International Media

Government Control and Public Media

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Sacha Biazzo, 12/11/24

Headline:  “Lucia Annunziata on the Transformation of Italy’s Public Broadcaster Under Giorgia Meloni”

Subhead:  “An anchor turned politician on her exit from RAI.”

“Historically, RAI, Italy’s public broadcaster, has always been subject to government control. During the political era dominated by Silvio Berlusconi, the late media mogul turned three-time prime minister, for example, the infamous “Bulgarian Diktat” caused an uproar: following a declaration by Berlusconi, management effectively removed the journalist Enzo Biagi, anchor Michele Santoro, and satirist Daniele Luttazzi . . . from public TV altogether.

“Today, under the right-wing prime minister Giorgia Meloni, efforts to align RAI with the government’s agenda have been seen as even more pervasive—the broadcaster has undergone a series of radical transformations, often referred to using the shorthand TeleMeloni.”

https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/qa_lucia_annunziata_telemeloni_italy_rai.php

Hope for Syrian Journalists

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Article in Committee to Protect Jounalists by Staff, 12/11/24

Headline: CPJ calls on new Syrian leaders to protect journalist safety, hold Assad’s media persecutors to account

“As Syria transitions to a new government following the December 8 toppling of Bashar al-Assad, the Committee to Protect Journalists calls on authorities to take decisive action to ensure the safety of all journalists and hold accountable those responsible for the killing, imprisonment, and silencing of members of the media during the country’s 13-year civil war.

“ ‘Scenes of journalists rushing to cover Syria’s post-Assad regime raise hope for the start of a new chapter for the country’s media workers,’ said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna. ‘While we wait for the missing to return and the imprisoned to be released, we call on the new authorities to hold the perpetrators to account for the crimes of killing, abducting, or jailing reporters.’ ”

https://cpj.org/2024/12/cpj-calls-on-new-syrian-leaders-to-protect-journalist-safety-hold-assads-media-persecutors-to-account/

No News Without Tax?

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Article in Al Jezeera by Staff, 12/12/24

Headline:  “Australia plans to tax tech giants if they fail to pay news outlets”

Subhead: “Firms like Meta face tax if they don’t pay for news driving traffic to their sites, depriving media firms of revenue.”

“The Australian government has announced plans to tax Big Tech firms if they fail to share revenue with local news media organisations.

“The measure, applicable from January 1, will force firms like Meta and Google with an Australian-based revenue in excess of 250 million Australian dollars ($160m) to pay for content or face a hefty tax bill that could amount to millions.”

“. . . Announcing the move, Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said on Thursday that the rapid growth of digital platforms had ‘disrupted’ the media landscape and was ‘threatening the viability of public interest journalism’ ”.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/12/12/australia-to-force-tech-giants-to-pay-for-news

Sudan Journalists at Risk

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Photo: AFP/Amaury Falt-Brown

Article by Staff in Citizens to Protect Journalists, 12/12/24

Headline:  “Rapid Support Forces kill Sudanese journalist Hanan Adam and brother”

“On Monday, December 8, soldiers with the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF) killed journalist Hanan Adam, a correspondent for local Sudan Communist Party-affiliated newspaper al-Midan, and her brother, Youssef Adam, at their home in the village of Wad Al-Asha in the east-central al-Gezira state, according to statements by the Sudanese Journalists’ Union and the Sudan Communist Party.

“We are deeply shocked and outraged by Rapid Support Forces’ brutal killing of journalist Hanan Adam and her brother in al-Gezira state, which further illustrates the extreme conditions journalists and their families currently face in Sudan,” said CPJ Interim MENA Program Coordinator Yeganeh Rezaian, from Washington, D.C

https://cpj.org/2024/12/rapid-support-forces-kill-sudanese-journalist-hanan-adam-and-brother/

Gotta Pay the Right News Outlets

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Article in Reuters by Maayan Lubell, 12/10/24

Headline:  “Netanyahu assails media as he testifies for first time in his corruption trial”

“. . .The leader of the right-wing Likud party, Netanyahu assailed the Israeli media for what he called its leftist stance and accused journalists of having hounded him for years because his policies did not align with a push for a Palestinian state.

” ‘I have been waiting for eight years for this moment to tell the truth, ‘ Netanyahu told the three-judge court. ‘But I am also a prime minister … I am leading the country through a seven-front war. And I think the two can be done in parallel.’ ”

“Netanyahu was indicted in three cases involving gifts from millionaire friends and for allegedly seeking regulatory favours for media tycoons in return for favourable news coverage. He denies any wrongdoing and has pleaded not guilty.”

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/netanyahu-take-stand-his-corruption-trial-first-time-2024-12-09/

Media Whitewashed Tyrant

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Just a regular guy – but will it happen here?

