Journalism Daily: Reed divestment update and Chris Anderson on the media

Journalism.co.uk is trialling a new service via the Editors’ Blog: a daily round-up of all the content published on the Journalism.co.uk site.

We hope you’ll find it useful as a quick digest of what’s gone on during the day (similar to our e-newsletter) and to check that you haven’t missed a posting.

We’ll be testing it out for a couple of weeks, so you can subscribe to the feed for the Journalism Daily here.

Let us know what you think – all feedback much appreciated.

News and features

• Reed Elsevier to sell US magazine titles
• Laura Dixon stands in as temporary editor for Folio

Ed’s picks

• BBC Editors Blog: BBC resumes operations in Zimbabwe (as does CNN)
• PRSourceCode: A&R Edelman rated top tech PR firm by bloggers and journalists
• Telegraph.co.uk: MSN discussing hyperlocal partnerships with local papers
• Spiegel Online: Will media be a hobby rather than job, asks Chris Anderson
• Chris Amico: Lessons in data journalism and ‘frameworks for reporting’
• BBC Radio 4: Why do foreign correspondents capture the imagination?

Tip of the day

• Different voices for your Twitter accounts

#FollowJourn

• @greigcameron/chief reporter

On the Editors’ Blog

• Last chance to enter Red Bull reporting competition
• Malcolm Coles: How US traffic is vital for UK newspaper sites
• Crowdsourcing the perfect press release – an update
• WW1 veterans: Henry Allingham’s funeral draws national media; FHM’s tribute to its agony uncle Harry Patch
• Future: Digital ads going from strength-to-strength

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• #FollowJourn: @greigcameron/chief reporter
• Journalism Daily: Academics boycott Observer, theblogpaper’s launch and AOP conference
• Journalism Daily: FT clippings, sticky news, journalists freed from North Korea
• A guide to newspapers on Twitter
• Journalism Daily: Council newspapers, INMA/OPA event and more editorial outsourcing

BBC Editors Blog: BBC resumes operations in Zimbabwe (as does CNN)

After eight years of operating undercover, the BBC can report ‘openly and legally’ from Zimbabwe.

Clandestine operations have to be a last resort, says Jon Williams, in this post.

Now the corporation can look at setting up a bureau in Harare.

Full post at this link…

Update: The Zimbabwe Times has reported that CNN’s reporting ban has also been lifted.

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IOL.co.za: ‘Mugabe at the centre of press freedom row’

As reported by South Africa’s Independent Online: “If Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s daughter Bona harboured hopes of keeping a low profile while she completes her university course in Hong Kong, they were dealt a painful blow this week.

“The 20-year-old has found herself at the centre of a ferocious row over press freedom after two bodyguards protecting her were spared prosecution for grappling with two photographers outside the luxury home her father provided for her during her studies.”

Full story at this link…

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The Zimbabwe Guardian: ‘Zimbabwe journalism in intensive care’

In a letter to the editor, Zimbabwean Nyarai Chidemo urges the country’s media regulators to crack down on ill-informed news reporting and propaganda in the industry.

“Our people deserve better informed presenters who can articulate issues and dissect problems intelligently. Such recycling of ignorance is detrimental to the the health of our society,” writes Chidemo.

Full post at this link…

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CNN.com: Zimbabwe demands registration fees from foreign journalists

Foreign journalists working in Zimbabwe will have to pay $4,000 (USD) a year under new licensing rules announced by the country’s government.

Foreign media groups must pay around $32,000 for application, accreditation and administration as part of the new regulations.

The fees don’t apply to journalists working for Zimbabwean organisations. Full story…

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CNN: Zimbabwe demands $36,000 fee from journalists

CNN reports that the Zimbabwean government is demanding that foreign journalists pay a combined annual licence fee of $36,000 to practice journalism in its country. This appears to be supported by a story in the Zimbabwe Times. Full story…

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Peaceful elections just ain’t news – the dire state of world reporting on Africa

Yesterday I picked up a discussion on Facebook, via a friend, about media coverage of the Ghanaian elections (voters went to the polls yesterday, and votes are being counted now, if you missed it, by the way) why had there been so little election coverage on the Western networks? Very little on CNN; very little on BBC.

“I was hoping, only hoping that for just a fraction of a moment the media cameras and the pens will slip from Mugabe’s Zimbabwe onto Ghana. Just a bit of positive reportage on Africa! That’s all I was hoping for. But I guess that’s not sensational enough for the Western media. ‘Ghana peacefully elects a new President’… that’s not headline stuff! It simply does not sell,” wrote Maclean Arthur.

Meanwhile, Oluniyi David Ajao rounds up the poor global news coverage here, on his blog. ‘Does Ghana exist’ he asks? He finds it ‘interesting that many of the leading Western media outlets have not made a mention of Ghana 2008 Elections.’

“Perhaps, Ghana does not exist on their radar screen. Ghana, like the rest of black Africa will only pop-up on their monitoring screens when over 1,000 people have butchered themselves or over 300,000 people are dying of starvation, or over 500,000 people are displaced by a civil war,” Ajao writes.

Over on Facebook, others were quick to join in the criticism and call for more African specific coverage, in the form of an African television network.

That’s exactly what Salim Amin wants to set-up, in a bid to counter existing coverage (or lack thereof) with a proposed all-African television network, A24, as I have written about on Journalism.co.uk before. Amin told me in September:

“Everything we get is negative out of Africa. 99 per cent of the news is genocides, wars, famine, HIV.

“We’re not saying those things don’t occur or we’re going to brush them under the carpet, but what we’re saying is there are other things people want to know about. About business, about sport, about music, environment, health…

“Even the negative stuff needs to be done from an African perspective. African journalists are not telling those stories – it’s still foreign correspondents being parachuted into the continent to tell those stories. We want to give that opportunity to Africans to come up with their own solutions and tell their own stories.”

However, Amin is still searching for suitable investors that won’t compromise the ideals and aims of the channel. In the meantime, A24 exists as an online video agency.

The pitiful global coverage of the Ghanaian election reinforces the need for better and wider spread African news coverage, that isn’t just the stereotypical coverage we’re so used to, as Maclean Arthur referred to on Faceboook as ‘the usual images of dying children with flies gallivanting all over their chapped lips.’

Yes, some websites are bridging some gaps (for example, New America Media for the ethnic media in the US, and Global Voices Online – who wrote about Twittering the Ghanaian elections here), but there’s still a heck of a way to go. BBC World Service may have a Ghana Election page, but it’s not quite on the same scale as you might see for a European election is it?

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Press Gazette: Appeal with NUJ for Zimbabwean journalists

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Press Gazette: Sun falls prey to Mugabe house hoax

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Google News launches for nine African countries

Further to its addition of a Turkish version, Google News has launched English-language editions in nine African countries.

Sites for Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Namibia Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe have been set up, according to the Google News Blog.

Google News now has 52 editions worldwide.

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