European Free-sheets Closing Down

Dato, the first free-sheet to close down in Denmark is followed by similar German shut-downs. Germany Business News, the free business paper by Holtzbrinck (Handelsblatt) is published this week for the last time. The paper started in August 2006 as the successor of the cheap tabloid News, and had a circulation of 110,000 in the beginning of this year. It was delivered to more than a hundred businesses. Lack of advertising income was the main reason for the closure. The BusinessNews website however will carry on.In April the free sports paper Sportzeitung closed down. This paper was available on Lufthansa flights and had a circulation of 13,000. Also in this case lack of advertising caused the problems. In 1999-2001 the Norwegian publisher Schibsted tried to introduce the 20 Minutes concept in Cologne but was forced from the market after Alex Springer and a local publisher launched competing free papers of their own. Three small free dailies remain: Süddeutsche Zeitung Primetime, Handelsblatt am Abend, FTD Kompakt; all of them distributed on Lufthansa flights or ICE trains. Also a part of the circulation of Welt Kompakt is distruted for free ion trains. Combined circulation of these titles is less than 60,000.

Thanks to http://www.newspaperinnovation.com for this info.

21 things to improve news sites

Matthew Buckland, blogging at WAN South Africa, posted this list:

1.Focus on local content and news
2.Stress immediacy
3.User-generated content
4.User comments
5.User rankings and networking on your site
6.Embrace RSS
7.Use other web services to promote your site (eg: SecondLife, MySpace, Facebook)
8.Facilitate blogging of content for readers (and try not to get your pants sued off)
9.Homogenous branding
10.Complement the print edition (I guess so)
11.Increase the use of photography
12.Design internal/article pages as landing pages (huge traffic comes via deeplinks)
13.Give blogs to journalists
14.Link to external sources of information (link, link, link!!!)
15.Personalise for the readers
16.Manage relationships online
17.Tag clouds
18.Create a lite edition
19.Increase the content niches relevant to your community (well if you have the budget)
20.Create select audio and video casts
21.Use the web as a content laboratory

Via http://www.trinetizen.com/blog/ 

Global Newspapers Circulation increased 4.61 percent in 2006

Newspaper circulations world-wide rose 2.3 percent in 2006 while newspaper advertising revenues showed substantial gains, the World Association of Newspapers announced today.

WAN said global newspaper sales were up +2.3 percent over the year, and had increased +9.48 percent over the past five years. Newspaper sales increased year-on-year in Asia, Europe, Africa, South America, with North America the sole continent to register a decline.

When free dailies are added to the paid newspaper circulation, global circulation increased +4.61 percent last year, and +14.76 percent over the past five years. Free dailies now account for nearly 8 percent percent of all global newspaper circulation and 31.94 percent in Europe alone.

“Newspapers in developing markets continue to increase circulation by leaps and bounds, and in mature markets are showing remarkable resilience against the onslaught of digital media. Even in many developed nations the industry is maintaining or even increasing sales,” said Timothy Balding, Chief Executive Officer of the Paris-based WAN . “At the same time, newspapers are exploiting to the full all the new opportunities provided by the digital distribution channels to increase their audiences.

Paid daily newspaper circulations were up in 31 percent of the countries surveyed in 2006, stable in half the countries and down in 19 percent. Over the past five years, newspaper circulations were up in more than half of the countries surveyed and stable in 20 percent.

  More than 515 million people buy a newspaper every day, up from 488 million in 2002. Average readership is estimated to be more than 1.4 billion people each day.

  Seven of 10 of the world’s 100 best selling dailies are now published in Asia. China, Japan and India account for 60 of them.

  The five largest markets for newspapers are: China, with 98.7 million copies sold daily; India, with 88.9 million copies daily; Japan, with 69.1 million copies daily; the United States, with 52.3 million; and Germany, 21.1 million.

