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11 June 2012 | The Guardian

Mexicans protest against ‘media bias’

Thousands attended a demonstration on Sunday against leading Mexican presidential candidate Enrique Pena Nieto, alleging mass media bias in his favour. Marches in the capital and other cities took place a few hours before the second and final official debate between the presidential candidates. Polling day is in three weeks. The demonstrators in the capital ranged from longstanding radical leftwing groups, whose members dressed in identical T-shirts and blared chants through a loudspeaker, to the more spontaneous students who have given the anti-Pen~a Nieto movement its dynamism in recent weeks. The students, frenetic users of social networking sites, have also focused a critical spotlight on what they claim is chronic manipulation of coverage by the two commercial TV networks that control almost all free television programming in Mexico, particularly the biggest, Televisa. The Guardian's revelation of documents suggesting that Televisa sold favourable coverage to Pena Nieto when he was governor of the state of Mexico, and developed a dirty tricks campaign against Lopez Obrador ahead of his first bid for the presidency in 2006, have intensified the debate. Televisa and the PRI have suggested that the documents are fake.

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11 June 2012 | All Africa

Africa: First pan-african health journalism network created

Journalists from across Africa announced the creation of the first continent-wide professional association of health journalists. The new organization, the African Health Journalists Association, aims to improve the quality and quantity of reporting on health issues so that people across the continent can make healthy choices for their lives. The group's media coverage will encourage the best possible public health programs and policies throughout the continent. The association will create a digital network with online learning, the latest data visualization tools, and techniques for multimedia storytelling. It will serve as a one-stop source of health experts, resources, and journalists who will collaborate on cross-border stories. The association will provide training for its members in everything from investigative health reporting to data mining. On a new website and social network, members will share reporting and writing strategies. The pan-African health journalism association will encourage the formation of national health journalism groups in Africa, building on the success of associations in Uganda, Zambia and Kenya.

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11 June 2012 | Editors Weblog

France’s Le Monde launches plan to lure fresh talent- and readers- into the fold

France’s evening newspaper Le Monde has unveiled an initiative designed to broaden both its perspective and its reach. Le Monde Academie, launched Wednesday, is a two-part competition and training programme that will offer 68 aspiring journalists from diverse backgrounds the opportunity to be mentored by the newspaper's staff and published within its pages. It will culminate a year from now, with three ambitious young talents receiving a rare prize: jobs within one of France’s best-respected media companies. “Me, a journalist?” reads an advertisement featuring a girl with asymmetrically cut hair, introduced in the caption as Lea, a 24-year-old educator from Montre'al. The ad campaign, released in Thursday's newspaper with a front-page editorial from the publication's director Erik Izraelewicz, emphasizes that budding journalists aged between 18 and 25 from across the French-speaking world are invited to apply, regardless of their level of academic attainment. With the Monde academie, the 68-year-old daily is seeking new voices from diverse socio-economic and cultural backgrounds, which will attract new eyes to a publication that has traditionally been written by and for an educated elite.

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11 June 2012 | AFP

US: Warren Buffett bucks the trend by buying newspapers

Unfazed by predictions of the death of newspapers, billionaire Warren Buffett is pumping more money into print. In the past year, one of the world's richest men and sharpest investors has put some USD 300m into an industry that some view as heading the way of the horse and buggy. Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway holding company late last year bought his hometown newspaper, the Omaha World-Herald, along with related assets in a USD 200m deal some analysts viewed as a sentimental move. He followed with a USD 142m deal last month to buy Media General, a chain of 63 newspapers. He added USD 2m to Lee Enterprises, owner of the St. Louis Post Dispatch and Arizona Daily Sun. That is in addition to other holdings, including The Buffalo News and a stake in The Washington Post Co. "I believe newspapers that intensively cover their communities will have a good future," Buffett said in a message last month to his newspaper employees. He said Berkshire "will probably purchase more papers in the next few years" and that he will "favor towns and cities with a strong sense of community."

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11 June 2012 | Bloomberg

Egyptian television stops ad portraying foreigners as spies

Egypt’s state-run television channels stopped running a widely-criticized advertisement that warned citizens against discussing internal affairs with foreigners, government-owned Al-Ahram newspaper reported Sunday. The 40-second ad, which was also aired on private channels last week under the title “A Word Saves a Nation,” showed a foreigner walking into a cafe and sitting with three Egyptian youths who start discussing local politics. Their English- speaking companion starts typing on his mobile phone to an unknown party as the voices of the three speakers mingle in the background with sinister music. Mubarak’s regime, in its waning days, used media outlets to accuse unidentified foreign powers of inciting the 18-day protests against him. Anti-foreign sentiments have grown since then in the country where tourism is one of the main sources of revenue.

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11 June 2012 | BBC News

Hacking group Anonymous takes on India internet ‘censorship’

Members of the internet hacking group Anonymous have been staging protests across 16 cities in India, against what they say is internet censorship in the country. Holding banners calling for freedom from censorship, the group are protesting against India's internet laws. Speaking to the BBC via their internet chatroom, members of Anonymous India said they were representing the "common man" and were simply ordinary internet users trying to make a point. Anonymous India organised its Occupy campaign against what it believes is the unfair blocking and banning of file sharing sites by Indian internet service providers (ISPs) such as Reliance Communications and Airtel. "We are protesting arbitrary, extra-judicial censorship, where not even the government knows - or cares - who controls what," said @anamikanon from Anonymous on the group's chatroom. Last month a number of Indian ISPs blocked access to file-sharing sites including Vimeo, Pastebin, Piratebay and Dailymotion following a court order which centred on the issue of internet copyright. A Chennai-based film company, Copyrightlabs, called on big Indian ISPs, including Reliance Communications, MTNL and BSNL, to prevent access to websites which allowed users to illegally watch two of their Bollywood movies, Three and Dhammu. The court order, known as an Ashok Kumar order, is like a John Doe order in the United States - designed to protect the copyright of music, films and other content. The blocking of access to file-sharing and torrent websites prompted Anonymous India to hack into more than 15 sites, including the Indian Supreme Court, two political parties and the Indian telecoms providers.

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