PR services, government websites and even betting companies are getting their content listed in the Top Stories box provided by Google for news-related searches.

USA Today was the domain most likely to appear in Google’s Top Stories box in the first half of 2024, according to data shared with Press Gazette for Google searches across the web.

Top Stories is the panel that appears at the top of a search result in Google when a news-oriented query is detected. It tends to feature five stories, with headlines, publication times and labels including logos of the publishers.

Gannett’s USA Today had a search visibility score of 4.16% for the period between 1 January and 30 June, according to news and publishing SEO company Newzdash which was commissioned by SEO expert Glen Allsopp at Detailed. The score is based on a dynamic set of keywords, which change every 15 minutes, and is the estimated percentage of clicks (traffic) a website receives from its rankings for a particular keyword or set of keywords.

Yahoo had the second-highest visibility score, of 4.09%, meaning the syndicated versions of stories which original on other news websites are often the ones that get picked up in the Top Stories box.

The highest UK-based websites in the ranking were: The Guardian (12th position, visibility score of 1.86%), the BBC (15th place, 1.51%) and Mail Online (1.27%).

The recently expanded rollout of Google’s AI Overviews, which presents AI-written answers at the top of some search queries, could potentially have an impact on the visibility of Top Stories but they are mostly not delivered in results relating to current news events.

Not all sites that appear in Top Stories are newsbrands. The new research and analysis by Detailed found that 704 of the 1,000 top sites for search visibility in the first half of this year were classified as established media brands.

A further 147 were classed as independent websites (many of which were nonetheless media brands such as Stereogum, The Conversation and The Wrap) but 129 were large brands like the websites of the NFL and Olympics and 20 were Government websites.

The list includes PR services like Cision’s PR Newswire (ranked 472nd out of 1000) and OpenPR (773nd) meaning companies are able to get their news into Top Stories that way if they are lucky.

Within only the top 50, Press Gazette considered that all but four were well-established media brands. Three were sports betting websites and one was the NBA’s own page.

The content categories from Newzdash analysed to make up the rankings were: Top Trends, National News, World, Business, Technology, Entertainment, Sports, Science and Health.

Newzdash checked around 45 million keywords between January and June. Its tool does so by checking trends based on specific countries every 15 minutes, then using Google mobile search results to get Top Stories and organic results data. See here for more information on the methodology explained by Allsopp and Newzdash founder John Shehata.

Newzdash estimates that 40-60% of organic search traffic comes from Top Stories - with the higher end coming for sites with more hard news than evergreen content.

Of the top 20 domains for the half-year by search visibility, The New York Times had the highest estimated traffic from Top Stories in July (10.5 million) followed by The Guardian (8.2 million). A comparison of estimated traffic from Top Stories for the entire six months was not available.

It is estimated, Detailed said, that Top Stories sends around 200 million clicks to the top 100 sites by visibility each month.

As Detailed pointed out, the list of the 1,000 top domains in Top Stories is dominated by several publishers. A fifth (19%) of sites in the full ranking were owned by five media companies: Tegna, Hearst, Vox Media, Nexstar and Gannett.

In addition, the top ten brands were behind 284 of the top 1,000 sites.

The post PR and betting companies have articles indexed in Google Top Stories appeared first on Press Gazette.

Press Gazette has ranked the biggest UK and US news publishers on Instagram with four achieving follower-counts above ten million.

We looked at the news publishers from our top 50 UK and US website rankings to compile our new research.

Two publishers – BBC News (27.8 million) and CNN (20 million) – are above the 20 million mark. When Press Gazette last ranked publisher Instagram accounts (in June 2023) BBC News had 7.4m followers on the platform and CNN 4.2m.

The top two on Instagram are followed by the New York Times (18.2 million) and People (13.6 million).

In comparison, only one news publisher (Daily Mail) from the two top 50 lists has topped ten million on Tiktok, the newer platform.

Ladbible does not feature in the latest ranking because it has it has fallen out of the list of the top 50 news websites in the UK. It currently has 14.1 million followers to its biggest Instagram account. Cosmopolitan, The Daily Wire, The Verge, NME, Epoch Times and Gateway Pundit similarly have fallen out of our top 50s so do not eapp

Excluding the impact of Ladbible’s removal, the top seven remain the same – but The Guardian (5.8 million followers) in eighth place has overtaken Buzzfeed and Unilad (both 5.7 million).

