. Barbara Santini’s main online presence is on profiles connected with a sex toys website and CBD retailers. Press Gazette revealed in April how a PR working for these businesses duped multiple publishers into quoting Santini by responding to journalist questions posted on services like ResponseSource and Qwoted. When Press Gazette made contact with Santini via Whatsapp we were threatened with legal action if we pursued our coverage. Press Gazette has not heard from Santini’s lawyers and she has not been quoted again in the media since Press Gazette’s report on 7 April. Multiple stories have been taken down and amended. However, PR companies continue to deploy fake experts apparently using AI-generated responses. Freelance journalist Rosie Taylor explained that in response to one query via a journalist response service, she received three near-identical responses in the same email format with identical headshots, all …

Reach journalists reluctantly accept 2% pay increase

Reach journalists reluctantly accept 2% pay increase

Published by Sam

Reach newspapers including Liverpool Echo, Manchester Evening News, Daily Star, Daily Mirror, Daily Express, Sunday People. Picture: Reach Journalists at Reach have accepted a 2% pay rise backdated to 1 April and other concessions said to be worth £1m. Reach is the UK’s largest news publisher in terms of audience size and (as of 2024) employs some 2,587 production and editorial staff (as well as 680 sales and commercial and 312 involved in administration). In 2024 its total salary bill was £200m on turnover of £538.6m (down 5.3%) and it grew operating profit by 6% to £102.3m. The 2% salary increase equates to a £4m rise in costs if headcount were to remain constant. Members of the Reach NUJ Group Chapel have voted to accept the pay offer. But a consultation with NUJ members found “a clear level of disappointment and frustration particularly with the 2% across-the-board uplift in salaries”, according to a union note shared with staff. The note added: “However, despite the tough economic background in our industry and the wider economy, the …

Young UK journalists lean towards activist roles, away from objectivity – new survey

Young UK journalists lean towards activist roles, away from objectivity – new survey

Published by Sam

The role of journalists has been changing for some time now. Due to the rise of social media, journalists no longer hold the monopoly on informing the public and holding the powerful to account. Nor do they keep their role as exclusive gatekeepers for news. And many readers find that algorithms do a better job of selecting news than human editors. For a new report on the state of the journalism profession in the UK in the 2020s, my colleagues and I asked journalists what they think their role in society should be today. Facing a world of rising authoritarianism, war in Europe and catastrophic climate change, a younger generation of UK journalists increasingly believe they should occupy a more activist role in society. We asked a representative sample of 1,130 UK journalists how important a selection of 24 roles were to them. These included informer roles such as “being a detached observer”, to advocating roles such as “promote peace and tolerance” and audience-oriented roles such as “provide entertainment and relaxation”. We measured their answers …

Failure to tackle online abuse of journalists could prove fatal, editors warned

Failure to tackle online abuse of journalists could prove fatal, editors warned

Published by Sam

Jerome Starkey and Carole Cadwalladr speaking at the Society of Editors Conference on 25 March 2025. Picture: Lucy Young Failure to tackle the online abuse of journalists before it’s too late could lead to someone being killed, two high-profile names have warned. News organisations were told they must not wait for a death to act as a “wake-up call” during a panel on journalists’ safety at the Society of Editors Media Freedom Conference in London on Tuesday. Carole Cadwalladr, the long-time Observer journalist who won awards for exposing the harvesting of millions of Facebook users’ data by the now-defunct Cambridge Analytica, recalled the feeling of “being trapped in a washing machine” that came with being in her own “cycle of abuse”. Cadwalladr was personally sued for libel by Brexit donor and businessman Arron Banks over a statement made in her 2019 TED Talk, which she maintains was a repeat of words she had previously written in The Observer. She is currently taking an appeal over the £1m costs order she received to the European Court …

Revealed: Israel used US weapons in strike that killed journalists in Lebanon – video explainer | Israel-Gaza war

Revealed: Israel used US weapons in strike that killed journalists in Lebanon – video explainer | Israel-Gaza war

Published by Sam

A Guardian investigation has found that Israel used a US munition to target and kill three journalists and wound three more in an attack in south Lebanon on 25 October that legal experts have called a potential war crime. The Guardian’s reporter William Christou explains what he uncovered when he visited the site of the strike Source link

“Go F**k Yourselves”: Megyn Kelly Eviscerates “Faux Journalists” Joe & Mika Over Trump Meeting

“Go F**k Yourselves”: Megyn Kelly Eviscerates “Faux Journalists” Joe & Mika Over Trump Meeting

