Unifying control of broadcast media
Among the changes approved at the recent National People's Congress was the creation of clear Party controls over the media messages to the world.
Beijing plans to merge state media outlets as it tightens control
China Central Television (CCTV), China National Radio (CNR) and China Radio International (CRI) will be consolidated into a new broadcaster called Voice of China – a nod to federally funded Voice of America in the United States and Germany’s Deutsche Welle…
 |
| Xi greets CCTV workers |
A document introducing the changes… says the consolidated group will sit directly under the State Council, China’s cabinet, and will be led by the party’s Central Propaganda Department.
It also outlines changes to the propaganda unit and the Central Organisation Department – two already powerful agencies that will have even more heft after the revamp.
The propaganda department will absorb the country’s top media watchdog… taking over its regulatory power on news, publications and film…
The changes are part of a structural reform of party and state departments designed to entrench the party’s control over all levers of government and all aspects of life.
According to the document, Voice of China’s main duties will be to “promote the party’s theories, principles and policies”, “coordinate and organise major propaganda coverage”, “strengthen the ability to shape public opinion”, “improve its global communication capabilities”, and “tell the China story well”.
Under Xi, Beijing has also grown increasingly eager to be heard in a world it sees as dominated by Western narratives that are unfair and biased against China…
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Labels: China, Communist Party, media, regime
Fake News in Nigeria
Really fake.
The Economist Disowns Publication On PMB [President Muhammadu Buhari
]
The Economist, a London-based magazine, has disclaimed a publication which claims that Nigerians have shown unprecedented level of patience with President Muhammadu Buhari.
The president’s special adviser on media, Femi Adesina, who revealed this in a statement, noted that the publication had been trending on the social media and on some websites in the country, and beyond.
He said: “A letter dated January 18, 2018, written and signed by Jonathan Rosenthal, the Africa editor of the magazine, reads: “It has come to my attention that an article has been circulating on social media and been published on various websites that purports to have been written or published by The Economist.
“The article with the headline ‘The Unprecedented Level of Patience Shown to Buhari’ was not written nor published by The Economist. Any claims connecting it to The Economist are false.”
“The Presidency enjoins Nigerians to be very watchful and circumspect about the kind of information they are exposed to, and share, especially in this period when purveyors of fake news abound.”
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Labels: media, Nigeria, politics
21st century cold war
This verges on a topic for international relations more than on comparative government and politics. But it could be an example of the use of soft power. It gives new meaning to the idea of a cold war.
The article is probably too long for student use, but it's good teacher background.
RT, Sputnik and Russia’s New Theory of War
 |
| Russia Today |
After RT and Sputnik gave platforms to politicians behind the British vote to leave the European Union, like Nigel Farage, a committee of the British Parliament released a report warning that foreign governments may have tried to interfere with the referendum. Russia and China, the report argued, had an “understanding of mass psychology and of how to exploit individuals” and practiced a kind of cyberwarfare “reaching beyond the digital to influence public opinion.”…
But all of this paled in comparison with the role that Russian information networks are suspected to have played in the American presidential election of 2016. In early January… American intelligence officials released a declassified version of a report — prepared jointly by the Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation and National Security Agency — titled “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections.” It detailed what an Obama-era Pentagon intelligence official, Michael Vickers, described in an interview in June with NBC News as “the political equivalent of 9/11.” “Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election,” the authors wrote. “Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton and harm her electability and potential presidency.” According to the report, “Putin and the Russian government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump.”
The intelligence assessment detailed some cloak-and-dagger activities, like the murky web of Russian (if not directly government-affiliated or -financed) hackers who infiltrated voting systems and stole gigabytes’ worth of email and other documents from the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign. But most of the assessment concerned machinations that were plainly visible to anyone with a cable subscription or an internet connection: the coordinated activities of the TV and online-media properties and social-media accounts that made up, in the report’s words, “Russia’s state-run propaganda machine.”
The assessment devoted nearly half its pages to a single cable network: RT. The Kremlin started RT — shortened from the original Russia Today — a dozen years ago to improve Russia’s image abroad. It operates in several world capitals and is carried on cable and satellite networks across the United States, Europe, Asia and the Middle East…
Russia has dismissed the intelligence-community claims as so much Cold War-era Yankee hysteria… Russian officials are remarkably open about the aims of RT and Sputnik: to “break the monopoly of the Anglo-Saxon global information streams,”
Dmitri Peskov, Putin’s press secretary… argued that this was not an information war of Russia’s choosing; it was a “counteraction.” He brought up the “color revolutions” throughout Eastern Europe and Central Asia, which led to the ousters of Russian-friendly governments… But now, Peskov argued, all you might need to shake up the geopolitical order was a Twitter account. “Now you can reach hundreds of millions in a minute,” he said…
One way of looking at the activities of Russia’s information machine is as a resumption of the propaganda fight between the United States and the U.S.S.R. that began immediately following the Second World War…
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Labels: media, Russia, soft power
News, alt-news, propaganda
In looking for articles that might help illustrate concepts and examples for comparative politics, I regularly look at government-run sources. The main ones are the BBC and Xinhua. BBC has earned a reputation as a straightforward, trustworthy source of factual information. Xinhua carefully presents Communist Party positions, and I try to remember to label those articles for readers here.
