Closer to home, local elections across the the UK saw a swing of political momentum. The Labour party managed to scoop 823 new seats but missed out in the key race of the London mayorship. After a close first round vote, Boris Johnson secured another four-year term at City Hall, defeating his rival Ken Livingstone by a narrow margin of 62,538 votes.

The week also saw the conclusion of another race as Roy Hodgson was unveiled as the next England football manager ahead of bookies’ favourite Harry Redknapp. The Football Association’s decision was heralded by The Sun with a typically contentious front page headline of “BWING ON THE EUWOS” making light of Hodgson’s speech impediment.

For the week ending Sunday 10th May the following number of articles were written in mainstream media according to Journalisted.com.

The headlines:

• Roy Hodgson named as the new England manager, 459 articles
• Local elections took place across Britain as Labour made gains on the Conservatives, 310 articles, but Boris Johnson wins the London Mayoral race, 107 articles
• François Hollande won the French presidential election, 222 articles
• A Commons Culture, Media and Sport select committee concluded that Rupert Murdoch was ‘not a fit person’ to run a major international company, although the committee members were split along party lines, 217 articles

The overlooked stories:

• Russian defence staff General Nikolai Makarov warned that Russia is ready to use “destructive force pre-emptively” if the US goes ahead with building a defensive missile shield in central Europe, 7 articles
• Troops loyal to Bosco Ntaganda, wanted by the International Criminal Court, captured two towns in Congo, 4 articles
• Explosions in Dagestan kill 13 and injure 120, 4 articles
• The Protection of Freedoms Act, which will reduce the number of days detention without charge from 28 to 14 days, was given royal assent, 2 articles

Celebrity versus serious:

• The current series of Britain’s Got Talent reached its final stages, 96 articles versus David Cameron being called to the House of Commons to defend Jeremy Hunt, 45 articles
• Tulisa is named FHM’s ‘sexiest woman in the World’, 86 articles versus clashes in Cairo resulted in 11 deaths and 160 injuries, 26 articles
• The Only Way is Essex cast lost weight, 58 articles versus four journalists were killed in Mexico, 10 articles
• The Avengers movie was released, breaking box office records, 34 articles versus an apparent suicide bombing in Nigeria killed 11 people, 4 articles

Political movers:

The leading candidates in the London mayoral race snap up the two runner-up positions this week, but in reverse order to how they emerged from the polls. In third place was eventual election winner, Boris Johnson with a 117 per cent increase in coverage (328 articles) he was eclipsed by his Labour counterpart Ken Livingstone with a larger increase of 138 per cent (250 articles).

Leading the way this week however, was Tom Watson, with a 169 per cent coverage increase (150 articles), for his role in the Culture, Media and Sport Committee which published their report on phone hacking this week. Watson made his way into the headlines for his resolute defence of the report such as the eyebrow-raising claim that Rupert Murdoch was “not fit” to run an international company.

The debate arose after home secretary, Theresa May, announced that the deadline to contest the decision had passed on Monday whilst Qatada’s lawyers argued that it had in fact expired on Tuesday.

As the week progressed, global attention switched to Bahrain and the controversial Formula One grand prix scheduled to take place in the island state. A number of commentators including Labour leader, Ed Miliband, voiced the view that the race should be cancelled in light of ongoing anti-government protests responsible for the cancellation of the 2011 race.

Despite continued protests and a petrol bomb attack on the Force India team the race went ahead as planned with German driver Sebastian Vettel sealing the victory.

Elsewhere, Anders Breivik went on trial in Norway charged with ‘destroying the basic functions of society’ after his attacks in 2011. In France the final days of campaigning before the first round of voting in the Presidential election passed with Francois Hollande widely tipped to take the lead in the contest.

In France the week played host to the final days of campaigning before the first round of voting in the Presidential election.

For the week ending Sunday 22nd April the following number of articles were written in mainstream media according to Journalisted.com.

