Our weekly round-up of public service media related stories and headlines from around the world.
Click on the drop-down menus below to reveal the latest regional stories.
ETHIOPIA: Ethiopian newspaper editor, bloggers caught in worsening crackdown
By the Committee to Protect Journalists: Ethiopia should immediately release all journalists detained amid an intensifying crackdown on the media, the Committee to Protect Journalists has said.
GAMBIA: Gambian Authorities Urged To Release Detained Journalists
By Jellofnews: Gambian authorities should immediately release a journalist and the head of the state-owned broadcaster who have been held without charge or access to their families or lawyers for a week, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said Friday.
NIGERIA: Resilient with a (mostly) good story to tell
By The Media Online: With 36 states and an internet savvy population of nearly 200 million people, Nigeria’s media scene continues to thrive despite challenges.
SOUTH AFRICA: Motsoeneng’s R600-million middle finger to SABC policy
By MyBroadband: A labour court case and details from SABC sources have revealed how executive Hlaudi Motsoeneng spent R600 million on local TV shows while defying the broadcaster’s commissioning policy.
TANZANIA: New media bill threatens press freedom in Tanzania
By the International Press Institute: Lawmakers urged to withdraw bill, allow time for further exchange of views with media sector.
ZIMBABWE: Zimbabwe’s tightening grip on online communications
By DW Akademie: After messaging services and social media helped fuel protests earlier in 2016, the Zimbabwe government is clamping down on cyberspace. With elections due in 2018, online rights are expected to erode further.
BANGLADESH: ‘Disciplinary guidelines for electronic media soon’
By the Dhaka Tribune: Government aims to strictly implement a Broadcast Commission Act in 2017 in order to regulate electronic media.
CHINA: Foreign journalists working in China face increased harassment
By The Guardian: Annual survey of international media correspondents finds that 98% of them do not believe Chinese reporting conditions meet international standards.
INDIA: Doordarshan – India introduces new channel for North-East region
By ABU
INDIA: Prasar Bharati gets ready to launch new channel for north east India
By the Public Media Alliance: The Indian public broadcaster will launch a new Doordarshan channel in a bid to enhance its reach in the region.
INDONESIA: Govt renews TV permits, but problems persist
By The Jakarta Post
JAPAN: NHK’s role as Japan’s public broadcaster should be carefully scrutinized
By the Chicago Tribune: How should Japan’s broadcasting industry deal with the fusion of broadcasting and communications now under way in the world? This is a major issue for the industry.
MALDIVES: Defamation penalties for the press detailed in new regulation
By the Maldives Independent: The government has published a detailed regulation on imposing fines against journalists and media outlets found guilty of flouting a controversial defamation law.
MALAYSIA: Malaysian editors charged with ‘intent to annoy’ after reporting on 1MDB
By The Guardian: Amnesty says hauling of Malaysiakini journalists before specially convened ‘cyber court’ is the latest move to stifle non-government media.
MALAYSIA: Who controls the media? BN hypocrisy exposed
By Malaysiakini: MP SPEAKS Last week, red-shirt vigilante members protested twice outside the offices of leading independent news voice Malaysiakini, only to be followed by a raid and seizure of their computers by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC).
MYANMAR: Myanmar media survey shows demand for continued reform
By Mizzima: Article 19 survey shows growing demand for legal reform on freedom of expression.
NORTH KOREA: BBC World Service to broadcast news programmes in North Korea
By The Guardian: Proposal is part of broadcaster’s plan to bring its services to 500 million people by its centenary in 2022.
PHILIPPINES: Duopoly in the Philippine media
By Reporters Without Borders: Despite a high number of media outlets and being described as one of the most freewheeling media systems in the region, Philippine media continue to be owned by and to depend on the economic and political elite.
THAILAND: In rare win for media, Thai court throws out defamation charge brought by gold miner
By The Straits Times: A Thai court on Wednesday (Nov 16) threw out defamation charges against a news agency for alleging environmental damage by a gold mine, a lawyer said, in a rare win for press freedom in the country.
