Frontline Club event on blogging and journalism

Posted by Martin Stabe on 30 April 2007 at 16:35
Tags: Al Jazeera, BBC, Journalism, blogging

The Frontline Club in London will be celebrating World Press Freedom Day on Wednesday Thursday evening with a very interesting-sounding panel discussion on the role of political blogging in global journalism.

The speakers will be former Guardian multimedia correspondent Ben Hammersley and BBC College of Journalism editor Kevin Marsh. They will be joined on a telephone link by Global Voices co-founder Ethan Zuckerman and the Egyptian blogger Alaa Abd El-Fattah.

The event will be moderated by Richard Gizbert, who hosts the Listening Post media programme on Al Jazeera English.

They will be discussing some fairly loaded questions, if the the Frontline Club web site is anything to go by:

Join us as we discuss the role of blogging on World Press Freedom Day, weighing up whether political blogs are the only platform for meaningful critical discourse or whether they are digital narcissism, insular and error-ridden.

…

So what is the role of blogging? Is it the voice of the future? Are bloggers filling in the gaps the mainstream media cannot address? And is anybody paying attention to what is being said?

On the other hand, the event will likely also shine a light on the important issue of cyber-dissidents who have been persecuted by their governments for exercising their freedom of expression online.

This should be an interesting event: Hammersley’s last Frontline Club encounter with Marsh last September was one the best recent discussions of how blogging and low-cost media production tools are changing journalism in recent months. Sadly the video is no longer online, but Marsh later incorporated some of the ideas that emerged from that evening in his address to the Society of Editors conference in Glasgow.

No doubt some other bloggers and journalists who have given these issues some thought will be in the audience. It should be a very interesting evening.

Update: Kevin Marsh has already posted his initial thoughts on the topic.

We Media, new and old

Posted by Martin Stabe on 3 May 2006 at 11:44
Tags: Al Jazeera, BBC, Google, Journalism, Online, We Media

In the third sesson of the We Media conference, BBC DG Mark Thompson discused Creative Futures as the BBC’s attempt to wrestle with the changin media environment being discussed here today. Thompson says there will be a “fruitful dialectic” between top-down and bottom-up media in the new BBC 2.0. Similar tones of cooperation and mutual dependency came from Al Jazeera’s Wadeh Khanfar.

Nikesh Arora of Google reiterated the points he made to us some weeks ago: mainstream publications that have been slow to adopt to the new media landscape risk being overtaken by new online upstarts.

The World Association of Newspapers’ Tim Balding says the digital revolution has been a “kick up the backside” for the newspaper industry which has long had the market in analytic news to themselves for a long time. But, he says, newspaper web sites are among the most visited and trusted on the web.

Al Jazeera International gets US carrier

Posted by Martin Stabe on 24 April 2006 at 15:40
Tags: Al Jazeera, Journalism, United States

One stumbling block for Al Jazeera International’s global launch may have been overcome: the Qatar-based network has finally signed up a satellite operator to carry its new English-language rolling news channel in the United States, according to the Rocky Mountain News in Denver.

AJI had been struggling to find a US carrier, allegedly because of the companies’ concerns about Al Jazeera’s image in the United States.

Speaking to the Observer this weekend, however, AJI’s British managing director, Nigel Parsons, said: “America has been one of our most difficult markets, but the problems haven’t been political, they’ve been hard-nosed business negotiations with cable operators who have limited space and may not want to carry another news channel.”

Al Jazeera’s Gizbert recounts Merseyside start

Posted by Martin Stabe on 7 April 2006 at 17:46
Tags: ABC, Al Jazeera, Iraq, Journalism, Regionals

The Liverpool Daily Post has a lengthy interview with Richard Gizbert, the TV reporter who won an Employment Tribunal hearing his dismissal from American network ABC News and will now be presenting a media programme for Al Jazeera International.

