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Media trends digest
– May 2007
India newspaper market has room for growth (30 May)
Here’s an interesting insight into the newspaper market in India, provided by All Headline News.com: As the newspaper business is dwindling in sales around the US and in Europe, it appears to be a whole different story in India.
In India, over 150 million individuals read a newspaper each day. That compares with 97 million Americans, and a mere 48 million Germans. While circulation in the subcontinent is surging, advertising is forecasted to jump alongside it, with an increase of 15 percent this year.
One factor that has resulted in making the print media ever-more popular is the fact that India is a country of many diverse languages and more than a thousand different dialects. Hence, it's no surprise that a New Delhi newspaper shop offers 117 Indian dailies.
In a country of 1.1 billion, some experts say that there is more room for the newspaper industry to grow, as the rural areas are largely untapped.
Full story
PBL confirms sale talks (29 May)
 Publishing & Broadcasting Limited has confirmed it is in negotiations to sell a further 25% of its business to a private equity group.
The company announced: “Publishing and Broadcasting Limited (ASX: PBL) advises that, further to comments made in the media today, it is in discussions to sell a further 25% interest in PBL Media to funds advised by CVC Asia Pacific and CVC Capital
Partners. The discussions are not concluded and no relevant agreements have been entered into. PBL will make a further announcement if and when formal arrangements are agreed.”
If it goes ahead, it will mark an end of an era, where three generations of the Packer family were the primary shareholders in the cross media publishing empire that includes Channel Nine TV and ACP magazines, plus numerous internet interests.
It also confirms the perhaps unintentional effects of the Federal Government's recently changed media ownership laws, which unleashed a frenzy of acquisitions by private equity groups – marking the end of the sole proprietor as a dominant force in television. Channel Seven is now half-owned by private equity, while Channel Ten is on the market and equity groups so far seem to be the only interested buyers.
Plus…
Senator Andrew Murray has recently written an article which makes some interesting observations on the value of public versus privately owned companies.
He says: “The enthusiasm for private equity investment runs in the face of the corporate failures of the 1990s like Enron and HIH. For all that private equity firms argue that public companies are hampered by over-regulation and shareholder scrutiny, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services found, in a recent report, that for public corporations the regulations strike the right balance between protecting the interests of investors without interfering too much in the operation of the market.”
Full story
Broadband access is crucial
This column from the Washington Post has considerable local resonance:
(Commentary) Driven by a critical mass of fast connections and the
arrival of a "killer application" -- video -- broadband has arrived.
Broadband, or high-speed Internet connectivity, is the transformative
technology of our generation. Access to and effective use of
broadband affects the ability of individuals, industries and nations
to grow, compete and succeed.
Full story
Star Wars turns 30
The Lucasfilm series Star Wars celebrated its 30th anniversary in Los Angeles recently.
Organisers of the event say they pre-sold 20,000 tickets to the event and hoped to sell 10,000 more.
The first episode got off to a rocky start in 1977, with cinema chains proving skeptical about the potential for a science fiction film. Only 32 screens showed it in the week of its launch, though word of mouth soon turned that around.
Report at Stuff.co.nz
Star Wars web
Worrying readership numbers for newspapers (24 May)
The latest Roy Morgan readership figures point to a loss of eyeballs for many newspapers, though there were exceptions -- however the overall trend was negative.
Magazines fared a little better, overall more or less holding their ground.
See this link
Bad board or just bad science?
Conspiracy theories are running rampant that the ABC has been pressured by its board to buy and run (in July) the controversial British doco The Great Global Warming Swindle.
Produced by Wag TV and Channel 4, the program refutes that humans are the cause of global warming and is seen as being developed largely to counter the Al Gore program An Uncomfortable Truth.
Long-time ABC science broadcaster Robyn Williams, who is highly regarded in academic circles, is reported to have recommended against buying Swindle.
Australian report
Age report
Pushing the ethical boundaries
 Channel 10 TV lab rat show Big Brother is pushing the ethical boundaries again, this time by not telling a contestant, Emma Cornell, that her father has died -- evidently at the expressed wish of the deceased, Ray Cornell.
The Age newspaper reports that the Director of the Australian Centre for Grief and Bereavement, psychologist Chris Hall, has advised she should be told.
Age report
Virtual world a real minefield
From The Australian: Telecommunications giant Telstra is being investigated by Uluru's administrators and the Sydney Opera House Trust after cashing in on the images of Australia's two most famous landmarks as part of its massive investment in the online world Second Life.
