Media News - Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Mexican media scandal: secretive Televisa unit promoted PRI candidate

A secretive unit inside Mexico's predominant television network set up and funded a campaign for Enrique Pena Nieto, who is the favourite to win Sunday's presidential election, according to people familiar with the operation and documents seen by the Guardian. The new revelations of bias within Televisa, the world's biggest Spanish-language broadcaster, challenge the company's claim to be politically impartial as well as Pena Nieto's insistence that he never had a special relationship with Televisa. The unit – known as "team Handcock", in what sources say was a Televisa codename for the politician and his allies – commissioned videos promoting the candidate and his PRI party and rubbishing the party's rivals in 2009. The documents suggest the team distributed the videos to thousands of email addresses, and pushed them on Facebook and YouTube, where some of them can still be seen. The nature of the relationship between Pena Nieto and Televisa has been a key issue in Sunday's election since the development in May of a student movement focused on perceived media manipulation of public opinion in the candidate's favour. (The Guardian)

Rebels attack Syrian broadcaster as Assad talks of war

A day after President Bashar al-Assad said Syria was living in a “state of war,” rebels probing with increasing audacity around the capital Damascus were reported by the country’s official media on Wednesday to have stormed into a pro-government television station, killed three employees and planted explosives that destroyed studios. The latest attack came within hours of a surprise assault by Syrian insurgents on a Republican Guard base in Damascus, on Tuesday, eliciting a furious military response. Early on Wednesday, the official Syrian news agency SANA reported that attackers at the al-Ikhbaria satellite broadcaster “planted explosive devices in the headquarters of al-Ikhbaria following their ransacking and destroying of the satellite channel studios, including the newsroom studio which was entirely destroyed.” The station, privately-owned but strongly supportive of the government, is in the town of Drousha, around 14 miles south of Damascus, Reuters said, quoting an unidentified employee at the station as broadly confirming the SANA account. The assault reflected the information war between Mr. Assad’s government and its adversaries. SANA described the satellite channel as “an active Syrian media means” to combat what it called “a sinister campaign” by Arab and Western media to “spread false, virtual and biased news.” (New York Times)

Microsoft loses EU antitrust appeal

Europe's second highest court has upheld a competition ruling against Microsoft saying it "essentially upholds the Commission's decision". But it slightly reduced the fine from EUR 899m to EUR 860m. The fine was imposed four years ago and was a record at the time. It was imposed because Microsoft had not provided certain information about its products to competitors as it had been ordered to do in 2004. EU anti-trust regulators originally fined Microsoft EUR 497m in 2004 for abusing its dominant market position to block competitors. Microsoft was ordered to make the code for its server software available to competitors so their products could work alongside it. In 2008, Microsoft was given an additional fine for failing to comply with the 2004 order. The latest decision, "rejects all the arguments put forward by Microsoft in support of annulment", a statement from the EU General Court court in Luxembourg said. At a hearing in May 2011, Microsoft's lawyers had argued that the fine was excessive and undeserved. (BBC News)

Iraq backs off on forcing 44 media outlets closed

Iraq has suspended plans to close 44 media operations in the country, including the BBC and Voice of America, after an outcry by press freedom advocates, an official said Tuesday. The Communications and Media Commission that regulates the news media in Iraq will give the targeted organizations more time to pay outstanding fees and renew lapsed licenses, deputy director Ali Nasir said. The commission denied that its previous order to close the agencies, most of them Iraqi, represented a crackdown on a free press. No media outlets were known to be actually shut down. Still, the Iraqi press watchdog Journalistic Freedoms Observatory decried the order as “a setback to the freedom of journalism in Iraq." Nasir said Tuesday that five organizations, including the BBC and U.S.-funded Radio Sawa, are working with the media commission to settle licensing problems and pay fees, which he said amount to about USD 20,000 per year for radio stations. Most of the other organizations on the list are Iraqi, including prominent broadcasters that had criticized al-Maliki but also Shiite religious programming that had no apparent political stance. Some of the broadcasters targeted for closure are using frequencies that are either licensed to other stations or used by security forces, Nasir said. (AP)

Journalists arrested in Sudan crackdown

Sudan security forces have arrested scores of people, including several journalists, in a brutal crackdown on protests that began on 16 June in response to government austerity measures and price increases. Police are alleged to have used excessive force in breaking up protests, beating demonstrators, using tear gas and rubber bullets and even live ammunition. Though the protests were sparked by economic grievances, protesters have since called for an end to the current government led by the president, Omar al-Bashir. The demonstrators are also opposed to Sudan's wars in Darfur, Southern Kordofan and the Blue Nile. Local and international journalists have been arrested while trying to report on the protests. Simon Martelli, an Agence France Presse correspondent, was detained for 14 hours in Khartoum. After Salma al-Wardany, an Egyptian journalist for Bloomberg, was detained she was ordered to be deported after it was alleged that she had links to activists. Nagla Sid Ahmed, a well-known citizen journalist was summoned to the offices of the security services for questioning for several days in succession in order to prevent her from covering the protests. Other Sudanese journalists have also been detained. (Human Rights Watch via The Guardian)

More U.S. teens hide online activity from parents: survey

More and more teenagers are hiding their online activity from their parents, according to a U.S. survey of teen internet behavior released on Monday. The survey, sponsored by the online security company McAfee, found that 70 percent of teens had hidden their online behavior from their parents in 2012, up from 45 percent of teens in 2010, when McAfee conducted the same survey. McAfee spokesman Robert Siciliano cited the explosion of social media and the wider availability of ad-supported pornography as two factors that have led teens to hide their online habits. The increased popularity of phones with Internet capabilities also means that teens have more opportunities to hide their online habits, he said. The survey found that 43 percent of teens have accessed simulated violence online, 36 percent have read about sex online, and 32 percent went online to see nude photos or pornography. The survey reported that teens use a variety of tactics to avoid being monitored by their parents. Over half of teens surveyed said that they had cleared their browser history, while 46 percent had closed or minimized browser windows when a parent walked into the room. Other strategies for keeping online habits from parents included hiding or deleting instant messages or videos and using a computer they knew their parents wouldn't check. Meanwhile, the survey found that 73.5 percent of parents trust their teens not to access age-inappropriate content online. Nearly one quarter of the surveyed parents (23 percent) reported that they are not monitoring their children's online behaviors because they are overwhelmed by technology. (Reuters)

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