I also look at Al Arabiya, a Saudi-owned news service that presents news from a "pan-Arab" persepective (some would say "pro-Saudi" perspective and Al Jazeera, owned by the government of Qatar, which is often seen as promoting Islamist points of view.
I do not actively seek out articles from Russian, Mexican, Nigerian, or Iranian government sources.
As you consider the critique of RT below, remember that the US government operates Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Europe. They are remnants of the Cold War and report with a perspective that represents the US government. (See also Radio Free Asia, Radio y Television Marti, and Alhurra.)
And how does RT affect the news in the US? Is it different from the BBC or Al Jazeera? And how does it connect to social media?
Russia’s RT Network: Is It More BBC or K.G.B.?
The London newsroom and studios of RT, the television channel and website formerly known as Russia Today, are ultramodern and spacious, with spectacular views from the 16th floor overlooking the Thames and the London Eye…
Even as Russia insists that RT is just another global network like the BBC or France 24, albeit one offering “alternative views” to the Western-dominated news media, many Western countries regard RT as the slickly produced heart of a broad, often covert disinformation campaign designed to sow doubt about democratic institutions and destabilize the West.
Western attention focused on RT when the Obama administration and United States intelligence agencies judged with “high confidence” in January that Mr. Putin had ordered a campaign to “undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process…
The agencies issued a report saying the attack was carried out through the targeted use of real information, some open and some hacked, and the creation of false reports, or “fake news,” broadcast on state-funded news media like RT and its sibling, the internet news agency Sputnik. These reports were then amplified on social media, sometimes by computer “bots” that send out thousands of Facebook and Twitter messages…
But if there is any unifying character to RT, it is a deep skepticism of Western and American narratives of the world and a fundamental defensiveness about Russia and Mr. Putin.
Analysts are sharply divided about the influence of RT. Pointing to its minuscule ratings numbers, many caution against overstating its impact. Yet focusing on ratings may miss the point, says Peter Pomerantsev, who wrote a book three years ago that described Russia’s use of television for propaganda. “Ratings aren’t the main thing for them,” he said. “These are campaigns for financial, political and media influence.”
RT and Sputnik propel those campaigns by helping create the fodder for thousands of fake news propagators and providing another outlet for hacked material that can serve Russian interests…
Whatever its impact, RT is unquestionably a case study in the complexity of modern propaganda. It is both a slick modern television network, dressed up with great visuals and stylish presenters, and a content farm that helps feed the European far right. Viewers find it difficult to discern exactly what is journalism and what is propaganda, what may be “fake news” and what is real but presented with a strong slant…
For RT and its viewers, the outlet is a refreshing alternative to what they see as complacent Western elitism and neo-liberalism, representing what the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov recently called a “post-West world order.”
With its slogan, created by a Western ad agency, of “Question More,” RT is trying to fill a niche, Ms. Belkina said. “We want to complete the picture rather than add to the echo chamber of mainstream news; that’s how we find an audience.”…
Michael McFaul, a Stanford professor who was the United States ambassador to Russia during the Obama years, said that RT should not be lightly dismissed. “There is a demand in certain countries for this alternative view, an appetite, and we arrogant Americans shouldn’t just think that no one cares.”
But there is a considerably darker view, too. For critics, RT and Sputnik are simply tools of a sophisticated Russian propaganda machine, created by the Kremlin to push its foreign policy, defend its aggression in Ukraine and undermine confidence in democracy, NATO and the world as we have known it.
Robert Pszczel, who ran NATO’s information office in Moscow and watches Russia and the western Balkans for NATO, said that RT and Sputnik were not meant for domestic consumption, unlike the BBC or CNN. Over time, he said, “It’s more about hard power and disinformation.”…
Probably more important than RT, [Robert Pszczel, who ran NATO’s information office in Moscow] said, are Sputnik and local language outlets sponsored by Russia, like the Slovak magazine “Zem a Vek,” known for its conspiracy theories. Sputnik is the largest source of raw news in the Balkans, he said, “because it’s a free product in local languages.”…
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Labels: concepts, critical thinking, media
What to say, what to say?
In spite of the general poverty in China, the country has one of the highest savings rates in the world.
Forbes magazine says that
savings in China make up over half of its GDP.
The Party and the government want to get those savings actively involved in the investment that underpins China's growth. So Party and government media have encouraged buying stocks.
