http://www.ejc.net/media_news/ EJC daily media news en European Journalism Centre Copyright 2009 2009-11-06T10:23:14+00:00 ejc/media_newshttp://feedburner.google.comSubscribe with My Yahoo!Subscribe with NewsGatorSubscribe with My AOLSubscribe with BloglinesSubscribe with NetvibesSubscribe with GoogleSubscribe with Pageflakes http://www.ejc.net/media_news/reporters_face_violence_as_iraq_cracks_down_on_media_dissent/ http://www.ejc.net/media_news/reporters_face_violence_as_iraq_cracks_down_on_media_dissent/#When:10:23:14Z Iraqis are fearing a renewed crackdown on dissent as a crucial national poll draws near, with several journalists claiming to have been beaten by security forces and ministers issuing warnings about media coverage. Iraq's communications minister, Faruq Abd Al-Qadir, has introduced a USD 5,000 licence fee for all broadcast media outlets and ordered the staff of the 58 media and television stations operating in the country to apply for work permits. Observers say the move appears to have been prompted by official anger at recent coverage of a string of devastating bomb attacks on government ministries, which caused about 250 deaths and seriously eroded the government's security credentials. The fallout from the attacks is widely thought to have damaged the re-election hopes of the prime minister, Nour al-Maliki, and his ministers. They fear they could lose their jobs after the 16 January general election. The new rules come after a summer crackdown on internet access in which communications authorities warned service providers and internet cafes they would to block access to websites deemed to be offensive. Three journalists this week reported having been beaten by soldiers while covering routine security stories. 2009-11-06T10:23:14+00:00 http://www.ejc.net/media_news/uk_employees_own_their_own_newspaper/ http://www.ejc.net/media_news/uk_employees_own_their_own_newspaper/#When:10:22:53Z The West Highland Free Press is laying claim to being the first newspaper in Britain to be owned by its employees. From last week, 10 of its staff officially became shareholders in the trust that now owns the weekly, which is renowned for its forthright independent coverage of affairs in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. Managing director Paul Wood explained that it had taken 18 months to arrange the transfer of ownership, making the paper a very small-scale employee-owned organisation of the John Lewis Partnership variety. It is not really an example of worker control, but the move is certainly in keeping with the traditions of the West Highland Free Press, which was founded in 1972 as a left-wing weekly. It remains a radical paper and, despite a downturn in sales from about 10,000 to 8,500, its staff have faith in newsprint. Its website offers only signposts and teasers to copy in the newspaper. Then again, broadband penetration in the overwhelmingly rural 250 square miles of its circulation area is pretty thin. And Wood is convinced that sales will rise again soon. 2009-11-06T10:22:53+00:00 http://www.ejc.net/media_news/50_papers_rescind_associated_press_cancellation_notices/ http://www.ejc.net/media_news/50_papers_rescind_associated_press_cancellation_notices/#When:10:22:28Z Some 50 newspapers that had given notice of cancellation to the Associated Press in the past two years have rescinded those notices in recent months, according to Paul Colford, the AP's director of media relations. About 130 newspapers remain under cancellation notice, but AP officials said they were hopeful more would rescind soon. Among those rescinding cancellations are New York's Daily News and the 18-daily Heartland Publications chain. AP declined to provide an entire list of those rescinding their cancellations, citing its policy not to discuss its relationship with specific members. AP requires that members give two years notice if they wish not to renew their membership. AP revealed in April that about 180 member newspapers had filed notices in the past two years to leave the AP. Many had cited a new rate structure, while others complained about different aspects of coverage. But since April, when AP announced a revised fee structure for 2010 with further savings, at least 50 papers have rescinded those cancellations, Colford said, noting many said they were satisfied with a new fee structure put in place this year and other fee changes announced for 2010. He said those changes in 2009 and those slated for 2010 amount to about USD 65 million in savings for members. AP also announced in April it would no longer require a two-year notice as of 2010, but would give discounts to members who agree to remain under the two-year notice requirement. 