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16 October 2012 | Reuters

EU data chiefs ask Google to change privacy policy

European Union regulators want Google to make changes to its new privacy policy to protect the rights of its users, the EU's national data protection regulators said in a letter to the U.S. internet company, which was seen by Reuters. The letter, which stopped short of declaring Google's approach to collecting user data illegal, follows an investigation led by France's Commission Nationale de l'Informatique (CNIL) that began in February. Leading the inquiry on behalf of Europe, France's data protection watchdog had already questioned the legality and fairness of Google's new privacy policy, introduced in March. This consolidated 60 privacy policies into one and pooled data collected on individual users across its services, including YouTube, Gmail and its social network Google+. Users cannot opt out. The regulators' letter said: "Combining personal data on such a large scale creates high risks to the privacy of users." "Therefore, Google should modify its practices when combining data across services for these purposes," the letter said. It was signed by 24 of EU's 27 data regulators plus those of Croatia and Liechtenstein.

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16 October 2012 | Knight Center

Global Editors Network calls for heightened scrutiny of Argentina’s attacks on independent media

The Global Editors Network (GEN) released a statement on its website calling attention to the Argentine government's attacks against the press in what it described as a "press freedom crisis." GEN warned that the government's intentions to break up Grupo Clarín and seize its assets on Dec. 7 is a threat to press freedom in Latin America. Argentina's President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner confirmed her intention to revoke media giant Grupo Clarín's licenses and take control of its assets, reported the newspaper La Nación. The Kirchner administration gave Grupo Clarín until Dec. 7 to sell its many television stations or be stripped of its broadcast license, the government announced via public television on Sept. 22. GEN alleged that government's 450 legal and administrative actions, blockages and intimidation constitute a strategy of harassment against Grupo Clarín. GEN wrote that the lack of independent media in Argentina was especially evident when Clarín was the only major media outlet to cover national protests against the government on Sept. 13. GEN, based in Paris, is made up of journalists from 60 countries and is led by Ricardo Kirschbaum, general editor of the newspaper Clarín, reported the newspaper La Gaceta.

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16 October 2012 | Wall Street Journal

Eutelsat cuts off Iran state broadcaster

One of Europe's leading satellite providers on Monday said it would terminate its contract with Iran's broadcast company, IRIB, immediately pulling 19 state-owned television and radio channels off the air. Viewers in the Middle East, Iran's main cornerstone of influence, and Europe as well as those inside Iran who accessed the channels through the popular Hotbird satellite no longer have access to the channels. Eutelsat Communications said it stopped broadcasting the Iranian channels in light of European sanctions approved in March and a French regulatory decision. The move comes a little over a week after Iran escalated the jamming of Eutelsat satellites to censor broadcasts during recent protests over a plunge in the local currency. The announcement came as the European Union on Monday approved new sanctions on Iran targeting financial institutions, trade, energy and shipping to urge Tehran to comply with its international obligations on its nuclear program. That was the latest effort by the bloc to bring Iran back to negotiations after a half-year of deadlocked talks. It was not those Monday sanctions that led to Eutelsat's decision.

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16 October 2012 | Knight Center

El Salvador journalist wins Politkovskaya Prize for online investigative reporting

Carlos Dada, the editor and founder of El Salvador’s El Faro news website, received the Anna Politkovskaya Award on Oct. 5 for the website’s investigative journalism and reporting. The prize honors Russian reporter and human rights activist Anna Politkovskaya, who was killed in 2006 in Moscow. The prize is given by the Italian weekly publication Internazionale and goes to journalists working in hazardous situations or regions. El Faro, which means “The Lighthouse” in Spanish, was founded in 1998 by Dada and Jorge Simán, both sons of political refugees. The website, Central America’s first online-only publication, covers El Salvador’s ongoing problems with gang violence and government transparency. The website also investigates the government’s efforts to negotiate with the gangs, which has prompted threats against its reporters. Dada also gained attention for his article on the 1980 assassination of Archbishop Óscar Romero in San Salvador by government forces. El Faro has received other major prizes for its investigative work in El Salvador. The Washington Office of Latin America named the website one of its recipients of the 2012 Human Rights Awards. Dada also received the Columbia School of Journalism’s Maria Moors Cabot Prize for outstanding reporting in Latin American and the Caribbean in 2011.

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16 October 2012 | The Guardian

Taliban threaten journalists over Malala Yousafzai coverage

The Pakistani Taliban have reacted to the torrent of negative media coverage after their attempt to assassinate a 14-year-old schoolgirl by threatening journalists. Several Pakistani and international news organisations have been forced in recent days to take extra security precautions after receiving threats from militants that one news executive described as "specific" and directed against named individuals. A journalist in Swat, the region where the attack on Malala Yousafzai took place, has even been given police guards after receiving a written warning saying police had "credible information that you are on the hit list of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Swat". Coverage of the attempted killing, which the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) were quick to take credit for, has been unrelenting. "Undoubtedly this is the worst press the TTP has ever had, there is no doubt," said Rana Jawad, Islamabad bureau chief at Geo News, who believed Pakistani media coverage had been "sustained, purposeful and focused". According to Jawad, in the first day after the shooting the TTP demanded news organisations provide "balanced" coverage, by which they meant giving prominence to the Taliban's justification for the attack.

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16 October 2012 | AFP

Mexican news website director shot dead

The director of a Mexican news website was shot dead Monday after gunmen kidnapped him in the middle of a party in the northwestern city of Tijuana, near the US border, police said. Ramon Abel Lopez, 53, was the eighth journalist killed this year in Mexico, which has become one of the most dangerous places in the world for reporters, according to media rights organizations. Mexican journalist are targets of violence and intimidation in the country’s drug war. More than 80 journalists have been killed since 2000 and another 15 are missing, according to the National Human Rights Commission. The body of Abel Lopez, a photojournalist and director of www.tijuanainformativo.info, “was found in a vacant lot, shot in the head,” Tijuana police spokesman Julian Dominguez told reporters. He was attending a party with his family when gunmen took him away by force after midnight, Dominguez said. His body was discovered at around 5:50 am.

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