Results matching “middle east two”

The BBC will be teaming up with the non-profit blogging network of citizen journalists, Global Voices, to offer a "different range of perspectives and commentary from around the world," according to the BBC.

Content from Global Voices will be incorporated into the BBC's SuperPower season coverage, a special series on the Internet and the impact it has on our lives.

The BBC will be selecting and linking to some Global Voices stories, as well as asking GV editors to give their views on how the mainstream media handle the news. The editor of the BBC's News website, Steve Herrmann, explained that he believes Global Voices and the wide range of opinions they feature could add an "interesting dimension to some of (the BBC's) news coverage."

In another development in the case of the controversial Muhammad cartoons, the Danish newspaper Politiken apologized today to eight Muslim organizations for the offense it caused them by reprinting the cartoons. The Muslim organizations have promised to drop legal action against the newspaper if it printed an apology, according to the Guardian.

The newspaper's apology was condemned by a wide range of Danish figures that believe the apology compromises Denmark's freedom of the press.

Google has announced plans to take its Living Stories project open source, meaning that it will available to news outlets globally, The Guardian reported.

The project was originally developed with The New York Times and the Washington Post. It collects all the coverage of an ongoing story on a single URL. Articles on the story are listed in date order starting with the newest at the top. Topics include, for example, the politics of global warming or battling swine flu. Readers can view the story through text, graphics, timelines or quotes.

Google will now allow publishers to implement their experiment through its open source API. It also wants to work with web developers and journalists.

As part of its digital expansion strategy, Abu Dhabi Media Company last week announced the launch of its newspaper The National on Amazon's Kindle. This makes ADMC the first Middle East publisher to digitise and distribute content to Amazon.

The Kindle subscription to the English-language daily costs US$9.99 in the United States and $13.99 outside the U.S., and includes a 14-day free trial.

For more on this story please see our sister publication www.sfnblog.com

The Kuwait Journalists Association on Monday criticized a series of proposed amendments which would impose stricter punishment of press offences. The group of journalists along with prominent newspaper and television editors called on parliament to reject the new measures, even agreeing to boycott the lawmakers responsible for them.

"We urged MPs to reject the government plan to amend the press law," an official statement released by the KJA said.

The deputy managing editor for the new AP News Center will be Sally Buzbee and the assistant managing editor will be Tamer Fakahany, the Los Angeles Times has reported.  

Buzbee's new role will be to run the News Center, while Fakahany will be the No. 2 leader, working U.S. evening hours as other parts of the world are beginning their days.

Russian Information Agency Novosti, a state-owned news agency based in Moscow, has denied allegations of cooperating with a Western PR company in an attempt "to justify Russia's great power ambitions" and improve the reputation of former Soviet Union dictator, Joseph Stalin.

Following EUobserver's online publication of an article entitled "New pro-Russia campaign comes to EU capital," in which a journalist states that the news agency is attempting to secure a contract with one of Europe's top PR firms, RIA Novosti deputy general director, Valery Levchenko, dismissed the claims as nothing more than "utter rubbish". According to Levchenko, when interviewed by the EUobserver.com journalist, he was never asked about plans concerning RIA Novosti's cooperation with the RJI Company and has since questioned the journalist's level of professionalism. 

CNN.com has revamped its international website today with a greater focus on video and photography and less text clutter. The redesign comes as many news organisations, including the BBC, attempt to keep their homepages up-to-date with changing technologies, the advanced capabilities of the Internet and a general shift in the way people consume news today.

Speaking about the new presentation, Nick Wrenn, CNN's vice president for digital services said: "It's a design change that gives us a more contemporary look, with a new focus on video that brings the site to life."

Al Jazeera English has launched a new blogging network, reported Journalism.co.uk.  AJE Head of Online Mohamed Nanabhay said that he is "reasonably excited about it," although aware that it is something that many news organisations already have in place.

The blogs are divided up by geographical area: Africa, Asia, Americas, Europe and Middle East, with the addition of a business section. A selection of correspondents and presenters have been writing posts. 

The BBC has released new draft editorial guidelines, which include some suggestions for online news as well as for its prolific television and radio output. For the first time, the BBC Trust - the body which aims to represent the public as owners of the corporation - has launched a public consultation on the revised draft, offering licence fee payers the chance to have their say on the standards, which are rewritten every five years.