Now, we have the collapse (er… corection). What do the official media say now? In the USA nearly every news report repeats the official line that no one should panic and make changes. (Unless you borrowed 0.5% money to speculate. Then you're in trouble.) Here's the Chinese version as reported by
The New York Times.
China’s Party-Run Media Is Silent on Market Mayhem
After China’s stock markets crumpled, prompting a global sell-off, People’s Daily, the premier newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, had other things on its mind.
There was no mention of the market mayhem on the newspaper’s front page on Tuesday, when it featured a report about economic development in Tibet. Indeed, there was not a single reference to the stock markets throughout the entire 24 pages of the paper, which [dwelt] instead on the forthcoming 70th anniversary of Japan’s defeat in World War II.
The silence continued on Wednesday, when the paper again did not report on the stock market upheavals, although it did have articles about Chinese central bank decisions and Prime Minister Li Keqiang’s restatement of confidence in the broader economy, despite the effects of what he called global “market volatility.”…
“My hunch would be that they’re really not about to stomach another wave of more open reporting by the Chinese media,” said David Bandurski, the website editor for the China Media Project, based at the University of Hong Kong, who has written extensively on China’s controls on news.
“This is an explosive economic story for China,” he said…
On Monday, the 7 p.m. news broadcast on China Central Television, the country’s main television network, also skipped mention of the plummet in stock prices.
China Digital Times, which collates leaked, confidential propaganda and censorship directives to Chinese journalists, reported that in June they were told to keep coverage of the stock markets strictly in line with official rules intended to deter pessimism or panic…
Other newspapers and websites in China reported on the market turmoil, though often presenting China as an unlikely bystander in a wider global downturn…
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Labels: China, economics, leadership, media, politics
Auto license, motorcycle license, television license
When the BBC was established in 1922, radio was a novelty and television was an experiment on engineers' workbenches. After World War II, television became a reality and the BBC expanded to the new medium. All the while, it's primary source of funding has
been a yearly fee for radio and television licenses. Currently, a household pays about US$175 per year for a television license. Most countries outside of the Americas require licenses for televisions and/or radios.
The question being asked in Britain is whether or not non-payment of the license fee should be a criminal or a civil offense. The fate of BBC financing is in the background. [This report does NOT come from the BBC.]
Licence fee prosecutions overburden courts, argues Michael Gove
Michael Gove, the justice secretary, has raised concern that prosecutions for non-payment of the BBC licence are overburdening the courts.
He has discussed the issue with John Whittingdale, the culture secretary, who is considering whether evasion of the licence fee should be decriminalized…
Gove has now made his case… about how decriminalisation could ease the caseload of magistrates courts. TV licence prosecutions account for 180,000 out of 1.5m magistrate cases each year.
A BBC spokesman said: “The government’s own evidence-based review found that licence fee evasion should not be decriminalised and that the current system is broadly fair, proportionate and provides good value for both licence fee payers and taxpayers.”
[Decriminalisation is the abolition of criminal penalties in relation to certain acts, though regulated permits or fines might still apply. -Wikipedia]
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Labels: media, political culture, regime, UK
What would George Orwell say?
When the news gets tough, the tough take control. No, that's not quite it.
Russia’s Putin signs law extending Kremlin’s grip over media
In a move that will significantly constrict Russia’s fast-shrinking space for independent reporting, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday signed into law a measure that will curtail foreign ownership of media outlets in his country.
The decision extends the Kremlin’s control over some of Russia’s most prominent independent publications…
The move comes as Russia’s powerful state-run media has labored round-the-clock to glorify Putin and denigrate groups perceived to be the nation’s enemies…
Even though Putin long ago consolidated his control over television and many print news outlets, there had been independent options for the smaller set of Russians who sought alternative voices for news, and the Internet was a particularly unregulated space. But over the past year, one news source after another has been blocked, closed or editorially redirected…
The law deals the sharpest blow to Russia’s most prominent independent daily newspaper, Vedomosti, which aspires to Western standards of journalism.
Vedomosti is co-owned by a tri-national consortium — Dow Jones, the Financial Times Group and Sanoma, a Finnish media company — and focuses on business reporting, a sensitive topic given Russia’s tanking economy and dim prospects for the future. The newspaper has chronicled the troubles of Russia’s most powerful companies as the economy has slowed and Western sanctions have taken hold…
For the Kremlin, “in general it’s easier to have controlled media than non-controlled media,” said Elizaveta Osetinskaya, a former editor of Forbes Russia who is now the editor in chief at the RBC Group, a business-focused media consortium owned by Russian tycoon Mikhail Prokhorov. It also seeks to report independent news and was the first national news outlet to report in August about the funerals of Russian soldiers who died fighting in eastern Ukraine.
“Right now society doesn’t think it needs free media,” Osetinskaya said…
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Labels: media, politics, Russia
New Newspeak
Parroting stock phrases from the Central Committee is no longer adequate. Even in China, public relations and politics are merging.
