Our weekly round-up of public service media related stories and headlines from around the world.
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ANGOLA: President João Lourenço Dismisses CEO of Public Television
Via All Africa: The Angolan President, João Lourenço, last Tuesday dismissed José Fernando Gonçalves Guerreiro as C.E.O of the Public Television of Angola (TPA), to which post he had been appointed in November 2017.
ETHIOPIA: Newspapers for rent, but who’s buying in Ethiopia?
DW: In Ethiopia, reliable information can be hard to come by. Confidence in the media is faltering and many people can’t afford to buy a newspaper even if they wanted to.
SOUTH AFRICA: Media industry needs to introspect to ensure accuracy and ethics, says Sanef
The Citizen: Sanef’s research shows the media industry is facing a number of threats, including complaints of inappropriate managerial interference in editorial spaces.
SOUTH AFRICA: SABC: We’re Serious About Upholding Editorial Independence
Eyewitness News: The public broadcaster is probing possible breaches in its editorial code at its Polokwane newsroom over the coverage of the VBS Mutual Bank debacle.
SOUTH AFRICA: Sexism persists in SA media (Press Release)
Gender Links: Despite the equal proportions of women men in the media sector the media is still not a very friendly environment for women to work in.
SOUTH AFRICA: South African minister slams SABC cut-back plans
Digital TV Europe: South African communications minister Nomvula Mokonyane has pushed back against plans by public broadcaster SABC to engage in concerted cost-cutting to turn its fortunes around.
TUNISIA: IFJ welcomes a historic agreement to strengthen the safety of journalists in public media
IFJ: The preamble of the agreement emphasises the importance of protecting the freedom of expression as a means to bringing about a democratic society, the significance of strengthening the value of public service broadcasting and stress the need to guarantee journalists’ social and professional rights as the basic foundation for media freedom.
ZAMBIA: Decision to merge ZNBC with Star Times was made in public interest – CCPC
News Diggers: CCPC Board Chairperson Kelvin Bwalya Fube has clarified that it is not true that ZNBC has been sold and the decision to merge the public broadcaster with Star Times was made in public interest.
ZAMBIA: ZNBC Board Chairperson refutes reports of take over of ZNBC by China’s Star Times
Lusaka Times: Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation Management has issued a statement saying that it is not true that the National Broadcaster has merged with Star Times.
ZIMBABWE: Reforming the media in post-election Zimbabwe
NewsDay
BANGLADESH: Bangladesh: Crackdown on Social Media
Human Rights Watch: Ahead of Elections, Government Won’t Tolerate Criticism
BANGLADESH: Restrictive broadcasting bill endorsed by Bangladesh government
IFJ: Under the draft legislation, a broadcasting commission would also be established to help ‘regulate the electronic media in keeping with the international practices and standard for ensuring objectivity, neutrality and accountability of mass media’.
CHINA: China is broadening its efforts to win over African audiences
The Economist: China’s state-run news outlets are struggling to win African audiences
South China Morning Post: Meanwhile, delegation head who quoted China’s propaganda chief during live broadcast says he is considering legal action over ‘untrue’ coverage of saga.
South China Morning Post: Former television anchor says there is ‘insufficient evidence’ of threat to journalistic freedom. Local media should make it clear there is no room for discussion of city’s independence, she adds.
INDIA: Broadcasters reaping benefits of integration between TV, digital: EY study
Television Post: With 30% of the time spent on the mobile device being on entertainment, the second screen has emerged as a natural extension for broadcasters to engage with their viewers.
INDIA: Hindu fundamentalists attack women reporters in Southern India
RSF: While covering the opening of Sabarimala temple yesterday, dozens of journalists, above all women journalists, were attacked with unprecedented violence by hundreds of Hindu fundamentalist protesters opposed to an Indian supreme court decision to lift a ban on women aged from 10 to 50 from entering the temple.
INDIA: Times Bridge and South China Morning Post Announce Strategic Partnership
Cision PR Newswire: As a part of this alliance, select content from SCMP will be published on Times of India’s digital, mobile and web platforms, and Times of India will be SCMP’s primary partner in India for content syndication. This partnership will be the first of its kind between SCMP and any media company in India. The unique alliance will give Times of India’s readers access to international news from China and Hong Kong.
INDIA: Panic Attacks, Uncertain Paycheck: What’s Behind India’s #MeToo Campaign
NDTV: For Indian women, Twitter and Facebook offer a safe space to narrate their stories, and the naming and shaming has been loudest on social media. This contrasts with the US, where the initial bombshell accusations were first published in well-respected, national publications.
JAPAN: NHK outlines 4K and 8K channel plans
Advanced Television: Japan’s public broadcaster NHK used MIPCOM to expand on its December 1st launch date for two new Ultra HD channels. One will broadcast in 4K, and the other in ‘Super Hi-Vision’ 8K – a world’s first for this maximum-definition broadcasting model.
