I’m a bit undecided on this one, so I’m asking you… Do you think that it’s OK for Delo.si (or any other website) to be masking the ads like genuine articles and attaching the word “advertismen” (oglasno sporočilo) at the bottom?
Delo’s website on 3 July @ 0100 hrs. Red lines (by me) denote the advertisment
I know that in print this is called “shadow” or “undercover” adveritising. But is it OK to use it on webpages? I mean, AdSense does basically the same thing and noone is complaining…
To cut a long story short (as I’m sure you’ve already seen and read all the relevant reports of the event including this one), this is the report I did for The Firm™
Also, as I promised to camille, a complete and unabridged version of Michael M.’s lecture at Blogres:
All in all I had fun… I’m glad I skipped workshops (turned out I already know how to pimp my blog), besides: as me and Michael M. jointly declared (after Laško number three), we like the retro style. I finally met the man, and he’s as cool as they come.
I already knew that Poulette is the quintessential classy chick… But I also discovered that this post of hers could as well have been written in first person (especially the last two or three paragraphs :D)
And to top it all, there is a new case of Pengovsky spotting over at brumec.org. Catch me if you can! 😀
Jančič’s days at Delo seem to be numbered
Just to follow up on Satudary’s post:
Yesterday, Laško brewery, the near-single stockholder of Delo newspaper, named a new Supervisory Board of the newspaper. The new head of the SB, Andrijana Starina Kosem, until two days ago state secretary (under-minister, if you will) at Ministry of economy announced that “certain editorial changes will be made”.
In plain-speak that means that Peter Jančič (a.k.a. The Satan) will soon be replaced.
No word on Danilo Slivnik, though – to be exact, the SB is in agreement with Slivnik’s short term plans, which include a new adpaper Total Tedna.
www.vest.si is newly clad
Just saw “Vesti na Vesti” for the first time over at vest.si (in Slovenian only). And – contrary to most comentators there – I find several things quite disturbing:
For the uninitiated: Vest.si is a media portal/blog set up by Jani Sever and a couple of his more or less well known associates. Sever was forced out as the editor-in-chief of a left-wing Mladina weekly political magazine last summer after a relentless political pressure. According to my information the right-wing government has instructed state-owned companies to stop advertising with Mladina, which led to a sharp drop in magazine’s income as these companies are the largest adverisers in Slovenia. In any event, Jani Sever was removed and then embarked on setting up an independent web-based media, which turned out to be vest.si.
The portal/blog has recently been overhauled and is now featuring a weekly round-up of events, hosted by perhaps the only true media celebrity in Slovenia, Jonas Žnidaršič (also known as the host of Who Wants to be a Millionare). So far, so good and I bow to Sever and his team for keeping the project alive.
But I’ve got several problems with this particular concept of weekly round-up, most notable of which is of course the “infotainment” approach.
I do not dare to object to the content at vest.si (mostly because it is above average, but also because I’m not forced to check it out anyway, so I do it out of my own free will), but I do take issue with mixing what turns out to be a wannabe-sarcastic video-collage with the rest of the content.
Jonas does an excellent job as a presenter. He should. It is just that in my oppinon his trademark sarcasm and cinycism do not mix with the serious nature of the actual news. Vest.si team is great at fishing out embarassing moments of current government, but Jonas’ commentary makes a mockery of what should be serious issues. The paradox that occurs is that it is his appearance in the make-shift studio that makes the round-up watchable, much less the actual content.
Of course the main question is, what this round-up actually is. Is it serious, offering the user the benefit of expanded knowledge, is it – in short – news? Or is it a mockery and a parody, a Slovenian version of the Daily Show/Colbert Report with a twist and a knack for using swear words?
If the latter is the case, then I think that Editor in Chief shouldn’t publish his editorials in the round-up, because they either lose credibility or give undeserved credibility to the show. It is like pouring vodka and whiskey in one glass. Some things just shouldn’t be done.
