Media News - Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Search engines warned over data

Search engines should delete personal data held about their users within six months, a European Commission advisory body on data protection has said. The recommendation is likely to be accepted by the European Commission and could lead to a clash with search giants like Google, Yahoo and MSN. Google and Yahoo anonymise user data after 18 months, while MSN does the same after 13 months. The body said search companies were not clear enough on data protection. Search engine providers must delete or irreversibly anonymise personal data once they no longer serve the specified and legitimate purpose they were collected, the Article 29 Working Party report said. Many search engines currently collect and store information from each search query, holding information about the search query itself, the unique PC address (known as an IP number), and details about how a user makes their searches, such as the web browser that is being used. The report from the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party said search engine providers had ‘insufficiently explained’ why they were storing and processing personal data to their users. (BBC News)

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Foreign media in China harassed on Tibet

Western reporters in China have received harassing phone calls, e-mails and text messages, some with death threats, supposedly from ordinary Chinese complaining about alleged bias in coverage of recent anti-Chinese protests in Tibet. The harassment began two weeks ago and was largely targeted at foreign television broadcasters, CNN in particular. But the campaign broadened in recent days after the mobile phone numbers and other contact information for reporters from The Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today were posted on several Web sites, including a military affairs chat site. Those sending the messages and making the calls say they are ordinary Chinese, a claim that could not be verified. Spokesmen for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the government's State Council Information Office and the national police ministry did not respond to telephone calls and faxed questions Monday seeking comment about the threats. (AP via ABC News)

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Police shut RAM-FM studio, transmitter

Police on Monday closed the Jerusalem studio and transmitter of an English-language West Bank radio station that plays Western music and tries to bring Israelis and Palestinians together through its broadcasts. The station, RAM-FM, is headquartered in the West Bank city of Ramallah. It set up an office in Jerusalem and a local transmitter on another frequency to overcome airwave interference in the city. On Monday, police shut down the transmitter and closed the studio, taking away staff for questioning and hauling away equipment. ‘We instructed the police to close the station in Jerusalem because they were broadcasting without a permit,’ said Yehiel Shalvi, a spokesman for the Communications Ministry. ‘They interfere with airwaves and endanger airport signals.’ After the raid, the station remained on the air from the West Bank as usual. RAM-FM is owned by Jewish businessman Issy Kirsh in South Africa and has been on the air for a year. Modeled after a South African station that provided a venue for reconciliation after apartheid, RAM-FM says it wants to create a safe place for Israelis and Palestinians to talk. There are numerous pirate radio stations broadcasting throughout Israel. They are often blamed for dangerous disruptions in airport air traffic communications and interference in regular radio broadcasts. (Jerusalem Post)

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Canadian newspapers stand firm as U.S. publications decline

Revenue at Canadian newspapers held firm last year, the Canadian Newspaper Association said on Monday. That contrasts with the situation in the U.S., where print advertising revenues fell the most in five decades. Total revenues for Canadian newspapers fell 0.8 percent to CAD 3.5bn (EUR 2.2bn), the CNA said. A 2 percent drop in print advertising was offset by a 30 percent rise in online revenue. Circulation sales dipped about 1 percent to CAD 809m, after posting a 3.8 percent gain in 2006. In the U.S., total print advertising revenues fell 9 percent to USD 42bn (EUR 26bn)last year, the biggest drop since 1950. According to the National Newspaper Association in the U.S., online revenue growth rose 19 percent, a ten percentage point decline from the year earlier. (Financial Post)

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Washington Post wins six Pulitzers

The Washington Post won six Pulitzer prizes Monday, carrying the top award in US journalism for its coverage of ill treatment of veterans at a prominent military hospital, the Virginia Tech school massacre, and other major stories over the past year. The Post won in the public service, breaking news, national reporting, international reporting, feature writing and commentary categories. Also honoured with the prize by the Columbia University journalism school were the New York Times and Chicago Tribune for investigative reporting on contamination of medicine imported from China, and faulty government regulations of toys, car seats and cribs, respectively. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel writer David Umhoefer won the award for local reporting, for stories on the skirting of tax laws to pad the pay of county employees. Reuters photographer Adrees Latif won the photography prize for his shot of a Japanese photographer lying fatally wounded during the Myanmar junta's crackdown of a street demonstration there. (The Guardian)

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New-look Newseum prepares to open its doors

The world's largest collection of journalistic memorabilia, reopens in Washington this Friday. The Newseum, which closed six years ago, has been completely redesigned and rebuilt, at a cost of USD 450m (EUR 286m). It’s now located in the middle of Washington, instead of in a remote suburb. It fills seven floors and has 14 galleries, one of which recounts thousands of years of newsgathering. There are also l5 theatres, two television studios, numerous walls decorated with the front pages of hundreds of daily papers from around the world (changed daily) and thousands of prize-winning photographs. The Newseum also holds such historic journalistic items as the bullet-riddled van used by Time reporters and photographers during the siege at Sarajevo in 1990 - and even the pencil of the reporter killed at the Battle of Little Big Horn, which was Custer’s Last Stand in 1876. (Press Gazette)

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