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    On Friday, the Mail and Star were good enough to publish a spread of Reeva Steenkamp’s lingerie shots, as befits a family newspaper. If you’re asking what sort of family demands the sexy-ing up of stories about murdered women, I’m drawing a blank. (The provisional wing of the Manson family?) Doubtless they’ll claim they used these pictures because modelling was one of Steenkamp’s jobs – and the next time they illustrate a story about a murdered hairdresser with pictures of her cutting hair, or a murdered student working in the college library, we can treat that justification with something other than a tired: “Bull. Shit.” In this age, many female victims’ social media imprint would yield an image of them at their place of work, and you should totally, totally expect news outlets to use it if the choice comes down to that or a beach snap of them scantily clad.

    Reeva Steenkamp’s corpse was in the morgue, her body was on the Sun’s front page - Marina Hyde

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    There are probably many reasons that al-Jazeera in English is not very good. It doesn’t really seem to have a clear idea of who its audience is. It has often relied on old-time, marginal or unhappy mainstream broadcasters in an effort to gain some legitimacy and recognition. The heavy hand of state ownership is probably not only heavy, but given the particularly internecine politics of Qatar and its ever-expanding commercial and political interests, unfathomable. And, in general, al-Jazeera clearly does not place much of a premium on wit or style (…)

    If al-Jazeera were more passionate, more gutsy, more jaw-dropping to Muslim-fearing Americans, that would be something to defend, with joy in the cause. And even, perhaps, an audience to follow.

    But who is really going over the barricades for some super-rich Qataris and their roster of sanctimonious and boring news shows?

    Well, I guess Al Gore.

    Michael Wolff on Al-Jazeera, which just purchased Al Gore’s Current TV

  3. Zoe Williams: 10 stories I don’t want to read about Kate Middleton’s pregnancy

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    Duchess of Cambridge

    1. An endless list of things she shouldn’t be eating or drinking

    It is an axiom of printed media – why oh why couldn’t Leveson have tackled this? – that famous or notable people are keener to have healthy children than anybody else. You read this incessantly – “Peaches Geldof will be particularly keen to avoid alcohol”; “Sophie Dahl especially won’t want to eat bagged salad, in the light of the listeria risk that we have massively overstated, almost as if we don’t understand epidemiological statistics at all.” The insult is a double-whammy – the whole population is insulted, by the implication that we lack the distinction to care about our babies as much as Reese Witherspoon does hers. And the celebrity herself is insulted, by the insinuation that she might have her own peculiar difficulty in avoiding alcohol or salad for the sake of her baby. How much Kate Middleton likes salad, I would never speculate (see point 7).

    2. Anything at all about their sex life

    If there is one thing more nauseating than a mumsy tip about positioning round a bump, and I am leaning away from my computer and wincing even as I type that, it is the unbidden image of Prince William having sex with anyone, of any shape. I am not exhibiting feminist double standards with an unkind remark about his attractiveness. It’s a mark of respect that I don’t think this way about our future king.

    3. Speculation about whether it’s a boy or a girl

    I had a friend who, when asked if it was a boy or a girl, used to say “I hope so”, and then make a sarcastic face.

    4. Suggestions for baby names

    The royal family actually invented a crude version of the internet, some centuries ago: the Posh Name Generator. It gave you a list of four names, Elizabeth, Henry, James or Mary, and you chose on the basis of the gender of the child and the names of your existing children. It would have taken off faster if they’d had a larger database and disseminated the technique, but the problem with this family is that they don’t share.

    5. How soon Pippa Middleton will want to get pregnant

    Or, on a related topic, how much she will be wishing she had a boyfriend, now that she knows that exquisite, quintessentially feminine pain of seeing your sister fulfil her human destiny before you. Although if any news-gathering source were to put a timeline on it, estimating how soon she finds a mate, marries him, kisses goodbye to her publishing career, gets pregnant and then gives birth, allowing the reader to put a bet on that final event, then I would have a flutter.