2009-11-06T10:22:28+00:00 http://www.ejc.net/media_news/georgia_plans_russian-language_regional_tv_channel/ http://www.ejc.net/media_news/georgia_plans_russian-language_regional_tv_channel/#When:10:21:02Z Georgia plans to launch a Russian-language television channel targeting ethnic minorities across the Caucasus, in its latest challenge to Moscow's influence in the strategically important region. Russia and the West are vying for influence over the region, a strategic crossroads at the threshold to Central Asia and criss-crossed by pipelines carrying oil and natural gas to the West. The head of Georgia's public broadcaster, Gia Chanturia, said the company planned to launch the first regional channel in the Caucasus. Moscow is unlikely to look kindly on a Georgian-run channel broadcasting to its southern republics, where it has fought two wars against Chechen separatists in the past 15 years and faces a growing threat from Islamist insurgents. Chanturia said the plan was in its early stages, and was spurred in part by the situation after pro-Western Georgia's five-day war with Russia in August last year. He said the channel would probably begin broadcasting via the Internet before moving to satellite. Chanturia said the channel would be funded from the Georgian budget and would contain news from across the region. 2009-11-06T10:21:02+00:00 http://www.ejc.net/media_news/german_newspaper_one_of_the_first_to_go_live_with_public_google_wave/ http://www.ejc.net/media_news/german_newspaper_one_of_the_first_to_go_live_with_public_google_wave/#When:10:19:10Z Following the hype around the launch of Google Wave, German newspaper Welt Kompakt has become one of the first to launch a public Wave, helping readers interact with the title. The newspaper, which styles itself as the 'little sister' of national daily Die Welt, is thought to be the first on Google Wave, using the real time service to interact with its readers. It already has a presence on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, where it is making use of the new Twitter Lists feature to make more of its content available. All these efforts are to help the title appeal to young readers with lots of money to spend, or "young educated and high-income readers in the cities," as Jan Bayer, publishing director of Die Welt group, put it. The changes are being advertised in a campaign running across online and offline media. 2009-11-06T10:19:10+00:00 http://www.ejc.net/media_news/study_internet_use_leads_to_more_diverse_networks/ http://www.ejc.net/media_news/study_internet_use_leads_to_more_diverse_networks/#When:10:17:05Z A new study confirms what your 130 Facebook friends and scores of Twitter followers may have already told you: The Internet and mobile phones are not linked to social isolation. Online activities such as e-mail, blogging and frequenting Internet hangouts can even lead to larger, more diverse social networks, according to the study released Wednesday by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. The study refutes research earlier in the decade suggesting that people's growing embrace of technology has come at the expense of close human connections. The Internet also hasn't pulled people away from public places like parks, cafes and restaurants — just the opposite. The study, which had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points and accounted for differences because of age, education and other factors, also found that people now tend to use cell phones more than landlines to stay in touch with closest family and friends. 2009-11-06T10:17:05+00:00 http://www.ejc.net/media_news/san_francisco_chronicle_first_paper_to_go_glossy_next_week/ http://www.ejc.net/media_news/san_francisco_chronicle_first_paper_to_go_glossy_next_week/#When:10:15:53Z With its circulation falling faster than that of any other major U.S. newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle is determined to set the pace in a flashier way: It's about to become the first general-interest daily to print its editions on high-quality glossy paper. The new look, scheduled to debut in Monday's newspaper, is part of the Chronicle's effort to create a more visually appealing newspaper as more readers turn to the Internet for free information and entertainment. The magazine-style glossy paper would make its print edition more pleasing to read and could help the newspaper attract more advertisers looking to make their products shine. The Chronicle, the largest newspaper in technology-driven northern California, has been hard hit by the migration to the Internet. Its weekday circulation plunged nearly 26 percent from a year ago to an average of 251,782 during the April-September period, more than any other big-city newspaper in the United States. The glossy paper will be used on the Chronicle's front page as well as the first page of most other sections. It will also show up on some pages inside the newspaper. 