Learning to spin
[T]he media landscape has changed completely [in China]. Consumer programmes, investigative reporters and a noisy mix of microbloggers and middle-class NIMBYs are holding the party more to account. The classes at the China Executive Leadership Academy Pudong (CELAP) in Shanghai demonstrate that the leadership has understood what is at stake, even if it is still learning how to deal with it. Some of the party’s biggest recent problems have come from mishandling the newly probing media.
The message of the classes is clear: officials must be more responsive to the press and the public even as they toe the party line…
“In the past we could avoid the press…we could remain silent, but now we can no longer avoid it,” Tan Wenzhu, a lecturer, told a group of 40 officials from Heilongjiang province…
Of the party’s 85m members, many of whom are officials and civil servants, fewer than 100,000 have so far received training from the Shanghai academy… The party’s powerful organisation department arranges classes for senior officials, who must attend 110 hours of training a year at one of the national schools. Local governments also send their officials on courses…
In class, turgid canonical teachings of the party must all be represented: Marx, Mao and “Deng Xiaoping Theory”. But CELAP has a light attachment to doctrine compared with other party schools. Students are taught to “de-politicise” their language in times of crisis, at least in dealing with the public. Charged ideological phrases like “hostile Western forces” will not be helpful at the scene of a domestic disaster. Government jargon should be dropped, too. Liu Ning, a television presenter for Shanghai Media Group, helps coach the officials, telling them to speak in plain language, use humour to deflect tough questions, and refrain from boasting about how good a job the government is doing. That will only invite ridicule, she says…
Instructors repeatedly stressed the importance of watching not just words, but also appearance. Women should wear skin-coloured stockings, not black, and definitely no fishnets. For men, Mr Li said, red ties are acceptable on happy occasions. “But if your boss is wearing a red tie, you should not. Don’t steal the show.”
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Labels: China, media, politics
Inside Chinese politics
Arguing in favor of implementing a nation-state's constitution wouldn't seem to be a controversial position. The people in power in China know better.
Last summer and fall, the country prepared for the installation of new top leaders and the Communist Party cracked down on
Bo Xilai and his "left-wing"
Chongqing system promoting Mao-style Communist values. Bo and others argued for full implementation of the PRC's constitution, which contains many elements of idealistic Communism.
Since Bo's conviction and jailing, some journalists have continued to argue for "constitutionalism."
Most of them are in jail themselves.
Now comes the re-education. And it doesn't involve learning to serve the people or protecting political rights.
Chinese journalists face Marxist ideology exam
Chinese journalists will have to pass a new ideology exam early next year to keep their press cards, in what reporters say is another example of the ruling Communist party's increasing control over the media under President Xi Jinping.
It is the first time reporters have been required to take such a test en masse… The exam will be based on a 700-page manual peppered with directives such as "it is absolutely not permitted for published reports to feature any comments that go against the party line", and "the relationship between the party and the news media is one of leader and the led"…
China has also intensified efforts to curb the work of foreign news organisations. The New York Times Company and Bloomberg News have not been given new journalist visas for more than a year after they published stories about the wealth of relatives of the former premier Wen Jiabao and Xi…
Traditionally, Chinese state media has been the key vehicle for party propaganda. But reforms over the past decade that have allowed greater media commercialisation and limited increases in editorial independence, combined with the rise of social media, have weakened government control, according to academics…
Journalists will have to do a minimum 18 hours of training on topics including Marxist news values and socialism with Chinese characteristics, as well as journalism ethics, before sitting the exam in January or February. Reporters who fail the test will have to resit the exam and undergo the training again. It is not clear what happens to reporters who refuse to take it…
Reporters had little doubt about the aim of the exam. "The purpose of this kind of control is just to wear you down, to make you feel like political control is inescapable," said a reporter for a newspaper in the booming southern city of Guangzhou.
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Labels: China, Communist Party, media, politics
The politics of reporting
Government run news agencies exist in almost every country. Some, like the BBC, have reputations for accuracy and impartiality. Others, like Xinhua, are obvious mouthpieces for the government. It looks like Russia's news agency will be more like the Chinese one. How do news agencies in Mexico, Iran, and Nigeria compare to Russia's? to China's? to the UK's?
Russian news agency RIA Novosti closed down
Russia's President Vladimir Putin has abolished the country's state-owned news agency RIA Novosti.
In a surprise decree published on the Kremlin's website on Monday, Mr Putin announced it would be replaced by a news agency called Russia Today.
 |
| Novosti panel |
The new agency will be headed by journalist and keen Kremlin supporter Dmitry Kiselev…
Sergey Ivanov, the head of the Kremlin administration, has told journalists in Moscow that the news agency is being restructured in order to make it more economical while increasing its reach, Interfax reports…
For many Kremlin critics in Russia, [this action] suggests this is a sinister move by President Putin, says the BBC's Daniel Sandford in Moscow.
