Media

Why should we believe claims made in The Times and the Daily Telegraph that a senior Tory referred to the party's activists as "mad, swivel-eyed loons"?Because, frankly, it stretches credulity to think that two reporters from competing titles would concoct a fake story based on such a specific quote.As I wrote earlier today when looking at the coverage of David Cameron's ongoing dramas, all the national newspaper editors have effectively accepted that the quote was genuine.Even if one accepts the denials of the Conservative party co-chair, Lord Feldman, that he didn't say it, someone clearly did. And maybe he did anyway, and conveniently forgot he had. Or perhaps he wished to forget it.And then there's the little matter of where he was said to have said it. You can hardly expect journalists not to monitor who their peers are talking to.Let's face it, down the years we have been here many, many times. People say things to journalists, possibly in a light-hearted fashion, that end up in print. Inevitably, "official" denial follows. They may also fail to grasp what we mean by "off the record". For journalists, it simply means that it is reportable as long as the source is not identified.It's different from a conversation in which a source leaks specific information, such as the weapons expert David Kelly famously did in his meeting with Andrew Gilligan, the tragic results of which I'll explore in a moment. A single "off the record" quote is also qualitatively different from an "unattributable background briefing", which usually involves a lengthy and considered statement by a source to a trusted journalist.No-one can blame the Times and Telegraph reporters for reporting what they heard. Just the reverse. The guys did what they are paid for - disclosing to the public inside-the-beltway political opinions about the outside world.As the Independent on Sunday's political editor, Jane Merrick, wrote yesterday: "Off the record is criticised by some because it allows attacks to be made without accountability. Yet to most reporters, it is an essential part of freedom of speech – it affords anonymity to sources to expose wrongdoing and question those in power without fear of recrimination.Political journalists use 'lobby rules' whereby private conversations – including those over lunch – are honoured by the off-the-record agreement."She reminded us that Peter Mandelson once made disobliging remarks about Gordon Brown and Tony Blair at a "private" lunch with women journalists. Though his anonymity was respected when his comments were reported, his identity "leaked out" because - with 18 journalists present - it was bound to happen.Merrick touches here on two important features of such stories that bedevil the "off the record" custom and practice: one, the significance of the story; two, the nature of Britain's intense journalistic competition.Together, these make the likelihood of anyone briefing more than one journalist at a time on a potentially explosive story, while hoping to retain his or her anonymity, is virtually zero.When the Times and Telegraph published their splashes on Saturday, it was obvious that the editors of every other paper would demand follow-ups and, of course, demand to know if their story was true.The process of verification was therefore bound to lead to the identity of the quoted person emerging in daylight. If the story is big enough - and, of course, in the Kelly/Gilligan case it proved to be huge - then there will be insistent pressure to expose the source by those who went unbriefed. They owe that source no special allegiance because they did not grant the person any guarantee of confidentiality. Mostly, these hunt-the-source escapades cause no more than acute embarrassment to the people who are seemingly unaware of the implications of speaking on an unattributable basis to journalists.Most survive. Some resign. In Kelly's case, it led him to take his own life (though I concede that some still do not believe

Sahaj e-Village Limited, a subsidiary of Srei Infrastructure which sets up and operates broadband enabled Common Service Centres in rural India in a public-private partnership, has partnered with the e-commerce venture Infibeam to launch an online shopping portal called SahajShopping.com. Sahaj informed that this store will be exclusive for rural consumers and will offer products across various categories like mobiles, watches, books, and music among others. The deal period or the financial details of the partnership were however not disclosed. The company said that this store will be available only to authorized Sahaj Village Level Entrepreneurs through the Sahaj portal and claims that the service is currently available across 50 Sahaj Jan Seva Kendras in Uttar Pradesh, with plans to extend the service to other regions shortly. At the time of writing this article, we got an error message ‘Authorization Failed’ when we tried to access the service. We’ve been awaiting a response from Sahaj and Infibeam for more details on this launch since last Thursday, and will update in case we hear from them. Sahaj Partnerships: In November 2011, Travel site Ezeego1.com had collaborated with SREI Sahaj e-Village to offer travel products at common service centres. It had also tied up matrimonial classifieds company BharatMatrimony.com for rural matrimony initiatives in July 2010 and partnered with State Bank Of India to offer rural e-Banking service.

