Media News - Wednesday, July 01, 2009

China delays rollout of filtering tool

China has delayed the rollout date for its controversial Green Dam internet filtering tool. The Chinese Government said the day for the mandated inclusion of the filter would be put off to allow PC vendors extra time to prepare for the law which requires all systems sold in the country to be bundled with the software, according to the Xinhua News Agency. The country's Ministry of Industry and Information technology had previously set 1 July as the deadline for compliance with the law. No new deadline was given. The controversial law first garnered attention earlier this month when word surfaced that PC vendors were being forced to include the software either as a pre-installation or bundled offering with all new systems sold in China. News of the law garnered heated debate and drew criticism from many groups opposed to the measure, including the US Secretary of Commerce. The Chinese government maintained that the software could be disabled by users and would only block pornographic content. Opponents of the measure argued that the software could be used to further tighten the country's grip on internet access and censorship in China. A group of Chinese citizens opposed to the law were planning to conduct a one day boycott of the internet in protest of the measure. Some companies have also expressed concern that possible intellectual property violations in the Green Dam tool could prevent US software vendors from exporting systems with the software installed. (VNU Net UK)

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The Netherlands: Newspaper circulation continues to slide

Almost every Dutch national newspaper had fewer readers in the first three months of this year, according to the latest figures from the Hoi circulation figure institute. Only specialist newspaper Het Financieele Dagblad managed to increase its circulation figures with a 3 percent rise to 67,000 copies a day. All four national papers owned by the PCM publishing group had fewer readers for their paper editions. The evening paper NRC Handelsblad booked the sharpest decline, at 6.2 percent. However, the NRC and Volkskrant both increased the number of internet subscribers, Hoi said. (Dutch News)

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Pirate Bay sold to Swedish software firm

Infamous BitTorrent site The Pirate Bay has been bought by Swedish software firm Global Gaming Factory X (GGF), which has promised a new business model in which copyright owners and content providers will be compensated for the use of their intellectual property. The news comes just a day after the four men involved in running the site lost their appeal to have the recent verdict quashed. Tomas Norström, the trial judge, had been accused of bias in delivering a guilty verdict, but the Swedish Court of Appeals ruled that this was not the case, meaning that the Pirate Bay owners still face jail and a fine of SEK 30m (EUR 2,7m). The Pirate Bay confirmed the news in a blog posting, but said that users should not be worried about the new owners when they take control of the site in August. According to the blog, the profits from the estimated SEK 60m GGF will pay for the site will "go into a foundation that is going to help with projects about freedom of speech, freedom of information and the openness of the net". GGF also announced the purchase of peer-to-peer data distribution software firm Peerialism for USD 13m, with the intention of using Peerialism's technology on The Pirate Bay. (VNU Net)

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Coup supporters in Honduras suspend Telesur TV service

The supporters of the military coup staged on Sunday against Honduran President Manuel Zelaya have forced the Latin American news channel Telesur to stop broadcasting in the country. Telesur’s signal is no longer on the air, reported Venezuelan journalist Freddy Fernadez, General Director of the Bolivarian News Agency (ABN), who is currently in Tegulcigalpa where he was to cover the opinion poll scheduled for last Sunday. Telesur is a regional TV network broadcasting news about Latin America and the Caribbean. The TV news service has spread news on the situation facing Honduras over the past hours, since President Zelaya was kidnapped from his home and taken to Costa Rica. In an effort to keep offering information on developments taking place in Honduras, Venezuela’s TVes station is broadcasting live transmissions from the satellite-based cell phone of a Telesur journalist who is covering the ongoing demonstrations staged by the Honduran people in areas near the Presidential Palace in the capital Tegucigalpa. The cutting of Telesur and Honduras state TV broadcasts is the result of strong censorship by the de facto junta led by Roberto Micheletti hours after they staged the coup, which has been condemned by international opinion, regional and world organizations. (acn via Media Network Weblog)

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Pubs bulk up with ‘super blogs’

ChicagoNow is casting a new light on an old question: How can newspapers lure more readers online? The site, which notched more than 140,000 page views within six days of its beta launch last month, features commentary and reviews from more than 30 local personalities, ranging from favorite restaurants to the Chicago Cubs. By the end of the year Tribune hopes to increase that number to more than 80, said Bill Adee, the Chicago Tribune's editor of digital media. ChicagoNow, and a similar initiative also unveiled last month by The Miami Herald, reflects newspapers'continuing quest to redefine themselves as essential information providers, regardless of the medium. But the sites are also engineered to go beyond traditional commenting and blogging that many newspapers already offer. To that end, they're being constructed as virtual community centers, with tools that permit easy access to popular social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Bloggers will earn payments based on how much Web traffic their comments generate, Adee said. The site itself will also offer advertisers a slate of options, including sponsorships. (News and Tech)

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Mainstream media failing to make news understandable to public, says new report

The mainstream media is leaving the public in the dark by failing to explain basic information about the news, a new report has suggested. Audiences are being made to feel confused and excluded by reports they do not understand, according to the paper 'Public Trust In The News' by academics from Manchester and Leeds Universities, published by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. In one example, none of the participants in several focus groups organised by researchers knew that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were from the same political party, despite extensive coverage of the US primary elections last year. The study also suggested that while mass media leaves many people feeling powerless and uncertain of what to believe, the internet helps them understand the news. Online media also makes them feel they can make a difference by giving them access to unofficial accounts from people unaffected by professional interests or political correctness and by allowing feedback to authorities, it suggested. However, the report also mentioned that the internet is leaving some people more confused than ever, because of its size and abundance of sources. Journalists interviewed as part of the study were underwhelmed by amateur news reporting on the internet, contending that blogs usually provide nothing more than second-hand information taken from elsewhere on the internet. The journalist respondents were also more likely than the public to say that news stories were liable to be untrue. (Journalism.co.uk)

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