During Mr Putin's time as Russia's leader, RIA Novosti has tried hard to produce balanced coverage for Russian and international audiences, our correspondent says.
Although state-owned, it has reflected the views of the opposition and covered difficult topics for the Kremlin, our correspondent adds.
Mr Kiselev is known for his ultra-conservative views…
Reporting on its own demise, RIA noted in its news report that "the move is the latest in a series of shifts in Russia's news landscape, which appear to point toward a tightening of state control in the already heavily regulated media sector".
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Don't tell us what we think
Even the messengers are getting shot in Russia.
Russia Targets Pollster for 'Political Activity'
Russia's only independent polling agency said Monday it may have to close after prosecutors targeted it for "political activity" under a law spearheading President Vladimir Putin's crackdown on civil society.
Levada Center published a letter, dated last week, from prosecutors who said its polls and publications are "aimed at shaping public opinion on government policy" and demanded it cease publication until it registers as a "foreign agent" under a law passed last year.
Russia has pushed strongly in recent months to enforce the law, which requires all foreign-funded NGOs that engage in ill-defined political activities to register as "foreign agents"…
Levada receives between 1.5 and 3 percent of its funding from foreign sources, including longtime bêtes noires of Putin's foreign policy like the National Institute for Democracy and George Soros' Open Society Institute, according to center director Lev Gudkov…
The campaign has stoked public opinion against NGOs, according to a poll Levada released last week. Only 19 percent of Russians polled thought NGOs did any work of value.
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A one-man interest group
So, who is going to reform political culture in African countries?
How a billionaire is cutting Africa’s ‘big men’ down to size
Mo Ibrahim is working the room. Tossing off his jacket, rolling up his sleeves and prowling the convention room’s stage with microphone in hand, the Sudanese billionaire banters with Macky Sall, the President of Senegal. Suddenly he urges the audience to interrogate Mr. Sall, promising that nobody will be arrested or shot for impudent questions…
 |
| Mo Ibrahim |
Perhaps only this remarkable philanthropist can get away with such irreverence toward an African ruler, yet he wants such candid discussion to become the norm. The traditional “big men” of African politics should be neither feared nor worshipped, he says; they should be accountable to their fellow citizens in free and open debate.
It’s not just a distant dream. With his vast wealth and inexhaustible energy, Mr. Ibrahim is shaping a new generation of African politicians…
After cajoling his audience into firing questions at the President, Mr. Ibrahim takes a few minutes over an espresso to reflect on his campaign against Africa’s old guard of corrupt and dictatorial leaders. “It’s a new world,” he says, speaking as rapidly and passionately as he did onstage. “We have some wonderful leaders now. We still have dinosaurs – but you know what happened to dinosaurs.”
It has been less than seven years since he used the billions he earned as a pioneering entrepreneur in mobile phones to create the London-based Mo Ibrahim Foundation. Its purpose is to foster good governance and to administer a $5-million prize “for achievement in African leadership” – the world’s most lucrative annual award.
As a result, he says, it is no longer “taboo” to talk about leadership. “Because of the prize, there’s a lot of noise around this. Once people start to talk, … that’s what will change the game. We have to get out of the assumption that leaders are some kind of pharaohs. They are just human beings like us.”
As well as the annual search for a model politician – someone of great achievement who has left office democratically – Mr. Ibrahim is promoting reform with an independent index to measure the successes and failures of African governments…
The prize is an incentive, promoting clean, honest leadership, and Mr. Ibrahim helps to defuse politicians’ authoritarian streak by using a deft mixture of praise and criticism to nudge them toward a genuine conversation with their citizens…
Today, at the age of 67, he uses his carefully crafted irreverence to break down the barriers between the rulers and the ruled. Onstage, he addresses Senegal’s top officials as “brothers and sisters,” and explains to the audience: “I prefer this over ‘Your Highnesses.’ All of you are important. We’re all in the same trench, fighting for good governance and human rights.”…
He has no patience for politicians who bully the media. “The media are a mirror,” he says. “If you look in the mirror and you see something ugly, maybe you’re ugly.” The audience laughs and cheers.
Nor does he have any patience for Africa’s reverential attitude toward its former liberation movements, such as South Africa’s ruling African National Congress. He notes that the ANC has introduced a secrecy law to tighten controls on state information – the kind of law it would have fought in the apartheid era…
See The Mo Ibahim Foundation
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Labels: leadership, media, Nigeria, political culture
Not a good sign
You recognize, of course, the normative title here. But when the Nigerian government arrests journalists because of a story they published, it's not a sign of rule of law, press freedom, or liberal democracy. That's not good by my lights.
Stay tuned to see what comes of this.
This report comes from
Leadership, the newspaper directly involved in the case.
Jonathan Orders Detention of Four Leadership Editors
The Goodluck Jonathan administration yesterday came down hard on the media: it arrested and detained some senior journalists working for LEADERSHIP, in a move seen as coming from an "oga at the top".