The fastest-growing Instagram account over a two-year period was the New York Post, increasing by 74.7% since 2022 to 1.2 million.

It was followed by Healthline Media (up 60% since 2022 to 1.3 million) and UK tabloid the Mirror (up 57% to 441,000).

Four news publishers on our list saw their Instagram followings decline since June 2023: Buzzfeed (down 7%), sister publication Huffpost (3% to 3.2 million), Unilad (down 2%) and The Daily Beast (down 2% to 452,000).

Since June 2023 only, the Mirror was the fastest-growing (up 45%) followed by ITV News (up 34% to 512,000) and the New York Post (up 32%).

But the follower count for BBC News increased the most in absolute terms (2.1 million) since last year - almost double the next largest growth seen by Fox News (up 1.2 million to 9.4 million).

Four added at least one million followers to their counts - also including the New York Times and People.

The percentage of people saying they use Instagram for news has risen from 2% in 2014 to 15% this year in 12 key markets surveyed by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (UK, US, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Denmark, Finland, Japan, Australia, Brazil and Ireland.

It remains behind Facebook, Youtube and Whatsapp in importance but has overtaken Twitter/X and is still ahead of Tiktok and Snapchat.

The post Two news publishers have 20m+ Instagram followers: Leading UK and US titles ranked appeared first on Press Gazette.

Five of the biggest news publishers in the UK and US have increased their core Tiktok followings by more than two million people in just over 18 months.

Press Gazette has updated our ranking of the biggest and fastest-growing news publisher Tiktok accounts, having last done so in January 2023.

The analysis features the 70 news publishers from Press Gazette’s most recent lists of the 50 biggest UK and US news websites that were found on Tiktok. 

Nineteen of the publishers are not included in the growth comparisons as they were not included in our previous analysis – with some of those likely to have been more recent sign-ups to Tiktok. 

The rankings look at each publisher’s main account only but it should be acknowledged that some news outlets create separate accounts for different verticals.

Reuters and The New York Times saw by far and away the biggest percentage increase in their Tiktok following during the period, but this is due to their small followings at the start of 2023.

Among those with over 100,000 followers at the time of our last update, the 371% growth seen by BBC News was the largest.

CNN (238%), GB News (221%), Yahoo News (218%), CNBC (205%) and The Independent (204%) were the other larger accounts to more than triple their follower count.

There was also some impressive growth for local news sites such as the Liverpool Echo (204%) and the Manchester Evening News (193%), though Newcastle’s Chronicle Live (464%) remains small (6,200 followers) despite that growth.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Washington Post (13%) and The Telegraph (14%) took the least advantage of TikTok’s growth.

In terms of absolute growth, there was no matching the Daily Mail, which added 5.6 million new followers over the period. This was more than two million more than any other news publisher in our analysis.

Insider, a section of Business Insider, was a distant second place, adding a still impressive 3.5 million new followers in the period.

CNN (3.1 million), Sky News (2.9 million) and BBC News (2.9 million) also added more than two million followers each since the start of 2023.

The New York Times added almost 750,000 followers from a starting point of under 5,000, while Reuters added over 175,000 from a base of less than 1,000.

Who are the biggest news publishers on Tiktok in the UK and US?

The Daily Mail, which was in third place behind ABC News in January 2023, is now leading the way at the top with nearly ten million followers for its main account on the platform at the time of writing. (Between our data collection and time of publication, it has now surpassed ten million.)

One of its smaller accounts, Daily Mail UK, which has 980,800 followers, would still place comfortably in the top half of the outlets considered. It celebrated surpassing ten million across all its accounts, which also include a global news account and others dedicated to crime, sport, royals, showbiz, the US and Australia, in January this year.

It does have a smaller Tiktok following than Ladbible (13.8 million followers on its main account), but although the younger brand was top of the ranking in 2023 it was not included in our latest update as it is not currently ranked in the top 50 news websites in the UK.

Of the 70 newsbrands covered in this analysis, 21 were followed by more than a million people. This was more than the number (19) who had followings below 100,000.