The consultation period opened yesterday and continues until 24 December. An online survey offers ten questions on different areas of the new guidelines as well as a comment box. The BBC Trust says it will "look at all the information that we receive, including your answers and a range of other data. We will take the interests of both content producers, including programme makers, and audiences into account before finalising the new Editorial Guidelines." The completed set of standards will be published in summer 2010.

Northern Echo, a Newsquest-owned publication, plans to roll out new community websites in the North East and will employ 30 non-journalists to provide content. These citizen journalists will receive training in taking photos, structuring a story, and how to use the newspaper's content management system to upload their work. 

According to a new study conducted by Forrester Research, over the next few years around another 2.2 billion people will be connected to the Internet, representing an increase of 45%. Interestingly, by 2013, 43% of this figure will be located in Asia. Moreover, Africa and the Middle East, whilst currently totalling only 8% of the world's Internet users, will experience significant development in this period.

It is expected that Nigeria, Iran and Egypt will count as the greatest areas of development in the Africa-Middle East region. It will be interesting to see how the press of these nations, the nature of each obviously being inherently different, will develop with the proliferation of the Internet. The editor of Nigeria's Punch, for example, expressed the opinion that publishers must accept the inexorable rise of the Internet as a challenging opportunity for newspapers to develop and improve their services.

The New York Times has removed a slide show from its website after a reader discovered that one of the pictures of an unfinished housing construction project had been digitally altered. An editors' note on the site explained that editors then discovered that many of the pictures had be altered. The photo essay had also appeared in the Times Magazine on Sunday.

"Had the editors known that the photographs had been digitally manipulated, they would not have published the picture essay," said the note. The essay was entitled "Ruins of the Second Gilded Age" and showed large housing construction projects across the US that had come to a halt when the housing market collapsed. Its introduction specified that the photographer, Edgar Martins, creates his images "without digital manipulation."

The mayor of New York has outlined plans to give the city's media industries a significant financial and development aid package. The scheme aims to guide the publishing, television and other related media industries through the economic slump, while putting into effect long-term, structural developments to ensure their future dynamism. The initiatives, which focus on technological innovation, training and research, are estimated to create 8,000 extra media jobs in New York over the next ten years.  

The content of the package was conceived after comprehensive talks between the city and prominent media executives. Mayor Bloomberg, it appears, is using the current financial uncertainty as an opportunity to reaffirm New York as a leading media metropolis and to attract media entrepreneurs who tend to look towards California as the place for innovation.

The drastic measures employed by the Associated Press to stanch the flow of deserters to its service, along with DPA's recent loss of a 2-million-euro subscriber, demonstrate that news agencies have some serious soul-searching to do in terms of what they offer their customers and at what cost. Writing for followthemedia.com, Philip Stone asserts that wire services need to significantly cut their content and thus their prices in order to retain clients.

Stone, a former managing director at Reuters Europe, Middle East, and Africa media division, uses DPA as an example. Each day the agency sends out 800 stories through its main service and 100 stories from each of its 12 state services, along with 700 news photos. Clearly, there is no way any one newspaper would use all or even a quarter of those articles.

The Qatari Advisory Council has alleged that foreign journalists are being 'brought' into the country to slander its name through negative reports has incited protests of senior journalists. They have also voiced their criticism of the Council's recent debate on 'Irresponsible Journalism'.  This is the latest in a series of incidences which suggest that existing degrees of press freedom in the Middle East are being gradually eroded. 

The Doha Centre for Media Freedom (DCMF) was set up in October 2008 by the Qatar Foundation.  It is headed by the emir's wife, Shaykha Muzah, in partnership with the Paris- based media freedom watchdog Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF). Robert Menard, former head of the RSF, is now the director-general of the DCMF.

Interested journalists have until 30 June to apply for the 2009 Lorenzo Natali Prize. On World Press Freedom Day the European Commission officially opened applications for the prize, which is awarded in partnership with Reporters Without Borders and the World Association of Newspapers to journalists who have demonstrated a commitment to human rights, democracy and development.

The European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, Louis Michel, said: "Democracy cannot exist without freedom of information. Lack of information makes for an unhealthy society. The ideals of development, human rights and democracy cannot be achieved without free and independent media to raise questions and stimulate debate. The European Commission's aim in organising the Lorenzo Natali Prize is to support committed journalists who contribute to the cause of development, democracy and human rights through the quality of their work."