Dutch kidney giveaway TV show was a hoax

A Dutch TV show featuring a dying woman deciding which of three candidates would receive her kidney turned out to be a hoax Friday, in a stunt to highlight the need for more organ donors. In the last minutes of the live show which had attracted worldwide attention, right before the fake donor was about to make her choice known, presenter Patrick Lodiers revealed all. ‘We are not giving away a kidney here, that is going too far, even for us,’ he told the audience. The woman, introduced as potential donor Lisa, 37, with an incurable brain tumour, was actually an actress, the BNN public channel said. The three kidney patients who were presented as candidates were real - but they were in on the hoax and wanted to cooperate to motivate people to register as donors, BNN said. The original premise of the show had sparked uproar in the Netherlands and abroad, with many condemning it as unethical to make entertainment out of a life-and-death situation. Journalists and television crews from all over the world had flocked to the Dutch television studio where the show was held. The channel, which has built up a following of predominantly young viewers through controversial programming, screened the show on the fifth anniversary of the death of its founder, Bart de Graaff, who had waited years for a kidney transplant. The publicity stunt was dreamed up by BNN and producer Endemol, the creators of the ‘Big Brother’ reality show. (AFP via Middle East Times)

Dispute over European medical TV-channel

Four of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies are considering launching an interactive TV channel in Europe. The prospect has caused outrage among some consumer groups, because advertising prescription drugs directly to patients in the European Union is illegal. They warn that the pharmaceutical giants will find it impossible to give unbiased advice about their own products. But the drug companies involved - Pfizer, Novartis, Johnson & Johnson and Procter & Gamble - insist they are only interested in giving reliable high quality health information which would help patients when they were discussing their treatments with doctors. They have even made a ten-minute DVD of what the new interactive TV channel might look like - although a spokesman for one of the firms concerned said the plan was at a very early stage. ‘The European Patient Information Channel is simply a name given to an interactive information tool,’ he says. ‘It does not exist, nor is it in development. The purpose of creating this model was to provide an example of how quality information might be provided to Europeans in the future. The drug companies also insist they have no wish to challenge the current ban on advertising prescription drugs directly to patients in Europe. Those regulations are currently being reviewed by the European Commission. (BBC News)

Company will track and ‘fingerprint’ AP content on the web

The Associated Press is moving to protect its content by partnering with the technology company Attributor, which will track AP material across the Internet. The arrangement will allow Attributor to ‘fingerprint’ AP copy down to a level where it can be identified anywhere on the Web. ‘Our goal is to get a feeling for some of the useful ways to monitor content,’ said Srinandan Kasi, vice president, general counsel and secretary at the AP. ‘We are looking at it not just to protect our rights but to derive some intelligence.’ The Redwood City, Calif.-based Attributor can keep tabs on text but extracting what Attributor CEO and co-founder Jim Brock calls the ‘DNA’ of the material, which boils down to a specific paragraph or a few sentences. With that information, Attributor can watch where the content is going in turn giving publishers a map. Publishers can then determine where, how, and when the content is used. For now, AP is using Attributor’s platform to first monitor use of text across the web but eventually it will test out video and still images with Attributor. (Editor and Publisher)

Gorbachev launches new book by slain Putin critic

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on Wednesday hosted the launch of a new book by murdered Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, the first by her to be widely available in her native land and language. Politkovskaya, a critic of President Vladimir Putin and reporter of human rights abuses in Chechnya, was shot dead last October. Investigators say her unsolved murder was linked to her reporting. Gorbachev, 76, hosted the launch at his political institute in Moscow alongside Politkovskaya’s son, daughter and estranged husband, who edited the book. Politkovskaya’s death sparked outrage in the West but little emotion in Russia, where previous books by her were never properly published. Her reports appeared only in the fringe intellectual newspaper ‘Novaya Gazeta’, part owned by Gorbachev. The 988-page hardback book, entitled ‘What for’ and priced at around 600 roubles (EUR 17), arranges work by Politkovskaya around different themes. Friends and colleagues at the launch criticized the slow pace of the investigation into her death. ‘It’s essential that the investigation is brought to a swift conclusion, the killers are found, they are prosecuted and justice is delivered,’ said Aidan White, General-Secretary of the worldwide journalists’ union the International Federation of Journalists, to applause from Gorbachev and others. White was in Moscow to attend a conference which called on governments to do more to catch reporters’ killers. (Reuters via ABC News)

- a matter of priorities..