This increased reach comes off the back of further growth for TikTok, which is now used for news by 8% of people in 12 key markets including the UK and US according to the 2024 Reuters Institute Digital News Report - up from 1% in 2020.

Across all countries surveyed where Tiktok operates, it is now used for news by 13% of people - overtaking X/Twitter (10%) for the first time - and 23% of 18 to 24-year-olds, the report found.

However 27% of Tiktok users said they struggle to detect trustworthy news on the site, the highest of all social media platforms covered. And only 34% of Tiktok users said they pay attention to journalists or news media, preferring online influencers and personalities. By contrast, on X 53% of users say they pay attention to journalists or news media.

Note: This article was updated after publication to add Channel 4 News, which we discovered had been wrongly missed off our list of the UK's top 50 publishers and therefore met the criteria for inclusion on this ranking.

The post Fastest-growing news publishers on Tiktok since start of 2023 revealed appeared first on Press Gazette.

Online publisher Yahoo has signed a 30-year commercial agreement with Taboola, the content recommendation engine used by websites including the Daily Mirror, NBC News, Business Insider and The Independent.

Taboola will exclusively power native advertising for Yahoo’s websites and will be available to media buyers through Yahoo’s advertising demand-side platform (DSP), which the companies said would make it a “leading native advertising offering for advertisers, publishers and merchants on the open web” as Google prepares to phase out third-party cookies on Chrome by 2024.

Taboola will benefit, they said, from reaching Yahoo’s almost 900 million monthly active users around the world while Yahoo will “further enhance its own unified advertiser offerings, enhance consumer experiences across Yahoo’s owned media properties, and participate in significant shared value creation as Taboola’s largest single shareholder”.

Yahoo chief executive Jim Lanzone said: “Partnering with Taboola enables Yahoo to further enhance the contextual and native offerings within our unified advertising stack. The partnership also allows Yahoo and Taboola to continue to differentiate in market, improving user, advertiser and publisher experiences across properties, while benefiting from the long-term tailwinds in digital native advertising.

“Together with Taboola, we will maximise reach and campaign performance for advertisers, enhance monetization opportunities for publishers, and drive improved, privacy-forward experiences for users. As we continue to build the next era of Yahoo, we are thrilled to have strong partners by our side.”

As a result of the deal, Yahoo is taking a 24.99% stake in Taboola and will have a representative on the Taboola board. The agreement is expected to close in the first quarter of 2023.

Taboola’s founder and chief executive Adam Singolda described it as a “rocket ship growth opportunity for both of us – native, e-commerce, Video, header bidding (display) and more,” adding that it was a “win-win partnership”.

He added: “For publishers in the open web, we’ll be able to invest even more in driving revenue, engagement and audience growth moving forward, empowering performance, brand advertisers, merchants as well as agencies with an immense reach to users in a premium, trusted environment. This partnership is a big step toward achieving our goal of generating $1bn in ex-TAC [gross profit] by 2025.”

Two of Yahoo’s websites – Yahoo News and Yahoo Finance – are among the top ten biggest English-language news websites in the world. It also has a major sports news presence and runs an email service.

Yahoo was bought by private equity firm Apollo for $5bn from previous owner Verizon in September 2021. Under Apollo, Yahoo acquired algorithm-driven news rating company The Factual a year later. The press release about Monday’s deal cited “long-term support” from Apollo.

Taboola became a publicly listed company in June last year. Earlier this month, it reported “solid” third quarter results which were above expectations but lowered its full-year revenue guidance by 4% “due to continued softness in the advertising industry”.

The post Yahoo takes 25% stake in Taboola in 30-year partnership deal appeared first on Press Gazette.

The Apple News app held its top spot as the most popular news app in the UK in September and now reaches almost one in three people, according to data from Ipsos iris.

The app, which comes preloaded on iPhones and has a free and paid-for version (Apple News+), was used by 15.4 million people in September.

The second most popular app BBC News was used by 12 million people. Only the Apple News app reached more than a quarter of UK internet users aged 15 and over (31% reach) while the Apple News and BBC News apps were the only ones with an audience reach in the double figures.

Despite a 16% month-on-month fall in audience, third most popular was Upday (3.7 million users, 6% reach), an aggregator that comes pre-installed on Samsung phones.

