Popular student website The Tab has received another $6 million worth of backing in an investment round led by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. It’s a hugely deserved success for Jack Rivlin and Joshi Herrmann, whose rowdy reporting and network of wannabe hacks have disrupted the old student media establishment first in the UK and then Stateside. The loss making site’s growth has now been funded to the tune of $10 million by venture capital…
The Tab and its sister site babe have local editions at 80 universities in the UK and US, its young hacks get a proper grounding in breaking real stories and Fleet Street is now awash with old Tabs. Not hard to see why they have caught Rupert and Rebekah’s eye, indeed even Guido has a Cambridge Tab alumnus on the reporting staff…
The Guardian has executed a drive-by shooting on The Tab, the popular student news site which has successfully disrupted the old student media establishment. Headlined “The Tab picks up business without paying”, the hit piece accuses the site of “exploitation” because some student contributors are unpaid. The Guardian article’s pay-off line implies the Tab is “starting to look like” a “bullsh*t company who are trying to f*ck [young people] over”. Miaow!
Five days ago the Guardian updated its own “editorial experience” page for young writers. It “offers a limited number of short editorial experience opportunities throughout the year to those dedicated to a career in journalism”, and includes real work writing stories, “getting involved in editorial activities”. Applicants are told: “These placements at the Guardian and Observer are unpaid”.
The Guardian’s double standards are all the more bizarre since student contributors to the Tab do not expect to be paid. The Tab’s executive editor Joshi Herrmann cuttingly replies: “I think we’re one of the few media groups at the moment that’s employing people, not laying people off”. The Tab last night asked the Guardian’s press office how many unpaid interns they use a year. They have yet to receive a response…
UPDATE: Read the spectacular update on MediaGuido here.
Word reaches MediaGuido that Martin Bentham, the Evening Standard’s home affairs editor, has been suspended pending investigation following an altercation with another journalist at the paper. The fracas is said to have taken place in the newsroom loos, with Bentham allegedly going all Clarkson and punching top features writer Joshi Herrmann three times. Newsroom sources suggest Bentham was uspet with Herrmann being gonged by the Press Awards for bringing in stories on his patch, which ironically includes crime and the Metropolitan Police.
Herrmann seemingly walked straight to lunch to give a blow by blow account to fellow Standard and Indy hacks, reporting “a very poor uppercut to the chin”. MediaGuido contacted Herrmann to ask if he was going to press charges: “Can’t comment sorry, but I hope Martin is back covering violent crime in London very soon”.
Bentham hasn’t written for the paper or tweeted for over a week. By the sounds of it he has lot to learn from the big boss about how to throw a fist…
UPDATE: This is the official line: “Martin Bentham is currently on a long-planned family holiday”. But no response when asked to deny the suspension…
