From the Washington Post: If the Vice President says a very bad word, can your paper print it? In his Media Notes column, Howard Kurtz looks at his own paper's decision to print in full a word Dick Cheney used in a verbal altercation with Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy. "The New York Times said Vice President Cheney had used 'an obscenity' ... The Los Angeles Times had Cheney saying 'Go . . . yourself.' CNN said Cheney used 'the F-word,'" Kurtz reported. So why did his own paper decide to be more specific? "When the vice president of the United States says it to a senator in the way in which he said it on the Senate floor," said Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr., "readers need to judge for themselves what the word is because we don't play games at The Washington Post and use dashes." What is your paper's policy?

Source: Washington Post

For Media Bulletin / Brand Republic, "More than 100 jobs could go at the Telegraph Group as the Barclay brothers, whose £665m bid was accepted last week, look to implement the kind of cost savings that have already been seen at The Scotsman. According to a report in the Independent on Sunday, the Barclay brothers will have to make the cost cuts to claw back savings after their bid climbed to almost £700m. A source quoted by the paper said: "They can not justify paying £665m without some major surgery in the medium term. Editorially and commercially, it has to be improved."

Source: Media Bulletin / Brand Republic and the Independent on Sunday.

From Reuters: "According to studio estimates issued on Sunday, "Fahrenheit 9/11," in which Michael Moore takes aim at President Bush, and the war in Iraq, opened at No. 1 after selling about $21.8 million worth of tickets in the United States and Canada since June 25. All told, the movie's total stands at $21.96 million, because it got a head-start on Wednesday in two Manhattan theaters to help build more media buzz before expanding to a relatively modest 868 theaters two days later. (By contrast, most of the other movies in the top five were playing in more than 2,500 theaters each.)... But one thing is certain. The Oscar race is now definitely underway ahead of next year's Feb. 27 ceremony, with "Fahrenheit 9/11" joining Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" as the highest-profile contender."

Source: Reuters

Tunde Oladunjoye, Executive Editor of the Centre for Media Education and Networking in Lagos, says Nigerian editors are motivated not by the desire to tell readers the truth, but by sectional, tribal, economic, political and religious interests. Some politicians and office-holders are even starting their own newspapers, he reports, in order to advance their careers. To solve this problem, Oladunjoye proposes a Media Round Table, “which would consist of professionals from the media, public relations and advertising industries, would meet regularly to examine media contents and quality, identify, commend and recommend good reportage that promotes professional and ethical standards by practitioners; expose and condemn unethical practices and report to appropriate authorities for sanctions, if need be; and look at other relevant issues to be agreed upon by members.” Sounds like self-regulation. Or Press Council process.

Source: AllAfrica.com

As revealed by the comparative sales statistics 2003/2004 for Germany, published by Zeitungs Marketing Gesellschaft (organization for the marketing of Newspapers) on wednesday, the sales of daily newspapers in Germany have been reduced by 2.91% to 27.97 million. during the third quarter of 2004. The sector, which was hit worst is that of newsstand sales with a reduction of 5.36%, while subscription sales have only diminished by 2.26% according to ZMG.

Source: ZMG (registration required)

This is a very important - and strange - decision that will affect photojournalism. According to BBC news, "Princess Caroline - the daughter of Prince Rainier of Monaco and film star Grace Kelly - has won a major legal battle over the right of newspapers to publish pictures of her. The European Court of Human rights said photographs of her and her children should not have been published, even if they were taken in a public place. It was hailed as a landmark decision which could affect the rights of "paparazzi" photographers elsewhere. It overturns a German ruling in 1999, which said as a public figure she had to accept being photographed in public."