After BBC News, the most popular single brand apps in the ranking, which is based on a Press Gazette custom list using Ipsos iris data, were Sky News (2.9 million users) and The Guardian (2.7 million users).

Most popular news apps in the UK (September UK audience via Ipsos iris):

1. Apple News (15.4 million)
2. BBC News (12 million)
3. Upday (3.7 million)
4. Sky News (2.9 million)
5. The Guardian (2.7 million)
6. Google News (2.3 million)
7. Mail Online (1.6 million)
8. AOL (954,005)
9. The Telegraph (876,233)
10. ​​The Times & The Sunday Times (710,032)

Despite its status as one of the UK’s most popular newsbrands in print and online, The Sun’s daily news app ranked in 15th place (283,681 users). Rival Mail Online ranked seventh with 1.6 million users.

Mail publisher DMGT had one other app in the ranking, as its Daily Mail Newspaper Edition app came in 25th place with 190,105 users.

Although news aggregators took four of the top ten spots, the UK list is dominated by apps linked to single publishers. Single-brand apps made up 21 of the 28 apps in the ranking.

Despite not featuring in Press Gazette’s 50 biggest UK newsbrands based on overall digital traffic, the GB News app fared better when it came to its app audience. The GB News app which allows audiences to stream and catch up on GB News’ programming came in 27th place with 142,008 users.

The best-ranked regional news brand app was Manchester Evening News (in 23rd place with 198,748 users) followed by fellow Reach title Wales Online (26th place, 167,348 users).

To draw up our list of 28 apps, Press Gazette used the ranking of apps by audience size produced by Ipsos and selected those that in our view have a reasonable general or specialist journalistic offering, whether that content is original or aggregated from other sources. Sports news apps were ranked separately (see below).

The fastest-growing app in September was the Daily Express (195,546 users, up 244% month-on-month). It was followed by LBC (431,209 users, up 23% month-on-month) and The Sun’s Daily News app (up 22%).

UK news app engagement: Average time per user highest at Telegraph

The Telegraph, which focuses on subscriber engagement rather than scale, ranked ninth for its app audience reach but its users were the most engaged with an average of 565 minutes each. The Telegraph combined its previous Live and Edition apps into one offering in 2021.

The Telegraph was closely followed by Mail Online (548 minutes). Users spent an average of 175 minutes with the BBC News app, which was the most engaged-with app overall given its reach (2.1 billion minutes).

UK sports news apps ranked: BBC Sport top

Among sports news apps, best-ranked was BBC Sport (4.09 million users) which was well ahead of Yahoo Sport (1.5 million users) and Sky Sports (1.45 million users) rounding out the top three.

While many sports news apps see significant use for streaming sporting events, we have included those on our list that also feature sports journalism.

Ipsos iris replaced Comscore as the industry-recognised data standard in 2021. Ipsos iris data is partly derived from a panel of 10,000 people aged 15 and over that is designed to be nationally representative. The participants have meters installed across 25,000 personal devices to passively measure website and app usage.

This data is combined with data from participating websites that are tagged so all devices visiting the site can be identified and logged.

This is the fourth in a quarterly series from Press Gazette that tracks the audience and reach of the UK’s leading news apps.

The post Most popular news apps in the UK: Apple News more popular than BBC appeared first on Press Gazette.

Press Gazette Media Deals Tracker Charts the most important M&A news and trends affecting the global news industry.

For the first edition of the Media Deals Tracker, we have compiled details of the 30 most significant deals that were completed, announced or rumoured in May 2021.

The month’s media business news was dominated by megadeals announced by AT&T, Verizon and Amazon. But, using intelligence from GlobalData, Press Gazette has identified several smaller deals that will help shape the global journalism industry.

As laid out below, we detected four major media M&A themes running through May 2021:

• the megadeals of AT&T, Verizon and Amazon
• the consolidation of America’s embattled local media sector
• the high density of rumours surrounding digital-native news companies like Buzzfeed and the Athletic
• and a wave of new investment in platforms and tech companies that work with the publishing industry.

Scroll down to the bottom of this page for a table of the 30 most significant deals, or would-be deals, of May 2021.