The headlines:

• The Bahrain grand prix was subject of much debate as a result of continuing protests in the country, 212 articles
• Anders Breivik went on trial revealing horrific details about his motivation for killing 77 people, 205 articles
• Theresa May apparently got the date wrong regarding the deportation of Abu Qatada, with the European Court of Human Rights and Abu Qatada’s legal team disputing the Home Office’s view, 196 articles
• The French election entered its final week before the first round with Francois Hollande forecast to edge out Nicolas Sarkozy, 143 articles

The overlooked stories:

• Jim Yong Kim was named the president of the World Bank, 20 articles
• A plane crash in Pakistan killed all 127 onboard, 19 articles
• Many NHS workers agreed to strike on May 10th over the continuing row over their pensions, 9 articles
• Iraq was hit by a series of bombings, leaving at least 35 dead, 6 articles

Celebrity versus serious:

• Numerous revelations about Simon Cowell’s personal life in a week where his talent show appeared to be losing the ratings battle with the BBC’s ‘The Voice’, 192 articles versus there was outrage over George Osborne’s pledge to give £10 billion to the IMF, 40 articles
• Tulisa admitted to having regrets about her ‘sex tape’ whilst confirming her return as a X Factor judge, 44 articles versus detectives from Operation Elvedon made three arrests, in connection with suspected illegal payments made to public officials by journalists, 29 articles
• Victoria Beckham bought a baby monitor designed by Damien Hirst, 38 articles vs. India successfully tested a long-range rocket with the capability to reach major Chinese cities, such as Beijing and Shanghai, 29 articles
• Tupac Shakur returned for a tour in holographic form, 34 articles versus fighting escalated on the Sudan border, as Obama calls for peace talks, 23 articles

Political movers:

Ed Miliband’s appearance in third place with a 39 per cent increase in coverage can be attributed to his opposition to the grand prix and his concern over the case of Abu Qatada.

Comfortably in the lead this week were cabinet colleagues Theresa May and Ken Clarke who were both embroiled in discussions about the deportation of Abu Qatada and Lords reform. These two stories secured them coverage increases of 162 and 256 per cent respectively.

On Saturday attention switched to Aintree for this year’s Grand National which was run over the course that had undergone a number of modifications to improve safety. The iconic steeplechase was won by Neptune Collonges by the smallest margin in the race’s history but the result was marred by the deaths of two horses after they both fell at the notorious Becher’s Brook fence.

Elsewhere, the Syrian president was under increased pressure as the ceasefire scheduled to come into force on Thursday was ignored by the country’s military. In Pyongyang, North Korea’s attempts to launch a long-range rocked came crashing down to earth after breaking up and landing in the Yellow Sea.

For the week ending Sunday 15th April the following number of articles were written in the mainstream media according to Journalisted.com.

The headlines:

• The Grand National, one of Britain’s crown jewels in the sporting calendar, took place on Saturday, 275 articles
• A ceasefire came into force in Syria on Thursday, but the violence continued past the deadline, 212 articles
• North Korea defied international pressure not to launch a long-range rocket, but its flight ended prematurely as it crashes into the ocean minutes after the launch, 121 articles
• David Cameron visited Burma and met with the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi as the UK considers easing economic sanctions on the country, 106 articles

The overlooked stories:

• Sudan announced it would mobilise its army against South Sudan after the latter annexes the biggest oilfield in the country, 10 articles
• Guido Fawkes publishes the bluebook of the Motorman files, 9 articles
• Mark Lewis, the lawyer who played a central role in exposing phone hacking at the News of the World flew to the US to prepare a number of lawsuits against News Corportation, 8 articles

Celebrity versus serious:

• One Direction had a busy week, from being sued for $1 million, to touring Australia and Rihanna admitting she would ‘love to hook-up’ with Harry Styles, 88 articles versus the 551 day-old company Instagram is bought out for $1 billion by Facebook, 81 articles
• Speaking of Rihanna, she spent the week promoting her new film, Battleship, in various ways, 73 articles versus Rick Santorum pulls out of the race to be the Republican nominee in the US elections, 62 articles
• Adele topped the youngest rich list with a reported £20 million fortune, 57 articles versus the National Union of Teachers threatened to strike if the six week summer break is cut, 42 articles

Political movers:

Three weeks on much of the political rumblings were focused on the impacts of the budget announced in March. Tied in third place were David Cameron and his chancellor George Osbourne who were both subject of a 32 per cent increase in media coverage after featuring in 514 and 243 articles respectively.

Business secretary Vince Cable was only marginally ahead in second place after securing a 33 per cent media boost (57 articles) for his role in the debate over the proposed charities tax which emerged from a wider scheme to close the most commonly used tax avoidance loopholes.

Leading the coalition’s clean-sweep was foreign secretary William Hague with a 81 per cent jump in coverage after the development of a scandal surrounding the death of British businessman Neil Haywood in Chongqing and a number of attack in Kabul on Sunday.

Like all the best inventions, Pinterest performs a task that I was already doing but does it much, much better. My wallet, Moleskine notebook, handbag pockets and sometimes even jean pockets are stuffed full of pages ripped out of magazines, newspapers and leaflets. They comprise pictures, quotes, websites, products and concepts that I like and want to record and share. My dream house has always been designed with a massive cork board on the study wall to capture these clippings and link them all together.