MALDIVES: Press freedom in Maldives: “I honestly think it is too soon for anyone to relax”
Index on Censorship: After five years the president of the Maldives may be on his way out — but no one is celebrating yet.
PAKISTAN: Pemra to be replaced by new authority: Fawad
The News: Minister for Information and Broadcasting Chaudhry Fawad Hussain Thursday said the government would abolish Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) and replace it with Pakistan Media Regulatory Authority (PMRA) that would regulate all forms of media.
PAKISTAN: Why Are Pakistanis Unable To Connect With The Digital Rights Movement?
Open Internet for Democracy: Despite the fact that nearly 50 million Pakistanis now use the internet and the number of cybercrime cases is increasing, why do some people in Pakistan consider digital rights as a non-issue?
AUSTRALIA: ABC Acting Chair Responds to Minister for Communications and the Arts
ABC: On 14 October, Dr Kirstin Ferguson, Acting Chair of the ABC, received a letter from the Minister for Communications and the Arts seeking assurance from the Board that it has upheld its duty to maintain the independence and integrity of the Corporation, and in relation to the independent ABC investigation into certain matters raised by the former Managing Director.
AUSTRALIA: ABC’s longest serving content director Michael Mason quits broadcaster
The Guardian: Mason says departure is ‘in no way linked’ to those of Justin Milne and Michelle Guthrie
AUSTRALIA: What is defamation and where do we draw the line in Australia?
SBS: Several high profile Australians have become embroiled in defamation cases, but anyone could find themselves accused.
AUSTRALIA: What just happened at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation?
CJR: On September 24, Michelle Guthrie, the managing director of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, was sacked by the public broadcaster’s board—just halfway through her five-year term. The ensuing fallout led the Australian news cycle for days.
FIJI: Fiji media kept away from royal visit
RNZ: Islands Business said only international media and staff from the government’s Department of Information will be part of the press pool granted access to public engagements.
NEW ZEALAND: Lasting Impressions: when papers were the only news
RNZ: The days of printed newspapers may be numbered in the digital era, but until the 1920s there were no other news media at all – and New Zealanders were eager readers. Historian and author Ian F Grant tells Mediawatch about what we can learn from the papers of a century ago.
NEW ZEALAND: The data does lie: how Facebook’s fake video stats smashed NZ journalism
The Spinoff: A lawsuit has revealed Facebook inflated its video statistics for years, inspiring the ‘pivot to video’ which made thousands of journalists redundant. Duncan Greive looks at its impact on New Zealand.
TOKELAU: In Tokelau, newspapers plot way forward for youth and unity
RNZ: On the second floor of a small building in the Tokelau atoll of Atafu, Hihilia Falani and Tilau Kirifi are hard at work at something with little precedent in the territory: a newspaper.
CRIMEA: Polluted By A War of Words
Coda Story: When a Crimean town was engulfed by toxic gas, public safety concerns were lost in a cloud of disinformation
DENMARK: How The Danish Broadcasting Corporation Is Bled To Death
EJO: The effect is dire: The new public service contract will give Danes less good journalism on TV, radio and online.
FINLAND: Hanne Aho: Justice served in fake news convictions
The Union of Journalists in Finland: The Helsinki District Court has sentenced the producers of the far-right fake news website, MV-lehti, for crimes that include the systematic persecution and defamation of journalist Jessikka Aro.
FINLAND: Journalism Day called to put climate change on news agenda
The Union of Journalists in Finland: This year’s Journalism Day opened with a clarion call on journalists to pay close attention to the looming threat of climate change in their work.
FRANCE: 30% of French internet users subscribe to SVOD service
Broadband TV News: According to the latest SVOD Barometer conducted by Médiamétrie, 30% of French online users aged six years and older used an SVOD service during the past 12 months, which is 10 points higher than in December 2017.
FRANCE: Franck Riester: “Advertising is not the priority on public audiovisual groups” (French – Interview)
France Inter: “We have a real need for public media: in terms of information, entertainment, creation, we must provide France with a modernized device that mobilizes its resources on content and programs rather than on logistic.”
FRANCE: Is there a specific management problem in public broadcasting? (French)
The Conversation: French public broadcasting is entering a new phase of reforms . Among the many reproaches made by the presidential majority, the inability to govern businesses is one of the least spectacular, but one of the heaviest. Does public broadcasting have a specific management problem, or is the problem more serious?
HUNGARY: Exporting Hungary’s media model
Aljazeera: How Viktor Orban’s allies are promoting the prime minister’s pan-European agenda through media investments.