Before returning to Canada and eventually becoming an experienced war correspondent, Gizbert lived on Merseyside. He notched his first foreign news story at 16 while on a work experience stint on the Birkenhead News:

“I used to go to the chippie near the office for lunch because I was too young to go to the pub with the others. It was run by a Greek Cypriot family and their daughter kinda caught my attention. She went away and when I asked when would she be back her Dad said that they didn’t know - because she’d gone back to Cyprus for a visit and got caught up in the conflict between the Greeks and the Turks there at the time.

“And that’s when I got my first real story which had the headline WIRRAL GIRL CAUGHT ON WAR-TORN ISLAND. It was a very good local story. I kept it and still have it along with the ribbon-cutting photo captions and stuff.”

Gizbert was in Liverpool recently for the National Union of Journalists conference last month. At the conference, the NUJ decided to support Gizbert’s defense fund for ABC’s expected appeal agains the Employmnet Tribunal ruling. As we reported at the time, the escalating costs of the case have left Gizbert in debt.

“I’m worse than skint. In fact skint’s looking pretty good to me right now,” Gizbert told the Daily Post.

The NUJ is backing Gizbert’s defence because of the precident his case could set. If Gizbert prevails, journalists would be safe from being forced to accept dangerous assignments.

Reporter who refused to go to Iraq joins Al Jazeera

Posted by Martin Stabe on 4 April 2006 at 12:28
Tags: Al Jazeera, Journalism, War reporting

Al Jazeera International has added Richard Gizbert to its lineup of journalists for its launch, whenever that may be.
Gizbert will present Listening Post, a programme examining what the world’s media — everything from blogs to major outlets — covers (or fails to cover). The programme will be produced by Manchester-based Moonbeam Films, which was also behind BBC4’s media programme The Desk.

Gizbert, a long-time London-based freelance for ABC News, won an Employment Tribunal hearing for unfair dismissal after the American network did not renew his contract when he refused to go to Iraq. At their annual meeting last month, the National Union of Journalists decided to back Gizbert in the expected appeals by ABC.

(Contrary to some reports, it is unlikely that Gizbert’s defection to the Qatari network will incur the wrath of his Canadian compatriots.)

Yesterday, Five News presenter Barbara Serra joined the Qatar-based network. In recent months, the upstart channel has been aggressively recuiting high-profile English-language broadcasters. Stephen Cole, a former senior presenter for BBC World, will co-anchor from London with Felicity Barr, who joined joined from the ITV Evening News. Barnaby Phillips joined from the BBC to serve as a Europe correspondent based in Athens. Lauren Taylor, ex-ITV, is another London-based corresponent for the new channel. Sir David Frost will host a a weekly interview-led programme on al Jazeera, and former BBC Africa correspondent Rageh Omaar will host a daily documentary programme, Witness. David Foster, formerly of Sky News, will present from Doha. Also on the Al Jazeera roster are former ITN News at Ten editor John Pullman, and former ITV foreign editor Al Anstey and his deputy Nick Walshe, as well as ex-Tribune editor Mark Seddon.

A similar poaching spree has been occurring in the United States. Lucia Newman, previously Havana correspondent for CNN, will report from Buenos Aires and Mariana Sanchez will report from Caracas. In a column published in yesterday’s New York Daily News, the ormer presenter of ABC’s Nightline, David Marash, explained why he had joined Al Jazeera. Marash, who will anchor Al Jazeera International from Washington, wrote: “Al Jazeera International will do fewer stories each half hour than our cable news competitors, and our selection is likely to be different. Hopefully, this will allow us to probe a little bit deeper into stories that matter, to add some real value to your information bank.”

There have been rumours of a row between AJI and the established Arabic-languge rolling news channel. Al Jazeera MD Wadah Khanfar has been appointed director-general of Al Jazeera Satellite Network, a new umbrella for the two channels.

