Media News - Tuesday, April 15, 2008

AP cuts prices, announces mobile product

The Associated Press announced Monday it will further cut fees paid by struggling newspaper members and will develop an advertising-supported service that will deliver stories and photos to advanced cell phones, including the iPhone. The service, which will carry local news from participating newspapers as well as national and international news from the AP, is being tested with several newspaper companies and is expected to launch in the summer under the name Mobile News Network, the AP said. AP said it was working with cell phone manufacturers and carriers to develop a user interface for the service. A product to provide news videos is also in the works. AP President and Chief Executive Officer Tom Curley said that while the service was designed specifically for Apple Inc.'s iPhone, it can be used with other "smart" phones. Curley said the service would be organized by ZIP code, with AP managing and paying for a central facility to handle technical and ad-serving functions. Local ads would be sold by participating newspapers and national ads by ad networks. Revenue would be split 50-50 between news providers and ad sellers. (AP)

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Obama still facing fallout over private comments - made public - disparaging small-town voters

Sen. Barack Obama was still dealing with negative reactions to his unguarded, disparaging comments over the psyche of white small town voters during a televised forum on faith and politics on Sunday. Obama had not been aware that one of the supporters attending the closed-door private event was a citizen-journalist who was recording his speech. The comments were not made known until April 11 because after recording Obama's speech at the private fundraiser in San Francisco on April 6, Obama supporter Mayhill Fowler spent several days conflicted over what to do about the comments. Fowler was part of an experiment by the Huffington Post in citizen journalism that uses 1,800 unpaid journalists and researchers. Finally, Fowler published Obama's comments on Friday after deciding, "As a citizen journalist she had a duty to report the event, despite her support for Barack Obama," Amanda Michel, the director of the project, told the Guardian. (AHN)

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Netherlands sponsored ‘Jihad news agency’

The Netherlands has put EUR 1.2m of taxpayers money in Ma'an, a Palestinian news agency that glorifies terrorism and incites to hatred, according to newspaper De Telegraaf. The Party for Freedom (PVV) is demanding that Development Cooperation Minister Bert Koenders claim the money back. Press agency Ma'an is according to Israeli organisation Palestinian Media Watch guilty of disseminating the Jihad ideology of Palestinian terrorists. Thus, Ma'an glorifies the terrorist that recently murdered eight Jewish yeshiva students in cold blood with the highest Islamic status of "martyrdom for Allah." The news agency denies Israel's right to exist by characterising the territory of the Jewish state as 'occupied Palestine', De Telegraaf revealed. The propaganda of hatred only appears in the Arabic reports of the news agency and not in the English versions. (NIS News)

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Iraqi forces free kidnapped British journalist

Iraqi security forces freed a British journalist kidnapped two months ago in the main southern city of Basra on Monday after a fierce firefight with his abductors, Iraqi officials said. Richard Butler was found after the 30-minute gunbattle in a room handcuffed and with a hood over his head, senior Iraqi commander in Basra, Lieutenant General Mohan al-Fraiji, told AFP. Soon after his release, Butler was shown on state television Al-Iraqiya surrounded by Iraqi military officials who hugged and applauded him before sitting down with the journalist to share a meal. The tousle-haired Butler, who had been on assignment with US television network CBS when he was abducted along with his Iraqi translator on February 10, praised the soldiers who had freed him. The release of Butler comes as a significant boost for the Iraqi security forces, who have been criticised for their handling of operations in Basra. (AFP)

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US military to free AP photographer

The U.S. military said Monday it will release Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein, more than two years after he was detained by U.S. Marines on suspicions of links to insurgents. The military said it has determined Hussein is not a threat and plans to free him Wednesday. In the past week, Iraqi judicial committees dismissed all allegations against Hussein and ordered his release. The last allegations were dropped Sunday — a day after Hussein marked his second full year in custody. The AP and Hussein, 36, have denied any improper contacts and said he was only doing his job as a journalist working in a war zone. (AP)

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Iceland, Scandinavia are Europe’s top Internet users: study

Icelanders and the Scandinavians are Europe's top Internet users, the GfK market research group found in a study published Monday. In Iceland, an estimated 88 percent of the population aged 14 and above use the Internet regularly, followed by 81 percent in Finland, 76 percent in Norway, 76 percent in Denmark and 73 percent in Sweden, the survey showed. In western Europe, Malta ranks lowest in terms of Internet usage, with only 25 percent of the population regularly going online, followed by Spain with 35 percent, Portugal with 43 percent and Ireland with 45 percent. Albania ranks the lowest in all of Europe, with only one percent of Albanians regularly surfing the web. In Austria, 67 percent of the population are regular Internet users, compared with 63 percent in Britain, 61 percent in Germany, 56 percent in France and 53 percent in Italy. With the exception of Slovenia which has a ratio of 61 percent and Estonia with 60 percent, Internet usage in all eastern Europe countries is less than one person in two, GfK found. (AFP)

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