Clubs say Pemsel hired because of his ‘straightforward style and personal integrity’
The Premier League has appointed the Guardian’s David Pemsel as its new chief executive.
Confirmation of the appointment came at a Premier League meeting on Wednesday morning.
Continue reading...Prince compares wife’s treatment to Diana’s as proceedings over private letter are announced
Meghan, Duchess of Sussex has taken the unusual decision to sue the publisher of the Mail on Sunday after the newspaper published a handwritten letter she had sent to her estranged father.
The decision came as Prince Harry launched an extraordinary and highly personal attack on the British tabloid press and its treatment of his wife, saying he could no longer be a “silent witness to her private suffering”.
Continue reading...UK media freedom envoy speaks out after targeted killing of Jamal Khashoggi
A “glaring gap” exists in the world’s ability to investigate targeted state killings of human rights defenders and journalists such as Jamal Khashoggi, said Amal Clooney, the UK special envoy on media freedom.
She also said the UN special rapporteur Agnès Callamard, who undertook the UN’s investigation into Khashoggi’s murder, “had been forced heroically to manage a large-scale investigation with ridiculously few resources”.
Continue reading...The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have received an apology from the paper after press regulator ruling
The Sun newspaper has apologised to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex after the press regulator ruled it had breached accuracy guidelines in an article about an alleged staff parking ban at their home.
In a front page story headlined “NOT IN MEG BACK YARD” published in April, the newspaper claimed Prince Harry and Meghan had upset staff by imposing a ban on “low-paid staff” using a car park near Frogmore Cottage in Windsor.
Continue reading...North Antrim MP accused Sam McBride of lying as part of agenda to destroy DUP
Ian Paisley Jr has been strongly criticised by the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) for personal comments he made about a reporter in Belfast.
The North Antrim MP accused the News Letter’s political editor, Sam McBride, of lying as part of “an agenda to attempt to undermine and destroy the DUP”. In a 750-word Facebook post, since removed, Paisley described the journalist as “incredibly immature, intellectually weak and a simplistic fellow”.
Continue reading...A new book says the actor was scared of going on the record at first but then encouraged other women to speak out
Gwyneth Paltrow has been named a key figure in the New York Times story that first catalogued a series of sexual harassment allegations against Harvey Weinstein, and led to the film producer’s dismissal from his own company and subsequent prosecution.
In a new book titled She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey – the New York Times reporters whose story on 5 October 2017 triggered Weinstein’s downfall – Paltrow is said to have been “scared to go on the record but became an early, crucial source, sharing her account of sexual harassment and trying to recruit other actresses to speak”.
Continue reading...Independent owner hosted Saudi leader in London last year
Evgeny Lebedev, the owner of the Independent and the Evening Standard, hosted a private dinner for the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, raising further questions about the media mogul’s links to the de facto ruler of the Middle Eastern kingdom.
Lebedev’s news outlets are being investigated due to public interest concerns over a mysterious Saudi investment made through a web of offshore bank accounts, with the UK government suggesting that the Independent and Evening Standard are now part-owned by the Saudi state. The culture secretary, Nicky Morgan, has until Friday to decide whether or not to appeal against a court ruling that the UK government missed a deadline to intervene in the deal.
Continue reading...Chun Han Wong, who covered Xi Jinping extensively, is in effect expelled from country
Chinese authorities have declined to renew the press credentials of a Beijing-based Wall Street Journal reporter, in effect expelling a journalist who extensively covered President Xi Jinping and Communist party politics.
The foreign ministry said on Friday in response to a faxed question about the Singaporean reporter Chun Han Wong’s visa that some foreign journalists with the “evil intention to smear and attack China” were not welcome.
Continue reading...Was it murder? Suicide? Or just an accident? Almost 30 years before Jeffrey Epstein’s demise, Ghislaine Maxwell was caught up in another shocking and scandal-ridden mystery
At one time, everyone knew where to find Ghislaine Maxwell. The former aide-de-camp of the disgraced, now deceased, billionaire Jeffrey Epstein was a fixture in Manhattan’s most fashionable salons. With an impressive list of contacts, including Prince Andrew and Chelsea Clinton, she was a regular at fundraisers, book launches and society weddings.
The last place anyone would have expected to see her was a Los Angeles shopping mall, where the 57-year-old was photographed in a burger joint last week, just days after Epstein’s suicide in a New York jail, where he was being held on charges of sex trafficking underage girls.
Continue reading...Original headline read ‘Trump urges unity vs racism’ – prompting accusations that newspaper was feeding president’s narrative
The New York Times was forced to change its front-page headline for Tuesday’s newspaper amid an intense backlash over its portrayal of Donald Trump’s statement on the twin mass shootings that left 31 people dead.
The original headline read “TRUMP URGES UNITY VS RACISM”. Many people complained that the wording fed Trump’s claims that those who criticised his persistent anti-immigrant rhetoric – some of which was parroted in the El Paso gunman’s alleged manifesto – were playing politics.