Al Jazeera struggles to break the US market

Posted by Jeffrey Blyth on 21 March 2006 at 13:24
Tags: Al Jazeera, Journalism, United States

Although it is signing up a big cast of celebrity journalists, including Sir David Frost and several similar big-name America newsmen, Al Jazeera International is not finding it easy to break into the US market. It had hoped to go on the air here in May with an English-language news programme. But it has still not got the go-ahead.

None of the big American cable networks or satellite programmers has shown an eagerness to carry the network. Many American companies, it is suspected, are leery of linking up with a news service many Americans see as a mouthpiece for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Adding to the problem, there is also a shortage of space on the broadcast channels. Initially Al Jazeera International had hoped to be on the air at least 11 hours a day.

But even if Al Jazeera International secures an outlet in the US, many American advertisers, it’s felt, will be chary of linking up with the Qatar-based network – not that money appears to be a problem. The network claims it will be happy with as few as 50,000 viewers, as long as they are the right ones — those who are regarded as opinion makers.

VOA cuts back foreign-language broadcasts

Posted by Jeffrey Blyth on 21 February 2006 at 12:04
Tags: Al Jazeera, BBC, Radio, United States

The Voice of America, which next to the BBC is probably the most prolific of English-language radio news services, is cutting back.

It plans to drop many of its English-language broadcasts. Also its news broadcasts in Croatian, Turkish, Thai, Greek and Georgian. Broadcasts in Albanian, Bosnian, Serbian, Russia and Hindi may also be cut back. In their place VOA will concentrate its efforts – and money – on broadcasts to the Middle East, especially to countries where the US is spending the most effort on combating terrorism.

Also scheduled to go is “News Now,�? the VOA’s flagship English-language programme, which broadcasts world-wide 14 hours a day and includes hourly news updates. The move has angered many journalists here, who say that the move will virtually eliminate English-language radio broadcasts to almost everywhere but Africa and potentially put many journalists out of work.

They also note the change comes at a time when Russia, China and the Qatar-based al-Jazeera network are all adding television or internet programming in English.

“It’s painful but necessary” claimed Kenneth Tomlinson, chairman of the VOA board of governors.

Times apologizes for Al Jazeera slur

Posted by Martin Stabe on 16 February 2006 at 14:10
Tags: Al Jazeera, Times

Al Jazeera is has received the apology from the Times after one of the papers’ leaders yesterday accused the Arabic television station of biased reporting based on comments from an unrelated news web site, aljazeera.com.

The Times leader, about inflamatory coverage of the News of the Worlds’ British military abuse video in the Arab media, accused “the supposedly prestigious” Al Jazeera describing the video as “savagery”.

At least one blogger, Brand Republic editor Gordon MacMillan, spotted the error straight away. Al Jazeera demanded the apology yesterday in his magazine.

The Times has apparently removed the offending leader, headed “Being Framed” from its web site. On Thurday, existing links to the leader returned error messages, but there is a a version it in the Google cache.

Understanding the web seems to be causing the broadsheets some trouble lately. A fortnight ago, a Daily Telegraph report confused a blog that is frequently critical of the Mayor of London with one written Ken Livingstone.

Al Jazeera memo: an update

Posted by Martin Stabe on 6 February 2006 at 15:29
Tags: Al Jazeera, Freedom of Information

Steve Wood of the UK FOIA Blog has an update on the continuing saga of the government memo, first reported by the Mirror, documenting a 2004 meeting between Topny Blair and George W. Bush during which the US president allegedly suggested bombing Al Jazeera’s headquarters in Qatar.

Both Wood and Al Jazeera’s own lawyers have submitted FOI requests for the document, with no luck so far.

At Al Jazeera’s global media forum in Doha this week, the American television programme Democracy Now! interviewed Al Jazeera managing director Wadah Khanfar about the memo.

Khanfar told interviewer Amy Goodman: “What we are trying to do now with the British government is telling them to set the record straight. It is the only way to settle this matter.”