Journalism.co.uk Editors' Blog » United Nations

FT.com: UN criticised for hosting press freedom day in Qatar

Laura Oliver — Tue, 05 May 2009 09:13:39 +0000

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has criticised the United Nations for hosting its annual World Free Press Day in Qatar – a state where domestic media is suppressed, says the body.

Full story at this link…

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Live streaming from Norwegian journalism event

Judith Townend — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 12:50:25 +0000

There’s a live video from the Free Media conference at the Norwegian Institute of Journalism in Fredrikstad today, courtesy of Journalisten.no.

You can’t rewind the video but you could opt in at the points you want to (Norwegian time is one hour ahead UK time).

Here’s the programme:

Thursday November 6

10.00
Welcome: Trine Østlyngen, director, The Norwegian Institute of Journalism
Opening remarks: Håkon Gulbrandsen, State Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

10.15
Strengthening media in the developing world - what does it take to ensure access for people living in poverty? Stephen King, director, BBC World Service Trust

11.15
The Muhammad Cartoons – an imagined clash of civilizations?
Opening remarks: Why I published – and how do I reflect upon my decision today? Flemming Rose, cultural editor, Jyllands-Posten
Panel discussion The caricatures as seen by the press around the world. Presentation of the new anthology summarizing the Muhammad cartoons controversy in several countries with Rose, Elisabeth Eide, researcher at Culcom, University of Oslo, and Risto Kunelius, professor and director of the journalism program at the University of Tampere, Finland
Moderator: Journalist and author Solveig Steien

14.00
Caucasus burning: The need for a free and independent media – and how to develop it? Danish SCOOP with support from International Media Support has started a program to help train journalists and develop media infrastructure in the Caucasus. The first national seminars were held last month in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. With Antti Kuusi, country coordinator, International Media Support; editor Boris Navasardian, Yerevan Press Club; and former Russia-correspondent Arne Egil Tønset, Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, who recently returned from a journey in the region. Moderator: Aage Borchgrevink , writer and advisor at the Norwegian Helsinki Committee

16.00
A Cameroonian journalist in exile: Philip Njaru and Jan Gunnar Furuly, SKUP/GIJC

Friday November 7

09.00
A thousand words – the camera as a tool. Well-known Iranian photographer Reza presents his “100 photos for press freedom”

09.45
Safety for journalists. A global overview. Sarah de Jong, Deputy Director and Project Manager INSI (International News Safety Institute).

10.30
Conflict-ridden Colombia: The role of the media
A journalist’s perspective: From death threats to a life in exile – reflections from Maria Cristina Caballero
Followed by a panel discussion where Jan Egeland, former UN Under-secretary general and the secretary general’s special adviser on Colombia, and NRK-journalist Sigrun Slapgard, will join. Moderator: Journalist and former Latin-America- correspondentHaakon Børde

11.30
Closing speech: Former presidential candidate and FARC-hostage Ingrid Betancourt

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Journalism in Africa: Rwandan journalists protest new law; Kenya’s media voted most trustworthy institution

Dennis Itumbi — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 14:58:14 +0000

Rwanda

Rwandan journalists have officially petitioned their upper parliament to shoot down a stringent media law that would force journalists to reveal their sources.

The proposed law would criminalize any story on cabinet proceedings, internal memos and documents in public institutions.

Under the legislation, anyone starting a newspaper would be required to pay $20,000 (£12,500) and 10 times more to begin a radio or TV station.

Speaking to Journalism.co.uk, Gasper Safari, president of the Rwanda Journalists Association, said the new laws were a death sentence to investigative journalism.

“How will investigative journalism survive? It is a rope and we are just being asked to practice journalism and the hangman will pull the rug under your feet,” he said.

Safari explained how his organisation had initially written a protest letter to the lower house of parliament, but it was ignored.

“We will explore other methods in dealing with the upper house. People cannot be allowed to shout they support press freedom while deep down they do not support the existence of the media,” he said.

Kenya

The media is the most trusted institution in Kenya – and the country’s electoral commission (ECK) the least, according to a recent survey by Gallup International affiliates Steadman Research.

The quarterly poll found that 80 per cent of Kenyans trusted the media – exactly the same number that found the ECK the most dishonest.

Fortunes for the media and the ECK have been on a downward trend since the violence surrounding last year’s disputed presidential election, but the media has regained some ground in the last two months after two major commissions backed by both the United Nations (UN) and the African Union (AU) returned a not guilty verdict on most of the media.

“Kenyans are saying that their last hope is with the media, their trust for institutions is at an all time low, but they have their thumbs up for journalists,” Tom Wolf, a lead researcher at Steadman, told a press conference in Nairobi.

The media was placed ahead of Kenya’s President, Prime Minister and parliament by the survey.