Full story
Plus…
The ABC Island inside virtual reality world Second Life has been vandalised.
The 'griefing' (or virtual act of vandalism) was first reported this morning by members of the ABC Friends community, a group of Second Life residents who have been instrumental in the development and maintenance of ABC Island.
Source: ABC
If you can’t beat them, join them
Fairfax Digital has decided to team up with Google rather than continue to battle it. The company will be running the search engine’s adwords software (which automatically inserts advertising and shares the revenue) on its sites.
“In today's complex world, there's a reality that you have to deal with and certainly there's elements of Google that we and others would find perhaps threatening," Fairfax Digital CEO Jack Matthews to the Sydney Morning Herald.
"But on the other hand Google is a major player in this marketplace and we see many more upsides to the relationship than threats.
"The reality is Google here is a company that can deliver big business to Fairfax Digital, it's a company that we'd like to do more business with and it's not dissimilar to the way newspapers might historically look at online."
Fairfax also plans to feature Google’s mapping and video services.
Online networking for beginners
 The Guardian newspaper in the UK has published an online guide to social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace and Second life.
The intro says: Does talk of Prince William joining Facebook, or Lily Allen blogging on MySpace, leave you baffled? Fear not! Here's our late adopter's guide to the social networking revolution.
Full story
Pay no barrier
Heartening news for publishers who want to stop giving away content: The Irish Times website -- Ireland.com -- has increased traffic by a third despite the introduction of a pay wall preventing anyone other than subscribers access to the majority of its content.
According to ABCe figures Ireland's most popular news website registered 17.2 million page views in March -- an increase of 32% from its previous audit in March, 2005.
The number of unique users had also increased to 1,185,096 from a figure of 858,502 two years before.
This increase can be attributed to site improvements as well as the rapid take up of broadband in Ireland in the two years since its traffic was last measured and the increased interest in the site from an international community of ex-patriots.
Source: Journalism.co.uk
Rupert watching
From the ABC’s Media Report: We go Rupert-watching. In the US and Europe, News Corporation is in a predatory mood and the ever-hungry Murdoch empire just gets bigger and bigger.
See this link for the audio file
No pics for Baghdad
Is this media management with firearms? Yahoo reports: Police fired warning shots in the air at the scene of a double bombing Tuesday, enforcing an order banning news photographers and TV camera operators from filming the aftermath of deadly bombings.
The Iraqi government says the order was put in place to prevent camera crews damaging forensic evidence, though media counters it’s simply a way of reducing poor publicity.
Yahoo story
Thai shutdown sparks outrage
(IFJ release) The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) is outraged at reports that three Thai radio stations were shut down soon after airing an interview with former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
IFJ president Christopher Warren said the closures of Confidante, Taxi Driver Community Radio and Saturday Voice Against Dictatorship appeared to be blatant intimidation against media outlets who challenge the government.
“The current military-appointed government’s record of respecting press freedom grows weaker and weaker every day, which also seriously undermines its promises of an eventual democracy with free elections,” Warren said.
Full story
Crikey, Eddie
The unsurprising departure of Eddie McGuire as CEO of the Nine network has prompted online mag Crikey to build a feature around its numerous scrapes and debates with the TV personality. See this link
It's the ABC who are the real Bastards -- Akerman (17 May)
 That headline, which is atop the Piers Akerman column at News.com.au today, is just one roasting of many the ABC has scored for its drama series, Bastard Boys, based around the 1998 waterfront industrial dispute. It has been a ratings success for the broadcaster.
An interesting aspect is that people on both sides of the dispute are outraged at the show’s content, which in the view of many editors and producers suggests the makers probably got something right.
Union official Bill Kelty has indicated he could sue for defamation, while the most prominent person on the other side of the notoriously acrimonious dispute, former Patrick Stevedores head Chris Corrigan, has today written that he sees the series as “a tedious portrayal of predictable stereotypes”. (Pic: ABC)
Akerman view
Corrigan view
Original ABC production announcement
Sack the editor & I’ll change the law – McGinty
In an extraordinary outburst, Western Australia Attorney-General Jim McGinty has implied he will support a national push for shield law for journalists, if The West Australian newspaper sacks its Editor, Paul Armstrong.
According to News.com.au: “The board of West Australian Newspapers needs to sack the editor. It is personally driven by a particular individual,'' he said.
