Our weekly round-up of public service media related stories and headlines from around the world
As the global COVID-19 pandemic continues, the need for community solidarity and mutual support has never been greater. But this support requires quality, fact-checked and evidence based news and information.
With this in mind, the Public Media Alliance has compiled an extensive and growing list of resources featuring recommended tools, advice and sources for journalists and the public alike. The resources can be found via the link below or in the Tools section of our website.
If you have any recommendations, please let us know.
PSM Innovations
“PSM Innovations” is a new feature we’re launching this week and will become a regular part of the PSM Weekly. Every fortnight, PMA will pick an innovation being adopted by a public media organisation, to share. The term “innovation” will be used in a very broad sense – this is an opportunity to shine a spotlight on how public media is pushing boundaries, experimenting with new technologies, and coming up with solutions to new or existing challenges.
‘TAHI’ – RNZ’s new platform dedicated for young people
For many public media organisations, reaching younger audiences is an ongoing challenge. The new platform ‘TAHI’ is Radio New Zealand’s innovative response to this predicament.
Launched on 1st December 2021, TAHI is a new online, commercial-free and editorially independent platform created by – and for – rangatahi (the young people of Aotearoea, especially young Māori and Pasifika audiences aged 18-30). Its purpose is to connect young audiences with local music, stories, and culture. 40% of Tahi.fm’s music comes from local artists.
It is new territory for the public broadcaster. The service is 100% dedicated to young people and is a chance for RNZ to reach young people in a different, unconventional way, across platforms they already consume: Spotify, YouTube, and social media platforms. “We have done a great job of connecting with older New Zealanders,” said RNZ Music Content Director, Willy Macalister, “and now TAHI will give us an opportunity to reach younger audiences.” In its promise to its audience, TAHI vows that young people deserve “one space on the internet that’s not trying to get you to spend your cash, or to take your data and sell it to someone else. And that gives you good, trustworthy, information – not fake news.”
So far, TAHI has been well received by the music industry and audience feedback has all been overwhelmingly positive, Macalister said. But he reiterated that “this is just the start of TAHI, we really are at an embryonic stage of the project. There is so much more to come, and we are all super excited to share our vision of what public service media for young people looks like with the audience.” Things to look out for with TAHI in 2022 include original video series and podcasts. And audiences can also find out how to get involved as content makers.
If you have an innovation you think we’d be interested to hear about at your public media organisation, please get in touch with us at info@publicmediaalliance.org.
We also want to hear about your local public media coverage! Email us!
As the coronavirus pandemic worsens, public media are rapidly adapting to best cover the crisis on a local level while also providing for educational needs and vulnerable groups as isolation policies are introduced.
We want to hear from our members about what you are doing to best cover the crisis on a local level. Email us using the link below.
Coronavirus: Resources & best practices
Essential resources for sourcing and reporting news about the coronavirus pandemic
What we're reading...
Journalism, media, and technology trends and predictions 2022
Reuters Institute: 2022 will be a year of careful consolidation for a news industry that has been both disrupted and galvanised by the drawn-out COVID-19 crisis.
? What trends will be shaping #journalism in 2022?
This is the question at the heart of our annual ‘Trends and predictions’ report, authored by @nicnewman and based on a survey of 246 executives from 52 countries
? Read herehttps://t.co/GMjMmH9mIJ
? Key findings in thread pic.twitter.com/9BBguiRP7O— Reuters Institute (@risj_oxford) January 10, 2022
What we're listening to...
Freedom of expression in a pandemic
Article 19: As we begin to emerge from a pandemic that has gripped the world, Emily Hart speaks to experts in Brazil, Tunisia and Thailand about how freedom of expression has fared in their countries since the outbreak of Covid-19.
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Global Headlines
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EGYPT: Protesters Demand Delayed Salaries at State TV Building in Rare Demonstration (Paywall)
Worldview: Protesters demanded their delayed salaries and promotions in the lobby of Egypt’s state television building in Cairo in an apparently spontaneous demonstration.
GHANA: GBC set to revamp its infrastructural operations in the Regions
GBC: The Deputy Director-General of Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, Augustus Yamson, says strenuous efforts are being made to ensure that the obsolete equipment of the Corporation, including transmitters, in all the old ten regional capitals, are substituted with modern ones to withstand the competition of media industry in the country.