The four journalists… were summoned to the Force Headquarters following a story this newspaper published on a "presidential directive" to attack key opposition political parties' leaders.
LEADERSHIP learnt that, after the senior editors had written their statements as demanded by the police, they were told that they would not be released until they disclosed the source of the said story…
Prior to the arrest and detention of the four journalists, officers from the Force Headquarters had been visiting the newspaper's corporate office and demanding for the reporters of the story. They gave the impression that they only wanted to find out the source of the story, a directive, they averred, came from the presidency…
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Labels: leadership, media, Nigeria, politics, rule of law
To whom do you complain?
When you think reporters get it wrong, to whom do you complain? A letter to the editor? Is there such a thing for broadcast media?
It's in some people's interest to describe the plan in the UK as "regulation" of journalism. It seems to me to be a government-run system to deal with complaints about journalism. I'm reminded of the debates about civilian review of police activity. Those almost always result in vociferous complaints from all sides.
And, for those of us in the home of the First Amendment and less-than-sensational journalism, we must remember that most of print journalism in the UK resembles tabloid journalism and TMZ broadcasting. Most British newspapers do not resemble
The New York Times, the
Washington Post, or the majority of other big city newspapers in the USA.
Newspapers worried about new UK media regulation
Britain’s politicians have finally struck a deal to regulate their country’s press. Whether the press will allow itself to be regulated is another question.
Across Britain, newspaper front pages voiced disquiet at the establishment of an independent watchdog that would have the power to order prominent apologies and take complaints into arbitration — a move one newspaper described as overturning centuries of press freedom…
Although many in Britain acknowledge the need for reform of the country’s press following a damaging scandal over phone hacking, bribery, and other media misdeeds, newspaper groups are concerned that the new body agreed to by politicians will become a burdensome regulator, bogging down newspaper groups with endless and expensive complaints about coverage…
The watchdog being set up would replace the widely discredited Press Complaints Commission, a self-regulatory body run by newspaper editors. Jean Seaton, who teaches media history at London’s University of Westminster, said the main difference was that the new body would have official recognition and be subject to periodic audits to make sure it was doing its job — and that it hadn’t been ‘‘captured’’ by the very editors it was meant to police…
Some British newspapers — the left-leaning Guardian and The Independent among them — have expressed guarded support for the watchdog. Others — including the Times and the Mail — have hinted at legal challenges. Britain’s Spectator Magazine has already announced plans to boycott the new regulator. If others could follow suit, the system could fall apart before it even begins…
Prime Minister David Cameron said Tuesday that he was convinced of the new watchdog’s merits.
‘‘I'm confident that we've set up a system that is practical, that is workable,’’ he said. ‘‘It protects the freedom of the press, but it’s a good, strong self-regulatory system for victims, and I'm convinced it will work and it will endure.’’
British Newspapers Challenge New Press Rules
A day after British lawmakers agreed to ground rules for a new press code, an array of newspapers protested on Tuesday against the attempt to impose stricter curbs on this country’s scoop-driven dailies following the phone hacking scandal that convulsed Rupert Murdoch’s media empire and much of British public life.
In a statement, the newspaper society representing 1,100 newspapers said provisions for fines of up to $1.5 million on errant newspapers would impose a “crippling burden” on cash-strapped publications...
Newspaper proprietors and editors have not so far signed on to the agreement announced on Monday and say they were excluded from late-night cross-party talks on the new code...
The agreement announced Monday creates a system under which erring newspapers will face big fines and come up against a tougher press regulator with new powers to investigate abuses and order prominent corrections in publications that breach standards...
[V]ictims of hacking, the Labour opposition and the Liberal Democrats — the junior partners in the coalition — pointed to the failures of existing self-regulation and pressed for a “statutory underpinning” to enshrine the changes in law. That was in line with a central recommendation of a voluminous report published last November after months of exhaustive testimony into the behavior and culture of the British press at an inquiry by Lord Justice Sir Brian Leveson...
[N]ews groups that opt out of the new regulatory system [will be] subject to higher fines for defamation. Britain’s existing legislation already includes some of the world’s most stringent defamation laws, along with rules governing what may be published on matters relating to national security and judicial procedures...
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Iran's Internet censorship system
Thanks to
John Unruh-Friesen, who teaches at Hopkins HS in Minnesota, for pointing this out. I had to go to the source and choose to enlarge the chart in order to read it, but it offers a good way to understand the regime organization. It also illustrates the complexity of the process of censoring the Internet.
Iran’s Web censors vs. Google Reader
Google’s much-dreaded announcement on the coming demise of Google Reader has alarmed users in Iran — and drawn attention to the scale and complexity of online censorship there.
As Quartz’s Zach Seward explained in a great post yesterday, Google Reader is one of the few ways Iranians can access Web sites blocked in Iran.