Mr McGinty said standards were so bad at The West Australian that if a competitor emerged that could break the paper's monopoly, the Government would consider redirecting its advertising to foster competition.
National Attorney-General Phillip Ruddock has agreed to push forward laws which allow journalists to protect sources, as part of a wider national package on laws of evidence.
The paper is on the nose with the WA government for several reasons. One is the running of a front page piece which claimed to depict a grandmother lying on chairs in a hospital waiting room, allegedly illustrating a “pitiful picture of public hospital inadequacy”. The woman in the photo, 46, was somewhat offended as she is not a grandmother and her circumstances were nothing like those represented. That issue has since become the subject of a press council complaint. Of course the unwrapping of corruption in the state, by the newspaper, has added fuel to the fire.
MyTV -- coming soon
News Corp and NBC are steaming ahead with the plan to bring the world the television equivalent of Apple’s iTunes.
In theory it will enable viewers worldwide (or at least those with a broadband connection) to download any programming from the extensive Fox and Universal libraries, day or night, at minimal cost.
The question of course is what impact this will have on free-to-air TV, pay TV and the long-embattled video/DVD rental outlet.
Macquarie Bank media analyst Alex Pollack points out in The Australian newspaper today that TV execs should be nervous when their suppliers go into competition with them.
Full story
Girl overboard
 Inside Sport magazine has decided to ditch iits trademark girl-in-a-bikini cover shot for a more ‘serious’ style, after 16 years. It's a move that is likely to have been triggered by the success of, and competition from, News Ltd's Alpha magazine, which has a much lower cover price and a stronger promotional base.
Staff at Horwitz Publications, which owns Inside Sport, have said the covers tend to make the mag look like a ‘lightweight’ and can be a negative for some buyers.
However the flesh factor will not disappear altogether – the website will continue to highlight models.
Inside Sport online
Ralph TV
‘Lad mag’ Ralph, published by ACP/CPH, is extending its reach into television with a new late-night program, to run after Channel Nine’s The Footy Show.
The publisher says this is the first time one of its magazines has gone in to a fully-fledged television series, though there have been numerous content and promotional tie-ups over time, and some shows which have produced magazine spin-offs.
It's produced by TV production house Southern Star
Ralph online
Southern Star
Jury is out on mobile TV
Despite the positive spin from Telstra-owned Sensis, the jury appears to be out on how mobile TV will perform over the long term, and what price in terms of advertising or pay-to-view the public will stand.
Sensis reports that participants in its trials were willing to watch 30-second mobile ads if there was something in it for them, but some of the media partners involved are more reserved, warning that even a 15 second ad is too long. It’s early days on this one…
See this ZDnet story
Also…
(NY Times)
While short, multi-episode cell phone series are growing in
popularity, the lucrative advertising dollars have been slow to
migrate to the super-small screen
…
Full story
Internet’s new world order
(Politico.com) Forget television executives and the FEC. The new regulators of political speech are Sergey Brin, Rupert Murdoch and Mark Zuckerberg -- the chieftains of YouTube, MySpace and Facebook, respectively...
Full story
This means war --- by wire
(The Guardian) A three-week wave of massive cyber-attacks on the small Baltic country of Estonia, the first known incidence of such an assault on a state, is causing alarm across the western alliance, with NATO urgently examining the offensive and its implications.
Full story
Google the new Microsoft
(San Francisco Chronicle)
For a company that pledged to not be evil, Google
makes a lot of enemies. From Madison Avenue to
Hollywood, some of industry's most powerful
entities are marshaling their forces to combat a
company that has risen to the top of the business
world in less than a decade. Fear is the
motivating factor. And with every passing
quarter, there is more to be worried about if you
count Google as a competitor. Since going public
in 2004, the Internet giant's market value has
grown to dwarf Disney and McDonald's combined.
Earlier this year, it became the most visited Web
property in the world and was named the world's
most valuable brand. And its runaway success in
search and advertising has big corporations like
AT&T and Microsoft crying monopoly without a
trace of irony. In perhaps the greatest testament
to Google's power, media reports surfaced late
last week that its archival Yahoo was considering
teaming up with Microsoft in an effort to
compete. "Essentially, the new Microsoft is
Google," said Jeff Clavier, a prominent Silicon Valley investor in startups.