GHANA: GBC staff urged to match 2022 with confidence- DG
GBC: The Director-General of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation Professor Amin Alhassan has advised staff to match 2022 with confidence. He said every staff member should look forward to contributing his or her best towards a common GBC objective.
GHANA: GBC warns against piracy of 2021 AFCON content
GhanaWeb: The Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) has warned that any individual or organisation that broadcasts content from the 2021 African Cup of Nations (AFCON) without legal permission would face legal action.
NIGERIA: Broadcasting Organisations Of Nigeria (BON) Announces International Convention To Elevate Broadcasting And Digital Media Industry (Event)
BMA: BON and BMA are pleased to announce the convening of the forthcoming “Broadcasting And Digital Media Convention – Nigeria” scheduled to take place between Tuesday 22nd – Thursday 24th March 2022 in the City of Abuja, Nigeria.
NIGERIA: Radio Broadcasting License Set To Be Offered To Nation Building Agency
BMA: The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), a programme set up by the Government of Nigeria to involve graduates in nation-building and the country’s development, is set to obtain a radio broadcasting licence.
SOUTH AFRICA: Transnet’s sponsorship deals for SABC/TNA Business Breakfasts was irregular – State Capture report (Watch)
SABC: The first report of the Zondo Commission into State Capture has found that Transnet’s sponsorship of the SABC /New Age (TNA) Business Breakfasts for millions of rands between 2011 and 2017 was irregular.
UGANDA: Shaky civil peace as Uganda clamps down on critics, NGOs, media
The East African
BMA: Digital broadcasting services’ success is highly influenced by how broadcasters, telecommunication organisations, and regulators collaborate to ensure seamless extension in the delivery of cost-effective broadcasting services.
ZIMBABWE: Gilbert Nyambabvu quits ZBC, criticises its funding model
ZimLive: Gilbert Nyambabvu has left his role as director of digital and TV services at the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation after nearly three years with the public broadcaster.
REGIONAL: 2021’s Best Investigative Stories from Sub-Saharan Africa
GIJN: At a time when newsrooms in Africa are increasingly struggling with shortages of cash and threats to press freedom, the level of investigative journalism that emerged from sub-Saharan Africa in 2021 was remarkable.
REGIONAL: Africa’s Pay-TV Subscribers To Grow By 18 Million In The Next 5 Years – Research Says!
BMA: According to the most recent African pay-TV forecast from Digital TV Research, which aims to deliver cutting-edge business data for the television industry, Africa’s pay-TV subscriber base will rise by 18 million subscribers over the next five years, reaching 57 million by 2027.
AFGHANISTAN: How press freedom has crumbled since the Taliban takeover
DW: Thousands of journalists have lost their jobs in Afghanistan over the past few months, with many media outlets ceasing operations due to increasing security and financial challenges.
CPJ: When Armenia’s government took office after the 2018 Velvet Revolution, it seemed to usher in a new era of press freedom for the former Soviet Republic. But local journalists fear those days could be over.
CHINA: China state media’s spy spoof draws rare response from UK spy chief
HKFP: In his Thursday response, MI6 head Richard Moore tweeted: “Thank you for your interest (and the unexpected free publicity!)”
HONG KONG: Explainer: The decline of Hong Kong’s press freedom under the national security law
HKFP: HKFP rounds up press freedom incidents since the onset of the Beijing-imposed security law in June 2020.
HONG KONG: Hong Kong: Journalists remain defiant despite clampdown on media
DW: After two independent media outlets shut down in Hong Kong in recent weeks, journalists in the city describe how their once-thriving sector is now witnessing the end of an era.
INDIA: Doordarshan reaches more than 6 billion viewers in 2021
ABU: India’s public television service, Doordarshan (DD), reached more than 6 billion viewers across the country in 2021, government figures show.
INDIA: Hate speech and online abuse: India’s growing extremism problem (Watch)
Al Jazeera: Amid a spike in anti-minority hate speech, independent journalists in India uncover Hindu extremist gatherings and the truth behind a bizarre mobile app claiming to “sell” prominent Muslim women.