From Kenya's Sunday Standard: The East African Standard has come under government scrutiny after publishing political cartoons officials deemed inappropriate. Sunday Standard columnist Kodi Barth reports that the government's Goldenberg Commission of Inquiry has "demanded an explanation" for two political cartoons that mocked its work investigating an export compensation scandal . The Standard Group’s Managing Director, Tom Mshindi, appeared before the commission to apologize for making fun of its officials, but simultaneously defended cartoonists' right to satirize the government. Barth calls satiric journalism a "creative art": "The point is that within the creative art, there is no question of right or wrong. It is the power of debate within the constitutionally endorsed quest for journalistic space that counts. Better still if that debate is provoked in humour. Naturally, law and ethics may find fault with any publication, creative or otherwise, that is premised on a wrong and a lie. But satire, which highlights practices that frequently contradict virtue, is often the extreme limit of comedy in which the difference between things as they are and things as they ought to be is deliberately exaggerated."

Source: Sunday Standard

Pakistani security forces killed an Al-Qaeda kingpin allegedly behind an assassination attempt on President Pervez Musharraf and indicted in the murder of Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl, a security official said. Amjad Farooqi, Pakistan's most wanted terrorist with a 20 million rupee (330,000 dollars) bounty on his head, was killed in a gunfight with security forces in Nawabshah in southern Sindh province, the official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity. He was indicted over Pearl's murder but was never tracked down. Farooqi provided the militants who kept Pearl in a shed on Karachi's outskirts after the reporter was abducted on January 23, 2002, a police officer who investigated the case had told AFP. He also recruited the trio of men who slit Pearl's throat as a video-camera filmed and was said to be "very close" to Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, the British-born militant convicted of plotting Pearl's abduction and murder.

Source: channelnewsasia.com

Several of the largest U.S. newspaper groups said they saw a gradual recovery in the advertising market for the rest of the year, and said the circulation scandals at rival publishers would have little impact on the overall market... Left unaddressed for investors attending the Mid-Year Media Review conference in New York were the recent revelations of circulation pumping at Tribune Co.'s Newsday and Spanish-language Hoy, and Hollinger International's Chicago Sun-Times. Chief executives at both companies defended their auditing practices. "We have a rigorous internal auditing practice," Tony Ridder, CEO of Knight Ridder told Reuters. But he added, "We're going to talk about if there's any more we can do." Douglas McCorkindale, Chairman and CEO of Gannett said the problems that have plagued his rivals are not pervasive. "The newspaper industry operates in an straightforward and ethical manner," he said. The media is "blowing it out of proportion ... there is no circulation scandal."

Source: Reuters and former EW posting

According to FT, "The Financial Times became the first foreign media group to buy a stake in an Indian newspaper after signing an agreement to acquire 13.85 per cent of Business Standard, the country's second-largest business daily, for Rs141m ($3.05m). The FT's move follows reforms that allow foreign titles to acquire up to 26 per cent of an Indian newspaper. The Business Standard stake represents the latest leg of the FT group's global strategy of investing in leading titles in local markets. Pearson, the global publishing group that owns the FT, holds stakes in newspapers in France, Germany, Spain, Russia and South Africa. From next week, all editions of Business Standard, published in seven cities, will carry a dedicated page of FT content. Business Standard, whose board will include a representative of the FT, would continue to operate as an independent entity, said the FT."

Source: Financial Times

3 out of 10 Korean high school students who carry mobile phones are reported to be addicted to mobile phones. They feel anxious without their cell phones. According to the result of survey carried by the Hospital of Seoul National University, 21% of 270 high school students carrying cell phones responded that they feel anxious when their handsets are not in their hands and 8% of them said that they feel very frustrated without mobile phones. 10% of the respondents said that they have ever felt pain in the shoulder or wrist when they send SMS or play games on their phones.

The pain they feel when they send SMS is a kind of syndrome that the repetitive work to press small keyboards of cell phones causes poor blood circulation and pain in the shoulder. 31% of the surveyed said that they send more than 30 text messages a day. The hospital warned that excessive use of mobile phones, like Internet addiction, can cause depression, anxiousness and sleep disorder.

Source: Telecoms Korea