Media News - Friday, July 06, 2012

Israeli journalist spared jail over military leak

An Israeli journalist who drew on leaked army documents to report the alleged assassination of Palestinian militants, prompting a prosecution and debate about press freedom, was spared jail time in a plea bargain on Thursday. Uri Blau of the liberal Haaretz newspaper will do four months' community service after confessing to reduced charges of possessing classified information without authorisation but "with no intent to harm national security", Israel's State Attorney's Office said in a statement. Prosecutors had earlier stated Blau could face more serious espionage charges. That provoked protests from journalists who argued Israel's reputation for media freedom was at stake. Blau reported in 2008 that top army officers in the occupied West Bank had given shoot-to-kill orders to troops chasing Palestinian gunmen, in a possible violation of Israeli law. The front-page story was based on documents given to Blau by former army conscript Anat Kamm, who had downloaded them, and hundreds of others, from her computer while a clerk with the military's high command. Kamm was jailed for 4-1/2 years in October under a separate plea bargain. The State Attorney's Office said that while it recognised the media's role as "crucial guarantor of the public's right to know", Blau deserved punishment given the "huge" security risk posed by the documents leaked to him, some of which were classified top-secret. (Reuters)

Hungary: Media Council throws out radio bids, bars Klubradio from frequency tender

The Media Council has barred Klubradio from the tender for the 95.3 radio frequency, sources report. Earlier a court excluded Autoradio from the tender due to formal error and ordered the Media Council to announce a new winner. The council then examined bids by eleven radio stations and interpreted regulations to mean that Klubradio was also excluded for formal mistakes, saying that not every page of its bid had been signed and numbered. Klubradio president and managing director Andras Arato said it will challenge the ruling in court. He showed via web camera that the bid was indeed signed and numbered. The Socialist Party protested the ruling, noting in a statement that the Media Council, composed of members loyal to the present government, with its head Annamaria Szalai serving Prime Minister Viktor Orban, again “performed their duty well” when resorting to concocted and hypocritical reasons to bar Klubradio from a tender which it could have won in “any state governed by rule of law.” (Politics.hu)

State broadcaster drops opinion poll after Iranians say no to nukes

Iran's state broadcaster scrapped an opinion poll after it found that most people wanted to suspend the country’s nuclear programme in return for a lifting of Western sanctions. The survey, by the broadcaster IRIB, appeared designed to show a united front in the face of a European Union boycott of Iranian oil that came into effect on Sunday. But the gambit turned into a spectacular own goal after two days of voting when IRIB’s news channel screened results showing 63 per cent of respondents in favour of suspending uranium enrichment in exchange for the gradual easing of sanctions. Television bosses quickly stopped the poll and replaced it with one seeking viewers’ opinions on an Iranian parliament proposal to close the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway in the Gulf that is the passageway for about a fifth of the world’s oil supplies. That too appeared to backfire when 89 per cent of respondents opposed closing the strait. It was subsequently replaced by another survey about the popular Iranian football club, Persepolis. It is not clear how many people participated in the poll, although it was clear that the fiasco touched a raw nerve when IRIB claimed in a report that the results had been hacked by the BBC, an accusation the corporation denies. The Iranian broadcaster insisted the true figure supporting uranium enrichment suspension was only 24 per cent while the rest backed retaliatory measures. The original results showed only 20 per cent supporting retaliation and 17 per cent wanting a continuation of the current policy of “resistance” to sanctions. The EU sanctions, coupled with a new US embargo punishing nations that continue to buy Iranian crude, threaten to cripple the country’s economy. (The Daily Telegraph)

WikiLeaks removes Associated Press from list of media ‘collaborators’ on Syria docs

When WikiLeaks began publishing some 2.4 million Syrian files on Thursday, a trove that it said includes emails from "political figures, ministries and associated companies," the anti-secrecy organization listed the Associated Press as one of its media "collaborators." And during a Thursday press conference, WikiLeaks spokeswoman Sarah Harrison said that "groundbreaking stories derived from the files" would be published in the coming months by several news organizations, including AP. But AP has since been removed from the list, raising questions about the news organization's relationship with WikiLeaks on this major release. AP spokesman Paul Colford told The Huffington Post that "the Associated Press is reviewing the emails for possible coverage," while adding that AP "did not have any advance agreement on how we might handle the material." "Like a lot of news organizations, we were offered material by WikiLeaks to evaluate for possible coverage - in the same way we receive health and science journals, survey results and such ahead of time in hopes of generating stories," Colford said. "To state that AP was 'collaborating' with WikiLeaks was a mistake." WikiLeaks listed six other media outlets as collaborators: Al Akhbar (Lebanon), Al Masry Al Youm (Egypt), L'Espresso (Italy), NDR/ARD (Germany), Owni (France) and Publico.es (Spain). WikiLeaks said its 2.4 million documents relating to Syria are dated from August 2006 to March 2012. (Huffington Post)

NHK Twinscam’s international debut at London 2012

A new camera developed by Japanese public broadcaster NHK, Twinscam, is to be used for international feed of synchronized swimming at the London Olympics. According to NHK’s Executive Director-General for Engineering Keiichi Kubota, Twinscam is a solution to all difficulties rising from the characteristic of this sport – not being able to capture the whole range activities taking place below and above water in one camera because of the different way light refracts in air and water. “The newly developed Twinscam combines images shot by two separate cameras set above and below the water to produce an image that looks as if it had been shot by a single, half-submerges lens. It produces a single realistic image with smooth zoom and pans, even in live broadcasts, revealing all the underwater effort of the athlete- generating a never before seen view of the synchronized swimming to international audiences.” Twinscam has already been tested in live broadcasting in Japan from 2010, but it is the first time the device will be used at the Olympic Games. (Asia Pacific Broadcasting Union)

German TV chiefs complain to Uefa over faked Euro 2012 clip of crying fan

Angry German television chiefs have complained to Uefa after it was discovered that coverage of the European Championship semi-final between Germany and Italy was manipulated to show a German woman in tears when her team was two goals down when in fact she had been moved by the national anthem. When the fan alerted the German press to the faked footage, after she received texts and facebook messages from bemused friends, it was discovered that Uefa, European football's governing body which controlled the broadcast, had strategically inserted the images following a goal when they had actually been filmed much earlier. The footage aired just after Italy had scored their second goal showed slow-motion images of a woman, identified as Andrea from Dusseldorf, wiping copious tears from her cheek. But the scene had been filmed 40 minutes earlier during the singing of the national anthem, which the woman said had moved her to tears. Bosses at ARD and ZDF, Germany's state channels which broadcast the match, have called on Uefa to explain the doctored footage, saying that it risked damaging their reputation with German viewers. The TV networks had lodged a complaint with Uefa via their joint sporting rights agency, SportA, he said, calling on the governing body to resist similar "interventions" in future. Uefa has admitted playing with the footage but said it had done so only in an attempt to transmit the full emotional impact of the game on fans, to show "the human story of the game" and "to translate the emotion and tension of German fans". (The Guardian)

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