"Many RSS readers, including Google’s, serve as anti-censorship tools for people living under oppressive regimes. That’s because it’s actually Google’s servers, located in the U.S. or another country with uncensored internet, that accesses each feed. So a web user in Iran just needs access to google.com/reader in order to read websites that would otherwise be blocked."…
How Iran censors so much of the Web, and who actually does the dirty work, is not entirely clear. According to Reporters Without Borders and the University of Pennsylvania’s Iran Media Program, the Iranian Internet is watched by a number of overlapping regulatory bodies, some of which ultimately report to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The state’s largest Internet service provider, Data Communication Company of Iran, is directly overseen by the Revolutionary Guard, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF). All Internet Service Providers (ISPs), whether they’re publicly or privately owned, must buy bandwidth from the Data Communications Company of Iran — which requires that the ISPs filter for blacklists, keywords, URLs and IP addresses, as well as any content that “disrupts national unity,” “stirs pessimism” or undermines religious leaders.
Both the Iranian police and the Revolutionary Guard monitor the Internet for dissent, as well. RSF reports that 46 journalists and “netizens” are currently in jail.
At the very top of the food chain, the Supreme Council on Cyberspace sets the country’s cyber policies, while the Committee Charged with Determining Offensive Content sets the list of sites to block…
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Rival to Rupert Murdock?
Not even Rupert Murdock can get a toe hold in the Mexican media markets, but
the world's richest man might be about to. Will that have an effect on Mexican politics?
Carlos Slim closer to entering Mexico's television market
 |
| Slim |
Carlos Slim's telecommunications empire, Telmex, is poised to get a new shot at realizing its long-held goal of entering Mexico's television market after a regulatory board this week approved rules that may allow the world's richest man to launch a for-pay TV channel.
Mexico's television market is almost completely dominated by the duopoly of media giant Televisa and TV Azteca, which together control about 95% of what viewers see and hear on the country's airwaves…
Under the government of former President Felipe Calderon, Slim's desires to compete with Televisa and TV Azteca were tied up in dense regulatory appeals and negotiations. Opening up the market was further hindered by Mexico's fractious Congress.
The new government of President Enrique Peña Nieto… has yet to roll out its telecommunications reform package. But Peña Nieto has already indicated that he hopes his government can open concessions for at least two new channels on Mexico's airwaves.
Peña Nieto said the issue is about increasing "competition" at all levels in Mexico.
Televisa's dominance of Mexico's airwaves became a campaign issue in the 2012 presidential election after the grass-roots student movement known as #YoSoy132 held large-scale demonstrations opposing candidate Peña Nieto and Televisa at large. Protesters decried his Institutional Revolutionary Party's cozy relationship with the network, claiming Televisa favored him over his rivals on the left and right.
Peña Nieto is married to a former Televisa telenovela actress. His party has a history of being allied with Televisa and its top tiers of executives and producers.
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Preparing for an election
According to this news report, part of the preparation for Iran's upcoming presidential election is to put some journalists in jail.
Iran arrests 11 reformist journalists
Iran has arrested 11 journalists working for media outlets seen close to the country’s marginalized reformists for their alleged cooperation with foreign Persian press, local reports said on Monday.
The arrests come as Iran gears up for its June 14 presidential election, after the result of the previous June 2009 vote triggered protests in Tehran and other cities, sparking a bloody crackdown by the regime on demonstrators.
Iran’s Fars news agency reported early Monday that “the journalists close to anti-revolutionary movement” were arrested Sunday night on a “warrant issued by the judiciary.”
In a separate report the Mehr news agency, without giving a source, reported that the journalists were rounded up from their work places on charges of “cooperation with Persian-language anti-revolutionary media.”
Both agencies did not elaborate, but in Iran charges of anti-revolutionary activities usually suggests cooperation with overseas bodies…
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Intimidation from afar
Peter Whitehouse, who teaches at
The Bolles School in Jacksonville, FL, sent me a link to an article about how the Iranian powers-that-be try to intimidate journalists and confuse their online readers.
He suggests that, "It would make a useful addition to a comparison of how Russia, China, and Iran approach the media, compared to the UK, Nigeria, and Mexico." This could be the beginning of a great comparative case study. How about six groups within a class, each becoming the authority on a country's government-media relationship?
Thanks, Peter.
Iran creates fake blogs in smear campaign against journalists in exile
Iran has been conducting a smear campaign designed to intimidate Iranian journalists living in exile, including apparent death threats. Cyber-activists linked to the Islamic republic have fabricated news, duplicated Facebook accounts and spread false allegations of sexual misconduct by exiled journalists, while harassment of family members back in Iran has been stepped up by security officials.
 |
| Iran's smear campaign against journalists in exile includes a fake
version of the BBC's Persian website, right. The real BBC site is on the
left. Photograph: BBC |
The staff at the BBC's Persian service in London are among dozens of Iranian journalists who have been subjected to what appears to be an operation sponsored by the authorities and aimed at discrediting reporters in the eyes of the public in Iran.