Full story
Also…
(News.com.com) Google shareholders rejected a proposal on
Thursday to require the search giant to set
policies to protect freedom of access to the
Internet and not self-censor. Google "must make
special efforts to avoid being seen as complicit
in human rights abuses...and not be proactive in
censorship," said Patrick Doherty, a
representative of the New York City Pension Fund,
which submitted the resolution. When it created
its Web search site for China, Google said it
would remove results from its www.google.cn Web
site that would likely offend the Chinese
government. Yahoo shareholders face several
similar resolutions at their annual meeting.
Thomson & Reuters to merge (16 May)
Financial and education publisher Thomson is to sell off its education assets and merge its financial news services with Reuters, assuming a recently announced deal goes ahead. The end result would create a financial news giant, said to larger than Bloomberg, with over 30% of the world market.
Announcement; Reuters report
Book title of the week
Talking Right: How Conservatives Turned Liberalism Into a Tax-Raising, Latte Drinking, Sushi-Eating, Volvo-Driving, New York Times Reading, Body Piercing, Hollywood-Loving, Left-Wing Freak Show by Geoffrey Nunberg.
New York Times review
News goes green (10 May)
 News Corporation today announced it will become carbon neutral by 2010 – through energy efficiency, buying renewable power and offsetting otherwise unavoidable emissions. Becoming carbon neutral is, the company says, only the beginning of the company’s permanent commitment to change the way it uses energy and to reach its audiences on this issue.
Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch said in an address to employees in New York today, “If we are to connect with our audiences on this issue, we must first get our own house in order.
We have just begun this effort, and we have a long way to go. Our global reach gives us an unprecedented opportunity to inspire action from all corners of the world.
The climate problem will not be solved without mass participation by the general public everywhere.” See this link.
Plus…
Rupert Murdoch’s spouse, Wendi Deng, has been the subject of a profile commissioned by Fairfax in Sydney – but the publisher suddenly got cold feet and tanked the story. The decision came from management rather than editorial, and it’s believed the decision was made to avoid offending the Murdochs, who recently sold their shareholding in the company.
The Monthly magazine is now going to run the story.
Media majors unite
The ABC, News Ltd, Fairfax, AAP, Sky News, SBS and Commercial Radio Australia have united to campaign against what they collectively described as the rapidly dwindling media freedoms being experienced in this country.
A recent Media Alliance report (see our 3 May story – Oz media censored) rated Australia poorly in this area.
Called the Australia's Right to Know campaign, it plans to investigate the problem and lobby politicians on the issues.
News Ltd chief John Hartigan today described Australia at the launch as a lightweight democracy, adding,
“New Zealanders can be trusted with information, but for some reason we can’t.”
Fairfax head David Kirk added,
“We have all fought separately -- this is a strong, united coalition.”
The Media Alliance has applauded the move. “Australia’s media continues to be muzzled by the authoritarian actions of government and an anti-disclosure culture determined to manage and control information,” said Alliance federal secretary, Christopher Warren.
“Today’s launch represents an important step in affirming the independence, integrity and democratic freedom of the press.”
Plus…
 The International Federation of Journalists has released its sixth annual Press Freedom Report for South Asia, The Fight Goes On, documenting attacks on press freedom in the region for the past 12 months. Full report (PDF)
Fued loses fight
Family Feud, which has been on television in various forms for around 20 years, has been axed. However the 68-year front man, Bert Newton, is celebrating his 50th year in television with a new contract with the Nine Network, fronting the What a Year series.
Fairfax dispute
Fairfax Sydney editorial staff yesterday walked off the job and returned today after being ordered to by the New South Wales Industrial Relations Commission.
The dispute is over the recently-announced restructure which sees a number of newspaper and internet editing and production areas combined, subsequent to the merger with Rural Press. The company said 35 positions would be lost as a result.
Click here to see the full Fairfax announcement
Crikey wins back its name
Electronic daily newspaper Crikey.com.au has won back the .com version of its name from a cybersquatter, who was demanding US$45,000 for it.
The World Intellectual Property Organisation ruled in the publisher’s favour after a five-year tussle.
Crikey.com
PBL splits up
ACP Magazines/PBL Media and Network Nine owner PBL has split up its interests into two companies: One concentrating on gambling, and the other – named Consolidated Media Holdings – focussing on media.
The latter now brings the interests in Foxtel and Fox Sports under the same umbrella, along with several websites.
The company says its line-up includes: PBL Media (50%), Foxtel (25%), Fox Sports (50%), Seek (27.1%) and Ticketek (100%), with approximately 65% of earnings being generated from high-
growth new media assets.