The Natali Prize is an international press award dating back to 1992. In 2008 over 1500 journalists from 151 countries took part. It is open to journalists working in TV, radio, the press and online. The winners will receive their prizes at a special award ceremony in Stockholm in October, in the presence of the European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid. Prizes worth a total of €60 000 will be awarded to the winners in the different sections: Africa, Europe, Maghreb/Middle East, Asia and Latin America/Caribbean.

Contacts:
John Clancy, spokesperson +32 2 29 53773
Marie-Pierre Jouglain, press officer +32 2 29 84449

The trusted and often dubbed 'journalist's bible,' has jumped on the Twitter bandwagon. The 2009 edition of The Associated Press Stylebook includes updates with the lingo of the much-hailed and rapidly growing micro-blogging site, Twitter.com, and other entries to remain current with the ever changing written word.

The verb phrases, "to Twitter", and "to Tweet" are now recognized and validated by the prestigious Associated Press as "Twitter" is described as a social networking website where users can emit, "Tweets," or short messages. Another term now defined in the 2009 edition that describes short messages, but is not necessarily exclusive to the Twitter-sphere, is "text" and its cousins, "texting" and "texted."

Beamups, the digital marketplace for news footage goes live today with a UK version of the site.

The invention of two former cameramen, Boaz Eshtai and Yosi Romano, Beamups offers a platform for producers to distribute and sell their previously unused and archived material to would-be buyers.

The website first launched in the Middle East in April and, since then, has already helped to secure deals with the BBC, Al Jazeera, ABC and Rtvi.

The New York Post will soon be carrying news from leading Israeli newspaper the Jerusalem Post. Both publications have revealed that the Post on Sunday will soon contain a 48-page edition of the Jerusalem Post. It will contain news on "politics and diplomacy, with some health and science and business, some arts and features, very strongly centered on Israel and the region," according to David Horovitz, editor in chief of the Jerusalem Post.

Richard Pérez-Peña of the New York Times points out that although "the Post may be best known as a gossipy, celebrity-obsessed tabloid", it has always paid close attention to the Middle East and taken a strongly pro-Israel stance. This move will further enhance that stance, and is described by the Jerusalem Post as a "newspaper breakthrough that brings together the world's two largest Jewish communities".

Some publications have chosen to cut expensive international reporting posts in order to save money recently - the New York Post's decision to collaborate with the Jerusalem Post will allow it to continue with it's in depth coverage of the Middle East.

Source: New York Times

Yesterday, the Middle East Times published its final Internet-based free edition, but not before reminding readers that it will be back, albeit in a paid-for format.

Earlier this week, the online newspaper said it regretted the decision of having to start charging readers for content and, although it did not explicitly list its reasons for the change, it's fair to say the global economic crisis played a substantial role in the decision-process.

In its 2008 report, Amnesty International declared that the Egyptian government's emergency powers and police force are "used systematically to violate human rights". There are just three or four newspapers said to be independent in the country, but these are cautious, and "worryingly silent" on corruption and human rights issues, explains an article in Le Monde. It is for this reason that nearly 200,000 Egyptians have embraced the freedom given by new media and begun their own blogs. Whilst only 10,000 of these are deemed "political", this is a relatively high figure given the possible ramifications.

One of the most well-known Egyptian bloggers is Waël Abbas, who revealed the brutal torture of Imad El-Kebir (as a result El-Kebir's torturers were sentenced to three years in prison, although the victim also received a three month sentence for "resistance to the forces of order"). Speaking to Le Monde, Abbas explains that the Egyptian political blogosphere is "a movement born of frustration, with neither leader nor structure". Despite Abbas explaining that the movement is unorganised, it seems to have been effective, and an exemplary use of the Internet as a means of communication - some of the bloggers command up to 30,000 readers, equalling and sometimes surpassing the circulation of government run newspapers.

The popular American cult website Slate.fr is up for its French-version release. The exact date of release is still not clear; CB News reports that it is scheduled for 10 February, while another source (electionlibre.info) cites the end of February. Jean-Marie Colombani, former chief of Le Monde, is at the head of the project that unites some well-known names of journalism; notably, Eric Leser, Le Monde's New York correspondent, Eric Le Boucher, former editorialist at Le Monde, Johan Hufnagel from 20 Minutes.fr and Jacques Attali.

The Associated Press has announced the creation of an editing desk for the Middle East as part of its effort to streamline and strengthen its news coverage, Editor & Publisher reports.  

The Middle East desk, based in Cairo, Egypt will be the AP's fourth hub outside of the United States.  In the US it also plans to open more centers in Philadelphia, Chicago and Phoenix.