Radio-info.com, 9 May 2012: "The U.K.’s talkSPORT, which itself sports plenty of bravado by claiming to be 'the world’s biggest sport radio station,' intends to command greater global presence with expansion into Asia — and then some. It's a mighty ambitious plan... . With world-class U.S. operations like New York’s sports WFAN-AM (The Fan), how does talkSPORT back up its claim of 'world’s biggest'? It’s a London- based national service that claims an audience of more than 3.2 million."

Ben Flanagan provides excellent coverage of the Arab media secene. He can be followed on Twitter at @ben_flanagan.

Reuters, 8 May 2012, Raissa Kasolowsky: "[T]he real challenge will be to provide fearless coverage closer to home from the Gulf region, unimpaired by the link to the ruling family - a challenge that pioneering Al Jazeera has struggled with. ... The region's recent experience suggests it will be an uphill struggle, not only against political influence but also to claim a share of a market where others are already jostling to fill a void left by Al Jazeera's difficulties."

Arabian Business, 11 May 2012, Andy Sambidge: "Sky News Arabia, the new breaking news channel operating in the Middle East, has signed an agreement to broadcast highlights from the English Premier League. ... Viewers will be able to stay abreast of current and future seasons of the Barclays Premier League, enjoying clips of the latest action and previews of upcoming matches, Sky News Arabia said in a statement."

See previous post about same subject.

Arabian Business, 9 May 2012, Massoud Derhally: "'I see the future belonging for regional channels rather than just pan-Arab stations,' Khashoggi said when asked how Alarab will differentiate itself in what some analysts say is a saturated market. 'This is because of the increased freedom to broadcast in and outside the region and be able to launch a channel with relative ease,' he said. 'Consider for instance that in Egypt you have 16 or 17 channels so the competition is more fierce for pan-Arab channels so we will focus mostly on Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.'"

AFP, 10 May 2012: "Saudi tycoon Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has signed agreements with Bahrain to move his Rotana news and entertainment company from Cairo to boost the economy of its protest-hit ally, the official BNA agency said on Wednesday. The move comes as Prince Alwaleed plans to launch a 24-hour news channel, Alarab, in the first half of 2013 to compete with Al-Jazeera, Al-Arabiya, and the newly-launched Sky News Arabia satellite news channels. ... Bahrain is enjoying considerable freedom of expression and wide-open dialogue despite attempts by a minority to prove the opposite, the prince was quoted as saying by BNA in an apparent reference to anti-government protests. The small Gulf state has been hit by mass pro-democracy demonstrations since February last year, which have been violently crushed by Manama, drawing criticism from international rights groups." See also Arab News, 9 May 2012.

CounterPunch, 9 May 2012, Yves Gonzales-Quijano: "Setting up in Manama is an attempt to give [Alarab] an original stance between the official voice of Al-Arabiya and the more anti-establishment one of Al-Jazeera. Its editor will be Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist critical enough to have been recently sacked from the Saudi newspaper Al Watan. Alarab already has a motto: 'Freedom and development' — an echo no doubt of the social network slogans of the Arab Spring, but also a reference to the direction [Saudi prince Alwaleed bin Talal Bin] Talal wants to see policy go in the region, towards an 'Islamic-style' capitalism."

See also previous posts...

"Like" it or not, this appears to be the future of Radio Netherlands Worldwide.

In an emotional ceremony, Radio Netherlands Worldwide ends 65 years of Dutch-language broadcasting.

Reuters, 9 May 2012: "Colombia yesterday rejected a call by Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) rebels to debate freedom of information and news media bias as a condition for the release of a French reporter they are holding hostage. Heavily-armed Farc members kidnapped Romeo Langlois, a reporter for France 24, during a clash with troops carrying out an anti-drug raid in Caqueta, a rebel stronghold in the south. On Monday the group accused the Colombian government of manipulating journalists to bend public opinion against them and said before they considered releasing Langlois there needed to be a debate on freedom of information."

See also France 24 support page for Roméo Langlois. See previous post about same subject.

Committee to Protect Journalists, 8 May 2012: "'Conducting an interview is not an act of terrorism. Burundian authorities are misusing the law to punish a journalist for airing material they did not like,' said CPJ East Africa Consultant Tom Rhodes. 'The arrest and prosecution of Hassan Ruvakiki has been marked by a lack of fairness and due process. The case should be dropped immediately.'" See also RFI, 29 Dec 2011 and RFI, 9 May 2012.

Bemba Trial website (The Hague), 8 May 2012, Wakabi Wairagala, "The second victim to testify against Jean-Pierre Bemba today dismissed video footage shown in court by the defense that described as 'liberators' soldiers belonging to the accused's Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC). Judes Mbetingou said the footage consisting of interviews Radio France Internationale (RFI) journalist Gabriel Kahn conducted with residents of Sibut town was 'staged.'" See previous post about same subject.

The Daily Observer (Banjul), 9 May 2012, Sheriff Janko & Aji Fatou Faal: "The first bi-lingual French & English lessons on two Gambian radio stations namely; UniqueFM and City Limits produced by Radio France International (RFI) has begun. The programme, which will run from Mondays to Fridays on the two FM radios starting at 08:00 am with repeated editions in the evening, is designed to further enhance the Francophone environment as well as promote the use of French Language in The Gambia."

Asia Pacific Broadcasting Union, 8 May 2012: "On the opening day of the conference, Radio Australia CEO Mike McCluskey launched the ABU Radio Song Festival, which aims to unearth unpublished talent across the region and give them exposure through an ABU hosted website."

The Fiji Times, 6 May 2012, Ioane Burese: "Radio Australia's Pacific Break keeps getting better, at least from the standpoint of Pacific musicians daring to have a crack at the global market. The initiative is a noble attempt by Radio Australia to showcase the best of contemporary popular music by taking it beyond the Pacific backyard and giving it legitimacy and respectability offshore. In a statement this week, Australia's State-owned radio said over the past four years Pacific Break has been committed to uncovering what the best unsigned original Pacific musicians have to offer with the winners from each year performing at Fest'Napuan, a four-day music festival in Vanuatu. ... According to Dr Mike McCluskey, CEO of Radio Australia, while the major prize of Pacific Break has changed, the aim of the competition remains the same. 'Pacific Break accepts entries from any Pacific artist provided they don't have a recording or publishing contract,' he said."

Jakarta Globe, 10 May 2012, Ulma Haryanto: "Indonesia will always hold a special place in the heart of award-winning Australian reporter Auskar Surbakti. It’s not just because of his heritage — both his parents are Indonesian — but because the 27-year-old has become the Australian media’s go-to guy for news from the archipelago. It was his series 'Rebuilding Aceh' that netted Surbakti, now an anchor at ABC Australia Network in Melbourne, the UN Media Peace Prize in 2008."

Today (Singapore), 9 May 2012, letter from M Lukshumayeh: "There is a large English Premier League (EPL) following here, and the results of matches, together with the goal-scorers, are reported on our local television news. At the most, though, we see still images of the respective matches. In some other jurisdictions where 'live' EPL matches are screened, when the results are reported on TV news programmes, the match highlights and the goals are shown. One example is Australia Network, which can be viewed in Singapore on cable TV. So, why not work with the cable TV operator to do the same during the news here?"

Ventura County Star, 5 May 2012, Bill Husted: "Shortwave listening, once the drug of choice for nerds, is an unlikely hobby nowadays. After all, that distant station I'm straining to hear probably is also available as a crystal clear audio stream somewhere on the Internet. So how can I stand before you today, with no fingers crossed, and tell you that you may find both education and joy through shortwave listening? I'll do my best. But keep in mind that there really is an element of magic here, something to be experienced more than explained. ... [W]hen I spin the dial on my shortwave I travel to the source. Perhaps it's the voice of an airline captain over the Atlantic reporting his position to an operator in New York. Or I may happen on music from a country I couldn't even begin to spell."

The Guardian, 17 Apr 2012, Stuart Williams: "Growing up listening to the BBC World Service, I heard the sound of large audiences clapping on numerous occasions – Wimbledon tennis, cricket test matches and musical concerts. The sound, when heard over shortwave radio, sounds very similar to rain falling on a roof: comforting yet exhilarating."

Smithsonian.com, 17 Apr 2012, Matt Novak: "The May, 1938 issue of Hugo Gernsback‘s Short Wave and Television magazine included an article titled 'Radio to Print News Right In Your Home.' The article described a method of delivering newspapers that was being tested and (provided it didn’t interfere with regular radio broadcasts) would soon be used as a futuristic news-delivery method. ... The article opens by explaining that this futuristic device is already in use: 'As you read this article, radio facsimile signals are probably circulating all around you. At least 23 broadcast stations, some of them high power ones, and a number of short-wave stations are now transmitting experimental facsimile signals under a special license granted by the Federal Communications Commission.'"

The SWLing Post, 5 May 2012, Thomas Witherspoon: "Last night, [private shortwave startion WBCQ in Maine] sent a digital [text] message about ten minutes before the end of the Allan Weiner Worldwide show. If you missed the broadcast, no worries; we recorded the show, and you can download the audio to try decoding the message for yourself. The digital message can be decoded using a variety of free software packages. ... This digital message could be decoded without purchasing any special software or other accessories. Most of us have everything we need to decode the bulk of the digital messages on the shortwave bands–and there are many, many more out there."

Radio World, 23 Apr 2012, Michael LeClair: "The use of various forms of carrier reduction, to save electricity in AM transmission, is known technically as MDCL, for modulation-dependent carrier level. It has taken off both internationally and now in the United States. We have tried to stay abreast of the technical aspects of the concept here at RW Engineering Extra because it offers some assistance to our oldest form of broadcasting. MDCL saves electric power, which helps to improve the competitiveness of AM by reducing the cost of operations. The trend toward using MDCL began in the field of international broadcasting. With a goal of reaching populations in distant countries, such applications require high-power transmitters much larger than those permitted for commercial broadcasting in the U.S. and Europe. The prospect of even modest power savings in those circles was quite attractive. Medium-wave frequencies historically have been used for international transmissions due to their ability to reach areas well beyond the line of sight via sky wave propagation."

Radio World, 23 Apr 2012, Saul Chernos: "Imagine the awe and personal satisfaction Guglielmo Marconi must have felt on Dec. 12, 1901 when he announced the first transatlantic wireless reception. Marconi and his team used a kite to raise a 500-foot antenna atop Signal Hill in St. John’s, Newfoundland, and waited for pre-arranged Morse code signals from Poldhu, Cornwall, more than 2,000 miles away. ... Each fall for the past 20 years, a group of us has met near the southeastern tip of the Avalon peninsula, a two-hour drive from Signal Hill, to set out lengthy arrays of wire and hunker down with the latest high-tech receivers."

Al Arabiya press release, 10 May 2012, via Zawya: "The second day of the 11th Arab Media Forum hosted Al Arabiya News Channel's panel, moderated by one of the Channel's news anchors, Muntaha Al Ramahy. ... Commenting on the reality of the situation, Faris Couri, Editor-in-Chief, BBC Arabic said: '... As one of the Arab TV Channels operating in the region, we try to draw a clear picture of the revolution and major events for our viewers, getting them as closest as possible to the actual event, without having any third party or government affect the end picture. We are an unbiased entity and operate as one.'"

Metro, 10 May 2012, Matt Kieltyka: "Vancouver, you’re too kind. At least that was the experience of the BBC World News crew that was recently filming a Working Lives documentary in the city as part of the broadcast corporation’s Canada Direct series. BBC business reporter Michelle Fleury, based in New York, profiled the lives of six Vancouverites that best represented the city and its culture."

Metro, 7 May 2012: "Anchor Katty Kay will be broadcasting from Calgary. She will explore the province’s oil sector as well as feature Calgary’s mayor Naheed Nenshi."

Russian government restrictions keep VOA and RFE/RL content off of Russian television and FM radio stations. Very few Russians still listen to shortwave. Not taking advantage of a medium-wave relay facility that covers Moscow, uncensored 99% of the time, would really be brain-dead. Follow the advice of the Heritage Foundation, and there would be no American astronauts in space, no fuel for US forces in Afghanistan, and no VOA listeners in Moscow.

See previous post about same subject.

Radio Netherlands Worldwide, 13 May 2012: "'With pride and some regret our ways part here. Just one last thing – thank you.' This is how an emotional Peter Veenendaal, head of the Dutch department, bid farewell to 65 years of Dutch-language broadcasts by Radio Netherlands Worldwide. The occasion was marked with a 24-hour radio marathon, with many current and former staff witnessing the service’s last few hours of broadcasting. The last two hours coincided with a lively staff party at the organization's premises in Hilversum, the Netherlands. The end of Dutch programming is the first phase of RNW’s complete overhaul, due to a 70 percent cut in its annual budget. As of 2013, RNW will focus exclusively on free speech in regions where it is lacking or under threat, particularly in Africa, the Middle East and East Asia. The RNW Africa and Afrique departments look forward to continued reporting in this spirit." With slide show.

Critical Distance weblog, 12 May 2012, Jonathan Marks: "Radio Netherlands has posted the truly superb video of the last 11 minutes of Radio Netherlands Dutch radio service, signing off with pride after 65 years of service. It was a superb send-off driven by a spectacular countdown to the big switch-of at 20 hrs UTC Friday May 11th 2012. It all ended with a burst of fireworks. The 'zero hour' moment was captured by an ANP photographer and can be viewed here. The Dutch text tells you to hold down the left mouse key and they drag to navigate right and left. ... One of the former heads of the Dutch Department was Peter Veenendaal. He told the story of the station, the people and the moments in a very powerful video projected on the side of the building HQ. World class."

Radio Netherlands Worldwide, 12 May 2012: "The last ten minutes Dutch broadcast of Radio, on Friday May 11, 2012, filmed at the building on Witte Kruislaan in Hilversum." Audio of the last seconds.

Radio Netherlands Worldwide, 11 May 2012, Eric Beauchemin: "This farewell event is attracting wide attention in the Dutch media, including this report from the Dutch public broadcaster NOS." With video, subtitles in English.

MediaPages.nl, 12 May 2012 has audio of the last 15 minutes of RNW in Dutch. Additional history of Radio Nederland Wereldomroep at Beeld en Geluid.

DX Listening Digest Yahoo! group, 11 May 2012, Kai Ludwig: "The last minutes were prerecorded, in a style not exactly matching prevalent stereotypes about Dutch radio. 5955 cut off some moments before 2000, missing the last seconds it seemed. Was a bit difficult to tell, since the ending transmission was almost blown away by Cerrik, the SARFT [Chinese broadcasting administration] branch in Albania, signing on CRI English on 5960. What a strong symbolism! ... The 'RNW 1' satellite channel now carries a looped announcement, using the RNW interval signal as bed ... . Besides advising of the closure it also suggests visiting wereldomroep.nl and bvn.nl for podcasts of the farewell broadcast." With this audio provided by Kai, including the iconic Radio Netherlands interval signal.

DX Listening Digest Yahoo! group, 12 May 2012, Victor A. Goonetilleke: "I will miss the Dutch National Anthem on Short Wave. I could never tune out until the last strains of it."

Southgate Amateur Radio News, 10 May 2012, citing Mike Terry and the British DX Club: The RNW farewell Dutch broadcast was "on 1296 kHz from Orfordness [England] for the whole 24 hours. As things stand, this may be the last ever transmission from Orfordness. After BBC World Service dropped its two hours a day of DRM on 1296 kHz in March, Radio Netherlands in Dutch has been the only user of the site (648 kHz has been silent since last year). No new clients have been announced for Orfordness, so Babcock will have to decide whether to keep the station in mothballs in the hope of a customer appearing, to sell it as a working transmitting station or to dismantle it and hand the site over to the National Trust."

See previous post about same subject.

drmna, 10 May 2012, "Check out our colleague Alokesh Gupta's YouTube feed. ... Alokesh does a great job posting informative worldwide (with exclusives from his native India) broadcasting info on his blog Radioactivity! Watch and listen to him receive analogue, DRM, Journaline feeds and so much more" on the new Newstar DR111 standalone DRM receiver.

drmna, 11 May 2012: "Please review Mr. [Adil] Mina's NASB-USADRM 2012 PowerPoint presentation. Mr. Mina of Continental Electronics, wants us to consider ways we can support receiver and chipset manufacturers. I've got an idea... We can help support CDNSE's effort to produce economical DRM standalone receivers!"

See also Digital Radio Mondiale website and previous post about same subject.

Cold War Radios, 25 Apr 2012, Richard H. Cummings: "On May 2, 1952, at 11 A.M., Radio Free Europe's first broadcast to Poland, as the 'Voice of Free Poland,' from the new studios in RFE's broadcast center in Munich, and from four new short-wave transmitters on the 25, 31, 41 and 59 [49?] meter bands. On February, 2, 2012, the Polish Senate declared May 2012, 'the month on the Polish Section of Radio Free Europe.' The Senate resolution read, in part: ... 'Throughout its existence, Radio Free Europe Polish Service was sustaining and shaping social and cultural consciousness of the Polish people. It was building up on Polish patriotism. It would prepare us to the freedom we gained in 1989 and to the new rules of international co-existence, by which we are operating in European Union and Convent of the North Atlantic frames.'"

Update: Tygodnik Katolicki "Niedziela", 9 May 2012, Mateusz Wyrwich: "This radio has been listened to by about 60 % of Poles for decades. It was mostly called 'Free Europe', sometimes 'Warsaw 4'. However, its programs were not broadcast from the capital of Poland in captivity but from Munich. And jamming their broadcast cost the authorities of the People's Polish Republic three times more than their emission in USA. On 3 May 1952, on the Radio 'Free Europe', Jan Nowak-Jezioranski, a director of the Polish Section, beginning his regular programs of 'The Radio Free Europe - the Voice of Free Europe' said as follows: 'Here is Radio 'Free Europe', the Voice of Free Europe. Here is the Polish Team of various beliefs and political opinions which have gathered around a microphone. But we are united by one wonderful understanding which gives us aiming at one common purpose: we will tell you the truth about events happening in the world which the Soviet regime wants to conceal from you in order to kill the remains of hope in you. ... But the Radio Free Europe was not the only anti-communist radio on the area of Western Europe or America. Its serious competitor, weakly stifled, was 'The Voice of America'. There were other dynamic radio stations, founded by Polonia at the beginning of the war: the Polish Section BBC, Radio Vatican, Radio France Internationale, Radio Canada, Radio Madrid and Radio 'Maria' - a small radio station transmitted to the Mediterranean Sea, initiated by Fr. Jedrzej Giertych."

New York Times, The Lede, 9 May 2012, Robert Mackey: "The costs and difficulties of any effort short of walling off the Internet completely are apparent in China, which is assumed to employ a huge army of human censors constantly tweaking algorithms and intervening in individual postings to the Web. As David Bandurski of the China Media Project at the University of Hong Kong observed on Thursday, the aggressiveness of China’s Web filtering received its most robust test during twin crises this year, one involving murder, corruption and the high-level government official Bo Xilai, the other the blind dissident Chen Guangcheng. By censoring posts on microblog sites, known as weibo, the government in these high-profile cases has been increasingly forced to conduct its aggressive media management openly and on a huge scale, not just against journalists but against large numbers of ordinary Chinese... ."

