Buzzfeed recruits Sun Whitehall reporter and Telegraph assistant editor

Title: Buzzfeed recruits Sun Whitehall reporter and Telegraph assistant editor

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/nov/21/buzzfeed-sun-daily-telegraph-emily-ashton-robert-colville

Summary:

This article is about Buzzfeed being passive recruiters of high ranked employees of established media giants, in this case the Sun’s Whitehall correspondent and a daily telegraph assistant editor, Emily Ashton. Her new role is as the social news website’s senior political correspondent with a brief to break Westminster stories. Also she has to report to the deputy editor of Buzzfeed UK, Jim Waterson; she will also have a leading role in covering the May general elections.

Facts/Phrases:

Ø  Buzzfeed has also hired Robert Colvile, who joined the Telegraph in 2004 and was acting head of comment from October last year until August. .

Ø  Buzzfeed UK is the site’s largest operation outside the US, with 17 million monthly unique visitors and the fastest growing with nearly 50 employees.

Opinion:

In my opinion this is a prime article to show the transition of traditional broadsheet news to a new and digital form of media. The fact that high ranked employees of traditional media institutions are beginning to be recruited by the newer digital institutions and challenging and beating traditional media for top place in providing the audiences with news.   

Driverless cars could face threat from hackers trying to cause road chaos

Title: Driverless cars could face threat from hackers trying to cause road chaos

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/21/driverless-cars-hacking-threat-road-trials-january

Summary:

This article talks about the trials of the self driving car that is hitting the roads of 3 select areas in the United Kingdom in January 2015,  and then goes on to talk about how the self driving cars will be prone to hacking, and are likely to take the control over the car. The article talks about how the self-driving car could reduce road casualties by eliminating human error, however there is the counter point of the self-driving car could actually increase car accidents amongst motorists who will still use manual cars if and when they are mixing in the same roads. There is a prediction that within 15 years time there will be fully autonomous vehicles taking goods and people around Britain, which will bring cheaper and safer mobility for passengers.

Facts/phrases:

Ø  According to Dr Nick Reed, principal human factors researcher at the Transport Research Laboratory in Crowthorne, Berkshire, 95% of the 1.2m annual deaths worldwide on the road involve human error. 

Ø  “Recent reports analysing software show that 98% of applications have serious defects and in many cases there were 10-15 defects per application,” as stated by Hugh Boyes, the cyber security lead at the Institution of Engineering  and Technology.

Opinion:

In my opinion this article highlights a key issue of safety of new and digital media as there are newer and more dangerous risks that have been coming out with the introduction of technological developments. History will repeat itself again, similar to the introduction of the internet in the 90’s, where a new type of crime had been introduced and cyber cell departments had to be placed in the enforcement of laws. Perhaps they will be making laws like, you cannot hack into cars systems, with not succeeding, more and more accidents will take place. The whole network of self-driving cars will be a hackers playground with each car being his toys to manipulate. 

Build the Wall Analysis

Section 1- this section is about how as an audience we should pay for traditional, high quality journalism, or not receive it at all.

Section 2- this section presents how newspaper giants need to take a step in order to change the landscape, where quality news is reported by professional journalists, rather than citizen journalists and advertising.

Section 3- this section presents how the newspaper industry ignored the rising threat of the internet and how it acted like a disease that started small, but wasn’t recognised before the damage was done, similarly  new media came up like a disease.

Section 4- in this section Simons, talks about three scenarios, the first being the pay wall is successful and that the audience is willing to pay for quality, the second scenario states that newspapers become local to their regions and online pay walls go up. The final scenario states that all small newspapers are eviscerated and only unique and essential newspapers have survived.

Summary

David Simons, in this article is demonstrating his personal view and perspective about the decimation of the news industry, he begin s starting off with what the newspapers that are on top have, that make them sell more, and that is high quality professional journalism, that is paid for, rather than citizen journalism that is unprofessional, and if the audience is not willing to pay for their news they shouldn’t receive it at all. The media institutions that Simons talks about states how influential they are and that since they are influential they should use it to change the landscape of the newspaper world. David Simons also mentions how the threat of new and digital media was seen, but never acknowledged as a great by the news giants, and thus suffered as the damage was severely done when it was realized as a supreme threat. David Simons finishes off with 3 scenarios, one that is beneficial to all, one that is a complete balance and the third is the where that newspaper industry only survives through the unique institutions.   

Comments

Ø  “A monopoly! Exactly the right way to go - can I get some fries with that?” #4 Posted by Wild Bill on Thu 16 Jul 2009 at 01:13 PM, this agrees with Simon’s opinion as it makes jokes about how NDM has become a monopoly.

