Results matching “middle east two”

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.

Since Israel's invasion of Gaza, newspapers have been trying to cover the crisis.  Remaining impartial has proved difficult because foreign journalists have been banned from Gaza by Israel.  As images proliferate across newspapers and the Internet, many are sympathizing with the plight of the Palestinians.  The Guardian argues that perhaps, these images may be the best way to tell the story.

This crisis has changed the way the media is reporting, the Guardian calls is "a simple truth", that "Israelis no longer appear as victims."  Why?  Because of the images that have been emerging from Gaza - they are dramatic and shocking, making people empathize more with the residents of Gaza. 

To mark the relaunch of the Editors Weblog, the World Editors Forum is running a special series entitled "Doing More with Less." The series highlights major trends that editors-in-chief are using to steer their newsrooms through the difficult economic climate. The third of the series takes a look at the new online-only international news service launching today, GlobalPost.

Amidst reductions in international reporting at newspapers across the US and Europe, GlobalPost, an American online-only international news service whose number of overseas correspondents is second only to the AP, launches today. The Editors Weblog spoke to President, CEO and co-founder of GlobalPost Philip Balboni and Senior Editor and Regional Editor for Africa Andrew Meldrum about the project, and asked the AP's John Daniszewski for his thoughts on a new news organisation that could potentially rival the Associated Press.

 
Filling the international gap

Balboni was passionate about his motives for founding the organisation: to fill a crucial gap in international reporting accessible to the American people. "I have seen the steady diminishment of foreign reporting in television and radio," he explained, added that this "has just been stunning." And he stressed his belief that "even the great American institutions that remain with a meaningful foreign staff are in jeopardy because of this devastating downturn in the economic underpinning of newspapers." Meldrum echoed his sentiments: "in the US, so much international news is being cut."

Daniszewski, AP Managing Editor for International News, was confident that the AP was providing "a comprehensive international news coverage," and that there was not a lack of information out there for people who were determined to find it out.  He was positive about the creation of a new service, however: "it's really good to have those eyes, ears and notebooks out there, and I am sure they have a lot to contribute."  

Complementing the AP and newspapers

Balboni insisted that GlobalPost intends to be a supplement to a newswire service, rather than a competitor. Balboni explained that the sort of "distinctive story-telling" that GlobalPost offers is very different to that of the AP, Reuters or AFP. "As a wire reporter, you chase the story of the day and there is a tremendous need for that, but it has become a commodity and you can find these stories everywhere."  And indeed, GlobalPost will also aggregate the top news agency stories of the day on its site. Its original reporting, though, will be different: "what we are focussed upon is the context behind the headlines," generally stories that will not be widely reported in English. Daniszewski was insistent that he does not see GlobalPost as a competitor to the AP because in terms of scale the AP is far larger. Rather he considers it a complementary service that will contribute to the "great need for the world to be informed."

"We hope to help newspapers, not hurt them"

Balboni also emphasized his hope to "help newspapers, not hurt them." He explained that GlobalPost is a "partner for newspapers," as part of its business model is to syndicate content to newspapers all over the world.  "We want to give them the opportunity to have high quality original reporting which they can print or publish online," he added.  He added that in the Web 2.0 world, it is less useful to put your content in a "walled garden, you have to let it be free to go where users want to find it."

Old-school correspondents

The 60 to 70 correspondents are essentially stringers, filing one piece a week.  As Meldrum described it, "this is designed to be a string that any correspondent could add to the other work that they are doing."  However, GlobalPost is making a significant commitment to correspondents, offering a guaranteed monthly salary and shares in the company, and hopes that its reporters will "feel that they are invested in our success," explained Balboni.   The correspondent group includes three Pulitzer Prize winners, among a mixture of experienced, accomplished journalists and those who are at an earlier stage in their careers.  

The correspondents will be on the whole country-based, meaning that they know the language and are familiar with the history and current affairs. The idea, Balboni explained, is that readers will have "the opportunity to follow developments from someone you can come to know and trust."  Daniszewski thinks GlobalPost is trying to return to the old model of a foreign correspondent, "that sort of authoritative, contextualized, interpretative voice, who adds different perspectives that people bring to a story with their own personalities." As "traditional newspaper correspondents out there are now acting more and more like a wire service," Daniszewski believes, there is a gap to be filled by people who can produce a more in-depth, time-consuming story.  

