News Wrap for 8/15/08
The Miami Herald is covering news out of Colombia that TV network Telesur has again been accused of having ties to FARC rebels. A journalist for the network has been fingered by the government after his name was allegedly found on confiscated FARC computers. CPJ is quoted in the story: ”The fact that Parra’s name…
Olympics: Guerrilla warfare online
First, a pointer to Rebecca Mackinnon’s Asia Wall Street Journal oped from yesterday, The Chinese Censorship Foreigners Don’t See . She makes many of the same points I did about how the Great Firewall is leaky, and the control of the Internet in China relies on much more than technology.
Olympics: Talking tough, much too late
During the war in Vietnam, the daily press briefings by the American military were called the “Five o’clock Follies” by the foreign press corps that was on the receiving end of the military’s damage control aimed at controlling the story from Vietnam. The Beijing Games have their own daily press meeting, at 10 am, hosted…
Israeli army decision endangers journalists in Gaza
In the Gaza Strip, anyone with a camera is fair game. That’s the inescapable conclusion from the Israeli army’s investigation into why one of its tank crews fired at least two shells at a Reuters television journalist openly filming them from a mile away. The cameraman, Fadel Shana, 24, filmed the muzzle flash of the…
Finding light in a dark prison
On July 21, CPJ welcomed the release of Tunisian Internet journalist Slim Boukhdhir from prison. A contributor to Tunisian and Arab news Web sites, Boukhdhir was serving a one-year term in Sfax Prison because he had written articles critical of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and the country’s first family. CPJ sent a mission…
Olympics-China Media Watch: Does Xinhua know gymnast’s real age?
NBC coverage of the women’s gymnastics team competition made incessant mention of the controversy over the Chinese athletes’ ages. Are they really 16, or are they underage? And what does that say about the awful and efficient “machine” that pumps out China’s Olympians? NBC announcers made sure that American viewers pondered the matter as the gold medal went to…
News Wrap for 8/14/08
BBC News has coverage this morning about the media’s reaction to Israel’s decision to clear the soldiers involved in the death of Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana. The “Editors’ Blog” on British site Journalism talks about Reuters’ “dissatisfaction” at the verdict and the Middle East Online Web site has a report that cites our alert on…
Olympics: A 21-point plan for uniformity
Kristin Jones has been doing a great job monitoring the Chinese media and the more unofficial online world. One of the realities she has pointed out is the similarity of coverage across China’s media when sensitive issues crop up. There is a reason for that. An interesting piece, “Screws tighten on mainland journalists,” ran in…
News Wrap for 8/12/08
The Russian-Georgian conflict continues to be the focus of many news outlets this morning. The Associated Press outlines vital statistics from the conflict, which includes our reporting on journalist casualties. McClatchy News Service also cites CPJ in its reporting on the situation. The International News Safety Institute, meanwhile, has an important posting that explains the…
Olympics-China Media Watch: Look at picture, don’t say a word
Bloggers in China know that certain words are easily picked out by censors’ keyword searches. So they don’t use them, and their posts stay up longer. But images are harder to detect, particularly if they aren’t labeled.Today, somebody calling himself Qian Tiexian started a thread at the blog aggregator Bullog with the title “Two children.”…