Media News - Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Google provides peek into McCain’s, Obama’s RSS feed reads

Google Inc. Monday launched a new project that allows Internet users to follow stories read by US presidential candidates Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama in the Google Reader RSS tool. Called Google Power Readers In Politics, it's getting a rare boost with publicity on Google's main search page. The service lets users keep up with news stories and blog posts the candidates are reading, Google said. Launched with the cooperation of the campaigns, it also lets users add the McCain or Obama reading lists to their own Reader feeds, the company added. The site also will track the Reader lists of various political journalists, including Mike Allen from Politico, Arianna Huffington from The Huffington Post and Ruth Marcus from The Washington Post. Adam Ostrow, a blogger at Mashable, noted that while the stories shared in the Reader project likely will be as 'carefully crafted' by the campaigns as the candidates' television commercials and speeches, Google should receive credit for putting together an interesting project that may pull in more Reader users along the way. (Computer World)

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McClatchy to impose pay freeze

McClatchy, the third biggest newspaper publisher in the US, is to introduce a year-long wage freeze for all its employees from the start of September. Publishers across the Sacramento-based McClatchy's 30 daily titles began distributing memos to employees last week telling them of the wage freeze. The McClatchy-owned Sacramento Bee reported that its publisher, Cheryl Dell, sent a memo to the paper's 1,200 staff telling them of the planned freeze, saying: 'We have avoided taking this step as long as possible.' McClatchy, which also owns the Miami Herald, Kansas City Star and Charlotte Observer, said the wage freeze would affect all interactive, corporate and newspaper staff and that salary reviews scheduled after September 1 would be delayed for a year. News of the wage freeze came as other US newspaper groups made drastic cuts to their businesses. Gannett, the largest US newspaper publisher and owner of the Newsquest regional press company in the UK, announced on Friday that it is to cut 1,000 positions in its American operation because of declining ad revenue and circulation. (The Guardian)

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Venezuela to launch communications satellite from China

Caracas says it plans to launch its first satellite from China in November to boost its telecommunications and broadcast capabilities. Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez made the announcement in his weekly television programme, adding that the satellite, named after South American independence hero Simon Bolivar, will cover several Latin American countries. The satellite to be launched from China's southwestern Sichuan province on 1 November will make Venezuela self-sufficient in television, Internet and other communication transmissions, he added. (Press TV via Media Network Weblog)

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China media guidelines leaked

Ignore protests. Be positive about security. No dissing of the Olympic opening ceremony. And whatever you do, don't mention the carcinogenic mineral water. Beijing's propaganda mandarins have issued a 21-point edict on Olympic coverage for domestic media that goes some way to explaining the different perception of the games within and without China. The directive includes a detailed list of dos and don'ts for journalists. According to a translation of the document in the Sydney Morning Herald, journalists are instructed to follow the official line on all matters relating to international affairs. They are warned not to conduct interviews about the US election, the Doha world trade negotiations or China's relations with Sudan, Iran and Zimbabwe. 'Follow the official propaganda line on the North Korean nuclear issue; be objective when it comes to the Middle East issue and play it down as much as possible; no fuss about the Darfur question; no fuss about UN reform; be careful with Cuba. If any emergency occurs, please report to the foreign ministry,' it says. Chinese officials have denied issuing the edict, but local journalists have confirmed its existence. Some say it was distributed by email, others by word of mouth. The release of such a document is extremely sensitive. Journalist Shi Tao was imprisoned for 10 years in 2005 for 'divulging state secrets abroad' after Yahoo passed on email correspondence that suggested he leaked a similar propaganda edict relating to the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. (The Guardian)

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Senegal newspaper raids deepen media dispute

Attackers ransacked the offices of two independent Senegalese newspapers at the weekend, editors said on Monday, deepening a bitter power struggle between authorities and non-state media in the West African country. Unidentified men destroyed writing and printing equipment at the headquarters of privately-controlled papers 'L'As' and '24 Heures Chrono', which have both been critical of government ministers, the papers' editors said. They accused Farba Senghor, air transport minister and propaganda chief for President Abdoulaye Wade's ruling Democratic Party (PDS), of being behind the raid. He denied any involvement. Senghor accused L'As and 24 Heures Chrono and two other papers on Friday of a 'relentless, orchestrated' campaign after a series of critical stories, some about his private life. 'Press freedom does not give a journalist the right to repeatedly attack honest citizens, whatever their position, with microphone or pen and go unpunished,' his office said in a statement. 'As a consequence, Minister Farba Senghor reserves the right to retaliate, and warns anybody who might be offended at his exercise of his legitimate right to defence.' L'As editor-in-chief Cheikh Oumar Ndaw commented: 'Three days after Farba's statement we are attacked. Of course we made the link.' Tensions between Wade's cabinet and independent media have escalated in recent months, especially since police beat two radio reporters at a soccer match and many media outlets backed protests to put the officers on trial. (Reuters)

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Twitter cuts mobile service

Micro-blogging service Twitter is cutting its mobile services in most parts of the world. The company said that it would be ending a programme which allowed users to receive Twitter updates via SMS. Users will still be able to send updates to the service over SMS, and the service will continue to operate unchanged in the US, Canada and India. Twitter blamed the cuts on mobile operators. The company explained in a blog posting that costs to distribute the updates to every person on a user's subscriber list had become too high, and that operators had been unwilling to work out special rates for the service. Twitter estimates its costs to be as high as USD 1,000 (EUR 679) per user outside the US, Canada and India. The company vowed to continue negotiations with operators, and plans to add local SMS numbers to send updates in the near future. For receiving updates on mobile phones, the company recommends that users fire up their mobile browsers and access one of several mobile-optimised browser pages to get their Twitter fix. Specially-made Twitter applications are also available for the iPhone, BlackBerry and Java-enabled handsets. (Techcentral.ie)

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