Two things catch my attention at Guardian towers this week: both relate to how GMG are approaching corporate responsibility in the media sector.
First off there is their partnership with Climate Care:
Guardian Newspapers Ltd offsets all of its business air travel booked through its main travel agent, and aims to extend this to cover staff flights booked through its other suppliers during 2005. All reader flight offers through our marketing department now offer the option to offset emissions.
(My emphasis). Link: Guardian Climate Care
This responds to readers' concerns that the Guardian might have a readers' flights offer stretching across their mast head shouting loudly about '2 for the price of 1 to New York' whilst running a front page story about polar ice caps melting.
It suggests they are listening and moreover it is putting the issue in front of the consumer at the right time: when they're buying their flights.
The other development relates to the blogosphere's most talked about new member this week, the Observer blog. In a candid post on Saturday evening, executive news editor, Kamal Ahmed, blogged the evening's work.
Now, whilst I think there is more than enough media naval gazing to go around already, and that blogs about newspapers are likely to run the risk of exacerbating this, I welcome the potential to show the workings of modern journalism.
Ironically, such a blog may demonstrate how, professional journalism is still very, very different from most blogging. Such transparency is to be welcomed, even if Ahmed is today starting to regret raising expectations a little too high on Saturday.
To finish, I'll quote one of the comments (by Colin) on Ahmed's original post:
You make the editorial process transparent and capture the informal, behind-the-scenes personality and voice of your paper, the one that normally doesn't get heard. People like that. I know I do. It's very engaging to be invited to see the human element behind the carefully scripted performance: the ballerina smoking and swapping dirty jokes with the stagehands before going on as the Dying Swan, as it were.
Quite.
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