Google launches search translation service

Google Wednesday launched a test version of a translation tool that enables people to search the Internet in any of a dozen languages and have the results converted into their chosen tongue. A beta version of Google’s ‘cross-language information retrieval’ feature is online at http://translate.google.com/translate_s. The service ‘in effect, will make the Web universal,’ Google vice-president of engineering Udi Manber said while describing it to the press at the Internet search giant’s campus in Mountain View, California, last week. ‘We have been working on translating all of the Web to all languages,’ Manber said. ‘The results are probably not perfect, but the information you want will be there.’ Google’s new software translates queries to perform multi-lingual searches of the Internet and then converts the results to a searcher’s language. The languages included in the service are French, Arabic, English, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and traditional and simplified Chinese. The service is to eventually be expanded to include other languages. (Middle East Times)

Pressdisplay brings Newspapers Online

Last week Pressdisplay.com mailed me and said they had chosen to give me unlimited personal access to their new system.- And I must say I am impressed. I have just read my local tabloid, Jerusalem Post and The Guardian in full versions on my tablet-pc with a bunch of features that makes newspaper reading much more fun and integrated with what else I do. I can blog a specific article as an image with link to the full original article for my readers to view, I can have articles read by a female machine voice if I prefer and I can setup a subscription system locally on my laptop that automatically downloads my preferred newspapers among more than 200. The system also stores my downloaded newspapers for up to 60 days.

Let me show you how it works.

Pressdisplay lets you access more than 200 newspapers from one site and with one subscription. When you subscribe you can read your newspapers before it appears in newsstands and before it is even printed! As a subscriber you can read your newspapers online and/or download the PressReader, a program that lets you read and manage newspapers for offline reading and more convenient page browsing.

Interestingly the Pressdisplay browser really makes the regular print newspaper format browsable. Specially if you use a vertical screen like a tilt LCD or tablet pc. I use the PressReader on my tablet PC, but there is a version for smartphones as well running the Windows Mobile platform 5.0.
When logged in to my account I can browse newspapers by language, title or country. I can pick a newspaper and its front page will appear in full screen size. At the bottom of the screen some tools for surfing, zooming and other things show up. At the right thumbnails of the issues other pages are listed. One click and that page shows up. Pages can also be flipped by clicking the corners of the pages.

This is yesterdays edition of The Guardian, viewed with PressReader online. This is also here I can choose newspapers for my off line PressReader.

Here is the downloaded version on a tablet. All pages is listed at the right sidebar.

If I chose to hear the words of an article spoken I just click the loudspeaker icon next to the headline of an article and a player starts.

I choose to save The Guardian for offline reading.

The Guardian now shows among my other preferred newspapers in the PressReader display, it is fully downloaded and I can start reading.

Most of the time I read in single page full screen view. It takes a few minutes to get used to the navigation. One click zooms in and four-way scrolling is done by holding the pen down on the screen. Here you see full page view, the text is too small for reading articles.

First level zoom is perfect for reading four columns, that makes up The Guardians Berliner format.

If I find something interesting, that I would like to share I can send a number of articles each month to friends and theres a blogging feature that allows subscribers to publish directly from the system to blogs. WordPress, Blogger, Livejournal and MSN Spaces are supported.

PressDisplay has a range of subscription models. There is a free sign up, where you can view front pages and buy single editions for USD 2.75. for USD 10 you can have monthly access to 31 newspapers of your own choice etc. There is also some corporate solutions and plans for libraries and hotels.

Newspaper Index in Korean, Russsian, Malay and Vietnamese

This week I will finish the translations Newspaper Index in Korean, Russian, Malay and Vietnamese. The Korean version is online now: Link

Next step, probably in june, will be to translate the site into Thai, Hindi, Polish and Finish. Later Portuguese and Dutch will be added and the site will be translated into the 23 most widespread languages on the Internet.