RFE/RL, 6 May 2012: "The websites of several leading nonstate media in Russia have been shut down by denial-of-service (DOS) attacks as Moscow prepares for an opposition demonstration against Vladimir Putin's return to the presidency. The newspaper 'Kommersant,' the Ekho Moskvy radio station, the Dozd Internet television channel, and the news aggregator slon.ru all experienced crippling DOS attacks on May 6. The media outlets are continuing to issue news updates through the social-networking sites Facebook and Twitter." -- RFE/RL video of protester roundup in Moscow cited by New York Times, The Lede, 7 May 2012.

Borneo Post, 10 May 2012: "PAS [Pan-Malaysia Islamic Party] Miri has accused BN leaders in Sibuti of being afraid of the influence of Radio Free Sarawak on rural voters. Its Miri chief and state deputy commissioner III Jofri Jaraiee said it was fair that the rural people had access to the independent radio channel because through it they could obtain unbiased news on political developments in the state and country. He was reacting to a recent remark made by Sibuti MP Ahmad Lai Bujang that the people in Sibuti should turn a deaf ear to Radio Free Sarawak. The MP had also claimed that the radio channel was meant to mislead its listeners by disseminating false information and spreading malicious lies that could jeopardise racial unity and harmony."

Voice of America, 11 May 2012, Thomas Chiripasi & Tatenda Gumbo: "A Zimbabwean private radio station, denied a license to go on air, has taken the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe to the Supreme Court over [its] failure to furnish a lower court with papers detailing how it last year chose two winners with links to President Robert Mugabe's Zanu PF party. ... Meanwhile, Zimbabwe has expanded its digital satellite services with the launch of a new satellite provider, My TV Zimbabwe. The satellite provider, housed under My TV Africa which is based in Lebanon, is set challenge other market competitors including satellite provider ‘DStv.’ ... The new player boasts to have cheaper market prices, going at $22 a month for 18 channels, including Al Jazeera, BBC World News, Sentanta sports, Movie Africa, FX Movie Network and Fox Entertainment."

Yonhap, 8 May 2012: "North Korea has sent faxed messages to 13 South Korean civic and religious organizations in recent weeks to criticize South Korea's alleged insult to the North's dignity, an official said Tuesday. The messages came in response to South Korea's accusation that the North wasted millions of dollars on celebrating the centennial of the April 15 birth of the country's late founder Kim Il-sung, the grandfather of current leader Kim Jong-un. ... One of the messages claimed that Seoul's insult to the North is a provocation by conservative forces to win the presidential election in December, according to the official who is familiar with the issue."

AP, 9 May 2012, Matthew Pennington: "A U.S. government-funded study says North Koreans have unprecedented access to foreign media, giving them a more positive impression of the outside world. But it says North Korea still has the world's most closed media environment, and those changing perceptions are unlikely to translate into significant pressure on their repressive government in the short term. The study was commissioned by the State Department and conducted by a consulting group, InterMedia. It is based on research involving several hundred North Korean defectors and refugees during 2010-2011. The Associated Press obtained the study ahead of its formal release Thursday. ... Nearly half of those interviewed said that while in North Korea they had watched a foreign DVD, the most commonly used type of outside media. About a quarter of people had listened to a foreign radio news broadcast or watched a foreign news station. Nearly one-third of television watchers whose sets were fixed to state-run programing had modified them in order to capture a signal from outside stations detectable along the Chinese and South Korean borders." -- Eight years ago, or thereabouts, I wrote the first questionnaire used in a survey asking North Korean defectors about their media habits back in the DPRK. Many of the questions are still be used today, including the survey mentioned here.

Update: AFP, 11 May 2012, Shaun Tandon: "The study's principal author Nat Kretchun, associate director of the InterMedia consulting group, said that South Korean dramas -- popular across Asia -- provided North Koreans a welcome break from their usual diet of stern, humorless propaganda. 'When you get very well-produced, compelling South Korean dramas -- a picture into a place that you've been fascinated with your whole life, because so much North Korean propaganda revolves around South Korea -- that's extremely powerful,' he said."

Bloomberg, 10 May 2012, Nicole Gaouette: "Dan Baer, a deputy assistant secretary at the State Department, said that his agency wanted to use the report’s findings to 'develop new, creative ways to support' ordinary North Koreans 'and enhance their access to information.' He said he hoped the findings would also provide non-governmental groups working on North Korea with new ideas."

GlobalPost, 11 May 2012, Jessica Phelan: "[N]ew technology like mobile phones, computers, MP3 players and USB drives smuggled in from China is allowing those who can afford it direct contact with the outside world, the report said. The result is that 'North Koreans today are learning more about the outside world than at any time since the founding of the country,' the study said. Ultimately, its authors suggested, exposure to alternative world views could push North Koreans to question their leaders' authority."

Radio Free Asia, 10 May 2012, Rachel Vandenbrink: "But more positive views of the outside world on their own will not affect a regime change, experts say. Although the study found exposure to outside media was closely tied to positive beliefs about the outside world, it was not as closely related to negative views about the North Korean regime. In other words, North Koreans’ exposure to overseas information did not always transfer into thinking poorly about their own country."

Reuters, 9 May 2012, Paul Eckert: "North Koreans are also buying technically illegal foreign radios that receive multiple channels, or rewiring domestic receivers to receive banned broadcasts, said the report. ... The InterMedia researchers cautioned that the refugees surveyed tended to come from North Korean provinces bordering China and did not represent the entire population." See also BBC News, 12 May 2012.

Financial Times, 1 May 2012, Christian Oliver and Kang Buseong, via Globe and Mail: "Rapid growth in the use of mobile telephones is aiding the flow of information, and creating severe challenges for North Korea’s rulers. Experts say it could gradually undermine both Kim Jong-un’s police state and his propaganda machine. ... Now that Pyongyang has softened its stance [on mobiles], the Nautilus Institute, a think-tank that does research on North Korea, argues the country will not be able to unwind this social and technological change. ... North Korea has two types of mobile user. In the northern border areas, people use Chinese phones, which enable them to call abroad. Friends or fixers in China pay the bills. Far more widely used are the phones operated by Egypt’s Orascom, which cannot take international calls, but do aid the spread of information around the country."

journalism.co.uk, 9 May 2012, Rachel McAthy: "Voice of America has published what it says is a transcript of questions put to the spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, in relation to Al Jazeera English’s report that its China correspondent Melissa Chan had her visa renewal application 'refused.'"

Committee to Protect Journalists, 8 May 2012, Madeline Earp: "'The Beijing branch of Al-Jazeera is still functioning normally.' This was not an auspicious reaction to the news that Al-Jazeera English has closed its Beijing bureau after being refused journalist visas. Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesman Hong Lei's responses at today's press conference did not improve from there, according to a partial transcript published by Voice of America."

Voice of America, 8 May 2012: "The following is a transcript of some of the questions and answers at the Chinese Foreign Ministry's daily briefing, where spokesman Hong Lei answered foreign reporters' questions about the Chinese government's action. The foreign ministry omitted the following exch[an]ge when it released the official transcript of the briefing. ... "

NTD Television, 8 May 2012: "The US State Department expressed 'disappointment' over the expulsion of Al Jazeera reporter Melissa Chan, an accredited journalist whose visa was not renewed. Deputy Spokesperson Mark C. Toner answered a reporter's question during the State Department's daily briefing.... MR. TONER: 'We know - we’ve been closely following Melissa Chan’s case, and I would just say that we’re disappointed in the Chinese Government - in how the Chinese Government decided not to renew her accreditation. To our knowledge, she operated and reported in accordance with Chinese law, including regulations that permit foreign journalists to operate freely in China.'"

Deutsche Welle, 10 May 2012, John Blau: "Nor is the US government is happy with the delaying tactics of the Chinese government with Voice of America. The broadcaster, which receives government funding, has been waiting for more than three years for visas to expand staff in its Beijing bureau."

The Atlantic Wire, 11 May 2012, John Hudson: "Al Jazeera's Melissa Chan may have bravely exposed government land grabs and black jails while reporting in China but she totally deserved to be expelled from the country this week. At least that's the view of an Orwellian editorial in China's state-run newspaper Global Times Thursday. 'She has produced some programs which are intolerable for China,' reads the hit piece. But the editorial is not just opinionated bluster. It also has this Pulitzer Prize-worthy scoop: 'According to foreign journalist sources here in Beijing, Melissa Chan holds an aggressive political stance.' Oh, no!" With links.

Shanghaist, 8 May 2012, Kenneth Tan: "And here it is -- the Al-Jazeera documentary that is said to have pissed China off so much that it refused to extend press credentials for its China correspondent Melissa Chan (even though she took no part in its production), effectively forcing the news network to shut down its Beijing bureau. The documentary includes some eye-opening footage from what Al-Jazeera says is a 'laogai' reeducation labour camp." With video.

Shanghaist, 8 May 2012, Horace Lu and Michael Ardaiolo: "You can and should follow Ms Chan on Twitter at @melissakchan. She has been an invaluable source of information during her time in China. She is now heading to Standford University where she was awarded the Knight Fellowship."

Foreign Policy, Passport blog, 8 May 2012, Isaac Stone Fish: "It appears that someone in the Chinese government wanted to give a warning to journalists without causing an international incident; Chan, a Chinese-American working for a Qatari-based television station, seemed to be an appropriate target. The thinking seems to be that a foreign government will more loudly protest the mistreatment of a citizen who is both born and raised in its own country and working for a domestic company. ... The pattern seems to be that powerful countries like the United States will be less likely to protest the mistreatment of an American working for a non-American company, or a foreigner working for an American organization, when it becomes a more complicated procedure of coordinating responses between embassies and ministries. Executives and reporters with Chinese backgrounds have many advantages operating in China. Besides language skills and local networks, they can blend in a country where different color skin clearly identifies one as an outsider. Anecdotally speaking, they seem to be given less leniency when they don't follow China's laws; like they're supposed to 'know better.'"

AP, 9 May 2012, Christopher Bodeen: "The Foreign Correspondents' Club of China said Chinese officials accused Chan of unspecified violations and were unhappy with some of Al-Jazeera's coverage, particularly a documentary that Chan had not been involved in. The documentary, which aired in November, was about China's system of sentencing minor criminals and political prisoners to labor camp prisons. The club issued a statement Tuesday saying it was 'appalled by the decision of the Chinese government to take this action.'"

Al Jazeera English, 9 May 2012: "Chan has left China and will be returning to California, where she will be taking up a fellowship at Stanford University. Her departure 'seems to be taking China's anti-media policies to a new level', Bob Dietz, the Asia co-ordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, said in a statement."

Al Jazeera English, 11 May 2012, Melissa Chan: "China has a lot going for it, and that is especially felt when you've spent so much time talking to the people there. They can be incredibly resilient, despite the fact that some have definitely received the short end of the stick. Like any country, people also worry and complain, and like journalists on any beat, I've looked at those worries and complaints. It's part of the process of making a place I love a better one for its people."

See previous post about same subject.

Advanced Television, 10 May 2012, Chris Forrester: “'Our Latin America business has quickly become our biggest growth engine and continues to demonstrate outstanding growth momentum. For the first time ever, gross additions not only exceeded those posted by our US business in the quarter, but they also surpassed the 1 million subscriber mark, achieving yet another major milestone,' stated Mike White, DirecTV’s CEO."

See previous post about same subject.

RCI Action Committee, 4 May 2012: "Radio Canada International must be given financial autonomy. CBC/Radio-Canada’s control of the RCI budget must end. This problematic relationship between Radio Canada International and CBC/Radio-Canada, has been raised numerous times in the past, and is why we need to push for financial autonomy. ... In October 1996, the Canadian component of KPMG, released a report on RCI commissioned by CBC/Radio-Canada that recommended: 'If RCI is continued in the long term (whatever its mandate and funding level), independent funding is needed to avoid the difficulty it faces today with being caught up in a domestic vs. foreign competition for limited CBC resources. If the CBC management and Board have to choose between serving Calgary or China, Calgary will almost certainly win….' ... Clearly we have very little time to stop this cut, the broadcasting of our programs ends on June 24."

Montreal Gazette, 5 May 2012, Steve Faguy: "While the CBC is tightening its belt to make $200 million in budget cuts over the next three years - including a devastating 80 per cent cut to Radio Canada International, whose offices are next door to CBC Montreal in the basement of Maison Radio-Canada, the public broadcaster is proceeding with its five-year '2015: Everyone, Every Way' plan, which is adding more regional services across the country."

See previous post about same subject.

Ted does not want to "cut news broadcasts" on USIB outlets, but he also opposes "a new CEO who would not be directly answerable to Congress." If a news organization has a CEO who is "directly answerable to Congress," it's not really a news organization.

Miami Herald, 7 May 2012, Daniel Shoer Roth: "The editorial — penned by Carlos A. García-Pérez, director of the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, which oversees Radio and TV Martí — was read on the air and appeared last Thursday on the network’s website, then was taken off Sunday — after The Washington Post published an article detailing the strong comments by the U.S. agency. 'This attitude of Ortega just goes to show his political collusion with the government and his willingness to follow the official line,' the editorial read. 'This lackey attitude demonstrates a profound lack of understanding and compassion toward the human reality of these children of God.' It concluded: 'Cardinal Ortega, please be faithful to the gospel you preach.' ... García-Pérez said the editorial was not taken off the website due to any criticism it had attracted, but said it disappeared for fresher news. ... In an interview with El Nuevo Herald on Sunday evening, García-Pérez stressed the views of Radio and TV Martí do not represent the position of the U.S. government."

Catholic World News, 7 May 2012, via CatholicCulture.org: "Harvard professor Jorge Dominguez came quickly to the cardinal’s defense. While conceding that Cardinal Ortega had been unduly harsh in criticizing Cuban dissidents, he pointed to the prelate’s success in winning human-rights concessions from the Cuban regime: 'Who freed the political prisoners in Cuba? Not the European Union. Not the U.S. government. And not Radio and TV Marti. It was Ortega who convinced Raul Castro to let them out.'"

As a news organization, Radio-TV Martí should not have "views." The BBC is prohibited from broadcasting editorials. This would be a good rule for US international broadcasting and, in fact, a necessary one if USIB is to reach its goal of becoming "the world's leading news agency."

Broadcasting Board of Governors press release, 3 May 2012: "The Cuba-based independent producer of Estado de SATS and TV Martí have united in an effort to better inform the people of Cuba as they adapt to changes on the island. The brainchild of Antonio Rodilles, the program features content ranging from interviews with Cuban thought-leaders, to footage of live music events, to political discussions. Rodilles describes the program as 'a series of public encounters focusing on ever-evolving subject matter.' The first Cuban production to air on TV Martí, 'Estado de SATS' is produced entirely in Cuba without any cost to the Miami-based broadcaster."

Rush Limbaugh Show, 2 May 2012: "Nobody sees it if it's on CNN. They could run a continuous loop of Obama saying this. Nobody sees it. Not domestically. Internationally it's a whole different game. ... CNN International, I think, does well. So CNN's become a loss leader. I mean, they didn't drop from two million to 357,000. They've been gradually declining. It's been steady for 11 years."

Committee to Protect Journalists, 7 May 2012: "China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs should immediately grant accreditation to Al-Jazeera English reporters to work in China, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. The channel said China has refused its long-time correspondent Melissa Chan and other colleagues journalist visas, forcing it to close its Beijing bureau."

The National (Abu Dhabi), 6 May 2012, Ben Flanagan: "Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, the chairman of Sky News Arabia, said the station would aim to meet demand for a 'high-calibre, independent news channel' about the Arab world. 'I am confident Sky News Arabia will become an icon for objective news reporting,' Dr Al Jaber said."

The National, 7 May 2012, Ben Flanagan: "There are now 538 free-to-air TV channels in the Arab world, competing for projected advertising revenues of less than US$2 billion (Dh7.34bn) this year, according to the Arab Media Outlook. ... Ali Ajouz, a media consultant based in the UAE, agreed the challenge for Sky News Arabia was to differentiate itself in a "challenging" market." It's definitely a crowded market. But there is always the opportunity for someone to excel,' he said. Television news is costly to produce, and while Mr Ajouz said it was not 'impossible' that Sky News Arabia would turn a profit, he did not expect this to happen soon."

Rapid TV News, 7 May 2012, Rebecca Hawkes: "Sky News Arabia is now available across the Arab world free to air on transponder 15 on Arabsat Badr 4 and transponder 14 on Nilesat 201, and in HD via the OSN pay-TV satellite platform and Abu Dhabi TV. In the UAE, it is also available on the IPTV services provided by Du TV and Etisalat e-Life."

The Drum, 7 May 2012: "Andrew Griffith, chief financial officer for BSkyB and Sky News Arabia board director, added: 'BSkyB is one of the UK’s most innovative and successful companies and Sky News has always been a pioneering part of our business. Our partnership with ADMIC to create a truly independent news offering for the Middle East and North Africa is a project we are fully committed to. It is an investment that both parties are proud to have made and we aim to set a new standard for news delivery in the region.' Launch advertisers included Dolphin Energy, Etihad Airways, First Gulf Bank, Nova Chemicals and Sebsa."

The Guardian, 6 May 2012, Martin Chulov: "The newcomer faces a sceptical reception. Regional rivals who have risen and prospered over the past decade have constantly touted the same virtues [of independence]. Just as vehement has been the retort from those on the wrong end of the established networks' coverage; viewers and broadcasters alike say true independence remains elusive in this part of the world. ... Of the established networks, al-Jazeera can go close to matching it for reach and probably has far deeper pockets, as well as a proven track record. But Sky News Arabia is confident that its content – and features such as high definition and an iPad app – will make inroads into al-Jazeera's audience, which covers a vast swath of the Sunni Arab world."

The National, 7 May 2012, Achraf El Bahi: "So the channel had a few other things up its sleeve to throw in that crucial first hour of existence: a measured tone (even when reporting on Syria) in an otherwise shrill Arabic-language media environment; an abaya-clad sports presenter breaking barriers in a male-dominated field; and a correspondent based in the Arab world's forbidden city – Damascus. These are the small assets that could make the big difference. ... Since the launch of the Qatari-owned Al Jazeera in 1996 and the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya in 2003, the mass of Arab viewers have grown accustomed to a reasonable level of quality in television journalism. ... But monopoly breeds excess. For years now, and particularly since the Arab Spring started, the big two have been plagued with accusations – by regimes and laypeople alike – of serving 'special agendas' and being too soft on their sponsoring governments. ... The Washington-sponsored Al Hurra was launched in 2004. It mostly kept a low profile after enjoying the brief newcomer's benefit-of-doubt period and, later, suffering budget cuts. Moscow launched its Russia Al Youm, Tehran its Al Alam, Paris its own France 24 Arabic, Beijing its CCTV Arabic and Turkey its TRT, all vying for ideological influence – not necessarily just a slice of the advertising market – in this increasingly strategic Middle East and North Africa region. Backed by decades of experience, a reputation for reliability and UK taxpayer money, BBC Arabic is still holding its own, offering a nice alternative to the big two."