Click here for the full statement (PDF)
Newspapers must charge
 The days of newspapers providing most of their content online for free are probably numbered, according to a couple of sources.
In a recent interview for ad industry newspaper B&T, Fairfax director for news and information, Pippa Leary, flagged that the company was keen tio move to a user-pays model, if it could bundle information in a way that made it compelling.
She said, "At this point in time when we look at our current online set, we don’t see anything that is unique. But that said, if we were to bundle certain information together, we may be able to create an offering that people would be willing to pay for, we are constantly looking at and testing that concept."
Meanwhile American newspapers seem to be moving in this direction, with by far the most notable example being the Wall Street Journal, which now claims over 900,000 paying subscribers.
The Journal appears willing to invest in content – the standard of which is very high – and perhaps this is what is driving customers.
A recent opinion piece in the paper bluntly warned, “Free news for online customers is a disastrous business plan.”
Full WSJ opinion piece
Plus…
Editor-in-Chief of the Danish daily Politiken, Toger Peter Seidenfaden, talks about the challenge from freesheets.
Source: editorsweblog.org
The Audit Bureau of Circulations finds that more midsized papers are having success with paid electronic editions than larger papers, but concludes that there is still a large discrepancy between print and electronic circulations.
Source: editorsweblog.org
While ad revenue growth might be cooling for newspaper sites,
their audiences continue to balloon. Nielsen//NetRatings and the
NAA found that a record 59 million people, or 37.6% of all active
Internet users visited newspaper websites in the first quarter,
up 5.3% over the year-ago quarter. Page views also hit a record
of almost 3 billion, up from 2.7 billion a year ago. Time spent
on newspaper sites also was up 11.5% in the quarter to 45
minutes per month. "These record-setting numbers underscore
newspapers' success in capturing online audiences and the
importance of newspaper websites to the growing newspaper
footprint," said NAA honcho John Sturm. "In addition, the sites
attract a younger, more affluent audience coveted by advertisers
while providing a valuable service to readers seeking immediate
information from a trusted local source."
Source: Online Publishers Association
Quote of the week
"The Googles of the world, they are the Custer of
the modern world. We are the Sioux nation."
-- Richard Parsons, Time Warner
Headline of the week
Tightrope skywalkers cross Han solo (Sent by Ali Lemer)
Google the gorilla
From the USA: How scary has the 800-pound gorilla of online advertising --
aka Google -- become? Old-line monopolists Microsoft and AT&T
are bringing up antitrust concerns over Google's recent purchase
of DoubleClick for $3.1 billion. Microsoft's legal eagle Brad
Smith said, "The Google/DoubleClick combination (will have)
unprecedented control in the delivery of online advertising, and
access to a huge amount of consumer information by tracking what
customers do online." Privacy groups petitioned the FTC to look
into the possibility that GoogleClick would be able to match
personal data from searches to cookies from DoubleClick ads.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt tried to damp down fears by saying the
company had no plans to combine that type of data and that
DoubleClick's cookie information belonged to advertisers.
Source: Online Publishers Association
US bloggers protected under journalists status?
A bill has been proposed to the United States Congress that would include news-gathering bloggers under the same laws that protect journalists.
Source: editorsweblog.org
Google links back to suing papers
After losing its suit against the Belgian copyright firm, Copiepresse, the represented newspapers allow Google to resume linking to their websites, but not to any paid content.
Source: editorsweblog.org
Boost for digi radio
 From the Communications Minister’s bunker: Millions of radio listeners around the country will be able to enjoy improved radio services thanks to Federal Budget funding of $10.5 million, the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator Helen Coonan said today.
The funding will help community broadcasters establish digital radio infrastructure. The national broadcasters ABC and SBS will also receive funding which will be determined by a competitive tender process. Senator Coonan said the funding will significantly improve the quality of radio services and enable the delivery of a range of new and innovative services.
“It will enable recording and playback as well as streamed text and will also provide news and weather updates, sound broadcasts, play list information and even still pictures.”
Digital Radio Australia link
ACMA publishes guidelines for narrowcasting
The Australian Communications and Media Authority has published guidelines for the types of services that may be provided as narrowcasting television. See this link.
Newspapers grow worldwide
Global newspaper circulation rose nearly 2% in 2006 and the number of newspaper titles also increased significantly, according to provisional data revealed today by the World Association of Newspapers (WAN).