2009-11-05T10:15:53+00:00 http://www.ejc.net/media_news/right_to_internet_dies_quietly_in_brussels_back_room/ http://www.ejc.net/media_news/right_to_internet_dies_quietly_in_brussels_back_room/#When:10:13:42Z Early Thursday morning the European Parliament and EU member states finally reached a deal over a long-delayed telecoms package when MEPs dropped their opposition to French-style internet ‘three-strikes' laws aimed at illegal internet downloaders, ending for now the Brussels debate on a fundamental 'right' to internet access. In a major reversal of the parliament's position for much of the last year, MEPs in behind-closed-doors negotiations with the Council of Ministers, representing the member states, embraced new language in a compromise text that no longer requires that only judicial authorities be allowed to cut off internet access. MEPs from all parties, but mainly from the centre, left and the Green Party, strongly argued ahead of the European elections in June that three-strikes legislation is draconian and, with an eye to young voters, vowed to continue their opposition to such laws, maintaining that access to the internet had now essentially become a fundamental right as vital as access to water or electricity. The deputies maintained that so many aspects of a citizen's participation in society - from paying bills to dealing with local government to reading the news - now required access to the internet that cutting off access from the digital world was depriving someone of a host of other rights. 2009-11-05T10:13:42+00:00 http://www.ejc.net/media_news/canadas_largest_paper_launches_biggest_re-structuring_ever_buyouts/ http://www.ejc.net/media_news/canadas_largest_paper_launches_biggest_re-structuring_ever_buyouts/#When:10:13:13Z Canada's largest circulation daily has launched what its publisher said will likely be the biggest restructuring in the newspaper's history by offering voluntary buyouts to employees in all divisions of the company. Toronto Star Publisher John Cruickshank said in a memo to employees Tuesday that the broad reworking of the company will affect every job in every corner of the organization and could include layoffs. He said the paper is also exploring the possibility of contracting out some work in both copy editing and pagination. The Star's union said the Star has told them it plans to contract out as many as 100 union editing jobs. The newspaper has 390 employees in the editorial department. The newspaper, which celebrated its 117th birthday on Tuesday, has been grappling with industry-wide problems that have worsened with the weaker economy. 2009-11-05T10:13:13+00:00 http://www.ejc.net/media_news/netherlands_tabloid-style_tv_to_hit_dutch_screens/ http://www.ejc.net/media_news/netherlands_tabloid-style_tv_to_hit_dutch_screens/#When:10:12:14Z Dutch public broadcasting is gaining two tabloid-style organisations, PowNed and WNL, and losing the idealistic programme-maker Llink, “for a fair and sustainable world”. Culture Minister Ronald Plasterk announced the long-awaited shake-up on Wednesday, following the recommendations of Netherlands Public Broadcasting (NPO) and other advisory bodies. PowNed is the brainchild of sensation-seeking website GeenStijl, notorious for its provocative language, merciless rightwing political commentary, and eccentric text-message spelling. Mr Plasterk said he expected the new corporation would be successful in appealing to new generations with its combination of internet, radio and TV. WNL is an offshoot of the country’s biggest selling rightwing tabloid-style newspaper, de Telegraaf. Mr Plasterk concluded that it had taken enough distance from its parent newspaper to guarantee it would be sufficiently independent. The corporation’s original name, which translates as “Waking Netherlands”, was based on the paper’s advertising slogan, but it has now been reduced to just the initials. WNL claims it represents the “standards and values of the large group of Dutch people who make up ‘the backbone of Dutch society’.” The culture minister said that Llink, a ‘green’ organisation focusing on topics such as the environment and development co-operation, had not succeeded in reaching a broad enough public. Llink has been criticised for failing to come up with original, quality programming. 2009-11-05T10:12:14+00:00 http://www.ejc.net/media_news/iran_shuts_down_major_economic_daily/ http://www.ejc.net/media_news/iran_shuts_down_major_economic_daily/#When:10:11:23Z An Iranian government-run press supervisory body shut down the country's major reformist and economic newspaper, Sarmayeh, ISNA news agency reported on Monday. "The supervisory board cancelled the licence of Sarmayeh... due to repeated offences," the report cited a statement by the media section of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. Sarmayeh, owned by former Tehran Stock Exchange director general Mohammad Hossein Abdo Tabrizi, was closed after printing 1,151 issues. The daily was critical of economic and monetary policies of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government. 