Two of Ireland's national radio stations, Today FM and Newstalk, are to pool their reporting resources - but there will not be a full newsroom merger. Today FM's ceo Willie O'Reilly said the stations would "continue to have separate newsrooms with separate newsreaders, political correspondents and management."

It is understood that Ireland's broadcasting regulator was opposed to a complete editorial merger. Both stations are owned by Communicorp, the company run by Denis O'Brien, the dissident Independent News & Media shareholder. (Via Irish Times)

The BBC Trust's rejection of the extended regional video service is a considerable victory for the Newspaper Society. It is a comprehensive rejection, the first major example of the trust showing its muscles.

In that sense, it is a landmark moment in broadcasting history. It has told the BBC, in effect, to get stuffed and ordered it to use the money it earmarked for online expansion to be put to (supposedly) better use by urging it to go back to basics.

I think this is misguided for all sorts of reasons, not least the failure to see that broadband is the future. But I want to deal mainly with the trust's view that the BBC's website expansion would have had a "negative impact on commercial media".

Here is the key quote by the trust's chairman, Michael Lyons, in making today's announcement:

Much was made of his statement last month about the failings of local newspapers, suggesting that his mind was already made up in favour of the proposal. But it was a biased misreading. Read it again:

There is no contradiction between those statements. The issue has been explored through the the trust's public value assessment and Ofcom's market impact assessment. So Lyons did not change his mind. The trust did as it said it would regardless of his sincere views of the increasingly poor service to the public offered by local newspapers.

The decision comes as a great disappointment to David Holdsworth, the acting controller of BBC English regions, who has been piloting the proposal over the past year. But he says: "It has been an exhaustive process, so I respect the decision made by the trust.

"I still believe broadband is important to deliver content at a local level but I will, of course, take up the challenge offered by the trust to improve local news delivery via regional TV services."

He could say little else, of course. But this is surely only a battle in a longer war, as everyone realises. Note what Lyons also said:

It implies that regional newspaper publishers have the chance to improve their online offerings - including video content - but there is every reason to think that, if they fail to do so, the BBC could return to the fray.

In its formal response to the trust's decision the Newspaper Society - which, it has be said, has run a superb campaign - recognises that fact. Its director, David Newell, said:

There is an assumption in that statement that merits attention. We, the commercial media organisations, already offer choice. We are the sole guardians of plurality and diversity.

Yet, with the contraction of ITV's local news commitment and this inhibition of BBC's regional website expansion, the current publishers have the territory almost to themselves.

Are they up to that in the current climate, given their relentless cost-cutting? Will regional publishers invest enough to improve their online service to the public?

Most importantly, what happens if they do not? Might I suggest that in a year's time someone - Ofcom, perhaps - conducts surveys based on the criteria used in making public value and market impact assessments.

It is still the case, and I found myself nodding in agreement with the reaction of the National Union of Journalists, that regional publishers are firing journalists while the BBC was prepared to hire them.

Moreover, local papers are closing. Titles are disappearing. News coverage across the country is being reduced. With one or two notable exceptions, regional dailies are losing sales with each passing week. Yet their online take-up is, again with the odd exception, very weak.

More and more people are seeking news online and they want a good service. Now, freed from the "burden" of BBC competition, publishers must prove that they are willing to do the job they have prevented the BBC from doing.

They made much of the public's right to know. Let them fulfil that remit. If they do not, the BBC should be encouraged by the BBC Trust, and by Ofcom, to offer new proposals in, say, a year's time.

London mayor Boris Johnson has dumped Freud Communications, which organised media campaigns and events. Freud's, run by Matthew Freud, had been paid by London Unlimited, a body set up by the former mayor Ken Livingstone to attract people to the capital to invest, work and study. (Via Evening Standard)

The US-based PC Magazine is going all digital after 27 years in print. In a message to readers, editor-in-chief Lance Ulanoff writes that the January issue "will mark a monumental transition... It is the last printed edition." And Jason Young, ceo of the publishers, Ziff Davis Media, explains that the move to an all-digital format "is the final step in an evolutionary process."