Continue reading...A few columns ago I cited a story often told among journalists, for fun and to caution against self-importance, usually in vain. Variously attributed to small newspapers in remote locations at some time in the 19th century, an editorial discussing Russian foreign policy is said to have thundered: “We warn the Tsar!”
Related: The Last Czars: the historical drama that the whole of Russia is laughing at
Continue reading...News outlets unsure who employs Saudi investor after fears of state interference
The Evening Standard and the Independent say they are unsure who employs the Saudi Arabian businessman who bought a substantial stake in both news outlets, amid concerns that the Saudi government could exert editorial influence over them.
The Russian oligarch’s son Evgeny Lebedev, who controls both publications, sold 30% stakes in them to offshore companies fronted by a Saudi businessman, Sultan Mohamed Abuljadayel.
Continue reading...The UN report into October’s murder of Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul is the fullest account yet of events and as horrifying as one would expect. Agnes Callamard, the special rapporteur, describes a “deliberate, premeditated execution”; secretly recorded conversations before his visit discussed the arrival of the “sacrificial animal” and dismemberment of a body. She concludes that the crown prince of Saudi Arabia should be investigated because there is “credible evidence” that he and other senior officials are liable for the killing – a conclusion also reached by the CIA – despite the kingdom’s insistence that it was a rogue operation.
No reminder should be needed of the brutality of the killing of Khashoggi, a widely respected journalist living in Washington. Even Saudi Arabia’s business and diplomatic allies blanched, or at least felt obliged to put some distance between themselves and the crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. The kingdom, after repeated lies about what happened, announced that it would try 11 suspects for his murder.
Continue reading...Protesters call for charges to be brought against police officers who arrested journalist
Hundreds of people have been detained in central Moscow as protesters demanded charges be brought against the police officers who planted drugs on Ivan Golunov, an investigative journalist whose arrest sparked widespread public anger.
Alexei Navalny, a prominent Kremlin critic, was among those arrested when police, some clad in riot gear, moved in on 1,500 peaceful protesters who were attempting to reach the headquarters of the interior ministry that oversees police work. The protest, which was not approved by the authorities, took place on Russia Day, a national holiday in honour of the country’s independence from the Soviet Union.
Continue reading...Ivan Golunov who reports on corruption was arrested on controversial drug dealing charges
Thousands of protesters are to march in Moscow in support of Ivan Golunov, an investigative journalist arrested on controversial drug-dealing charges that are widely seen as an attempt to silence his reports on corruption.
More than 20,000 people have so far expressed an interest on Facebook in attending the march on Wednesday, which has not been sanctioned by the authorities. The protest will pass by the headquarters of the FSB state security service, before ending outside the interior ministry, which oversees the work of the police. Protests were also expected to take place in a number of other towns and cities across Russia, as calls grew for the charges against Golunov to be dropped.
Continue reading...News Media Alliance says revenue was almost as much as that of entire online news industry, although some question methodology
Google made $4.7bn in advertising from news content last year, almost as much as the revenue of the entire online news industry, according to a study released on Monday.
According to the News Media Alliance, between 16% and 40% of Google search results are news content. Google’s revenue from its distribution of news content is only $400m less than the $5.1bn brought in by the United States news industry as a whole from digital advertising last year.
Continue reading...Censorship comes after bans on Washington Post, NBC, HuffPost and Wikipedia
The Guardian’s website has been blocked in China, amid a crackdown by the country’s authorities on international news websites to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
The Chinese government has regularly restricted coverage of the incident, where the military turned on protesters in Beijing who were taking part in nationwide pro-democracy demonstrations.
Continue reading...Access to country’s law-making National Assembly will be restricted, says Guild of Editors
Strict new conditions for covering government proceedings and the re-arrest of a prominent journalist on terrorism charges have raised concerns about deteriorating press freedom in Nigeria.
To be permitted to report on the country’s National Assembly, the highest law-making authority, journalists will now have to prove that their media outlet has a daily circulation of 40,000 copies or online media 5,000 daily views.
Continue reading...Use of terms ‘climate crisis’ and ‘global heating’ prompts reviews in other newsrooms
The Guardian’s decision to alter its style guide to better convey the environmental crises unfolding around the world has prompted some other media outlets to reconsider the terms they use in their own coverage.
After the Guardian announced it would now routinely use the words “climate emergency, crisis or breakdown” instead of “climate change”, a memo was sent by the standards editor of CBC, Canada’s national public broadcaster, to staff acknowledging that a “recent shift in style at the British newspaper the Guardian has prompted requests to review the language we use in global warming coverage”.
Continue reading...Press freedom watchdog hails ruling by court in Turkish-occupied territory
Press freedom defenders have reacted with jubilation after a judge in Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus acquitted two journalists accused of insulting Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
A court threw out charges of defamation against Şener Levent and Ali Osman Tabak brought after the small-circulation daily Afrika published a cartoon depicting a Greek statue urinating on Erdoğan’s head.
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