ARCHIVES: Newsworthiness
Cuba's not the only one accusing journalists of being moles for U.S. intelligence. Investigations of FBI memos indicate journalists from ABC News and Fox News broke the sacred bonds of the reporter-confidential source relationship, acting as informants for the FBI in the 1990s. The Center for Public Integrity (CPI) revealed earlier this week that a senior ABC News journalist was treated as a "potential confidential informant" for the FBI during the investigation of the Oklahoma City bombing in... MORE
(Associated Press): Hala Misrati once wrote romance tales about lost love. Now she's the ferocious face of Libya's regime, a star talk-show host on state TV lashing out daily against Moammar Gadhafi's enemies. She railed against a Libyan woman who claimed to Western journalists she had been raped by Gadhafi militiamen, calling her a "liar" and suggesting she was a "whore." On live TV, Misrati grilled an arrested journalist for an hour with all the doggedness of a secret police interrogator. "... MORE
The two big international stories that have recently dominated the headlines remained at the top of the US news agenda last week. But there were signs that media attention to both of them was beginning to plateau as the US economy re-emerged as a bigger story. Unrest in the Middle East, driven by the volatile Libyan civil war, accounted for 38 per cent of the newshole during the week of March 28-April 3, according to the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. Even with... MORE
For the past two weeks, NHK, Japan’s public broadcaster, has covered a triple disaster, appraising the damage with the help of 14 helicopters, 67 broadcasting vans and virtually no adjectives. Its anchors do not use certain words that might make a catastrophe feel like a catastrophe. “Massive” is prohibited. Same with “severe.” NHK gives its cub reporters an earthquake and tsunami coverage manual — Japan is a country famous for manuals — and here it instructs them in how not to stir panics, and... MORE
Many of Mexico's leading news organisations have agreed common guidelines on how to cover drug-related violence. Newspapers and broadcasters agreed not to glorify drug traffickers or publish cartel propaganda. They also promised joint action to protect journalists, at least 20 of whom have been killed since 2006, according to BBC News. Excerpts: [ Link ] The accord defends the media's right to criticise Mexican government policy and actions in the drugs conflict. More than 40 media groups,... MORE
The Centre for Public Integrity is launching a daily digital investigative newspaper that will go live in about a month. The new product, likely to be called iWatch or Integrity Watch, will feature 10-20 original investigative stories per day about corruption, political ethics, corporate accountability, “truth watching,” and waste, fraud and abuse. Excerpts: [ Link ] The nonprofit Centre for Public Integrity will sell sponsorship ads and $50 per year e-reader subscriptions, which will count as... MORE
An alliance of media businesses opposed to Rupert Murdoch's bid to take full control of BSkyB said it is "fanciful" to hope Sky News will be kept independent after the proposed takeover, the Press Association has reported. Excerpts: [ Link ] The coalition - including BT, Guardian Media Group, Associated Newspapers, Trinity Mirror, Northcliffe Media and the Telegraph Media Group - argued that Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt's plans to wave through the News Corp takeover are flawed. In a legal... MORE
On the occasion of World Water Day, ARTICLE 19 has reminded the international community that freedom of expression, the free flow of information and transparency are central to the full realisation of the right to water. The watershed developments in the right to water campaign over the past year particularly, demonstrate that the realisation of the right to water necessitates transparency and accountability, the recognition of the right of communities and individual consumers to raise concerns... MORE
After La Prensa newspaper unilaterally decided to stop publishing photos of dead bodies to avoid sensationalising the increase in violence in the country, the Honduras Journalists’ Guild (CPH) and the government are now working towards an agreement that would remove violent photos from newspaper covers, La Tribuna reports, according to Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas. Meeting with the union to discuss the killings of 11 Honduran journalists over the last year, Security Minister... MORE
A multicultural, international news service wants to change the adage that no news is good news, says an IJNet report. Istanbul-based non-profit Silent Heroes, Invisible Bridges wants to promote peaceful co-existence amongst nations, cultures and religions of the world. The news service started out as a project for an International Center for Journalists online course called Reporting Across Cultures: Freedom of Expression in the Digital Age. The details: [ Link ] Working as a team, Naveed... MORE
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