JAPAN: Japan’s opposition party funded online media
NHK: A Japanese online media platform has acknowledged that it received funds from the country’s largest opposition Constitutional Democratic Party.
KAZAKHSTAN: Independent media unable to cover protests in Kazakhstan
RSF: Independent journalists and media are having major difficulties covering the unprecedented anti-government protests in Kazakhstan.
KAZAKHSTAN: IPI condemns death of media worker killed amidst protests
IPI: The IPI global network today expresses sadness over the death of media worker Muratkhan Bazarbayev from the Kazakh broadcaster Almaty TV who was reportedly killed from gunshot wounds sustained while covering protests with his television crew.
MALAYSIA: CIJ and GERAMM Strongly Condemn the Ongoing Crusade to Silence Whistleblowers and Journalists
CIJ Malaysia: The Centre for Independent Journalism and Gerakan Media Merdeka are alarmed by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission Chief Commissioner, Tan Sri Azam Baki’s letter of demand, which sought the removal of two articles titled “Business ties among MACC leadership: How deep does it go? (Part 1) and (Part 2)” and an apology from investigative journalist, Lathiha Kunaratnamm within 14 days.
MYANMAR: UNESCO condemns killing of journalist in Myanmar
UN: Authorities in Myanmar are being urged to conduct a full investigation into the killing of a journalist last month, reportedly during an army attack in the southeast, the UN’s educational and cultural agency, UNESCO, said on Wednesday.
PAKISTAN: PFUJ demands apology from PML-N leaders for abusing journalists
Dawn: Expressing serious concern over [a] leaked audio clip of two senior PML-N leaders in which they are using abusive language against senior journalists and anchorpersons, the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) has demanded an apology from the party leadership.
PAKISTAN: PPF joins calls urging IHC to drop contempt case against journalists
Pakistan Press Foundation: Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF) joins appeals to the Islamabad High Court (IHC) to drop contempt proceedings against Jang Group Editor in Chief Mir Shakilur Rahman, Editor Aamir Ghauri and Editor Investigations Ansar Abbasi of the groups daily newspaper “The News”.
PHILIPPINES: Rappler at 10: Keeping the flame of independent journalism burning
Rappler: Decade-old Rappler is proof that despite pressure and attacks, critical and independent reportage will find a way to thrive.
TAIWAN: HK media say Taiwanese contravened security law
Taipei Times: Academia Sinica research fellow Wu Rwei-ren said it shows that ‘the laws enacted by the CCP are vastly different from those in democratic countries’.
THAILAND: Thai PBS launches new programs Excellent historical drama Screen to welcome the year of the Tiger (Thai – press release)
Thai PBS: Opening a new era 2022, Thai PBS is full. Prepare to create a new phenomenon Invade the value creation program that is connected to the people.
UZBEKISTAN & KAZAKHSTAN: Uzbekistan banned journalists and bloggers from covering events in neighboring Kazakhstan (Russian)
Azattyq / RFE/RL: Some bloggers and journalists from Uzbekistan trying to cover events in neighbouring Kazakhstan reported that they were summoned to law enforcement agencies, where they were asked to “write less on this topic”, “not to distribute videos” and “not to call for rallies.”
VIETNAM: Vietnamese Critics, Others Slam Journalist’s 9-Year Sentence
VOA News: The Dec. 14 sentencing of Vietnamese journalist Pham Thi Doan Trang, commonly known as Pham Doan Trang, to nine years in prison for “spreading anti-state propaganda” has angered members of the public here as well as observers outside the country.
AUSTRALIA: From taming ‘Big Tech’ to News Corp’s climate shift: The media moves that mattered this year (27 December – Paywall)
SMH: What a difference a year makes. Twelve months on from one of the worst years in history for the media sector, the strategic focus moved from cost cuts to growth.
ABC News: Being a community radio rock music DJ was not the career Alaina Earl planned, especially in a small town of just 9,000 people.
AUSTRALIA: Tasmanians turn to social media groups to find exposure sites and rapid antigen tests
ABC News: Anxiety over a lack of information about exposure sites has spurred the creation of Facebook groups.
NEW ZEALAND: Covid-19: Amid misinformation and scams, the Ministry of Health advises people to go to trusted sources
Stuff: The Ministry of Health says everyone has a responsibility to stop misinformation spreading, and encourages people to look for trusted sources regarding Covid-19 and vaccines.