Circulation battle on the streets of London

Two free newspapers in London are fighting a circulation battle on the streets.One of the papers, London Lite, sent a video recently to media buyers that showed distributors ostensibly dumping 2,900 copies of its rival, The London Paper, into garbage bins. The London Paper responded by saying that it had pictures of dumped copies of London Lite.

The accusations matter to advertisers because newspaper ad prices are largely based on circulation. The British Audit Bureau of Circulations, an industry group, said that it would investigate.

The London Paper has a circulation of about 502,000, according to the audit bureau, in contrast to 400,000 for London Lite. But analysts say it is hard to know how many of those copies are actually read, because The London Paper and London Lite are distributed by street hawkers who try to press as many copies as they can into the hands of evening commuters, writes the New York Times.

Joost signs major advertisers for TV-over-Web plan

Joost, the Internet TV company founded by Europe’s top Web entrepreneurs, has taken a big step towards commercial viability by signing up 31 advertisers worldwide ahead of the launch of its free service. The company, aiming to become a new kind of global cable TV network on the Web, was started last year by Niklas Zennstrom and partner Janus Friis, founders of Web phone company Skype, now owned by eBay Inc., and music-sharing site KaZaA. Joost aims to combine TV-like viewing with the wide choice and user control of the latest generation of Web services. Luxembourg-based Joost has already signed broad programming partnership deals with Viacom Inc., CBS Corp. as well as independent producers. It said marketers that have agreed to support its ad-supported network worldwide include Coca-Cola Co., Hewlett-Packard Co., Intel Corp., and Nike. U.S. backers include Visa, United Airlines and the U.S. Army, consumer goods suppliers such as Procter & Gamble Co. and Kraft Foods Inc. and technology companies Electronic Arts Inc., Sony Electronics Inc., Microsoft and Motorola. In Europe, advertising partners include General Motors Europe; IBM; L’Oreal Paris; Nokia’s N-series phones; Vodafone; and Time Warner Inc.’s Warner Bros. the company said. (Reuters)

Women don’t click with Internet videos

Women prefer the remote over the mouse when it comes to watching videos even though they outnumber men in cyberspace. About 97 million women in the United States will use the Internet this year compared with 91 million men, according to a study by eMarketer. But the report also says only 66 percent of those women are watching videos online compared to 78 percent of men. ‘Men are more visual than women, who tend to communicate in writing and or in words,’ said Debra Aho Williamson, senior analyst with eMarketer and the author of the report. ‘Women are more likely to use the Internet to get things done,’ Williamson said. ‘Men are more likely to use the Internet to have fun. And a lot of what you see on youtube.com is silly, time-saving kinds of things that maybe women don’t feel they have the time for, or don’t want to have the time for.’ Williamson said that despite the growth of youtube.com, women have not been part of the site’s traffic spike. The study suggests however that women will not lag behind for long. By 2011, 84.6 percent of women will be Internet video viewers, right behind men at 88.8 percent. ‘The gap is going to close pretty quickly as the content becomes available that women are interested in and they become more comfortable with it,’ Williamson said. (Reuters)

British diplomat gets death threat in Zimbabwe paper

A columnist in Zimbabwe’s state-run Herald newspaper on Tuesday accused a senior British diplomat in Harare of directing an anti-government ‘terror and propaganda campaign,’ and warned she could end up dead. An opinion column signed by David Samuriwo charged that Gillian Dare, an embassy political and media officer, had a large fund to pay Zimbabwean journalists, academics and opposition politicians to attack President Robert Mugabe. ‘Gillian Dare, the purse holder and financier of the violence being perpetrated by the MDC, should be aware that by throwing away all diplomatic etiquette into the dustbin and putting on her combat gear, she has become a prime target for deportation,’ Tuesday’s column said. ‘It will be a pity for her family to welcome her at Heathrow airport in a body bag, just like some of her colleagues from Iraq and Afghanistan,’ Samuriwo added. (Reuters via ABC News)