[Click here to subscribe to Press Gazette’s must-read newsletters, Future of Media and Future of Media – US]

The megadeals

Telecoms behemoth AT&T agreed to merge its media arm, WarnerMedia (CNN, HBO, Turner Sports), with Discovery (Discovery Channel, Eurosport, Group Nine Media) to create a $43bn company.

Verizon, another telecoms-focused giant, effectively exited the news world by agreeing a $5bn sale of Verizon Media (Yahoo, AOL, TechCrunch) to private equity firm Apollo.

And web giant Amazon agreed an $8.5bn deal to buy film company MGM.

Local news consolidation

May was also a significant month for local news in the United States.

Hedge fund Alden Global Capital completed its controversial $633m takeover of Tribune Publishing (Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News, Baltimore Sun). Alden already owns MediaNews Group (Denver Post, San Jose Mercury News, St Paul Pioneer Press) and is now America’s second-largest local news publisher after Gannett.

The Colorado Sun, a journalist-owned news site, teamed up with the National Trust for Local News – a new non-profit for local news enterprises – to buy Colorado Community Media, which publishes 24 weekly and monthly newspapers. The new combined group is called the Colorado News Conservancy.

Paxton Media Group, a Kentucky-based local newspaper and TV news company, acquired its rival, Landmark Community Newspapers. The combined group will comprise around 120 publications in 14 states, including 20 in Kentucky.

Local TV giant Gray Television bought Meredith Corporation’s local media assets, comprising 17 TV stations, for $2.7bn. The deal will turn Gray into “the nation’s second largest television broadcaster”. Meredith will turn full attention to its national media assets, including its large stable of magazine brands.

[Click here to subscribe to Press Gazette’s must-read newsletters, Future of Media and Future of Media – US]

The digital native rumour mill

This year looks set to be an active one for America’s biggest digital-native news companies. Several are rumoured to be on the verge of merging with special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) to enter the public market.

Buzzfeed, which completed a merger with HuffPost earlier this year, is reported to be planning a deal to buy digital lifestyle publisher Complex Networks (Complex, First We Feast, Pigeons & Planes). The Information reports that this deal would take place ahead of Buzzfeed’s proposed merger with 890 Fifth Avenue Partners, a SPAC.

Vice is rumoured to be lining up a SPAC deal with 7GC & Co Holdings. The Wall Street Journal reports that this deal could value Vice at around $3bn. Vice had a private market valuation of around $5.7bn back in 2017.

Elsewhere, sports news website the Athletic is reported to be in talks to be acquired by the New York Times. Axios reports that the Athletic’s latest private investments, ahead of the pandemic, valued the company at around $500m.

The Athletic was previously said to be in merger talks with news publisher Axios. But the Wall Street Journal reported in early May that these talks had broken down.

Now Axios is said to be a takeover target for Germany’s Axel Springer (Bild, Insider, Politico Europe). The Information reports that this deal could value Axios at between $400-450m.

Fox Corporation (Fox News, Fox Sports) announced the acquisition of Outkick Media, a news outlet that covers sports, culture and politics.

[Click here to subscribe to Press Gazette’s must-read newsletters, Future of Media and Future of Media – US]

Platforms find new funding

Social media company Twitter continued its recent takeover spree in May, announcing the acquisition of Scroll, an ad-blocking subscription service that works with publishers including Insider and Buzzfeed.

Snap, another important partner for many publishers, bought WaveOptics, an augmented-reality startup from the UK.

Piano, a startup that advises publishers on how to improve their subscriptions businesses, announced that it had raised $88m in new funding from LinkedIn, Updata Partners and Rittenhouse Ventures.

Monetise – a Singapore company that runs Fewcents, a tool to help publishers make money from articles, video and podcasts – raised $1.6m in seed funding.

Loyal Foundry, a US app publisher, bought Newsfusion, an Israel-based news aggregator.

Rumble, a US video platform, raised an undisclosed amount of new funding from tech investor Peter Thiel, Narya Capital and Colt Ventures.

[Click here to subscribe to Press Gazette’s must-read newsletters, Future of Media and Future of Media – US]

Deals to watch

Ahead of the summer months – traditionally a quiet time for M&A – there are several deals rumoured to be in the pipeline.

Buzzfeed, Vice, Vox, Group Nine and Bustle (recently rebranded as BDG) are all said to be chasing SPAC deals.

