Our weekly round-up of public service media related stories and headlines from around the world.
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CAMEROON: Detained journalist wins Committee to Protect Journalists Award
Deutsche Welle: The Committee to Protect Journalists named Cameroon journalist Ahmed Abba as one of four winners of its prestigious 2017 International Press Freedom Award. Abba is serving a 10-year sentence on terrorism charges.
GAMBIA: Fighting Impunity: MFWA Facilitates Meeting between Gambian Government and Families of Victims
MFWA: As part of efforts to seek justice for victims of abuse under the Jammeh administration, the MFWA and the Gambia Press Union are facilitating the process of engagements between the Gambian government and [families of victims].
GHANA: Force media owners to pay journalists well – Minister to new GJA executives
Chana Web: The Minister for Information, Mustapha Hamid, has tasked the the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) to use their union to bargain for better working conditions for journalists in the country.
KENYA: Majority of Kenyans access Internet through mobile phones
Daily Nation
MAURITANIA: Police Beat Up, Arrest Journalists Covering Demonstration
MFWA: Police in Mauritania have physically assaulted journalists covering a demonstration in the capital, Nouakchott and arrested three of them.
MOROCCO: Pluralism is more than figures – RSF and Le Desk release Media Ownership Monitor Morocco findings
RSF: According to the MOM’s findings, nine of the 36 media companies involved in Morocco’s most influential media are directly linked to the state, the government or the royal family.
NIGERIA: Unknown Assailants Kill Third Journalist in Nigeria This Year
MFWA: In the third of such tragic incident in Nigeria since the beginning of 2017, unknown gunmen shot and killed a journalist working with the Anambra Broadcasting Service (ABS).
SOUTH AFRICA: SABC Condemns Harassment of Journalist At Zimbabwe Border
News24 (allAfrica): The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) has condemned the harassment of one of their journalists by police at the Beit Bridge border to Zimbabwe on Friday.
SOUTH AFRICA: Two-thirds of South African adults now online
Tech Central: About 65% of South Africans 16 and older now have access to the Internet, an increase of two percentage points on last year, according to new research commissioned by Google.
SUDAN: The battle for existence among Sudan’s journalists
Middle East Eye: In a country already renowned for its lack of press freedom, the Sudanese journalist community is decrying a draft law set to curtail their work even further.
ZAMBIA: Africa’s largest TV platform has a growing free speech and censorship problem
Quartz: Africa’s largest television platform has pulled a talk show after it asked questions about police brutality and media freedom in Zambia.
ZIMBABWE: Amid political turmoil in Zimbabwe, a fact-checking project prepares to launch
Poynter
ZIMBABWE: Zimbabwe takeover: Difficulties of navigating the media jungle
Deutsche Welle: Where to find the right information about the military coup in Zimbabwe? As Zimbabweans sift through the social media channels, it’s difficult to find outlets that one can trust.
GENERAL: Africa could have 75m digital homes by 2021
Advanced Television: Satellite broadcasting is helping drive digital adoption in Africa, according to a report from satellite operator Eutelsat.
Balancing Act: Africa’s broadcasters are facing a legion of challenges and need to find new ways to connect with their audiences to build loyalty.
CAMBODIA: Harassment of journalists accompanies ban on opposition party
RSF: After the arrests of three reporters in the past three days amid a crackdown on the opposition, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) relays the fears of Cambodia’s journalists and urges the government to stop harassing them and to guarantee their right to report the news.
CHINA: China denounces U.S. call to register Chinese journalists as agents
Reuters: China denounced on Thursday a U.S. congressional commission that accused its state media of involvement in spying and propaganda and called for their staff in the United States to be registered as foreign agents.
INDIA: A creeping quiet in Indian journalism? (Opinion)
Huffington Post: There is a creeping quiet spreading across India’s otherwise loud and lively journalism. Front pages, websites, and news programs are brimming with stories, but “people are afraid”, one editor told me recently in Delhi.
INDIA: Coming soon: All India Radio on Amazon Echo Dot
Asia Radio Today: All India Radio (AIR) is planning to introduce its services on Amazon’s Echo Dot speakers in the next three to six months.
INDONESIA: Indonesia’s green information gap
Aljazeera: How the Indonesian media toes the line between the need for economic development and environmental sustainability.