    6. Anything that mistakes hyperemesis gravidarum for “bad morning sickness”

    It is like mistaking pneumonia for “a bad cold”.

    7. How hyperemesis gravidarum is actually quite good for keeping the weight off, if you manage it correctly

    Just imagine that we were working towards a world in which women weren’t just the instruments of male pleasure and bearers of their genetic imprint; a place in which it was quite odd to talk about women only in terms of how attractively their flesh was arranged and how they were managing to maintain that composition; we would eventually, maybe even pretty soon, arrive at a situation where to remark upon a woman gaining weight in pregnancy would seem as banal and nonsensical as to remark that a man, upon not shaving, had grown a beard.

    8. An imaginative reconstruction of how Diana would take the news, were she still alive

    She would greet the news just like anybody else who’s ever been given this news. The spectrum of response-to-a-first-pregnancy-by-a-happily-married-couple is really very short, ranging from “that’s nice” to “that’s lovely”.

    9. Fashion-related comments wondering “whither the modest frock dress?” one day, and “why can’t you be sexy-pregnant, like that nice Megan Fox?” the next

    If fashion can’t agree – which it can’t – then it should discuss something else.

    10. Any article headlined “Dilatey-Katey”

    (I stole that off Twitter.)

    Photograph: Wpa Pool/Getty Images

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    As I sit, with other victims of press intrusion, abuse, and phone hacking, in the Hacked Off green room next to where Leveson summarised his report, it is clear that the mood is buoyant: people feel that their voices have been heard and that Leveson ensured that their submissions to the inquiry were taken on board.

    The media have tended to focus on the more famous supporters of Hacked Off, which only hides the reality of how many non-celebrities have had their privacy invaded by the press. The people in this room are normal, everyday individuals, who have experienced tragedy and loss, and whose lives have been further devastated by the press. “In the public interest” must never mean “of interest to the public”: none of the press abuse victims should have been thrust into the limelight.

    Judgement day for the UK press: as the Leveson inquiry reaches an end, read Chris Bryant, Zoe Margolis and other key figures digest Lord Justice Leveson’s report, which calls for a new press regulator (quote above by Margolis).

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    Not surprisingly, Pinterest users have fought back against criticisms of the site, and rightly so: Telling women what they should be interested in and doing online is patronizing and counterproductive. Is being girly still such a bad thing in our culture? Why are wedding dresses and cupcake recipes any more frivolous than cat photos and rage-face memes? There’s an obvious double standard at work in criticisms of the site. If there’s a problem with Pinterest, it’s this: Pinterest is perceived as the women’s space online to the general exclusion of other spaces. The media and popular culture are now painting it as a pink ghetto that defines what women are passionate about and how they behave online. It’s not a problem that a lot of women love pinning content about fashion and home decor on Pinterest, but it is a problem if a Pinterest stereotype ends up standing in for all women on the web.

    Pinned Down | Bitch Media (via brute-reason)

    An interesting take on the issue (and we wouldn’t mind commissioning a comment piece about the topic. Ideas? Pitch to us: cif.editors@guardian.co.uk) - Jessica

    (via thepersonalispolitic)

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    Military training is not to be compared, subtly or otherwise, with athletic competition by showing commercials throughout the Olympics. Preparing for war is neither amusing nor entertaining. From an open letter written by Nobel prize laureates Jody Williams, Desmond Tutu, Mairead Maguire, Shirin Ebadi, José Ramos-Horta, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Oscar Arias Sanchez, Rigoberta Menchú Tum and Betty Williams, criticizing NBC’s ‘Stars Earn Stripes’ for continuing an inglorious tradition of glorifying war

  7. What do subeditors do?

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    If you want to know, head this way:

    Subs, or subeditors, can get a lot of stick on this site, and many people aren’t really sure what we’re here for – except perhaps to mess up copy or write boring/wrong/sensational headlines. But we are basically the last line of defence – whether we save a writer from a legal suit, looking daft or being simply unintelligible – and our furniture (headlines, standfirsts – also known as subheadings – and captions) can be decisive in whether a story is read or ignored.