“We are not very happy to be ahead of all other institutions. It means we have a duty to assist them in getting to the highest level of trust, but our work is easier since we have the trust of our readers and viewers,” said Martin Gitau, general secretary of the Journalist Association of Kenya (JAK).

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Journalism in Africa: Kenyan news organisations cleared of fuelling post-election violence

Dennis Itumbi — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 14:39:46 +0000

A report from Africa’s Independent Review Commission (IREC), which was set up to investigate last year’s disputed presidential elections in Kenya, has cleared the country’s media of professional malpractice in its coverage of the election results, and blamed the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK) and politicians of delaying results at grassroots level.

The commission, which has trashed claims of rigging and alteration of presidential results at the National Tally Centre – the main complaint of the opposition, also dismissed concerns over the media’s role in the post-election violence raised by international observers, including the European Union, as overly reliant on hearsay.

IREC – headed by retired South African Judge Johann Kriegler – recommended that the media should be fed results electronically to increase speed and that a secure line of transmitting results from village polling stations to the headquarters be developed with an access password for all media houses.

“The media was under pressure to relay results, politicians and the electoral commission of Kenya delayed the numbers, the media had no choice but to report what they had, you cannot blame the beast if you have not fed it,” reads the report.

However, the report did find fault with vernacular media stations for fuelling tension after the announcement of the election results and called for a review of employment policies in media houses. “Only professionals should be employed,” it said.

“How can you blame the media when politicians forced their way into the press centre and took over the role of the ECK at a time when there was[sic] information gaps?” asked the 117-page report.

Within the next 15 days another report on the media’s handling of the elections is expected to be presented to President Mwai Kibaki and former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, who was chief mediator in the post-election crisis.

The report is expected to name, shame and recommend crucial steps that politicians, the media and the ECK should take to avoid a repeat of such violence in future.

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FT.com recruits Bono and Jeffrey Sachs as bloggers

Laura Oliver — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 17:11:59 +0000

U2 frontman Bono and development economist Jeffrey Sachs are teaming up with FT.com in a bid to form the world’s ultimate rock group to blog their way through the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals summit, which starts in New York on Thursday.

Sachs, who is director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, and Bono will post ‘development diaries’ throughout the event, a release from the paper explains.

Coverage was kicked off with a Q&A with Bono, who, it seems, is taking his duties pretty seriously:

AB [Andrew Beattie, FT trade editor]:What are the two or three goals you want to achieve this week?

Bono: 1. Blogging for the FT, being your roving reporter in the canyons of Manhattan. While the world upends on Wall Street, I’ll be mostly midtown at the UN and the Clinton Global Initiative talking about the resilience of the world’s poor while the world’s rich find out how fragile life can be.

Or then again…

AB: What exactly happens in the meetings you have with these world leaders?

Bono: Judo in a suit.

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Trinity Mirror schedules Ayrshire Post and Paisley Daily Express for revamp

Laura Oliver — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 10:20:44 +0000

The Ayrshire Post and Paisley Daily Express will be the next titles from Trinity Mirror’s Scottish division to be relaunched as standalone websites.

The new sites are part of plans to create individual websites outside of the ic umbrella sites for all of Scottish and Universal Newspapers’ (S&UN) 17 local newspaper titles.

The Hamilton Advertiser was the first title to go it alone in March and recorded 20,000 unique users in its first month of operation.

To run the new sites a new team of digital journalists has been recruited by the newspaper group led by S&UN head of digital Craig Brown and online editor John Hutcheson.

The remaining websites will be phased in over the summer, a press release from the company said.

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New football email from the Times gets hackles up @ Guardian’s Fiver

Oliver Luft — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 09:59:49 +0000

Imitation might not be the sincerest form of flattery for the people who write the Guardian’s daily email about football gossip – The Fiver.

Reacting with the elan of a chided teenager, The Fiver dedicated last Wednesday’s edition to ripping the piss out of the newly launched Times football email – Ahead of the Game. Mocking the launch thus:

Yes, folks, we’ve had a brainwave! The Fiver is dead – long live Behind The Times, our original, groundbreaking, new, crazy, alpha-male email about FOOTER!!! So sign up to our flagship new venture, and we will send you FIVE minutes of F.U.N. about FOOTER to your inbox EVERY DAY!!!! AT 5PM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It’s a bit like the Fiver… only TRULY USEFUL. And about FOOTER! Yes, you heard that right! It’s about FOOTER! And you really can use it!

And later:

120

The number of minutes Ahead Of The Game should wait each day at 4pm before sending out their all-new funny email about footer. That way, they could save themselves a load of unnecessary bother by simply cutting and pasting the contents of the Fiver and sending those out (but not before correcting all our spelling mistakes and grammatical errors, and adding some funny jokes).

Followed by reams of links to old news stories.

Funny? Well, for a bit.

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