Forbes, meanwhile, is said to be a $600m takeover target for investment firm GSV Asset Management.

In the UK, magazine publisher Future – fresh from its takeover of Marie Claire US – is on the lookout for new deals.

Watch this space.

Photo credit: Anton Garin/ Shutterstock

The post Megadeals, local media consolidation and rumours: Media Deals Tracker appeared first on Press Gazette.

The world’s biggest news websites collectively regained traffic in July after their performances tailed off in previous months as interest in Covid-19 dwindled.

New website viewing figures for last month show that Mail Online and Fox News made up ground on their ‘broadsheet’ rivals, The Guardian and the New York Times, after losing out in the spring.

The BBC remained the English-speaking world’s largest news website, claiming more than 1bn visits for the fifth month in a row.

The top ten list of English-language news websites from the UK and US (below) is based on figures and rankings from online data business SimilarWeb. The figures show total visits rather than unique users.

Press Gazette reported in April how Mail Online and Fox News had fallen behind the Guardian and the New York Times respectively in March as interest in coronavirus peaked.

The latest SimilarWeb figures show that Mail Online has reasserted its position ahead of the Guardian, while Fox News is gaining ground on the New York Times.

Over the last six months, Yahoo’s news and finance websites – added together – and CNN have enjoyed the biggest gains in traffic.

In total, the ten websites in our list – which includes Google News, as well as websites that aggregate much of their content, MSN and Yahoo – attracted 5.4bn clicks through July, up from 5.2bn in June but down from 6.3bn in March when interested in Covid-19 peaked.

English-speaking world’s biggest news websites during Covid-19

The below graph shows how the largest original journalism news websites – i.e. not Google News, Yahoo or MSN – have performed since January.

The post July readership figures for world’s biggest news websites: Mail Online and Fox News make up ground on ‘broadsheet’ rivals appeared first on Press Gazette.

Yahoo Sports has made its entire UK editorial team redundant as it focuses on US sports coverage.

Press Gazette understands six editorial staff have left as a result including head of sport Raj Mannick who joined from ITN in 2018.

The digital newsbrand is owned by US media company Verizon Media, which also owns Huffpost and other Yahoo brands.

Journalists were told there was no longer any need for a sports team in the UK as the company was “putting all their efforts” on the US side, according to one source.

Another said there had been no indication that the cuts were coming.

The Yahoo Sports UK website is still live but appears to be using wire and syndicated copy rather than producing any more original journalism.

A Yahoo Sports spokesperson said: “At Yahoo Sports we are thankful for the contributions the team has made as we continue to focus our efforts on creating the best experience for our fans on mobile.

“We are aligning our resources to opportunities where we feel we can differentiate ourselves and can scale faster to deliver a best in class experience to our fans.”

Verizon Media is part of US telecommunications giant Verizon which bought AOL in 2015 and Yahoo in 2017 for $4.4bn (£3.4bn) each.

The company also signed a major deal with the NFL in 2017 reportedly worth $2.5bn (£1.9bn) allowing it to stream live American Football league games on mobile phones in the US.

Last year Yahoo Sports partnered with betting firm Bet MGM to give odds to readers of legal age across multiple sports through Yahoo Sportsbook. It also offers fantasy leagues at Yahoo Fantasy Sports.

The Yahoo Sports mobile app grew visitors by more than a third (38 per cent) year-on-year in December, according to Comscore mobile figures shared by Verizon.

The post Yahoo Sports axes UK editorial team to focus on US sports appeared first on Press Gazette.

Yahoo UK has made three new hires as it looks to expand its UK presence.

Richard Hatherell is leaving his post as an executive producer at the women’s lifestyle website Refinery 29 to join Yahoo UK as its head of video.

He is joined by ex-Mirror Online head of audience Nicola Oakley, who will now take charge of driving traffic to Yahoo UK.

Former CNBC International deputy digital editor Graham Smith is also joining as UK homepage editor.

Smith and Oakley will take up their roles on 24 June. Hatherell is set to join a week later on 1 July.

The news and internet services firm said it had created the three new roles as it looked to “further invest” in building its UK team.

Yahoo UK editor-in-chief Nicholas Petche said: “We’re thrilled to continue expanding Yahoo’s growing team in the UK with Richard, Nicola and Graham joining us.