Article in The Guardian by Zoe Williams, 12/9/24

Headline:  “They ‘didn’t look the type’: how the media was fooled by Bashar and Asma al-Assad”

Subhead:  “Some journalists underestimated the threat of the brutal president, while his first lady was glamorised in a Vogue feature”

“When the Syrian spring erupted in 2011, Vogue magazine ran a profile of Asma al-Assad titled A Rose in the Desert. Her husband had already killed more than 5,000 civilians, including hundreds of children, when Asma was described as ‘the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies’. The journalist, Joan Juliet Buck, went on to note that ‘her style is not the couture-and-bling dazzle of Middle Eastern power but a deliberate lack of adornment’ ”.

“. . . Vladimir Putin was, around the same time, trying to cast himself as an action hero, releasing photos of himself on horseback, bare-chested, on a Harley, with a tiger. Who needs to have a stick up their arse about kleptocracy when it looks like so much fun? If an autocrat doesn’t look or act like one, if he looks instead like a giraffe (as people said about Bashar al-Assad), or a joker, or a clown, or a reality TV showman, maybe it won’t be such a bad life under him after all.”

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/09/how-media-was-fooled-bashar-asma-al-assad

TikTok – Medium of Free Speech or Espionage?

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Update:

Article in Washington Post by Madalin Necsutu and Anthony Faiola, 11/6/24

Headline:  “Romanian court annuls presidential vote after Russian interference claims”

Subhead:  “Calin Georgescu won the first round of the election after being propelled by TikTok. Romania’s security services pointed to ‘Russian hybrid actions.’ “

“The Constitutional Court took the extraordinary step of annulling Romania’s presidential election Friday after the country’s security services assessed that the nation had been the target of ‘Russian hybrid actions’ that used TikTok to promote a candidate who has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/12/06/romania-court-annuls-presidential-election/?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us

Headline:  “Appeals court upholds nationwide TikTok ban-or-sale law”

Subhead:  “The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit made the expedited decision ahead of the TikTok ban’s looming Jan. 19 deadline, in a high-profile case pitting national security concerns against free speech.”

“A federal appeals court has turned away a challenge to a fast-approaching nationwide ban of short-video app TikTok unless it divests from Chinese ownership, placing national security before free speech concerns and bringing the app’s 170 million U.S. users closer to losing access to the wildly popular platform.

“he U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Friday sided with the Justice Department, which argued that the U.S. government has the authority to ban TikTok based on the national security risk that TikTok could be pressured by the Chinese government to expose Americans’ data or influence what they see. TikTok’s parent, ByteDance, is based in China.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/12/06/tiktok-ban-court-ruling-justice-department-bytedance/

Media Pigeon

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Article in Raw Story by Travis Gettys, 12/6/24

Headline:  “Russian media claims Tucker Carlson acting as ‘carrier pigeon’ between Putin and Trump “

“The former Fox News host returned to Moscow this week for a second time to interview Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and pushed the Kremlin narrative that the U.S. should stay out of the war in Ukraine to avoid setting off a global nuclear crisis, but some Kremlin insiders believe Carlson had other business, reported The Daily Beast.

“While the former Fox host is positioning himself as a dove of peace, toiling to prevent a nuclear war, Putin’s acolytes say he is also acting as a carrier pigeon for the Russian president and privately delivering his messages to Trump,” wrote Julia Davis, who monitors Russian state-run media.

https://www.rawstory.com/tucker-carlson-russia-2670348682/

Media Workers Arrested

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Article by Committee to Protect Journalists by Staff, 12/5/25

Headline:  “Taliban detains 7 Arezo TV journalists, seals network’s offices in Kabul”

“Dozens of Taliban agents from the General Directorate of Intelligence (GDI) raided the offices of private broadcaster Arezo TV on December 4 in the capital, Kabul, questioned staff members for four hours, and detained seven journalists and media workers. Woman journalists were expelled from the premises, and the network’s offices were sealed, according to a journalist familiar with the situation in Kabul, who spoke to CPJ anonymously, citing fear of reprisal.”

https://cpj.org/2024/12/taliban-detains-7-arezo-tv-journalists-seals-networks-offices-in-kabul/

Media Stand Firm

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Article in the New York Times by Daisuke Wakabayashi and Su-Hyun Lee, 12/4/24

Headline:  “Martial Law Didn’t Silence South Korea’s Media. It Empowered Them.”

“Journalists criticized the president’s attempt to place the press under military control, hardened by years of challenges to press freedoms by the country’s political leaders.

“When President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea shocked the nation by declaring martial law, he placed news organizations under the rule of military command and outlawed “fake news.” It was a striking escalation of his long-running feud with media critical of his administration.

“But when faced with censorship by the military, the Korean press did not acquiesce. News organizations spanning the political spectrum — even right-leaning publications more aligned with Mr. Yoon’s conservative People Power Party — stood united in criticism of his actions and any efforts to limit a free press.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/04/business/south-korea-news-media-martial-law.html