Harald Range was due to retire this year, but he was fired first when he refused to end his ridiculous treason witch hunt against Netzpolitik, who published revelations from the Snowden docs.
A large group of key figures in journalism and technology in Germany and elsewhere has published an open letter to German authorities in a critical fight for press freedom there. The letter is below. I am among the signatories. The editors at Netzpolitik and their sources were being investigated for treason for sharing government documents openly. A furor ensued in German media and online. The case was supposedly called off. Then the German justice minister called for the resignation of the chief prosecutor who had started the investigation. Rather than going quietly, that prosecutor is accusing the justice minister of interfering in a case; this is now being called a constitutional crisis. This case and the danger are not over.
By disrupting common-sense narratives, Brazil’s alternative media is raising issues on behalf of a silent majority. But remaining independent is a challenge.
Protests in São Paulo, Brazil. June 17, 2013. Flickr/Rodrigo Vieira. Some rights reserved.Alternative media activism groups are on the rise in Brazil. On 24 May, the group Jornalistas Livres (Free Journalists) was set to officially launch, promising an agenda focused on human rights and a deep coverage of minorities, with an aim to fight the historical media monopoly in the country.
Arianna Huffington built The Huffington Post into a global digital media empire, while Jonah Peretti, who helped found HuffPo, went on to co-found BuzzFeed, turned into a digital juggernaut that could soon be valued at $1.5 billion.
It’s been a year since AJ+, Al Jazeera’s bet on a mobile-centric future, debuted. AJ+ eschews a news website in favor of an app and focuses heavily on video, and its strategy for audience growth is dependent on social media.
Add “access to quality local news” to the list of advantages that wealthy communities have over poor ones: A new Rutgers analysis of news sources in three New Jersey towns suggests that richer towns have more local news sources, creating more original content and posting more of it to social media, than do poorer communities.
Journalists and human rights workers who work with troubling user-generated content as part of their jobs may experience vicarious trauma as a result of handling distressing content. A new research project aims to help by surveyingand interviewing such workers and developing a set of best practices for news and humanitarian organizations.
Discover more from Erkan's Field Diary
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.