Topix taps Web readers to bolster local news

Web news search site Topix, owned by three top U.S. newspaper publishers on Monday will begin recruiting users to report local news that traditional outlets do not sufficiently cover in a bid for more readers. Registered readers will be able to submit news to the site from their computers and mobile phones. The service is the latest attempt to engage ‘citizen journalists’ and expand on local news offered by city and small town newspapers. The site was created by Gannett Co. Inc., McClatchy Co. and Tribune Co., which have invested $64 million to date. It aims to give Internet users a centralized place to find local stories and make money from advertisers keen on targeting specific markets. (Reuters)

Could a Newspaper Succeed Completely Online?

Interesting article in the Seattle Times about whether their rival paper, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, might switch to being available only online. The fact that this story is in the Times gives an indication of what is going on. The two papers are linked under a Joint Operating Agreement, with the Times handling all circulation, advertising and production for both papers, but maintaining separate editorial staff. About 4 years ago the Times tried to trigger an escape clause in the JOA based on continued losses. Part of this agreement is that on Sunday the P-I does not publish, and subscribers to both papers get the Times. That’s why the article is in the Times, although I will say that as far as I can tell, the coverage of the situation in both papers has been completely objective. Thanks Proudly Serving

Newspaper Editors surprisingly optimistic about their future

According to a survey launched by the World Editors Forum and Reuters and concucted by Zogby International, 85% of senior news executives see a rosy future for their newspaper. Newsstand in Berlin, 1930 An overwhelming number of respondents say they are very optimistic (24%) or somewhat optimistic (61%) about the future of their newspaper. Even among newspapers whose circulation decreased over the past five years, 80% of respondents remain optimistic. It means that contrary to conventional wisdom and widespread doom-and-gloom predictions, senior news executives are overwhelmingly optimistic about the future of their newspaper. More at Touché

Online users finish more stories than print readers

In a surprise finding, online readers finish news stories more often than those who read in print, according to the Poynter Institute’s Eyetrack study released Wednesday at the American Society of Newspaper Editors conference here. When readers chose to read an online story, they usually read an average of 77 per cent of the story, compared to 62% in broadsheets and 57 per cent in tabloids. The survey, in which 600 newspaper readers from six different newspapers were studied, utilized electronic eyetracking equipment that readers wore while they read broadsheet, tabloid and online editions of newspapers. The research, conducted last year, focused on 100 readers from each newspaper. Among the findings: that more text was read online than in print. In addition, nearly two-thirds of online readers read all of the text of a particular story once they began to read it, the survey revealed. Findings also revealed that news event photos received more attention than staged or studio images, while colour got more interest than black and white.

Freedom Fighters launch independent radio and television station in Iraq

With jumper cables and a 12-volt battery, a Saddam era radio station roared to life last week and now four Iraqis are doing what has never been done as they launch independent radio and television in war-torn Iraq. ‘We respect the Maliki government and all religious leaders,’ says Rafed Mahmood, general manager of the Independent Radio & Television Network (IRTN). ‘But our voice is independent. No one tells us what to say.’ Four Iraqis - two Sunnis and two Shia - are becoming the voices of sectarian reconciliation, unity and freedom. Their 3000kw Italian radio transmitter is cabled up the 350-meter tower that the Japanese built for Saddam in 1986. As al Qaeda and insurgent forces gather in the neighbouring towns of Buhriz and Ba’qubah, Coalition Forces are protecting the media centre while rooting out the terrorists. On March 25th, IRTN launched their UHF television broadcasts. IRTN radio is on the air 14-hours a day and reaches nearly 11m Iraqis. They launched their website this week (www.IRTNiraq.com) and hope that through a combination of advertising sales, licensing and eCommerce they can generate enough revenue to sustain their operations while producing enough courage to unleash freedom in Iraq. (Elitestv.com)

