Free Press // Current

Navarra Editore

Quinto episodio del reportage di Kublai: Navarra Editore a Marsala (Tp).

ProgettoKublai
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Worst news stories of Campaign 2008

MSNBC counts down the top 10 worst news stories from Campaign 2008 -- highlighting how overly commercial "junk news" can... more

Future_America
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Alla freepress il 25% del mercato europeo

Con un calo del 2% nella diffusione dei quotidiani gratuiti in Europa (fine ottobre 2008 rispetto allo stesso periodo del 2007),... more

sonounprecario
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It's Official: Palin is a moron! Says press criticism of her threatens free speech!

This person, who is running for the second highest office in the United States of America, shows a complete lack of understanding... more

tallygirl
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The government detained a Darfur journalist working for a Sudanese daily two weeks ago and have held him incommunicado ever since, said the newspaper's publisher Saturday.

Nurredin Braima, 35, was detained on Oct. 11 after he translated comments from a displaced Darfurian woman into Arabic at a press conference for a visiting Qatari diplomat in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur, said Salah Kajam, publisher of the daily Freedom Bells.

The comments were not known, but Kajam speculated the detention was part of a broader government crackdown against journalists and Darfurians to prevent them from speaking about the crisis.

"We believe they did not like the statement of the woman whatever she said and which he volunteered to translate in all honesty," said Kajam. "The sole crime of this man is that he helped a woman whose crime is that she does not speak Arabic."

There has been no contact with the journalist since the arrest and no charges filed, said Kajam.

A government official said Braima was detained for causing a commotion in the room during an official visit. The official did not provide further details and spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

More than 2.5 million people have been displaced in Darfur and up to 300,000 killed since ethnic African groups rebelled against the Arab-dominated national government early in 2003.

Kajam said Braima is a member of the southern Sudan People's Liberation Movement, with which the paper is affiliated.

The SPLM partnered with the north to form a joint central government in 2005 after a peace deal ended a 21-year war between the two sides. But mistrust still runs deep between the two, and implementation of the peace deal has been sluggish.

Kajam said he decided not to print his daily on Thursday after security officials visited his print shop late the night before and removed seven articles and opinion pieces about Braima's arrest.

Sudan has around 30 independent daily papers. But national security concerns are often cited when acting against journalists, and the Darfur crisis remains a sensitive issue. The government detained a Darfur journalist working for a Sudanese daily two weeks ago and have held him incommunicado ever since,... more

Apocalipstick
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6 responses

23 days ago

Security fears 'erode free press'

Security worries can erode freedoms even in democratic nations and undermine press freedom, media watchdog Reporters Without... more

bedeboop
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1 response

27 days ago

Journalist jailed for blasphemy

AFGHANISTAN'S appeal court sentenced an Afghan journalist to 20 years in jail, commuting an earlier death sentence, for... more

Apocalipstick
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17 responses

28 days ago

Despite death threats, a female Afghan journalist keeps reporting

For her reporting on risky topics like women and warlords in Afghanistan, journalist Farida Nekzad, 31, has received numerous... more

Apocalipstick
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2 responses

28 days ago

Media Bias and the Free Press

Dan Rather and others talk about media bias. This is a preview of the Free Press at the Politics '08 Conference.

Future_America
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1 response

1 month ago

Junk News Is Making Democracy Sick

Dan Rather talks about how Americans are starving for real news.

Future_America
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1 response

1 month ago

Citizens Want Debate Moderators to Challenge Candidate Spin

NEW YORK -- John McCain's supporters seemed happy with the ground rules of the second presidential debate in Nashville. Barack Obama's supporters seemed happy with the results.

A large portion of the questions were his own. "Brokaw's balance of issues received high marks from partisans of both candidates," said Andrew Tyndall of the Tyndall Report, who designed the survey. "And their complaints about bias were in perfect balance, too."

The panel thought that Brokaw's decision not to fact-check the candidates or challenge their spin was a problem: 83% of Obama supporters and 75% of McCain supporters wanted to see more challenging follow-up questions from the moderator.

"Like other moderators before him, Brokaw allowed the senators to avoid answering questions and meander to their own comfort zones," said one volunteer rater.

Republican McCain has long insisted that he prefers the town hall format for political debates. And, according to the panel, his supporters share his preference. Almost half the McCain partisans (48% vs. 24% for Barack Obama supporters) judged the town hall format in Nashville to be superior to the moderated format 11 days ago in Oxford, Miss.

By contrast, almost twice as many Obama supporters in the panel preferred Jim Lehrer of PBS, the Mississippi moderator, over Brokaw (43% vs. 21%) in a head-to-head comparison. After the Mississippi debate, 42% of Obama supporters rated Lehrer's performance as "excellent"; after the Nashville town hall, Brokaw received a lower 28% "excellent" rating from Obama's fans.

Despite the format, Obama's supporters were more likely to say their candidate won in Nashville (92% vs. 76% in Mississippi), whereas McCain's supporters saw no improvement (84% said he won both). McCain's supporters distinguished between their candidate's performance in the foreign policy sequence of the town hall compared with economic and social policy: 92% said McCain won in foreign policy, only 80% and 70% in the latter issues.