The total revenue of Internet Service Providers as reported by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) for the quarter ending December 2012, was Rs 2978.85 crores, down by 0.53% from Rs 2,994.62 crore during the quarter ending September 2012. Some highlights: - The total revenue of ISPs over the last two years from March 2011 to December 2012 has increased only by 10.92%. This is despite the increase in the Internet usage in India. A report released by Mary Meeker, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), had noted that as of December 2012, India has 137 million Internet users. Note that internet users does not necessarily mean that they are internet subscribers as well. - Also note that for the last few quarters India has seen a steady increase in wireless subscriptions but a steep decrease in wireline subscription, indicating that people have dropped out of the Internet services instead of switching to wireless. - The fact that the ISPs did not see a significant increase in revenue indicates two things — either ISPs are not adding enough subscribers to sustain healthy or required revenue growth; or that the bandwidth cost for the consumers could have decreased bearing no effect on the revenue for ISPs. Data Source: TRAI Share data sources with us: contact apurva@medianama.com Advertise: To advertise on Chart of the Day, contact sales@medianama.com. Daily and segment-wise options available.

Dozens of Ukrainian journalists have been staging a rally today outside the interior ministry in Kiev after the police initially refused to investigate the beating of two journalists.Olha Snitsarchuk, a journalist with the Channel 5 television channel and her husband Vladislav Sodel, a photographer with the Kommersant daily, were punched and kicked by a group of men on Saturday while covering a political demonstration opposed to the government. It is believed their attackers were pro-government supporters. Sodel told the rally that several policemen ignored his original pleas to intervene, watching indifferently as the reporters were thrown to the ground and hit.Snitsarchuk, who suffered bruises to her face, was taken to hospital.After a public backlash, the interior ministry agreed to launch an investigation.Sources: Associated Prees via Boston Globe/Ukrainian JournalJournalist safetyUkrainePress freedomHuman rightsRoy Greensladeguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

While the online sharing of music has been widespread for close to a decade and a half, the sharing of books has only gathered real traction in the past few years. When it came to legal action to prevent sharing the music industry led the way but even now, book publishers – Wiley aside – seem generally unwilling to follow the example. However, there are companies prepared to make uploaders suffer, even those with no malicious or commercial intent. P?vela Jura (Paul George) is a teacher in Latvia who operates a website where children can research history topics, see presentations and find other learning aids. Jura created the site so that children from poor families can still have access to education. According to Latvian media, Jura even received recognition from the Ministry of Education for his efforts. Last Thursday, however, Jura was leaving home to go to school and found himself confronted by four police officers from the Economic Crime Bureau. They proceeded to search Jura’s home and confiscate the computer he uses in his teaching job. He was arrested and subjected to two hours of interrogation during which he learned he had committed a serious offense that could result in a two year jail sentence. Jura’s crime was to upload a scanned copy of the high school history book “V?sture Vidusskolai” to his website, an act which drew the ire of publisher Zvaigzne ABC and an official complaint earlier this year. The publisher currently sells the book for the princely sum of $4.00 and it appears that Jura had previously held discussions with its author but there was a misunderstandings over what content should have been removed from his site. Nevertheless, the episode has left Jura questioning why such heavy handed tactics were needed when a civil action would have sufficed. The police have taken down Jura’s website and since exams are currently underway, students no longer have access to its resources. “Is there really such a need for punitive action against these methods of teaching, such as the maintenance of a websites from which I did not receive any benefit, but, on the contrary, cost most of my salary payments for maintenance? I understand that I have violated copyright laws, but is it really necessary to act this way?” Jura said. Since the raid a meeting has taken place during which some kind of a settlement was discussed. Further meetings will take place this week but it’s now believed that the publisher will not raise any “substantive claims” against the teacher. Source: Police Raid School Teacher for Uploading History Book for Students

