Media News - Tuesday, July 15, 2008

New Yorker attacked for Obama cover

The magazine considered the bible of the white, liberal US intelligentsia was under attack Monday for a satirical cover depicting Barack Obama as a Muslim and his wife Michelle as a terrorist. The New Yorker said that the illustration, which showed Mr Obama wearing sandals, a robe and a turban, was intended to satirise the scare tactics being used by opponents of the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate. But the cover prompted a wave of criticism from commentators, who said it would fuel false rumours about Mr Obama’s background, threatening to drive a wedge between The New Yorker and many of its readers in the Obama-supporting chattering classes. While Obama says he was never a Muslim and had no clearly defined faith until discovering Christianity in his 20s, rumours that he was raised as a Muslim have been widely circulated over the Internet. His wife, Michelle, who is depicted wearing an Afro, Black Panther-style fatigues and an assault rifle strapped over her shoulder, has also become a target of conservative critics for what they claim are negative remarks about the US. The Obama campaign acknowledged that the cover was intended as “a satirical lampoon of the caricature Senator Obama’s rightwing critics have tried to create”. (Financial Times)

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EU to challenge roaming ‘rip-offs’

Regulators are set to try to force phone companies to cut the cost of sending text messages within the EU. EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding is expected to outline plans to make the cost of texting from abroad more comparable to doing so at home. The ambition for legislation follows the refusal of most firms to reduce overseas SMS prices and the cost of mobile Internet access while abroad. Mobile phone operators argue that customers are not being ripped off. The industry body, the GSM Association, says that they are in a competitive business and that prices are falling anyway. The new measures may be proposed to the European Parliament in September. The 2.5 billion text messages sent every year by roaming customers in EU member states cost over 10 times more than domestic messages, Reding says. Last year, the European Commission set limits on roaming charges for mobile phone calls across the EU. But it says that "calls on the industry for self-regulation and voluntary reductions of roaming prices for text messages have not been answered". Reding is also expected to try and put an end to "bill shocks" - when users are hit with unexpectedly high costs for using a mobile connection to surf the Internet. (BBC)

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LA Times publisher, Chicago Tribune editor quit

Tribune Co. said Los Angeles Times Publisher David Hiller and Chicago Tribune Editor-in-Chief Ann Marie Lipinski resigned, seven months after real-estate billionaire Sam Zell completed his buyout of the company. Lipinski became the third top newsroom executive at the Chicago newspaper to resign in as many months, saying the position “is not the fit it once was”. Zell has overhauled Chicago-based Tribune's management since becoming chairman in December through the $8.3 billion transaction. Lipinski, who started at the Chicago Tribune as an intern in 1978, will leave the newspaper later this week, she said Monday in a memo to staff. Hiller took over as publisher of the Los Angeles Times in October 2006 after Tribune ousted Jeff Johnson for resisting making newsroom cuts ordered by his bosses. Johnson and then editor Dean Baquet publicly challenged demands to reduce the staff of 940 after the loss of 200 jobs over five years. Baquet left a month later. Tribune said this month it is cutting 250 jobs, including 150 news positions, at the Los Angeles Times, the fourth-largest US newspaper by circulation. The Chicago Tribune reported 8 July it will eliminate about 80 newsroom jobs, or 14 percent of its editorial workforce, to reduce costs amid declining print advertising sales, and cut the number of pages it publishes by as much as 14 percent. The cuts represent the fourth round of reductions since 2005. (Bloomberg)

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Web vigilante takes down terror sites

The Canadian Internet service provider iWeb recently removed three websites powered by Hamas and Hizbullah from their network of subscribers after complaints were filed against the company. Canadian law designates both Hamas and Hizbullah as terrorist organizations whose operations are barred by law, yet the militant groups were hosted online by a Montreal-based corporation. The first of the illicit URLs was discovered by Toronto native Jonathan HaLevi, a senior researcher of the Middle East and Radical Islam at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Upon discovering that an official Hamas website was being hosted by a Canadian server, HaLevi immediately sent iWeb an e-mail requesting its removal. The company replied that the Hamas site was purely informational. After further investigation however, iWeb did concede to remove the Hamas page from their server. After reporting that Hizbullah may be activating sleeper cells in Canada, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation questioned iWeb about two additional websites, one promoting Hizbullah and the other in support of Hamas's militant wing, both of which were eventually taken down. According to HaLevi, as much as 95 percent of online activity powered by terrorist organizations, including al-Qaida and Hamas, is hosted by American servers. The tremendous difficulty in establishing a direct link between the Web designer and the service provider inhibits the ability of the authorities to file charges. (The Jerusalem Post)

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‘World’s oldest blogger’ dies at 108

An Australian woman often described as the world's oldest blogger died at the age of 108 after posting a final message about her ailing health but how she sang "a happy song, as I do every day." Olive Riley posted more than 70 entries on her blog - or "blob" as she jokingly called it - since February 2007. She died Saturday at a nursing home in New South Wales. Born in 1899, she would have turned 109 on October 20. She took up blogging at the suggestion of Mike Rubbo, who filmed a documentary on her life four years ago. On the site, The Life of Riley, and in a series of videos post on YouTube, Riley mused on her day-to-day life. She also recounted living through two world wars and raising three children on her own while working as a cook and a bar maid. Various others have at times been labeled the world's oldest blogger, including Spain's Maria Amelia who was born in 1911 and given a blog by "my grandson, who is very stingy." Riley was 12 years older than Amelia. In her final post, dated June 26, Riley wrote how she felt weak "and can't shake off that bad cough." She wrote of singing a "happy song, as I do every day," with a visitor to the nursing home, "and before long we were joined by several nurses, who sang along too. It was quite a concert!” (CNN)

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AOL to serve digital ads for ‘USA Today’ parent company

Gannett Company, which operates 23 television stations and 85 newspapers in the US, including USA Today, has signed on to AOL's Platform-A as its digital advertising partner. More specifically, it will be using Platform-A's Adtech, marking the US debut of the formerly Europe-only division. When the deal has rolled out completely, it will encompass all of Gannett's local news markets for both print and broadcast, USAToday.com, and other web properties that the company owns. No target date was provided. But it's a big deal for AOL, considering the reach of USA Today as well as the opportunities for local ad targeting. According to Nielsen, Gannett's web properties have 25 million unique visitors per month. AOL acquired the Germany-based Adtech last year. (CNET)

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