It is not the first time the Iranian authorities has resorted to such tactics, but Sadeq Saba, head of BBC Persian, told the Guardian that the number of incidents and level of harassment has increased in the last few weeks.
"In comparison to previous round of harassment, this time the language they were using in Iran [against the family members] was more threatening," he said. According to Saba, members of journalists' families have been summoned to the intelligence service headquarters for questioning. One journalist whose parents were interrogated several times said they were told he should stop working for the BBC or risk being killed.
In recent weeks, the pro-regime activists have set up a number of fake Facebook accounts and blogs, purporting to belong to BBC journalists or their Iranian colleagues…
[T]he pressure has escalated after the broadcast in early December of Forced Confessions, a documentary by the Iranian film-maker Maziar Bahari. The documentary tells the story of Bahari and a number of other Iranians who were forced to confess under duress in Iran's prisons…
Although loathed by the Iranian government, BBC Persian is popular inside Iran and is watched by millions through illegal satellite dishes on rooftops…
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Confusing story out of China
The story and the situation are confusing. Check back in the "Comments" section for updates as journalists learn more about how much, if any, the Chinese newspapers gained and how much, if anything, the government gave up. But really, advocating constitutional rights? What should you expect?
By the way, the Chinese news agency,
Xinhua has published nothing about this.
China censorship row: 'Deal' at Southern Weekly
Reports from China suggest journalists at a newspaper embroiled in a censorship row are returning to work after an agreement was reached.
Staff at Southern Weekly had demanded that a top propaganda chief step down after a New Year message was changed.
Reports said that the provincial Communist Party chief, high-flier Hu Chunhua, had intervened to defuse the situation…
The row began when a New Year message in the paper - a well-respected publication also known as Southern Weekend - that had called for guaranteed constitutional rights was changed by censors prior to publication.
On Tuesday, an editorial from the state-run Global Times blaming the incident on "activists outside the media industry" was republished on multiple news sites - the result, according to reports, of a government directive.
But several major news portals carried a disclaimer saying they did not endorse the piece and a number of newspapers did not run it, in an apparent show of solidarity…
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| Beijing News promoting southern porridge |
[O]nline reports citing microblogs suggest the row may have widened to include a well-known daily, Beijing News…
[A] careful reading of the Beijing News fuels speculation that something is afoot at the paper. The main page of its website features a story on the wonders of warm rice porridges from southern China that can soothe the soul in the depths of winter.
"During social disturbances, we should really cherish warmth and this bowl of porridge," the article reads.
Correspondents say that it could be interpreted as a show of support for Southern Weekly…
China Said to Crack Down on Censorship Protests
People across China have been detained or questioned in recent days by security officers for publicly supporting the journalists at the Southern Weekend newspaper who have been protesting strict censorship, according to a human rights group and online posts discussing the plights of some detainees...
Chinese Human Rights Defenders said about two dozen people have been detained by security officers since Jan. 8...
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Cleaning up corruption or getting your share?
Andrew Jacobs, writing in
The New York Times, thinks he has spotted a new anti-corruption trend linked to the new leadership in China. An alternate, more skeptical interpretation, could be that the new guys want to make sure that they get a bigger share of the opportunities to play the system.
Chinese Officials Find Misbehavior Now Carries Cost
These have been especially nerve-racking times for Chinese officials who cheat, steal and bribe…
In the weeks since the Communist Party elevated a new slate of top leaders, the state media, often fed by freelance vigilantes, have been serving up a head-spinning collection of scandals…
“The anticorruption storm has begun,” People’s Daily, the party mouthpiece, wrote on its Web site this month.
The flurry of revelations suggests that members of China’s new leadership may be more serious than their predecessors about trying to tame the cronyism, bribery and debauchery that afflict state-run companies and local governments, right down to the outwardly dowdy neighborhood committees that oversee sanitation…
 |
| Zhu Ruifeng |
“Something has shifted,” said Zhu Ruifeng, a Beijing journalist who has exposed more than a hundred cases of alleged corruption on his Web site…
Critics say members of the party elite fear that any far-reaching crackdown might hit too close to home, given how many of their relatives have profited from the proximity to power. Immediate family members of Wen Jiabao, China’s departing prime minister, have controlled assets worth at least $2.7 billion, The New York Times revealed in October, even as he projected an image of frugality…
Already, the state media have begun to urge caution, and one newspaper editor in Beijing said propaganda officials had been seeking to impose some restrictions on exposés. And experts note that Chinese leaders have so far refused to even consider the key ingredients needed to root out corruption: governmental transparency, a system of checks and balances, a free press and an independent judiciary.
“Without effective institutions,” said Li Xinde, who runs a Web site that exposes corrupt officials, “anticorruption campaigns can just become a tool for settling scores.”
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