PC Magazine in Britain is a totally separate enterprise, published by Incisive Media, and I am reliably informed that it will continue to be published in print.

The figures revealed today by DMGT about its regional newspaper division, Northcliffe, are eye-opening. Year-on-year operating profit to the end of September down 32% to £68m; revenues down 23% in the last quarter; and revenues in October down 28%, with property ads down 52% and recruitment ads down 37%.

They are "unprecedented" declines, but we're getting so used to that description nowadays in newspaper business (and many other businesses too) that it's losing its meaning. Northcliffe's troubles are shared by Trinity Mirror and Johnston Press.

There is little that the trio can do about economic forces that have turned an already parlous situation of increasingly rapid decline into a headlong plunge. Before the credit crunch they were preparing for a bad time. Now it's worse than bad. It's business hell.

Some are in a worse state than others of course. Johnston Press has debts of £465m and there are growing fears that will breach its banking covenants. With a share price of just 6.5p today, its market capitalisation is a mere £42.29m. And there is no sign of its falling revenues reviving next year.

Trinity Mirror carries less debt. But its current share price (31.25p) means that its market cap is £79.8m. It was more than ten times greater a year ago. It is instituting a pay freeze, making staff redundant and closing titles around the country. It can count on its national titles for liquidity but the future of one of them, The People, must be under consideration.

Northcliffe, sheltered inside the profitable DMGT empire (market cap: £907m), is in better shape than its two rivals. But it is a drag on a company with businesses also coping with the effects of the financial crisis. I bet it now wishes it had sold off Northcliffe in 2005.

That said, it's remotely possible that Northcliffe could end up being the beneficiary of the current crisis. Further consolidation in the regional and local newspaper industry is now inevitable (I'll lay odds that the government and the regulators allow it to happen), so Northcliffe could end up as a buyer rather than a seller.

What am I saying? The more likely scenario, given the overall problems for newsprint, is the disappearance altogether of many papers. So there won't be any businesses for anyone to buy.

And the only word for that, of course, is "unprecedented."

A long and detailed article in the latest Columbia Journalism Review, Overload!Journalism's battle for relevance in an age of too much information, contains all manner of insights. Examples:

The result? Newspapers have indulged in cost-cutting in order to try to preserve profitability. But news is available for free.

What have traditional news organisations done about that? Not a lot, according to the CJR essay by Bree Nordenson:

Anyway, this is just the opening to what is 6,000+ words of analysis, so you need to read it closely yourself. There is much praise along the way for the way, incidentally, for the way in which the BBC presents its online news stories.

"The website for BBC News may be the best example of how journalistic organisations can deliver context in the digital environment", writes Nordenson.

That's the kind of praise regional newspaper publishers won't want to hear, of course, but it does remind us that our public service broadcaster has thought deeply about how to do the job of giving us news.

Did Rupert Murdoch pull political strings in Ireland during its debate over the Lisbon treaty? (For new readers: Irish people voted the EU treaty down in a June referendum, and its government is desperate to find a way of reversing that decision).

Anyway, Murdoch is accused in an Irish Times article by Sarah Carey, of ensuring that the Irish edition of the Sunday Times stuck fast to his British paper's anti-Lisbon agenda.

Carey, who worked for ST for three years, writes that some months before the referendum date was announced, she told her Dublin-based editor, Frank Fitzgibbon, that she was eager to write a piece in favour of Lisbon. He appeared happy at first to run her article but when it eventually came to the point of publishing it, she claims "something had changed." She writes:

Carey seems to believe this was all down to Murdoch. In fact, I'd say it has much more to do with editors second-guessing Murdoch. I doubt that he would have been asked, or even knew, about the ST's Irish coverage.

Certainly, she is naive in imagining that the paper would ensure "balance" in its coverage on any political topic. She concludes with a couple of rhetorical questions:

Fitzgibbon may well have consulted the Sunday Times's London-based chief editor, John Witherow. But Witherow's own Eurosceptic views are well known, as are his paper's and his owner's. There is no secret about this. He would certainly not need to consult Murdoch on the matter of the Lisbon treaty.