The five regional editors are working full time, or "more than full time," as Meldrum put it.  There are regional editors for Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and South America, and a team of half a dozen senior editors based at the HQ in Boston.  Seven beat correspondents will have a truly global scope, reporting on issues such as health, climate change and technology worldwide.  

"Journalists know best"

"The goal is for this not to be a top-down model, but a bottom-up model," Balboni clarified, as correspondents "know best about what the interesting and important stories are." Meldrum remarked that "it's much like a traditional foreign desk," with correspondents pitching stories, editors approving them and then editing once they are sent in. The content management system used means that correspondents are able to follow the story process "right from conception to completion."

Interactive multimedia from abroad

"These days a freelance journalist is always going to be multi-skilled" asserted Meldrum, and "we are all on a learning curve." Correspondents have all been issued with Flip Cams - video cameras the size of a mobile phone - which they are encouraged to use whenever possible, whether to produce narrated pieces or natural sound shots that will supplement their story.     Photos are also expected to feature significantly on the site, taken both by correspondents and by other photographers who will contribute.

Reader comments will be allowed on articles throughout the site.  "We want it to be as interactive as possible," Meldrum commented, explaining that they plan to respond to readers and adapt to how readers want to use the site.

Partnering with the best

According to Balboni, it is "imperative" for a new venture to form relationships with other news providers. And GlobalPost is already doing this, having established a partnership with the Huffington Post whereby some of GlobalPost's content is available on the Huffington Post's new world section. Correspondents are also appearing on 'World Focus', a night news programme on US television channel PBS, for a Q&A session with the TV anchor about whatever story they have covered that day. Balboni said that the organisation is also exploring similar opportunities with radio and in commercial television.  

Entrepreneurship drives online-only journalism

Balboni was enthusiastic about the potential of an online only publication. One of the main advantages is the "incredible distribution platform at a very modest expense." The Internet solves the problem of how to reach the audience.  He believes that there are "incredible opportunities as well if you can be entrepreneurial enough to create a new model, and if you can fulfil a need." By operating online-only and keeping distribution costs low, GlobalPost hopes to be able to produce a higher quality of product.

The other crucial point, he explained, is that serious news consumers are now looking mainly online to find their news.  He worries that newspapers have been "dumbed down" in an attempt to attract more readers, pushing many people online. It is not just about chasing numbers of viewers, and GlobalPost expects to have a "very high quality user population" of intelligent, well-educated people.  

Stamping "Passports" to profitability

"Paid online content will be the salvation of journalism if it can be worked out"

Balboni expects the site to become profitable in three years, and it will be funded via syndication, advertising and paid premium content.  He expressed his conviction that paid online content "will be the salvation of journalism if it can be worked out." GlobalPost's premium content aspect to the site will be called 'Passport' and will be available for an annual fee. The Passport area of the site will include a service called Foreign Desk, which will allow subscribers to write suggestions for stories that they would like to see.

The foreign news solution?

There is a gap in the market for this sort of well-investigated, foreign news, and as long as GlobalPost can find enough readers who are interested enough in the world around them this site has much potential.  The passion of the people behind it for international news is indubitable, and the model that they have chosen is forward-thinking and may well work. Being online only allows it to have a vast scope and reach with comparatively few resources. It will be particularly interesting to see how successful the paid content model is, and whether this can, as Balboni hopes, save journalism. 

Related links:

http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2009/01/globalpost-aims-to-resuscitate-foreign-correspondents-online008.html
http://www.journalism.co.uk/5/articles/533189.php
http://www.ojr.org/ojr/people/davidwestphal/200901/1615/
 

The current Israeli-Gaza conflict has proved ground-breaking in terms of the way that news is being spread. For a start, Israel has blocked foreign journalists from entering Gaza since launching its air attacks on December 27, so although Al Jazeera has been reporting extensively as it had correspondents already inside, as does the AP, many media organizations have no reliable source of independent information.  It is the perfect time for blogs, Twitter, and other forms of citizen journalism to show their merits.

 

Qatar based news network, Al Jazeera has announced a partnership with Sony Ericsson.  The partnership will allow Al Jazeera to provide built-in AJ RSS feeds on Sony Ericsson phones in the Middle East and North Africa, according to journalism.co.uk.

The RSS feeds will offer daily international news updates in both English and Arabic on certain models of Sony Ericsson phones.