A survey of international, national and regional picture editors has revealed that most businesses fail to supply appropriate imagery in the most accessible format. Pixmedia Picturedesk says this significantly hampers their efforts to receive the best possible news coverage.
Seventy-two per cent think that an organisation putting PR photographs on its own website is wasting its time and money, and 100 per cent of nationals and 88 per cent of regionals believe an online picture library is the most suitable place for image publication.

The fourth in a series of six strategy reports from the World Association of Newspapers' Shaping the Future of the Newspaper project provides a wide-ranging look at the success and failures of free dailies and their impact on markets.
Using case studies to illustrate different strategies, Free dailies: Past or future? offers advice on what to do - or not do - when a free daily enters the market.

Local newspaper proprietor John Mappin has announced the launch of a new national newspaper title, initially to be distributed in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow, Leeds, and Liverpool.
"'United' is a completely new type of national newspaper dedicated to forwarding news that is helpful to Mankind," he said.

Privacy law is developing to the point at which celebrities could soon have the right to censor unflattering photographs of themselves, media law specialists and tutors were warned.
Joshua Rozenberg, legal editor of the Daily Telegraph, cited a European Court of Human Rights judgment last year, which said that if the sole purpose of publishing stories and pictures about a person's private life was to satisfy public curiosity, but did not "contribute to any debate of general interest to society", then freedom of expression had to be given a narrow interpretation.

Photographers are in with a chance of earning a £3,000 prize as part of the Joan Wakelin Bursary contest run through The Guardian newspaper.
The organisers are seeking the best proposal for a photographic essay on an overseas social documentary issue, and the full details plus application form can be downloaded from the Guardian Unlimited website.