Media News
Friday, September 10, 2010
David Montgomery to make ‘planned retirement’ from Mecom
David Montgomery, chief executive of the pan-European newspaper group
Mecom, has bowed to shareholder pressure to leave the company he founded
a decade ago. Montgomery said that the move was a "planned retirement" and that he
would leave when Mecom reports its pre-close trading statement in
January. It emerged Thursday that Aviva Investors, Legal & General and Invesco,
which collectively own more than 50 percent of Mecom's shares, were seeking to
replace Montgomery and introduce a new business strategy.
The board rejected the plan, which included installing Patrick Tillieux,
a former senior executive at broadcasters SBS and ProSiebenSat.1, as
chief executive. Montgomery said that he still has the "complete confidence" of the Mecom
board but had nevertheless decided to stand down "following pressure
from certain shareholders". Montgomery, the former chief executive of Mirror Group, founded Mecom in
2000 and expanded into a number of continental European countries
through a series of acquisitions. However, in the past couple of years the company, which still owns
newspapers in countries including the Netherlands, Denmark and Poland,
has struggled with a combination of the downturn and getting to grips
with a debt pile that in April last year stood at GBP 500m.
Mecom moved to deal with its debt problem by selling off its German and
north-west Norwegian businesses, cutting more than 1,000 staff and
raising GBP 140m in extra funding from shareholders. In January last year Montgomery survived a board revolt thanks to the
backing of shareholders, although six directors resigned. learly "for
publication".
(The Guardian)
Other stories:
Press Releases
Join EJC & top media thinkers at PICNIC 2010
On 23 September, world class media thinkers including Jeff Jarvis, Rafat Ali, Mark Glaser and Paul Bradshaw, will join EJC for a day of debates on the future of journalism at PICNIC 2010.
Held in Amsterdam every year, PICNIC is a renowned festival-cum-conference that blurs the lines between creativity, science, technology, business and society. Attracting a wide audience, from government leaders and heads of business to scientists and innovators, the aim is to explore new solutions in the spirit of co-creation.
Covering the successes and failures of recent years in the media industry, as well as the growth of public engagement, EJC’s exclusive one-day PICNIC 2010 programme will focus on the real need to reconstruct journalism and its relationship with the citizen and society.
Posted on August 11, 2010 by EJC
Filed under events.
Press Freedom 2.0: pluralism and participation
The Press Freedom Consortium, a new collaboration of five Dutch development organisations that support press freedom worldwide, has finalised and submitted its final programme application this Thursday to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in The Hague, in the context of the ‘Co-Financing System II’ (MFSII).
The proposal, entitled Press Freedom 2.0, aims to alleviate structural poverty by enhancing media quality, improving democratic processes and strengthening women, children and minorities by giving them a voice.
Posted on July 1, 2010 by EJC
Filed under announcements.
EJC launches GoogleWatch to monitor global conversations about Google
We’ve had our eye on Google since the beginning.
We now bring you GoogleWatch, a stand-alone platform that enables a deeper look at the global conversation about Google.
Posted on May 20, 2010 by EJC
Filed under work.
Press Freedom 2.0 moves forward
The Dutch Ministry of Development Co-operation has encouraged Press Freedom 2.0, a collaboration of five organisations including the EJC, to persist with its plan to strengthen press freedom worldwide.
The Press Freedom 2.0 project will address challenges to media and journalism in a development context. The project will focus on 13 developing countries over five years as part of the wider goals of the Dutch foreign ministry in reducing global poverty.
Posted on April 12, 2010 by EJC
Filed under projects.
Your say...
Latest Updates
- Redefining democracy: A job for eurocrats?
- Featured resource: MaYoMo user-generated video news visualisation
- EJC launches website for PICNIC 2010 one-day ‘Future of Journalism’ programme
- Reasons to cheer from Amsterdam’s Data-Driven Journalism conference
- Keeping tabs on British tabloids
EJC Newsletter
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter
Media News
Join 12,000 media professionals reading EJC's daily media news briefing
Upcoming Seminars
- Covering the Security Research Conference
- EJC-NSK Fellowship Programme
- EU Economic and Financial Priorities for Euro Area countries
- European Neighbourhood Policy : Neighbouring Energy
- Covering the Enterprise Europe Network
- European Neighbourhood Policy : Energy Deals & Greener Policies
- Conference on Space Exploration at Ministerial Level
- Subscribe
Magazine
Redefining democracy: A job for eurocrats?
