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.
BURUNDI: In Burundi, three journalists attacked and prevented from covering protest
CPJ: The journalists told CPJ that after they introduced themselves to the police and showed their work badges, about 20 officers surrounded them and blocked the journalists from speaking with the residents.
EGYPT: Media Monitor: 32 Violations and 100 Detained Journalists in Egypt in August
MEMO: The Arab Media Freedom Monitor has issued last Thursday evening its monthly report about violations against freedom of journalism and media in Egypt last August, showcasing the most notable violations committed against journalism and media in Egypt.
EGYPT: NGOs ask Egypt to repeal or amend new laws curbing online free speech
RSF: Both laws post a real danger to Egyptians’ fundamental right to freedom of expression and access to information.
MOZAMBIQUE: Mozambique urged to toss ‘prohibitive’ fees for foreign media
IPI: IPI joins coalition of African and international groups in letter to government
SOUTH AFRICA: Cash-strapped SABC gets R1.2bn State guarantee
IOL: Communications Minister Nomvula Mokonyane on Tuesday announced that the public broadcaster was still in trouble and suffered a net loss of R622million in the financial year ending in March.
SOUTH AFRICA: SABC wants harsher penalties for the millions not paying TV licences
RNews: The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) has called for stricter enforcement and penalties for the non-payment of TV licences.
SOUTH AFRICA: The SABC’s submission on the review of public broadcasting policy (Report)
SABC: The review of public broadcasting policy.
Via All Africa: A media rights group is calling on the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to investigate Swaziland after a series of ‘state-sponsored violations against journalists’.
TANZANIA: Tanzanian Community Radio Stations Chart Path to Financial Sustainability
Internews
UGANDA: #Uganda: Journalists on firing line amid political unrest
IPI: In interviews with the International Press Institute (IPI), Ugandan journalists say recent events are only part of a growing assault on media freedom in the country
WEST AFRICA: How pidgin English became the voice of international media in West Africa
Quartz: As global media brands push to expand their reach and audience, Pidgin English—a language spoken by millions across West Africa—is gaining currency.
REGIONAL: ECOWAS, SADC Regions Save Africa’s Face in Global Freedom Ranking
MFWA
AFGHANISTAN: Afghan media under pressure after journalist deaths
Reuters: Afghan media are facing growing pressure to cut back coverage of militant attacks following the death of two television reporters who were among 20 killed in an attack on a sports club in Kabul last week.
BANGLADESH: Journalists stage symbolic hunger strike demanding justice
Dhaka Tribune: The strike, which started from 9am, lasted over five hours
CHINA: How A Local Chinese Newspaper Reached New Readers And Built A Business On Wechat
Lenfest Institute: This week in Solution Set we’re taking a look at how Metro Chinese Weekly has built an audience — and a sustainable revenue stream — on the platform.
INDIA: WhatsApp launches second phase of radio ad campaign in India to tackle fake news
Asia Radio Today: Facebook owned WhatsApp has launched the second phase of its radio ad campaign in India on Wednesday to stop the spread of misinformation and fake news on its platform by creating awareness among users.
MALAYSIA: BBC expands reach in Malaysia
Rapid TV News: Malaysia’s unify TV is to distribute the BBC Player service to its two million broadband and Streamyx subscribers from 18 September.
MALAYSIA: Expectations of press freedom rise in Malaysia
IPI: IPI urges new government to repeal archaic laws
MYANMAR: Myanmar: “If you find the truth, you are in danger” (Interview)
DW: Yin Yadanar Thein, Program Manager at Free Expression Myanmar (FEM) and Myanmar Journalism Institute (MJI)’s Head of Training Sein Win talk about reactions from Myanmar’s media community.
MYANMAR: The Perils of Journalism in Myanmar
Al Jazeera: The jailing of Reuters’ Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo dampens the promise of media reform in Aung San Suu Kyi’s Myanmar.
PAKISTAN: Govt to facilitate growth of free, responsible media, says Fawad
Dawn: “An independent media is essential for strengthening democracy and for nurturing democratic values and norms in society,” the minister said.
SOUTH KOREA: S. Korea moves to strengthen regulation of Facebook, Google, Netflix
Inquirer: A group of lawmakers have set out to strengthen the regulation of foreign internet companies operating here, responding to complaints that they are not bound by the same laws that apply to competing South Korean firms in the sector.
UZBEKISTAN: Uzbekistan arrests at least four bloggers over posts on religious issues
CPJ: The detained bloggers write commentary on social and religious issues, often advocating for a greater role of Islam in society.