VIETNAM: In Vietnam, Digital is Democratising
By CIMA: Vietnam has long been a place where media and newspapers are under strict control both by the government as well as the propaganda departments of the communist party.
AUSTRALIA: Fake news spread on social media could influence Australian elections, commentators say
By ABC News: Concern is growing that future Australian elections could be influenced by the rise of fake news on social media.
AUSTRALIA: SBS launches controversial new channel Viceland
By The Australian: Television viewers yesterday got their first taste of controversial new SBS channel Viceland as the public broadcaster unveiled its wider plans for 2017.
AUSTRALIA: SBS will inspire Australians with a distinctive slate for 2017
By SBS
FIJI: Fiji media authority urged to reveal FBC TV findings
By Radio New Zealand: The Fiji media authority is being urged to deliver its findings into complaints about controversial content aired on an FBC TV language programme last month.
NEW ZEALAND: Shaken into action
By Radio New Zealand: When disaster strikes, the demand for news is immediate and intense – but the chaos makes it much harder for the media to get what people want. How did media in NZ respond to last week’s earthquake?
By OSCE
BELGIUM: Media accuracy questioned by more than a third of Belgians
By The Brussels Times: A staggering 44% of Europeans and 35% of Belgians do not think the media in their respective countries disseminate “reliable” news.
By Fairpress
CZECH REPUBLIC: OSCE Representative urges Czech Parliament to abolish amendment criminalizing defamation of president
By OSCE: OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatović today urged members of the parliament in the Czech Republic to abolish an amendment making defamation of the country’s president a criminal offence.
GERMANY: The Internet Will Top TV in Germany for First Time in 2017
By Bloomberg: Adults in Germany will spend more time online than watching TV for the first time next year as more content migrates to streaming platforms, according to research firm EMarketer Inc.
GERMANY: Reporting the rise of the right
By Aljazeera: We look at claims from Germany’s anti-immigrant party about media bias and alleged failure to report objectively.
GREECE: Greeks have no trust in media, survey shows
By Ekathimerini: Just 26 percent of Greeks believe the country’s national media is trustworthy, according to a Eurobarometer survey for 2016.
IRELAND: TV3 owner Virgin’s £10m takeover of UTV Ireland is approved
By the Irish Independent: TV3-owner Virgin Media has been given the green light to press ahead with the acquisition of UTV Ireland.
KOSOVO: Violence, threats and impunity continue to plague the media
By Index on Censorship: A series of attacks and death threats towards journalists and broadcasters has stirred unrest amongst journalists in Europe’s youngest country.
UK: BBC World Service announces biggest expansion ‘since the 1940s’
By BBC News: The BBC World Service will launch 11 new language services as part of its biggest expansion “since the 1940s”, the corporation has announced.
UK: Brexit fears raised over UK’s status as Europe’s broadcast centre
By The FInancial Times: International TV companies use UK as hub to beam across EU.
UK: Call for the digital giants to fund public service reporting
By The Guardian: Academics, politicians and trades unionists seek a way to ensure that Google and Facebook pay a 1% levy in order to support new news providers.
GENERAL: A tale of two Europes: Public Service Media and societies in transition
By SEENPM: The European continent is still subdivided into two parts, due to the legacy from recent history. Experiences in some Eastern European countries today remind us of the pressing problems regarding Public Service Media (PSM) amid a transformation not yet completed.
GENERAL: Conference Urges Parliaments to Protect PSM Independence
By EBU: Over 100 delegates from 19 countries in Central & Eastern Europe (CEE) and beyond came together in Prague last week to discuss the need to protect the independence and sustainability of public service media (PSM) in the face of numerous challenges.
GENERAL: Public media boost confidence in news
By SwissInfo.ch: Publicly funded news outlets elevate people’s overall trust in journalism, according to a Swiss research team.
BRAZIL: Dismantling of public media promotes government propaganda (Portuguese)
BY RBA: Reproduction on TV Brazil of the president’s interview to “Roda Viva” is a major example of misuse of the public media.
COLOMBIA: Journalists in Barranquilla protest because of threats against their colleague (Spanish)
By El Tiempo: Lucy Flórez, of the news program Las Noticias, was threatened for a report last weekend.