ICELAND: Ending Exclusion: Iceland’s Public Broadcaster Increasing English Service
Grapevine
IRELAND: RTÉ chief blames Brexit and online giants for fall in revenue
The Independent: RTÉ director general Dee Forbes said she expects the broadcaster to suffer another drop in commercial revenue, blaming Brexit and advertisers flocking to internet giants.
ITALY: MIPCOM: Rai’s Head of Fiction on the Italian Public Broadcaster’s Global Success
The Hollywood Reporter: The Italian public broadcaster’s Eleonora Andreatta discusses the slate of international co-productions, including ‘Medici: The Magnificent’, ‘My Brilliant Friend’, ‘In the Name of the Rose’, ‘Leonardo’ and ‘The Kingdom.’
MALTA: Efforts to find mastermind in murder of Malta journalist Caruana Galizia stalled
CPJ: Journalists don’t typically get murdered in Western European democracies that are members of the European Union. Which is why the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia in Malta last year was so shocking, and the lack of progress on finding the mastermind so disturbing.
RUSSIA: Russia’s Novaya Gazeta is sent funeral wreath and goat’s head in latest threats
CPJ: A funeral wreath, a severed goat’s head, and threatening notes were sent to the newspaper’s Moscow office this week in what the paper said in an editorial statement were the latest threats against its journalists.
SPAIN: Facebook does not clarify what concrete measures will be taken to avoid the ‘fake news’ during the next elections in Spain (Spanish)
infoLibre: Asked about how they will face the Andalusian, municipal and European elections, the social network explains that “before each electoral process the company seeks the best way to monitor and manage any problem that may arise”
SPAIN: How to digitize public media? Telefónica, EiTB, RTVE and La Ser discuss it together with CMM in Albacete (Spanish)
CMM: Experts and directors of Telefónica, EiTB, Cadena Ser, CMM and RTVE have debated this Thursday in Albacete about the opportunities and risks of public broadcasting in the historic process of digital transformation that is experienced globally.
SPAIN: The examination of the candidates’ applications for RTVE culminates this Wednesday and the evaluation of their projects for the public broadcaster begins (Spanish)
InfoLibre: The chairman of the Committee of Experts believes that the work will end in three weeks, after which they will offer the Parliament a list with the twenty best-rated names,
SWEDEN: More and more Swedes reading misleading anti-immigrant news sites
Open Democracy
SWEDEN: Teracom welcomes recommendations to keep public service broadcasting remit unchanged
Telecompaper: Broadcasting transmission company Teracom said a government analysis has found that its public service remit should remain the same as far as coverage and the number of terrestrial stations is concerned.
SWITZERLAND: Swiss media stuck in negative spiral
SwissInfo: The Swiss media landscape remains of high quality but an “alarmingly high” concentration is a real problem for democracy, according to an annual analysis. What’s more, advertising in the online media is being decimated by Google and Facebook and jobs in journalism are disappearing.
UK: BBC News CEO Jim Egan: ‘We’re in a battle for survival for quality journalism’
Digiday
UK: If you’re poor in the UK you get less, worse news — especially online, new research suggests
Nieman Lab: Poorer people are less likely to go straight to a news site, and the researchers found no online news brand that was read by significantly more poorer people than wealthier people.
UK: ITV chief: now is last chance to build British challenger to Netflix
The Guardian: The chief executive of ITV has said now is the last chance for UK broadcasters to build a British Netflix, as the US streaming giant continues to grow at breakneck speed.
UK: UK government unveils details of £60m kids TV fund
Digital TV Europe: The UK government has announced the final details of a £60 million fund that aims to halt the decline of UK-produced children’s TV content.
UKRAINE: Ukrainian pubcaster worries EBU
Broadband TV News: The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) has expressed concerns about plans to further cut the funding of the Ukrainian public service broadcaster UA: PBC by 43% in 2019.
GENERAL: New EU directive could improve freelance journalists’ working conditions
EFJ: On 18 October, the Employment Committee of the European Parliament (EMPL) voted on a draft Directive on Transparent and predictable working conditions.
REGIONAL: The Worrying State Of Journalism In Post-Soviet Countries
EJO: The post-Soviet space remains one of the most dangerous regions for journalists and journalism in general. Authoritarian regimes and military conflicts make life hard for reporters. Free and open media are increasingly under threat, journalists cannot work independently and, what is perhaps most worrying, they increasingly face physical threats.
ARGENTINA: Argentina: justice ruled in favor of Télam workers (Spanish)
IFJ: The National Labor Court No. 22 has once again considered that the plan, which involved the dismissal of up to 357 workers from the agency last June, did not comply with the “procedure established for cases of mass dismissals” and has demanded reincorporation of 138 employees as a precautionary measure.
