Posts tagged al jazeera
Shouldn’t it read, “Hey! We just bought Current TV”? Odd how networks break news about themselves, so take it from the Guardian.
Current TV is done. Al Jazeera is simply buying Current’s access to US cable operators. Al Gore will remain as an advisor to the new network. That should shake things up in the cable news scene.
Question for you guys: Does the fact that Time Warner Cable is dropping Current TV in the wake of this news signify any sort of unsavory motives on their part? It struck me as not a business decision (though that’s what they say, of course), but one critical of what Al Jazeera represents. The fact that the blackout took effect almost immediately after the deal was signed seems like a clear indicator of someone being really pissed that the deal happened at all.
Al Jazeera website hacked by Syria's Assad loyalists
Via Reuters:
The website of Qatar-based satellite news network Al Jazeera was apparently hacked on Tuesday by Syrian government loyalists for what they said was the television channel’s support for the “armed terrorist groups and spreading lies and fabricated news”.
A Syrian flag and statement denouncing Al Jazeera’s “positions against the Syrian people and government” were posted on the Arabic site of the channel in response to its coverage of the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad which began in March last year.
Al Jazeera English Closes Chinese Bureau After Reporter is Expelled
Via the BBC:
Al-Jazeera says it has been forced to close its English-language bureau in Beijing after its reporter was expelled.
China’s decision not to renew the press credentials and visa of Melissa Chan is the first such action against a foreign reporter for many years.
Officials have also refused to allow a replacement for Ms Chan, al-Jazeera’s China correspondent since 2007.
China’s foreign ministry refused to say why the reporter had been expelled.
“We stress that everybody must abide by Chinese laws and regulations and must abide by their professional ethics,” spokesman Hong Lei said, responding to repeated questions.
Al-Jazeera said it would “continue to request a presence in China”.
The channel expressed its disappointment in a statement, adding that it had been requesting additional visas for correspondents for ”quite some time”. The move does not affect its Arabic-language service.
The move will be viewed as an attempt by the Chinese authorities to intimidate foreign media operating in the country, says the BBC’s Martin Patience in Beijing.
Training Citizen Journalists
Thanks to the internet, pretty much anyone can practice journalism. We’ve been exploring how to deal with the information overload, and how to evaluate journalism that’s not necessarily produced by a traditional newsroom. Some argue that journalism born from Twitter monitoring is not real journalism. But it seems here to stay.
via Gigaom:
This democratization of distribution has had a profound effect on the coverage of uprisings in Egypt and Libya and more recently in Syria. Because of YouTube, Twitter, and other networks, more information is available about what is happening in those countries. But is it reliable? According to some reports, the news coming from Syria has been altered by activists who are trying to make a specific point. Does that mean citizen journalism is flawed? Not really. It just means we need better tools to make sense of the flood of news all around us.
How can we improve online citizen journalism? Al Jazeera has an answer: by teaching tools. It has just launched an educational campaign aiming to “raise a new generation of citizen journalists.”
via The Realtime Report:
Facebook and Twitter will enable these journalists to update the world about news in their area — and Al Jazeera’s new YouTube channel, Al Jazeera Unplugged, will teach them how to use these social networks to share information. The first videos stick to the basics: how to use Twitter and Facebook. The videos will gradually become more advanced as the campaign continues, with an increased focus on producing and sharing content.
Riyaad Minty, Al Jazeera’s head of social media, told GigaOm that “The focus is mostly on how these tools can be used to create greater awareness around issues within your society. That’s where the name unplugged comes from – it’s more about a need to disconnect, go out and create content – not just consuming media.”
FJP: Subscribed to the channel and looking forward to more videos.
Al Jazeera Will Not Air French Murder Video
Good case study for a journalism ethics class.
Via Al Jazeera:
Al Jazeera has said it will not air a video that it received showing three shooting attacks in Toulouse and Montauban in southern France this month.
The network on Tuesday said the video did not add any information that was not already in public domain. It also did not meet the television station’s code of ethics for broadcast.
The video shows the attacks in chronological order, with audible gunshots and voices of the killer and the victims. But it does not show the face of the confessed murderer, Mohammed Merah, and it does not contain a statement from him…
…Merah boasted of filming his killings and witnesses told police that he appeared to be wearing a video camera in a chest harness.
…Zied Tarrouche, Al Jazeera’s Paris bureau chief, said the images were a bit shaky but of a high technical quality. He also said the video had clearly been manipulated after the fact, with religious songs and recitations of Quranic verses laid over the footage.
Syria: Songs of Defiance
Al Jazeera will begin airing a documentary on the Syria uprising that was shot entirely on an iPhone. According to the network, Al Jazeera cameras are banned in Syria and their correspondent went undercover to meet “resistance fighters, protesters, Syrian army deserters, footballers-turned-revolutionaries and cigarette smugglers who have joined the fight.”
Journalism.co.uk adds the following from an Al Jazeera press release:
I can’t tell you my name. I’ve spent many months secretly in Syria for Al Jazeera.
I cannot show my face and my voice is disguised to conceal my identity, because I don’t want to endanger my contacts in Syria.
Because carrying a camera would be risky, I took my cell phone with me as I moved around the country and captured images from the uprising that have so far remained unseen.
Songs of Defiance begins airing this Wednesday and will run through next week. Al Jazeera has posted its schedule here.