The Sunday Times's popularity has been growing in Ireland for years, with sales now standing at 114,000 per issue. That's a big slice of Ireland's Sunday paper-buying public. But the overwhelming majority of readers surely know it's a British title with a pro-British (and anti-EU) agenda.

I think Carey, like so many who favour the Lisbon treaty, is trying to find yet another reason for the Irish people's refusal to vote as they would have wished.

We're all so used to hearing about job cuts that I was convinced that national newspaper staffs were smaller than a quarter of a century ago, during those lazy, crazy days of unending drink-fuelled lunches. My researches, detailed in my London Evening Standard column today,
Forget boozy Fleet Street image - newspapers turned lean long ago, suggests otherwise.

Scotsman.com

I thought I might be alone in noting that The Scotsman's revamped website is far worse than its predecessor. Evidently not. Readers have vanished. And here's the (admittedly parti pris) view of the site's former editor, Stewart Kirkpatrick , recorded on his blog:

Kirkpatrick is so right about the site. It is, frankly, amateur compared to the previous model. At the risk of annoying local paper online editors, it has the appearance of a local weekly rather than a national, even international, title.

Anyway, Kirkpatrick has evidently moved on to better things. His agency, w00tonomy, has formed an alliance with the design agency, Palmer Watson.

Like so many people in Scotland, I wonder whether The Scotsman has much of a future. Its average newsprint circulation in October was 49,841, only 43,000 of which were full-rate sales. Now, with falling website traffic, it is failing to build for an online future too.

There is a widespread belief among veteran journalists who fear a world without newsprint that proper journalism will die with them. No one will be around to dig and delve. No one will know how to get stories and where to seek out facts. Sources will dry up.

So corrupt politicians, business fraudsters and incompetent public officials will escape scrutiny and go unpunished. The watchdogs will be silent. Power will not be held to account.

The problem, as every know-all traditionalist reporter likes to say, very loudly and all too often, is that no business model exists to fund effective online journalism. Websites can never do the job now done so brilliantly by newspapers.

Let's puncture those reactionary generalisations with some facts that suggest such fears are nonsense. Many cities in the United States are now enjoying the benefits of small web-based start-ups that point the way to a new form of journalism, as the New York Times has reported.

One example of this emergent low-cost form of journalistic enterprise is VoiceofSanDiego.org, a site responsible for the recent dismissal of two redevelopment agency chiefs, one of whom is facing criminal charges. Launched in 2005, it has a young staff of 11, including some refugees from newspapers. Its audience is small, about 18,000 monthly unique visitors. Yet it is punching well above its weight.

"Voice is doing really significant work, driving the agenda on redevelopment and some other areas, putting local politicians and businesses on the hot seat," says Dean Nelson, director of the journalism courses at a San Diego university. "I have them come into my classes, and I introduce them as, 'This is the future of journalism.'"

So who pays the bills? These ventures are supported by foundations, wealthy donors, audience contributions and a little advertising. But is charity a business model? Right now, it is certainly one of the best interim measures.

The MinnPost, based in Minneapolis, is a much more business-minded site, bankrolled to the tune of $1.5m from several founders, including Joel Kramer, a former editor and publisher of the city's Star Tribune newspaper. Started last year, it sells ads and seeks readers' donations.

Its full-time editors and reporters earn $50,000 to $60,000 (£33k-£40k) a year, a living wage, but less than they would make at mainstream newspapers. There are only five full-time employees, but it uses more than 40 paid freelance contributors.

Perhaps the most ambitious investigative journalism website in the States is the non-profit newsroom, ProPublica. Launched last year, it is funded by philanthropists, a married couple who made a lot of money with a financial services company. Now Herbert and Marion Sandler have committed $10m (£6.7m) a year to the project.

They hired Paul Steiger, former managing editor of the Wall Street Journal, to create and run it and the other major editorial figure is Stephen Engelberg, a former investigative editor at the New York Times.