Algerian editor Hicham Aboud has accused the country's government of censorship after it blocked the publication of his two newspapers - My Journal and Djaridati.He said the ban was imposed after he rejected an order from the communication ministry on Saturday night to remove an article that claimed the president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, had slipped into a coma.The 76-year-old leader, who suffered a stroke last month, is being treated in a hospital in France. Aboud said the articles quoted credible medical sources.The ministry said its action prevented a breach of national security. The government has repeatedly said the president is recovering well.Source: Associated Press via Washington PostCensorshipAlgeriaPress freedomRoy Greensladeguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Online B2B marketplace IndiaMart has launched its mobile site m.indiamart.com and an Android app which available for download from the Google Play Store. It appears that the Android app is just a wrapper for its mobile site. We have reviewed the Android app. One of the first thing we noticed while using the app is that it’s utilizes entire screen of the device, hiding the notification bar. Besides this, as discussed earlier since the app is a wrapper for its mobile website, the design is not exactly optimized for an Android app. In fact, the app just looks ugly and it’s difficult to navigate through categories for people with fatter finger.   The app home tab displays all the categories of products that the site offers and also has a search bar on the top and bottom of the page that remains consistent across all pages. One can either search for products from the search bar or browse through categories. The app also allows one to set their location. However, the usability of this feature is not clear, as we found that even after setting the location to Mumbai, the app gave us results from the search query and through category filtration from all locations across India and not just from Mumbai.   The listing page for suppliers and products displays description of the product, supplier, location of the supplier, and their contact number. One can make a call directly by clicking on the contact number, however, since the app uses phone’s contact app to make a call, carrier charges apply. It also offers to send an email or SMS to the supplier. It looks like Indiamart is handling the SMS delivery themselves, since the SMS didn’t go through our carrier. On the product page, the app displays information such as product image, features, technical descriptions, among others depending on the category of product one has selected. One can also browse through all the products offered by a particular supplier. Note that the app only allows buyers to browse through suppliers & products and does not allow one to post a buying requirement or go through available tenders. The company claims that it currently has 1.2 million suppliers and 6.5 million buyers on its platform, which essentially means that the mobile site is targeted towards the 6.5 million buyers. Indiamart competes against TradeIndia, Alibaba.com, among others. Related: - IndiaMart Launches Korean Product Pavilion; Registers $2B Worth Transactions - IndiaMART.com Expands Offerings With HSBC, Monster, CC Avenue; Platform Approach? ABC Payments? - IndiaMart CEO Dinesh Agarwal On Competition From Alibaba & TradeIndia, Revenue Streams; Auctions & Marketplaces - No Single Category Contributes More Than 10% To Our Revenues – IndiaMart CEO Dinesh Agarwal - IndiaMart CEO Dinesh Agarwal On Why The Upturn Made Him Raise Funds