NEW ZEALAND: Sky New Zealand strikes broadcast rights deal with Discovery Sports, PGA Tour (Paywall)
Telecompaper
REGIONAL: I had death threats for my reporting. Many journalists in the Pacific face huge dangers
The Guardian: Freedom of the press might be included in some constitutions of Pacific countries, but it often only works in theory.
BELGIUM: RTBF wants to switch off FM and DVB-T
Broadband TV News: The public broadcaster in French-speaking Belgium wants to switch off its digital terrestrial broadcasts by the end of the decade.
CZECH REPUBLIC: Medium-Wave Transmitters Go Dark for Czech Public Service
Radio World: Radiožurnál longwave service also shuttered at the end of 2021.
DENMARK: Henriette got a big surprise in the middle of working on DR’s digital plan (Danish)
DR: Henriette Marienlund was involved in developing DR’s digital plan, but along the way she was told that her director area, DR Medier, would close as part of the plan. Now she is in the process of setting the direction for DR’s drama content as the new fiction director. Here she talks about ‘a wild year’.
FINLAND: Yle more subtitles for live TV shows (Press release – Finnish)
Yle: Yle’s morning and TV shows will be programmed from the beginning of 2022.
FRANCE: Anne Holmès, director of French fiction at France Télévisions: “A good series must speak to the heart, the brain and the guts” (Listen – French)
FranceInfo: After years of reigning American series, French productions are now popular with viewers.
FRANCE: RADIO FRANCE supports the development of its digital offer with “Enter Free”, a new advertising campaign for the Radio France platform (Press release – French)
Radio France: Radio France is pursuing its strategy of ramping up digital with, after its highly successful mobile application, the official launch of the radiofrance.fr site, a unique gateway to all of its programs and content.
DJV: The same picture every week: thousands of people take so-called walks through the streets of German city centers, protesting against corona measures and mandatory vaccinations.
GERMANY: German public broadcasters eye move to web to reach audiences (Paywall)
Telecompaper: German public broadcasters ARD and ZDF could decide to migrate a number of so-called special TV channels to the internet or stop broadcasting them, said the head of the Bavarian Broadcasting Katja Wildermuth in an interview with Deutsche Presse Agentur (DPA).
GERMANY: Teaching materials for the ZDF television film “The Wannsee Conference” (Press release – German)
ZDF: On the 80th anniversary of the so-called Wannsee Conference on January 20, 2022, the ZDF is a program focus with the television film of the same name by Matti Geschonneck, a subsequent accompanying documentary and numerous in-depth articles in the ZDFmediathek and on the online platforms.
GERMANY: The German Association of Journalists advocates better cooperation between the police and the media (Press release – German)
DJV: Germany’s largest journalists’ organisation has put together what journalists should pay attention to during police operations in a flyer that DJV Federal Chairman Frank Überall presented at a press conference in Berlin today.
GREECE: In Greece, journalists feel the squeeze
CJR
IRELAND: ‘No reason’ why €420,000 public service media report not yet published, senator claims
The Independent (Ireland): Fianna Fáil senator Malcolm Byrne has called on the Government to publish its €420,000 report on the future of public service broadcasting funding.
LITHUANIA: Public Media and Democracy in Turbulent Times – Lessons From Lithuania (Blog)
EBU: A fragmented media landscape, political pressure, growing anti-media sentiment and attacks on journalists are the new realities in which public service media (PSM) has to operate.
MALTA: New PBS editor is former head of engineering at One Productions
The Shift: Charles Dalli, who has just taken on the role of editor at the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) has an employment history that includes a seven-year-stint with Labour Party media company One Productions Ltd, according to his own LinkedIn profile.
NETHERLANDS: Media freedom mission on the safety of Dutch journalists
IPI: The Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) is organising an international media freedom mission to the Netherlands … led by Free Press Unlimited and the European Center for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) and joined by the International Press Institute (IPI) and other consortium members.
NORWAY: NRK Super’s theme days on racism (Press release – Norwegian)
NRK: Every year, NRK Super focuses on a topic that can be challenging to talk to children about. Children who are exposed to racism sometimes experience that they are not believed when they tell about this.