Time Inc. to end Life magazine but keep it online

Time Inc. said on Monday it would stop publishing Life, the iconic photography magazine that has been a weekly newspaper insert since 2004. It is the latest magazine to shut down as more readers desert print publications for online news and photos. Time is laying off 15 editorial workers and 27 in its business department in connection with the shutdown, said spokeswoman Dawn Bridges. Time will make Life’s collection of 10m images available online, with ‘the most important collection of imagery covering the events and people of the 20th century’ available for free for personal use, it said. The announcement comes after the company launched a redesigned version of its US newsweekly Time. Earlier this year it announced plans to cut 289 jobs from its estimated 11,300 work force to lower costs as it invests more in the internet.

EU takes Greece back to court over broadcast liberalisation T

The European Commission on Thursday announced it would take Greece to court over its failure to liberalise its broadcasting services, seeking heavy fines as punishment. ‘The European Commission has decided to refer Greece to the European Court of Justice for failure to fully comply with the court’s ruling of April 14, 2005,’ the EU’s executive arm said in a statement. That ruling confirmed that Greece had failed to implement EU competition law for its television and radio services, particularly digital broadcasting. The Commission is therefore referring Greece back to the court, seeking fines, consisting of daily lump sums totalling EUR 48,442.80 for Greece’s continued infringement. A 2002 EU directive aims at ensuring that competitive market conditions prevail across the European Union in electronic communications networks and services. All member states except Greece have notified measures to implement it. (AFP via EU Business,March 26, 2007)

How did you get here?

Today the number of visitors to www.newspaperindex.com is nearly 10 times higher than usual. I have no idea why and my stats show no new links, so www.newspaperindex.com must have been displayed in a newspaper, on TV or maybe mentioned in a radio show?

Please help me solve this, how did you end up here?

Send me a mail or post a comment.

Palestinian daily reaches Israel

The Palestine Times is the only English-language Palestinian daily newspaper and as of last Saturday, it is being distributed throughout Israel, The Jerusalem Post reports. The founder and editor-in-chief of The Palestine Times, Othman Haj Mohammed, says his purpose is to show the ‘real image of Palestinians.’ The first edition of the daily was published last November. It includes sections on business, food, sports, health and the environment, as well as news and opinion pieces. According to Othman, the paper is a ‘very moderate liberal newspaper.’ He added, ‘Our bias, if we have one in any way, is to represent the Palestinian people completely.’ There are three Arabic daily newspapers currently in circulation in the Palestinian Authority, including Al Quds, Al Ayyam and Al Hayat Al Jadida. (Israel insider via Ifra executive news,March 20, 2007)

Other Palestinian news sources and newspapers 

Insiders say Google Phone in the works

Google is developing its own mobile phone, according to industry insiders and analysts, while a Google official in Spain last week acknowledged the company is ‘investigating’ such a project. Google isn’t commenting directly on leaks from Europe and the United States which describe a low-cost, internet-connected phone with a colour, wide-screen design. Richard Windsor, a phone analyst in London, said late last week that unspecified Google representatives at a major European conference in Germany had confirmed the company is working on its own phone device. ‘Google has come out of the closet at the CeBIT trade fair admitting that it is working on a mobile phone of its own,’ Windsor said in a note entitled ‘Google Phone: From myth to reality.’ Lending further clues, Isabel Aguilera, head of Google’s Iberian operations, was quoted last week in Spanish news site Noticias.com as acknowledging the existence of a part-time project by some Google engineers to develop a mobile phone. (Reuters,March 19, 2007)

Putin decrees creation of a media and internet regulator

President Vladimir Putin has decreed the creation of an agency to regulate the media and the internet, sparking fears among some Russian journalists of a bid to extend tight publishing controls to the relatively free web. Putin signed a decree this week merging two existing agencies into one that will license broadcasters, newspapers and websites and oversee their editorial content. The step, taken with national elections due next year, unites the organisation supervising media and culture, Rosokhrankultura, with the federal body controlling telecommunications and information technology, Rossvyaznadzor. Officials said this would improve efficiency by putting a single entity in charge of media content and technology, but some of Russia’s top journalists expressed concern. Under Putin’s rule, independent publishers have mostly been taken over by Kremlin-friendly businessmen. The domestic media are under heavy pressure not to criticise the government, making journalists suspicious of any official initiative. (Reuters via The International Herald Tribune,March 16, 2007)

