Today the House of Commons told us half of what we knew from reading the revelations made by The Daily Telegraph more than one month ago!
But the most outrageous details were hidden by the thick black strokes of a censor’s pen.
Parliamentary authorities posted details online of four years worth of legislators’ claims but thousands of pages were obscured amid concerns over privacy and security.
It was too little and too late.
The Telegraph will publish some of the uncensored documents in full on Friday.
As BBC’s Martin Rosenbaum says:
Now the Commons has released the official data on MPs’ expenses, much of the focus will actually be on what they still haven’t released – the information which has been blacked out or “redacted”.
And The Guardian launched a tool asking readers for help to review the files:
Step 1: Find a document
Step 2: Decide what kind of thing it is and whether it’s interesting
Step 3: Copy out any individual entries
Step 4: Make any specific observations about why a claim deserves further scrutiny
Yes, The Washington Post is right:
“The Daily Telegraph newspaper has caused both major parties embarrassment with daily revelations about how lawmakers have claimed for expenses such as cleaning swimming pools and moats, installing a chandelier and buying manure for the garden. The disclosures have infuriated voters at a time when Britain is in deep recession and many are losing their jobs.”
Every evening, the online edition of the Telegraph announces more revelations for tomorrow: “More to come”
It’s like a slow motion daily torture.
And if you subscribe to the Telegraph “alerts” you will be the first to know about the next discovery.
Yesterday, my local press agent in St. Davids was calling to the Telegraph distribution center asking for extra copies.
Today, I went around 11 am to buy the paper and I got the last copy.
So, the saga continues.
And the paper is sold out daily.
The Telegraph is giving us a superb lesson in order to cope with any newspaper crisis:
Exclusive news and stories always sell.
And The Daily Telegraph has plenty of them.
Readers love them.
Not the crooks.
So again and again:
Publish the news and raise hell!
This is today’s front page of the first issue of the new LA LIBRE BEGIQUE.
The editors explains (in French) in this video the main changes.
This final hybrid version is a mix of different projects: a first one done by Lucy Lacava, and a second one done by Javier Errea.
See here some pages from our model
And these are from the final remake of today.
You can see the full issue in this pdf version.
After the picture, President Obama presented the Queen with an iPod with footage of her visit to the US in 2007.
A Royal iPod!
Rupert Murdoch’s the News of The World is a trashy Sunday tabloid.
Really trashy, full of yellow journalism.
But today they have a sad story about a wild party night for Michael Phelps in Columbia, South Carolina.
The paper claims that he was smoking a cannabis pipe, and that’s the picture of the day.
The PR machine of the Olympic swimmer wanted to stop the publication of the picture.
And the News of The World, which sometimes pays for pictures and articles about scandals, this time did what any newspaper has to do.
In their own words:
“Phelps is represented by marketing giant Octagon, which works with huge brands such as Mastercard and HSBC.
They admitted proven cannabis use would be “a major taint” on Phelps’ character.
Spokesman Clifford Bloxham offered us an extraordinary deal not to publish our story, saying Phelps would become our columnist for three years, host events and get his sponsors to advertise with us.
In return, he asked that we kill Phelps’ bong picture.
Bloxham said: “It’s seeing if something potentially very negative for Michael could turn into something very positive for the News of the World.”
Another fallen hero.
And an expected end of a life that he once described as:
“All you do is eat, sleep, swim; eat, sleep, swim; eat, sleep, swim.”
What a compelling human story to tell!
That nobody covered.
Now we will get it.
Thanks — oh dear — to the News of The World.
Sir Martin Sorrell, Chief Executive of WPP, blogs from Davos at the Financial Times.
Bad, boring blogger.
But great FT idea.
Pure advertising.
With great insights.
Are you ready?
What about this one?
“Participant numbers should be reduced.
Security is also very tight, aggravated by the crush.
There are heavy lines and queuing, especially early in the morning.”
The new Saturday Times is here and no bloggers paid any attention to the new formula.
Well, it’s Saturday and weekends are the less newsy days of the week.
So, what a great opportunity to cover what nobody else does.
The new Saturday Times looks fine, but nothing in it is amazing.
The new broadsheet section (Saturday Review) doesn’t makes any sense inside of a still very badly designed tabloid.
The Magazine is another “pottage,” a little of this, a little of that, and … nothing new, nothing exciting, nothing impressive.
Having spent a few days in the UK and reading all the UK national newspapers again, The Guardian is by far the best product during the weekdays, plus its excellent The Observer on Sundays.
The Telegraph is suffering from the broadsheet format.
And The Times still has to improve its current low-class tabloid design.
The Independent is almost dead after redesigns and redesigns.
My St. Davids newsagent asked me the other day: “What newspapers do you want Mr. Giner?”
My answer was: From Monday to Saturday just send me The Guardian, add the Saturday and Sunday Times during the weekend, plus The Observer on Sunday.
Jeff Jarvis and other media bloggers report about print newspapers that go online – not to to die, because they were dead already.
My comment to one of Jeff’s recent posts:
These are dead bodies in dead markets.
Like the papers in Detroit.
So, going online will not solve their problems.
If you were not able to make money in print, how you are going to survive online?
If you didn’t get enough readers and advertisers, how are you going to get them online?
Only print newspapers making money, having readers and advertisers, and investing online will survive.
If you were not innovative in print, how I can believe that you will be online?
These newspapers are not casualties of the Internet, but print failures.
These are not the papers of the future.
They are the losers.
So, let’s focus on what The Guardian does or what The Daily Telegraph, La Vanguardia, El Mundo, Politiken, Aftenposten, O Globo, Zero Hora, The New York Times, USA Today, 20 Minutos, Il Corriere della Sera, Dagens Nyheter, Berlingske Tidende, La Nación or La Tercera do …
Yesterday and today, the U.S. stock market went down.
But The New York Times (NYT) shares went up.
Why?
The reason is here.
They are working with Facebook … so the value of the newspaper company improves.
A good lesson for mono-media companies.
A few months ago, Africa Israel USA, a unit of Africa Israel Investments, paid $525 million for the landmark building that has served as the headquarters for The New York Times for the past 94 years.
Tishman Speyer purchased the building from the newspaper company in 2004 for $175 million.
And now, Tishman has been able to sell the building for triple what it paid the Times only three years ago.
So, real estate is not the expertise of The New York Times’ top business management.
Investors know better, and today, the shares of the newspaper company are at $18.64
The value of the company is now half of what Rupert Murdoch paid for Dow Jones.