MTV India and Tata Nano have launched the second season of their digital travel show, Drive with MTV; The first season of the show showing four teams of contestants on road trip across the country over a period of 21 days, was telecast entirely on the web and had 1,41,000 tweets and other social media content generated around it, it claims. The team with the highest social media response, team Nano North won Nanos at the end of the show. We spoke with Ekalavya Bhattacharya, Head of Digital, MTV India to understand their digital strategy. In this first part of our interaction with him, he spoke about how digital is changing their content strategy, the relationship between TV & digital and the challenges with doing shows that are digital only: Digital Strategy & Programming MediaNama: How is MTV changing as a TV channel? How important is social media to its core strategy? Bhattacharya: We are now pretty much catering to a segment called screenagers, who are teenagers but are people who move from one screen to another consuming lot of content across devices like mobile, web, tv, tablet and iPad. As a media channel, we can’t ignore platforms where the youth is. Social media is not just a marketing strategy for us but it is also changing our content strategy. When a guy is glued to Facebook all the time, it doesn’t make sense to ask him to switch to TV to just watch a show. It wont work. Digital strategy brings in changes even in our content strategy. MediaNama: Is the social media component seen as a key part of planning programming, or does that come in more as a marketing tool? Bhattacharya: For a show like Roadies that won Mashable.com’s award for most social TV show in the world, we actually made it into a daily show even on the web with content that doesn’t go to the main show. We then track sentiment analysis like the contestant who people are liking or talking about. We give this data to the programming and editing team, who in turn give the contestant driving maximum social conversations more air time in the next episode. So we don’t use social media only for promoting the TV show but also for programming. MediaNama: How much of a push is there from advertisers and agencies to incorporate social? Bhattacharya: Most marketing managers today have digital as a KRA because digital and social media have been recognised as powerful media. During the first wave of social media, marketing managers tried to get fans on Facebook. In the second wave, engagement has become key with questions like what are you doing with these fans, how are they helping you, how do you engage with your audience through content. You can’t just engage your audience with ads. It is not content and also not a strategy. Chances of engagement with ad is minuscule. Instead, if you use a branded show like Drive with MTV, from “Buy my product”, the message becomes “My product is so cool”. For instance seeing a Nano passing through deserts of Rajasthan or drive through a pass in the Himalayas over the course of the show, the perception changes. When you have fans, this piece of content can be used to engage with your fans. Branded shows are becoming more important. We are also doing a style show and another travel show as well. More and more, brands are realising that TV, radio & outdoor are not the only ways of reaching out to audience. Now they are thinking 360 like a live show where teams use a Nano to go from city to city. And instead of 4 members in one team, there will be only three members in each team this season. The teams will do a tweetup to select a fourth member who joins them for that particular trip. Each team is going to do this for each trip that they go on. That’s the live nature that web allows you. This year, we will also air 6 edited episodes of the show on air. We are also escalating it on television for more exposure. MediaNama: Is social being seen more as an advertising a

These are dark days for David Cameron and his government. Today's newspapers, in company with TV and radio news bulletins, are dominated by disputes within his party over same-sex marriage and the European Union.In addition, the claims about one of the prime minister's aides having referred to party activists as "swivel-eyed loons" is the subject of several leading articles and surely adds to the air of gloom in Downing Street. Every national daily carries reports on the determination of a significant proportion of Tory MPs to wreck Cameron's plans to legalise gay marriage. Three splash on the issue: "Tory rebels set to inflict new defeat on Cameron" (The Times); "Meltdown on gay marriage" (Daily Mail); and "No 10 pleads with Labour to save gay marriage bill" (The Guardian).The Daily Telegraph chooses the "loons" affair: "Tories begin defecting to Ukip over 'loons' slur" but also gives front page space to piece on the other drama, "Tory rebels back 'wrecking' plan for gay marriage bill".The Sun's page two draws all three issues together under the headline "Loony doom: Mad row, Europe and gay marriage 'destroying' Tories". Its political commentator, Trevor Kavanagh, tried to see it in positive terms for Cameron, as long as he follows an anti-EU policy.The Independent splashes on Europe, "British business: We need to stay in the EU - or risk losing up to £92bn a year", after being a letter by "some of Britain's most successful and eminent business leaders."The signatories include Richard Branson, Martin Sorrell, BT chairman Michael Rake, Lloyds bank chairman Win Bischoff, and UBM chair Helen Alexander. The triple drama is too good an opportunity for the Daily Mirror to resist. It devotes a spread, headlined (somewhat optimistically from a Labour point of view) "Cam's last stand".But Cameron will be much more concerned by the leading articles and op-ed articles in the papers that traditionally back his party.In spite of the Conservative co-chairman, Lord Feldman, having denied telling two journalists that Tory constituency activists are "mad, swivel-eyed loons", the Mail believes the "casual insult… chimes exactly with how members of Downing Street's inner circle tend to describe those who deviate from the official party line."It says: "This contemptuous attitude has created division and distrust at the very moment the party should be pulling together to win the next election."Referring also to Lord Howe's "warning" that Cameron risks losing control of his party, it reminds the prime minister that his activists will be doing the donkey work at election time rather than "the chums he has surrounded himself with at Number Ten."The Times pursues a similar theme in its editorial, "Time To Swivel", in which it argues that "Cameron is in danger of alienating not only his enemies but also his friends." Whether or not Feldman did or did not describe party members as "mad, swivel-eyed loons", the paper detects that it "is indicative of more than a split between the core of a political party and its fringes. Rather, it highlights an attitude at the heart of government, and one that is neither pleasant nor wise." It continues by talking of the elephant in the Tory's party's headquarter: "Mr Cameron and his inner circle may well be right to believe that an election cannot be won by dogged adherence to the views of the Conservative base. But they are quite wrong to regard those views, and those who hold them, with such thinly disguised disdain.This latest critique of grassroots Conservatives is strikingly redolent of Mr Cameron's own dismissal in 2006 of Ukip supporters as 'fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists'. Indeed, there are a great many similarities between many Conservative activists and the party of Nigel Farage. Predominantly, both groups are older than Mr Cameron, less affluent than Mr Cameron, and likely to lead less metropolitan lives.They are likely to worry about equal marriage, likely to be hostile towards the European Uni