We heard horrific stories of American female journalists being attacked during the Egyptian revolution in 2011. There are many other cases we did not hear about because the victims are not Western. They don’t have the same access and publicity; they may not be as comfortable talking openly about an issue that’s considered private and sensitive in some cultures, or they may worry that any frank discussion could portray them as weak and incapable of braving the dangers of field journalism.
I couldn’t work for another newspaper. I can only work for a paper where I can write objectively. I can’t write that in the last 20 years, it’s all been so wonderful in our country because I know it’s not true. Saying everything’s just great. Kissing officials’ backsides. I won’t do that, not so I can earn $500 or $600 a month. I’d rather earn less but tell the truth.
Journalist Zhanara Kasymbekova in The Fight to Publish, a film about Kazakhstan’s only mass-produced opposition paper.
(via Al Jazeera)
After Kazakhstan gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, a system of double standards was created. To the outside world, the language of democracy is used to attract foreign investors. On the inside, journalists must navigate the dangerous realities of imprisonment, fines, interrogations by secret police, and raids of editorial offices. In two decades of independence, not a single murdered journalist’s case has been solved. Ostrovsky’s film follows journalist Zhanara, Staff reporter as the Golos Respubliki newspaper, as she covers stories from her base in Almaty - and when breaking news of the riots in Zhanaozen takes her to the aftermath of the bloodiest day in Kazakhstan’s modern history.
She writes:
The Respublika newspaper did not come out of this frightening period unscathed. The editorial staff were threatened when the beheaded corpse of a dog was hung outside the newspaper’s window. It turned out that this was only a prelude to the arson of our editorial office, which was burned to the ground. At the same time, our editor-in-chief, Irina Petrushova, was charged with tax evasion and forced to flee the country. By 2009, the newspaper had been forced to shut down by one of its creditors, the government-controlled BTA bank. But despite all the pressure, the newspaper reopened under the new name it uses today: Golos Respubliki.
FJP: A wake-up call to the realities faced by journalists around the world. Zhanara has to fight to cover news objectively, risking her life in the process.
Watch the film. 25 minutes, worth it.
A group calling itself the Syrian Electronic Army hacked the Al Jazeera English Web site yesterday with messages supporting president Bashar al-Assad
Via Ars Technica:
Targeting the news organization’s “Syria Live Blog,” which has been providing ongoing coverage of the Arab League’s observer mission to Syria and developments in the ongoing unrest in the country, the hacker group calling itself the Syrian Electronic Army posted pro-Assad and pro-Syrian government images to the site…
…On their own site, the Syrian Electronic Army announced the “code re-penetration” of the site by a “professional Syrian battalion” of hackers, denouncing Al Jazeera for broadcasting “false and fabricated news” to “ignite sedition” among the people of Syria and achieve the goals of “Washington and Tel Aviv.”
Image: Pro Assad image posted to Al Jazeera English’s Syria Live Blog. Via Ars Technica.
The Mainstream Media’s Dictionary
Al Jazeera English continues with their special series, the Mainstream Media’s Dictionary.
caliphate. n. Future involving Ayman Al-Zawahiri sitting on a throne watching bearded footballers in long shorts contesting the Islamic Cup final in Seville.
catastrophe. n. Good way to describe an earthquake or tsunami. Add “of biblical proportions” to increase viewership.
caucasian. adj. Let’s leave the suspect’s race out of this, it’s not relevant.
cheerleader. n. See journalist.
Moving on to selections for the letter ‘D’:
darling. n. Last known positive description, after ally, to describe third world leader before we start using strongman, dictator.
dead. n. See newsworthy.
defiant. adj. Use this word to describe any speech by dictator. Content needn’t be noted.
dehumanising. v. tr. Effects of militia attack that killed the child, not exacerbated by the journalists who require the grieving eyewitness mother to describe the ordeal (preferably with tears) in a thirty second soundbite. If it’s over thirty seconds, get her to do it again until she gets it right.
disaster. n. Conflict and catastrophe-free 24 hour news cycle.
disinformation. n. The other channel.
The Working Journalist's Style Guide
Al Jazeera kicks off a 26-part series with the letter A.
accident. n., Airstrike in Afghanistan by NATO/ISAF forces usually killing scores of men, women and children.
airstrike. n., See accident.
alleviate. v. tr., Often used by the UN secretary-general. Usually sandwiched between “aim to” and “poverty”.
answer. n., Something said or done in reaction to question from anchor, often interjected or cut-off before point is made.
authentic. adj., Youtube video and/or blog or Facebook update from activist in restive country. For immediate broadcast.
Al Jazeera English to be honored with Columbia Journalism Award
May 4, 2011
Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism will bestow its highest honor, the Columbia Journalism Award, to Al Jazeera English. The award is given annually during the school’s commencement ceremony to recognize an individual or organization for “singular journalism in the public interest.”
I am worried about them. The Libyan authorities are crazy and can do whatever they want. They promised that they would set him free, but now I cannot get hold of him.
Al Jazeera journalist Sammir Shatara on the re-arrest of Norwegian photographer and journalist Ammar Al-Hamdan and three colleagues.
Al-Hamdan was orginally captured on March 7, released, and then arrested again over the weekend.
Ramona Tancau, The Foreigner, Norwegian Al-Jazeera journalist recaptured.
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