Almost half the volunteers in the panel stated that it taught them nothing new (45% of Obama supporters, 55% of McCain's) about their opponent's views, a steep rise from the 29% and 37%, respectively, who said the debate in Mississippi was "not at all" helpful in learning the candidates' stances on the issues.

Brokaw received high praise for his choice of issues. More than half of each group of supporters (64% of Obama supporters, 50% of McCain's) found the questions "extremely" serious and relevant. Brokaw received a "just right" rating from more than half of the members of both groups for his focus on four economic issues -- housing, taxes, the financial crisis and federal spending (62%, 62%, 59% and 59%) -- as well as energy and health care (70% and 74%). He also drew praise as "just right" for his focus on war and peace, terrorism and human rights and genocide (66%, 70% and 65%).

Criticism of Brokaw mostly concerned what he omitted. A majority of both groups complained about Brokaw's lack of questioning on crime and abortion (71% and 70%). Almost all McCain supporters (92%) wanted questions on immigration; almost all Obama supporters (85%) wanted questions on poverty.

There were few complaints about Brokaw's bias toward one candidate or the other. Most of the members of each group of supporters found no favoritism (74% of Obama's, 70% of McCain's); a minority saw evidence of bias, almost always against their preferred candidate.

Although Free Press extended outreach to all parts of the political spectrum, Obama supporters considerably outnumbered McCain's in survey respondents, as they have in our two previous panels. To avoid drowning out the Republican perspective, Tyndall contrasted the ratings of the two groups rather than combining them. Consisting of volunteers rather than a random sample, these results cannot be projected to the population at large.
NEW YORK -- John McCain's supporters seemed happy with the ground rules of the second presidential debate in Nashville.... more

torybart
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2 responses

1 month ago

Celebrity Gossip Glut

There's a problem in the United States. It's plastered all over the TV and it's blasted from billboards in Times... more

mikeygleason
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11 responses

3 months ago

Charges dropped against journalists arrested at RNC

St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman’s office issued a statement announcing that the city attorney won’t prosecute journalists... more

Future_America
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4 responses

1 month ago

Dear media, do your job!

Are America's news media too chicken to ask the tough questions?

Future_America
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23 responses

2 months ago

Cuba supports press freedom

“You cannot kill truth by murdering journalists,” said Tubal Páez, president of the Journalist Union of Cuba. One hundred and fifty Cuban and South American journalists, ambassadors, politicians, and foreign guests gathered at the Jose Marti International Journalist Institute to honor the 50th anniversary of the death of Carlos Bastidas Arguello —the last journalist killed in Cuba. Carlos Bastidas was only 23 years of age when he was assassinated by Fulgencia Batista’s secret police after having visited Fidel Castro’s forces in the Sierra Maestra Mountains. Edmundo Bastidas, Carlos’ brother, told about how a river of changed flowed from the Maestra (teacher) mountains, symbolized by his brother’s efforts to help secure a new future for Cuba.

The celebration in Havana was held in honor of World Press Freedom Day, which is observed every year in May. World Press Freedom day was proclaimed by the UN in 1993 to honor journalists who have lost their lives reporting the news, and to defend media freedom worldwide.

During my five days in Havana, I met with dozens of journalists, communication studies faculty and students, union representatives and politicians. The underlying theme of my visit was to determine the state of media freedom in Cuba and to build a better understanding between media democracy activists in the US and those in Cuba.

I toured the two main radio stations in Havana, Radio Rebelde and Radio Havana. Both have Internet access to multiple global news sources including CNN, Reuters, Associated Press and BBC with several newscasters pulling stories for public broadcast. Over 90 municipalities in Cuba have their own locally run radio stations, and journalists report local news from every province.

During the course of several hours in each station I was interviewed on the air about media consolidation and censorship in the US and was able to ask journalists about censorship in Cuba as well. Of the dozens I interviewed all said that they have complete freedom to write or broadcast any stories they choose. This was a far cry from the Stalinist media system so often depicted by US interests.

Nonetheless it did became clear that Cuban journalists share a common sense of a continuing counter-revolutionary threat by US financed Cuban-Americans living in Miami. This is not an entirely unwarranted feeling in that many hundreds of terrorist actions against Cuba have occurred with US backing over the past fifty years. In addition to the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, these attacks include the blowing up of a Cuban airlines plane in 1976 resulting in the deaths of seventy-three people, the starting in 1981 of an epidemic of dengue fever that killed 158 people and several hotel bombings in the 1990s one of which resulted in the death of an Italian tourist.

In the context of this external threat, Cuban journalists quietly acknowledge that some self-censorship will undoubtedly occur regarding news stories that could be used by the “enemy” against the Cuban people. Nonetheless, Cuban journalists strongly value freedom of the press and there was no evidence of overt restriction or government control ...."

By Peter Phillips“You cannot kill truth by murdering journalists,” said Tubal Páez, president of the Journalist Union of Cuba.... more