This week’s links

IN Opinion | 22/07/2006

India`s Internet regulators have started blocking several web sites in a move that borrows a page from China, where government censors heavily restrict the flow of online information.

India`s Department of Telecommunications sent an order late last week to Internet-service providers to block several web sites, according to a department spokesman. The spokesman, Rajesh Malhotra, declined to disclose the contents of the letter or discuss the order, saying it was a "confidential exchange of information between the department and the operators. 

"Several telecom operators confirmed there were more than 15 sites they were directed to block. Close to a third of the sites were home to blogs, the personalized Web logs that have become popular in India, just as they have in other parts of the world. Among the Web sites blocked are parts of Blogger and GeoCities. Included on a list seen by The Wall Street Journal are sites that showcase views of an Islamic holy man, conservative Hindus, and Dalits.  

Source: The Wall Street Journal 19 July 2006

Blocking the blogosphere - online censorship in Africa

 

The internet and more so blogging has enabled a growth in freedom of speech amongst civil society groups and individual activists and citizens across the continent. In China, Iran and the Middle East the governments have been active in monitoring and restricting access to the internet by its citizens. The first African country to ban websites was Tunisia which hosted the second phase of the WSIS (World Summit on the Information Society) was held in Tunisia last November. The irony was not lost on many of the participants who held their own workshops and seminars promoting freedom of expression despite threats from government employed thugs. Earlier on March 1st Tunisian journalist Muhammad Abou was arrested and subsequently imprisoned for publishing an article on a banned website where he compared the President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

 

The first reports that the Ethiopian government was blocking blogs hosted by blogger.com came on the 18th May as Ethiopian blogger, Ethiopian Life reported that his blog had been blocked along with a number of others. Later Meskel Square asked "Where have all the Ethiopian Blogspot Bloggers gone?. In addition, Free Our Leaders and Ethiopian Review were also unavailable. In total 75% of Ethiopian blogs tracked on Global Voices are no longer accessible from Ethiopia. 

Source: Media Channel July 2006

How TV news is distorting India`s media

Mr Verma has one ambition in life - "to touch the sky keeping my (sic) firmly on earth, as well as to bear out and excel".  I am still not sure what he means but he is quite serious about it, because that is what it says in the first line of his CV.

A decade ago young Indians aspired to be doctors, engineers or business executives. Now they want to be in TV news.  Once there was just one TV news channel, now there are dozens. Luckily for today`s youngsters the sign on the door of many often says "Experience not required", something any politician will testify to.

The former Home Minister Indrajit Gupta was one day doggedly pursued by a young journalist on his way out of parliament. . .

Source: BBC News 18 July 2006

AP reveals Israel censorship, says it will abide by rules

Here`s some news you may never hear about Israel`s war against Hezbollah: a missile falls into the sea, a strategic military installation is hit, a Cabinet minister plans to visit the front lines.

All these topics are subject to review by Israel`s chief military censor, who has -- in her own words -- "extraordinary power." She can silence a broadcaster, block information and put journalists in jail.

"I can, for example, publish an order that no material can be published. I can close a newspaper or shut down a station. I can do almost anything," Col. Sima Vaknin said Wednesday.  Israel believes that as a small country in a near constant state of conflict, having a say over what information gets out to the world is vital to its security. Critics say the policy is a slippery slope not fit for a democracy.

Source: The Associated Press 19 July 2006

New Middle-East conflict sparks staffing re-shuffle for papers

NEW YORK With many newspapers already limited in their foreign coverage by the ongoing Iraq War, and some budget cutbacks, the current Middle East conflict -- which escalated over the weekend with new attacks on both sides and numerous civilian casualties -- has thrown a new wrench of staffing and news space demands.

Although most foreign editors say they have been able to keep their Iraq-dedicated staffers in that war-torn country as the Lebanon-Israel violence unfolds, they admit having to shuffle other reporters and photographers to properly cover the latest Middle East conflict.

"It has totally hijacked our foreign coverage," Ethan Bronner, deputy foreign editor at The New York Times, said about the new violence. "It is taking up an enormous percentage of our attention. It is not unlimited, what can do in the paper."

Source: Editor and Publisher 17 July 2006

Is it time for a Third World War?

New York June 17: There are screws loose in high places.

Elements of the U.S. intelligence "community" (which have done such a fine job in Iraq) and their Israeli counterparts, along with the cadre of paid and unpaid cheerleaders in the TV punditocracy, seem to have decided that what the world needs now is another world war.

And they are not shy about saying so.

First, last week, David Twersky, the Tel Aviv correspondent for the New York Sun, a mouthpiece for the Israeli hardliners, compared the kidnapping of a corporal in Gaza to the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo, the incident that triggered World War I.

The parallel was planted.

Source: Media Channel 17 July 2006

Amnesty accuses US firms over China web censorship

Microsoft Corp, Google Inc and Yahoo Inc have breached the Universal Declaration on Human Rights in colluding with China to censor the Internet, Amnesty International said on Thursday.

The three publicly traded companies are ignoring their own stated commitments -- which in Google`s case includes corporate motto "Don`t be evil" -- and are in denial over the human rights implications of their actions, the group said.

"All three companies have, in one way or another, facilitated or concluded in the practice of censorship in China," London-based Amnesty said in a report.

Source: Reuters 20 July 2006

BBC changes mark a digital future

The BBC`s restructuring speaks volumes about the rapid changes going in the digital world - and how media organisations are having to adapt, faced with the challenge of new audience demands and huge new players such as Google and Microsoft. Gone are the words radio and television, which have been pillars of the BBC structure since the1920s and 30s.

Instead, there will be two divisions called BBC Vision and Audio and Music, reflecting the way millions of people now receive pictures and sound from the BBC not on their TVs and radios but on their computers and mobile phones. A third division, called Journalism, will be responsible for the BBC`s news, current affairs and sport output, across the globe and on all media platforms.

The term New Media also disappears, on the grounds that much of it, as the director-general Mark Thompson explained to BBC staff, is now "Present Media".

Source: BBC News 20 July 2006

Press under attack

NEW YORK Though Bill Keller, the executive editor of The New York Times, has not yet been called an effete impudent snob, a pusillanimous pussyfooter, or a nattering nabob, his paper’s current role as a piñata for conservatives and other critics has produced numerous references to attacks on the media in 1969 and 1970 by Vice President Spiro Agnew. Everyone recalls that he ripped the press with the sharp alliterative prose of speechwriters Pat Buchanan, William Safire and others -- but misconceptions abound.

Agnew is most remembered for his withering attack on television news in Nov. 1969, in which he attacked the "tiny, enclosed fraternity of privileged men" who wielded their unmonitored power in the liberal confines of Washington D.C. and New York. However, many of his utterances cited most often did not target the press. Agnew’s scope of criticism was, in fact, quite wide, encompassing liberals ("pusillanimous pussyfooters"), administration critics (the "4-H club" of the "hopeless hysterical hypochondriacs of history"), and antiwar demonstrators ("an effete corps of impudent snobs").

How relevant is this to the current attacks on the press, particularly from official quarters? Safire himself made the connection in an appearance this past July 2 on "Meet the Press," in which he defended the Times from criticism of its decision to publish scoops relating to government surveillance. "Look, I used to write speeches for Spiro Agnew," he said, "I`m hip to this stuff and I can say that it gives you a blip, gives you a chance to get on the offensive against the darned media. But in the long view of history, it`s a big mistake."

Source: Editor and Publisher 17 July 2006