The National, 8 May 2012, Saeed Saeed: "Sky News Arabia's mix of interactive graphics and its welcome detachment pose an interesting proposition to Arab audiences used to news tapping raw nerves or representing certain political or sectarian viewpoints. It also ushers a hitherto rare kind of owner into the Arabic media landscape: a commercial enterprise in territory that is largely, although not wholly, the domain of national governments and political parties. ... Before the satellite explosion of the 1980s, news in the region was limited to government-run television and radio stations. Those searching for foreign-based Arabic-language news had to invest in good radios to tune in to the likes of the BBC World Service, Voice of America and Radio Monte Carlo. ... The effect of Al Jazeera's coverage was the launch of several Arab news channels by foreign governments: Al Hurra (the US); Al Alam (Iran), Al Arabiya and Al Ekhbaria (Saudi Arabia), France 24 (France); and Rusiya Al Youm (Russia). These new players all came with catchy slogans promising objectivity, but at best presented a different viewpoint or at worse were glossy visual presentations of government press releases. It was the BBC's launch of its Arabic news television service in 2008 that saw a move away from the ideological and sectarian territory of Arabic satellite news channels. And the fact that it was the only BBC channel last year to escape heavy government cuts proves the that BBC Arabic plays a vital part in British diplomacy in the region."

Gulf News (Dubai), 8 May 2012, Shehab Al Makahleh: "Laura Streder, editor at the European Times, told Gulf News: 'In the past when Al Arabiya came on the scene it raised the same slogans that they will be number one to compete with Al Jazeera and when Al Jazeera had risen, it prided itself with objectivity and popularity amongst the young people as it addressed their issues and concerns. Every newcomer to the market would say that just for "local consumption" to show that they will be distinguished and highly professional in their coverage and programmes,' Streder said."

AFP, 8 May 2012: "The channel’s lead story was the French presidential election, with live coverage from the home of Francois Hollande, the front-runner in the poll, followed by a report on Syrian refugees on the Syria-Turkish border."

Broadcast, 8 May 2012, Chris Curtis: "Sky News Arabia also launched mobile apps on iPad, iPhone, Blackberry, and Android devices. Key features include live streaming, news photo galleries, interactive maps as well as the ability to share stories via social media. The website, www.skynewsarabia.com, which launched in beta form in February, is now fully completed with features including blogs from presenters and correspondents, live twitter feeds and the ability for users to interact and comment on the topics of the day."

See previous post about same subject.

Voice of America, 4 May 2012, Kate Dawson: "Chen Guangcheng, the blind Chinese legal activist whose case has become a high-profile diplomatic challenge to both China and the United States, told VOA Friday that a high-ranking government official told him that as long as his public comments on his situation are accurate, his situation will be handled according to the law. Chen, who recently escaped from house detention and sought refuge in the U.S. embassy in Beijing, talked to VOA on a cell phone."

USA Today, 3 May 2012, Calum MacLeod and Oren Dorell: "[B]lind activist Chen Guangcheng ... the youngest of five brothers, began grade school at age 17. He was inspired to tackle injustice by listening to U.S. broadcasts on Voice of America and Radio Free Asia. Chen took up the cause that would take his freedom: thousands of victims of forced sterilizations and abortions under China's draconian family planning policies."

So, when Chen Guangcheng comes to the United States, will he be a contributor to RFA Mandarin? Or to VOA Mandarin? Or to both? He could say basically the same thing on RFA and on VOA, and be paid twice. Is this a great country or what?

CNN Press Room, 2 May 2012: "Continuing his coverage of Chinese human rights activist Chen Guangcheng, CNN's senior international correspondent Stan Grant attempted to visit Chen's hometown of Dongshigu Tuesday, only to be chased out by security. Read CNN producer Steven Jiang's account here."

CNN Press Room, 3 May 2012: "Chen Guangcheng and his wife, Yuan Weijing, spoke to [CNN's Stan] Grant from Chen's hospital room in Beijing early Thursday morning."

New American Foundation, 2 May 2012, Rebecca MacKinnon: "Due to censorship, if one were to poll a random sample of college-educated people in China today, very few would know about Chen. Concern for his case is limited mainly to liberal-minded bloggers, social media mavens, and intellectuals who make a point of seeking out and passing around alternative news. Nobody knows exactly how large this group is, but Xiao Qiang, founder of the China Digital Times, estimates that it may amount to roughly 2-3 million people. ... Whether or not the U.S. government funds circumvention tools, or who exactly it funds and with what amount, it is clear that Internet users in China and elsewhere are seeking out and creating their own ad hoc solutions to access the uncensored global Internet. In China today, thanks to the government's success in nurturing a domestic commercial walled garden, circumvention technology has not been a direct driver of political change. Yet circumvention tools of various kinds have provided a lifeline for a small core of tech-savvy liberals who are becoming more active online as political uncertainty grows. Meanwhile, the recent political uncertainty is driving new demand for circumvention technology, which could make it just that much more difficult than in the past for the government to control what the Chinese public learns -- or believes -- about Chen Guangchen and this week's delicate diplomatic dance between Washington and Beijing."

Human Rights Watch, 3 May 2012, via AlertNet: "The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) should speak out about Azerbaijan's appalling record on freedom of expression in the lead-up to the Eurovision Song Contest, Human Rights Watch said in a video report released today. Eurovision will take place in Baku from May 22 to May 26, 2012. ... On May 2, on the eve of World Press Freedom Day, the EBU held a workshop in Geneva on media freedom in Azerbaijan. However, the EBU failed to use this opportunity to call the Azerbaijani government to task and to speak out about Azerbaijan's abysmal record on freedom of expression. ... Human Rights Watch had planned to show the video at the May 2 workshop, but the EBU declined to show the video at the last minute, citing technical reasons. The EBU also declined to show video materials that the Azerbaijani government sought to publicize at the event."

Amnesty International, 1 May 2012: "On 17 February Anar Bayramli, a journalist working for the Iranian sponsored, Azeri language, television station Sahar, was arrested on fabricated drugs possession charges, shortly after relations between Azerbaijan and Iran deteriorated following Iran’s claim that an Iranian nuclear scientist had been assassinated by Israeli operatives based in Azerbaijan. Amnesty International believes the charges against Anar Bayramli were fabricated in retaliation for his work as a reporter. Sahar TV is known for its critical reporting on sensitive political, social and religious issues in Azerbaijan and had recently been criticized by the Azerbaijani authorities for deliberately seeking to destabilize the country."

Hürriyet Daily News, 30 Apr 2012: "The broadcasting of all foreign TV shows has been banned in Azerbaijan as of today, in an effort to 'support the domestic sector,' daily Milliyet reported. The ban includes shows that have been dubbed in the Azerbaijani language. Turkish soap operas are included in the ban. ... A new legal regulation will first warn and then punish TV stations that broadcast foreign programming in violation of the ban. The punishment may be as severe as revoking a station’s broadcast license, the report said."

Anatolia News Agency, 4 May 2012: "Turkish TV series 'Avrupa Avrupa,' (Europe, Europe) will be shot in the Azerbaijan capital of Baku. The first episode to be shot will feature in the new series under the title 'Azerbaijani Adventure.'"

RFE/RL, 4 May 2012: "The European Broadcasting Union has imposed a fine on Armenia over Yerevan's refusal to send performers to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest in Baku, capital of Armenia's rival, Azerbaijan. The European Broadcasting Union said Armenia would still have to pay the full fee required to participate in the contest, as well as an additional 50 percent of that amount as a fine. ... The European Broadcasting Union, which is responsible for managing Eurovision, also said Armenian public television was obliged to show the May 26 Eurovision finals live. Otherwise, Armenia could be excluded from the 2013 Eurovision contest. Armenia and Azerbaijan have been embroiled for decades in their conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic-Armenian-populated enclave inside Azerbaijan."

The Interpretor (Lowy Institute for International Policy), 24 Apr 2012, letter from Adrian Black:: "As someone who has lived and worked overseas, seen a fair bit of the ABC's overseas television and had a good opportunity to gauge the reaction to it from the locals I can draw two conclusions: •The program content varies from reasonable to ridiculous — often just filling time slots — but even so the net impact on those we are trying to influence is probably slightly more positive than negative. •It falls so far short of what it might be in terms of promoting Australia, particularly in a vital business and economic sense but also culturally and diplomatically, that it is both embarrassing and frustrating."

The Australian, 27 Apr 2012, editorial: "If Australia suddenly had a powerful new media watchdog, [one issue it should investigate] would be how the government awarded the $223m Australia Network contract to the ABC, even though it twice lost a tender process to the privately-owned Sky News Australia (a company part-owned by BSkyB, which in turn is part-owned by News Corporation, owner of The Australian). This investigation would need to examine allegations that ABC executives improperly lobbied cabinet ministers, and assess the apparent conflict of interest, already highlighted by the Auditor-General, of having Senator Conroy award this contract when also responsible for the ABC."

See previous post about Australia Network.

Pacific Media Watch, 30 Apr 2012: "An award-winning Fiji-born investigative journalist has attacked a Radio Australia news item about last month’s PINA Pacific Media Summit in Fiji, describing it as the 'biggest crack at revisionism in recent Pacific media history'. Australian-based Graham Davis, who publishes the independent blog Grubsheet, challenged RA’s Pacific Beat reporter Bruce Hill and the University of the South Pacific head of journalism, Dr Marc Edge, a Canadian, over their version of events given a month after the event."

Update: Reuters, 30 Apr 2012, Tim Kenneally: "The miniseries, which will be called 'Planet Earth Live' in Britain and '24/7 Wild' in the United States will run exclusively in the U.S. on Nat Geo WILD, beginning May 7. ... Employing more than 150 filmmakers and wildlife experts around the world, the expansive project will 'showcase real animals and their everyday fight for survival - as it happens, in real time,' according to the BBC and National Geographic. ... See the full schedule for '24/7 Wild' at http://www.thewrap.com/tv/article/bbc-national-geographic-channel-team-nature-series-37851."

Worldscreen.com, 3 Apr 2012, Marissa Graziadio: BBC Worldwide's "'London Calling' features a season of programs that celebrate the music, fashion, art, culture and history of London. ... London Calling will air between June and Auguston BBC Entertainment in Africa, Poland, the Nordic region, Asia, India, Latin America and the channel’s pan-European service; BBC Knowledge in Africa, Poland, the Nordic Region, Italy, Asia and Australia; BBC HD in Latin America, Poland, the Nordic region and Turkey; UKTV in Australia and New Zealand; and globally on BBC World News. The season will also be available to users of BBC.com and to users of the global BBC iPlayer."

WITN-TV (Wsashington, NC), 2 May 2012: "Casey Murrow, the son of the father of broadcast journalism, Edward R. Murrow, was at a ceremony in the east to help make sure people around the world have access to vital information. The Voice of America site in Pitt County helps connect the world to news many of us take for granted. ... Casey Murrow says, 'It is good to keep at least one such facility in place in the U.S cause it can't be influenced by anybody else or shut down or moved or what not.'" With video. See also Greenvile Daily Reflector, 3 May 2012.

MetroPulse (Knoxville), 2 May 2012: "Former Knoxville Mayor and Ambassador to Poland Victor Ashe continues to give his fellow board members heartburn. Ashe is on the board of governors for the agency that sets up and operates what used to be called the Voice of America, beaming broadcasts into totalitarian countries. The agency wanted to close a shortwave facility in North Carolina, the last facility still on American soil and under American control. Ashe argues that facilities in other countries, especially in Asia, are not reliable because they do not want to antagonize China by broadcasting into Tibet. Ashe has worked with a North Carolina congressman to put up signs identifying the facility as the Edward R. Murrow broadcasting station, named for the legendary TV newsman who was from North Carolina, complete with Murrow’s son attending a re-dedication ceremony to unveil the new signs. This will make it even harder for the broadcasting staff to move to close the facility again."

See previous post about same subject.

Deutsche Welle, 3 May 2012, Aya Bach: "In his blog 'Window of fear' Arash Sigarchi tries to be as objective as possible, even when including personal experiences or opinions. 'No matter what I post, I try to be fair, balanced and truthful. I am after all a journalist and everything I post is taken as news.'"

DW The Bob's website: List of all winning blogs. See also DW press release, 2 May 2012.

journalism.co.uk, 2 May 2012, Sarah Marshall: "A year ago today Al Jazeera English was due to broadcast the first episode of a new social media TV show called The Stream. ... Since then The Stream has been broadcast live on Al Jazeera English for 30 minutes four days a week, with a pre- and post-show online and was last night named as winner of a Webby Award, which honour the 'best of the web'." Sell also Al Jazeera English, 1 May 2012.

USA Today, 1 May 2012, Calum MacLeod: Chen Guangcheng "was inspired to tackle injustice by listening to U.S. broadcasts on Voice of America and Radio Free Asia, supporters say."

AFP, 3 May 2012: "Tens of thousands of people gathered in the capital Kuala Lumpur Saturday but the rally turned violent when protesters breached a barricade around a central square and were met with tear gas and water cannon. Whistleblowing website Sarawak Report said Malaysia's Astro, which transmits Al-Jazeera and the BBC to subscribers with a delay of several minutes, cut scenes in rally reports. Al-Jazeera English said in a statement received Thursday that it would seek an explanation from Astro on why the report was 'apparently censored' without making it clear to viewers. 'Our news report was a factual account of events that day, and intrusion in our editorial process is unwarranted. We have not been censored in this way by another distribution platform anywhere in the world,' it said."

Sarawak Report, 2 May 2012: "Sarawak Report can now reveal for the first time just how the sinister and arbitrary system of TV News censorship works at Astro. Sources have revealed that the satellite station employs people round the clock under the job title 'News Control'. Astro’s 'News Controllers' have the editorial responsibility of scouring all the news coming in and demanding edits on anything they judge to be contrary to the Home Ministry censorship rules! 'They do four hour shifts, monitoring news output particularly from CNN, BBC and Al Jazeera, and deciding if anything is not to go to air', explained our source."

Free Malaysia, 3 May 2012, Pushparani Thilaganathan: "BBC’s affront ... was trivialised by Astro and Malaysia’s Information, Communications and Culture Minister Rais Yatim. Rais, who incidentally described the Bersih rally as 'kotor' (dirty), defended Astro’s right, saying it was the satellite television’s prerogative to air the 'best parts' of the poll reforms rally. Said Rais: '(Astro) has to be given credit for knowing which part of the news is newsworthy and therefore they should exercise that within their rights as a broadcasting firm.' Astro, meanwhile, simply said they had to 'comply with local content regulations'."

The Malaysian Insider, 4 May 2012, Art Harun: "The censorship or chop-job by Astro of the relevant BBC news report amounts to ... the alteration or modification of a report which was published by Astro as the original and true report. If that was not a misrepresentation or a distortion, tell me what is."

James Cridland wrote in with this account of his past visit to Astro: James Cridland's blog, 30 Mar 2012: "I’d gone to visit Astro, the Malaysian version of BSkyB, to catch up with an old friend and for the chance to look around. Astro runs a ton of radio stations, but I was looking around the television area – seeing lots of monitors and complicated robotic machines that loaded video recorders up with tapes (part of their archival project, I later discovered). But it was this room that, indeed, I did find rather unusual. There were about thirty desks here, arranged in diagonal formations allowing one person to glance around the other three. Hunched in front of each desk was someone sitting there, watching the television. 'This is our Content Compliance unit,' said my guide – a friendly Indian man. ... [T]he content compliance unit must watch television channels that go out, and substitute advertisements and content where required. A typical shift within the content compliance unit lasts for twelve hours, working on some easy channels (those showing live golf) and some rather harder-to-comply channels (those showing music videos)."

RFE/RL, 3 May 2012: "In honor of World Press Freedom Day on May 3, RFE/RL journalists talk about threats to the media in their home countries, and how they are fighting back against repression of free speech." With video.

Radio Free Asia press release, 3 May 2012, via BBG: "Today, on World Press Freedom Day, Radio Free Asia (RFA) President Libby Liu responded to Freedom House’s 2012 Freedom of the Press survey that classified all six of RFA’s broadcast countries as 'Not Free' with North Korea as the worst-rated country on the list. 'Sadly, on World Press Freedom Day, there is little to celebrate in the countries into which Radio Free Asia broadcasts,' Liu said."

@BBGgov, 3 May 2012: "Today is World Press Freedom Day. We have launched a new Tumblr focusing on #pressfreedom & threats to our journalists." journalismunderfire.tumblr.com

Committee to Protect Journalists, 2 May 2012: "[I]n CPJ's new report, the 10 Most Censored Nations, ... [the] list shows the extent to which controls on news-gatherers distort and hamper the growth of the Internet and cellphone use."

See also Deutsche Welle, 3 May 2012, Marco Müller. And Radio Netherlands Worldwide, 3 May 2012, Alejandro Pintamalli.

Commentary, 2 May 2012, Michael Rubin: "Voice of America – Persian Service appears more interested in badmouthing American policy and promoting diplomacy... ." -- I nominate "badmouthing American policy and promoting diplomacy" as Oxymoron of the Year.

And for a more positive look at the BBG...

Federal News Radio, 27 Apr 2012: "This week on Fed Access, host Derrick Dortch is joined by two members of the management team at the Broadcasting Board of Governors. Bruce Sherman is the director of the board's Office of Strategy and Development, and Jeffrey Trimble is the deputy director of the board's International Broadcasting Bureau. They will talk about the organization's mission, its audience, how it operates, and its plans for the future." With audio.

France 24, 2 May 2012: "Langlois, a French citizen who lives in Colombia and has reported extensively from the country, was covering the army’s crackdown on narco-trafficking for FRANCE 24 when he went missing. In a statement issued Sunday, FRANCE 24 editors said they were coordinating with the French foreign ministry and Colombian authorities to get information on the fate of the missing journalist." With video.

The Moment (Nigeria), 2 May 2012, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman: "Less than a week after the bomb attacks on media houses in Abuja and Kaduna, the Jama atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda awati Wal-Jihadl also called Boko Haram has released a new video in which it named more media organisations and their staff as targets for its next attack. The sect in the 18-minute video, threatened to attack popular news outlets that include the Voice of America (Hausa), Radio France (Hausa), Daily Trust, Guardian Newspapers, among others." Information Nigeria, 2 May 2012, quoting from the Boko Haram video: “There is also VOA Hausa radio. All these media houses we will attack them including their staff and offices, by God’s grace. VOA Hausa for instance have recently started campaigning for people to support the government against us by exposing us. The next group that are on the verge of joining this list who if they are not careful we will attack very soon include, Leadership, Daily Trust, Peoples Daily and RFI(Radio France international)."

