Magazine module video assignments

My editor/senior journalist interview is with the Editor-in-Chief of TopGear magazine, but due to BBC rules I am unable to publish the video to the public.

I am waiting on permission to publish my confessional interview to the public from the subject of it - a former pathological gambler who after losing £1.3 million over nearly ten years, turned his life around when he stopped gambling and set up his own problem gambling consultancy business.

Innovation in the magazine industry: Technological innovations in magazines, with focus on TopGear Magazine.

‘Print is dead’ was a phrase uttered only a couple of years ago when online versions of magazines began to gain popularity and it was feared that technological innovations could be about to change magazines forever.

The availability of computers, smartphones and tablet computers has made the online versions of magazines just as easy to access as the print copies. It seems as if the days of waiting for the new edition of a magazine to go on sale are over for some readers, as a magazine’s content is now only a few clicks of a mouse or touches of a screen away.

The content that magazines release online isn’t just easier to access; it is also more up-to-date than in the print copies. In the latest edition of TopGear Magazine, the main feature focused on Ferrari’s brand new high performance car, called ‘LaFerrari’, but the headline piece on the website changes on a regular basis, sometimes reflecting what is in the new edition of the print magazine, but more often than not, the headline piece on the website is the latest feature produced by the team or a review of a new car. This doesn’t just show how behind the times print magazines are, but all of print media.

If a magazine has a website that is regularly updated, then it could be argued that the printed version is out of date almost as soon as it goes on sale. Articles that appeared in the printed magazine and on the website can be updated and/or reworked, with writers and editors able to add new information and photos, but this new content can obviously only be added to the website. An example of this comes from TopGear. The May edition of the magazine has a feature on ‘LaFerrari’, but the website has a different version of the feature. The feature in the magazine details the reviewer’s experience of driving the car, as well as giving the reader important information about it, but the article on the website is far more basic and information about the car in the print magazine article is spread across a few separate pages of the site as well as a more interactive look at it. The website also had a feature on a new version of the car, called ‘LaFerrari XX’, but there was nothing in the magazine about it.

Although technological innovations have somewhat taken over the magazine industry and have allowed for a surge in popularity of online versions of magazines, it wasn’t long ago that the print magazine industry was experiencing an innovation of its own, as Charlie Turner, Editor-In-Chief of TopGear Magazine, explains, “When I started, the last photo-shoot we could do would tend to be about a week before our deadline because you had to process the film, then you had to edit it, then you had to scan it, then you had to lay it out, then you had to send it off for high-res scanning, then you had to get it back, the process took forever. These days we’re shooting, we shoot stuff occasionally on deadline day so we can be in the middle of nowhere, take pictures of a car, send it back to the office, design it and send it to the printers, the speed has totally changed, so in terms of innovation, magazine industry has changed fundamentally in the last five, 10 years with the sort of birth of digital photography, but beyond that the utilisation of the content that you are generating, so you’re looking at assets, whether it be photography or writing being delivered across a platform”.

It is the utilisation of content that Turner mentions that will surely be of the utmost importance to the magazine industry in the next few years. The content produced for the print version of a magazine is just as important for the online version as the technology that allows it to exist.

It could be argued that the popularity of smartphones has also changed the way that magazines are now read. A replica version of the latest edition of TopGear Magazine is available to download on smartphones at the same time as the printed version goes on sale. This shows a clear cross-platform strategy being used by TopGear, with content being published in the magazine, on the website and on smartphones.

Charlie Turner describes how smartphones are changing the industry, “I think mobile is going to be clearly the way that people consume media will drive the innovation in the business and if you look at the way magazines are produced, they are incredibly old school, they are printed on presses that have been there 60 years, on huge great reams of paper, we are getting much better at the sustainability, if you look at the way that people globally consuming media, the internet, mobile consumption are all going through the roof, so interesting and interactive ways of delivering content on mobile is going to be fundamental”.

He also explains how TopGear Magazine has adjusted to the demand for content to be available on smartphones, “Most people have a smartphone in the UK, there’s a huge proportion of smartphones in the UK and therefore that’s how people are grazing content and coming up with a way of making them engaged with that content in a meaningful way or just give them something to distract them from the daily grind is what we’re sort of looking at and different ways of delivering our content”.

He adds, “We’ve got a back catalogue of the most amazing photography of cars ever, so how we deliver that into that market and apps are going to be really fundamental to how we do that and just different ways of engaging with that audience, but it’ll be really interesting”.

It is not just smartphones that have changed the magazine industry in the last couple of years, but also the rise in popularity of tablet computers. Figures from CCS Insight show that for users of tablet computers, 60% of web browsing takes place on their tablet devices. A 2013 YouGov report into Media, Technology and Telecoms said that by the end of 2014, almost half of UK households will own a tablet computer.

While this may not be good news for print magazines, it does open up a whole new market for the magazine industry as a whole, as Charlie Turner explains, “The tablets are going to be huge there’s no two ways about that, where you, how you publish on a tablet”.

He adds, “What we tend to do is the magazine is the magazine but then in the tablet it’s much more interactive so it’s got more video content, more sound files. There is motion and there’s sort of emotion of seeing them in action and all of those things and that’s where it’s getting really interesting and that’s sort of interactivity is fundamental to what we’re doing”.

