Front pages reviewed at midnight: Monday 21 February 2011

Libya is the story of the moment but what is interesting is that none of the nationals have anyone in Benghazi or even Tripoli. This is because all Visa requests are being turned down so anyone trying to get there is struggling. To make things worse the Libyans are interfering with internet and television signal, so Al Jazeera is also down. So tonight’s papers all, bar the Telegraph, splash with a story about Libya written largely in London.

Front pages reviewed at midnight: Wednesday 16 February 2011

The Guardian has an important scoop about the Iraq War, The Times has paedophiles, the Mail and the Telegraph follow up on today’s story about old age pensioners and The Independent has an interesting lead on oil.

How cutting budgets might improve foreign news coverage

Last night I went to see the multi-award winning journalist Michela Wrong talk about working in sub-Saharan Africa. Chatham House Rules applied (i.e. everything was off the record and no quotes) but one thing she said got me thinking.

She mentioned that the serious cutbacks in foreign news reporting meant papers, broadcasters and agencies were no longer sending in Western correspondents but instead using local journalists. This, she said, might actually make the coverage better as they could provide local knowledge that the Westerner never can.