Committee to Protect Journalists, 30 Apr 2012: "Togolese police attacked and confiscated the equipment of two journalists filming an anti-government march in the capital, Lomé, on Friday. Civil society activists and human rights advocates had gathered for the demonstration on the occasion of Togo's 52nd Independence Day, local journalists said. More than 10 police officers assaulted Noël Kokou Tadegnon, a freelance journalist for Reuters TV, the London-based pan-African satellite broadcaster Vox Africa, and the German-government funded broadcaster Deutsche Welle, as he filmed security forces firing tear gas at protesters, news reports said."

BBC News, 30 Apr 2012: "A BBC journalist [Feras Kilani] arrested and held by Muammar Gaddafi's forces during the Libya uprising has returned to the prison where he was held to track down some of the wardens and prisoners housed there and to hear first hand accounts of a massacre."

Gulf News (Dubai), 30 Apr 2012, Feras Kilani: "I am back in the Libyan capital Tripoli, a year after I was captured by Muammar Gaddafi's forces. On March 8, 2011 I was picked up at an army roadblock near Tripoli along with two BBC Arabic colleagues. I was imprisoned, beaten and subject to mock executions at a compound just outside Tripoli."

Committee to Protect Journalists, 30 Apr 2012: "The appeals court in Montenegro must overturn a libel verdict and four-month jail sentence given to journalist Petar Komnenic, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. The Montenegrin authorities, who are seeking to join the European Union, decriminalized libel after the journalist's original conviction, according to news reports. On April 18, a magistrate court in the capital, Podgorica, ordered Komnenic, the editor of the local TV Vijesti and a freelancer for Reuters and the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, to serve a four-month prison sentence in connection with the February 2011 libel conviction." See also RFE/RL, 19 Apr 2012.

RFE/RL, 27 Apr 2012, Shahnaz Huseynova: "At a defiant press conference in Baku, Azerbaijani investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova lashed out at prosecutors looking into a smear campaign that was launched against her last month and which she believes is aimed at intimidating her into ending her journalistic investigations. ... Ismayilova -- the former Baku bureau chief of RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service who currently hosts a daily program for the service -- blames the authorities for the campaign against her, saying it is aimed at stopping her investigations of corruption, some of which have targeted President Ilham Aliyev and his family." RFE/RL press release, 3 May 2012: Ismayilova wins the 2012 Courage in Journalism Award given by the International Women’s Media Foundation.

Trend (Baku), 30 Apr 2012: "Baku Prosecutor's Office denies the statement on spreading of information being the personal and family secrets of the journalist - the employee of Azerbaijani service of Radio Liberty Khadija Ismayilova."

Nebraska City News-Press, 26 Apr 2012, Gene Policinski: "The U.S. Department of State has launched an online 'Free the Press' campaign, highlighting individual journalists who face government threats worldwide, ranging from imprisonment to house arrest to travel bans. 'Media freedom is oxygen' for societies, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Tara D. Sonenshine told a group of international journalists in discussing the campaign. 'It’s the moral equivalent of oxygen – it is how a society breathes, and it is a key pillar of building civil societies.'"

BBC press release, 2 May 2012, via afaqs!: "The BBC has announced the appointment of two new business journalists to be based in the BBC's Mumbai bureau. Yogita Limaye will join the BBC in May 2012 as Mumbai Business Correspondent. She will report across BBC World News and will serve as the presenter of India Business Report, the channel's weekly television programme on business throughout the region. In addition, Yogita will report for bbc.com and on the BBC World Service in both English and Hindi. ... Sameer Hashmi will join the BBC in June as Mumbai Business Reporter. He joins BBC World News' India Business Report team, which is based in Mumbai and Delhi and will also report on all aspects of business across BBC World News television, bbc.co and the BBC World Service radio."

Mid-Missouri Public Radio, 26 Apr 2012, "Global Journalist" interviews Lwin Than, Chief of the Burmese Service for Voice of America; and David Stout, an editor with the Democratic Voice of Burma.

Broadcasting Board of Governors, 1 May 2012: "President John F. Kennedy formally dedicated the station on February 8, 1963, and in October 1968 it was named the 'Edward R. Murrow Transmitting Station' in honor of the renowned wartime broadcaster and director of the USIA." With event program.

Greenville [NC] Daily Reflector, 30 Apr 2012, Ginger Livingston: "U.S. Rep. Walter B. Jones Jr. ... and U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C., worked to stop the closure[ of the Greenville station], aided by another member of the North Carolina delegation, Democrat David Price. The closure never came because Congress had difficulties finalizing its 2010-11 budget and funding was included in continuation budgets. The broadcasting board notified Jones in January 2011 that the administration wouldn’t pursue the site’s closure. By that time Victor Ashe, former mayor of Knoxville, Tenn., and former ambassador to Poland, joined the broadcasting board and toured the VOA Site B facility. ... Like other proponents of the site, Ashe said it’s important to keep VOA Site B operating because it’s the only short-wave Voice of America facility operating under U.S. jurisdiction. Other short-wave locations can be shut down at the insistence of its host nation. Other methods of broadcasting — radio, television, the Internet and social media — can be cut off or blocked."

The April 2012 issue of Monitoring Times magazine has a cover article about the Edward R. Murrow Transmitting Station.

See previous post about same subject.

Toronto Star, The Network, 1 May 2012, Thomas Witherspoon: "The recently announced cuts to the CBC have garnered considerable press. However, what has not received sufficient press is the story of the cuts which threaten the very existence of Radio Canada International. This oversight is likely because, sadly, many Canadians must not be aware of RCI, or of its valiant but unsung role in international relations. ... the Internet, while unquestionably a useful medium, can only travel as far as its (still-limited) availability; in other words, the Internet relies upon a costly infrastructure, not just at its source, but where it is received. Of course, while most of the people for whom I speak do not have Internet access, computers, or even electricity, those who do are often trapped under repressive government regimes whose censors track or control their citizens’ Internet usage, and sometimes use what they learn to control these individuals, to threaten them or worse. Shortwave radio, on the other hand? Radio, which requires most of its infrastructure at its source, has little regard for distance, and no regard for political borders, nor for who and how many join you to listen. This apparent information dinosaur travels at the speed of light, streams information wirelessly on affordable handheld devices (transistor radio, anyone?), is virtually immune to censorship, and leaves no tracks. ... Plus, shortwave radio represents the best option for basic emergency communications, far preferable to the vulnerable Internet."

The SWLing Post, 28 Apr 2012, Thomas Witherspoon: "[S]hould those of us who regularly use the internet ever experience a regional/national internet blackout or other potential communications disaster, shortwave radio would be a reliable communications medium of last resort. Broadcasters (like RCI) should not dispose of their broadcasting infrastructure during cuts."

The SWLing Post, 20 Apr 2012, Thomas Witherspoon: "To their credit, I’ve noticed that RCI programs (like The Link with Marc Montgomery) are continuing “business as usual.” I’ve noticed no degradation of their content or quality."

National Post, 23 Apr 2012, letter from A. Lawrence Healey: "The CBC fills me with guilt and pride: guilt, because, as with classical literature, I too often don’t make the effort necessary to mine the benefits of its enlightened programming; pride because it presents to the world, via Radio Canada International, just how truly blessed life can be here. I wish I could direct that 5% of the federal income tax I pay on my pension income go to support this international beacon of hope."

RCI Action Committee blog, 29 Apr 2012, note from Walt Salmaniw: "I vividly recall during my time serving with the Canadian military in Europe, in the 1980s, the whole barracks hovering around my small portable SW receiver, and listening to the Canadian federal election report via RCI. For the sake of a few dollars, RCI is going to be lost forever. Don’t let it happen."

RCI Action Committee blog, 29 Apr 2012: "Comment pouvez-vous mettre un stop à ces compressions de 80 % de Radio Canada International? Écrivez s’il vous plait au ministre canadien des Affaires extérieures, John Baird ainsi qu’au ministre des Finances, Jim Flaherty et au ministre de Patrimoine Canada."

See previous post about same subject.

Ahram Online, 24 Apr 2012: "The documentary film ½ Revolution co-directed by Karim El-Hakim and Omar Shargawi, won The Golden Award in the long category at the 8th Al Jazeera International Documentary Film Festival. ½ Revolution directed by the Danish/Palestinian Omar Shargawi and Egyptian/American Karim El-Hakim is a personal story about the filmmakers' involvement in the Egyptian revolution. The title was chosen to suggest that the revolution is not over yet and will be ongoing."

Wired, 26 Apr 2012, Susan Crawford: "Remember, Al Jazeera can topple authoritarian regimes but cannot get carried by Comcast (and is available in only five places in the U.S.). Why is that? Because Comcast and the other major cable distributors get to decide who wins and who loses, and under what terms. Negotiation isn’t a real option unless the programmer has power or is willing to share a big chunk of its revenues (or both). Now that same construct is coming to the online ecosystem."

"In countries where internet access is insufficient, can international broadcasters provide a special forum for many-to-many deliberation? International broadcasters have access via television and radio to many places where internet access is non-existent or where state controls limit dissent. Can they re-define new missions using non-traditional Internet technologies, such as mobile phones, in combination with the powers of broadcast to facilitate deliberation and information flows where they are currently poor? ...

"In November 2011, months after popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt and amidst ongoing political ferment in Bahrain and Syria, VOA launched the Middle East Voices (MEV) portal (middleeastvoices.com). Distinct from the U.S. government financed Middle East Broadcasting Network (MBN), the portal is exclusively online and its goals explicitly deliberative. ... Speaking to the unique need for state- supported projects in transitioning and repressive states, [MEV managing editor Davin] Hutchins (2012) argued: 'Our goal is our public diplomacy, which is different than the goal of The New York Times. We want to make sure that the exchange of ideas and ideals is taking place, despite challenging circumstances, where freedom of expression is lacking. We also want to make sure the ideas and ideals that are germinating in the public sphere are made public and accessible to English speaking audiences. These are not the goals of privately run news organizations, but our site and the VOA takes them seriously.'"

The goal of the audience, however, is to obtain the type of reliable and comprehensive news not available in their own countries, but available from independent outlets such as the the New York Times, if not from the Voice of America. If US international broadcasting conflates journalism and public diplomacy, the results will disappoint.

Yes, encourage audience, or "citizen," input, and use it if warranted, but do not let it become the tail that wags the dog. If US international broadcasting tries to become the latest popular social media app, it will find itself lost, forever, in the crowd.

The Economist, 25 Apr 2012: "For years North Korea has been threatening to turn Seoul into a bulbada (sea of fire). Those who live here are well accustomed to such bluster, and are mostly happy to ignore it. Perhaps because of this, Pyongyang is now trying out a new style of tough talk. The North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) ... is now naming individual targets. Predictably, South Korea’s president, Lee Myung-bak, with his habit of fussing Pyongyang with talk of regime change, makes the top of the list. But also in line for 'reduction to ashes in three or four minutes, by unprecedented unusual means' are some of the South’s main media outlets. This apparently includes the main national broadcasters, KBS, YTN, and MBC. In Seoul, they seem like strange choices: many of their reporters are currently on strike, on the grounds that the government has been interfering with their coverage."

Gizmodo, 26 Apr 2012, Sam Biddle: "What do you do when your rockets are broken, your nukes are just threats, and the whole world thinks you're a joke? Shout! Lots of shouting! ... In the woods! ... Kim Jong-un would also be wise to maybe take a few hundred bucks out of his Rockets That Don't Work program and divert them toward a used DSLR, so that his country's absurd propaganda flicks don't look like terrible late 80s VHS action movies."

Yonhap, 28 Apr 2012: "About 40 North Korean defectors launched balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang leaflets into the communist state Saturday, as the North has stepped up its saber-rattling against the South. The activists from the Fighters for Free North Korea group sent 10 large balloons carrying 200,000 leaflets, 1,000 one U.S. dollar bills, 300 DVDs and 200 booklets from Imjingak pavilion in the northern border city of Paju about 50 kilometers northwest of Seoul. The event was held as part of the North Korea Freedom Week 2012, set to continue in Seoul through Tuesday... ."

The National (Abu Dhabi), 16 Apr 2012, Ola Salem: "At an open discussion between five [UAE Federal National Council] members, media professionals and students yesterday, all agreed that the National Media Council (NMC) should be given further rights to supervise locally produced media content. ... AA, an Emirati TV producer, said that with more than 40 television channels and 300 newspapers and magazines in the country, 'the big question' was what the NMC was doing to supervise it all. 'Can we control international media coming out of the UAE, for example Sky News [Arabia], which will have Emirati presenters in [traditional clothes]? Can we control it 10 years from now?' he asked. Dr Aisha Al Nuaimi, a mass communication professor at UAE University, said control over the outlets had dissolved. 'The NMC needs to be the federal umbrella,' she said. Dr Al Nuaimi called for public-service television channels for Emiratis, along the lines of the BBC."

International Press Institute, 24 Apr 2012: "Ahmad Ibrahim, who heads the investigative unit of the Doha, Qatar-based Al Jazeera network, will take part in an IPI World Congress 2012 panel session titled, 'Going Beyond Borders: Covering Breaking News in Your Own Backyard and Making Sure Your Story Gets Out to the Rest of the World,' on Tuesday, June 26. Launched in June 2010, Al Jazeera’s investigative unit is 'dedicated to breaking significant hidden stories from around the world for output across all the Network’s channels, languages and platforms'. The unit produces its own investigations, but also commissions stories of varying lengths from external sources. Ibrahim, a British citizen of Syrian origin, also runs Al Jazeera Arabic’s Syria desk, and is responsible for the channel’s coverage of the Syrian revolution and its network of citizen journalists inside Syria."

Voice of Russia, 25 Apr 2012, Mikhail Aristov: "Muscovites can already see orange and black striped ribbons appearing on cars, posters and bags in the city streets – a sign that the St.George Ribbon public movement gathers momentum. Part of the campaign to mark the upcoming 67th anniversary of WWII victory, the St.George ribbon is especially popular among young people. ... The Voice of Russia has been taking part in the action since 2007. ‘We have already distributed orange-black ribbons among thousands of people from all across the globe,’ says Sofya Berezhkova, the Voice of Russia’s coordinator of the project. 'Many of our listeners sent us appreciation letters where they also remembered about the events related to the Second World War, Berezhkova says. As for the 2012 St. George Ribbon campaign, we have already sent orange-black ribbons to our listeners in the United States, Canada, Britain, Poland, Bulgaria and some Latin American countries.'"

Voice of Russia, 25 Apr 2012, Gorokhova Ekaterina: "The Voice of Russia World Services continues a series of programs dedicated to the bicentenary of Russia’s victory in the 1812 war against Napoleon."

Voice of Russia, 24-28 Apr 2012: Correspondence between International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and Voice of Russia regarding VOR's coverage.

Voice of Russia is successor to the old Radio Moscow.

Football Economy, 24 Apr 2012, WG: "Al Jazeera has decided not to bid for the Premier League television rights when the next auction starts in August for a three year period. Al Jazeera had been seriously considering such a move as part of its plans to build a global sports brand. The form of the packages to be offered has not yet been decided, but the Premier League had been hoping that Al Jazeera, backed by Qatar's gas and oil wealth, would go head-to-head with Sky. It now looks as if only BSkyB and ESPN will be involved in the main packages. A comment issued by Citigroup said: 'The bidding process will potentially have more twists and turns, making the process more complicated to analyse. In general, though, the direction of travel is favourable to BSkyB. The move to pan-European rights, if that happens, would raise the barriers to entry into the auction while reports of Al Jazeera's non-involvement, if confirmed, suggest the bidding process will stay rational.'"

Information Nigeria, 3 Apr 2012: "Almost a year after he introduced the transformation agenda, which implementation so far remains but unimpressive, there are strong indications that the Goodluck Jonathan administration is now set to do the right thing. ... The core elements of the new initiative as revealed to The Guardian are the overhaul of the country’s tertiary education system, scrapping or merging of agencies performing same or overlapping functions, and a significant cut down in budgetary allocation to current expenditure in favour of capital spending. ... [A government committee proposed] the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) and the Voice of Nigeria (VON) may come under the umbrella of Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) with a Director-General as it is with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC)."

The BBC, the Australia Broadcasting Corporation, and CNN domeonstrate that there are synergies to be enjoyed when domestic and international broadcasting are conducted by the same organization.

Shortwave listeners in the US, even as far west as the Pacific coast, are hearing and decoding VON's new DRM digital shortwave transmissions. According to other listeners, some days the DRM transmissions are not on the air at all. See previous post.

Indiantelevision.com, 25 Apr 2012: "Reliance Home Video and Games, a Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group company, has bagged the exclusive rights to market and distribute BBC Worldwide’s audio-visual library on home video in India, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan. BBC Worldwide, a wholly owned subsidiary of BBC, has a catalogue of around 50,000 hours of programming across all genres from drama and comedy to factual and formats. Programs like Sherlock (a contemporary adaptation of Sherlock Holmes that attracted 8.7 million viewers at its UK TV premiere and has become BBC One’s top drama of the year) and Frozen Planet (the Natural History program narrated by Sir David Attenborough that is the highest rating documentary in the UK since 2003 and the highest rating Natural History documentary for over 11 years) are some of the recent hit series from BBC. ... With this alliance, BBC fans in and around India would be able to enjoy acclaimed programs also on the Blu-ray format... ."

Update: Celebro Media Networks press release, 25 Apr 2012: "Celebro Media Networks have completed work on the major IPTV launch for BBC World Service and managed it through all stages of this project to deliver the BBC Russian IPTV service. As well as developing the programme format and training staff, Celebro Media Networks’ consultants implemented the technical infrastructure for live production and transmission. This is the first time BBC World Service produced content as an IPTV operation streaming it direct from London to Moscow via a high-speed Internet connection in broadcast quality without the costs of traditional TV transmission. ... Senior Consultant Wesley Dodd, the project’s launch director, was a guest speaker in the panel discussion on the Future of TV and New Services at the latest IPTV World Forum in London. Commenting on this pioneering BBC IPTV service, he envisaged that in the next few years many major international broadcasters will be moving towards launching more IPTV operations and live channels, especially in other languages. He said: 'The cost of traditional broadcasting is so great and it might not give you the benefits that you want today. You might actually get a much broader audience with IPTV - if there is a screen, you can get on it'. Wesley recognised that 'a lot of people think of IPTV channels as a catch-up or on-demand service', pointing to the IPTV model that is 'closer to traditional TV channels which are live and reactive'. He stressed that a major cost advantage with a full IPTV channel is that 'it allows you to spend more on content rather than infrastructure'."

Digital TV Europe, 20 Mar 2012: "The BBC has signed a carriage deal with Greek broadcaster ERT for its BBC World News channel. ERT will add BBC World News to its digital package, giving the channel a reach of 3.6 million Greek homes."

