Israel-Tagged Content The Guardian Could've Done Without - Reuters Distributing Press Releases in Editorial Feed

Monday, January 3 2011

A web site called British Views of the World published this map showing which countries got the most international coverage in The Guardian. Get a good look at Israel:

Benjamin Hennig, who created the map explains:

To understand how British people perceive the events on the globe, one can look at how frequently a country has been mentioned in major news stories. The following maps do exactly this by visualising the number of news items on the website of the British Newspaper The Guardian (data derived from their Data store).

CiF Watch, which first spotted British Views of the World, notes:

Quite interestingly, the Guardian helps us out quite a bit, by noting thatstories tagged “Israel” represented the 5th highest of any country specific tag (other than the UK).

Here's my top ten list of Israel-tagged content The Guardian could've done without (in reverse chronological order):

1. The problem with Israel's Jewish 'refugee' initiative
2. Battery hens' reality on Israeli farm exposed by hidden webcam
3. Architects against Israeli occupation
4. Wikipedia editing courses launched by Zionist groups
5. Ethnic cleansing in the Israeli Negev
6. Mark Regev, Israel's master of public relations
7. Israeli politician moves to limit the soaring price of popcorn
8. Live blog: Britain expels Israeli diplomat
9. Israeli embassy raises eyebrows with tennis tweet
10. Avatar protest at West Bank barrier

Is The Guardian obsessed with Israel? You betcha.

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Wednesday, December 29 2010

Reuters Distributing Press Releases in Editorial Feed

For as long as newspapers have accepted money to publish advertisements, there tension between the employees responsible for content (editors and the newsroom staff) and the staffers with bottom line concerns (that would be the advertising staff).
Usually, potential conflicts of interests are on the level of something like a restaurant owner pushing for a nice review in the local paper where he's a regular advertiser. The restauranteur will typically contact his advertising account person, push for a story, and only to be rebuffed.
"I don't handle content. You'll have to take it up with the appropriate editor," is the firm-but-polite reply many an ad salesman has made for years.
Which brings us to Reuters. According to the IR Web Report, Reuters recently began sticking client press releases into its news feed.

One of the five principles states: “That Thomson Reuters shall supply unbiased and reliable news services to newspapers, news agencies, broadcasters and other media subscribers and to businesses governments, institutions, individuals and others with whom Thomson Reuters has or may have contracts.”
However, the Reuters news feed delivered to Yahoo! Finance now includes complete, unedited press releases from Thomson Reuters’ corporate clients in amongst Reuters news articles. Press releases of non-Thomson Reuters clients are not being distributed to Yahoo! Finance.The press release headlines are virtually indistinguishable from the newswire’s editorial content.

By breaking down the separation between the editorial and business aspects, Reuters has opened the door to public scrutiny of its clients and ownership too. I already get enough emails asking about one never-say-die urban legend which has it that Reuters is controlled by Arab corporate interests.
Read more, see the screengrabs, and judge for yourself.