2009-11-05T10:11:23+00:00 http://www.ejc.net/media_news/linden_lab_unveils_second_life_enterprise/ http://www.ejc.net/media_news/linden_lab_unveils_second_life_enterprise/#When:10:10:15Z Second Life creator Linden Lab has launched a beta programme that will offer a behind-the-firewall virtual world for enterprises. Second Life Enterprise will be launched in the first half of 2010, and will let customers extend their businesses to virtual world environments, the firm said. The beta version will run completely within the enterprise network, and will be supported by enterprise levels of security much like an intranet. Linden Lab said that this will allow the secure sharing of confidential and proprietary information. Other features include Second Life staples such as customised avatars and visual, audio and text collaboration. Seven virtual regions are offered, including an auditorium for company meetings, two conference centres, and 'sandboxes' where users can build their own virtual items and buildings. Beta users will be able to create their own avatars and give them their own names, while ready-built avatars will make it easy for companies to start using Second Life Enterprise straight out of the box. IBM currently offers a secure version of Second Life, and claims that almost 14,000 customers are using the service. Pricing for the Second Life Enterprise server appliance starts at USD 55,000. 2009-11-05T10:10:15+00:00 http://www.ejc.net/media_news/yahoo_teams_with_oneriot_on_real-time_search/ http://www.ejc.net/media_news/yahoo_teams_with_oneriot_on_real-time_search/#When:09:59:25Z Yahoo Inc, looking to match rivals in providing up-to-the-minute Internet search results, is running tests with several real-time search partners, sources familiar with the matter said on Tuesday. Among the companies providing real-time results to Yahoo on a trial basis is OneRiot, whose data will be available initially to about 10 percent of Yahoo's users, said a person familiar with the matter, who was not authorized to speak about the deal and asked for anonymity. A representative from OneRiot said she could not comment on the matter. A second source familiar with the matter said Yahoo was conducting real-time search tests with other companies, as well. Real-time search is emerging as a popular way to find information on the Internet, due in large part to the popularity of microblogging service Twitter, which lets users broadcast 140-character messages. By searching streams of Twitter messages, a Web surfer can often get information faster than through some standard Web pages retrieved through traditional Internet searches. 2009-11-04T09:59:25+00:00 http://www.ejc.net/media_news/netherlands_leftwing_media_in_partnership/ http://www.ejc.net/media_news/netherlands_leftwing_media_in_partnership/#When:09:58:36Z Dutch public broadcaster VARA is launching a partnership with De Volkskrant newspaper. VARA also launched an ambitions Internet project Tuesday to promote leftwing opinions. The editorial teams of De Volkskrant and VARA talk-show Pauw & Witteman will together chart "the mood of the Netherlands" in the runup to the local elections on 3 March 2010, they said. The partnership will take shape in the newspaper with articles and in the TV programme with reports, such as street interviews. The first article will appear in De Volkskrant's Het Vervolg supplement. The newspaper and Pauw & Witteman will refer to one another and a joint website will be made. Additionally, VARA Tuesday launched the website joop.nl. The government-subsidised broadcaster wants to offer a counterbalance via this site to the popular rightwing website Geenstijl.nl, which receives no subsidy. VARA already tried this twice last year with no success - there were scarcely any visitors - but is now venturing a third attempt. As well as the opinions considered suitable to be placed, a number of socialist politicians will write political columns, including Labour (PvdA) MP Mei li Vos. De Volkskrant is also involved with Joop.nl; the newspaper is lending a journalist to the site's editorial team. VARA and De Volkskrant do not yet wish to say whether there are further plans for cross-media partnership. But they are considering whether VARA will make use of De Volkskrant's network of foreign correspondents. 2009-11-04T09:58:36+00:00 http://www.ejc.net/media_news/uk_to_copy_french_hadopi_internet_piracy_bill/ http://www.ejc.net/media_news/uk_to_copy_french_hadopi_internet_piracy_bill/#When:09:56:47Z UK business minister Peter Mandelson has announced that the UK intends to adopt legislation almost identical to France's controversial three-strikes anti-internet-piracy legislation. As in France, websurfers found to be downloading content without permission of the copyright owner will first be sent a warning email. But where across the English Channel, internauts are then sent a letter in the post, in the UK, they will have their bandwidth restricted. A third offense will then, as with President Nicholas Sarkozy's flagship legislation, result in internet cut-off. Paris' ‘Hadopi' law, named for the new government agency charged with hunting down the pirates, is considered draconian by online rights advocates for the powers the agency has, backed by a series of special piracy judges, to cut off internet access and even jail repeat offenders. In the UK, no new agency is to be created. Rather, the Office of Communications, or as it is more commonly known, Ofcom, the UK telecoms regulator, will be tasked with the downloading manhunt. Mr Mandelson, the former EU trade commissioner, intends to place a bill before parliament next month and hopes that the British version of the Hadopi bill will come online by April next year. The first disconnections would likely take place fifteen months from then, towards the end of 2011. 