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Off Mic blog, 25 Apr 2012: "Armen Dilanian, a veteran of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Armenian Service, passed away on April 24 at the age of 56 in Glendale, California. Armen was one of the founders of RFE/RL's bureau in Yerevan in 1992, where he worked until he joined RFE/RL's headquarters in Munich, Germany in 1994. He was one of the first journalists in post-Soviet Armenia to report on the most vital political, social, and economic issues in his country. Between 1995 and 2006, Armen worked in RFE/RL's headquarters in Prague."

The Phnom Penh Post, 25 Apr 2012, Roth Meas: "Breaking the Silence, produced by the Phnom Penh-based arts organisation to encourage Cambodian people to speak up about their own experiences during the Khmer Rouge regime, toured through Rwanda from March 25 to April 14. ... Since its 2009 debut, Breaking The Silence has been performed in Phnom Penh and several Cambodian provinces. It was adapted into an audio play and broadcast by radio stations, including Voice of America (VOA), and has served as a media outreach tool to encourage conversation among Cambodians about a painful time in the Kingdom’s history."

AlertNet, 25 Apr 2012: "Australia should urge Vietnam to release all political prisoners and to end restrictions on the freedoms of expression, association, peaceful assembly, belief, and religion when the two sides meet for their annual bilateral human rights dialogue in Hanoi on April 26-27, 2012, Human Rights Watch said today in a 16-page memo submitted to Australia. ... Activists who write pro-democracy articles and anti-government commentaries and give interviews with foreign-based radio stations such as Radio Free Asia (RFA), Voice of America (VOA), and British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) are often held for 'conducting propaganda against the state.'"

The Nation, 23 Apr 2012, Greg Mitchell: "Bradley Manning, facing twenty counts, including 'aiding the enemy' (which potentially carries the death sentence), for allegedly leaking sensitive military and government documents to WikiLeaks, returns to Fort Meade tomorrow for the next hearing in his court-martial proceedings, leading to his trial, perhaps starting in August. ... The hearing for Manning on March 15–16 provided a glimpse of how prolonged the process could be before he finally receives the trial. ... There were very few media this time; perhaps twenty people in all. Major networks, beyond ABC, were again missing. Al Jazeera English had assigned a reporter."

Financial Times, 24 Apr 2012, Abeer Allam, via Zawya: "Hackers broke into the social media accounts of Al-Arabiya, the 24-hour Arab news channel, in what appeared to be the latest attack by a group of online vigilantes loyal to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. The online team, which calls itself the Syrian Electronic Army, has compromised the station's web properties in the past, and for many months has been waging a digital war against websites and online activists it sees as being behind an international plot to topple Mr Assad. Al-Arabiya's Facebook and Twitter pages began reporting false news late on Monday night, including reports that the powerful Qatari prime minister and foreign minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, had been 'relieved' of his posts and replaced by Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, the son of the Qatari ruler."

Huffington Post, 24 Apr 2012, Faisal J. Abbas: "Mazen Hayek, MBC Group's Official Spokesperson, tells The Huffington Post that last night's attacks weren't an isolated incident nor were they the work of amateurs as well. 'We were and still are subject to a cyber-war from governments and financially/technically well-equipped institutions' he says. According to Hayek, Al-Arabiya has had to constantly deal with matters such as transmission frequency jamming, a massive amount of targeted messages against a specific portal at one time (a.k.a 'e-bombs') and the hacking of social media outlets. 'We expect this cyber-war to continue simply because we produce credible and interesting News', says Hayek suggest that the perpetrators goal is to stop Al-Arabiya from uncovering wrongs, reflecting the truth and encouraging the proliferation of citizen journalism."

Al Arabiya, 24 Apr 2012: "Al Arabiya’s Al Hadath channel was also subjected to constant jamming while it was running reports about Assad’s leaked emails. The six-part coverage of Assad’s inbox was later re-run on Al Arabiya News Channel, which has also been repeatedly jammed since the start of the Syrian revolution and had its frequency changed several times."

Rapid TV News, 25 Apr 2012, Pascale Paoli-Lebailly: "Mobile devices application supplier Mobile Republic has inked a content deal with international news channel Euronews to enrich its free apps News Republic, APPY Geek and Biz Report with Euronews articles and videos. These will be offered in five languages: French, English, Spanish, German and Italian."

Mobiles Republic press release, 10 Apr 2012: "Mobiles Republic, a leading publisher of applications for smartphones, tablets and connected devices, today announces a content partnership with Al Jazeera English, one of the world's leading global news networks. Mobiles Republic's popular free news app, News Republic, will now feature full Al Jazeera English news articles and video content. ... News Republic delivers thousands of full articles each day from leading news sources, and allows users to create customized 'myNews' channels that filter this mass of information down to their exact topics of interest. They can then click on headlines to view complete articles -- not just RSS feeds -- all within the same window, without having to surf outside the app. Users can further research the stories that are most important to them by using the Word Cloud feature to bring up related articles, YouTube links and Wikipedia entries. Real-time alerts keep users completely in touch and up to speed when important news breaks on their favorite subjects. News Republic is available for all of the top mobile phone and tablet platforms, including iPad, Android Tablet, Blackberry, iPhone, Android Phone, Nokia, Samsung and Windows Phone, Windows 8 and Google TV at http://www.news-republic.com."

North Korea Tech, 25 Apr 2012, Martyn Williams: "Recent monitoring of North Korean radio transmissions does indicate the installation of a new radio transmitter on 11680kHz shortwave. Previously the broadcasts on 11680kHz, like some other North Korean domestic radio transmitters, wandered a little either side of their assigned frequency but they are now observed to be exactly on 11,680kHz. While the location of the transmitters might be a secret inside North Korea, that’s not quite the same outside of the country. Thanks to the satellite images on Google Maps and other mapping services, the location of most transmitters has already been found."

Fox News, 19 Apr 2012, Alex Liu: "Robert Westmore of Southern California designs websites for a living -- but he was shocked to learn that he had designed a new homepage for the reclusive North Korean regime. 'I had no idea,' he told FoxNews.com in an interview. 'Honestly, I didn't even know North Korea had a website.' While the notorious totalitarian government continues to spend hundreds of millions on failed rocket launches, North Korea skimps in other areas, notably web design. Indeed the country spent just $15 redesigning its national homepage, korea-dpr.com -- a fact accidentally discovered by an unsuspecting college student. Fordham junior Michael DiTanna was working on a class project about Korean propaganda when he noticed the country's "flashy" new redesign, which DiTanna estimates to be only a few months old. A computer science major, DiTanna quickly realized the site was based on Westmore's $15 Blender template."

Daily NK, 24 Apr 2012, Hwang Chang Hyun: "Open Radio for North Korea, North Korea Reform Radio, Free North Korea Radio and Radio Free Chosun have today joined together to form a new association of broadcasters whose purpose is to prompt change in North Korea. The four private radio broadcasters launched the Association of Broadcasters for North Korea (ABNK) at Seoul Press Center, announcing their intention to lead the way in pushing the North Korean authorities towards reform and opening by providing greater freedom of information for the ordinary North Korean people. According to the association’s founding declaration, 'As Kim Jong Il was dying and the 3rd generation succession was being launched, the North Korean people’s interest in outside information and desire for change was exploding. We have formed ABNK to embrace the thirst for truth and desire for change which is spreading in the North.'"

Update: The Star (Kuala Lumpur), 24 Apr 2012: "Telekom Malaysia Bhd (TM) and French news channel France 24 hopes to capture 2,000 French households living in the country to sign up for the newly launched pay channel on HyppTV. HyppTV is TM pay-television service that is available through TM’s high-speed broadband (HSBB) service UniFi. 'Our first-tier target is French expatriates in Malaysia. There are some 4,000 French people living in Malaysia currently. Second-tier target market would be the Malaysian public and lastly tourism but not limited to French but also Canadian, Belgians and Swiss,' France 24 Asia-Pacific distribution director Brice Bertrand said at the launch of the French news channel. ... Malaysia is the fourth country in Asia-Pacific to launch France 24 after Hong Kong, Singapore and New Zealand. ... He said only French news feeds would be available at the moment but would consider English feeds, going forward." -- Given that English is widely spoken in Malaysia, France 24 might want to consider adding the English feed with a bit more urgency.

Willis Conover Day, as proclaimed by Congress in 2009, is 25 April. It will be commemorated by events at VOA on 25 and 26 April.

Cold War Radios, 8 Mar 2012, Richard H. Cummings: "No disc jockey of Radio Free Europe or Radio Liberty gained the legendary status of Willis Conover, who daily hosted the music program 'Jazz Hour' for the Voice of America (VOA). ... That is not without trying of RFE and RL but for the jamming of the frequencies of both RFE and RL throughout most of the Cold War. That being said, both RFE and RL had popular music programs including jazz. ... Simon (Sim) Copans actually provided jazz program texts to Radio Free Europe's language services in Munich from October 1956 to June 1959. His program text 'Jazz from Paris' in English was then translated into the respective RFE languages for broadcasting."

See also YouTube, 24 Apr 2012, jimlaurie1, promotional video.

Radio Netherlands Worldwide, 20 Apr 2012: "Radio Netherlands Worldwide’s Editor-in-Chief Rik Rensen and his deputy, Ardi Bouwers, are to leave the organisation. They say they will not serve as part of the new slimmed-down RNW which is to become operational from 1 January 2013. ... Earlier this week, Rensen and Bouwers wrote to RNW’s board of commissioners, saying they had 'serious worries about the lack of vision and urgency' in turning RNW into a more flexible and market-orientated company. The board failed to answer the letter and this has lead to Rensen and Bouwers’ decision to leave RNW. ... They are most worried about the lack of explicit guarantees of journalistic independence, the tempo of building up the new organisation, and its eventual make-up. They also believe that issues including the development of new programme formats, the search for additional funds – besides government subsidies - and clinching contracts with media partners should now be addressed with urgency."

Radio Netherlands Worldwide, 22 Apr 2012: "Ben Bot, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Radio Netherlands Worldwide, has issued a statement in response to recent developments in the drastic restructuring of the organisation. ... In his statement, Mr Bot points out that the Netherlands’ international broadcaster is facing the most turbulent period in its 65-year history. The prospect of 70 percent budget cuts has prompted emotions and given rise to painful and difficult choices. ... After stating that the Supervisory Board, like the Works Council, wishes to distance itself from inaccurate reports, Mr Bot’s response concludes by emphasising that most of the staff at Radio Netherlands Worldwide are working hard to bring the organisation in its current form to a fitting end and to ensure that the new slimmed-down RNW gets off to a good start."

Tehran Times, 10 Apr 2012: "Iranian producer Mohammadreza Abbasian withdrew his movie 'School' from the 8th Al Jazeera International Documentary Film Festival, due to the silence of Al Jazeera news network against crimes committed by Al Khalifa regime in Bahrain. ... The movie depicts a school in Sarajevo that apparently looks peaceful with happy students all around. However, there are horrible stories of events that had happened to the teachers and school staff during the Bosnian war between 1992 and 1995. In a letter addressing director of the festival Abbas Arnaout, Abbasian wrote, 'The festival used to be an authentic place to present different ideas. It was the place where my movie "Qana" was awarded a gold medal in 2006. But the Al Jazeera news network has closed its eyes to these crimes.'"

Update: RFE/RL, Off Mic blog, 20 Apr 2012, Kristyna Dzmuranova: "A documentary movie produced by RFE/RL correspondent Zafer Karatay will compete this weekend at the eighth annual Al-Jazeera International Documentary Film Festival in Doha. The film, 'Cengiz Dagci,' explores the life of renowned Crimean Tatar novelist and poet Cengiz Dagci. Born in Crimea in 1910, Dagci grew up in a Tatar community that faced persecution and discrimination from both the Russian Empire and its successor, the Soviet Union. Drafted to fight for the Soviet Union in World War II, Dagci was captured and placed in a German labor camp. After the war, he settled in Great Britain. Though he never returned to his homeland, he told Karatay, 'There has been no day, no morning and no evening when I didn't remember my Crimea.' ... Karatay, who hosts a weekly radio show on Radio Azatliq, RFE/RL’s Tatar-language service, has worked with RFE/RL for more than 20 years. From his base in Ankara, Turkey, he frequently covers issues relevant to the Crimean Tatar diaspora living in Turkey, Romania and the United States."

Gulf Times, 20 Apr 2012, Ross Jackson: "The eighth Al Jazeera Documentary Film Festival opened last night with the promise of advancing the cause of human rights for the region. Sheikh Hamad bin Thamer al-Thani, chairman of the Board of Directors at Al Jazeera, in his opening address, ... stressed that Al Jazeera is and will remain the voice of the oppressed and will continue to provide a forum for artists and film-makers who fight for freedom, justice and equality." -- As commendable as it may be to be the "voice of the oppressed," there is probably more need in the Middle East for a "voice of independent, objective, balanced, credible journalism."

The Inquisitr, 19 Apr 2012, H. Scott English: "The Gulf of Mexico is filled with mutated wildlife. Clawless crabs, eyeless shrimp and scarred fish are popping up everywhere leaving scientists to question just how much damage was done by the BP Oil Spill. On April 20, 2010, an explosion aboard the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig killed 11 people and spewed an estimated 4.9 million barrels into the Gulf, in the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history. According to an extensive report by Al Jazeera English, scientists and environmentalists are claiming that the deformed sea life is probably the result of the oil released into the Gulf and the chemicals they used to try to clean it up."

NewsCore, 20 Apr 2012, via Adelaide Advertiser: "On April 20, 2010, an explosion aboard the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig killed 11 people and spewed an estimated 4.9 million barrels into the Gulf, in the worst offshore oil spill in US history. Two years later, scientists and commercial fishers alike are finding shrimp, crab and fish that they believe have been deformed by the chemicals unleashed in the spill, according to an extensive report by Al Jazeera English."

Atlantic Wire, 18 Apr 2012, Adam Clark Estes: "Down along the Gulf coast, the beaches look cleaner, the birds less tar-covered, but the longterm consequences of the BP oil spill are leaving their mark under the ocean's surface. Scientists continue to be shocked at what they're pulling up from the area around the Deepwater Horizon explosion that killed 11 and coated thousands of square miles of the Gulf of Mexico. It happened almost exactly two years ago, and as much good news as you read about the return of tourism and the spending of BP's money to help the recovery efforts, some major problems remain. We're most concerned about the eyeless shrimp. Scott Eustis from the Gulf Restoration Network recently showed Al Jazeera English's Dahr Jamail some of those shrimp. It's easy to see what's wrong with them: They have no eyes!"

Talk Nation Radio, 18 Apr 2012, David Swanson: "Dahr Jamail has covered the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico for two years. He reports on massive environmental and economic damage and on oil continuing to enter these damaged waters. Jamail is based in Doha, Qatar working as an Online News Producer for Al Jazeera English."

Al Jazeera English, 20 Apr 2012, Dahr Jamail: "'The fishermen have never seen anything like this,' Dr Jim Cowan told Al Jazeera. 'And in my 20 years working on red snapper, looking at somewhere between 20 and 30,000 fish, I've never seen anything like this either.' Dr Cowan, with Louisiana State University's Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences started hearing about fish with sores and lesions from fishermen in November 2010. Cowan's findings replicate those of others living along vast areas of the Gulf Coast that have been impacted by BP's oil and dispersants. Gulf of Mexico fishermen, scientists and seafood processors have told Al Jazeera they are finding disturbing numbers of mutated shrimp, crab and fish that they believe are deformed by chemicals released during BP's 2010 oil disaster. Along with collapsing fisheries, signs of malignant impact on the regional ecosystem are ominous: horribly mutated shrimp, fish with oozing sores, underdeveloped blue crabs lacking claws, eyeless crabs and shrimp - and interviewees' fingers point towards BP's oil pollution disaster as being the cause."

Al Jazeera, Inside Story Americas, 20 Apr 2012: "Al Jazeera has returned to the region to investigate the impact of the worst man-made environmental disaster in US history. Gulf oil drillers are having their busiest year since 2010, but fishermen say their businesses are still suffering and scientists report seeing a disturbing amount of mutated sea life."

Orlando Sentinel, 17 Feb 2012, William Gibson: "House Republicans, including seven from Florida, voted late Thursday to end the ban on drilling along Florida’s west coast. ... The bill, which passed by 237 to 187, serves mostly to demonstrate opposition to Obama’s policy of limiting offshore drilling, especially in environmentally sensitive areas like the west coast of Florida. The issue likely will play out in this year’s elections."

Variety, 12 Apr 2012, Jon Weisman, via Chicago Tribune: "Former 'Doctor Who' star David Tennant has taken a leading role in miniseries 'The Spies of Warsaw,' which BBC America will co-produce and air. Janet Montgomery ('Entourage') will co-star in the adaptation of the Alan Furst novel, set in the years leading up to World War II, by scribes Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais. Production on the four episodes begins in May in Poland. BBC America is co-producing with Apple Film for TV Poland in association with Arte France and BBC Worldwide."

Christian Science Monitor, 18 Apr 2012, Dan Murphy: "Julian Assange's new talk show debuted yesterday on the Kremlin satellite channel Russia Today with a whale of a 'get:' Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Lebanon's politically and militarily dominant Hezbollah. ... [Assange's] own avowed disdain for propaganda and branding of himself as a tireless seeker of the truth makes the station he's tied up with all the more interesting. RT is a Kremlin propaganda channel, and its reporting on the Middle East (the area of its coverage I'm most familiar with) isn't merely slanted by the interests of the Russian government. It's often outrageously biased to the point of making things up out of whole cloth. For instance, a string of reports by the station from Tripoli, Libya in July and August of last year made obviously false claims about advances for Muammar Qaddafi's army. ... Assange told RT, describing what he said would be the line of attack against him. ' ... RT is a voice of Russia, so it looks at things from the Russian agenda. The BBC is a voice of the British government. Voice of America is a voice of the American government. It is the clashing of these voices together that reveals the truth about the world as a whole.' No. The BBC, which has many flaws, has an independent board. The Voice of America, far more directly an arm of the US government than the BBC is for the UK, aint perfect, but has demonstrated far more faithfulness to basic facts over the years than RT. These things are simply not equivalent, nor is the Russian state analogous to the democracies of the UK and US, their warts aside."

Huffington Post, 19 Apr 2012, Liam McLaughlin: "Assange's demeanor was difficult to sympathise with as he played the anti-American role - treating the USA unquestioningly as the Great Evil. Clearly such lazy bias is not necessarily helpful to a journalist, and that it just so happens to fall into line with the Russian stance is rather suspicious considering Russian state TV is funding and broadcasting the show. Suffice to say, it will be hard to defend Assange from claims that he is yet another apparently left-wing apologist for Russia's oppressive and absolutist regime. In this sense it is tough to see the programme as serious or impartial journalism. ... If you follow the recent ignorant line of argument for a pre-emptive strike on Iran, it is clear that the western media does not understand those it demonises, and does not want to. The 'other' is rarely given a voice, and as a result is entrenched in the minds of westerners as a group of faceless barbarians. At least Assange, through Russia Today, is giving those people a voice, albeit one that should be treated with caution."