POLAND: Veto of ‘lex-TVN’ a victory for media freedom
IPI: In late December, Polish President Andrzej Duda vetoed a controversial media bill that would tighten the rules around foreign ownership of media in the country, in a move press freedom watchdogs welcomed an important victory for media pluralism and independence.
SPAIN: The great little successes of the audience of La 2: programs designed “for an immense minority” (Spanish)
El País: Despite growing competition, the share of the public broadcaster’s screen has not stopped rising since 2017. The popularity of spaces such as ‘La mathematática del Mirror’, ‘Órbita Laika’ and ‘Versión española’ help this rise.
SWEDEN: New broadcast times for SVT’s late local news and Sportnytt (Press release – Swedish)
SVT: From 10 January, there will be new broadcast times for both SVT’s late local news and for late Sportnytt. Both receive earlier broadcast times and the intention is for more people to be able to take part in the programs.
SWITZERLAND: Voters to decide on more state aid for Swiss media
Swissinfo.ch: News organisations continue to face tough times: huge losses in advertising revenue, lower subscriptions and stiff competition from internet giants like Google.
UK: BBC seeks swift response to bus anti-Semitism story complaints
BBC: Complaints about how the BBC reported on an alleged anti-Semitic incident on a bus will be dealt with “as swiftly as possible”, the corporation has said.
UK: Deborah Turness appointed CEO, BBC News and Current Affairs
BBC Media Centre: The BBC has announced that Deborah Turness has been appointed as CEO, BBC News and Current Affairs. Deborah will join the BBC from ITN, where she is CEO.
BBC Media Centre: BBC England is launching a new series that puts current affairs into the hands of the people, telling their stories in their own words.
UK: NUJ calls ex-Culture Sec John Whittingdale’s BBC funding ideas ‘extremely dangerous’
Press Gazette: The National Union of Journalists has slammed ex-Culture Secretary John Whittingdale’s suggestion that the BBC could be funded through a combination of a government grant and a subscription as “extremely dangerous”.
REGIONAL: European Media Freedom Act: Commission launches public consultation (Public consultation)
European Commission: Today, the Commission publishes an open public consultation on the upcoming European Media Freedom Act, a landmark initiative announced by President von der Leyen in her 2021 State of the Union address to safeguard the pluralism and independence of the media in the EU internal market.
The Conversation: Rising numbers of European journalists are facing dangerous physical attacks as they try to cover news stories, according to recent reports.
REGIONAL: Local media for a better society (Croatian)
SNH: “Local Media for a Better Society” is a project jointly implemented by four journalist organizations in four countries – Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina – with the aim of building trust through cross-border cooperation and working together to build strong and professional local media.
ARGENTINA: Lean cows: Public Radio faces the year with few resources (Spanish)
Letra P: All national public agencies are waiting to know what strategy President Alberto Fernández will adopt to make the State work without the 2022 Budget project rejected by the Chamber of Deputies in December , but in Radio and Television of Argentina Sociedad del Estado already they were preparing for a year with few resources.
BRAZIL: 12 communication vehicles closed their doors in Brazil in 2021 (Portuguese)
Associação Brasileira de Imprensa: The closures affected all types of media, from print (newspapers and magazines) to online , as well as radio and television channels.
COSTA RICA: INNOVATIVE ENGLISH LEARNING PROGRAM LAUNCHES ON SINART CHANNEL 13 (Spanish – Press release)
SINART: The American Age of Learning Foundation and the National Radio and Television System -SINART-, joined forces to broadcast in Costa Rica a program with the aim of increasing opportunities to learn English, aimed at boys and girls from 3 to 11 years.
HAITI: THE ACM calls for end to violence in Haiti (Statement)
ACM: The Association of Caribbean Mediaworkers, ACM, is shocked and horrified at news of the savage, deadly attack on two journalists in Haiti on January 6.
JAMAICA: Jamaica Adopts NextGen TV
TV Tech: The Advanced Television Systems Committee has announced that the Caribbean island nation of Jamaica has adopted the ATSC 3.0/NextGen TV standard, making it the third nation in the world—after S. Korea and the United States—to adopt the advanced over the air standard.