Ø  “My issue with publishers building an interactive strategy of charging for content is that the very act of charging effectively closes the doors on any number of new interactive businesses that publishers might reasonably pursue. Charging for content is a strategy that places the survival of the existing product first and ignores the needs of businesses and consumers who might otherwise help publishers create numerous new revenue streams. Instead of thinking of the online newspaper as an end in and of itself (or as a way to support printed newspapers), think of it as the entry point into a system of interlocking new products and services. The free newspaper Web site is the aggregation magnet that brings a large audience into the system. The site then qualifies those customers for a wide variety of other products and services that meet the needs of paying business customers (e.g., lead-generation services, transaction fulfilment services, audience development and management services, and so on). If you strangle the size of your original audience by charging them (in the notion that the only business opportunity before you is porting the newspaper over to the Web), you stifle any number of opportunities down the pipeline, opportunities that are made possible by a free and easy-to-access aggregation site up front.” #5 Posted by John Granatino on Thu 16 Jul 2009 at 01:22 PM, this opinion agrees with the opinion

Ø  Please do this. Authoritative resources are being lost in the Wikipedia world. One must go around the world to find authoritative on the ground reporting. I would pay for it, no question. #8 Posted by Judy on Fri 17 Jul 2009 at 11:47 AM. This opinion clearly agrees with Simon’s opinion and wants to pay for reliable news.

My opinion

My opinion is that newspapers have been the foundation and original source of news on all platforms as news was first written and sent out through them , but nowadays newspaper have been sidelined and pushed away in order to use applications and sites, as they are faster, more recent and short. Personally, I think that the pay wall should go up as the dying world of news has dumb down audience in to looking at listicles and pictures of cats. This will at least give us as readers high quality journalism.  

Latest ABCs show newspaper market decline running at 8% a year

Title: Latest ABCs show newspaper market decline running at 8% a year

http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2014/jul/11/abcs-national-newspapers

Summary:

This article is about the rate at which the newspaper market declining at a 8%+ rate. The article is made up of statistics to do with the newspaper market. The majority of the article states that newspapers have gone in to the negatives with only a few newspapers having a decent year.

Facts/Phrases:

Ø  “....newspaper market is falling at a rate of more than 8% a year, according to the latest set of officially audited circulation figures produced by ABBC.”

Ø  “The Sunday market, which now sells some 570,000 fewer copies than the weekday issues, is declining slightly faster at more than 9%.”

Ø  The Times have enjoyed a slight year-on-year increase, of 0.66% (though noticeably supported by 21,983 bulk sales)

Ø   The Guardian (without bulks) managed to record a drop of just 0.9%. (Its 0.53% loss on the six-monthly comparison makes it the best performing of any national daily on that metric).

Ø  The Daily Telegraph, with a drop of 5.94% in June this year compared to the same month in 2013

Ø  The I, with a 5.5% fall, also came in better than the rest of the market.

Ø  The Financial Times, which is following a digital-first strategy, saw sales fall by 14.68% over the 12 months while The Independent was down 13.08%.

Ø  The Daily Star lost 75,000 buyers over the year, which represents a decrease of 13.67%, while The Sun was down 9.37%.

Ø  The Daily Mirror, down 7.71%, and the Daily Mail, down 7.36%, did somewhat better, while the Daily Express suffered an 8.15% drop.

Ø  Year-on-year, and on the six-monthly comparisons, all the red-tops - Sun on Sunday, Sunday Mirror, Sunday People and Daily Star Sunday - registered falls averaging about 11%.

Ø  The Mail on Sunday and Sunday Express, down by 6.68% and 8.28% respectively, appear to be losing about 1.5% of their sales month after month.

Ø  The Observer enjoyed its second best year-on-year performance with a slight drop of 2.5% (about 5,300) copies to register a June total of 207,005 copies.

Ø  The Sunday Times, still triumphant as the market leader with an average sale in June of 815,759, was down 2.9% on the year, but was 3.4% down on the month.

Ø  The Sunday Telegraph managed a slight month-on-month rise, but it dropped 3.9% on the year.

Ø  10-year comparisons reveal that the Sunday market total has dropped from 12,752,933 to 6,697,573, a decrease of 47.5%.

Opinion:

 In my opinion, this article indirectly highlights how the introduction, development and advancements of new and digital media have created a destructive effect on the newspaper industry. The most significant evidence being the 10-year comparison that had revealed the Sunday market total has dropped from 12,752,933 to 6,697,573, a decrease of 47.5%. The issue with this is that without broadsheets, audiences have become dumb down, and are not used to hard hitting news that is in more complicated English, instead of informal language and pictures of cats.