China to put all blogs under state control

China plans tighter control of blogs and webcasts under a new Internet publishing law, state media on Tuesday quoted the country’s top media supervisor as saying. ‘Advanced network technologies such as blogging and webcasting have been mounting new challenges to the government’s ability to supervise the Internet,’ then official Xinhua news agency quoted Long Xinmin, the head of China’s Press and Publications Administration, as saying. The government is drafting a law to bring blogs and webcasts under Internet publication regulations to ensure a ‘more healthy and active Internet environment’, Long said. Long gave no details of specific measures but said the new law would ‘fully respect and protect Chinese citizens’ freedom of speech’, the agency said. LOL (The Jakarta Post via Asia Media,March 15, 2007)

Banned cartoons appear in print for the first time

Cartoons can provoke demonstrations, even spark riots. Which is why, especially lately, many newspapers have been cautious about running provocative cartoons, especially ones likely to offend specific religious groups. Now there is a new book out in the US - a collection of cartoons that over the years have been banned. This is the first time they have been seen in print. The book is the work of a David Wallis, who heads an America news syndicate. It’s called ‘Killed Cartoons. Casualties from the War on Free Expression.’ It contains nearly 100 editorial cartoons and other works of art that American newspaper editors have declined to publish. They include Hitler serving as a Nixon adviser during the bombing in Vietnam, President Bush and his famous ‘Bring ‘em on’ taunt in front of flag-draped coffins of soldiers who died in Iraq, and even Pope John Paul II ascending into heaven inside his famous Popemobile. All considered at the time too controversial to print. (Press Gazette,March 13, 2007)

US military defends deleting AP images from Afghanistan

The US military asserted that an American soldier was justified in erasing journalists’ footage of the aftermath of a suicide bombing and shooting in Afghanistan last week, saying publication could have compromised a military investigation and led to false public conclusions. The comments came March 9 in response to an Associated Press protest that a US soldier had forced two freelance journalists working for the US-based news agency to delete photos and video at the scene of violence March 4 in Barikaw, eastern Afghanistan. At least eight Afghans were killed and 34 wounded. ‘Investigative integrity is one circumstance when civil and military authorities will reluctantly exercise the right to control what a journalist is permitted to document,’ Col. Victor Petrenko, chief of staff to the top US commander in eastern Afghanistan, said in a letter March 9. He added that photographs or video taken by ‘untrained people’ might ‘capture visual details that are not as they originally were.’ The Associated Press disputed the assertions. (AP via Editor and Publisher,March 12, 2007)

Turkish military’s media ‘black list’ prompts probe

A revelation by a Turkish magazine of the existence of a list that classified journalists on the basis of their perceived attitude towards Turkey’s powerful military establishment has prompted a judicial inquiry as well as widespread outrage in the country’s media. The 17-page report listing journalists depending on their alleged ‘pro-military’ or ‘anti-military’ bias was published on Thursday by the magazine Nokta. The Turkish military has not denied the existence of the document and has launched a judicial probe to discover who leaked the ‘black list’ to the magazine. The document, dated November 2006, was prepared by the Office of the Chief of General Staff Public and Press Relations Bureau and is entitled ‘A reassessment of accredited press and media organs’. Journalists and media organisations that want to follow the activities of the Office of the Chief of General Staff need to be accredited by the office. The document lists all the country’s mainstream national broadcast and print media outlets and journalists, categorising them according to their comments and reports on the Turkish military. It also includes comments and recommendations on whether the media accreditation handed out to individuals should be granted, denied or revoked. (AKI News,March 12, 2007)