Published by skeptic

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news, MSNBC’s Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski have suddenly decided they want to be all diplomatic with president-elect Donald Trump, after openly calling him a nazi days before the election, and it has not gone down well for them at all. The pair announced that they travelled to Mar-a-Lago to meet personally with Trump, with Scarborough saying “It was the first time we have seen him in seven years,” adding “We talked about a lot of issues, including abortion, mass deportation, threats of political retribution against political opponents and media outlets. We talked about that a good bit.” You were literally crying and saying Trump was a fascist nazi two weeks ago. The only time anyone sees you is on X when we’re all laughing at how F*cking crazy you sound. https://t.co/J6GqzS9BqL — m o d e r n i t y (@ModernityNews) November 18, 2024 They took a look at their tanking ratings and decided to go meet up with ‘literally Hitler’ and see if they …

MP threatened journalists with police action after gurdwara article

MP threatened journalists with police action after gurdwara article

Published by skeptic

An MP has apologised to a Birmingham newspaper after threatening to report them to the police over an article which raised concerns about a local Sikh place of worship. The Birmingham Dispatch says Preet Gill MP accused them of “seeking to bully” her, misogyny, and inaccurate reporting, following the publication of an article on Guru Nanak Gurdwara (GNG) in Smethwick. Gill reportedly told the Dispatch she intended to report them to “local police” and the “standards commissioner”. The Dispatch also claims Gill “seemed to allege” they had received an “underhand payment” to run the piece. Elected in 2017, Gill is the first Sikh woman elected to the House of Commons. She is chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Sikhs, and was formerly Labour’s Shadow Cabinet Minister for International Development. The original article raised concerns about GNG, where portraits of members of proscribed terror organisation Babbar Khalsa are reportedly displayed on a ‘Martyrs of the Sikh Homeland of Khalistan’ memorial wall. Gill describes GNG as her “local place of worship”. In 2023, she was …

Reach expands central editorial team with hire of 60 journalists

Reach expands central editorial team with hire of 60 journalists

Published by Sam

Reach website Birmingham Live Reach has said it is hiring 60 new editorial staff which will include “audience writers” and “general assignment journalists”. The journalists will work across websites including the Mirror, Express, Manchester Evening News, Daily Record, Birmingham Live and Chronicle Live. The new roles will also include social video journalists working in newsrooms including the Mirror, Express, Daily Star, Daily Record, Liverpool Echo and Wales Online. According to Reach, these video journalists “will be tasked with turning the day’s biggest stories into social video, as well as helping to shape the news agenda daily with newsroom leaders”. The move follows a major re-organisation in March which saw 300 journalists (out of a company total of around 2,000) move into the Reach Content Hub. These journalists write traffic-driving content which is shared across multiple sites covering trending stories, wellbeing, money and other subjects. Thanks for subscribing. Close The hub is focused on creating “mainstream popular content” rather than news targeted at particularly local audiences. Reach said more production journalists will now be added to …

Intuit Begs Journalists to Delete Part of Interview With Its CEO

Intuit Begs Journalists to Delete Part of Interview With Its CEO

Published by José

Karen energy. Fintech Karen Intuit, the financial tech giant behind TurboTax and Quickbooks, inexplicably demanded that The Verge completely delete a portion of editor-in-chief Nilay Patel’s interview with its CEO, Sasan Goodarzi, because of — we are not kidding — “raised voices.” According to Patel, Intuit was specifically mad about a section of the interview in which Patel asks Goodrazi about TurboTax’s known history of pouring millions of dollars into intense lobbying efforts. What has Intuit been lobbying against, you ask? As has been widely documented through extensive reporting, Intuit has been hoping to kneecap government efforts to let Americans easily file taxes online for free. Basically, Goodrazi got touchy when asked about his organization’s efforts to neutralize government-spearheaded free tax filing programs. He hit back that Patel’s question — the editor said that Intuit is “legendary for lobbying against free direct federal e-filing” and then straightforwardly asked how much of their budget is allocated towards lobbying efforts — was “fundamentally” based in the “wrong premise” and was “inaccurate,” before declaring that Intuit doesn’t “lobby against …

Academy for Disabled Journalists issues funding SOS

Academy for Disabled Journalists issues funding SOS

Published by Sam

Picture: Shutterstock The UK-based Academy for Disabled Journalists is facing the threat of closure due to lack of funding. Founded by Grant Logan of Ability Today CIC, the Academy has trained over 100 disabled students in partnership with the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ) since its launch in 2020, equipping them with the skills necessary to pursue successful careers in journalism. Many of these students have secured positions at major media outlets, including the BBC, ITV, and Newsquest. However, rising costs and the need to keep student contributions low have forced the postponement of their upcoming Diploma Course, casting uncertainty over the future of the Academy. “We are finding incredible disabled talent, giving them the tools they need to succeed, and getting them into jobs,” said Grant Logan. “Without financial backing, we may have to close the Academy, which would be devastating not just for us, but for the disabled individuals whose voices are critically underrepresented in newsrooms.” Thanks for subscribing. Close The Academy is calling for immediate action from the media …