  8. Quote

    Three years ago, before his memoir was published, King gave an interview to a reporter where he claimed his place in history. “It would be a real mistake on my part,” he said, “if I didn’t find my spot in history before I leave this earth.” He achieved his goal.

    (Source: Guardian)

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    Researcher Taryn Yaeger looked at 7,000 pieces that appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street Journal between 15 September and 7 December 2011, and found that while women wrote more frequently than men about so-called “pink” topics (like family concerns and home life), they were almost mute on matters such as Occupy Wall Street and other protests or rallies (14% of commentaries), international politics (13%), and the economy (11%). Why? Read Maura Kelly’s Why women have no opinions to find out

  10. Photo

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    Ownership is the key to the corruption of the media | Seumas Milne Not only has the backdoor lobbying and elite backscratching been laid bare at the inquiry, while Murdoch executives, journalists and police officers have been arrested and charged. But Murdoch’s mythology that he has “never asked a prime minister for anything” and leaves editorial policy to his editors has also been mercifully disposed of. Read the rest here Illustration by Belle Mellor

    Ownership is the key to the corruption of the media | Seumas Milne

    Not only has the backdoor lobbying and elite backscratching been laid bare at the inquiry, while Murdoch executives, journalists and police officers have been arrested and charged. But Murdoch’s mythology that he has “never asked a prime minister for anything” and leaves editorial policy to his editors has also been mercifully disposed of.

    Read the rest here

    Illustration by Belle Mellor

  11. Quote

    | 1,517 notes

    Among 35 major national print publications, including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, men had 81 percent of the quotes in stories about abortion, the research group said Thursday, while women had 12 percent, and organizations had 7 percent.

    In stories about birth control, men scored 75 percent of the quotes, with women getting 19 percent and organizations getting 6 percent. Stories about Planned Parenthood had a similar ratio, with men getting 67 percent, women getting 26 percent, and organizations getting 7 percent.

    Women fared a bit better in stories about women’s rights, getting 31 percent of the quotes compared with 52 percent for men and 17 percent for organizations.

    Men Rule Media Coverage of Women’s News - The Daily Beast (via librariesandlemonade)

    Grim, wouldn’t you say?

    (via thepoliticalnotebook)

  12. Photo

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    The debate over “trolling”, a very small and specific subset of online communities who write provocative and offensive posts specifically to elicit reaction, has spilled over into a general sideswipe against comments. It’s one that’s misplaced.The purpose of writing on blogs, community sites like Comment is free, and much of social media is to start or further a conversation – not to share a few writerly pearls of wisdom. The great majority of writers on this site (and the New Statesman, for that matter) are paid. It’s a job. Too much of the conversation about comment threads is about how writers – people paid to serve an audience – feel. • James Ball: In defence of online comments Photograph: Andrew Dunsmore/Rex Features

    The debate over “trolling”, a very small and specific subset of online communities who write provocative and offensive posts specifically to elicit reaction, has spilled over into a general sideswipe against comments. It’s one that’s misplaced.

    The purpose of writing on blogs, community sites like Comment is free, and much of social media is to start or further a conversation – not to share a few writerly pearls of wisdom. The great majority of writers on this site (and the New Statesman, for that matter) are paid. It’s a job. Too much of the conversation about comment threads is about how writers – people paid to serve an audience – feel.

    • James Ball: In defence of online comments

    Photograph: Andrew Dunsmore/Rex Features

  13. Photo

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    Photograph: Hours needed to pay rent in London, UK, from our data blog. It found nowhere in the country where a 40-hour-work week would be enough. —— Last Friday we re-blogged a very good graph showing that, well, it is nearly impossible to rent a place anywhere in the US at minimum wage without working more than 70 words a week: The wonderful folks at the Guardian’s data blog liked the idea, and ran numbers for London. Guess what? Same (depressing-ish) results. • Follow the Guardian’s awesome Data blog on Tumblr

    Photograph: Hours needed to pay rent in London, UK, from our data blog. It found nowhere in the country where a 40-hour-work week would be enough.

