Recently by Larry Kilman

An international conference on press freedom in China has called on Chinese authorities to honour their Olympic pledge to respect freedom of expression and to release all jailed journalists.

More than 30 journalists and 50 cyber-dissidents are being held in prisons in China, the world's largest jailer of journalists. The call for their release was made by the "Beijing Olympics 2008: Winning Press Freedom" conference, which was co-organised by the World Association of Newspapers, the World Press Freedom Committee, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders, Human Rights in China, Asia Presse and the Knight Foundation.

More than 10,000 athletes will be going to Beijing for the Summer Olympics in August. Thirty thousand  foreign journalists will be covering it all - three journalists for every athlete.

Chinese authorities promised in their successful Olympic bid that media would have "complete freedom to report when they come to China." They haven't lived up to that promise, notably is their harassment and expulsion of journalists trying to cover the Tibetan events in March.

Chinese journalists have it even worse:  31 have been jailed since the successful Olympic bid in 2001, and 16 of those remain in prison - half of all Chinese journalists currently in prison.

The two-day conference, which ended Saturday, called on Chinese authorities to respect their pledges to improve human rights and press freedom conditions, and for the International Olympic Committee and others in the international community to press them to do so.

More conference details can be found here.

The view of award-winning Chinese journalist Gao Yu can be found here.

Source: World Association of Newspapers

Indian editors and publishers are up in arms over restrictions being proposed on press coverage of the Indian Premier League, a new cricket league that is proposing terms and conditions for coverage of its tests that are unacceptable not only to Indian media, but to media everywhere.

Even if you don't care about cricket, the dispute should be of concern since many sports organisations are imposing similar restrictions, in an effort to monetize every aspect of sport by selling digital rights that impinges on the news media role of providing free and open coverage of sports events.

The Indian cricket authorities originally proposed that media must transfer copyright of all photographs taken at cricket venues to the IPL, and that photos would be banned from websites. It has since backed off on its claim to copyright, and offered to allow media to post six photos on websites - an unacceptably small amount, though the IPL says it is willing to further engage news media in discussions.

Other terms also raise concern - it appears, for example, as if the IPL wants news media to limit photos posted on the web to those that are also used in print. Think about that for a moment: are web editors expected to anticipate what will be used in print? Or are they supposed to wait until the print edition hits the streets before posting photos on the web?

The Hindu newspaper, in an editorial Thursday, put the issue this way: "Where will professional sport be without media support, cooperation, and goodwill? Greed and arrogance and a total lack of common sense seem to be driving the IPL along a path of confrontation, which will surely bring on a media boycott."

The international News Media Coalition, a grouping of major news agencies, newspaper groups and newspaper representative bodies (the World Association of Newspapers and World Editors Forum are among them) that was formed in response to the growing threat to open news coverage, has praised the stand of the Indian news media community for working together in an attempt to ensure that they are able to serve the public with independent and topical news materials.
 
"The News Media Coalition is very concerned about the IPL terms which represent a serious and unprecedented curtailment of the freedom of the press to fully report events of public interest. We believe that the right of the public is best served by a free and unfettered press."

The NMC also believes solidarity is needed to engage the sports organisations. "Anything which threatens to dismantle the inter-dependence between news sectors such as newspapers and agencies will not be in the best interests of the public," it said.

Source: News Media Coalition and its director, Andy Moger.

The World Association of Newspapers and World Editors Forum have asked Jacques Rogge, the President of the International Olympic Committee, to call on Chinese authorities to honour their Olympic pledges to respect press freedom and the right of journalists to cover events.

In a letter to Rogge, who will go to Beijing next week, WAN and WEF said: "The government crackdown on journalists and others who seek to exercise their right to freedom of expression has intensified in recent months. At least 30 journalists and 50 cyber-dissidents are currently held in Chinese prisons for peacefully expressing their views.

The letter asked Rogge to help ensure that China honour the pledge it made in its successful Olympic bid to allow foreign media "complete freedom to report when they come to China."

Rogge said last week he was conducting "silent diplomacy" with the Chinese government, which is facing growing protests over its repressive policies in the run-up to the Olympics.
"We also ask that your 'silent diplomacy' becomes voluble and public if the Chinese government does not immediately release from jail all those detained for exercising their right to freedom of expression", said the letter from WAN and WEF.

WAN has also written directly to the CEOs of 12 major Olympic sponsors asking them "to express your strong moral opposition to the repression of basic human rights in China and, in particular, the daily violation of all acceptable standards for freedom of expression."
 