Paid-for newspaper circulation went up 1.9% year-on-year to more than 510 million paid-for copies in 2006 and the number of new paid-for titles grew to more than 11,000 for the first time in history, WAN announced during presentations in London to investors, analysts and media correspondents.
Source: WAN
Plus...
Newspapers are changing their newsrooms from print-only to multimedia at an accelerating rate. Lessons from the best newsroom conversions will be presented in the 2007 Innovations in Newspapers Global Report, a highlight of the World Newspaper Congress and World Editors Forum to be held in Cape Town, South, Africa, from 3 to 6 June next.
Full story
Murdoch moves in on WSJ (4 May)
The media world in the USA is in a flap over an attempt by Rupert Murdoch to take over what is arguably the country’s most respected newspaper, the Wall Street Journal.
The newspaper, part of the Dow Jones group, is valuable as a print property, but also has a huge paid subscription customer base – said to be 300,000-plus – which will have a lot of attraction for a company that is pursuing an aggressive expansion into the internet.
Dow Jones also has made significant inroads to the important and expanding Asian market.
See this Media Post story
Also…
From The Australian: Rupert Murdoch will gather 50 of his most senior editorial staff at a weekend retreat in California from tonight to map out the future of News Corporation's online news delivery. Full story
Oz media censored – MEAA (3 May)
 The Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance has released its annual report on press freedom, and it makes for grim reading.
The introduction says: A free and vibrant press is the cornerstone of Western democracy. It’s one of the most vital checks and balances for a just society. The balance between the public interest and the interests of those in power is delicate but crucial, and daily the media battles to bring truth to light.
Over the past 12 months Australian journalism has shone light in some dark corners: exposing the suffering of Indigenous communities in Australia’s north; bringing pressure to bear over the death of Private Jake Kovco and Australia’s continued commitment in Iraq; asking just how much the Howard government knew about the shameful corporate scandal of AWB.
As the Coalition enters its 11th year in power, and confronts the challenges of an election year, this scrutiny is essential. As the stakes of power are raised, however, the freedom of our press seems increasingly under threat.
Two journalists face prison for refusing to reveal their sources over a government plan to reject a $500 million boost to veterans’ benefits, despite the conviction being overturned for the whistleblower in question. The charging of Michael Harvey and Gerard McManus, in the face of repeated assurances from the government that it will introduce uniform laws to protect journalists’ sources, casts doubt on the real commitment behind the rhetoric.
Raiding the newsroom of an Australian newspaper and the conviction of a whistleblower whose revelations prompted a major shake-up of airport security; a federal security agency with unmitigated powers to eavesdrop and detain; ministers who restructure censorship review bodies to ban dissenting literature – these are the hallmarks of a government determined to monopolise and sanitise its public image.
The nation’s highest court last year held the ministerial right to refuse access to information above the public’s right to know, and vested the discretion to do so in ministerial hands. The High Court’s ruling against Michael McKinnon in his Freedom of Information case against the Treasury set a new low for press freedom, effectively neutering the legal right of journalists to information which a minister may feel it isn’t “in the public interest” to release.
The industry itself is undergoing an enormous shake-up, as the government’s radical cross-media reforms take effect. Job losses, increased syndication, the attrition of diversity and commercial self-censorship are just some of the threats journalists face in an evolving media landscape.
The erosion of long-held workplace rights under the government’s new industrial relations regime has also begun. As a workforce traditionally expected to work long and unpredictable hours, the removal of such rights as paid overtime and shift penalties for journalists is deeply troubling.
The only way to confront this time of official spin and manipulation is head-on, and the time is now.
Christopher Warren
Click here to download the full report (PDF from www.alliance.org.au)
Why media bought the war (2 May)
From Benton & Alertnet in the USA: The marketing of the war in Iraq by the
administration has been much examined, but a
critical question remains: How and why did the
press buy it? The new Bill Moyers Journal
documentary from PBS explores these very
questions. Bill Moyers and his team piece
together the reporting that shows how the media
were complicit in shaping the "public mind"
toward the war, and ask what's happened to the
press' role as skeptical "watchdog" over
government power. This segment features the work
of some intrepid journalists who didn't take the
government's word at face value, including the
team of reporters at Knight Ridder news service
whose reporting turned up evidence at odds with
the official view of reality. The full
documentary was broadcast on PBS on 25 April.
Full story
Moyers hammers the media for 'Buying the War' in Iraq -- USA Today
Moyers on PBS
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