    ——

    Last Friday we re-blogged a very good graph showing that, well, it is nearly impossible to rent a place anywhere in the US at minimum wage without working more than 70 words a week:

    The wonderful folks at the Guardian’s data blog liked the idea, and ran numbers for London. Guess what? Same (depressing-ish) results.

    • Follow the Guardian’s awesome Data blog on Tumblr

  14. Photo

    | 78 notes
    • Today it was confirmed that the war correspondent Marie Colvin has died in the Syrian city of Homs. In November 2010 Colvin gave the following speech on the importance of war reporting. This is the text of a speech Marie Colvin gave at St Brides Church, Fleet Street, London Your Royal Highness, ladies and gentlemen, I am honoured and humbled to be speaking to you at this service tonight to remember the journalists and their support staff who gave their lives to report from the war zones of the 21st century. I have been a war correspondent for most of my professional life. It has always been a hard calling. But the need for frontline, objective reporting has never been more compelling. Covering a war means going to places torn by chaos, destruction and death, and trying to bear witness. It means trying to find the truth in a sandstorm of propaganda when armies, tribes or terrorists clash. And yes, it means taking risks, not just for yourself but often for the people who work closely with you. Despite all the videos you see from the Ministry of Defence or the Pentagon, and all the sanitised language describing smart bombs and pinpoint strikes, the scene on the ground has remained remarkably the same for hundreds of years. Craters. Burned houses. Mutilated bodies. Women weeping for children and husbands. Men for their wives, mothers children. Our mission is to report these horrors of war with accuracy and without prejudice. We always have to ask ourselves whether the level of risk is worth the story. What is bravery, and what is bravado? Journalists covering combat shoulder great responsibilities and face difficult choices. Sometimes they pay the ultimate price. Tonight we honour the 49 journalists and support staff who were killed bringing the news to our shores. We also remember journalists around the world who have been wounded, maimed or kidnapped and held hostage for months. It has never been more dangerous to be a war correspondent, because the journalist in the combat zone has become a prime target. I lost my eye in an ambush in the Sri Lankan civil war. I had gone to the northern Tamil area from which journalists were banned and found an unreported humanitarian disaster. As I was smuggled back across the internal border, a soldier launched a grenade at me and the shrapnel sliced into my face and chest. He knew what he was doing. Just last week, I had a coffee in Afghanistan with a photographer friend, Joao Silva. We talked about the terror one feels and must contain when patrolling on an embed with the armed forces through fields and villages in Afghanistan … putting one foot in front of the other, steeling yourself each step for the blast. The expectation of that blast is the stuff of nightmares. Two days after our meeting, Joao stepped on a mine and lost both legs at the knee. Many of you here must have asked yourselves, or be asking yourselves now, is it worth the cost in lives, heartbreak, loss? Can we really make a difference? I faced that question when I was injured. In fact one paper ran a headline saying, has Marie Colvin gone too far this time? My answer then, and now, was that it is worth it. Today in this church are friends, colleagues and families who know exactly what I am talking about, and bear the cost of those experiences, as do their families and loved ones. Today we must also remember how important it is that news organisations continue to invest in sending us out at great cost, both financial and emotional, to cover stories. We go to remote war zones to report what is happening. The public have a right to know what our government, and our armed forces, are doing in our name. Our mission is to speak the truth to power. We send home that first rough draft of history. We can and do make a difference in exposing the horrors of war and especially the atrocities that befall civilians. The history of our profession is one to be proud of. The first war correspondent in the modern era was William Howard Russell of the Times, who was sent to cover the Crimean conflict when a British-led coalition fought an invading Russian army. Billy Russell, as the troops called him, created a firestorm of public indignation back home by revealing inadequate equipment, scandalous treatment of the wounded, especially when they were repatriated – does this sound familiar? – and an incompetent high command that led to the folly of the Charge of the Light Brigade. It was a breakthrough in war reporting. Until then, wars were reported by junior officers who sent back dispatches to newspapers. Billy Russell went to war with an open mind, a telescope, a notebook and a bottle of brandy. I first went to war with a typewriter, and learned to tap out a telex tape. It could take days to get from the front to a telephone or telex machine. War reporting has changed greatly in just the last few years. Now we go to war with a satellite phone, laptop, video camera and a flak jacket. I point my satellite phone to south southwest in Afghanistan, press a button and I have filed. In an age of 24/7 rolling news, blogs and Twitters, we are on constant call wherever we are. But war reporting is still essentially the same – someone has to go there and see what is happening. You can’t get that information without going to places where people are being shot at, and others are shooting at you. The real difficulty is having enough faith in humanity to believe that enough people be they government, military or the man on the street, will care when your file reaches the printed page, the website or the TV screen. We do have that faith because we believe we do make a difference. And we could not make that difference – or begin to do our job – without the fixers, drivers and translators, who face the same risks and die in appalling numbers. Today we honour them as much as the front line journalists who have died in pursuit of the truth. They have kept the faith as we who remain must continue to do. Photograph: Arthur Edwards/WPA Pool/Getty Image