Full details of the WAN campaign for press freedom in China, including a conference in Paris on 18 and 19 April with a coalition of press freedom groups, an advertising campaign and a letter-writing initiative, can be found here.

Source: WAN

The World Association of Newspapers and other publishers organisations today (19 March) welcomed Google CEO Eric Schmidt's statement supporting the aim of the Automated Content Access Protocol (ACAP) to give publishers more control over the use of their content.

Speaking to a reporter in Sydney earlier this week, Mr Schmidt said that the only barriers to Google's implementation of ACAP were technical, and he denied that Google was reluctant to embrace the system because of commercial self-interest. "It is not that we don't want them (publishers) to be able to control their information," he said.

ACAP is a new publishing standard that allows website terms and conditions to be placed in machine-readable format so that publishers can have a say in how news aggregators and search engine companies use their content. Publishers world-wide have begun implementing it on their websites, and WAN last week again called on Google to embrace it. More on the protocol, a joint initiative of the European Publishers Council, the World Association of Newspapers and the International Publishers Association, can be found at www.the-acap.org.

Mr Schmidt said that ACAP, as currently specified, is incompatible with Google's proprietary search engine technology but that "we have some people working with them to see if the proposal can be modified to work in the way our search engines work."

Gavin O'Reilly, President of WAN and Chairman of ACAP, said: "We are pleased that Google CEO Eric Schmidt has said that they would be willing to implement ACAP if it were not for some technical incompatibility issues.  As Mr. Schmidt knows, we have worked very closely with Google at a technical level throughout the past year in the ACAP project phase.

"Naturally, we are disappointed that we have yet to overcome their remaining technical barriers to 'live' implementation, but we have always stressed that we will do whatever is necessary to make ACAP work technically and seamlessly for all search engines. Our aspirations for ACAP have always been led by business needs and not by any preconceived technical solution," he said.

Mr O'Reilly said Mr. Schmidt's statement, reported in IT Wire, "is hugely reassuring. We really look forward to continuing to work with Google to do the necessary work to match our business requirements with their technical specifications and thus make it possible for Google to immediately adopt the ACAP protocol for the benefit of digital publishing worldwide."

Source: WAN Press Release

What press freedom conditions can journalists and sports writers expect when they go to China to cover the 2008 Summer Olympics? An international conference designed to answer their questions, and to examine the methods that China uses to control the press, will be held in Paris next month.

The conference, on 18 and 19 April next, will provide expert insight on the press freedom conditions that journalists - particularly sports journalists - will encounter in China.

A session on how China deals with foreign news media will feature Yuwen Wu, News Editor of the BBC China Service, Joceyln Ford, Chair of the Media Freedoms Committee at the Foreign Correspondents Club of China, and Fan Ho Tsai, Chairperson of the Hong Kong Journalists Association.

Other sessions will examine press freedom and the Beijing Olympics, how the Chinese news media is controlled, what reporting conditions can be expected for the Olympics, the risks, opportunities and responsibilities involved with trading with China, and the limits and the freedoms surrounding China's internet.

The conference  is organised by a coalition of press freedom groups including the World Association of Newspapers, the World Press Freedom Committee, Reporters Without Borders, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Human Rights in China and Asia Presse.

The World Editors Forum has re-launched its Editors Weblog to increase functionality and make it easier to navigate.

The weblog now has new sharing and social networking tools and produces a daily e-mail newsletter that is sent to thousands of editors each day. It also has a new, modern appearance.

WEF, the organisation within the World Association of Newspapers for senior newsroom personnel, launched the weblog in 2004. It has since become the premier international weblog on newsroom issues, with more than 1,600 unique visitors each day.

To celebrate the relaunch, WEF is conducting a series of interviews with editors-in-chief from major publications around the world, about the future of newspapers and the news industry, on the theme of “News, journalism, newspapers: same past, different futures?”

Contributing publications include the Financial Times, the Washington Post, Canada's Globe & Mail, the Hindustan Times, Fairfax publications in Australia, Punch in Nigeria, and many others. The series kicked off today with Jim Brady, Executive Editor of washingtonpost.com.

Other recent posts include:

- From traditional to digital: Skyrock Blogs’ phenomenal transition from French radio broadcaster to digital publisher, with more than half of its revenues coming from new media.

- Hindustan Times' integration: top-down, video-heavy, an examination of fundamental changes to the Times' organisation and working culture.

- A two-part series on Zero Hora’s integration, providing a look at the Brazilian company's cross-platform workflows, and a process in which journalists are also functioning as editors.

The new Editors Weblog also offers advertising on both the website and daily newsletter. Advertisers are invited to download the media kit or contact Sales and Marketing Manager Jodie Hopperton.

