BBC: A Journalistic Disaster Waiting to Happen

Christopher Patten, chairman of the BBC Trust, claims he will be able to find a new director-general for the beleaguered broadcaster within weeks instead of months. (Reuters Photo).

 

Jonathan Eyal - Straits Times | November 15, 2012

London. Christopher Patten, the chairman of the BBC, Britain's state-funded broadcaster, claims he will need "weeks rather than months" to find a replacement for the corporation's director-general, who resigned after one of its TV programs falsely accused a retired top British politician of child abuse.

But the BBC will need more than just a few swift personnel appointments before it recovers its poise, for the organization is facing the worst crisis in its 90-year's existence. Its biggest problem is journalistic quality, precisely the attribute for which the BBC used to be universally admired.

Reporter's log: Thoughts on welcome questions from abroad

By Han Lei (China Daily)

My initial disappointment at not being given the chance to ask a question at a news conference on the sidelines of the 18th Party Congress on Sunday was soon forgotten.
It was good to see five of the eight opportunities to do so going to overseas journalists, which, as I see it, is a sign that Chinese officials are becoming more confident and comfortable in dealing with them.

Han Lei

Among the five was Andrea Yu from Australia, who has become something of a celebrity among her peers at the congress and in cyberspace, earning herself the nickname "sister of questions". Yu had the chance to ask questions at two out of four news conferences planned for the congress, displaying excellent bilingual skills on both occasions - first raising the questions in Chinese and then in English.

Global media community releases declaration on the safety of journalists

The escalating and disturbing threat to the safety of journalists drew together an extraordinary group of editors, frontline journalists, professionals and press freedom monitoring groups from the global media community at the BBC College of Journalism in London yesterday.

They signed an eight point declaration to express concern and demand action from governments to stop the killing and harassment and to end impunity.

The World Editors Forum and WAN-IFRA, representing editors, publishers and news organisations in 120 countries, signed the London Declaration ahead of the United Nations Vienna Inter-Agency meeting with media and journalist organisations on 22-23 November.

The gun and the press in Pakistan

Listening Post: http://www.aljazeera.com

 

When teenager Malala Yousafzai was shot by the Taliban, Pakistan's media was warned to curb its coverage of the story.

This week: The chilling impact of the gun on journalism in Pakistan and a look at the history of presidential debates. When news broke from Pakistan that a 14-year-old girl had been shot by members of the Taliban just for promoting female education on her blog, news organisations around the world jumped on the story. In Pakistan, however, they had to treat the subject with care. The Taliban warned local media to curb their reporting, or deal with the consequences. This is not just a story about one attack - it is a tale of how the journalistic environment in Pakistan has grown so dangerous. According to media watchdog groups, at least 20 journalists have been murdered since 2010 and not one of those cases has resulted in a conviction.

SAFMA conference: Academics, media bigwigs call for objective journalism

By Aatekah Mir-Khan

Published: October 21, 2012, Express Tribune.

BHURBAN: 

Top academicians and media practitioners agreed unanimously at a conference here on Saturday that the media should play a proactive role in strengthening democracy and creating political awareness among the masses. 

The participants debated the media’s role in the run up to, and during the upcoming general elections and how militancy or the threat of terrorism could affect the coverage of the elections, at the 5th National Conference organised by the South Asian Free Media Association (Safma).

Brazilian newspapers pull out of Google News

Brazilian newspapers said Google News benefits commercially from their material

20 October 2012 ; http://www.bbc.co.uk

 

Newspapers accounting for 90% of the circulation in Brazil have abandoned Google News.

Brazil's National Association of Newspapers says all 154 members had followed its recommendation to ban the search engine aggregator from using their content.

Google says newspapers and news aggregators should reach a solution to benefit both sides

But the ANJ says the experiment has failed.

The papers say Google News refused to pay for content and was driving traffic away from their websites.
Google said previously that the service boosted traffic to news websites.
"Staying with Google News was not helping us grow our digital audiences, on the contrary," said the association's president, Carlos Fernando Lindenberg Neto.
"By providing the first few lines of our stories to Internet users, the service reduces the chances that they will look at the entire story in our websites," he said, in an interview with the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas.

Digital age rewrites the role of journalism

By David Marsh, guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 16 October 2012 11.54 BST    

 

Tweeters, bloggers, 'citizen journalists', all unheard of a decade ago, are changing the face of the news media and raising fundamental questions about reporting – and who pays for it

What makes someone a journalist? As recently as 10 years ago, the answer would have been straightforward: journalists made their living by producing editorial material (written or otherwise) which was then published or broadcast to an audience of readers, listeners or viewers.

In the new digital age of the web and social media, things are more complicated. If I tweet from a major news event – the Arab spring, say – is that journalism? If I start my own political blog, does that make me a journalist? If I'm a teacher, say, but contribute stories to a newspaper, does that make me a "citizen journalist"? Does it make any difference whether people are paid, or not, for such work? Should bloggers, tweeters and "citizen journalists" be held to, and judged by, the same standards as people working in more traditional journalistic roles?

These are not just arcane issues affecting the profession – the answers to such questions will affect the way our society is served by its media, and so touches everyone.

The Guardian & Observer chapel/branch of the National Union of Journalists, which represents 95% of journalists at the two papers and website – and 40% of the entire GNM staff – is in the forefront of debating such issues. 

Taliban Demands Unbiased Coverage of Its Attempted Murder of a 14-Year-Old Girl

John Hudson 11,408 Views Oct 16, 2012, http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2012/10 

You wouldn't believe the lamestream media's bias. You shoot one 14-year-old girl in the head and you'll never hear the end of it. So goes the lament of Pakistan's Taliban insurgency following a spate of bad press in mainstream Pakistani outlets related to the jihadists' failed assassination attempt of Malala Yousafzai, a young blogger who dared protest the Taliban's ban on educating girls. Now the Taliban are plotting terror strikes on TV stations and other media organizations, but local newspapers refuse to stay silent.

A journalist?

By:Humayun Gauhar Sunday, 14 Oct 2012 11:11 pm  , Pakistan Today.

 

News from home, in London

The other day in London a friend first introduced me as a journalist and then said, “No, sorry, he’s a writer and publisher and editor – columnist too.” She turned to me and asked in exasperation, “How can one best describe you? You are also a businessman, a restaurateur, a chef and an educator. And dog breeder to boot.”

“Gentleman at large,” I suggested unhelpfully. “A little bit of this, a little bit of that, whatever grabs my fancy. Everything I do is my hobby. I really enjoy life, despite its tribulations. I love to see history in the making and don’t get diverted by emotion or how it affects me personally. I’m like a spectator of a drama on a global scale. Some would call it a waste of time.”

Harf-e-aakhir

By:Syed Hassan Belal Zaidi

17-10-12

Pakistan today 

Your guess is as good as mine, although mine may be just a fraction better because I’ve done a little more leg work on it than you have.
Journalism, fortunately, does not operate on the principles of faith. You are not required to believe in everything you read in the paper or see in the news. The audience is always presented with three things: facts, opinions and conclusions. While the first is objective, the latter two are necessarily subjective and are included to help the audience make a decision. In most (if not all) cases, the choice of which shades of opinion to present and what kind of a conclusion to draw from the presented facts and opinions ties in directly to a channel/publication’s own slant or leanings. This is not ‘unethical journalism’, it is simply ‘journalism’.