Good morning from the team at Press Gazette on Monday, 10 August.
🌐 Who would have thought that the website itself would start to a look a bit passé?
But Press Gazette’s monthly website readership league tables are starting to resemble the old print edition ABC figures we published for years (until nearly all UK national newspapers withdrew from publishing them publicly).
Axel Springer has responded to this challenge by bringing in a CEO for Business Insider with a background in social-first publishing aimed at the yoof at Complex (which produced Youtube show Hot Ones) and then Buzzfeed where he was COO.
Christian Baesler told Press Gazette how Business Insider is responding to website traffic halving in the space of two years by developing multimedia niches that include website content, newsletters and a video podcast anchored by a big-name correspondent. The first of these is CMO Insider led by Lara O’Reilly.
These will enable Business Insider to offer advertisers more sophisticated multi-platform deals and pave the way for a new premium website subscription tier.
It features content from BBC News Arabic, Hindi, Mundo and Russian. It follows a move to bring all 45 language services onto one website platform.
Given the fact 90% of the World Service’s 355 million-strong weekly audience (wow! by the way) read it on mobile, the app move is a major development.
Centralisation of its key digital platforms will make them easier to maintain and develop.
🗒️ So much has changed in journalism over the last 20 years - but thankfully the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ) endures. It supports gold standard training in the basics of newswriting, media law and public affairs (how the world works) as well as honing new digital skills for more than 1,000 students every year.
Its continued success, and refusal to compromise on standards, is down in no small part to CEO of nearly 20 years Joanne Forbes.
If you get a name or a fact wrong on your journalism degree exam paper, you might lose a mark. Do that in your NCTJ newswriting exam and it’s a fail.
Joanne is the latest industry figure to answer Press Gazette’s questions for our ‘What I’ve Learned’ feature. Asked who, or what, inspires her, she name checked Kim Fletcher.
“He combines sharp insight with humility, generosity and wisdom, and has an exceptional ability to bring out the best in the people around him. Just as importantly, he’s great fun and a joy to work with. Quite simply, he’s one of the finest people I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with.”
Take a bow Kim - and thank you Joanne for helping to keep the talent flowing into newsrooms around the UK.
Longtime Daily Mail columnist Andrew Pierce has said he left the paper to slow down and focus on his work at GB News. (Press Gazette)
The editorial teams at music publications Brooklyn Vegan, Alt Press, Revolver, and Goldmine have reportedly been “gutted” by their parent company Veeps, part of entertainment company Live Nation. (Press Gazette)
Loose Women panellist Nadia Sawalha has threatened to take legal action against ITV, claiming she was dropped for speaking out in support of Palestinian rights and therefore discriminated against. (BBC)
The BBC has said it is “extremely concerned” about new restrictions in Pakistan which ban international media from large parts of the country. (BBC)
A judge has granted Donald Trump's request to delay handing over financial records to the BBC while he amends his $10bn Panorama lawsuit to claim damages for "the reputational injury to the President, full stop" rather than to his businesses specifically. (BBC)
Times Higher Education reporter Jack Grove has revealed how he was warned by police not to contact professor Jason Arday again because three “polite” emails asking questions about plagiarism were “affecting his mental health”. (THE)
Andy Burnham is bringing forward by several months to January plans to make subscriptions easier to cancel. Trade groups including the News Media Association and PPA said this would leave businesses “scrambling to adapt to an entirely arbitrary new deadline - diverting valuable resources that would otherwise go into building better products”.
Reform-supporting businessman Arron Banks reportedly hired private investigators to look into The Sunday Times’ Gabriel Pogrund, editor of the Insight team that investigated funding to Nigel Farage. The publisher called the report “reprehensible”. (New Statesman)
The Express website breached accuracy rules with a claim an "urgent news alert" had been issued on BBC Breakfast about a letter from 40 Labour MPs to Keir Starmer opposing plans to limit jury trials. In fact the update came during a regular news segment. (IPSO)
Ex-police chief Norman Bettison successfully complained about a Mail story wrongly claiming he was responsible for alcohol-testing deceased victims of the Hillsborough disaster and other inaccuracies that “could have significant reputational implications”. (IPSO)
A couple behind the news blog EcommerceBytes are to receive an “unprecedented” $56m settlement from Ebay and former executives after a “campaign aimed at silencing their reporting” that saw them sent items such as a box of live cockroaches and a funeral wreath. (Financial Times)
An Uzbek businessman has been awarded £105,000 in damages and £117,663.38 in legal costs after winning a default defamation judgment against a UK ‘pink slime’ publishing network in relation to an article on the London Post website. (City AM)
Hello! is making the most of platforms like Apple News and MSN while it builds paid memberships.
People Inc (formerly IAC) reveals 2% revenue fall in second quarter.
Full round-up of UK radio listening figures for the second quarter of 2026.
The Guardian gets 15% of its total page views from live blogs.
Campaigning editor shares his insights and warns Google is ‘killing quality journalism’.
Hello! magazine was one of many publishers that saw website referrals from Google Discover plummet last year.
Chief content officer Sophie Vokes-Dudgeon talked Press Gazette UK editor Charlotte Tobitt through the “year of transformation” that has followed.
Hello! has fought back by making the most out of syndication channels while building its own community for the future.
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