The Paris-based World Editors Forum (http://www.worldeditorsforum.org ) is the organisation of the World Association of Newspapers that represents editors-in-chief and other senior news executives. WAN, the global organisation for the newspaper industry, represents 18,000 newspapers; its membership includes 76 national newspaper associations, newspapers and newspaper executives in 102 countries, 12 news agencies and ten regional and world-wide press groups.

The World Editors Forum, Reuters and Zogby International on Feb. 20 began collecting data for the second annual Newsroom Barometer, a global survey of chief editors about their attitudes and strategies in the multimedia age.

The Newsroom Barometer aims to provide a better understanding of the changes in newsrooms through the eyes of editors-in-chief and senior news executives.

Senior editors wishing to participate in the on-line survey, which tracks attitudes about the future of media and editorial strategies, should send their requests by e-mail to Bertrand Pecquerie, Director of the World Editors Forum, at bpecquerie@wan.asso.fr (including name, title, newspaper name and country).

The Barometer is being conducted in eight languages to expand its reach beyond the four languages that were provided last year (English, Spanish, German, French, Portuguese, Russian, Arabic and Japanese).

The 2008 poll results will be published in the next Trends in Newsroom report and presented by John Zogby, President of Zogby International and Monique Villa, Head of News at Reuters, at the 15th World Editors Forum conference to be held in Göteborg, Sweden, from 1 to 4 June next.

The first Newsroom Barometer, released last year, found the vast majority of newspaper editors world-wide are optimistic about the future of their newspapers. Full results can be found here.

An international news consumption study from The Associated Press and the annual "Newsroom Barometer" survey of newsroom strategies are among the exclusive research offerings now being prepared for the World Editors Forum, to be held in Sweden in June.

Participants of the World Editors Forum, the annual conference for senior newsroom personnel from around the globe, will get the first look at The AP's new international study of news consumption habits, which will be released during the first session of the WEF,  the annual meeting for senior news executives from around the world.

The session will also feature, for the second year, the Newsroom Barometer, an international survey of editors-in-chief conducted by WEF, Reuters and Zogby International. The barometer focuses on editorial quality, multi-media content, audience participation and the future of journalism.

More than 1,500 newspaper editors, chief executives, publishers and other senior newspaper executives are expected to attend the World Editors Forum, the World Newspaper Congress and Info Services Expo 2008, the global summit of the world's press organised by the World Association of Newspapers and the World Editors Forum. Full details of the events, to be held from 1 to 4 June in Göteborg, Sweden, are available at here.

The World Association of Newspapers and World Editors Forum have called on China to immediately release three journalists who are being held in violation of Chinese laws against lengthy detentions without trial.

The journalists – two reporters and a photographer – were arrested in June 2007 after reporting on a case of corruption in the Communist Party. Chinese authorities failed to release them, as required by law, when the deadline to proceed with trial expired in December.

Reporters Qi Chonghuai and He Yanjie, and photographer Ma Shiping, were detained by police in the eastern  province of Shandong and charged with "blackmail" and "suspicion of deception". In a letter to Premier Wen Jiabao, the Paris-based WAN and WEF said they were concerned that the charges were fabricated "and the real reason for their arrests is their reporting activities."

The letter called for the immediate release of the trio, and of all other jailed journalists, under reforms promised in China's successful bid for the 2000 Summer Olympic Games.

China recently released three journalists, but at least 30 others and 50 cyber-dissidents are still held in Chinese prisons. The imprisonments are in contradiction of China's pledge, contained in its "Beijing Olympic Action Plan", to follow international standards and criteria.

Read the full letter to Premier Wen.

More information about WAN's campaign for the release of Chinese journalists can be found here.

Since the recent launch of ACAP,  the new standard to protect the intellectual property of anyone publishing on the worldwide web, the blogosphere has been full of comments about it -- and not all of them have been polite.

The World Association of Newspapers has asked leading newspapers executives to identify the current trends they believe will have an impact on the future of their businesses. Some are profound and others are seemingly minor -- but all have the potential to shape the future of newspapers.

Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf has agreed to open the World Newspaper Congress, World Editors Forum and Info Services Expo 2008, the global summit meetings of the world's press, to be held in Göteborg, Sweden, next June.

Newspaper companies are optimistic about their ability to capture the time and interest of a new generation of readers, no matter what media channel the young prefer, according to a new report from the World Association of Newspapers.

The World Association of Newspapers has launched a new website to support and promote the use of cross-media audience measurements that will allow publishers to provide a more complete picture of their reach than print circulation alone.