This new interactive content is contained within the magazine’s digital edition - an iPad app that allows users to buy individual issues for £2.99 and a yearly subscription for £24.99, which represents a significant saving compared to buying individual issues of the print magazine or on a subscription.

It is not just TopGear Magazine that has exploited the popularity of tablets computers. Future Publishing, the team behind Total Film and Official Xbox 360 Magazine, reported sales figures on all of their digital editions of $1 billion a week. Despite high sales, 2013 figures show that only 21.8% of the circulation of Total Film came from its digital edition. The printed magazine may not be as dead as first thought.

Everything has to evolve at some point and the same goes for the magazine industry. Publishers have realised that for their magazines to be successful, they have to be in a different form that just print and it seems as if the more platforms a magazine publishes content on, the more successful it will be. TopGear Magazine is just one of many that has moved into a new phase - embracing new technology and is using it to its full potential despite the market conditions. Editor-in-Chief, Charlie Turner: “I think it’s really easy for people to get quite down on magazines, because inherently in the UK, it’s a tough market, but the reality is that what that’s done is opened up so many more opportunities in the whole sort of publishing sphere that it’s actually a really exciting time to be involved in.”

So it seems that if the magazine industry wants to survive, it will need to tap into new technology, literally.

QPR 1-1 Millwall - 26th April 2014

It was ironic in the end that after so much hard work and determination from the Millwall players that it was a former West Ham player who made the mistake that gave the Lions a point at Queens Park Rangers.

 

Due to their lowly league position, it was a game that Millwall could not afford to lose, but they wasted early chances. Quality was at a premium for most of the game and neither side looked like taking control.

 

QPR - who are already assured of a play-off place - rested some of their key players, namely striker Kevin Doyle and winger Junior Hoilett and it showed as the players who started the match were unable to get past Millwall goalkeeper David Forde for most of the game.

 

The home side were sluggish for most of the first half, but sprung into life after the break. Joey Barton, Tom Carroll and Ravel Morrison all went close. Barton hit a shot wide of the right-hand post and both Morrison and Carroll fired over the bar.

 

It was QPR’s top scorer, Charlie Austin, who provided a moment of quality though. Simeon Jackson was adjudged to have handled Hoilett’s cross just inside the area and Austin slotted in the spot kick for his 17^th goal of the season.

 

The competitive performance from Millwall showed why they deserve to be in the Championship next season, but also highlighted that they need to strengthen in attack, as Stefan Maierhofer and Scott Malone both wasted good chances.

 

In the end, their persistence paid off as Malone’s scuffed shot was misjudged by QPR keeper Green and the ball went spinning into the back of the net to extend Millwall’s unbeaten run to seven.

 

 

Ian Holloway on the decision to award QPR a penalty: “I think handball should be deliberate. It might have hit his hand but was it in the box and was it deliberate?
 
“If there hadn't been a whistle, not one person behind that goal would have jumped up looking for a penalty - and I know this ground pretty well. I can't believe what I saw.
 
“I've had the benefit of watching it six or seven times, but even when watching it in real speed I thought it was harsh.”
 
 
QPR manager Harry Redknapp: “When you're 1-0 up in the last minute you expect to see the game out.
 
“It's difficult to balance a team and maybe we had too many players who are good when they have the ball and not so good when they haven't got it.
 
“When we didn't have possession we didn't close down as well as I would have liked. It's about finding that balance and a happy medium and that's what we've got to do for the play-offs.
 
“Millwall played well. They've got bags of enthusiasm and have had some great away results recently, so they've been in good form.”
 
On the penalty decision: “I haven't seen the replay, but everyone who has seen it says it was a penalty.”


I was at the match whilst on placement at The Sunday Times and attended it with legendary journalist Brian Glanville.

Media Law Year Three - Lecture Seven. Press Regulation.

Journalists must follow regulations, which affect both print and broadcast journalists.

The Press Complaints Commission (PCC) is the regulator for newspapers, magazines and other written publications. It is seen as something of a 'toothless tiger' because its code of practice was established by the newspapers themselves.

At the moment, there seems to be a tussle between the press and the government, with the former wanting their own regulator, whilst the latter wants a royal charter and statutory regulations. If put in place, it will mean stricter controls on the written press, something that the industry does not want.


Ofcom is the regulatory authority that policies broadcast media, it covers everything on TV and radio.

Broadcasters must have a licence from Ofcom to transmit and can have their licence taken away if they commit offences serious enough for Ofcom to do so. It can also impose a fine of up to 5% of a broadcasters revenue if is rules have been broken. BBC and S4C (Welsh-language public service television) do not hold Ofcom licences, but are still subject to its rules and can be fined.

These sanctions will be imposed when  "a broadcaster deliberately, seriously, or repeatedly breaches the code...".


BBC Editorial Guidelines are for BBC staff and set the standards for the journalism of the corporation.

The BBC handles all its own complaints about inaccuracy and bias and the BBC Trust sets out the framework for its procedure.


NUJ Code of Conduct is only a guide to good conduct, therefore cannot impose serious sanctions.

Abiding by this code can be important for maintaining the reputation of a journalist or a publication. A journalist or a publication may break the code and be lowered in the eyes of their fellow journalists, people they want to interview and/or the public.