Media News - Friday, October 31, 2008

BBC suspends star for 3 months over British radio prank

The British Broadcasting Corporation suspended one of its highest paid stars on Thursday over a lewd radio stunt that outraged thousands of listeners and fueled a storm of criticism of Britain's public broadcaster. Popular presenter Jonathan Ross, who is reputed to be paid GBP 6m (EUR 7.5m) a year, will be suspended from all BBC broadcasting for 12 weeks without pay, the BBC said. The scandal, which has swept the financial crisis off the front pages and dominated the airwaves for days, is over a stunt in which Ross and another top presenter verbally abused a 78-year-old comedy actor in a radio stunt that went wrong. Russell Brand, a motor-mouth comedian with a burgeoning Hollywood career, and Ross left insulting messages on the answering machine of Andrew Sachs, best known for playing the hapless Spanish waiter Manuel in the well-known British comedy series 'Fawlty Towers' in the 1970s. The pair joked about how Brand had slept with Sachs's 23-year-old granddaughter, and how when Sachs heard the messages he was likely to kill himself. The program was broadcast late at night on October 18 and initially attracted little attention. But following coverage in the rest of the media, including transcripts of the calls in which Ross, 47, and Brand, 33, swear and make sexual innuendo, complaints rocketed, with more than 30,000 people now registering their disgust. Brand announced on Wednesday he was quitting his program on BBC's Radio 2, an easy-listening station. The head of Radio 2, Lesley Douglas, resigned on Thursday over the incident. Ross and Brand were initially suspended pending an investigation. (Reuters)

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Firefox add-on simulates Great Firewall of China

The Chinese Ministry of Information Industry has helped protect millions of Chinese Internet users from dangerous information with the Great Firewall of China, a vast censorship network that's also known as the Golden Shield Project. Now, thanks to the China Channel Firefox add-on, Internet users outside of China can avail themselves of Chinese government supervision, free of charge. 'The Firefox add-on China Channel offers internet user outside China to surf the web as if they were in China,' the China Channel Web page explains. 'Take an unforgettable virtual trip to China and experience the technical expertise of the Chinese Ministry of Information Industry (supported by Western companies). It's open source, free and easy.' The creators of the software, Aram Bartholl, Even Roth, and Tobias Leingruber, have posted a video that explains China Channel in a bit more detail. The China Channel add-on uses the SwitchProxy Tool add-on to connect the user to various Internet proxies inside China. This allows users to surf the Web using a Chinese IP address, putting them through the same government supervision as Chinese Web surfers. (Information Week)

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Bells, chants launch Bhutan’s first daily newspaper

Buddhist monks prayed for the success of Bhutan's first daily newspaper, which was launched on Thursday but could take a week to reach remote areas of the tiny Himalayan nation carried on ponies and on foot. Bhutan Today, an eight-page morning paper, is part of Bhutan's attempt to build a free press after its former monarch and fourth king, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, forced his largely unwilling subjects to accept democracy earlier this year. Delivering copies of Bhutan Today will be a chore in a country with few passable roads, meaning newsagents will have to carry it to far-flung districts on foot and on horseback. The paper has a cover price of BTN 5, or about EUR 0,07. Monks chanted prayers and rang bells and drums were banged as the newspaper's first copies rolled off the presses at an auspicious hour chosen by astrologers. Bhutan's only newspaper until 2006 was a bi-weekly, state-run venture. Two privately owned papers entered the market later - the bi-weekly Bhutan Times and the weekly Bhutan Observer. There is fierce competition for the small advertising revenue generated in the country of about 700,000 people. There are virtually no private advertisers and only government agencies offer advertisements. Bhutan's literacy rate is about 60 percent but newspapers estimate a total readership of only about 12,000 people. Bhutan Today has an optimistic print run of 18,000 copies. It is written in English but Bhutanese law means it must soon be printed in the local language. (Reuters)

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Ex-Guantanamo inmate to lead Al-Jazeera rights watchdog

Al-Jazeera television on Thursday announced the launch of its own rights watchdog to be headed by its cameraman Sami al-Haj who spent six years at the US detention centre in Guantanamo Bay. The Public Liberties and and Human Rights Desk will 'promote respect for human rights and public liberties by monitoring, documenting, broadcasting and raising awareness for these key issues,' the Doha-based network said. It will work closely with the news division of the Qatari-funded satellite channel and establish a specialised database on issues of human rights and public liberties. Haj was arrested by the Pakistani army on the Afghan border in December 2001 and was held without charge from June 2002 until May 2008 at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The initiative will be formally launched on Saturday as Al-Jazeera celebrates its 12th anniversary. (AFP)

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‘The New York Times’ offers up movie reviews API

The New York Times announced that it has launched a movie reviews API that will make it easier for visitors to access the publication's library of 22,000 movie reviews dating back to 1924. Realizing that it's sitting on a vast library of movie reviews and its current RSS feed only displays the latest 65 articles, the Times decided that it needed to give its readers access to its entire library of reviews to complement its current offering and make it easier for visitors to find all the film information they're looking for. So far, the Times claims that the API will make the full text of the movie reviews available, ordered by DVD release date, along with extras like biographical information for the three top critics. Each film will be indexed by 'title, reviewer's name, director's name, names of the top five actors, and plot keywords.' As much content as the API currently provides, the Times did say that it isn't able to give users direct access to trailers and video clips yet. It hopes to add that feature to the API sometime in the future. In order to use the Movie Reviews API, users need to sign up for an API key. Usage is currently limited to 5,000 requests per day. (CNET News)

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Obama infomercial tops network prime-time ratings

Barack Obama's campaign 'infomercial' was the most-watched telecast in U.S. prime time on Wednesday. More than 33.5 million viewers tuned in to watch the Democratic presidential nominee's paid 30-minute message, aired on three major broadcast networks and four smaller channels, Nielsen Media Research reported on Thursday. The three big networks alone, CBS, NBC and Fox, accounted for 25.5 million viewers combined - 1.2 million more than they drew in the same half hour a week ago, Nielsen said. The infomercial blended pre-taped segments of Obama directly addressing viewers with a video montage of the nominee on the campaign trail and ordinary Americans talking about their economic struggles. Opening with a shot of windblown fields of grain, it concluded with Obama addressing a live campaign rally in Florida. Obama's campaign paid an estimated USD 1m per network for its 30-minute spot, which gave both CBS and NBC a double-digit ratings boost over their regular series programming in the same half hour a week ago. (Reuters)

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