news in brief...


RUSBRIDGER ENDS 20 YEARS AS EDITOR Alan Rusbridger has left the editor’s chair at the Guardian after 20 years at the helm. He has been succeeded by deputy editor Katharine Viner. Under Rusbridger, the Guardian was named newspaper of the year four times by the British Press Awards and last year became the first British newspaper to win the Pulitzer Prize for its revelations about US state surveillance.


EX PANORAMA CHIEF RECRUITED BY ITV Tom Giles, a former editor of Panorama, has gone to ITV to head its current affairs operation. Giles was moved off the current affairs series last year after four years as editor, and into a new role looking at the future of the corporation’s current affairs output. He then became a creative director in the specialist factual unit.


NEW EDITOR FOR THE MORNING STAR The Morning Star has its youngest editor since its founding editor, William Rust. Ben Chacko, a 31-year- old graduate in Chinese, joined the daily paper as a sub-editor in 2010, and then became deputy features editor, assistant editor and deputy editor before becoming acting editor last July.


LADY EDITOR LIFTS OFF FOR PARAGLIDING The editor of The Lady magazine is leaving to become a freelance journalist and paragliding instructor. Matt Warren took over from Rachel Johnson in January 2012. Before joining The Lady as assistant editor in 2010, has was commissioning features editor of the Daily Mail.


BUZZFEED BOOSTS ITS SPORTS COVERAGE Buzzfeed UK is expanding its sports coverage with the recruitment of former Mirror deputy head of social content Richard Beech, who will focus on football. The move follows BuzzFeed UK’s hiring of an investigative team led by former Times Insight team assistant editor Heidi Blake earlier this year.


4 | theJournalist


ITV hit by strike action over 2 per cent pay rise


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Now things have picked up, they have every right to a fair share of growing revenue for their hard work


to get management to increase a pay award. ITV has imposed a two per cent pay increase on its journalists and production staff. It is the first time in many


I


years that ITV has faced nationwide strike action. A one-day walkout across


ITV’s network was timed to coincide with the company’s annual general meeting in London. Unions protested outside the meeting and petitioned shareholders to back their claim for more pay. Regional news coverage


and some programmes such as Coronation Street and Good Morning Britain were disrupted by the industrial action.


The NUJ received many messages of support for


Mark Serwotka, general


secretary of the public service union PCS, said: “It is your hard work that generates the company’s success and the chief executive’s soaring pay and bonuses. It is time the


TV was hit by strike action as members of the NUJ, Bectu and Unite attempted


the strike action at the broadcaster. Frances O’Grady, TUC general secretary, said: “Like many of Britain’s


workers, ITV staff made sacrifices in hard times. But now things have picked up, they have every right to a fair share of growing revenue for their hard work.”


workers got a fair share too. Any victory in breaking this relentless pursuit of driving down workers’ pay is a victory for all, so PCS stands fully behind NUJ, BECTU and Unite members taking action.” Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ


general secretary, said: “The company’s success is down to a team effort. Staff have stuck by the company during the difficult times, but it is unfair and insulting that when profits are soaring and the company is bullish about its financial future success, executives at the top are trousering huge amounts of cash while refusing to pay staff fairly.” But ITV have signalled


a continued tough stance on pay. Adam Crozier, chief executive, has argued that most of ITV’s staff are happy with the pay increase.


Tougher ballot laws imminent


nions will face tougher barriers to mounting strike action after the new government outlined plans to increase the thresholds needed to make a strike legal.


A strike ballot will soon need a minimum 50 per cent turnout of relevant union members. There will also be a threshold of at least 40 per cent of those entitled to vote required for strikes in the public services. At present a strike is legitimate if it is backed by the majority of those union members who take part in a ballot. The moves were announced in the Queen’s Speech and had been


trailed by the Conservatives in the general election campaign. The Conservatives had wanted to change the rules on calling strikes in the last coalition government but were blocked by the Liberal Democrats.


CHULOV LEADS THEORWELL WINNERS


artin Chulov, the Guardian’s Middle East correspondent, won this year’s Orwell prize


for journalism for his work on Islamic State. Alison Holt of the BBC won the new Joseph Rowntree Foundation-


sponsored prize for Exposing Britain’s Social Evils for her Panorama programme about the abuse of elderly residents in a care home. James Meek won the prize for books for Private Island. The prizes aim to reward the


writing that comes closest to achieving Orwell’s ambition to ‘make political writing an art’. Richard Blair, George Orwell’s son, presented the winners with trophies made by Goldsmiths College student Keir Middleton.


MARK THOMAS


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