Now with Pinterest I can save trees and pocket space by doing this virtually. As I read more and more magazines, papers and marketing materials on my iPad I can clip them digitally (by taking a screen shot) and post them directly onto my virtual pinboard, saving them for future reference and sharing them with others. No more having to post ripped out recipes from magazines as my grandma used to do to my mum years ago. My colleague Lorna and I even have a shared cheesecake recipe pin board, maybe it should be for interesting PR campaigns instead – we’ll work up to that one!

But most powerfully, Pinterest doesn’t just enable you to capture your own findings and share them. It helps you find other people’s precious clippings as well.

Unlike Google images, where pictures are collated from across a random collection of all the world’s information, Pinterest requires a bit more love. So the pictures you find are caringly labelled by others like yourself who only post precious things that they want to save and share. The 48-hour wait between signing up to Pinterest and having an account reinforces this ‘love’ relationship and I hope that Pinterest protects this. The careful guarding of the Pinterest community means that the process of cutting through the dirge of SEO’d crap is vastly more efficient than in other search filters, such as Google.

I got a sense of this when I first started using Pinterest but it came to life most powerfully yesterday when it put me on the right path to finding the wedding that suited my fiancee and I.

I’m planning to get married in Hawaii next September. Google “weddings in Hawaii” and all you get is a list of naff venues and cheesy locations, hotels and ad sites. Not the retro-inspired and relaxed north-shore affair that we’re looking for. I’ve been going down the Google route for a few months but earlier this week I used Pinterest for my search. By using pictures instead of words to direct my search I was able to cut through the chaff much quicker and refine the results to my personal taste, which I can’t quite put into words yet as it’s all about the visuals. I came across a beautiful collection of pictures, in an Instagram style and was able to follow the links from these pins to a website where I posted a query asking for some assistance in planning my wedding. Today I got a lovely response and a link to the wedding planner who created this wedding and links to the photographers, florists and venue they used. Sorted. Not that I’ll copy their wedding in full – but it gives me the bounce point I needed to get in touch with the right people. Those beyond the sugar-crusted floral explosions in a hotel lobby.

This personal experience showed me that the opportunities of using Pinterest as a more refined search tool are vast. As a new but swiftly growing entrant to the social media mix, early adopters can pursue a massive market advantage for very little investment. For companies selling products to consumers, the benefits of a a free shop window to your retail site are obvious. But service and knowledge-based businesses have an enormous amount to gain from investing in a strong presence on the site as well. Pinterest offers companies and professionals the opportunity to brand themselves in a fresh, visual and engaging way.

The CEO of the live environment company Allium Opus has used the site to capture inspiring images that represent him and his attitude to the industry. His collection of pins says more about his style and approach to growing the seed of an idea into a worldwide live event than a marketing blurb ever could. The Chartered Institute of Professional Relations is also using the site to better connect to their members with shared images of inspiring campaigns, creative inspiration and advice.

The potential for Pinterest is endless and here at Journalista we’re continuing to explore the opportunities it offers from branding, ideas-generation and concept-creation through to revenue generation. If you’d like to work with us to explore this further or have any other insights into using this site please get in touch!

Follow @Hollyonline

At last week’s Gorkana briefing (where PRs like us go to discover how not to irritate journalists) business hack James Ashton touched on the sort of collaboration that is helping to drive efficiency on the titles he works across – Evening Standard, Independent, Independent on Sunday and i.

The amalgamation of the papers’ business and sports desks appears to have been a success, so much so that there have been calls for a single 24-hour newspaper. Ashton gave a prime example of content sharing in action when he explained what happened when his colleague Margareta Pagano secured an interview with Richard Branson.

In the Independent, the goateed entrepreneur was seen bashing greedy bankers and restoring the public’s trust with his own squeaky clean venture, Virgin Money. Two days later he was gushing to the Standard about his desire to be a granddad. One interview = two articles + money saved.

The UK’s other news groups could learn a great deal from this. For instance, why don’t News International’s other titles start making more of the wisdom emanating from page 3 of the Sun each day?

Speaking about Stephen Hawking’s claim that aliens almost certainly exist, Kelly, 20, from Daventry said: “It’s the logical extension of the anthropic principle which means life is bound to be able to thrive elsewhere, just as it does on earth”. At this point, the Sunday Times could have saved resources by simply pulling another quote from this in-depth interview to use in the science pages.