AUSTRALIA: Australians are losing their trust in ‘the media’, but not in journalism
ABC: Australians are feeling more disillusioned about the role of the media than almost any other country, according to an annual global survey of more than 33,000 people taken well before the latest knifing.
AUSTRALIA: Making sense of the “news”: the ABC launches Media Literacy Week
ABC: The ABC has initiated a comprehensive program to equip people of all ages with the skills to sort truth from fiction in news and information.
AUSTRALIA: Navigating the News: Is greater transparency the answer to combating distrust in modern media?
ABC: Technology has led to a revolution in the way news is consumed, but concerns about the reliability and accuracy of media in the digital age have inspired the Navigating the News conference to discuss the public’s declining trust and what news organisations can do about it.
AUSTRALIA: Why it’s time to end the policy limbo threatening Australian children’s TV
The Conversation AU: Amid recent and ongoing government reviews into the future of local screen content, uncertainty reigns on issues such as the impact of Netflix and other streaming services, the fate of local content quotas and funding for original local children’s TV more generally.
NAURU: Nauru president attacks journalists for covering refugee stories during Forum
RNZ: The Nauru President, Baron Waqa, has attacked journalists for covering refugee stories during the Pacific Islands forum.
NAURU: Nauru squirms under the spotlight
RNZ: Nauru’s government has gone to great lengths in recent years to keep journalists off the island – and away from the hundreds of asylum seekers languishing in limbo there. Mediawatch looks at what happened when the Pacific Islands Forum gave some reporters a rare chance to report from on the ground this week.
NEW ZEALAND: Call for broadcasters to be censured if they butcher Māori words
RNZ: Staff at the University of Waikato are calling for broadcasters who don’t pronounce Māori words correctly during Māori language week to be censured.
NEW ZEALAND: Clare Curran’s resignation: ‘This pressure has become intolerable’
RNZ: Broadcasting Minister Clare Curran has resigned as a Minister, saying the “pressure has become intolerable”.
NEW ZEALAND: Time to cut the cord with the tech titans?
RNZ: A new report says our news media are too dependent on Google and Facebook. The author says it’s also time to tax big online operators to secure the future of journalism. If this is even possible, how could it be done?
REGIONAL: Pacific Island leaders tightening the screws on press freedom, dissent
Asia Pacific Report: The three-hour “detention” of television New Zealand Pacific affairs reporter Barbara Dreaver for “breaking protocols” over interviewing refugees on Nauru. But Josef Benedict reports this is just part of the dismal media freedom scene in the Pacific.
BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA: ‘Atmosphere of lynching’: Journalists under attack in Bosnia and Herzegovina
EuroNews: A recent attack on a journalist in the city of Banja Luka, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, has sparked protests across the country and put journalists’ safety in the spotlight.
BULGARIA: Violence, corruption and censorship: The realities of being a journalist in Bulgaria
Index: Under increasing pressure from the government and a media environment becoming more and more censored, journalists within Bulgaria are finding themselves in danger.
CYPRUS: Audit chief hauls public broadcaster over the coals
Cyprus Mail: Auditor-general Odysseas Michaelides hauled the public broadcaster over the coals on Thursday, even hinting that certain financial peccadillos within the organisation could potentially amount to criminal activity.
FRANCE: The uncertain future of public broadcasting (French – Opinion)
Telos: If everyone agrees on the need to adapt radio and television to a media world dominated by the digital and giant providers of programs like Netflix, the likely directions of reform that began to filter in the press are far from unanimous.
GERMANY: Germany’s rightwing news sites pose challenge to traditional media
Financial Times: Alternative news outlets cater to readers disillusioned by consensus-driven journalism
GEORGIA: Backlash against zero-hour contracts at Georgian Public Broadcaster
OC Media: The Georgian Public Broadcaster (GPB) has announced plans to move a large number of their staff to zero-hour contracts. As employees protested the decision, local rights groups have called for parliament to step in.
PORTUGAL: Portugal tenders two new DTT channels
Advanced Television: Portugal’s Ministry of Culture has sent the regulation and specification for two new thematic commercial TV channels on the national DTT network to the Regulatory Entity for Social Communication (ERC).
SPAIN: The Courts finalize a list of more than 90 candidates for the public contest of RTVE (Spanish)
EuropaPress: The definitive list of names is scheduled to be confirmed next week.
