The Guardian launches its Australian digital edition

The Guardian has today unveiled a free online edition to cater particularly for its Australian audience, which comprises a considerable 1.1 million regular readers. Katherine Viner, new editor-in-chief of Guardian Australia, has promised a “fresh and independent view” on Australian and international news, and a “digital storytelling” approach to “engage readers in new ways.”

The loneliness of the profit-making broadsheet

Besides the FT, the Daily Telegraph and its now full integrated stablemate, the Sunday Telegraph, remain the only profitable ‘quality’ or broadsheet paper in the UK. On a recent WAN-IFRA visit we asked how the newsroom supports this (and how come so many people still wear ties?)

Worldcrunch Impact bets on Kickstarter to launch ‘solutions journalism’ initiative

Worldcrunch, an English-language global news startup launched two years ago in Paris, is embarking on a new project, ‘Worldcrunch Impact’, with the ambitious aim of healing the ills of journalism as it currently stands – that is, changing the fact that digital media covers news in a manner that is “too fast, too thin, too loud.” The project’s launch depends entirely on the success of its Kickstarter funding campaign.

6 talking points from our visit to BuzzFeed UK

Last week our WEF study tour group dropped into the newly opened BuzzFeed UK offices in London to chat with Luke Lewis. Everybody is talking about BuzzFeed – but what do you really need to know?

Our interview with Arianna Huffington: an excerpt

Arianna Huffington’s spreading the word. She wants to start a new conversation. It’s what she and the Huffington Post do better than most in the news media industry. This time it’s all about redefining success. “We need a third metric, beyond money and power, that places value on our well-being, wisdom and our ability to make a difference in the world,” she says.

Justice Department target Fox News reporter in North Korea leak case

Just a week after the AP/Department of Justice affair, the White House has become involved in a second potential scandal involving the alleged surveillance of Fox News journalist, James Rosen, as part of an inquest into a leak of classified information regarding North Korean nuclear test plans in 2009.

In Switzerland, NZZ paywall nets few subscribers

Leading Swiss quality paper Neue Zürcher Zeitung has attracted only a handful of website subscribers since erecting a metered paywall last autumn, according to another Swiss paper’s website.

Kenyan elections: Uchaguzi revolutionises crowdsourcing

Launched just before the Kenyan general election of 2013, new online platform Uchaguzi gave Kenyan internet users the unique opportunity to report on violence and other disturbances unfolding as members of the public cast their votes. It is hoped that this latest development of iHub will continue facilitating a form of citizen journalism that will lead to calmer, more transparent elections in the future.

Are you ready for a hack attack?

On May 17, between 12.38pm and 12.42pm London time, the Financial Times was attacked by the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA), becoming the latest news outlet to be hacked by supporters of the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, the paper reported.

The New Yorker launches ‘Strongbox’ to protect privacy of sources

On Wednesday (15 May), The New Yorker launched ‘Strongbox’, a new way to share information with the magazine’s writers and editors that provides “a greater degree of anonymity and security than afforded by conventional e-mail.” The formation of this anonymous information-sharing platform means that members of the public need not hesitate about sharing sensitive information, given that their identities will remain protected from magazine staff.