| The Detail to provide local news boost for Northern Ireland Bob Geldof's media company, Ten Alps, prepares to launch Belfast-based news and current affairs website, The DetailJeremy Hunt's push for new local TV and online services received a boost today, with the announcement that Bob Geldof's media company Ten Alps is launching The Detail, a Belfast-based news and current affairs website.The Detail will launch in January and is backed by £750,000 in grants from two bodies, Atlantic Philanthropies and Norther Ireland Screen. This money is budgeted to fund the project for two years.Trevor Birney, managing director of Belfast-based independent producer Below the Radar, is to be head of The Detail. Below the Radar is owned by Ten Alps, the TV and digital production company campaigned unsuccessfully last year for an independently funded local news pilot to be run in Northern Ireland.Birney said Atlantic Philanthropies provided £600,000, with Northern Ireland Screen providing the balance. Atlantic Philanthropies is a US charitable organisation businessman founded by Charles "Chuck" Feeney, who made his fortune in duty free shops. The foundation, set up in 1982, assisted in the creation of the Huffington Post, but this is its first foray into Northern Ireland journalism, Birney said.Below the Radar will contribute its office and other expertise such as editing but is still hopeful of further aid.The aim is to create a website for video, audio and text stories.Birney said that he was advertising immediately for five full-time experienced journalists, with the emphasis on their being able to deliver "top-notch copy" rather than being multimedia experts. He added that he would also commission freelance journalists.As the former award-winning editor of UTV's current affairs programme, Insight, Birney said the fourth estate had suffered in Northern Ireland just like everywhere else but with a mandatory coalition government in Stormont and the current upswing in sectarian violence, the region "needed strong journalism".Northern Ireland had also suffered from a scaling back of television current affairs by the main broadcasters, he added.During the Labour government's now defunct effort to establish independently financed news consortiums around the UK, Below the Radar talked to possible partners including the Belfast Telegraph and local radio stations.Parent company Ten Alps, headed by chief executive Alex Connock, submitted a bid to run a consortium in north-east England, along similar lines, only to see the whole project – which depended on public money – abandoned by the new coalition government culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, after the general election in May.Hunt is pursuing an alternative strategy of seeking to establish a new generation of local TV and web news services across the UK.Birney said he hoped that when other media picked up stories they would credit The Detail, to build its profile but the marketing plan, which included building partnerships with other news organisations, expected eventually to receive fees. The site will not carry adverts to begin with.• To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000.• If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".Local TVTelevision industryDigital mediaInternetBob GeldofNorthern IrelandMaggie Brownguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Dundee face threat of liquidation Dundee FC have entered administration and could be out of business in four weeks' time unless new investment is found for the First Division club. news.bbc.co.uk |
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Images of London after climate change 'are lazy', say refugee groups Museum of London hoped the photomontages by Robert Graves and Didier Madoc-Jones would show how climate change is 'not just something happening to other people'Wind turbines lining the Mall; a shanty town at the foot of Nelson's column; the Thames frozen under Tower Bridge; and a nuclear power station in Kew gardens. These are some of the artistic visions of a future London loosely inspired by the predictions of climate science.The provocative images are part of the Museum of London's London Futures show, a series of 14 photomotage pictures exploring how the capital might be affected by global warming.They are intended to provoke debate and help people to connect with the implications of climate change, said Antony Robbins, the museum's head of communications. "I think that many of us still think climate change is something that happens to other people, living thousands of miles from our shores. So I was also really pleased to see the potential this exhibition has for connecting with wider audiences. It even proved popular with the tabloid newspapers, which don't often cover museum stories."He said he hoped people would come to the museum to see the images for themselves, so they could decide whether the display "adds to the climate change debate or simply clouds the issues".But the pictures have been sharply criticised by groups representing refugees and asylum seekers who say they present a negative image of migrants. Vaughan Jones, the chief executive of Praxis, a London-based charity that provides practical support for displaced people, said: "Producing sensationalist pictures which fall back on cheap stereotypes of refugees do not help anyone's cause. The issue is too serious for this inaccurate treatment."Jonathan Ellis, policy director at the Refugee Council, called them "lazy and unhelpful". "We need fresh and creative messages, and a fair and rational debate based on the facts," he said.The digitally manipulated images in the show were created Robert Graves and Didier Madoc-Jones, who work at London-based communications company GMJ. The museum says the photomontages bring "home the full impact of global warming, food scarcity, rising sea levels and how all Londoners will need to innovate and adapt to survive".Hannah Smith, refugee project manager for the Climate Outreach and Information Network, said the images were not realistic depictions of climate change's impact on the displacement of people. "The actual patterns of migration are far more likely to be the movement of people inside existing national borders or, in the case of the UK, from within the European Union. To suggest that there will be mass migration from the [global] south is misleading and feeds xenophobia," she said.Graves and Madoc-Jones had not submitted comment at the time of publishing this article. The display runs until 6 March 2011, and the illustrators are giving a talk on their motivations and inspiration behind it on 2 November at the Museum of London.ON THE WEB• Read George Marshall on why the exhibition feeds prejudice• In pictures: The 14 images from the displayClimate changeMuseumsArtAdam Vaughanguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Protesters storm council meeting Four people are arrested and 15 police officers injured as protesters storm a town hall in south London. bbc.co.uk |