SPAIN: The workers of the public broadcaster in Galicia take it to the streets against the manipulation of information (Spanish)
El País: The staff of CRTVG, supported by their colleagues at RTVE, demand an end to interference by the Xunta: “We are not the communications office of any government”.
SWEDEN: Sweden: journalists suffering hostility and hate
INSI: The election taking place on 9 September in Sweden has brought with it heated debate and intensified the public conversations taking place between citizens, politicians and journalists – both on and offline.
SWEDEN: Sweden Democrats to boycott public broadcaster following debate controversy
The Local Se: The anti-immigration Sweden Democrats (SD), which is likely to pick up major gains in Sunday’s election, has announced that it will boycott broadcaster SVT for the station’s controversial decision to weigh in on opinions aired in a Friday night debate.
SWEDEN: Sweden’s election is being misreported abroad – and this is a problem (Opinion)
The Local Se: Bad foreign reporting on Sweden’s election risks giving readers around the world a false impression of the state of the country, argues the Local’s co-founder James Savage.
SWITZERLAND: Switzerland to end terrestrial television
Broadband TV News: Swiss public broadcaster SRG will terminate digital terrestrial TV broadcasting (DVB-T) next year without replacement. There will be no transition to DVB-T2 as in neighbouring Germany and Austria.
UK: Exclusive: BBC issues internal guidance on how to report climate change
CarbonBrief: The BBC, one of the world’s largest and most respected news organisations, has issued formal guidance to its journalists on how to report climate change.
UK: Seamless Substitution – Mixing IP and Broadcast Video for Personalised TV
BBC R&D: “This is all about the ability to personalise our broadcast services so that what you see better matches your tastes or is relevant to your local area.”
UK: The BBC is getting into ASMR
Quartz: The British public broadcaster’s Radio 3 programming this autumn will invite listeners to relax to the sounds of Irish cows being herded up a mountain and leaves crunching on walks through the country.
UKRAINE: Threat to confidentiality of journalists’ sources in Ukraine
RSF: The ruling, which sets a very disturbing precedent, was revealed yesterday by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL).
UKRAINE: Trust in Media on the Rise in Ukraine
Internews: Ukrainians trust their media more in 2018 than they did in 2017, reversing a generally downward trend in trust seen in polling since 2015, according to the annual Internews Media Consumption Survey presented today at a press conference.
GENERAL: An analysis using Visegrad/Insight’s data from our most recent issue breaks down the media landscape in CE
Visegrad/Insight: Foreign companies are withdrawing from the newspaper business, nationalist governments are taking control of public service broadcasters: the media situation in Central and Eastern Europe.
GENERAL: EU to set quotas on Amazon and Netflix
Broadband TV News: Streaming services including Netflix and Amazon seem certain to be brought under European quotas that would require their libraries to feature at least 30 per cent of local content.
ARGENTINA: Journalists highlight the plurality of public radio (Spanish)
UNO Entrerios: The station that has its studies in the municipal building of Cinco Esquinas in Paraná continues adding local programming to its grid.
ARGENTINA: Persecution of Télam workers (Spanish)
IFJ: The directory of the National News Agency Telam arbitrarily and illegally discounted the salaries of ` who were not [recently] dismissed.
ARGENTINA: The press marches for the reinstatements in Télam and in defense of public media (Spanish)
Infonews: The union mobilised last Wednesday from the Obelisk to the CCK along with militant guilds such as the Banking Association, Judicial, Metrodelegados, teachers, state employees, human rights organisations and political parties.
COLOMBIA: Mintic will present a new project for public media funding (Spanish)
WRadio: Two months ago, a similar initiative collapsed because it put the existence of television and public radio at risk.
Knight Center: According to the association, of the almost 330,000 people that have been internally displaced between 2009 and 2017 in Mexico.
Knight Center: The Protection Mechanism for Human Rights Defenders and Journalists will run out of funding at the end of September, mobilizing press advocates to demand the federal government guarantee resources for the program to continue.
MEXICO: Will Mexico’s new president improve press security?
IJNet: Mexico’s journalists need good news. After a decade of seeing an increasing number of their colleagues killed for their work, they need a sign of good things to come — could the country’s present moment of presidential transition be that sign?
PUERTO RICO: A year later, moving from ‘what went wrong’ to how to create a better Puerto Rico
Poynter
VENEZUELA: Collaborations Help Strengthen Journalism in Venezuela
GIJN: Amid protests, human rights violations, social instability and an unprecedented food crisis, collaborative journalism is getting stronger in Venezuela.