“Yahoo is read by millions across the world for their daily intake of news, sport, entertainment and finance. We are committed to investing in video and quality journalism for our readers.”

All three hires will be based in the Yahoo UK office in London.

Picture: Yahoo UK News

The post Yahoo expands in UK with three digital journalism hires appeared first on Press Gazette.

Eleven international news organisations have joined a coalition to use their collective reach of 1bn people to “stand up for journalists under attack for pursuing the truth”.

The Financial Times, Huffpost, Reuters, Associated Press and Yahoo News are among the inaugural members of One Free Press Coalition.

The group described itself as a “united front of prominent editors and reporters using the significant reach of their editorial and social platforms to spotlight journalists who are under attack”.

Forbes, Time, Belgian newspaper De Standaard, European news website EURACTIV, Swiss daily Le Temps and German title Süddesutsche Zeitung have also joined the group.

On the first of each month, every title in the coalition will publish a list of the ten “most urgent” cases of journalists whose press freedom rights are being abused or whose cases demand justice around the world.

The first list, published today, is as follows (in no specific order):

1. Maria Ressa (pictured), founder of Rappler, The Philippines
2. Jamal Khashoggi, the late Washington Post columnist, Saudi Arabia
3. Eman Al Nafjan, prominent women’s rights blogger, Saudi Arabia
4. Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, Reuters, Myanmar
5. Claudia Duque, a veteran investigative reporter, Colombia
6. Mohamed Cheikh Ould Mohamed, prominent blogger, Mauritania
7. Anna Nimiriano, editor of Juba Monitor, South Sudan
8. Pelin Unker, Cumhuriyet, Turkey
9. Thomas Awah Junior, correspondent for Afrik 2 Radio and publisher of Aghem Messenger, Cameroon
10. Tran Thi Nga, prominent human rights blogger, Vietnam

The Committee to Protect Journalists and the International Women’s Media Foundation have joined the coalition as partners and will help identify the most urgent cases for the list to be updated each month.

Forbes chief content officer Randall Lane initiated the concept at a meeting of the International Media Council at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

He said in a statement: “With the One Free Press Coalition, we are shining an enduring light from all corners of the globe on our fellow journalists who are being persecuted, punished or worse in the pursuit of truth.

“Our founding members include news organisations who collectively reach more than 1bn people worldwide, and we encourage other outlets to join us in standing up for those whose voices have been threatened, silenced or are being silenced.

“Together, our reach online and on social will signal solidarity for our colleagues and simultaneously tell those who threaten free speech that we are watching.”

Peter Spiegel, news editor of the Financial Times, said: “At its best, journalism puts emerging issues in the spotlight and exposes wrongdoing by people in positions of power.

“Highlighting the fate of fellow reporters who have suffered because they have done that is both critical in the current international environment and an important act of journalism in its own right.”

Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo feature on the list. They recently lost an appeal against a seven-year prison sentence after they were found guilty of breaching the country’s Official Secrets Act.

The news agency said in a statement: “Reuters is committed to principles of fair, independent and impartial journalism and we feel strongly that a free press is vital to any democracy.

“We look forward to working with the One Free Press Coalition in raising awareness of the repression of journalists – including our own reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who have been imprisoned for more than a year in Myanmar – and highlighting the importance of press freedom around the world.”

Le Temps co-editors in chief Stephane Benoit-Godet and Gael Hurlimann said they had been “deeply affected” by the murder of their Slovak colleague Jan Kuciak, who worked within the same media group: Ringier Axel Springer.

A businessman was charged yesterday with ordering the murder of investigative reporter Kuciak and his fiancee Martina Kusnirova, who were found dead with gunshot wounds in their home one year ago.

Benoit-Godet and Hurlimann said: “Followed with repeated tensions in regions where the freedom of press seemed to be established, we feel the need of combatting censorship and repression on journalists all around the world and to support colleagues working in difficult environments.”

News organisations from around the world are invited to join the coalition. Send enquiries to info@onefreepresscoalition.com.

Picture: Reuters/Eloisa Lopez

The post FT, Reuters, Yahoo News and Huffpost join media coalition to ‘stand up for journalists under attack’ appeared first on Press Gazette.