Media News - Friday, May 30, 2008

Investigators raid German telecom giant in spy probe

Prosecutors raided Deutsche Telekom's headquarters on Thursday as a scandal that has seen Europe's biggest phone company confess to spying on journalists and senior executives escalated. Board members meanwhile vowed to sue the company for tracking their calls, a financial newspaper accused it of spying on its staff and the current chief executive looked in danger of becoming implicated in the affair. Deutsche Telekom at the weekend conceded that it had hired detectives to track hundreds of thousands of phone calls by senior executives and journalists to identify the sources of press leaks. On Thursday, staff representatives on the company's supervisory board said they assumed they were 'the first victims' in the affair and have decided to sue the company for violating their privacy rights. Deutsche Telekom admitted on Saturday that it had made 'ill-advised use of communications data' in 2005 and probably 2006. It has so far admitted only to targeting the magazine Capital but on Thursday the Financial Times Deutschland alleged that it was also a victim of espionage by Deutsche Telekom and as early as 2000. The daily said in a front-page report that Deutsche Telekom had hired private detectives to spy on its reporters eight years ago and had even secretly filmed the newsroom. Both the FTD and Capital belong to the publishing house Gruner und Jahr, which is turn is owned by German media giant Bertelsmann. The publisher has warned that it is considering both criminal and civil charges against Deutsche Telekom. (AFP)

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Reed Elsevier makes its final farewell to arms

Reed Elsevier has finally stopped organising arms trade fairs - five months later than it promised shareholders and staff. The company's chief executive, Crispin Davis, said last summer that Reed would sever ties with the arms industry by the end of 2007 in response to pressure from anti-arms trade campaigners and writers at Reed Elsevier's scientific journals. The company said Thursday it had sold the DSEi, ITEC and LAAD defence exhibitions to Britain's largest independent exhibitions group, Clarion Events, for an undisclosed sum. Reed's decision last June to stop organising defence shows followed a long campaign over its involvement in several defence shows, including one in London. The Campaign Against Arms Trade had argued Reed's involvement in the arms trade was incompatible with its position as the number-one publisher of medical and science journals. Reed, which is selling its trade and specialist publications such as Farmers Weekly and New Scientist, had drawn particular criticism over its defence links from its top title, the Lancet. The medical journal's staff struggled to reconcile ties to the arms trade with a publication often covering the impact of war. (The Guardian)

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Moldova: Concern about government harassment of independent news media

Reporters Without Borders is worried about repeated harassment of journalists and news media in the past two months by the Moldovan authorities. The biweekly Moldavskie Vedomosti is threatened with closure by an investigation into alleged corruption while the body that allocates broadcast frequencies has been accused of favouring pro-government radio and TV stations. The Moldovan public prosecutor's office last month opened an investigation into allegations that Moldavskie Vedomosti overcharged a company called Soroca Stone Quarry for advertising. Anti-corruption investigators have carried out several inspections of the newspaper's financial records at its headquarters. Moldavskie Vedomosti editor Dmitri Ciubasenco said he was convinced that 'the public prosecutor's investigation is political' and that it was designed to put pressure on the newspaper and lead to its bankruptcy. A number of NGOs and news media issued a joint statement criticising the way the Broadcasting Coordinating Council allocated radio and TV frequencies during a two-day session on 7 and 8 May. 'The decisions of Moldova's Broadcasting Coordinating Council are favouring media concentration by assigning frequencies above all to pro-government radio and TV stations,' the statement said. (Reporters Without Borders)

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Sierra Leone: Unity Radio exonerated by media regulatory body

On 21 May 2008, the Independent Media Commission (IMC), Sierra Leone's media regulatory body, cleared Unity Radio, a station operated by the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP), of four allegations of misconduct. MFWA's correspondent reported that the decision was made after Unity Radio was forcibly shut down on 8 May on the orders of the Minister of Information and Communication, Alhaji Ibrahim Ben Kargbo. The Minister accused the station of installing an antenna which caused harmful frequency interference with other stations. Also, Unity Radio had allegedly not followed established procedures to register the radio station. The shut-down was done without involving the IMC or the National Telecommunication Commission (NATCOM), which are the appropriate authorities for such matters. The IMC made it clear in its pronouncement that none of the allegations were justified and that 'the Minister of Information and Communication should honour Unity Radio's right to operate.' The Commission also urged the public to recognise it as the sole authority in media regulatory matters. The Ministry of Information and Communication has accepted the IMC's decision. (Media Foundation for West Africa via All Africa.com)

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‘Scary’ prospects for newspapers: Thomson Reuters CEO

Times are scary for newspapers, but news agencies are benefiting from the big shifts in the media industry, Thomson Reuters chief executive Thomas Glocer said Wednesday at the All Things Digital conference in Los Angeles. Glocer said at the conference, sponsored by The Wall Street Journal, that the benefits of newspapers cutting back staff due to subscriber and advertising loss have already accrued to his online news and financial information distribution giant. Thomson Reuters was created on April 17 Canadian media giant Thomson Corp's takeover of Britain-based Reuters. Thomson Reuters had plans to develop specialized news feeds for scientists and lawyers, as part of the further evolution of the news agency business, Glocer said. He gave the example of a recent service the company developed in India delivering crop prices and weather reports to farmers on their mobile phones. He also said Thomson Reuters would promote and exploit 'citizen journalism' - the contributions of non-professional journalists snapping pictures of events with cellphones and reporting their experiences on website. 'It doesn't matter that you are a Pulitzer prize photographer if you are there with your cell phone.' (AFP )

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Dutch Minister: Porn films on public broadcasting are art

Culture Minister Ronald Plasterk is not taking any action against the broadcasting of explicit pornographic films on public TV channel Nederland 3. They are art, in his view. Public broadcasters VPRO and NPS, who are paid for out of public funds, will broadcast 13 films this summer under the label of Cinema Erotica. They are thus providing a follow-up to the broadcast last winter of the controversial film Deep Throat. Small Christian party SGP's leader Bas van der Vlies had asked the minister to ban Cinema Erotica. The MP considers the films involved, which include explicit sex scenes, are tasteless and do not belong on TV - certainly not on public broadcasters. But according to the Labour (PvdA) minister, the productions are stylish. 'These films are characterised by connoisseurs as artistic,' Plasterk said in a letter to parliament. Plasterk sees no reason whatever to intervene. Nor does the government have the means to do so. The Commissariat for the Media watchdog checks afterwards whether the broadcasters have kept to the rules, was the minister's answer. (NIS News)

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• 26/05/08 - Deutsche Telekom suspected of privacy breaches
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• 26/05/08 - Singapore: Blogger arrested for racist post

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