PERU: Journalist killed in Peru during radio broadcast
By Knight Center for Journalism: Hernán Choquepata Ordoñez, Peruvian journalist from La Ribereña radio station, was broadcasting music for his program “Habla el pueblo” (“The town speaks”) when unidentified men entered the booth and gave him a beating that ended up taking his life on Nov. 20, reported newspaper La República.
GENERAL: Digital media in Latin America increasingly fund their projects thanks to crowdfunding
By Knight Center for Journalism: Through crowdfunding campaigns, also known as microfinancing, or participatory financing, a growing number of Latin American digital news media are able to fund much of their journalistic research and projects.
EGYPT: Union head imprisoned in Egypt for harbouring wanted journalists
By Middle East Monitor: The head of the journalists’ union and two of its board members were sentenced to two years in prison by an Egyptian court on Saturday.
ISRAEL: Erdan tells Knesset he’ll vote against dismantling broadcaster
By The Times of Israel: Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan — formerly the communications minister — says he will vote against any proposal to dismantle the new public broadcaster.
ISRAEL: Netanyahu’s new target: Israel’s media
By Al-Monitor
OMAN: In Oman, Independent Media Suspended Until Further Notice
By Global Voices: Oman’s first independent online newspaper, Albalad, put an end to its operations on October 30.
TURKEY: Governments urged to press Turkey on media freedom
By the International Press Institute: IPI joins call by ACM urging states to speak out, refrain from deepening ties.
TURKEY: How Turkey is strangling the internet – and hurting media freedom
By Middle East Eye: Ankara’s clampdown on internet access after major incidents is expanding more and more, report finds.
CANADA: Ottawa pressed to curb CBC’s growing digital presence
By The Globe and Mail: Private media companies are decrying the CBC’s growing presence on the Internet and in the digital advertising market, calling on Ottawa to rein in the Crown corporation in order to salvage the production of local news and investigative journalism across the country.
CANADA: RSF alerts Prime Minister Trudeau of concerns about deteriorating press freedom in Canada
By Reporters without Borders: Letter voicing concern of RSF regarding press freedom in Canada.
US: What Donald Trump’s Presidency Could Mean for PBS
By Variety.com
US: CPB Seeds ‘Big Footprint’ Collaboration
By Broadcasting & Cable: TV-radio joint licensees to plant collaborative journalism test beds.
US: ‘Radio Ambulante’ joins NPR distribution as network’s first Spanish-language podcast
By Current: Radio Ambulante, the Spanish-language narrative podcast that tells stories of Spanish speakers across the Americas, is joining NPR’s stable of podcasts this month.
US: Theories of American Media Failure: A Post-Election Map
By Media Power Monitor: Everybody agrees that media helped, to a great extent, make Trump president. So what went wrong? The week after election day, theories about media failure flooded American public sphere. Minna Aslama summarizes them.
3 Reasons why messaging apps are key to media freedom
By CIMA: Governments around the world are targeting encrypted messaging apps, like WhatsApp and Telegram, which can be used to spread news and information quickly and securely.
Analysis Of the Relation Between and Impact of Public Service Media and Private Media
By Reuters Institute: The purpose of this report is to map relevant academic and stakeholder (industry/regulatory) research on the relation between public service media and private sector media with regard to their political impact, social impact, and market impact.
Three ways to fight corruption in the media
By Transparency International: When consuming news media: buyers beware. Although a free and independent media is a key ingredient of democracy, this has never meant the media is unbiased.
Media & conflicts: dangerous liaisons an INFOCORE study reveals
By Euronews: In a world torn apart by conflicts old and new, the issue of the media’s role seems to have growing importance. Media coverage of atrocities committed during wars is opening up debate on the power images have to influence public opinion and political decisions.
World TV Day: what the world is watching
By Broadband TV News: Article highlighting television’s continuing popularity
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All PSM Weekly stories are provided for interest and their relevance to public service media issues, they do not necessarily reflect the views of the Public Media Alliance.
All headlines are sourced from their original story.
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Header image: Broadcast. Credits: Chris Nunnery/Creative Commons
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