JAPAN: Dominance of big media firms in Japan hurts journalists: Kaye
The Asahi Shimbun: A U.N. rapporteur has said that the domination in Japan of huge media outlets has an adverse effect on investigative journalism.
JAPAN: UN rights panel questions Japanese media freedom and state secrets law
The Japan Times: Some United Nations members voiced concerns over press freedom in Japan on Tuesday at a meeting of a working group of the U.N. Human Rights Council.
PHILIPPINES: NUJP pushes for safety mechanism for journalists
SunStar Davao: Considering the risk that journalists face, the National Union of Journalists in the Philippines (NUJP) is pushing for the full implementation of United Nation (UN) Plan of Action for the Safety of Journalists, a safety mechanism to address threats and advancement of press freedom.
NORTH KOREA: How North Koreans bypass media censorship
Deutsche Welle: Some catch forbidden programming via shortwave radios, others secretly watch South Korean TV. Denied access to information from abroad, North Koreans have inventive ways of following the news.
SINGAPORE: Deadline for end of analogue TV broadcast extended to end-2018
ABU: Households will have one more year to switch to Digital TV after the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) announced on Monday last week that the deadline to pull the plug on analogue TV broadcast has been shifted from end-2017 to Dec 31, 2018.
THAILAND: Thailand’s internet freedom ‘in decline’
Bangkok Post: Thailand has been branded “not free” for internet freedom for the fourth consecutive year in the latest Freedom on the Net report.
THAILAND: Where doing journalism means ‘breaking the law’
CJR: “Since taking power, the junta has severely restricted media freedom and conducted extensive surveillance of the internet and other online communications,”.
AUSTRALIA: ABC Says No Plans to Turn Off Radio, TV Broadcasts
Content & Technology: Delivering the 2017 Hector Crawford Memorial Lecture at the recent Screen Forever conference in Melbourne, ABC Chairman Justin Milne outlined some of the challenges facing the national broadcaster and made a commitment to traditional broadcasting alongside newer forms of content delivery.
AUSTRALIA: ‘It’s confronting television’: Struggle Street goes broader for second season
The Guardian: After politicians blocked filming in Queensland and Melbourne, the controversial SBS series returns to tackle national issues.
AUSTRALIA: SBS Radio to add 7 new language services to 68-language program
RadioInfo: The 2016 Census revealed that more than 1.3 million people migrated to Australia during the past five years and nearly five million people speak a language other than English at home.
NEW ZEALAND: Govt will not sell TVNZ, but ‘explore all options’
RNZ: Broadcasting Minister Clare Curran is alarmed the previous government did nothing to address TVNZ’s declining revenue, despite being warned about it by officials earlier this year, she says.
PAPUA NEW GUINEA & NAURU: Manus Island: Australia pulling the media strings
Al Jazeera: Does Australia limit Manus Island and Nauru media access to outlets that toe the government’s line on immigration?
PAPUA NEW GUINEA: Papua New Guinea committed to revive Radio Stations
ABU: Minister for Communication, Information Technology and Energy Sam Basil wants all 22 provinces to have short wave frequency radio stations. He said this during the Central Province assembly induction program last month in Port Moresby.
SAMOA: Samoa libel law proposal worries journalists
RNZ: The journalists’ association in Samoa says it’s seriously concerned about a government proposal to resurrect libel laws that were repealed in 2013.
GENERAL: PMC focuses on Asia-Pacific ‘journalism under duress’ for 10th birthday event
Pacific Media Centre: The Pacific Media Centre at Auckland University of Technology is highlighting the threats to media freedom in the Asia-Pacific region in an event next week marking its 10th anniversary.
GENERAL: World Childrens Day: Pacific children take over media and entertainment
The Fiji Times: Children from across the Pacific today marked World Children’s Day by taking over key roles in media and entertainment to voice their support for millions of their peers who are unschooled, unprotected and uprooted.
ALBANIA: IPI condemns Albania PM’s anti-media remarks
IPI: Concerns for independence grow as Edi Rama blasts journalists at EU media conference
DENMARK: Danish trade secrets bill must protect whistleblowers
ECPMF: The Danish Union of Journalists (DJ) has criticised a draft law on trade secrets for failing to protect journalists’ sources and whistleblowers.
CROATIA: The lack of protection for whistleblowers in Croatia
Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso: In Croatia, as in other countries in the region, whistleblowers are not sufficiently protected and risk unemployment and social marginalisation.