ARGENTINA: “Never before has there been as much press freedom as now” (Spanish)
Tiempo Argentino: President Macri closed the SIP assembly. He did not mention the emptying of the public media system or the 3000 jobs lost in the press in just two years.
BRAZIL: Bolsonaro poses a serious threat to press freedom and democracy in Brazil
RSF: A 63-year-old former army officer, Bolsonaro announced just minutes after the first-round results that he intended to “put a final stop to all forms of activism in Brazil,” succinctly summarizing his authoritarian and reactionary ideology.
TRINIDAD & TOBAGO: CBU Alarmed By Killing Of Media Worker In Trinidad And Tobago
The Gleaner: The Caribbean Broadcasting Union (CBU) is expressing shock at the killing of former talk-show host, Ricardo Welch, also known as the ‘Gladiator’, who was attacked and shot to death last week.
Knight Center: On its site, the IAPA highlights the need to defend the freedoms of expression and the press as inalienable rights, with equal access to the internet being one of the fundamental principles of the recently signed Declaration of Salta.
Knight Center: “It is a genre in which writing has aesthetic ambition and investigation has depth.”
REGIONAL: SIP sees “devastating panorama” in journalism and alerts Venezuela and Nicaragua (Spanish)
La Vanguardia: The Inter-American Press Association (SIP) warned today, at the close of its 74th General Assembly, of the “devastating” panorama in which journalism moves in America, especially because of the situation of “severed freedoms” in Venezuela and Nicaragua and the 30 journalists murdered so far this year.
IRAN: Tightening the net: The internet in the time of currency crisis
Article19: Iran has been rocked by a turbulent few months. A winter of protests and political tensions have driven more crackdowns on freedoms while the US’s decision to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal has weakened an already unstable economy.
SAUDI ARABIA: Jamal Khashoggi death: give us the facts, western countries tell Saudis
The Guardian: UK, France and Germany urge Riyadh to urgently clarify what happened to journalist.
SAUDI ARABIA: Khashoggi misinformation highlights a growing number of fake fact-checkers
Poynter: Days after the reported murder of Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, misinformation has ballooned.
TURKEY: Turkey should look to its own brutal treatment of journalists
The Guardian: We must not forget the country’s appalling treatment of its own dissidents since the failed coup in 2016
CANADA: CBC staff push back as broadcaster opts not to air live coverage of Ontario’s municipal elections
The Globe and Mail: Newsroom staff at CBC Ottawa criticized the public broadcaster’s decision to not air live coverage of Ontario’s municipal election on television, penning a letter to management saying the move will do “long-term damage to the CBC and will inevitably erode our standing with our audience and Canadians at large.”
CANADA: London Morning takes the bus
CBC/Radio-Canada: There are many ways to establish a brand locally and reach out to the community. On October 12, CBC London’s morning show, London Morning, did it by taking the bus!
US: Craigslist founder donates $2.5M to New York Public Radio (Paywall)
Current
Nieman Lab: “I didn’t see how we could justify standing on tradition when it was causing that kind of suffering…It really comes down to: How long does somebody have to pay for a mistake?”
US: ‘He’s my guy’: Donald Trump praises Gianforte for assault on Guardian reporter
The Guardian: President’s comments at Montana rally in praise of violence against US journalist come amid international outcry over Khashoggi.
US: NPR Names Nancy Barnes Senior Vice President Of News And Editorial Director
NPR
4 Digital Security Tips Every Journalist Needs to Know
GIJN: At the Uncovering Asia 2018 conference in Seoul, Chris Walker, a digital security expert from the Tactical Technology Collective, shared key tips that journalists can implement today to protect themselves, their sources and their story.
Royal Society Publishing: While personalization of news enables media organizations to be more receptive to their audience, it can be questioned whether current deployments of algorithmic news recommenders (ANR) live up to their emancipatory promise.
Guide provides practical advice for journalists covering Indigenous communities
IJNet
Sports Journalists Battle for Relevance
NiemanLab: In an age of social platforms and celebrity athletes, Bleacher Report, The Players’ Tribune, and The Athletic are challenging legacy sports media
Study: Fake news is making college students question all news
Poynter: According to a new media consumption study, almost half of the nearly 6,000 American college students surveyed said they lacked confidence in discerning real from fake news on social media.
The unwritten rules of cross-border journalism
EJCNet via Medium: Hostwriter’s Bernadette Geyer on how to start your collaborative reporting project
Thinking both ways: What podcasts are teaching traditional text reporters
Poynter
Who Gets Good News? Apparently Not The Poor…
EJO: News consumption is more unequally distributed than income
Why media need to turn up the temperature on climate change
Aljazeera: Examining the UN’s newly released IPCC report and what it reveals about the challenges of climate change reporting.
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Header image: KTVU Tower. Credits: Tony Webster/Creative Commons
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