ProPublica's mission statement refers to covering stories with "moral force," a journalism that shines a light on exploitation of the weak by the strong and on the failures of those with power to vindicate the trust placed in them.

Two other noteworthy investigative journalism sites are the Pulitzer Centre on Crisis Reporting, which looks into problems around the world, and the Centre for Investigative Reporting. The latter's Muckraker blog is often a good read

Then there's the excellent TalkingPointsMemo, a blog-style website was set up by Josh Marshall in 2000. It has grown in scope and success, with spin-off blogs and an increasing number of staff. TPM covers a wide range of topics including US foreign policy, domestic politics (especially at the federal level) and domestic policy.

In June, in Belgrade, I was on a panel with TPM's managing editor, David Kurtz, who received the International Press Institute's "Free Media Pioneer 2008" award for its sterling work in exposing a scandal involving the dismissal of eight senior law officers, which resulted in the resignation of the US attorney general Alberto Gonzales. That story had already won it the "George Polk" award in the States, the only blog ever to win that prestigious honour.

The key to its success over that story, and in others, was the involvement of its readers. Only when TPM readers began to send in stories about the treatment of their law officers was it realised the extent of the scandal. It was, therefore, a practical example of the merits of crowd-sourcing.

TPM is a relatively small hub of dedicated professionals interacting with the public, with citizens, in order to carry out acts of journalism for the public benefit. In TPM's case, it attracts advertising and makes enough of a profit to fund its activities.

From crowd-sourcing to crowd-funding. In a very interesting experiment, the non-profit spot.us has just been launched by a young journalist, David Cohn, in northern California, backed by the Centre for Media Change.

It works like this. Members of the public make donations to "commission" journalists to carry out investigations on stories they feel are important, that they feel passionate about, and which have usually been overlooked stories.

If a news organisation eventually buys exclusive rights to the content, then the donation is reimbursed. Otherwise, all content is made available to everyone. Spot.us is therefore a sort of journalistic marketplace where independent reporters, community members and news organisations can come together and collaborate. Cohn has understood that most essential of lessons: journalism on the net is no longer a product but a process.

In Britain, sadly, there is no innovation on the scale of these many US-based examples. We are, as so often, way behind America in such matters. We are still wedded to centralised mass media, clinging on to models created in the 19th century.

I concede that the US journalism is regionally based, and that does encourage people to launch local projects on a relatively low budget. It's also true that British newspapers, especially at the national level, are still holding power to account (though I'd guess that statement is open to debate too).

But the point of this round-up is to show that journalism need not die with newsprint. There are ways of funding small-scale editorial enterprises that can make a big noise. Who will be the first ProPublica or spot.us in Britain?

Simon Kelner's briefing to journalists at The Independent certainly quashes my claims that the paper is "in play", at least for the foreseeable future.

It is possible to read the job cuts in two ways: they are a staging post on the way to a sale or a necessity to ensure that Independent News and Media can continue to cope with the losses. On balance, I'd say the latter is the case. There would be no point to the exercise if a sale was coming around the corner.

The Kelner statement also underlines the fact that INM's overlords, Tony and Gavin O'Reilly, remain committed to the titles. They are going to take the financial hit for another year. Ninety redundancies are going to shave a big slice off the annual losses now running at between £10-12m, but they will not put the Indy titles into profit.

I would expect that 60 of the redundancies will come from editorial, reducing the 260 total to 200. This will make the Indy's operation journalistically leaner than any other national, with the possible exception of the Daily Express.

But I would guess that INM is only doing what other national publishers will soon be doing. Rupert Murdoch has already announced cuts at Wapping. The Daily Mail & General Trust is likely to announce cuts this week.

The downturn in advertising revenue has been dramatic and unprecedented, and there is nowhere to hide. So it is unsurprising that INM, financially weaker than its major rivals, is taking steps to safeguard its future.

In the words of INM's UK chief executive, Ivan Fallon, the restructuring is aimed at producing "a significantly lower cost base, which will allow our titles to weather whatever storms the next few years will bring." Not, of course, that any of us have any experience of these storms.