MEXICO: Channel Once would add 15 million viewers and Imer would double its coverage in 2022 (Spanish)
El Economista: Canal Once and the Instituto Mexicano de la Radio are two public media that in 2022 could achieve a better performance and improve their coverage, after having obtained new spectrum frequencies and being able to deal with the budget cuts they have endured since Q4 it started.
MEXICO: Journalists suffer harassment and censorship in Tlaxcala: electoral authorities are obliged to guarantee freedom of expression (Spanish)
Article 19: During the month of December 2021, the journalists, Roberto Nava Briones, reporter in the media nowinformate.com, e-consultation and the press of Tlaxcala; and Yair Licona, reporter and host in the media RH Comunicaciones, Enlace Noticias and Televyn, have been victims of electoral harassment by the Complaints and Complaints Commission of the Tlaxcalteca Elections Institute (ITE).
NICARAGUA: Organisations call on Nicaraguan government to immediately free detained journalists
IFEX: IFEX-ALC and other rights groups condemn the Nicaraguan government’s many attempts to threaten and silence the country’s independent press, and stress that respect for the right to freedom of expression and information is crucial for the functioning of democratic societies.
PERU: RMP on César Acuña: “A politician who aspires to be president does not persecute journalists” (Spanish)
La República: Rosa María Palacios spoke of the cases of Christopher Acosta and Pedro Salinas, who are politically harassed by the journalistic investigations they have carried out.
PERU: The Sodalitium harassment of Pedro Salinas and Paola Ugaz (Spanish)
La República: The raid on the house of journalist Pedro Salinas, in Mala, in the early hours of Saturday morning, constitutes a brutal outrage that shows both the very poor situation of the Peruvian justice system, as well as the insatiable power of the Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana (SVC).
VENEZUELA: Censorship in Venezuela: Tareck El Aissami launched a campaign of harassment against Venezuelan journalists (Spanish)
Infobae: Esteban Trapiello , one of the front men for Tareck El Aissami , Venezuela’s Oil Minister, began a campaign of harassment against independent journalists from the Caribbean country.
REGIONAL: Freedom of the press and the future of communication in Latin America (Spanish)
La Estrella de Panamá: After hearing the ruling of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in favor of the Ecuadorian newspaper ‘El Universo’, experts highlight the importance of forging a roadmap to safeguard freedom of expression and journalistic integrity in the region.
PALESTINE: Hashtag Palestine: 1,033 violations of Palestinian digital rights during 2021 (Arabic)
MENAFN: “Hamleh – The Arab Center for Social Media Development” issued its seventh annual report, “The Hashtag Palestine”, in which it sheds light on the violations of digital rights that Palestinians and their supporters have been subjected to on the digital space.
PALESTINE: With No Israeli Reporters on the Ground, Gaza Remains Invisible to Public
The Media Line: Many Israelis use questionable resources upon which to draw knowledge about life in the coastal strip, while some Israeli journalists dream about returning to Gaza to do their job again.
TURKEY: 47 journalists sentenced to 133 years in prison in Turkey in 2021
Bianet: The Tigris-Euphrates Journalists Association has released its 2021 Report on Violations of Rights Against Journalists: “The government’s attitude, pressure and what is happening in terms of press freedom show us that Turkey is a prison for journalists.”
TURKEY: Survey: More than 70 percent of journalists struggle to make ends meet
Bianet: More than 85 percent of journalists apply self-censorship and are concerned that they might get into legal trouble because of their reports.
TURKEY: Top court orders gov’t to compensate outlets over ban on access to publications
SCF: Turkey’s Constitutional Court has ruled in favor of seven opposition media outlets, the access to whose reports and a column was blocked, ordering the Turkish government to pay each of them TL 8,100 ($585) in non-pecuniary damages, Turkish Minute reported on Friday.
YEMEN: The Yemeni Journalists Syndicate launches its annual report and monitors 104 violations of media freedoms in 2021 (Arabic)
Yemeni Journalists Syndicate (via Facebook): The report’s statistics show the continuing dangers against the press and journalists, and the poor, unsafe and most hostile media environment towards journalistic work in all of Yemen.