MEMRI, 18 Apr 2012: "Julian Assange: 'The U.S. bans the broadcasting of Al-Manar TV in America, even though it professes to be a bastion of freedom of speech. Do you think that the U.S. administration is really so scared of Al-Manar?' Hassan Nasrallah: 'They want to tell people that Hizbullah is a terrorist organization, which kills and so on, but they do not allow people to listen to us. In a fair trial, they should at least give the accused an opportunity to defend himself.'" See previous post about Julian Assange on RT.

The Morning Call (Allentown, PA), 20 Apr 2012, Jerry Hirsch: "In one of the more bizarre instances of auto advertising, a YouTube video that shows an elderly Florida woman crashing her 2004 Toyota Camry through a Publix supermarket, injuring 10 people, is sponsored by Toyota. The video of Saturday's incident was posted earlier this week by Russia Today."

NewsWithViews.com, 21 Apr 2012, Cliff Kincaid: "In the U.S., RT is carried by such giant media companies as Comcast and DISH Networks. But in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, the channel is not carried with disclaimers identifying the material as foreign propaganda. Holder’s Justice Department is refusing to enforce the law."

Esquire, 18 Apr 2012, Charles P. Pierce: "He was the true Voice of America, as far as I'm concerned."

Dallas Observer, 19 Apr 2012, Andy Odom: "Despite his Southern drawl, he was very much a voice of America."

Poughkeepsie Journal, 19 Apr 2012, John W. Barry, quoting Jimmy Vivino: "The voice of America is silent only till we play his music....there's plenty out there to hear."

And you can drink to the memory of Levon Helm at....

Cincinnati.com, 19 Apr 2012, Rasputin Todd: "Wine Tasting, 7-9 p.m. Thursday, Anthony’s Cigar Bar and Grille, 7641 Voice of America Centre Drive, West Chester Township. Ages 21 and up. Benefits First Book Greater Cincinnati. $20." -- Voice of America Centre is named for the nearby site of the former VOA Bethany shortwave transmitting station.

RadioActivity, 21 Apr 2012, Alokesh Gupta: "New DRM receiver from CDNSE, Newstar DR111 was tested in Delhi, here's a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOZ38emzPgg (Thanks to Shakti Verma for sharing the video)."

DRM Consortium press release, 19 Apr 2012: "The DRM Consortium used its stronger than ever presence at NAB 2012 to showcase a new DRM receiver and to update participants on the developments and potential of the DRM standard, now fully recommended by ITU for both AM (DRM30) and VHF (DRM+). ... At the Continental-Transradio event on April 16th participants saw and tested the new DR111 receiver. They also learned more about DRM30 and how highly efficient and economical it is as it can deliver up to 80% energy savings."

Committee for US International Broadcasting press release, 21 Apr 2012: "The Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting (CUSIB) has been vindicated by the action of Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) who approved a plan to restore funding in the FY 2013 budget request that the BBG proposed to cut earlier this year for U.S. international broadcasting to China and Tibet. CUSIB applauds efforts by its members to bring this important issue to the attention of the American public. We are also deeply grateful to Mrs. Annette Lantos, a Holocaust survivor and human rights campaigner, who made a powerful plea to the Broadcasting Board of Governors in defense of Voice of America programs to China, Tibet, and Russia. CUSIB also thanks its Advisory Board members Reggie Littlejohn, founder and president of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, and Jing Zhang, founder and president of Women’s Rights in China, for their efforts to show how VOA and Radio Free Asia (RFA) radio and television broadcasts help women in China who are victims of human rights abuses."

CUSIB is justified in taking credit for the preservation of the VOA Mandarin and Tibetan radio services. Its efforts seem to have brought pressure on the BBG to delay its previous decision about broadcasting to China and Tibet.

The Board has "asked that key senior staff form a working group to devise a holistic solution for reaching audiences throughout China, including Tibet." They haven't asked for this already? In any case, I, as non-key junior staff, formed a working group of one, mostly working on the Metro during my commute home, resulting in this holistic strategy for US broadcasting to China, published in May 2011 by the Public Diplomacy Council.

Washington Post, 20 Apr 2012, Erik Wemple blog: "In an interview Thursday night, Locker said that the campaign was 'something I’ve never experienced in 30 years' in this business. The sites launched in the names of the USA Today colleagues, suggests Locker, were insidious samples of infocrafting. They contained links to work that the journalists had done, plus a space for comments on the stories. In that space, says Locker, there were 'nasty, untrue' remarks from commenters who didn’t appear to be real people. Like an actual news site, in other words."

Aviation News Today, 19 Apr 2012: "Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport officials announced a concessions rollout schedule for the Maynard H. Jackson Jr. International Terminal and its 12-gate concourse, set to open May 16. ... Shopping choices set for opening day [include] two CNN International News locations and two duty-free stores." -- I think these are CNN Café's, selling coffee and snacks, and allowing customers to watch CNN (or CNN International) on a big screen. See previous post and cnn-cafe.com.

CNN, Security Clearance blog, 18 Apr 2012: "Pakistan's Foreign Minister told CNN International's Christiane Amanpour that her government had 'no complicity' in the hiding of Osama bin Laden."

CNN Press Room, 17 Apr 2012: "On Tuesday, April 17, U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) spoke with CNN's Christiane Amanpour in a live interview about the broken ceasefire in Syria."

The National (Abu Dhabi), 18 Apr 2012, Rick Arthur: "Hala Gorani, 42, is a prize-winning anchor and correspondent for CNN International and is based at the network's headquarters in Atlanta. Born to Syrian parents in Seattle and raised in Paris, she has reported from every country in the Middle East. She speaks English, French and Arabic."

CNN en Español Facebook page, 20 Apr 2012: "Con nuestro seguidor Wellington Farid Sanchez Reyes, llegamos al millón de 'likes' en nuestra página de Facebook. Muchas gracias de parte de todo el equipo de CNN en Español por todos estos 'me gusta' a lo largo de estos últimos años y los que vendrán." With video.

New York Times, 18 Apr 2012, Alex Hawgood: New York City DJ Jazmin Venus Soto "frequently peppers sound clips from the Al Jazeera news network, audio from the riots in Egypt and sound pings from submarines into her sets. 'I’m going to play Al Jazeera in the club, and you’re going to like it,' she said."

Remember that 1) Australians abroad are not the target audience for Australia Network and 2) there is usually repetition on international channels, because most people don't stay tuned in for very long.

Ms. Sloan is correct about the uncertainty of the "real purpose" of Australia Network. If it is "soft diplomacy" -- a dreadful term, and one that is not compatible with journalism -- then Australia would be better off purchasing 60-second spots on popular television channels in the region, to promote trade, tourism, investment, and to put across policy objectives. If it is to provide a window on Australia with a cross-section of Australian television programming, self-funding through advertising (the BBC Worldwide model) and/or pay-TV arrangements would force the channel to find ways to attract an audience. If it is to provide a news alternative for Asia, this would require a formidable investment of money and talent. Here, Australia might want to enlist a coalition consisting of the public broadcasters of New Zealand, Canada, Australia, South Africa, and perhaps also the Netherlands and other European countries where English is widely spoken.

Crikey, 17 Apr 2012, David Salter: "Sloan stumbled into laughable error by declaring that 'Sky News Australia is widely available in Asia and this would surely be the preferred outlet'. No, it’s not. What the undiscerning Sloan was watching was Sky News UK — the local version of Sky News isn’t available in Asia."

Update: The Interpretor (Lowy Institute for International Policy), 18 Apr 2012, Alex Oliver: "Axing [Australia Network] would be drastic, and would cut off one of Australia's principal means of projecting its image, strengths and values to the world. It would also deprive the region of a valuable source of independent news and current affairs, with ABC's corps of correspondents in Asia (26 journalists in five Asian bureaux and 55 in the Asia Pacific News Centre) far outstripping that of the BBC, CNN, Sky and Al Jazeera. Given the erratic government treatment of both Radio Australia and Australia Network over their chequered histories, it is miraculous they have any audiences at all. But they do, and they are significant: Australia Network reaches over 31 million and ranks higher than Al Jazeera English and Korea's Arirang in a major nine-city survey across Asia. It remains either the most-watched or second-most watched international broadcaster in Pacific Island markets." -- How does the viewer know where the projecting image ends and the independent news begins?

The Australian, 19 Apr 2012, Christian Kerr: "The government is still determining the future direction of the Australia Network, nearly four months after it controversially shut down a $223 million tender and handed responsibility for the soft diplomacy broadcasting service to the ABC. ... 'These matters remain under consideration by government.'"

The Atlantic, 15 Apr 2012, Max Fisher: "After the disastrous famine of the mid-1990s, Kim Jong Il opened the border with China ever-so-slightly, turning a blind eye to the informal network of traders who brought in food and basic necessities. But the merchants started bringing in something more dangerous: Chinese transistor radios. State security, immediately seeing the existential threat that Chinese news reports or Radio Free Asia could post, imposed a sentence of 10 years hard labor for anyone caught listening, and began jamming the signals. It was another victory for the Hermit Kingdom, but keeping up with technology is getting much tougher. A few years ago, the traders began carrying video CDs (DVDs are too expensive) of South Korean soap operas and Hollywood films. These pirated videos could pose more of a threat to the North Korean system than a half-dozen American presidents, and the Kim regime seems to know it. They portray an outside world of freedom and prosperity that, in a couple of short hours, undo a lifetime of studied propaganda and meticulously enforced isolation. Security forced have responded by routinely cutting power to entire apartment blocks, raiding every living room and bedroom to see what discs are stuck inside the players. Anyone caught with a contraband video CD is arrested. But it's a losing battle."

The Economist, 21 Apr 2012, leader: "In labour camps across its remote northern reaches, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea detains an estimated 150,000-200,000 political prisoners. ... The gulag’s captives are not told of their crimes, though torture usually produces a 'confession' — which might admit to defacing an image of the 'Great Leader' or listening to a foreign broadcast."

CNN, Security Clearance blog, 17 Apr 2012, Larry Shaughnessy: "'It is extremely surprising that North Korea admitted to its populace that [its rocket launch] was a failure. In times past they claimed it was a success even when the satellites went into the Pacific Ocean,' said Bruce Klingner, senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at The Heritage Foundation. 'I think it's likely that there was a realization by the regime that more information is getting in and out of North Korea than in times past.' [Scott Snyder, senior fellow for Korea Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations] agreed that the regime's iron-tight grip on information flowing into the country is getting rusty. 'I think that it is an implicit admission of that, yes. Very much so,' Snyder said. 'Surveys of North Korean refugees show an increased information flow into North Korea.' A U.S. official told Security Clearance that some North Koreans are able to get some access to outside information. 'It is harder for North Korea to control all outside news, or prevent some of its people from leaving if they are determined to do so.' ... As for the weapon of propaganda, neither Snyder nor Klingner thinks there's suddenly a flood of information getting into North Korea, but perhaps what used to be a drip is now a steady trickle. And it comes from a variety of sources. ... In spite of the spread of 21st century technology, Snyder said he believes it's an ancient form of information sharing that matters most. 'The dominant way that information comes in is by word of mouth, that essentially means somebody coming in from China telling rumors of the latest news probably at the marketplace.' The United States does have a Korean language version of Radio Free Asia that it uses to try to get accurate information inside the nation, but that's not very effective when the electricity for most citizens works only two hours a day." -- But many of the radios used by North Koreans who do listen to international broadcasts are battery powered. See previous post about same subject.

The Korea Times, 17 Apr 2012, Kim Jung-yoon: "Ha Tae-kyung, a North Korean human rights activist-turned-lawmaker said Thursday that he will seek to cooperate with Chinese officials in an attempt to improve the North’s human rights situation. 'Meeting with Chinese officials one-on-one to discuss the issue will be one of the key issues,' said Ha during an interview with The Korea Times, shortly after winning a parliamentary seat last week. The head of Open Radio for North Korea earned his doctorate degree in China while working as a human rights activist for North Koreans. Ha said his experiences and background will help him open a new channel with Beijing. ... Ha won a parliamentary seat in the Gijjang-B constituency of the southeastern port city of Busan on the ruling Saenuri Party ticket. ... Ha will shortly resign as the head of Open Radio for North Korea, leaving the broadcasting work to other activists."

RCI Action Committee, 19 Apr 2012: "Yesterday at noon in Montreal, a common front of unions representing on air production staff, producers, technicians, administrative staff at our national radio and television public broadcaster CBC/Radio-Canada convened a meeting of hundreds of employees. The impact of the cuts on public broadcasting in Canada were discussed, and the near elimination of RCI was raised numerous times. The unions are working together to come up with a common strategy to fight the cuts. Almost all of 60 plus RCI staff attended the meeting." See also Syndicat des communications de Radio-Canada, 18 Apr 2012.

Montreal Mirror, 19 Apr 2012: "With the federal Conservatives hacking away at everything in sight, Radio Canada International, the CBC’s international service, will lose 80 per cent of its $12.3-million budget, effectively killing it as a shortwave and satellite radio broadcaster. It will keep some sort of web presence, though it’s still unclear what it will look like. RCI was never nearly as big as some other international broadcasters, but it did have a solid reputation, and put Canada’s best face forward. With Internet access still far from universal, it’s doubtful the new website will get a whole bunch of hits. So the world is losing a bit of Canada, which is a shame. China Radio International, meanwhile, has been busy buying up all the frequencies it can."

Calgary Herald, 12 Apr 2012, Anne Sutherland: "'Yes, we did have to make some choices,' [James Moore, the federal minister of Canadian heritage] said when faced with questions about the recent budget cuts to the CBC and Radio Canada International, and the closing of National Film Board screening centres in Montreal and Toronto. ... As for RCI, Moore said that losses in ad revenue at CBC meant that choices had to be made internally on how to best manage challenging times."

See previous post about same subject.

The National (Abu Dhabi), 19 Apr 2012, Ben Flanagan: Sky News Arabia presenter "Alma Intabli ... is from the Syrian port town of Latakia. Not that she can let this show. Ms Intabli, 28, is quick to underline the neutrality required of TV-news presenters. 'At the end of the day, I'm a journalist, and I'm a presenter. So I have to be balanced,' she says. 'If I'm anti-regime, or pro-regime, I must not show anything. It's kind of difficult to control yourself. But at the end of the day, we are used to this, and this is our job.' ... Yasser Thabet, the head of output at Sky News Arabia, ... is from Egypt. He has lived in the UAE for five years, and worked on all four rival Arabic-language news stations - Al Arabiya, Al Jazeera, BBC Arabic and the US-funded Alhurra. One of the things he does is to ensure that questions asked by presenters are kept short - as part of his policy of 'no boredom'."

Arabian Business, 15 Apr 2012, Ed Attwood: Rupert Murdoch's "direct link to Sky News Arabia comes through NewsCorp’s controlling stake in BSkyB – one half of the channel’s 50:50 joint backers. Although Sky News Arabia has been at pains to distance itself from NewsCorp – as our interview with channel chief Nart Bouran overleaf shows – it remains to be seen whether its close connections, real or perceived, with Murdoch will hinder the brand."

See previous post about same subject.

San Diego Union-Tribune, 17 Apr 2012, Peter Rowe: "Ruth Spear faced a simple choice Tuesday afternoon. She could catch a 90-minute snooze before her all-night flight home to London. Or she could skip sleep and stand outside the Manchester Grand Hyatt, hoping to glimpse the Dalai Lama. Napping never stood a chance. 'When I heard who it was these people were waiting for,' said Spear, a British Airways flight attendant, 'I had to stay. He’s a peacemaker — and these days, any peacemaker deserves applause.' Her sleepless vigil was rewarded less than an hour later. Around 4 p.m., a black Cadillac sedan parked outside the Hyatt, dropping off a team of U.S. State Department security agents and a slight, bespectacled man wearing his customary saffron and maroon robes. As a team from the Voice of America’s Tibetan service recorded the scene, applause and cheers erupted from the 100 people waiting behind a rope barrier. Dozens offered him bright spring bouquets."

Does VOA get to use RFA's video? Does RFA get to use VOA's video?

European Parliament news release, 18 Apr 2012: "The EU should have rules for monitoring internet censorship by autocratic regimes, says a resolution, approved on Wednesday on the annual human rights report for 2010. Parliament wants these new rules to strengthen the accountability of EU-based companies that export tools that can be used to block websites and monitor mobile communications."

Ars Technica, 18 Apr 2012, Cyrus Farivar: "Iran appears to have recently published a Persian-language 'Request for Information' (RFI) for an even-more filtered and monitored version of the Internet than what presently exists in the Islamic Republic. The RFI calls for 'proper conditions for domestic experts in order to build a healthy Web and organize the current filtering situation,' and lists a deadline of April 19, 2012. The document, which was discovered on Monday by a Washington, DC-based Internet surveillance researcher, was posted to the website of the Research Institute for ICT in Tehran. The institute describes itself in English as the 'mother consultant to the Ministry of ICT.' The document appears to be the latest step in what Iranian government officials have previously called the 'halal Internet.' The government has not yet explained precisely what they mean, nor what its technical capabilities are, nor when it would launch. ... Collin Anderson, the researcher who found the document, said this RFI shows an unexpected shortcoming of the Iranian government to capitalize on its own domestic ability and recent deals with Chinese telecom companies such as Huawei and ZTE." With links to documents and sources.

AP, 16 Apr 2012, Ali Akbar Dareini and Brian Murphy: "Experts in Internet technology question whether Iran will try to create a completely closed Web universe – which is possible but exceedingly complicated – or simply take cues from China's 'Great Firewall' policies that tightly control the Web and cut links at any signs of politically uncomfortable chatter or postings."

See previous post about same subject.

New York Times, 17 Apr 2012, Alessandra Stanley: "[T]here is something almost atavistic about the outlet he chose. RT, first known as Russia Today, is an English-language news network created by the Russian leader Vladimir V. Putin in 2005 to promote the Kremlin line abroad. (It also broadcasts in Spanish and Arabic.) It’s like the Voice of America, only with more money and a zesty anti-American slant. ... Basically, it’s an improbable platform for a man who poses as a radical left-wing whistleblower and free-speech frondeur battling the superpowers that be. ... Mr. Assange said he would be able to attract hard-to-get guests because 'they are not dealing with a standard interviewer, they are dealing with someone who is under house arrest.' In his first foray as a talk show host, however, Mr. Assange did everything he could to minimize his prisonlike isolation and behaved surprisingly like a standard network interviewer.'"

