Media News - Tuesday, June 12, 2012

WikiLeaks reveals US concerns over Televisa-Pena Nieto

US diplomats raised concerns that the frontrunner in Mexico's presidential election, Enrique Pena Nieto, was paying for favourable TV coverage as far back as 2009, according to state department cables released by WikiLeaks. Allegations that coverage by the country's main television network was biased in favour of Pena Nieto have triggered a wave of student demonstrations in the runup to the election on 1 July. The claims are supported by documents seen by the Guardian, which also implicate other politicians in buying news and entertainment coverage. The cables leaked from the US embassy in Mexico contain frequent mentions of the power that Televisa, and the other main commercial network, TV Azteca, exert over the country's political elite. The two networks control around 90 percent of free channels and are widely percieved to be political kingmakers. This is particularly clear in cables dealing with a new communications law that privileged established interests and was approved by the legislature in the middle of the 2006 election campaign. (The Guardian)

French publisher group strikes deal with Google over e-books

Even as a dispute over Google’s digital book project deepens in the United States, the company said Monday that it had reached an agreement in France that could bring back to life thousands of out-of-print works. The French Publishers Association and the Societe des Gens de Lettres, an authors’ group, dropped lawsuits in which they contended that Google’s book scanning in France violated copyright. Google agreed to set up a “framework” agreement under which publishers would be able to offer digital versions of their works for Google to sell. While sales of e-books have surged in the United States, they have been held back in France and much of Europe by disputes over rights and other issues. The deal is modeled on agreements that Google struck separately with two leading French publishers, Hachette Livre and La Martiniere. Under all of these agreements, the publishers retain control over many conditions of the book-scanning project, including which titles are made available. Google said France was now the only country where it had an industrywide book-scanning agreement in place to cover works that are out of print but still under copyright — a category that covers most of the world’s books. (New York Times)

Ecuadorian President Correa proposes preventing private news media from interviewing public official

On Saturday, June 9, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa said that he is considering preventing public officials from granting interviews to for-profit, private news media, in an attempt to financing those families that own these news media outlets, reported the news agency EFE. As Confirmado.net and the Ecuadorian NGO Fundamedios reported, the president and public officials would only give interviews with public (government-run) and and community news outlets, since it would be a "contradiction" to give interviews with those whom the president calls the "corrupt press," especially after telling Ecuadorian citizens, during late May, to boycott the private press. To protect himself from possible criticism that this proposal may cause, President Correa said that this measure wouldn't be an attack on freedom of expression, “but an attack against the pockets of a few individuals,” reported the news outlet CRE Satelital. In light of Correa's constant attacks on the press, on March 11, the Ecuadorian Association of Newspaper Publishers asked the president to stop his "campaigns" against the press. In addition, according to Fundamedios, the attacks against journalists and news media outlets have increased by 150 percent in Ecuador in the last four years, with the majority of the attacks coming from public officials. (Knight Center)

Researchers find direct link between Flame, Stuxnet malware

Security researchers Monday said that they have found a direct link between the notorious Stuxnet worm and the more-recently-discovered Flame espionage malware, indicating that the two teams cooperated and collaborated. The news ties Flame to the U.S. and Israeli governments, which reportedly designed and launched Stuxnet in an attempt to sabotage Iran's nuclear program. "We're very confident that the Flame team shared some of their source code with the Stuxnet group," Roel Schouwenberg, a senior researcher with Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab, said in an online presentation early Monday about the company's findings. "It's conclusive proof that the two worked together, at least once." Stuxnet, a powerful cyberweapon that crippled parts of Iran's nuclear fuel enrichment effort, was first discovered in mid-2010, but researchers later traced its first variant, and first attack, to June 2009. Kaspersky said Monday that its analysis shows that Flame harks back to no later than the summer of 2008, perhaps earlier. (Computerworld)

US: TV networks pledge parent guidance to shows on Web

The leading U.S. television networks said on Monday they would provide ratings guidance for parents for their programs broadcast on the Internet, but at least one group, The Parents Television Council, said the move fell short. ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, TeleFutura, Telemundo and Univision broadcast networks said they would make ratings information available for full length entertainment programs that stream on websites they control from Dec. 1, 2012. The announcement was made in a statement signed by all the networks involved that was titled, "Empowering Parents in the Digital Age." "The precise means of making the information available will be determined by each company, but the TV ratings will appear at the beginning of full-length video programs and also in the online programming descriptions," the networks said in a statement. Television networks currently issue voluntary notices at the start of each show advising on sexual, language and violence content and whether shows are appropriate for all viewers, those over 14, or 17 and older. But such guidelines have not until now been available for TV shows streamed on the Web or on sites such as Netflix and Hulu, which are increasingly popular among teens. The TV Parental Guidelines Monitoring Board found in an April study that 61 percent of U.S. teens watch TV programs on a laptop, videogame player or a device other than a TV set. (Reuters)

Translated news platform Worldcrunch launches ‘international news feed’

News translation platform Worldcrunch has launched Crunch It, a new “international news feed” that provides translated snippets of journalism from across the web. Worldcrunch was first launched in December 2010 by former Time magazine bureau chief Jeff Israely and former Ask.com France chief executive Irene Toporkoff. The team behind Worldcrunch select, translate and edit articles from non-English media source partners including Le Monde, Le Figaro, La Stampa and Die Welt. More recent source partners include Argentine daily Clarin and Chinese publisher Caixin. Two weeks ago the site launched Crunch It, an additional feed of shorter translated articles provided on top of its full length translations from sources with which Worldcrunch has copyright agreements. The site is using a "twin strategy", Israely said, by selling premium content to print and digital and also offering content/traffic exchanges for the "international news feed". The feed – which Worldcrunch is also planning to secure distribution deals for – will see the addition of six stories a day on top of the six premium stories the site also produces. (Journalism.co.uk)

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