Let’s move swiftly past my half-baked plans and towards more serious ones being developed in America. Here the decline of print media has been even more dramatic and collective responses to shared problems have emerged, not just between newspapers under shared ownership but between rival titles.

Created with the support of over two dozen of the country’s biggest news media organisations, NewsRight scours the internet to discover where its members’ content is being reproduced illegally on other sites and news aggregators. By cracking down on content thieves, members have driven web traffic back to their original articles and developed new revenue streams by licensing content.

In a similar collaboration, media groups have joined forces to back Find n Save, a local online shopping platform that provides a standardised marketplace for national advertisers. By working together, members have ensured that they maximise the money they can squeeze from tight-fisted ad buyers.

Cynics may equate these initiatives to rearranging the deck chairs on the Costa Concordia but UK media bosses should pay attention. As the Newspaper Association of America’s chief executive officer, Caroline Little, said earlier this month: “The time of doom and gloom for the industry is behind us, replaced by the time of innovation, experimentation and creativity.”

Her former assertion is clearly questionable but the optimism of her latter holds the answer for an otherwise endangered industry.

Follow @oscarholland

Full-time controversy magnet and occasional footballer Mario Balotelli was behind the headlines for three completely different reasons. His week began with a tabloid confessional about his relationship with an escort, his second in as many weeks, which he followed up by crashing his £140,000 Bentley before rounding off by being sent off in his team’s match against Arsenal on Sunday.

His antics join an already overflowing catalogue of incidents since his arrival from Inter Milan in 2010.

Elsewhere, a hosepipe ban begins in the South East to conserve limited water supplies, a number of commentators voice their concern about government plans to monitor personal communications and the anniversary of the Falklands War passes as diplomatic relations remain frosty.

For the week ending Sunday 8th April the following number of articles were written in the mainstream media according to Journalisted.com.

The headlines:

• Mario Balotelli admits to relationship with a prostitute, crashes his car and gets sent off against Arsenal, 171 articles
• The government announce plans to monitor phone and email conversations, 147 articles
• A hosepipe ban was put into force in the South East, 106 articles
• Tuesday saw the 30th anniversary since the start of the Falklands war, as tensions rise between Argentina and the UK over the islands, 103 articles
• The race for London mayor heated up as Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone clashed over each others personal tax, 89 articles

The overlooked stories:

• Amazon earned £7 billion from sales in the UK but avoided a corporation tax bill, 27 articles
• A pensioner in Athens committed suicide in protest against public service cuts, 25 articles
• The UK narrowly escaped falling into recession last quarter by posting a 0.1% growth in GDP according to a leading economics institute, 15 articles

Celebrity versus serious:

• Samantha Brick causes a stir with an article about her beauty, 54 articles versus Sky News admitted to hacking into emails on two separate occasions, 35 articles
• Cheryl Cole admitted to her interest in Prince Harry, as well as donning hot pants three times, 54 articles versus conflicting messages coming out of the coalition with regards to the use of secret courts with Nick Clegg disagreeing with Ken Clarke, 32 articles
• Katy Perry goes public with her anguish over her divorce from Russell Brand (she is also reportedly tired of being a celebrity), 37 articles versus Hilary Clinton promised to ease economic sanctions on Burma, 33 articles

The political movers:

Third place goes to the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, with a 58 per cent increase after plans to monitor phone and email conversations are announced (152 articles).

Michael Gove takes second place with a 124 per cent increase in column inches (94 articles) after a number of teachers’ unions outlined their plans to strike in the same week the education secretary launched a scheme to hand control of A levels to Russell Group universities.

Marching into the lead this week was Brian Paddick, the Liberal Democrat London mayoral candidate whose 823 per cent increase in coverage (120 articles) could be attributed to the simple fact that he isn’t called either Boris or Ken.

At first $1 billion sounds like a lot of money. But this week we learnt it is just enough to get you a company with only thirteen employees and whose sole product is available for free.

A quick calculation can tell you that this price means that each employee is worth $77 million each, a valuation above and beyond any other buyout in business history. This tells you that this must be no ordinary product and to pay such a price you can rightly assume that this is no ordinary buyer.

Last night Facebook’s founder and CEO triumphantly announced on his timeline that the company had acquired Instagram.

The quirky hipster app allows users to take photographs before cropping them and applying a digital filter to emulate the look of an Instamatic camera such as in the picture.

It was limited to iPhone users until seven days ago when it was launched for Android on the Google Play network since then it has managed to rack up over five million downloads in just six days.

Cue what appears to be one of the most frantic business deals in history as the social media colossus moved in to snap up the San Francisco-based enterprise.

