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Ged Carol has blogged a list of ten media that he pays for and his motivations for doing so. He’s willing to pay for unique content, ritual and aesthetic quality. I’d add community to the list – I willingly pay for content pertinent to my location.

Working in the media we have the luxury of access to a wide variety of publications ranging from the daily newspapers to the weekly gossip magazines. But here is my list of media that I pay for personally.

The Observer – we’ve always had a copy of The Observer at the weekend. It would be somehow wrong if we didn’t. That’s despite the fact that for the last ten years at least family commitments have meant we’ve rarely been able to read it before 9pm

Countryfile – because I live in the country. Hardcore countryside dwellers claim that it’s a glossy written for townies that want to live in the country. It’s probably not far from the truth

Over the Bridges – I don’t strictly pay for this because it’s free but I do stump up a contribution to its upkeep whenever asked. It’s a hyper local monthly publication run by volunteers for our corner of Northumberland

PR Week (via CIPR) – despite a wide variety of blogs and online publications focused on the public relations industry PR Week remains an essential read and the industry’s most influential mouthpiece

Northumberland Gazette – if you live in Northumberland you have to subscribe to the Gazette. It has an incredibly loyal following and will almost certainly be the last regional publication standing in the UK

The Week – wonderfully curated content from the week’s national media. Its an essential read for anyone that doesn’t get chance for a daily dose of a broadsheet and tabloid newspaper

The third IPA TouchPoints Survey reported last week that social media penetration in the UK was 37 per cent with Facebook the most popular platform. You’d be forgiven for thinking that it should be much higher.

This is the ongoing story of media fragmentation. We’re at an inflection point and for the moment at least PR agencies need to be able to help brands navigate traditional, online and social media.

At least that’s our view at Speed. Media planning tools are taking an increasingly important role helping us identify audiences and their media habits.

But a judgement handed down by Mr Justice Tugendhat yesterday saw a plaintiff awarded £10,000 for being defamed on Facebook.

The case concerns Jeremiah Barber who, posted child porn on the Facebook page of Raymond Bryce, after falling out, along with a defamatory comment.

Inevitably we’ll see more of these types of judgements. Its a booming business for media lawyers.

Here’s a related article that I wrote in March for Reputation Online about copyright and privacy in social networks.

Attention has now turned to the role of the media in reporting on the Rothbury story and its influence on the unfolding events.

The past seven days have seen journalists from national and international radio, TV and print outlets descend on the small Northumberland town and its 1,700 residents. Mobile studios were set up around the village to report minute-by-minute on the search for Moat.

Rothbury residents were polarised in their response to the manhunt choosing either to stay indoors or going about their lives as normal. Those that did venture out were sought out by journalists to comment on the story.

Social networks such as Facebook and Twitter spawned discussions as the search for Moat progressed. Every aspect of the story was debated and discussed online.

Here’s the issue in my view: in an era were the media has an almost limitless capacity to publish content on the internet and almost anyone can create that content whether it be words, pictures or video, inevitably editorial boundaries are pushed far beyond any public interest claim.

And so a questionable phone interview with Paul Gascoigne was played live on air by local radio stations in Newcastle. User generated eye witness video footage showing the standoff between Moat and the police was published by the BBC.

Journalists themselves used Twitter to communicate with each other and their audience crossing a line, possibly for the first time on a major news story, between personal comment, speculation and reporting.

Media blogger Enemies of Reason has played out some of the possible scenarios that could have resulted from a heavy-handed media approach:

“There was the rush to the riverbank by photographers keen to get a key photo of Moat – maybe the deadly money shot, who knows? And those pictures of cops with guns, almost certainly telling the army of snappers to get away, for their own safety, and maybe so they didn’t by their presence provoke him into shooting anyone, even himself. If Moat had done something because he’d seen the advancing photographers, what then? Anything for a picture? Would it not matter? But what if a police officer had been shot dead because a photographer in the bush had looked like a sniper? Who knows. Luckily it didn’t happen. But that doesn’t mean it couldn’t have happened.”

The relentless round-the-clock reporting from Rothbury has led to the media being accused of becoming part of the story.

At one point on Friday evening Northumberia Police took the unusual step of directly asking the media to back-off, claiming that its presence was “impacting the ongoing operation.”

Rothbury is beginning to get back to normal.

But for the media the question remains. Do social media and round-the-clock news reporting threaten editorial integrity?

Here’s a link to the speech in full. And here’s my summary of the key points.

• Support for a universal internet service level of 2Mbps
• Series of market testing projects to bring superfast broadband to rural and hard-to-reach areas
• Support for Ofcom’s proposals to open up access to BT’s ducts and telegraph poles to promote further third party investment
• Scrap the Independently Funded News Consortia (IFNC)
• Relaxation of local cross-media ownership rules
• Review by Nicholas Shott, head of UK Investment Banking at Lazard, into the viability of local television stations throughout the UK

Michael Cooper recommends Guardian Eyewitness, Reuters and Wired. I’ll check these out in the coming days. And for RSS readers he says “Newsrack looks to be a worthy RSS feed reader but I’m holding out for Reeder which should appear soon.”

Peter Houston who writes an excellent blog called Flipping Pages about the future of digital magazines says that “the NPR app is excellent, a wonderful mix of magazine, radio and video in a quirky three-tier layout.”

Robert Andrews writing in Paid Content has analysed the economic implications for newspaper publishers of early take-up of media apps and content on the iPad.

Finally Communicate Magazine is looking for early feedback from communication professionals on potential uses of the iPad in corporate communication and reputation management. Check out its two-minute survey.

Yet with a few notable exceptions to the shift from print to iPad is disappointing. The Guardian and The Financial Times have repurposed their existing iPhone apps. At double magnification they pixelate but if you’ve already bought the app you won’t need to shell out again.

Pulse is good. It’s based on the Newser like-grid but with full articles rather than summaries. It aggregates and serves up stories in a visually appealing format. Tap a story that interest you and you’re taken to the full text

I’m also a fan of Instapaper. It allows you to save web pages from a browser for syncing and viewing later offline. I already use the web version but I can see it being a productivity boom on the iPad.

Existing web properties work well on the iPad. The Safari browser is fast and touch driven navigation is incredibly natural.

Video also works well providing of course that you don’t need Flash. ITV Player won’t work but BBC iPlayer is fantastic. And the Sky Mobile TV app is good.

The iPhone audio apps that I have come to love, such as RadioBox and Spotify, work well on the iPad. But again that’s no surprise; they’re the same app repurposed for the iPad.

I’ve looked hard for books that make good use of the iPad without success. If you’ve any recommendations I love to hear from you. Likewise if you’ve discovered any interesting approaches to new media on the iPad please let me know.

66% of people consider radio to be the most reliable and accurate source of media content, followed by 58% for online (editorial), 54% for TV and 34% for newspapers. Only three in ten internet users trust web content.

It’s very easy to get enthusiastic about the potential of social media especially if you are embedded within the industry. But you’re not necessarily your target audience.

Change is undoubtedly taking place in the way people consume media and brands communicate with their audiences and there’s no doubt that the future lies in engagement.

But do not underestimate the influence of mainstream editorial media as a means of generating influence.

Speed’s view – for now – is that no media whether broadcast, print, online or social, can work in isolation.

Via Ged Caroll.