Austrian writer Robert Menasse recently spent time at the EU institutions in Brussels on a research trip for a new novel that will be set in Europe in the year 2030.
Formerly rather critical of the EU, the experience has led him to substantially change his mind. He says that it is not a lack of democratic legitimacy that impedes the European Union, but that Europe’s democracy has a major constructional flaw: it is merely implemented in national increments.
Menasse concludes that as long as the Commission, being twice-removed from the nationally-rooted democratic processes, remains enlightened, trustworthy and committed, it might even deserve more power.
Driven by Data
From investigative journalists and news publishers, to web entrepreneurs and academics, over 50 international journalists gathered in Amsterdam on 24 August 2010, for 'Data-Driven Journalism: What is there to learn'. See more #ddj videosFeatured Resource:
MaYoMo
Map your media with this free user-generated news visualisation website. Billed as a service for 'mobile citizen journalists', MaYoMo community members include bloggers, journalism students, experienced independent journalists and NGO workers, who submit video news and information from all corners of the world.
Recommended
- How do you visualise the future of datajournalism? See how one graphic artist visualised the recent European Journalism Centre datajournalism conference in Amsterdam.
- Google to start TV service in U.S. this autumn CEO Eric Schmidt said the service, which will allow full Internet browsing via the television, would be free, and Google would work with a variety of program makers and electronics manufacturers to bring it to consumers.
- Citizen medicine and citizen journalism Let’s say journalism is a bit like medicine. You’ve got your general practitioners and your specialists. And citizen journalism is akin to citizen medicine. Which is not a bad thing!
- #laidoff: Sacked journalists still passionate about industry, study suggests Journalists who have lost their jobs in the UK in the past five years still have an enduring love and passion for the industry, despite struggling to find new work and fears over money, according to new research conducted by Journalism.co.uk and the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan).
- Japanese journalist tricked Afghan captors into letting him tweet The soldier had heard of the internet, but he didn’t know what it was. When Tsuneoka mentioned it to him, he was eager to see it, but the phone wasn’t signed up to receive the carrier’s GPRS data service for accessing the Internet.
- When short sellers fund journalists Cary Spivak and the AJR have gone way too far with their 3,200-word thumbsucker on the ethics of funding investigative journalism with the proceeds from short-selling.
- BBC World Service broadcasts in Burma face axe The BBC is locked in talks with the government over drastic cuts to the World Service budget which could force it to withdraw from Burma and several other countries.
- Japanese journalist freed after five months in northern Afghanistan Kosuke Tsuneoka had been missing since 1 April, when a message posted to his Twitter account indicated he had travelled to a Taliban-controlled region of northern Afghanistan. According to the Associated Press, friends then received information that he had been kidnapped.
- Belgian broadcasters try kneecapping DVRs, demand compensation Belgians are probably most interested in knowing whether their country will survive its strife between the French and Flemish-Dutch speaking groups. Here at Ars, however, we’re more interested in the country's peculiarities with respect to copyright law and broadband technology.
- Charities data opened up – journalists: say thanks Having made significant inroads in opening up council and local election data, Chris Taggart has now opened up charities data from the less-than-open Charity Commission website. The result: a new website – Open Charities.
- Disaster management using open source and social media Across the world authorities are realising how valuable social media can be to help them quickly get information out to the public, to collect information on the extent of a disaster and help prioritise relief efforts.
- Poll: Does working with data provide new opportunities for making money as a journalist?
- EU accused of trying to 'control' journalists The EU has been accused of launching an expensive drive to "control" European journalists. It comes after the publication of new data which, it is claimed, shows the extent to which the EU goes to entertain, train and 'inform' journalists.
- Jeff Jarvis: Regulating sex and speech So why are government and media going after craigslist? The same reason, I think, that media and government in, for example, Germany are demonizing Google (even as the German people give Google its biggest market share anywhere in the world). They’re going after the disruptors, the biggest disruptors in sight.
- In an age of voices, moving beyond the facts The trend has been decades in the making, but Mr. Rosenstiel believes the online medium is an accelerant in the process: “I think we are seeing the beginning ... of a new hybrid style of writing which is a blend of opinion and news.”