2009-11-04T09:56:47+00:00 http://www.ejc.net/media_news/wall_street_journal_to_add_a_new_york_report/ http://www.ejc.net/media_news/wall_street_journal_to_add_a_new_york_report/#When:09:56:22Z The Wall Street Journal plans to assemble a local news staff in New York, continuing to expand beyond its historic focus on business news by adding traditional city desk beats like courthouses, City Hall and the state capital. The push into metropolitan news is part of The Journal’s effort to create a New York edition, probably beginning early next year, which was first reported last summer as a project focused mostly on increased arts coverage. The local news staff would have about a dozen people at first — some journalists at other publications have already been approached — but The Journal intends to expand from there, according to people briefed on the plans, who were not authorized to discuss the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity. When Rupert Murdoch, chairman of the News Corporation, took control of The Journal almost two years ago, he gave it a mandate to become more of a general interest paper, and a more direct competitor to The New York Times. Since then, The Journal has put more emphasis on politics and government, pushed much of its business news farther back into the paper, and added new features like regular sports coverage and a quarterly magazine, WSJ. 2009-11-04T09:56:22+00:00 http://www.ejc.net/media_news/with_8_percent_growth_social_media_still_on_the_rise_-_as_facebook_users_ge/ http://www.ejc.net/media_news/with_8_percent_growth_social_media_still_on_the_rise_-_as_facebook_users_ge/#When:09:54:16Z The use of social media is still growing: a survey has revealed that 19 percent of internet users now say they use Twitter or another service to share updates about themselves or see updates about others. This is a significant increase of 8 percent - in previous surveys from April 2009 and December 2008 the figure was just 11 percent. Furthermore the report, based on data from telephone interviews conducted by Princeton Survey Research International of 2,253 adults, matches the expectations of companies such as Twitter and Facebook. Measuring social media use is a challenge. For example, to track the status updates for Twitter is complicated by the service being accessed through multiple platforms and devices. The fact that 10 percent of Twitter users account for more than 90 percent of tweets, as a Twitter survey of the Harvard Business Publishing revealed recently is not a great surprise: Twitter is based on an asymmetry between followers and writers and structured like a blog. It will become even harder to measure use of social platforms in the near future, as from this year a lot of social platforms began to connect deeper and deeper with status updates fed from Twitter into Facebook and vice-versa. But one thing is undeniable: Facebook users are getting a lot older. Its median age is now 33, up from 26 in May 2008, while the average Twitterer is still 31, a figure that has remained stable over the past year. By comparison, MySpace users' median age is 26, down from 27 in May 2008, while LinkedIn is 39, down from 40. 2009-11-04T09:54:16+00:00 http://www.ejc.net/media_news/global_voices_to_track_suppression_of_free_speech_online_with_new_site/ http://www.ejc.net/media_news/global_voices_to_track_suppression_of_free_speech_online_with_new_site/#When:09:53:40Z Global Voices, the non-profit blogging community, has launched a new website to track the suppression of free speech online. The Threatened Voices site will feature a world map and interactive timeline plotting threats and arrests against bloggers across the world. The site will also include news updates and information from relevant organisations, such as Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). At time of writing the site was tracking 177 cases of threatened or arrested bloggers. The timeline and map will also be colour-coded to show the status of an individual's case, for example red for 'under arrest' and green for 'released', and can be filtered by country. At the end of last year the CPJ's annual census suggested that more online journalists were imprisoned than those working in other mediums. The site will aim to encourage non-journalists and those outside of Global Voice's community of authors and editors to report free speech and human rights abuses, announced Global Voices' advocacy director Sami Ben Gharbia. 2009-11-04T09:53:40+00:00