The Independent, 17 Apr 2012, Jerome Taylor: "With Mr Nasrallah, the soft-spoken Australian was largely deferential, asking just one question on Hizballah's firing of rockets into northern Israel, questioning him on his childhood memories and even sharing a joke about computer encryption. But there moments when Mr Assange showed some flair for asking tough questions. 'Why have you supported the Arab Spring in Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt, and other countries but not in Syria,' he asked the leader of Hizballah, whose closeness to the Syrian regime is well known and has placed the militant group in a difficult position given the popularity of the Arab uprisings."

The Power Index, 18 Apr 2012: "The program, based on a Skype conversation, was made to look natural -- with a makeshift studio, Assange's creased and casual collared shirt, sporadically placed notes and empty coffee cups -- but it was anything but. ... He asked questions that were obviously pre-prepared and sounded as if they'd also been pre-approved (or at least pre-provided to Nasrallah). He did not fire back at Nasrallah's responses." With video.

The Guardian, 17 Apr 2012, Luke Harding: "Assange's debut interview wasn't quite the incendiary event that Russia Today had promised. The questions were clearly agreed in advance. Some were softball, others fawning, with Nasrallah's answers unchallenged."

Business Insider, 17 Apr 2012, Adam Taylor: "While watching Julian Assange's new Russia Today talk show, 'The World Tomorrow', is not going to convince anyone that the embattled Wikileak's founder isn't a megalomaniac, we have to say we were pleasantly surprised by the relatively tasteful show."

New York Daily News, 17 Apr 2012, Ethan Sacks: "Don't quit your day job."

Forbes, 18 Apr 2012, Mark Adomanis: "I think it’s extremely telling that most of the criticism of Assange been about things that he should do or could do, not about things that he actually has done. This doesn’t make him a saint, nor does it make him immune to criticism, but it does mean we should try to engage with the material that he actually produces, which hardly seems like a radical proposition."

Salon, 18 Apr 2012, Glenn Greenwald: "There is apparently a rule that says it’s perfectly OK for a journalist to work for a media outlet owned and controlled by a weapons manufacturer (GE/NBC/MSNBC), or by the U.S. and British governments (BBC/Stars & Stripes/Voice of America), or by Rupert Murdoch and Saudi Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal (Wall St. Journal/Fox News), or by a banking corporation with long-standing ties to right-wing governments (Politico), or by for-profit corporations whose profits depend upon staying in the good graces of the U.S. government (Kaplan/The Washington Post), or by loyalists to one of the two major political parties (National Review/TPM/countless others), but it’s an intrinsic violation of journalistic integrity to work for a media outlet owned by the Russian government. Where did that rule come from? ... The real cause of American media hostility toward RT is the same as what causes it to hate Assange: the reporting it does reflects poorly on the U.S. Government, the ultimate sin in the eyes of our 'adversarial' press corps. A bitter little rant about RT and Assange today in The Guardian from Luke Harding ... unveils the real reason for the hostility toward that network. On RT, Harding frets, 'The west, and America in particular, is depicted as crime-ridden, failing, and in thrall to big business and evil elites.' Oh, perish the thought."

Forbes, 17 Apr 2012, Tom Watson: "There can be little doubt, meanwhile, that despite the somewhat numbing format of the show RT believes it has a new star to build upon. Assange is all over the network’s website, social feeds, and blog and the network is openly bragging about the 'media storm' Assange fomented with his first guest."

RT, 19 Apr 2012: "While the general public expressed their interest in what Nasrallah had to say in his first interview since 2006, the media pounced on Assange accusing him of… Actually Assange beat them to the punch, saying it all before the show was even launched."

See previous post about same subject.

Update: Los Angeles Times, 17 Apr 2012, Yvonne Villarreal: "The folks of 'Shahs of Sunset' have a reason to break out the expensive champagne and all the diamond water in Asa's fridge (rather than unleashing G.G.'s knife collection): Bravo has decided to bring the show back for a second season. ... Not that there was much doubt that the Ryan Seacrest-produced show would return. Though it drew some criticism for its portrayal of Iranian Americans, the show debuted to 1.1 million viewers, besting Bravo veteran 'Bethenny Ever After.' And its finale, which aired Sunday, was the highest-rated episode of the season with more than 1.5 million viewers (a million of which were in the advertiser-coveted 18-49 demo)."

Huffington Post, 18 Apr 2012, Charlotte Safavi: On the season finale of Shahs of Sunset, "Homa Sarshar -- a distinguished Iranian-American media maven -- even made a somewhat surprising and rather lengthy guest appearance, throwing an art-show/coming-out party for Asa at her own personal residence. A month earlier, Ms. Sarshar had condoned [sic] the show on Voice of America Persian. Surely this is the equivalent of Barbara Walters doing a segment on and then showing up for drinks on the Jersey Shore." -- Instead of "condoned," I think she meant to write "condemned."

See previous post about same subject.

Iranian.com, 13 Apr 2012, Nizam Missaghi: "This morning, an Iranian-based website entitled 'Young Journalists Club' [introduced] a UK based website named ManoTo ('You and I') and notes that the efforts of its editors, who are directly financed by the 'Royal Elements,' are to work under the guise of promoting culture and social values. The 'Young Journalists Club' alleges that it has uncovered the true intentions of this UK based site, which is to promote 'Zionist, Bahai, and anti-Iranian' propaganda."

Jerusalem Post, 16 Apr 2012, Fathiyeh Naghibzadeh and Andreas Benl: "A Facebook campaign called 'Israel Loves Iran' has drawn huge attention globally. Ronny Edry, a graphic designer from Tel Aviv, wrote that the message is simple: 'Iranians. We love you. We will never bomb your country.' Prominent Western state-sponsored Persian-language media outlets like BBC, Voice of America, Radio Liberty/Radio Farda have promoted the initiative with extensive coverage."

Iranian.com, 26 Mar 2012, Yara: "I watched most of the Norooz specials BBC Persian, Manoto TV and VOA Persian broadcasted immediately before and after the start of the Persian New Year. The BBC had a very well-planned program, filled with live performances by new and old Iranian and Tajik artists and interesting recorded bits of video containing Norooz messages and themes. ... Manoto TV’s consistent advance toward capturing the hearts and the ratings of Farsi-speaking audiences worldwide continued this Norooz with their well-planned and very well-executed specials such as a nostalgic concert that brought back the Turkish singer, Emel Sayin for a rare performance of Farsi songs with Anooshirvan Rohani. ... The worst Norooz programming came from Voice of America’s Persian service, where despite much promotion by the station’s Shabahang program on the nights leading to the show, 12 hours of very poorly planned and unprofessional musical performances by mostly unknown artists was a major disappointment. ... It appears that today BBC Persian has not only excelled in its news and analysis programming, it continues to recognize the rhythm and interests of the Iranian audiences better than any other Farsi-speaking medium."

The Guardian, 15 Apr 2012, Tania Branigan: "International attention tends to focus on the Great Firewall, which stops Chinese citizens from reading sensitive content overseas, and constraints put on familiar western brands – the blocking of social media services such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, or the Chinese government's clash with Google, which saw the internet giant relocate search services to Hong Kong rather than continue to censor results. But the world's largest internet population is far more interested in what happens on domestic sites – and particularly the 'weibo' or microblog services, which boast about 300 million registered users. Microblogs, particularly Sina's Weibo, are where the clash of political controls, commercial interests and the urge of millions to share their thoughts on official scandals, or just last night's TV, play out."

The Guardian, 16 Apr 2012: "The OpenNet Initiative has analysed government interference with the internet in 74 countries. The level of tampering in four categories is graded out of four in each country. See how each country is ranked... ." With interactive map.

The Guardian, 15 Apr 2012, Oliver Burkeman: "America's role in the open internet's future may just be starting to get interesting. If the promise of neutrality is not kept – if the policy is used instead only to further narrow US interests – then it could alienate pro-democracy activists and harm US credibility abroad. On the other hand, if the promise is kept, it could unleash forces of openness too great for any nation to control, and with no guarantee that movements thus empowered will be friendly to America."

DFW.com, 1 Mar 2012, Cary Darling: "[E]ven by the standards of romantic musical fantasy, there are times -- as when saxophone neophyte Mels becomes a virtuoso after listening to a few scratchy Voice of America broadcasts -- that strain credibility."

J.B. Spins, 20 Feb 2012, J.B.: "Hipsters’ music is definitely jazz, but it leans toward jumpier big band arrangements, which are a lot of fun and work well in the film’s context. It also makes no bones about jazz’s American origin, clearly associating it with notions of freedom. Even one of [Willis] Conover’s fondly remembered VOA broadcasts is heard briefly."

See schedule of remaining opening dates. See previous post about same subject.

Tehran Times, 14 Apr 2012: "The head of Al Jazeera news network office in Tehran resigns in protest against the participation of the network in a project devised by the United States, Israel, and Saudi Arabia against the resistance movement. He had previously warned that he would tender his resignation, if the policies of Al Jazeera toward the issue of resistance movement changed, the Persian service of the Fars News Agency reported on Saturday."

Al Jazeera English, 13 Apr 2012, Imran Khan: "Recently revealed American security files show that if a cafe had a television screening Al Jazeera, then it was worthy of further investigation."

Press TV, 17 Apr 2012: "In a report not confirmed by independent sources, Al-Arabiya alleged that a number of high-ranking military officers have risen against the regime of Qatari King Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani. According to the Saudi news channel, the coup was foiled following the arrest of the officers involved in the effort, and American helicopters transferred the Qatari Emir and his wife to an unknown location. The Al-Arabiya report was however removed from the channel’s website after the story was published. Press TV contacted Al-Arabiya and Qatari-owned Al-Jazeera for comment, but did not receive a clear response. There is speculation that Al Arabiya might have mistakenly reported the news of a similar coup attempt in 2011. Coups are not uncommon in Qatar. The Qatari Emir came to power in 1995 after staging a coup against his own father."

Fars News Agency (Tehran), 17 Apr 2012: "Qatar is experiencing critical conditions after it was the scene of a coup attempt against Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, sources close to the country's royal family revealed on Tuesday. Informed sources close to the royal family in Qatar told FNA that a failed coup d'état has happened in Qatar but the Qatari officials have sought hard to keep it away from the media and the public, given the growingly fragile conditions in the country and the instability in a number of regional Arab states."

No non-Iranian mainstream media have reported on an attempted coup in Qatar.

Update: New Straits Times (Kuala Lumpur), 17 Apr 2012, Fauziah Ismail: "Both CNN and BBC had the earthquake that day as 'breaking news', with the tsunami alert activated by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre (PTWC). Both news channels were equally quick to disseminate information. We immediately issued an SMS alert to our subscribers on the situation. We updated our website and Facebook page based on information obtained from the centre and the US Geological Survey, a scientific agency under the United States government, which gives updates on what it terms as 'significant' earthquakes all over the world. We closely followed the updates by Mari Ramos, the Nicaraguan American weather anchor for CNN International in Atlanta, which we found helpful in understanding the situation. The warning systems and emergency responses have come a long way since the 2008 tsunami, triggered by a 9.1-magnitude earthquake near Banda Acheh in Indonesia, which killed nearly 230,000 people in the region."

CNN, Amanpour. blog, 13 Apr 2012: "Q: Why did you come back to CNN? CA: CNN is family. CNN is where I’ve been for decades and it is from here that I’ve seen the world change. CNN has played a role in all the changes that we’ve witnessed over the last three decades, so for me it was a really wonderful opportunity to come back and anchor this new program at a time of incredible, almost unprecedented global change and upheaval. From East to West, North to South, people are protesting because they want a better future, a better life – and they are demanding that their elected leaders be accountable and responsive to the people."

The Guardian, 15 Apr 2012, Hadley Freeman: "While CNN remains determinedly neutral – Amanpour prefers 'objective' – the other 24-hour news channels offer precisely the kind of gossip and blatant political partisanship she abhors: 'Fox didn't take viewers away from CNN, they took viewers who were dissatisfied with all news networks and they nurtured a political base. That's what they do and they shouldn't pretend to be anything else. The trouble is they then exerted pressure on other cable stations to take on more of a political role.' Amanpour herself has been criticised for what some saw as a bias in her reporting from the former Yugoslavia but she draws a distinction between being "passionate" – "I'm not neutral between victim and aggressor" – and 'acting like an advocate for a political party, which is not what I do'."

New York Magazine, 14 Apr 2012, Andre Tartar: "The inaugural episode of his new talk show, The World Tomorrow, filmed wherever Assange has been living out his U.K. house arrest, will feature a 'notorious guest,' whom we know little about except that he (or she) is 'particularly controversial' and 'highly charismatic.'"

RT (Russia Today), 16 Apr 2012, interview with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange: "RT: So how did you get to know RT, and why did you choose RT for the broadcast of your first program? JA: We’ve seen RT’s reportage on the attacks on WikiLeaks for a number of years, and that reportage has generally been quite supportive. When we were looking what international broadcaster we wished to partner with as opposed to national broadcasters, we looked to see what was the penetration into the United States. And RT had higher penetration in the United States than Al Jazeera. The BBC is the leading contestant but the BBC has been acting in a hostile manner towards us so we didn’t consider that the BBC would be an appropriate partner. ... [W]hen we look at international networks there’s really only two that are worth speaking about, and that’s RT and Al Jazeera. ... RT is a voice of Russia, so it looks at things from the Russian agenda. The BBC is a voice of the British government. Voice of America is a voice of the American government. It is the clashing of these voices together that reveals the truth about the world as a whole. ...

"RT: Were you restrained by editorial policies while you were making the program for RT? JA: No, not at all. We make the program. It is made by an independent British production company. The international broadcaster we’ve chosen is RT. So, at no stage has any editorial control been exercised. At no stage it was capable of being exercised by RT. RT: And have you found that to be true? JA: Yes, absolutely. There has been no interference in our show at all. ...

"RT: Would you invite anyone from Russia’s political opposition to be on your program? And if so, who do you think it might be? JA: Yes, we have invited a number of people from Russia’s political opposition. The Russian election cycle interfered with that because of their schedule and availability. But we’ll see if they will turn out. We had invited nearly all the prominent figures. And we’ve invited people from the Russian government as well – to try and get some balance."

This budding international broadcaster has some things to learn about international broadcasting. Not all international broadcasting entities are mere mouthpieces of their sponsoring governments. The audience for international broadcasting is looking for a credible and reliable alternative to their state-controlled media. The government-funded international broadcaster that best maintains independence from that government ultimately has the most success. Hence the great success of the BBC as an international broadcaster -- compared to the lesser success of Voice of Russia and RT. Furthermore, Mr. Assange contradicts himself by first saying RT is a "voice of Russia," then insisting that that RT has not interfered with his show.

RFE/RL, Tangled Web blog, 16 Apr 2012, Luke Allnutt: "[G]iven RT's reliance on guests who tend to be critical of 'Western imperialism' and Assange's past focus on the United States, a big-name first guest would perhaps more likely to be someone like Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, or Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, who all hold strident anti-Western opinions. (Unless, of course, someone like Khodorkovsky or Navalny decided to publicly recant and confess the error of their ways.) Someone like Noam Chomsky or Slavoj Zizek might be a safe bet -- although that would hardly shake the establishment to its core. Or he could go tabloidy with, say, an exclusive tell-all with former Russian spy Anna Chapman. If the interviewee really was so controversial that there would be calls for the station to be shut down, that could mean a senior Taliban or Al-Qaeda official or a terrorist wanted by the United States. But then again, all this talk of secret guest lists might just all be bluster. Another possibility might be Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Assange might draw certain parallels between the rape charges against Kahn -- subsequently dropped -- with his own situation, in which he faces rape allegations in Sweden. The real scoop, however, would be Joseph Kony, the Uganda guerrilla leader at large and the target of a phenomenally successful U.S. viral campaign. Now that really would be something."

BBC News, 16 Apr 2012, Beth Ryder: RadioRadisIn "takes calls, SMS messages and emails from listeners in Iran, and one of the most commonly talked about subjects ... is the impact that Western economic sanctions are having on the country. 'People talk about their weariness with the current situation and tell us how they're having to store food and other life necessities at home.'"

BBC Worldwide press release, 13 Apr 2012: "BBC Worldwide Australia has appointed Helen Pendlebury in the new role of Head of Commercial, Entertainment & Children’s Brands. In this newly created role, Pendlebury will be responsible for the business development around some of BBC Worldwide’s biggest global brands, including Doctor Who and Dancing with the Stars as well as a range of children’s properties such as Charlie and Lola."

Digital TV Europe, 13 Apr 2012: "Al Jazeera has chosen commercial broadcaster TF1 to sell advertising for its new French sports channels. TF1 won the contract to sell ads on the Be In Sport 1 and 2 channels after a competitive bidding process that included Lagardère and France Télévisions."

Inside World Football, 11 Apr 2012, David Gold: "Tuesday saw UEFA predictably allocate broadcast rights for this summer's European Championships and the 2016 tournament in France in part to beIN Sports, Al Jazeera's new sports channel in the country. The name of the channel has already been trademarked worldwide, and its expansion seems only a matter of time, with plans to become a major player in the United States. Al-Jazeera is already making waves on that side of the Atlantic, acquiring television and internet rights to La Liga, Ligue 1 and Serie A. It was recently claimed that the Qatari broadcaster will launch a new beIN Sports channel in the States to further increase their presence there. And then there is the prospect of a bid, which has been touted, for Premier League rights."

See previous post about same subject.

Broadband TV News, 10 Apr 2012, Robert Briel: "The race is on for broadcasters who want to go connected on smart TVs. During MIPTV, Euronews claimed smart TV leadership, but CNBC now says it is better connected. At present, CNBC is available in the US on Samsung, Google TV, Roku, Yahoo! Connected, DISH, Vudu and two more to be announced. In Europe CNBC is also available on Samsung, Virgin Media, Panasonic, and Philips, while in Asia LG sets are connected. The CNBC smart TV app was launched last September in the EMEA region."

Broadband TV News, 12 Apr 2012, Robert Briel: "Following CNBC’s counter-claim that it has more smart TV platforms than Euronews, the Lyon based channel now strikes back saying it is indeed well ahead of any competitor. ... No matter who is the ‘winner’ in this claim-game, we think that broadcasters need to be applauded for serving their audience in any way they can – also using unconventional methods and making full use of smart TV and OTT functionalities. This way, the viewer is the true winner."

Euronews, 6 Apr 2012: "Television is becoming increasingly global. The programs we see on our screens, whether documentaries or soap operas, quiz programmes or films, are produced in various countries around the world. ... Technology is quickly transforming and smart TV is the new frontier. Along with simply watching programmes, TV sets will be able to connect to the web thereby offering new applications. So does the internet mean that TV’s days are numbered? Or could it turn out to be its best ally?"

Broadcasting Board of Governores press release, 10 Apr 2012: "Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Tara D. Sonenshine was welcomed April 10 to Broadcasting Board of Governors headquarters, where she toured facilities and met with staff. It was her first visit to the BBG since being sworn in on April 5. By law, the Secretary of State serves as an ex-officio member of the BBG. Representing the secretary on the board traditionally has been a duty of the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs." With photos.