There may be more pain to come because every aspect of the business will be under consideration, from the faintly possible relocation of the papers' offices to the somewhat more likely outsourcing of the production process. Nothing is decided. Everything is up for grabs.

So, given the O'Reillys' determination to hold on to the Indies, what credence should we give to the story I mentioned this morning about INM having had talks with Zac Goldsmith about a possible sale?

Well, there certainly were talks. But it's fair to say that any owner of any loss-making business would listen to someone who is willing to make an offer. It appears that this was the case with Goldsmith.

He soon realised that his pockets, despite his reputed wealth, were nothing like deep enough to sustain the papers, nor as deep as those of O'Reilly's company. The talks therefore concluded quickly.

Nor, it seems, is there a sheikh on the horizon, fake or otherwise, willing to make a bid. This must be the first period in my 44 years as a journalist that there is no entrepreneur desperate enough to become a media mogul to pay a crazy price for a national paper.

Indeed, as we discover the more closely we look at the whole newspaper industry in Britain, once-bitter rival companies are huddling together for shelter from the storm. There could well be lots more co-operation between groups in the coming months.

It will be fascinating to see whether the leaner Indy will be a signpost to the future. For 60 of its journalists, however, it could well spell the end of their careers. There are fewer and fewer jobs out there

No wonder the National Union of Journalists has issued a strong statement, condemning the "massive shock" to its members at the Indy. What worries the union, all of us, is whether journalistic quality can be maintained with a smaller staff.

The three leading global news agencies - Reuters, Associated Press and AFP - have suspended coverage of Cricket Australia matches and events because of a dispute over accreditation terms.

The agencies will not provide any coverage of Australia's matches, training sessions or commercial events in text, pictures or TV, due to their opposition to the terms set by the Australian governing body.

The agencies are opposed to Cricket Australia's policy of imposing limits on the number of updates allowed on the net for text, pictures and data and further rules such as limiting distribution to websites not owned or attached to newspapers or sports magazines.

The first casualty of this boycott will be the New Zealand-Australia test series which begins later this month.

"Reuters is regrettably unable to cover the upcoming cricket events in Australia, following unacceptable accreditation terms for journalists imposed by Cricket Australia", said Christoph Pleitgen, global head of news agency for Thomson Reuters.

"As in previous instances, this decision compromises our ability to report independently and objectively, and comes at the expense of global fans and sponsors."

The same leading agencies clashed with Cricket Australia last year. And the build-up to the rugby World Cup in 2007 was also marred by a media dispute which threatened coverage of the event. It was eventually settled just before the opening match.

Peter Young, the general manager of public affairs for Cricket Australia, told Reuters that his organisation was still in negotiations over the media rights and that any decision to suspend coverage of the events would be regrettable.

He said: "We've reached agreement with 99.9% of the media who cover cricket in Australia and we're comfortable that they can distribute information to the rest of the world so no cricket fan will have to miss out on anything if the agencies don't want to cover it.

The News Media Coalition, which seeks to protect the editorial freedom of media organisations, has been involved in discussions with Cricket Australia for many months. In a statement today the NMC said:

The NMC is an international not-for-profit organisation focused on the specific threat to editorial operations, publishing and independent journalism from excessive controls on the flow of news to the public imposed by events entities such as sports governing bodies through accreditation contracts.

It is a platform for the concerns of supporters, which include newspapers and publishers, national and global agencies, press freedom organisations and other media bodies, and journalist groups in many countries around the world.

Eleven days ago I wrote: "I think The Independent is in play." That claim was based on talks between its owner Independent News & Media and some rival groups.

Today comes the revelation that talks have also been held between an INM executive - none other than Simon Kelner - and Zac Goldsmith, the wealthy environmental campaigner and Conservative party candidate. According to Dan Sabbagh's story in The Times, "a couple of months" of discussions took place "in the late summer".

In other words, they were prior to the approaches made by INM to its national paper competitors about the likelihood of sharing of back office functions (and even a possible sale).