Man jailed for WhatsApp ‘revenge porn’ after posting images of woman online

Title: Man jailed for WhatsApp ‘revenge porn’ after posting images of woman online

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/nov/14/man-jailed-revenge-porn-whatsapp

Summary:

This article is about Luke King, becoming the first person in the UK to be convicted for Whatsapp “revenge porn” and has been jailed for 3 months. King had pleaded guilty to harassing the victim without violence. King had published intimate images of a woman on Whatsapp after he had threatened.  He was also issued a restraining order, which prevents him from contacting the woman. This case is the first since the new online guidelines were put in place last month about “revenge porn” being a legitimate threat to people’s explicit images and videos. 

Facts/phrases:

Ø  “Prosecutors are now following guidance issued in October that clarifies how we can use existing legislation to prosecute perpetrators of these intrusive offences.”

Ø  “This is the first case of its kind in Derbyshire since the new guidelines came into effect and is a sharp reminder that these offences will be taken seriously and we will use a range of legislation to secure justice for its victims.”

Ø  Derbyshire police said: “It’s important for people to realise that it is an offence to harass others in this way. We agree with the judge that it was a despicable thing to do, especially after Luke King received warnings to stop. Anyone who is subjected to this type of crime should keep the evidence and contact the police as soon as possible.”

Opinion:

In my opinion this case is a clear indication of the ripple effect that new and digital media has created, especially in terms of the United Kingdom’s first case of “Revenge porn” after the new guidelines where “Revenge porn” being put in place in October. The effect of New and Digital Media has created new crimes in “Revenge porn” and this has led to developments in the judicial system of the countries. Personally I think it came late as the internet has been around for 20 plus years and “Revenge porn” emerging in the last 15 years.

Double trouble for Apple, as two software security flaws discovered

Title: Double trouble for Apple, as two software security flaws discovered

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/06/apple-mac-iphone-security-malware

Summary:

This article informs the audience about how there is twice as much trouble in regards to Apple’s desktop operating system and the emergence of a new iPhone malware. The vulnerabilities that have been found in Apple are for users of Mac OS X. The first is the Root pipe this was found by a Swedish hacker called Emil Kvarnhammar; this enables an attacker to gain “root” control of a computer, known as the highest level of access, without the Intel of using a password. Root pipe, in theory allows a hacker to install any malicious software that could be used to seal credit cards details or other personal data, among other things. The second is called Wire lurker; this is the first malware that has been found in the wild, which targets iOS devices that haven’t been jailbroken, it can be used to extract the basic personnel information from a phone. Wire lurker tricks the user in to installing it on their Mac and then waits until an iPhone and iPad is plugged in over the USB before using trusted relationship between the two to install software on the mobile device.         

Opinion

In my opinion this continues to put Apple in the spotlight for controversy, especially since Apple has not yet responded to the request for comments. Apple has become targeted yet again via hacking and vulnerability, this shows that Apple is suffering in regards of reputation and seriously needs to fix up their security systems. 

Google launches Fit app to take on Apple’s Heath and Samsung’s S Health

Title: Google launches Fit app to take on Apple’s Heath and Samsung’s S Health

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/29/google-launches-fit-app-apple-heath-samsungs-s-health

Summary:

This article is about how Google is taking a step in to another niche, this time in to the fitness application world. Google Fit, the name of the Fitness app, tracks the health and fitness data using the Smartphone’s built in sensors, but the difference is that Google Fit can connect to third-party apps, gadgets and services, so it can be used while using other apps. A basic version of Google Fit was built in to Android smart watches, such as Motorola Moto 360, and LG G Watch. The article talks about how the app is a convergence of the capability of tracking steps, recording them, and checking heart rates and weight as well as reviewing runs. The Google Fit app requires the user to manually measure the heart rate, which is a disadvantage compared to the Moto 360 heart rate sensor app, which takes it automatically throughout the day.          

Facts/Phrases:

Ø   In Britain, more than £100bn a year is spent on the NHS, according to the Department of Health.

Ø  “You can also connect your favourite fitness devices and apps like Strava, Withings, Runtastic, Runkeeper and Noom Coach to Google Fit and we’ll surface all of the relevant data in one spot, giving you a clear and complete view of your fitness,” said Sabrina Ellis a director of for Google Fit.

Ø  The healthcare industry is a potentially lucrative market to exploit, worth about 10% of the economy of developed nations.

Opinion:

In my opinion, this article briefly hints to the Google’s attempts at becoming the most dominant media institution in the current era, its step in to a newer niche although it seems that Google have just introduced an app in reality its entered the fitness industry, and though they have announced it to be free, they will monetise the application by inserting advertisements in to it, thereby profiting from yet another business venture that has gone Google’s way.