A piece by Lawrence Pintak and Yosri Fouda in the Columbia Journalism Review argues that ‘well-meaning’ Western journalism rights groups undermine journalism ‘by defending Arab and Iranian online activists who have been jailed or harassed by the authorities’.

Full story at this link…

The Committee to Protect Journalists responds here.

(via Nigel Barlow)

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Al Jazeera has announced a new partnership with mobile handset manufacturer Sony Ericsson to provide built-in AJ RSS feeds on devices in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

The feeds, which will offer daily international news updates in English or Arabic, will feature on the W910, G502, W760, and W980 models, a post on the Al Jazeera Labs site said.

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CNN’s web traffic did rather well out of Hurricane Gustav: a press release issued yesterday told us that breaking news channel CNN.com Live ‘more than doubled its highest day on record on Monday, by serving more than 1.7 million live video streams globally’.

That figure represents a 124 percent increase on their previous highest day – February 21 – when it streamed the debate between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

In other news, another release announced the appointment of CNN’s first vice president of international digital services: Nick Wrenn, current managing editor for Europe, Middle East & Africa. Although based in Atlanta, Wrenn will manage all of the digital content outside of the US in his new role, bringing together CNN.com/international and mobile with its broadband services.

Wrenn will report to Tony Maddox, executive vice president and managing director of CNN International.

“Our digital services are playing an increasingly important part in the growth of CNN International and this new position ensures that they will be leveraged and incorporated into our current business appropriately,” said Maddox in the statement.

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It’s been another bad six months for press freedom around the globe, the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) concludes in a grim report released Saturday – writes E&P.

“Press freedom is under serious threat from many sources — gangs and corrupt officials in Latin America, autocratic regimes in the Middle East, conflicts in Africa, hostile governments in Asia, and from death threats and prosecutions in central Asia and Europe,” WAN said in its semi-annual review of press freedom.

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The Indian Premier League has signed a deal to stream live coverage of cricket matches on the internet and mobile devices.

The deal, which is reported to be worth £25 million over 10 years, will cover India, Pakistan and the Middle East and will be a subscription based service.

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Stephen Brooks has been appointed as the UK managing director of web analytics firm Nielsen Online. Brooks takes up his new post after working for EMAP, where he was digital director for magazines.

Before EMAP he was publisher of mad.co.uk for seven years, having helped launch the Centaur title in 1999.

Joining Brooks is David Webb as UK client director media research and Matthew Dodd as vice president of research and analytics for EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa).

Webb was formerly director of digital research worldwide for CNN International, while Dodd leaves the Telegraph Media Group, where he was director of customer insight.

Moving roles within the company, Brad Little has also been named director of industry solutions for the UK team.

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A new site for media professionals in the Middle East and North Africa will be launched on October 12.

Menassat.com will cover news, trends and events in the regions’ media in both Arabic and English and will help Arabic-speaking journalists tackle the problems they face in their work. Its editorial team will be based in Beirut.

For more information read this PDF.

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