VENEZUELA: Study shows Venezuelan journalists work amid threats and economic precariousness
Knight Center: Venezuelan journalists work in an environment often characterized by threats, economic precariousness, limited resources and few job opportunities.
GENERAL: Elections, a rescue mission, and media closures: August in the Americas
IFEX: Mexico, a country facing significant challenges to freedom of expression, saw a change of government, while US media united to fend off attacks by President Trump, and the number of independent media outlets in Venezuela continued to shrink.
PALESTINE: 46 attacks against media freedoms in Palestine during August
MADA: August of 2018 has witnessed a decline in the total number of attacks (including the Israeli and the Palestinian) committed against media freedoms in Palestine, compared to July of 2018, note that the attacks remained at high and serious rates.
SAUDI ARABIA: Saudi Arabia prosecutor says people who post satire on social media can be jailed
Independent: Dissenters jailed for up to five years and fined hundreds of thousands of pounds.
TURKEY: Spate of trials in Turkey on “terrorist propaganda” charges
RSF: The end of the summer break in Turkey means the resumption of trials of journalists. More than 50 are being prosecuted for “terrorist propaganda,” a catch-all charge that the Turkish justice system has been using for more than 25 years to silence criticism and curb debate, especially about Turkey’s Kurdish minority.
TURKEY: Turkish journalists platform calls for attendance at trials of jailed female reporters
SCF: The statement called on women’s movements and democratic circles to stand beside the female journalists and show solidarity by attending the hearings.
YEMEN: Journalists in Yemen under attack from all sides as rival forces crack down on critics
CPJ: Since the start of fighting in 2014, CPJ has documented kidnaps, attacks, arson, judicial cases, and killings.
CANADA: CBC and Snap pair for two new programs (Paywall)
Media in Canada: This is CBC’s first dive into long-term series on Snapchat, as opposed to event-centered programming.
CANADA: Culture pulled into NAFTA fight as debate heats up over Canadian content protection
Financial Post: Broadcasting status quo, where foreign online providers don’t contribute to cost of producing content, is increasingly at issue.
CANADA: Media union applauds feds’ tough talk on protecting Canadian media, cultural industries
CWA Canada: CWA Canada, the country’s only all-media union, welcomes the federal government’s promise to stand firm on protecting Canada’s cultural industries, including media, in the current NAFTA negotiations.
NiemanLab: Diversifying revenue, building a culture of philanthropy, seeding growth development, and more.
US: Americans could barely buy a coffee with what they spend per year on public media
Quartz: Local newspapers are dying. Half the jobs in newspaper publishing disappeared between 2001 and 2016, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
US: Americans expect to get their news from social media, but they don’t expect it to be accurate
NiemanLab: Forty-two percent of Democrats say the news they get on social media has helped their understanding of current events, compared to 24 percent of Republicans who say the same thing.
US: Lawsuits over journalist Twitter accounts may become more common
CJR: : These may be relatively uncharted legal waters but a little planning could reduce the uncertainty and its corresponding risks.
US: NPR Board approves two experiments with fundraising on digital platforms (Paywall)
Current
12+ tools and resources useful during hurricanes and other disasters
Poynter
Are you sure that promoted article is still political content, Facebook?
NiemanLab: “Any human being that would put an eye on it would be able to say this is not political propaganda. This is really fair and well-documented journalism. It should not be confused.”
Facebook now linked to violence in the Philippines, Libya, Germany, Myanmar, and India
CJR
Fake news is about to get so much more dangerous (Opinion)
The Washington Post via EJN: Given the existential danger to truth that deep fakes present, the media industry must make its own efforts to counter the threat — and it can be effective, if it acts quickly.
Foundation support for international news: Mapping the landscape (Report)
Humanitarian Journalism: In this short report, we describe the key features of the landscape of private foundation support for international non-profit journalism.
Guidelines for reporting about suicide
IJNET
Here’s what you need to help you cover hurricanes
Poynter: With three hurricanes currently swirling in the Atlantic and one of them headed for the east coast, it’s time again to prepare for how to cover deadly and dangerous weather.
Journalism, ‘Fake News’ and Disinformation: A Handbook for Journalism Education and Training (Publication)
UNESCO: This new publication by UNESCO is a timely resource and highly topical subject for all those who practice or teach journalism in this Digital Age.
CPJ: CPJ’s four-part Safety Kit provides journalists and newsrooms with basic safety information on physical, digital and psychological safety resources and tools.
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