But, as with those rebuffed approaches, Zac Goldsmith and his family also decided against getting into bed with the Indy. Sabbagh writes that they "decided not to proceed in the light of the newspaper's financial position."

He mentions that INM's chief executive and moving spirit, Tony O'Reilly, was "aware of the discussions, although it is not thought that they had progressed to the point where a firm offer was made."

So where can we expect the next offer for The Independent and its Sunday sister? The ambitious cash-rich sheikhs in the United Arab Emirates could well be bidders, according to some sources.

What is clear is that INM wants rid of the papers now. Meanwhile, it is planning to reduce their already meagre staffs still further. There are suggestions that INM's UK division - which includes the Belfast Telegraph - will shed a further 10% of its staff.

Given that the Indy titles are losing the best part of £1m a month, possibly more, it will require a very rich patron to step in if the titles are to have a proper future. Expect news soon from Dubai or Abu Dhabi.

UPDATED 2.30pm: With scores of journalists being laid off week by week in Britain it was sobering to read an account of life after the word-face by the former Hartlepool Mail editor, Harry Blackwood. The burden of his disturbing Mail on Sunday article was about his poor treatment by the jobcentre.

That offered lessons to all employees made redundant well before the age that their pensions are supposed to kick in. But I was interested in his specific dilemma as a journalist, and not only because of what he wrote but because he has an interesting history that he did not mention.

He wrote that he had recently been working at a school, that he was 52, and had been in work since June 4, 1973, a week before his 17th birthday.

He also pointed out that he had been a sports editor, a chief sub-editor, an assistant editor, a deputy editor and the editor of his home-town paper, the Hartlepool Mail.

What he omitted was the reason that he parted company with the Mail in March 2003 after four years as editor and 30 years with the paper. He was fired by the paper's owners, Johnston Press, after a row between him and the then local MP, none other than Peter Mandelson.

Blackwood said at the time that he believed Mandelson was influential in his sacking and threatened to go to an industrial tribunal. Johnston Press, however, announced that he was dismissed for gross misconduct and then refused to elucidate.

Blackwood's action was eventually settled, in his favour, before his case could be heard in public. He says he would loved to have had his day at a hearing to produce various revelatory emails that would have vindicated him.

Anyway, back to the present. After his recent contract with a Hartlepool school ended he spotted there there was a vacancy for a part-time press officer with the local borough council. He wrote:

A professional qualification? With his experience? That's absurd. Surely the hand of Mandelson couldn't have been involved this time around, could it? Well, it's not beyond a possibility that misguided people might have held it against him.

What was heartening was that Blackwood appeared this morning on BBC Radio Tees and received a round of applause in the studio when he told of his treatment by the jobcentre bureaucrats. The switchboard also went into meltdown as people called in to offer sympathy and tell of their own troubles. Good for Harry.

I see that the smokers' lobby group Forest is boasting today about winning an apology from BBC Radio Northampton presenter Bob Walmsley because he compared smokers to alcoholics. I don't believe there was any need for the host of the station's consumer affairs programme to apologise.

Last week, in the course of interviewing Forest spokesman Neil Rafferty about a London council's decision to ban smokers from
fostering, Walmsley compared placing a child with foster parents who smoke to placing a child with alcoholics. He also suggested that smokers were unfit parents.

It is debatable whether, as Walmsley said in his on-air apology, that he was guilty of making an "unfair comparison". But note what Rafferty said in his post-apology reaction.

After claiming that Walmsley crossed the line with his "ill-informed and offensive" views, he added: "Too many BBC local radio presenters are breaching the corporation's editorial rules on impartiality, particularly when it comes to the controversial issues surrounding tobacco.

"They are using licence payers' money to further the anti-smoking agenda
and that is not acceptable."

Not acceptable? Not impartial? Cigarettes are sold with a grisly warning about causing death. The government has banned smoking in public buildings. The medical evidence about smoking is irrefutable.

Smoking is addictive. Unlike drinking alcohol, even in moderation it can cause problems for both smokers and for those who inhale the smoke. So Walmsley was quite right and should not have been forced to back down.