    • Today it was confirmed that the war correspondent Marie Colvin has died in the Syrian city of Homs. In November 2010 Colvin gave the following speech on the importance of war reporting. This is the text of a speech Marie Colvin gave at St Brides Church, Fleet Street, London

    Your Royal Highness, ladies and gentlemen, I am honoured and humbled to be speaking to you at this service tonight to remember the journalists and their support staff who gave their lives to report from the war zones of the 21st century. I have been a war correspondent for most of my professional life. It has always been a hard calling. But the need for frontline, objective reporting has never been more compelling.

    Covering a war means going to places torn by chaos, destruction and death, and trying to bear witness. It means trying to find the truth in a sandstorm of propaganda when armies, tribes or terrorists clash. And yes, it means taking risks, not just for yourself but often for the people who work closely with you.

    Despite all the videos you see from the Ministry of Defence or the Pentagon, and all the sanitised language describing smart bombs and pinpoint strikes, the scene on the ground has remained remarkably the same for hundreds of years. Craters. Burned houses. Mutilated bodies. Women weeping for children and husbands. Men for their wives, mothers children.

    Our mission is to report these horrors of war with accuracy and without prejudice. We always have to ask ourselves whether the level of risk is worth the story. What is bravery, and what is bravado?

    Journalists covering combat shoulder great responsibilities and face difficult choices. Sometimes they pay the ultimate price. Tonight we honour the 49 journalists and support staff who were killed bringing the news to our shores. We also remember journalists around the world who have been wounded, maimed or kidnapped and held hostage for months. It has never been more dangerous to be a war correspondent, because the journalist in the combat zone has become a prime target.

    I lost my eye in an ambush in the Sri Lankan civil war. I had gone to the northern Tamil area from which journalists were banned and found an unreported humanitarian disaster. As I was smuggled back across the internal border, a soldier launched a grenade at me and the shrapnel sliced into my face and chest. He knew what he was doing.

    Just last week, I had a coffee in Afghanistan with a photographer friend, Joao Silva. We talked about the terror one feels and must contain when patrolling on an embed with the armed forces through fields and villages in Afghanistan … putting one foot in front of the other, steeling yourself each step for the blast. The expectation of that blast is the stuff of nightmares. Two days after our meeting, Joao stepped on a mine and lost both legs at the knee.

    Many of you here must have asked yourselves, or be asking yourselves now, is it worth the cost in lives, heartbreak, loss? Can we really make a difference?

    I faced that question when I was injured. In fact one paper ran a headline saying, has Marie Colvin gone too far this time? My answer then, and now, was that it is worth it.

    Today in this church are friends, colleagues and families who know exactly what I am talking about, and bear the cost of those experiences, as do their families and loved ones.