However, If the round-up is considered news, then I’m sorry to say that it fails the most basic journalistic test: relevance. Namely: what is the point of having a news round-up when all news is published in full anyhow? The video is too long to watch as one can check out a good portion (if not all) of the latest entries on vest.si within those ten minutes and decide for oneself on the relevance of a particular piece of news.
Truth be said, there is some progress. In the latest edition Jonas refrained from using swear words. A big plus. But there is still a long way to go. And I don’t think that the content of vest.si would be any less interesting if it hadn’t been for this round-up. I’ve no illusions about this. I’m positive that the round-up with Jonas will be one of the more accessed and viewed features on vest.si. I just think it’s a bad idea.
But what on Earth am I saying??? Here I am bitching about it, when I’m reguralrely posting naked chicks and guys and swearing al the time, while trying to project an image of a left-wing intelectual. I guess the only difference is that I do it for kicks, whereas vest.si is said to be a true and independent media. I’d hate to see their reputation tarnished because of a small screw-up.
UPDATE: Today’s (Wednesday) edition was much more to my liking – both in terms of what was said in the post and in the comments, as well as pleasing my own taste for content.
Peter Jančič, Editor-in-Chief of Delo daily became an object of an elaborate prank. Namely, Delo’s automatic answering system has a nice feature, where you can apparently type in the initials of a person and your call is then transferred to his or her extension. As far as I get it, if you punch in “PJAN”, you ought to get through to newspaper’s current editor in chief. But before you do get through the system tells you the name you punched in and asks for confirmation. Or so they tought…
You have reached Satan…
For those of you, who don’t understand Slovene: in the last section, when the person placing the call types in numbers 75266 (PJAN), the system is suppose to respond by “you requested Peter Jančič”, but instead it responds by “you requested Satan!”. Why is that, I hear you asking…
Jančič was named Delo’s editor in chief shortly after Danilo Slivnik became the newspaper’s CEO in a switch which more or less exactly failed to please the eye, as it was obviously aimed at making the largest daily “government-friendly” in a new political eviroment with Janez Janša as PM.
Despite his repeated attempts at asserting himself as being worthy of his post, Jančič is widely perceived as a straw-man, with Slivnik effectivelly running and editing the newspaper, so Jančič (once a respected journalist and columnist for Večer daily) became tha laughing-stock of Slovene journalism. The atmosphere at Delo, however is poisonous at the moment. Given this and Jančič’s less-then-adequate performance, it is little wonder Delo’s quality is dropping rapidly
Prof. Godler in TLP show (photo by TLP website)
The (in)famous Jure Godler has joined the ranks of bloggers. To be more exact: he will officially start blogging on Saturday, but you can already get a sneak preview now…
Just a couple of days ago Jure Godler won a Viktor (Slovene Oscar-wannabe) for a “rising media personality”, but the list of his artistic and media exploits is long and distinguished. And most of all, he’s got class.
Hats off to you, professor Godler! 😀
So, the oscars were given away… I case you missed it or live in an inconvenient time zone (which is the case, I’m sad to say, of most of the readers of this blog), here are some clips for you to enjoy.
Forrest Whithaker won an oscar for Best actor in a leading role for The Last King of Scotland
Helen Mirren picks up an oscar for best actress in a leading role for The Queen. Some stupid ass voiceover is present because someone made a screen capture.
Host Ellen DeGeneres wants a to have her picture taken with Marty Scorsese.
Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton (remember them from Something’s Gotta Give?) give away an oscar for the best picture (The Departed). Unfortunatelly with Spanish commentary.
Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas give away an oscar for best director to Marty Scorsese.
My favourite… Al Gore getting an oscar for best feature documentary and – with a little help from Leo Di Paprico – teasing people about running for the White House
Melissa Etheridge picks up an oscar for “I Need to Wake Up“, best original song
Since I couldn’t find this years intro, here’s the last year’s with The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart hosting
A little souvenir by Billy Crystal from 10 years ago – can you imagine that it’s been that long sicne the English Patient?