GEORGIA: Bill could allow advertising on Georgian Public Broadcaster
OC Media: Georgia’s Parliament is considering allowing the Georgian Public Broadcaster (GPB) to air advertisements. The amendments to the Law on Broadcasting to remove restrictions on advertising were initiated by the GPB themselves.
GEORGIA: EBU Concerned at Georgian plans to remove minimum funding guarantee for PSM
EBU: The EBU has written to the Chair of the Georgian House of Representatives to express concern at the plans to remove the minimum funding guarantee for the Georgian Public Broadcaster (GPB).
HUNGARY: Analysis: Hungarian taxpayers fund unique ‘fake news’ industry
IPI: Media dependent on public money increasingly seen to act as vessels for pro-government propaganda
ITALY: Cardani: In the Rai service contract, better separation between licence fee and advertising (Italian)
Il Sole 24 Ore: Agcom’s president Angelo Marcello Cardani’s intervention at Rai’s Supervisory Committee contains many points of reflection on the 2018-2022 Service Conjuring Scheme that the Chairman of the Authority has placed at the attention of parliamentarians.
ITALY: RAI, children journalists and technicians for a day at the Macro in Testaccio (Italian)
Roma Today: The RAI Laboratory will be inside the RomaEuropa Kids until November 26th, to unveil the secrets of TV and Radio.
ITALY: TV rights, Rai and Sky together to beat Mediaset’s competition (Italian)
Calcio e Finanza: Rai and Sky together. This is the thought of recent days emerging in the mind of state TV, preparing for the rush for the acquisition of television rights related to Russia’s World Cup, for which it will face Mediaset as an opponent.
KOSOVO: Political Pressures Taking Toll on Kosovo Journalists: Report
Balkan Insight: Some media owners are using their outlets for political ends, Kosovo’s public broadcaster has been subjected to political interference, while working conditions for journalists remain poor, a new report says.
MALTA: The television post-mortem (Opinion)
Times of Malta: The EP resolution also highlighted concerns on the political independence of the Maltese media
MONTENEGRO: EBU appeals to Montenegrin parliament to protect governance of psm
EBU: The EBU has appealed to the Montenegrin Parliament to protect the decision-making capacity of RTCG’s Supervisory Council.
POLAND: European Parliament calls for respect for media freedom in Poland
EFJ: In the European Parliament plenary sitting in Strasbourg, 15 November 2017, the European Parliament called on Poland to respect the rule of law concerning media freedom, independence of the judiciary, freedom of assembly, sexual and reproductive rights, and asylum-seekers’ access.
ROMANIA: Romania: investigative journalists leave
Dilema Veche (via Osservatorio Balcani & Caucaso): Lately, in Romania, there have been more cases of journalists who have left the newspapers or televisions where they worked, many accusing editorial pressures.
RUSSIA: Russian Duma Takes Major Step In Approving Restrictions On Foreign Media
RFERL: The lower house of Russia’s parliament has adopted in their second reading amendments to the law on the mass media that would authorize the government to designate media outlets receiving funding from abroad as “foreign agents.”
RUSSIA: Journalists caught in crossfire of US- Russia ‘foreign agent’ tit-for-tat war
RFI: Russian MPs on Tuesday approved amendments to legislation to oblige foreign media outlets to register as “foreign agents”, a measure they previously applied to NGOs.
RUSSIA: Russia: Reject ‘Foreign Agents’ Media Bill
Human Rights Watch: Draft legislation pending in the Russian parliament to impose restrictions on foreign media would further undermine media freedom in Russia, Human Rights Watch said today.
RUSSIA: Russia retaliates after RT made to register as “foreign agent” in US
RSF: Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is alarmed by Russia’s quid-pro-quo response to the US government’s decision to make the Kremlin-funded TV channel RT register as a “foreign agent” in order to continue broadcasting in the United States.
SERBIA: Serbian Authorities ‘Obstructing’ Free Media, Journalists Say
Balkan Insight: Serbia’s independent investigative journalists share their experiences of the routine intimidation people in the media face in their work.
SERBIA: Serbian Journalists Seek Public Support For Media Freedom
Radio Free Europe: Journalists and activists in five Serbian cities launched a joint awareness-raising campaign called Noise Against Blackout on November 19.
SLOVAKIA: Intrigue, worry surround sale of key Slovak media
IPI: Regional oligarchs and Chinese conglomerate among potential buyers of TV Markiza and tabloid Nový Čas.