At this early stage Facebook has announced that it has no intention to restrict the application from sharing its retro-styled photos with other social media platforms but many are questioning how long such a stance will last.

Historically, acquisitions by Facebook have resulted in services being completely absorbed into the vast sit but it can be argued that this radical step is a sign of the network breaking “new ground”.

We shall be watching how this relationship develops with great interest.

Follow @DJKSaunders

Photo courtesy of Nicola Spicer

Like all your favourite glossy magazines rolled in to one digital extravaganza it’s needless to say, I’m hooked.

I’m not at all surprised that ComScore (via wallblog.co.uk) reported that over 80 per cent of Pinterest users are women. As I type this I’m interested to hear what has sparked Journalista Daniel’s Pinterest obsession?

What started off with a clear brief to stay travel focused soon broadened into discovering books worth reading, which branched off into cheesecake, before taking a turn into fashion.

Now that’s where the fun really starts. I’ve heard but not yet experienced an innocent lusting after ‘those shoes’ becoming a reality at the click of the button. This is where Pinterest presents some exciting brand building potential.

So my task for next week is to better understand what this growing social network can offer by way of communication and business opportunities for brands and what companies are already starting to grasp them with both hands.

I best dig out the credit card and find out… purely for business purposes of course.

More next week.

Check out my personal introduction to Pinterest here.

Follow @lorna_gott

Following the initial announcement by conciliation service Acas, government minster Francis Maude fuelled further concern about shortages advising the public to top up their cars and consider storing petrol in jerry cans at home.

Worries about a shortage became a self-fulfilling prophecy as thousands of motorists queued to bolster their personal supplies.

In Bradford both the media and the mainstream political parties were taken by surprise by George Galloway’s shock win a by-election in the west of the city.

Overturning a Labour majority of nearly 6,000 the Respect party member recorded the largest ever increase in a party’s share of the vote before proclaiming the result as a peaceful expression of a ‘Bradford Spring’.

For the week ending Sunday 1st April the following number of articles were written in the mainstream media according to Journalisted.com.

The headlines:

• There was panic at the pumps as Britons prepared themselves for a possible strike from fuel tanker drivers, 251 articles
• Peter Cruddas resigned after being secretly filmed claiming that a donation of £250,000 gave ‘premier league’ access to the Prime Minister, 170 articles
• George Galloway once again became an MP by winning the Bradford West by-election, 128 articles

The overlooked stories:

• Spain unveiled its most austere budget in a generation as a 24 hour strike occurs, 21 articles
• A report detailing the causes behind the riots last summer concluded that social deprivation was a major factor and people need more of a ‘stake in society’ to stop it happening again, 13 articles
• The legal aid, sentencing and punishment of offenders bill cleared the Lords with minor amendments and now returns to the Commons for final approval, 8 articles

Celebrity versus serious:

• Kim Kardashian says she is ready to date again and Kris Humphries has stipulated terms of her divorce, 43 articles versus the government announced they would protect greenbelt sites with revised planning reforms, 27 articles
• Rihanna visited London last week to promote her film debut, 29 articles versus UK’s GDP for Q4 was revised and found to have contracted, 29 articles
• Lady Gaga celebrated her 26th birthday, 34 articles versus a health database containing 500,000 peoples medical records go online, 4 articles

Political movers:

Ed Miliband makes his now regular appearance in third place after mustering an increase of 38 per cent on last week (316 articles).

With a coverage leap of 991 per cent Francis Maude would expect to clinch first place after helping fuel nationwide panic buying (241 articles) but missed out to an unexpected individual.

Sparing his blushes was George Galloway who makes a shock entrance to the list considering seven days ago he wasn’t a member of parliament. His victory in the Bradford West by-election was seen to have taken the media by surprise as reflected by the 2460 per cent jump in column inches for the newly elected Respect MP.

According to Techcrunch.com the number of Pinterest users to visit the site daily has gone up 145 percent since the beginning of 2012 and user growth is better than that of Facebook and Twitter at the same point in their history.

The Journalista team has an account and we are all using it personally as well. Holly is using the blog to search for 1920s interiors inspiration for her new house, Daniel on the other hand says he simply uses Pinterest to find things that make him smile, seeing his Pinterest profile as ‘a visual extension’ of his personality.

With 80 per cent of the users being female, I’m curious to see what all the fuss is about. So I’ve secured myself an invitation, which is necessary and seems to be doing a good job at keeping out the spammers. So once I’ve got this, this week I’ll be supplementing Facebook and Twitter with Pinterest, and I think I’ll like it.

More next week on my personal Pinterest journey.