CANADA: Investigative Journalism Bureau begins Black Journalism Fellowship
The Varsity: With the help of several sponsors, U of T’s Investigative Journalism Bureau (IJB) has partnered with the Canadian Journalism Foundation (CJF) to create the Black Journalism Fellowship, which will provide Black journalists with the opportunity to contribute a series of articles on “topics of critical public importance.”
CANADA: The CBC has problems. Being too woke isn’t one of them (Paywall)
Toronto Star: The CBC has problems. An excess of wokeness isn’t one of them. Yet wokeness was the bogeyman a former temporary employee invoked in a blog that sent right-wing pundits into spirals of glee.
US: 60 Minutes Story Shows How StoryCorps’ ‘One Small Step’ is Bridging America’s Political Divide
CPB: One Small Step, a StoryCorps initiative bringing strangers from opposite sides of the political spectrum together for face-to-face conversation, is gaining recognition as an antidote to increasing political polarization across the country.
US: Free Expression in America Post-2020 (Report)
Knight Foundation: Free expression and the freedom of speech are cornerstones of American democracy. Yet the interpretation of the First Amendment continues to be a flashpoint in the 21st century as the nation debates how to apply these rights to our society.
US: “I want to go to the Ghislaine Maxwell trial”
CJR: At 3:55am in downtown Manhattan, on the tenth day of the United States of America v. Ghislaine Maxwell trial, a man lay diagonally on a folding chair, zipped into a hooded sleeping bag.
US: January 6 Riot Changes Conversation About Media Safety in US
VOA News: Attacks and threats to news crews covering events at the Capitol underscore growing hostility to media and need for better risk training, media experts say.
US: Jon Sopel: covering a political world in flux (Listen)
RNZ: Jon Sopel’s seven years as the BBC’s US correspondent, which has just ended, coincided with an extraordinary period in that country’s history.
US: Maine Public addresses ‘new urgency’ with video newscasts created for immigrants (Paywall – opinion)
Current: As a wave of refugees seeking asylum has flooded its state, Maine Public has launched a program offering weekly video newscasts in four languages to an increasingly diverse population.
US: NPR’s Student Podcast Challenge Opens For Middle & High School Students (Press release)
NPR: NPR’s fourth annual Student Podcast Challenge is back and now open for middle and high school students.
US: The head of New York Public Radio will take charge of Politico
The New York Times: Goli Sheikholeslami, the head of New York Public Radio, will become Politico’s new chief executive, Axel Springer announced on Monday.
US: The long road to diversifying PBS
Columbia Journalism Review
US: Who’s on the Public Media Honor Roll for 2021?
Current: Every year as part of our donor campaign, we invite readers to nominate someone who made a difference to them or to the field of public media. This year, we received 41 nominations.
Committee to Protect Journalists names Jodie Ginsberg as its new president
CPJ: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) today named Jodie Ginsberg as its new President. Ginsberg will succeed Joel Simon, who stepped down at the end of 2021 after leading the organisation for 15 years.
Freedom of expression in a pandemic (Listen)
Article 19: As we begin to emerge from a pandemic that has gripped the world, Emily Hart speaks to experts in Brazil, Tunisia and Thailand about how freedom of expression has fared in their countries since the outbreak of Covid-19.
How social media regulation could affect the press
CPJ
Join our global journalism seminar series online from January to March 2022 (Opportunity)
Reuters Institute
Journalism, media, and technology trends and predictions 2022
Reuters Institute: 2022 will be a year of careful consolidation for a news industry that has been both disrupted and galvanised by the drawn-out COVID-19 crisis.
MFRR Monitoring Report: 272 alerts in six months
IPI: Monitoring report documents increasing attacks on journalists.
New research shows how news coverage influences countries’ emergency aid budgets
Nieman Lab: “The bureaucrats we interviewed said that, in some circumstances, sudden and intense news coverage did increase levels of humanitarian aid — regardless of whether or not the crisis merited it.”
Edelman: Being a journalist right now is not easy. You face daily menace and harassment from every corner: repressive governments and would-be autocrats, abusive Tweets and Facebook posts, as well as physical threats and an unprecedented risk of being killed for your work.
Where does hate speech stand, where does freedom of expression?
Bianet: Considering hate speech outside the limits of freedom of expression is an example of the limitations on freedom of expression. This differentiation may be considered to indicate that the state is authorized to limit freedom of expression.
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