In Spain, a number of writers, academics, singers, journalists and actors have set up a platform to lament the absence of open political debate. "The Spanish press is filled with silences," freelance journalist Emilio Silva said. Though there are many newspapers, each has a distinctive political bias. But though this is common in the privately-owned media, Spain's public broadcaster, too, has come under fire. In January, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe cited Spain's public radio and television channels as an example of "news manipulation". At Television Espanola itself, over half the employees formed an independent Advisory Council.

Source: European Journalism Centre and Expatica/BBC. See also (in Spanish) Periodistas 21 from Juan Varela.

To read in the New York Times an intriguing paper: "Jayson Blair, the former New York Times reporter who was found last year to have fabricated or plagiarized portions of more than three dozen articles, admits many of his deceptions in a forthcoming memoir but writes that they were fueled by ambition, cocaine and alcohol abuse and an undiagnosed condition of manic depression. In the book, Burning Down My Masters' House, scheduled for publication March 6, Mr. Blair writes of a path to what he calls his "self-destruction." He is at various points contemplative, introspective and piqued... But Mr. Blair, 27, expresses little remorse for the pain his actions caused."

Source: Jacques Steinberg, NYT.

Brian MacArthur from The Times suggests that the Glover’s project of creating a British Le Monde is more difficult than expected. "Trying to start a newspaper in a period when sales of all newspapers are in decline is a challenge. Over the six months to January, year-on-year sales of the five broadsheets fell by 122,000 (4.5 per cent). In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, sales of the Financial Times, the most austere of the broadsheets and the closest to Glover’s model, fell by 14,000."

Source: The Times.

Reporters Without Borders claim that Cuba was behind a Paris court action that could bankrupt the press freedom organisation for using the world famous Korda portrait of Che Guevara without permission. Diana Diaz-Lopez, head of the Havana ballet and daughter of the late photographer, is seeking 1.14m euros in damages from the Paris-based group over posters that use the Korda image to criticise President Fidel Castro's civil liberties record. The legal battle started in June when RSF launched a poster campaign to dissuade tourists from visiting Cuba. It grafted the face of Korda's "Che" on to a picture of a French riot squad officer beating up a protester, with the caption, "Cuba: the world's biggest prison for journalists".

Source: Jo Johnson, Financial Times.

The Knight-Ridder Washington bureau publishes the Richard Perle's resignation letter from the Defense Policy Board, an influential bipartisan Pentagon advisory group. Richard Perle, one of the most outspoken advocates for invading Iraq, has informed Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld that he was quitting the board in a letter dated Feb. 18, although a week later a Pentagon list of board members still included him.

Photo: Dan Gillmor (c) Dan Gillmor 2003.

It's not recent (May 2003), but it remains a good synthesis on what is collaborative journalism. Steve Bryant, a freelance journalist, co-managing editor of ReadMe and of the ReadMe blog, DriftNet gives us a good lesson on the recent past and the future of blogging.

"Newspapers began experimenting with online content about 10 years ago, but it is by no means a maturing business. A new technology comes along, and everyone thinks success will happen overnight, but most take 20 years to become an overnight success," said Paul Saffo, research director at the Institute for the Future. "Radio took 20 years. TV took 20 years. The Internet is no exception."

Source: NAA website.

Fakt, the Polish tabloid launched last October by Axel Springer, outsold Gazeta Wyborcza in December 2003 to become the country's top-selling newspaper, according to the paper’s distribution group. Fakt's daily circulation reached over 536,000, only two months after its October 22, 2003 launch, compared to 433,000 for Gazeta Wyborcza.

Contact: Maciej Hoffman: info@izbaprasy.media.pl

"I felt on the day I became executive editor and on the day I drove away from West Forty-third Street for the last time that the New York Times badly needs to raise the level of its journalism and to do so quickly in order to survive" said Howell Raines, the former editor of the Times on the newspaper he worked at for 25 years. In an article published by the Atlantic Monthly, Mr Raines, 61, said the importance of the New York Times as "a bastion of quality" had become all the more urgent as, among other things, "Britain's declining newspaper values" have "polluted the journalistic mainstream of the United States".

Source: Media Guardian and The Atlantic Monthly.

The compact now accounts for 74 per cent of sales of the British Independent after the launching of the tabloid edition end of September 2003. "The proportion is going up all the time. If you get to 90 per cent (for the compact), it doesn‚t make sense to produce both... The success of the compact prompts us to take a decision sooner rather than later, but we will review the situation" Mr Fallon - who runs the UK businesses of Independent News & Media - said.

Source: Times online.

Remember Salam Pax, the Baghdad blogger? You will appreciate these three English-speaking Iranian sites:

the online identity of one of the first Iranian women to start a blog.

a Toronto-based blogger.

an Iranian who runs the English-language eyeranian.net from San Diego, USA.

At its present course, Internet usage in Iran is expected to grow sevenfold to 15 million users by 2006, according to studies cited by the Middle East Economic Digest.

Source: Brian Murphy, Associated Press Writer (through Editor & Publisher)