It’s about time. Canada’s federal broadcasting regulator is imposing tighter rules on media ownership, reported the CBC. “The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission said Tuesday thata single company or person can own only two radio stations, television stations or newspapers in a single market. It was not immediately clear whether the rules mean…
If you watched early evening cable news coverage of last night’s New Hampshire primary, you may have witnessed the appalling (or perhaps amusing, depending on your perspective) spectacle of Fox News declaring Barack Obama the Democratic Party winner even though the actual count-in-progress gave Hillary Clinton the lead. The reason? Fox trusted media exit polls…
Google’s feature, allowing “Comments From People in the News,” seems like a new twist on citizen journalism. Says a New York Times story: “The idea is simple: if you have been quoted in an article that appears on Google News, which presents links and summaries from 4,500 news sources, including the familiar big players, you…
The New York Times looks at the dependence of Western news organizations on freelancers in Iraq. The focus is the case of photographer Bilal Hussein,who had a hand in The Associated Press’s 2005 Pulitzer Prize he was jailed by the U.S. military. The military alleges he was a security threat — “fingered by “sources” as…
Reporters Without Borders released a blistering criticism of China’s crackdown on the press in the run-up to the 2008 Olympics — which the press rights organization wants boycotted; it staged a demonstration in Hong Kong after being banned from mainland China eight months ahead of Olympic Games.
A BBC series commemorating the 75th anniversary of its World Service is focused on freedom of speech, and freedom of the media and information. The first three essays on freedom of speech are by Jeffrey Sachs (“Our problems – ranging from climate change to species extinction to failed states – are global and require global…
The International Herald Tribune will announce an alliance with Reuters, reported the New York Times, that will transform its financial section online and in print. The revamped business section, “Business with Reuters,” will publish news from both organizations and could mark the start of broader cooperation, said the story. The deal is a win for…
David Carr’s column about investigative reporting, in the New York Times, makes for compelling reading. An excerpt: Serious reporting usd to be baked into the business, but under pressure from the public markets or their private equity owners, newsrooms have been cutting foreign bureaus, Washington reporters and investigative capacity. Under this model, the newsroom is no…
The BBC is investigating the possibility that three of its journalists beaten up in Moscow had been deliberately targeted because of their work for the corporation, reported the Guardian. A BBC World Service spokesman said it was “extremely concerned” by the “spate of attacks” on its journalists, all of whom were assaulted in separate incidents…
The Committee to Protect Journalists, which conducts an annual Dec. 1 census, found one in six journalists are held without charges and an overall decline, with China still the leading jailer of journalists. An excerpt: One in six journalists jailed worldwide are being held without any publicly disclosed charge, many for months or years at…