Brussels, 1 July 2009. BirdLife International presents its five top priorities for the Swedish EU Presidency that starts today. Launching its restyled biannual publication ‘Greening Europe’, BirdLife asks the Swedish government for strong leadership in difficult times – where a global environmental and economic crisis meets the institutional limbo of the European Union. Read more on this entry.
An analysis of results from The Guardian’s poll on how to reform Britain’s political system. Of particular interest is readers’ general recognition of (the UK) Parliament’s inability to control an over-mighty executive, and possible steps to remedy the situation. Read more on this entry.
News organisations are under enormous pressure to cut costs. While salary and job cuts can be anticipated, one consequence is the disappearance of a whole area of activity from the audience’s radar, as this article by Jamie Smyth in the Irish Times (02/06/2009) explains. Cash-strapped media firms in grand march out of Brussels.
The second NUJ photographer’s conference on 18th May 2009 brought together about 200 photographers at the Institute of Education in London. A welcome from John Toner, the NUJ Freelance Organiser, was followed by two parallel sessions, and Commander Bob Broadhurst was there to represent the Metropolitan Police . Read more on this entry.
Discussion piece. Many in the news industry appear to have forgotten that “making a profit” is still the most important rule in the business – everything else is secondary. This is the theme of a seminar given by Professor Richard Pichard at Oxford University Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism on 6th May 2009. Read more on this entry.
Attendees at the “Who wants to be a farm-subsidy millionaire?” press conference in Brussels on the 7th May 2009 could be forgiven for thinking they had wandered into campaigning-NGO heaven. The panel included representatives from farmsubsidy.org, GMF (the German Marshall Fund), wobbing.eu, Transparency International and fishsubsidy.org. Read more on this entry.