Results tagged “investigative journalism”

It goes without saying that China's freedom of speech record is one of the poorest in the world. Last year Reporters Without Boarders ranked the country at 168 out of 175 total countries and territories, reports the Time. Yet the internet revolution has made access to information easier, thus making it harder for government officials to control what the population consumes. Most Chinese people get their news from microblogs, as they don't trust the government owned media enterprise Xinhua. Many people turn to Yeeyan.org, a translating social network, which allows the Chinese to read content that was published in English. It seems that the harder the press and the people fight for journalistic freedom, the harder the government will try to contain it. 

Last week Reporters without Borders announced that the Chinese government have mandated microblogging sites to self-appoint officials who will be responsible for censoring content. Likewise, mobile users who purchase a SIM card will have to register the chip to their name, which includes a photo copy of their identification. Current users of mobile phones have 3 years to register their SIM card with public officials "China's censors are giving themselves an additional layer of control," Reporters Without Borders states on their website. "The Great Firewall of China is getting human reinforcements to boost its effectiveness. But if they are held to strict performance criteria, it seems these commissioners are being assigned an impossible mission, given the volume of information circulating online for which they will be responsible."

Conflict between Climate Camp protesters and the press has arisen following apparent attempts by Climate Camp to restrict media access to their protests and the media's apparent lack of fact-checking.

Guardian writer Marc Vallée wrote on the paper's Environment Blog about his experience at the Climate Camp protest at the Royal Bank of Scotland in Edinburgh to decry bank bail-outs and promote environmental justice. Vallée reported that Climate Camp would not allow the media on site for more than three hours a day, hindering the ability for the news organizations to fully cover the story. "The camp felt it could control access to the land and decide who could or could not use it and at what times. A camper could take a picture at any time on a mobile phone, but a journalist could only take a picture between the hours of 1pm and 6pm and only with permission." The situation escalated into violence, as around 200 Climate Campers crossed police lines and smashed five windows. Several news sources, including the Digital Journal, claimed  "an oil-like substance was thrown at buildings." Police wanted to further restrict the media once the RBS site became a crime scene, but they backed down once pressure was applied by the National Union of Journalists. 

After struggling for the better part of 2010, France's newspaper France-Soir is aggressively taking action to be perceived as a credible source of news. In an interview with Alexandre Pugachev, the owner of the publication, he commented to Le Figaro on his vision to give France-Soir a new voice by increasing its journalistic standards.  

The new makeover required that Pugachev relieve Christian de Villeneuve of his position of editor-in-chief at France-Soir. Villeneuve previously worked at the Parisian and the Journal du Dimanche, and apparently his vision for France-Soir was clouded by his previous employments, according to the interview in Le Figaro. For Pugachev, France-Soir was merely an imitation of other newspapers and did not have its own personality, which caused the tabloid-like paper to lose its credibility. Villeneuve was dismissed only after 5 months of employment.

The Guardian is launching a team focused on multimedia aspects of breaking news stories. The project will deal specifically with sources of technology and crowdsourcing that will ameliorate the newspaper's ability to tell stories online. 

Reporter Paul Lewis was promoted within the Guardian to lead the new multimedia team. He was distinguished for using sources of multimedia to cover in-depth details pertaining to the death of Ian Tomlinson at the 2009 G20 protest in London. As a result of his investigative work, Lewis won reporter of the year at the 2010 British Press Awards along with the Bevins Prize Rat Up a Drain Pipe Award for outstanding investigative journalism.

The Plain Dealer newspaper announced earlier this week it has formed a partnership with the PolitiFact Ohio. This is the latest growth to the national PolitiFact network, which now consist of  PolitiFact Florida (Miami Herald), PolitiFact Texas (Austin American-Statesman), PolitiFact Georgia (Atlanta Journal Constitution), and PolitiFact Rhode Island (Providence Journal). On a national scale, NPR and ABC News have also partnered with PolitiFact.

PolitiFact originated in St. Petersburg, Florida in 2007. It was designed to cross reference statements made by politicians, divulging further into the background details behind their statements. The website assists each statement by asking the basic questions "How do you know that and what are your sources?" After the initial assessment of the statement, PolitiFact labels the statement on a "Truth-O-Meter" scale from True, Mostly True, Half True, Barely True, False and the worst rating at Pants on Fire.