SPAIN: OTT gains momentum in Spain
Advanced Television: OTT TV platforms are becoming increasingly popular in Spain with four in every ten Spaniards watching streamed content via a TV set at least once a week.
SPAIN: Political groups will begin to outline the new direction of RTVE next week (Spanish)
El Diario: Next week, the Congress and the Senate will create a working group in order to outline the contest for the election of the new Board of Directors of RTVE.
SPAIN: RTVE completes the deployment of La 2 HD throughout Spain (Spanish)
RTVE: La 2 is already available in High Definition for all of Spain . After starting broadcasts in HD on October 31 in the regional capital of Madrid, began a phased start-up process in the different territories that has just ended.
SWEDEN: Swedish Radio’s NXG Project Moves Forward
Radio World: The technology lets journalists run entire show from a smartphone or tablet.
UK: BBC reportedly looking at £500m UKTV/Scripps buyout
Digital TV Europe: BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC, is considering a £500 million (€557 million) bid to take full control of UKTV, currently a joint venture with Scripps Networks Interactive.
BAHAMAS: Pm Finds Fault With News Media
Tribune 242: PRIME Minister Dr Hubert Minnis criticised the Bahamas media on Saturday for concentrating mostly on the “clashes and drama of politics” and under reporting “important and more consequential stories” on public policy.
BRAZIL: Strike paralyses EBC journalists and radio broadcasters in four states (Portuguese)
Brasil de Fato: Workers protest against lack of salary readjustments, benefits cutbacks and the dismantling of public media.
CHILE: Chilean Senate approves capitalizing public TV to overcome deficit (Spanish)
El Telégrafo: The Chilean Senate approved Tuesday to inject economic resources for 47 million dollars to the public channel TVN, which will allow it to face a deficit of millions that has been dragging this television signal in recent years.
ECUADOR: The Public Media of Ecuador launches its new image and editorial content (Spanish)
Andes: The public media of Ecuador are renewed, both in image and content, with the intention of providing objective information and quality to Ecuadorians.
PUERTO RICO: Education Week captures untold stories in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria
CJR: Mainland American news outlets largely faltered in early coverage of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. But when the press pilgrimage to San Juan finally happened, it included a two-man team from a small, niche education news outlet tucked into a corner of the Beltway.
VENEZUELA: Venezuela media law: ‘Threat to freedom of expression’?
Al Jazeera: Human rights groups have raised concerns over a media law, passed earlier this month in Venezuela, that they say could stifle freedom of expression and criminalise social-media users opposed to President Nicolas Maduro’s government.
GENERAL: With a little help from my audience
Deutsche Welle: Investigative journalism around the world is struggling to survive. But in Latin America, some upstart investigative websites are staying viable by keeping their audiences engaged and getting them involved.
SAUDI ARABIA: Saudi Arabia’s purge: A quest for media control?
AlJazeera: Examining the media coverage of Saudi Arabia’s purge and Saad Hariri’s resignation as Lebanese prime minister.
TURKEY: Crackdown Chronicle: Week of November 12, 2017
CPJ
TURKEY: Self-censorship in Turkey growing, journalists report
IPI: But despite arrests over online comment, alternative media still resists
TURKEY: Very polarised news media and high-level distrust of news in Turkey (Report)
RISJ: The Turkey supplementary report of the Digital News Report 2017 provides a more detailed examination of Turkish data on how people get news and use media.
CANADA: CRTC Broadcasting Report Tracks Behaviour, Trends & $s
FYI Music News: Canada’s telecom watchdog has released its annual Communications Monitoring Report that tracks the listening and viewing habits of Canadians, and reports on trends and revenues for radio, TV and television service providers.
CANADA: New award for Indigenous journalists
CISION: The Canadian Association of Journalists and JHR are pleased to announce a new journalism award: the JHR / CAJ Emerging Indigenous Journalist Award.
US: Chairman Steps Down As NPR Grapples With Harassment Crisis
NPR: As NPR’s Board of Directors meet in Washington, D.C., this week, the network finds itself confronted by a series of dispiriting developments: a CEO on medical leave; a chief news executive forced out over sexual harassment allegations; the sudden resignation of a board chairman; fresh complaints over inappropriate behavior by colleagues; and a network roiled by tensions over the treatment of its female workers.