    Today we must also remember how important it is that news organisations continue to invest in sending us out at great cost, both financial and emotional, to cover stories.

    We go to remote war zones to report what is happening. The public have a right to know what our government, and our armed forces, are doing in our name. Our mission is to speak the truth to power. We send home that first rough draft of history. We can and do make a difference in exposing the horrors of war and especially the atrocities that befall civilians.

    The history of our profession is one to be proud of. The first war correspondent in the modern era was William Howard Russell of the Times, who was sent to cover the Crimean conflict when a British-led coalition fought an invading Russian army.

    Billy Russell, as the troops called him, created a firestorm of public indignation back home by revealing inadequate equipment, scandalous treatment of the wounded, especially when they were repatriated – does this sound familiar? – and an incompetent high command that led to the folly of the Charge of the Light Brigade. It was a breakthrough in war reporting. Until then, wars were reported by junior officers who sent back dispatches to newspapers. Billy Russell went to war with an open mind, a telescope, a notebook and a bottle of brandy. I first went to war with a typewriter, and learned to tap out a telex tape. It could take days to get from the front to a telephone or telex machine.

    War reporting has changed greatly in just the last few years. Now we go to war with a satellite phone, laptop, video camera and a flak jacket. I point my satellite phone to south southwest in Afghanistan, press a button and I have filed.

    In an age of 24/7 rolling news, blogs and Twitters, we are on constant call wherever we are. But war reporting is still essentially the same – someone has to go there and see what is happening. You can’t get that information without going to places where people are being shot at, and others are shooting at you. The real difficulty is having enough faith in humanity to believe that enough people be they government, military or the man on the street, will care when your file reaches the printed page, the website or the TV screen.

    We do have that faith because we believe we do make a difference.

    And we could not make that difference – or begin to do our job – without the fixers, drivers and translators, who face the same risks and die in appalling numbers. Today we honour them as much as the front line journalists who have died in pursuit of the truth. They have kept the faith as we who remain must continue to do.

    Photograph: Arthur Edwards/WPA Pool/Getty Image

  15. Photo

    | 14 notes
    Shocking, tragic news announced this morning as Marie Colvin, described by UK TV anchor Jon Snow as “the most courageous journalist I ever knew and a wonderful reporter and writer”, was killed in a Homs building when it was shelled. She had previously lost an eye to a shrapnel while reporting in Sri Lanka. French photographer Remi Ochlik was also killed [for more details, read our live blog here]. For political context on Syria, here are a few selected pieces which we have published recently: • Journalist Mehdi Hasan on how Syria has made a curious transition from US ally to violator of human rights. In the war on terror America was happy to send suspects to Syria. Now the US cries torture • Kevin Ovenden explains why Western intervention in Syria will do more harm than good • Nicholas Noe on why we can’t stop the bloodshed in Syria without talking to Assad Photograph: Journalist Marie Colvin poses for a photograph with Libyan rebels (unseen) in Misrata in this June 4, 2011. Zohra Bemsemra/Reuters

    Shocking, tragic news announced this morning as Marie Colvin, described by UK TV anchor Jon Snow as “the most courageous journalist I ever knew and a wonderful reporter and writer”, was killed in a Homs building when it was shelled. She had previously lost an eye to a shrapnel while reporting in Sri Lanka. French photographer Remi Ochlik was also killed [for more details, read our live blog here].

    For political context on Syria, here are a few selected pieces which we have published recently:

    • Journalist Mehdi Hasan on how Syria has made a curious transition from US ally to violator of human rights. In the war on terror America was happy to send suspects to Syria. Now the US cries torture

    • Kevin Ovenden explains why Western intervention in Syria will do more harm than good

    • Nicholas Noe on why we can’t stop the bloodshed in Syria without talking to Assad

    Photograph: Journalist Marie Colvin poses for a photograph with Libyan rebels (unseen) in Misrata in this June 4, 2011. Zohra Bemsemra/Reuters

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