News Agenda - Daily Express

The Daily Express claims to have over 1.5 Million newspaper readers and just fewer than 2 Million unique visitors online each day. The average age of their readers is 59. This makes me question why they are releasing an ipad app for their newspaper when their target audience is unlikely to use it. They have a mid-market readership in terms of both age and social class. The Daily Mail is its biggest rival, but has a more female readership. The front cover of the Daily Express presents it as a very patriotic newspaper with the logo of St George,...

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The Freedom of Information Act

The Freedom of Information Act enables journalists to request (and receive) certain information and data from the public sector. One very useful website for submitting FOI requests is here at www.whatdotheyknow.com Any person making a request for information to a public authority is entitled:- - To be informed in writing by the public authority whether it holds information of the description specified in the request - (If that is the case) To have that information communicated to them. An example of data that would be stored would be the Department...

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David Hume - HCJ

David Hume was an empirical philosopher. Russell gives Hume huge praise in ‘History for Western Philosophy’.Some Key Hume Points- Events in the universe are constructed in our minds through our sense experience- Did not believe in causation in the universe;, and apparent causes are constructed in our minds they do not exist in reality- Logical Positivists (followers of Hume) feel statements are only worth discussing if they are capable of independent verification. ‘God exists’ can’t be verified and would therefore be classed as not worth discussing.Impressions...

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Investigative Journalism – Law

In this week’s law lecture we covered ‘Investigative Journalism’ which means you are getting the information/news yourself when fulfilling your role as the ‘eyes and ears of the public’.Examples could be claims like ‘I think football matches are fixed’. As a journalist you would then investigate this claim to try and find proof that it is true so that you can present your findings to the public.One example of great investigative journalism is Watergate. A few journalists felt the president (Nixon) had hired criminals to burgle his political opponents....

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Cristiano Ronaldo Wins Libel Payout - The Daily Express

8/11/10In The Daily Express they have reported that Real Madrid footballer Cristiano Ronaldo ‘has accepted substantial undisclosed libel damages over a claim that he put his injured ankle at risk by “living it up” in a hollywood nightclub.The claim was made by the Daily Telegraph in July 2008 with the story ‘Ronaldo back in the limelight’. He did not appear at London’s High Court for the settlement against Telegraph Media Group Ltd.Allan Dunlavy (his solicitor) claimed that the story lead to embarrassment, distress and offence to the player as...

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Super-injunctions over?!?!

In todays(6/11/10) edition of The Sun, they reported a story of Arsene Wenger supposedly having a 2 year affair behind his wife's back. However, while reading through the 2 poage report, i noticed a small story in the corner headlined 'Sun win as judge lifts gag'.In the brief article, they have revealed that yesterday(5/11/10) they won 'a landmark legal ruling that could end the "super-injunctions" taken out by celebrities to cover up scandals.Mr Justice Tugendhat(a senior high court judge) has ruled that sportsman that attempt to prevent publication...

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Joseph Addison - HCJ

Joseph Addison – HCJJoseph Addison was an English poet and playwright born in the 17th Century. With his friend Richard Steele, he founded the ‘The Spectator’.The SpectatorFor our seminar we read ‘The Spectator’ number 476. In this edition Addison speaks about his own writing style saying it sometimes follows regularity and method, whilst occasionally having no order to it. However, through this edition he voices his preference that ideas are presented in logical order to the reader. He states that when writing, further thoughts are continued so...

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News Agenda - Professor Peter Cole on Mid-Market Newspapers

In his series of articles that were published in 2007, Professor Peter Cole wrote about UK newspapers at a time when a decline in their sales started to show, but with their influence on the public and the media in general still clear. In the first edition of this series, he speaks about The Daily Express and its decline from the dominance it enjoyed between the ‘1930s to the 1960s’. As i will be closely observing The Daily Express in the next few weeks, I found this part in the series particularly interesting.The Daily ExpressPeter Cole blames...

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Law Lecture - Copyright

Although I learnt some of the basics about copyright law in a special lecture a few weeks ago, we spent this week’s law lecture covering other areas of copyright, exploring how important it is to us for both protecting our work and protecting others.Copyright has existed in the UK and US in common law since the early 18th century – ‘turning information into money’.You need copyright to prevent others from using your creations. In the 18th Century it was compared to theft, their intellectual property is given legal protection. However, there is...

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