US: NPR Board Of Directors Elects Paul Haaga As Chair, Jo Anne Wallace As Vice-Chair
NPR: NPR today announced that Paul Haaga has been elected by the NPR Board of Directors as Chair of the Board. Haaga first joined the board in 2011 and has served as Vice Chair of the Board and Chair of its Finance Committee.
US: The FCC just repealed a 42-year-old rule blocking broadcast media mergers
The Washington Post: Federal regulators rolled back decades-old rules on Thursday, making it far easier for media outlets to be bought and sold — potentially leading to more newspapers, radio stations and television broadcasters being owned by a handful of companies.
US: Trump abandons US commitment to press freedom while in Asia
RSF: Reporters Without Borders (RSF) deplores US President Donald Trump’s treatment of the press while on a ten day trip to Asia, which included stops in several countries that are home to some of the worst press freedom predators. The trip demonstrates a continuing decline in the US government’s willingness to defend press freedom in its bilateral and multilateral relationships with other countries.
8 reporters reflect on the challenges of covering sexual harassment
Nieman Reports: Journalists who break stories about powerful men who have sexually harassed or otherwise abused women face a host of challenges. […] Yet as difficult as such stories can be to nail down, journalists who have done so are well aware of the reporting that needs to be done on systems in place that enable harassers and silence victims.
Advocating for Openness: Nine Ways Civil Society Groups Have Mobilized to Defend Internet Freedom (Publication)
CIMA: Civil society groups from the Global South are leading the charge to advocate for an Internet that remains open, pluralistic, and democratic.
Ending The “Awkward Relationship” Between Women and News Media?
EJO: Most studies examining the awkward relationship between women and news media over the past 50 years have found that women are routinely under-represented in terms of both content and decision-making. The endurance of these inequalities over time indicates the issue is not about simple chance, talent or opportunity, but that it is structural and globally problematic.
Harvard experiment finds large effects from small news outlets
IJNET: Even small publishers have a large effect on the national discourse, according to a new paper published in Science on the effects of news.
Here are three tools that help digital journalists save their work in case a site shuts down
Nieman Lab: “So many people who work professionally on the Internet really don’t know, until too late, that their work is this fragile.”
How are the media covering the climate change threat?
Al Jazeera: A look at the challenges of environmental reporting and why the coverage seldom matches the urgency of the problem.
How ‘Digital-born’ media cover climate change in comparison to legacy media: A case study of the COP 21 summit in Paris (Research)
Global Environmental Change: “…while the general spectrum of themes is similar across media outlets, there are differences in the volume of the coverage and in the emphasis that is laid on different themes by some, but not all, of the new players compared to traditional media.”
How Disinformation And Distortions On Social Media Affected Elections Worldwide
NPR: Internet freedom is on the decline for the seventh consecutive year as governments around the world take to distorting information on social media in order to influence elections, a new report says.
Key media alliances celebrate the trustworthiness of TV on world television day
EBU: The European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the Association of Commercial Television in Europe (ACT) and egta, the association of television and radio sales houses are celebrating the trustworthiness of television on the occasion of World Television Day (21 November), as declared by the United Nations.
Measuring Impact: Best Practices in Gauging the Impact of Investigative Journalism (Publication)
GIJN: One would think there would be no debate about the importance of investigative journalism. But the collapse of the financial basis for journalism over the past 15 years has wrought many victims, and one of the biggest has been the investigative field.
Plenary: Investigating the New Autocrats
GIJC: More than 1 200 journalists from over 130 countries sat hushed in a hall in Johannesburg, South Africa, this morning, immersed in a story told by Filipino multimedia journalist Patricia Evangelista at the plenary session of the Global Investigative Journalism Conference 2017.
Survey on Violence against Women
IFJ: To mark World day for the Elimination of violence against women (25 November), the IFJ has compiled two surveys to monitor the state of violence against women media workers and understand better our affiliates’ response to this problem.
Trust in journalism and trust in political institutions go together (Research)
Journalism Research News: The results do not reveal whether politics affect trust in journalism or vice versa, the authors emphasize. However, the findings do suggest that the audience “may increasingly see both institutions as being part of the same game”.
Trust Project is launching a major effort today to help rebuild trust in the media
Poynter: An important new global initiative is launching today with the ambitious goal of creating transparency standards that help people easily assess the quality and reliability of journalism.
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Header image: KTVU Tower. Credits: Tony Webster/Creative Commons
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