Chris Dixon was part of the team behind the influential 2005 redesign of New York magazine. In late 2011 he joined Vanity Fair has spent the past 18 months quietly reinventing the look of that magazine. He looks forward to his week ahead and shares a rare favourite magazine. Where are you today? I am at my office in New York, in Times Square, the Condé Nast building. What can you see from your window? We are on the 22nd floor, and I have a very nice view of the Empire State Building. There is also a new building being built that is slowly rising up just to the left of our building. My staff comes in from time to time to watch the progress through my window. There are 30-40 workers on it at a time, amazing how fast it goes up. What is your favorite magazine this morning? I was looking through my bookshelves this morning, came across a bunch of issues I had saved of a Canadian magazine called Saturday Night, which had been published monthly for many decades. Around 2000 it was relaunched as a large-format weekly and was included as part of the National Post newspaper. Leanne Shapton was the new art director, and Paul Sahre had gone to Toronto to work on the redesign.  They did a great job on that project. It still looks beautiful and smart today – great covers, clever illustration, and bold, simple type and design, sort of like David Hillman’s Nova. So, Saturday Night is my favorite magazine this morning. How many emails are waiting in your inbox? Pretty manageable today, maybe 10. What has been the highlight of your first year and a half at Vanity Fair? I loved working on our Comedy Issue we did in January. Judd Apatow was the guest editor, and I am a huge fan of his movies, and comedy in general! It was great to collaborate with him and photographer Mark Seliger, who shot most of the issue. We did 3 separate group covers (above), with 12 people total, all comic icons. Another issue that was a real highlight for me was this years’ Hollywood Issue. Bruce Weber shot the whole thing, and Marion Deuchars did all the hand-lettering (above). Collaborating with these two artists was real thrill. And one more bright spot this year, we just won the gold medal for our new Vanities section design at the SPD awards last week!  Nice to get recognition for work that the designers have been doing here over the last year. You’ve been redesigning the magazine section by section. Which single design change/point made you think ‘yes, this is my magazine now.’ I think when we finished the September issue last year, everything sort of clicked. We had finished the redesign of the Fanfair section (above), Vanities was done, and we also had redesigned all the basic structural elements,  the ToCs, the contributors pages, the columns, back-page, the color palettes etc. Suddenly the overall look shifted slightly, and it became noticeable that it was evolving. Which is what we wanted, not a abrupt, drastic change visually, but a freshening-up overall. Do you get to attend the famed Vanity Fair Oscars after party? Yes! I have been very fortunate to attend the party for the last 2 years at the Sunset Tower Hotel in LA. It is a lovely weekend, and a really magical party. It is an incredible amount of work to prepare and orchestrate that party. I am in awe of the Special Projects department here at Vanity Fair, it’s such a complex undertaking for them to create that event. What was the last thing your editor said to you? He looked at the next issues ToC designs and said ‘Glorious’. He loves to look at and talk about design. What are you looking forward to this week? We are just finishing an issue, so I enjoy putting all the final touches on things, doing color corrections, fine-tuning the type. Also am working on some new design elements for our website, having a series of black and white portraits illustrated that are coming out nicely. And having lunch with photographer Jonathan Becker tomorrow. What are you least looking forward to this wee