Heritage Foundation, 12 Apr 2012, Helle Dale: "The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) recently released its 2013 budget request, which slashes Voice of America (VOA) funding by more than $17 million while increasing funding for major bureaucratic offices inside the International Broadcasting Bureau. A reprioritization is clearly necessary. This disturbing trend focuses on making U.S. international broadcasting a global media service, with digital media distribution at the hub, much like the Internet-focused CNN model. At the same time, actual broadcasting services are being cut, resulting in lost viewers and listeners who, since they often have no Internet access, are deprived of trustworthy and important news sources." -- The "CNN model" is "internet focused"? CNN's flagships are its television channels, CNN in the USA, CNN International elsewhere, distributed by cable and satellite. CNN.com is, for the time being, subsidiary.

During its 70 years, VOA has not been perfect, but, especially in the post-Cold War years, it has taken seriously its statutory requirement to provide accurate and objective news. As an experienced shortwave listener, Sheldon is familiar with other international radio stations, past and present, that would much more fittingly be called "propaganda tool."

Note that Sky News Arabia says that it is headed for its launch on 6 May "with an independent editorial mandate at the heart of everything we do." Whether the channel lives up to that mandate, it at least made the effort to proclaim that independence as its guiding principle.

Arabian Business, 9 Apr 2012, Andy Sambridge: "The daughter of Saudi Arabia's former king has called on rulers to implement a new constitution giving men and women equal rights in kingdom. Princess Basma Bint Saud Bin Abdulaziz, in an interview with the BBC's World Service, said she was 'saddened to say that my beloved country today has not fulfilled that early promise'."

"Innovation means risk and risk often means failure. We have 10 new ideas per week and 7 of them fail. But 3 don’t. Lessons learned from risks are invaluable." -- Agree completely.

See also Middle East Voices.

Family Security Matters, 13 Apr 2012, John Hajjar: "In her post which appeared in Middle East Voices this week, Cecily Hilleary (pictured above) regurgitated the same Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) talking points about Professor Walid Phares that Brooke Anderson of Beirut’s Daily Star did back in January. Both women parroted CAIR spin saying that 'many American Muslims have expressed concern about Romney’s choice of Walid Phares as an adviser,' but neither offered a single shred of evidence to support their claim. ... I do not know how Congress which funds VOA will look at this biased reporting. The situation is serious as Hilleary wrote for the taxpayer-funded organization. According to MEV’s website the organization is 'a new social journalism project powered by the (US Congress-funded) BBG and Voice of America. Designed as a collaborative journalism and engagement platform, it seeks to combine investigative journalism, crowdsourcing, participatory writing and social media technology to redefine how stories in and about the Middle East should be told.' All of this bias ... raises the specter of penetration of the US bureaucracy by pro-Islamists. Congress should investigate the real story behind Hilleary’s article along with other propaganda pieces which are funded by taxpayers."

Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting, 14 Apr 2012: "Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) member Ambassador Victor Ashe has called the Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting (CUSIB) to express his appreciation for CUSIB’s pro-media freedom and human rights activities mentioned in a recent letter to the BBG from Annette Lantos, a human rights campaigner. ... Ambassador Ashe said that even prior to receiving Mrs. Lantos’ letter, he had raised similar concerns with Governors Michael Meehan and Enders Wimbush at the meeting of the BBG Strategy and Budget Committee that took place on April 10, 2012 at BBG Headquarters in Washington, DC. Ambassador Ashe said that he specifically urged keeping Voice of America Tibetan radio broadcasts on the air. 'I cannot say the full committee agreed or disagreed. It is unclear. However, what I think is clear is that Congress will not allow this cut to take place,' he told CUSIB."

See previous post about efforts to maintain the the VOA Tibetan radio service.

BBG Watch, 26 Mar 2012: "What active measures have the IBB taken to overcome jamming? Have they shifted frequencies or bands on a random or radical basis? Have they transmitted from various transmitter sites to change the incoming angle (i.e., North – South, East – West, over the Eural mountains, etc) in order to make jamming more difficult? By not attempting to overcome jamming, isn’t this a form of 'surrender' in the War of Ideas? ... Have they experimented with 'twilight' transmission (within an hour before and an hour after sunrise and sunset) when propagation patterns change and make jamming more difficult?"

As a shortwave listener for nearly a half-century, I am saddened to see the reduction of shortwave broadcasting, especially by US international broadcasters. As an international broadcasting audience research analyst, however, I see much data showing a decline in the number of of people owning and and listening to shortwave radios. Even in rural areas, audiences are moving to FM radio, television, and mobile phones.

For future emergencies, when the internet, mobile networks, cable television, and other popular forms of communication will be disrupted, the United States should maintain an interagency global network of shortwave transmitters. These can be used by US international broadcasting to reach key target countries, by the State Department to reach Americans abroad and for public diplomacy tasks, and by the military for information operations and other purposes. The output of each agency would remain separate. Their functions would not be intermingled. The shortwave transmitter network would operate as a common carrier.

journalism.co.uk, 13 Apr 2012, Jack Dearlove: "Following a ballot of members, media and entertainment union Bectu has announced that some staff working in the BBC World Service’s network operations will strike for 30 hours this weekend. Journalists are not taking industrial action. Bectu warned that 'output is set be hit' by the strike but the BBC has this afternoon issued a statement to say it is 'not expecting any disruption to World Service programming'. ... The industrial action will take place between 3pm [1400 UTC] on Sunday (15 April) and 9pm [2000 UTC] the following day. The staff involved route programmes to transmitters around the world."

Washington Post, 13 Apr 2012, Chico Harlan: "[T]his time, unlike after previous failures, North Korea didn’t manufacture a tale about a technological triumph and a satellite spinning around the globe. Roughly four hours after the Unha-3 rocket fell apart, Pyongyang’s state-run news agency released a brief statement saying that the 'earth observation satellite failed to enter its preset orbit.' A news anchorwoman then read the statement on domestic television. ... When the North attempted to place a satellite into orbit in 2009 — its most recent effort until Friday — the multistage carrier rocket failed when the third stage didn’t fire. Outside accounts, relying on tracking data, said the Unha-2 plummeted into the Pacific Ocean. But North Korea provided a different account. Kim Jong Il expressed his 'great satisfaction' that the Kwangmyongsong-2 satellite had been placed into orbit. A front-page account in the next morning’s state-run newspaper described the device’s nine-minute, two-second path into orbit and said the satellite was now transmitting revolutionary songs at a frequency of 470 MHz."

See previous post about same subject.

The Guardian, 12 Apr 2012, Tania Branigan: "China's internet users have been cut off from accessing all foreign websites for around an hour in an unexplained incident that sparked speculation the country's censorship system was being tested or further tightened."

ZDNet, 13 Apr 2012, Hana Stewart-Smith: Some "have suggested that the temporary outage might have been a test run of an emergency ‘kill switch’, in case extreme measures need to be taken in the ongoing crackdown of the Chinese Internet. According to Tech in Asia, VPNs that had previously allowed Internet users to get around the Great Firewall were down, but that smaller VPN providers seemed to be unscathed. This could suggest a deliberate targeting of such services, but at the moment, we can only speculate. Admittedly, it does seem as though such a ‘kill switch’ would be extreme and far-fetched. However, the absence of clearer explanations lends the theory some credibility. China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has been silent over the blackout, and so have much of the state-run media."

Wall Street Journal, China Realtime Report, 13 Apr 2012, Paul Mozur: CloudFlare "engineers also found that, contrary to what would be expected if the blackout were due to an equipment failure or break in an undersea cable – as many originally speculated after Wednesday’s magnitude 8.6 earthquake near Indonesia – only certain types of data had stopped flowing. China Telecom and China Unicom HTTP traffic – connections between clients and sites directly – mostly stopped, but other types of traffic that flow through different ports like Skype calls, email transfers and DNS traffic (which functions like a phone book to link a web address with an IP address) continued to flow."

PolicyMic, 13 Apr 2012, Liz Alton: "If China takes down the internet in order to maintain a facade of social control, not only does it stand to drive activists and the international community to more drastic action, but it stands to cripple its own economic machine."

International Business Times, 10 Apr 2012, Jamie Lewis: the latest statements from the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology said: 'The report is in no way confirmed by the ministry' and is 'completely baseless', blaming 'the propaganda wing of the West.'"

AFP, 10 Apr 2012: "Iran, however, does have plans to establish a 'national information network' billed as a totally closed system that would function like a sort of intranet for the Islamic republic. ... Iran in any case currently censors millions of websites deemed un-Islamic, and has from time to time imposed temporary additional restrictions."

The Register, 10 Apr 2012, John Leyden: "Unless Iran bans international phone calls then human rights activists could set up an ISP in neighbouring countries that Iran's oppressed population might be able to use, something which happened during the Egyptian Arab Spring protests. In addition, the US is reportedly looking to develop technology for a 'shadow internet' or 'internet in a suitcase' that will enable the creation of an independent connection to the international internet from inside a repressed country, maintaining internet access even if the local government pulls the plug."

Bloomberg Business Week, 11 Apr 2012, John Tozzi: AnchorFree, a "30-employee Mountain View (Calif.) startup makes free virtual private network (VPN) software which Internet users install on their computers to secure their connections and reach websites blocked by censors. ... If Iran does disconnect from the Internet entirely, VPNs would not help, says Eva Galperin, an activist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit group in San Francisco that advocates for Internet freedom. 'You simply cannot get out,' she says."

Wall Street Journal, 12 Apr 2012, Mark Dubowitz and Toby Dershowitz: "Unfortunately, foreign companies have sold [Iran's Revolutionary] Guards the technologies they need to make this oppression possible. ... These systems include hardware and software from some of America's best-known technology companies, including Microsoft, HP, Oracle, Cisco, Dell, Juniper Networks and Symantec, all of which deny knowledge that their products are being bundled into systems sold to Iran. A Reuters investigation confirmed, however, that these companies' technology was included in these systems. After the Reuters report was published, HP, Dell, Cisco and Juniper said that they were initiating internal investigations."

Reporters sans frontières, 12 Apr 2012: "Reporters Without Borders calls for the immediate and unconditional release of Mohammad Solimaninya, an Internet and social network expert who has been detained for the past three months and who, according to the information we have obtained, is being pressured to work with the government on the creation of a 'National Internet.'"

FierceGovernmentIT, 12 Apr 2012, David Perera: "A spate of reports suggest now is not a particularly good time for Internet and press freedom in the Middle East and nearby areas."

Steve Herman @W7VOA, 13 Apr 2012: "Not a word aired on the N. Korean 5pm TV newscast about the failed launch."

Steve Herman @W7VOA, 13 Apr 2012: "There was a brief break-in during the noon hour to read the KCNA statement on the failed launch. That's been it."

North Korea Tech, 13 Apr 2012, Martyn Williams: "North Korean TV ran a special news broadcast informing the country that the launch of the Kwangmyongsong 3 had failed to reach. The broadcast came several hours after the launch. which passed by when national TV was still yet to begin programming. When it did begin daily broadcasts, the TV station opened as usual and went into regular programming. The special bulletin came several hours later, long after the rest of the world has discovered what happened to the rocket. ... The news reader read out the KCNA bulletin, an English version of which is [here]: 'Pyongyang, April 13 (KCNA) — The DPRK launched its first application satellite Kwangmyongsong-3 at the Sohae Satellite Launching Station in Cholsan County, North Phyongan Province at 07:38:55 a.m. on Friday. The earth observation satellite failed to enter its preset orbit. Scientists, technicians and experts are now looking into the cause of the failure.'" With video.

@chicoharlan, 13 Apr 2012: "I would say N. Korea's admission of failure is by far the most surprising part of this whole adventure."

Los Angeles Times, 13 Apr 2012, David Pierson: "BBC reporter Damian Grammaticas, who'd been up all night working, was awakened by his Beijing bureau chief, Jo Floto, to learn of the news. 'The rest of the world knew but nobody in North Korea knew that the rocket had launched,' Floto said. Grammaticas later tweeted: 'Now in bizarre situation our #NKorea minders asking ME to tell THEM if rocket has launched. Went up 4 hours ago but they have no information.' ... Though they ultimately had no scoop, the massive media attention may have pressured the country’s new leader, Kim Jong Un, to issue the stunning admission of failure later that day. 'The way North Korea quickly admitted the failure of the launch may have reflected the reigning style of Kim Jong Un,' said Koh Yoo-hwan, a professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University in South Korea. 'Unlike Kim Jong Il, who in the past hid his failures, Kim Jong Un called the foreign press and showed them what happened.'" -- I don't think Kim Jong Un personally called the foreign press.

AP, 12 Apr 2012, Eric Talmadge: "Pyongyang [said] the satellite [would have] broadcast martial music praising North Korea's founder, Kim Il Sung. It says Bright Shining Stars 1 and 2, launched in 1998 and 2009, did the same. But no broadcasts were ever detected, and neither probe is believed to have reached orbit."

See previous post about same subject.

Digital TV Europe, 13 Apr 2012: "The Global BBC iPlayer has secured the rights to two [additional] UK sporting events, the Grand National and the London Marathon."

PSnews, 10 Apr 2012: "An audit of the on-and-off tender processes governing provision of the Australia Network television service has produced important lessons for the future, according to the Auditor-General, Ian McPhee. ... The Full audit report can be accessed at this PS News link ... ."

WA Today, 8 Apr 2012, Katharine Murphy: "If you want to learn two things — how bad things were in the preamble to the leadership showdown between Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd, and how Canberra works through such transient trifles as political power struggles — read the Auditor-General's report on the botched Australia Network tender. ... And the crowning irony in the saga? The government made absolutely the right decision.It's arguable, of course, but my view is there is demonstrable national interest in having the public broadcaster, not a commercial player, run Australia's overseas television service. Doing right via a debacle: that's the worst of all possible worlds."

See previous post and another previous post, both 7 Apr 2012, about the same subject.

Xinhua, 8 Apr 2012: "Jang Myung Jin, who is in charge of the [launching] station, told reporters that ... [a]fter entering its Sun-synchronous orbit, the satellite will broadcast 'the Song of General Kim Il Sung' and 'the Song of General Kim Jong Il.'"

NBC News, 10 Apr 2012, Ed Flanagan interviewing space consultant James Oberg: "Q: What questions did you have coming into this press conference with the North Korea Space Technology Committee? A: Perhaps the most interesting one for me was how soon after launch they’ll have success or failure in the form of a radio signal from the satellite. The North Koreans said they couldn’t answer that one. That puzzled me because the primary responsibility of flight control is knowing when to expect indicators of success or failure like receiving a radio signal. Maybe they were just officials and not workers who care about the details. ... In regards to the timing of the radio signal and how other radio amateurs around the planet could help detect these signals, they said they would answer tomorrow ."

AP, 12 Apr 2012, Eric Talmadge: "Pyongyang says the satellite will broadcast martial music praising North Korea's founder, Kim Il Sung. It says Bright Shining Stars 1 and 2, launched in 1998 and 2009, did the same. But no broadcasts were ever detected, and neither probe is believed to have reached orbit. If the broadcasts on the UHF and X-bands are successful, the first independent confirmation could come from western Australia, which might pick them up within 20 minutes. The west coast of South America would be next, followed by the U.S. east coast. North Korea would not likely hear them until as much as 12 hours later."

North Korea Tech, 13 Apr 2012, Martyn Williams: "Based on information submitted to international organizations prior to launch, the folks at Analytical Graphics have produced a good-looking computer simulation of what the Unha-3 launch might look like." With video.

weather.com (The Weather Channel), 10 Apr 2012: "North Korea's claim justifying a planned rocket launch that the isolated country merely wants to put a weather satellite in orbit was denounced on Tuesday by the White House, which dismissed the claim by saying North Korea should just 'go to weather.com.'"

Politico, 9 Apr 2012, Dylan Byers: "The White House is pushing back against the media for what it sees as oversaturated coverage of this week’s forthcoming North Korean missile test. 'You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know this is a propaganda exercise,' National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor told me. 'Reporters have to be careful not to get co-opted.'"

See previous post about same subject.

Montreal Gazette, 12 Apr 2012, letter from Dan Malloy, Everett, Massachusetts: "Contrary to what many Canadians may believe, there are Americans who don't believe that Canada is a northern version of the U.S.A., and shortwave radio is an excellent way to get that message across."

CBC, 4 Apr 2012, speech to employee town hall meeting by CBC CEO Hubert T. Lacroix: RCI "will now provide national and international audiences with content on the web in five languages (French, English, Spanish, Arabic and Mandarin). The Brazilian and Russian sections will close. This transformation responds to demographic shifts, to the traffic on our sites, and concentrates our efforts on Canada's largest communities of diverse origins, while continuing to offer an international service via the web. These decisions are consistent with international trends and approaches adopted by other public broadcasters."

Radio Canada International, Off Mike column, 7 Apr 2012, Wojtek Gwiazda: "We will no longer broadcast on shortwave. The only presence we’ll have is on the Internet, on our website. The RCI newsroom will be closed, there will be no newscasts. ... I can tell you that there is a union supported lobby group, the RCI Action Committee, which is actively lobbying to stop the cuts. Whether it will be successful, is unknown."

RCI Action Committee blog, 4 Apr 2012: "Radio Canada International’s $12.2 million dollar budget will be slashed by 10 million, leaving only $2.2 million. (Revised April 5: $12.3 and $2.3 million) ... It’s being billed as a 'transformation' – I think we would use other words. ... Suggestions, comments, questions welcome at: rciaction@yahoo.ca . We are working on an action plan – should be able to provide details within a few days." See also ibid. on 8 Apr 2012 (CKUT interview, with audio).

RCI Action Committee blog, 12 Apr 2012: "We feel because of the continuing cuts to RCI since 1990 (See: http://rciaction.org/blog), the government should give RCI financial autonomy and take RCI’s budget away from CBC/Radio-Canada’s control." Ibid, 12 Apr 2012: "It is CBC/Radio-Canada, not Canada’s federal government, that so severely cut the budget and services of Radio Canada International. But it is the government that can step in, stop the cut, and protect RCI."

@sandragagnon, 10 Apr 2012: "Écoutez l'émotion de la directrice @Hélène Parent RCI // Budget amputé de 80% à Radio Canada International http://j.mp/HCmnDj"

See also BBG Strategy, 9 Apr 2012, with video clips.

See previous post about same subject.

Web Host Industry Review, 10 Apr 2012, Nicole Henderson: "Talk back: Have security concerns like that of Radio Free Asia’s influenced your customers to move towards private cloud?"

This sounds like something that VOA could also use for its heavily blocked internet traffic to East Asia. Nevertheless, this is strictly an RFA-only deployment, part of its Freedom 2 Connect initiative. In accordance with the BBG's "many brands" strategy, there is no room on the cloud for both RFA and VOA.

The resourcefulness of the RFA engineers is admirable. Nevertheless, funding would be less of a roadblock if the United States had one entity broadcasting to East Asia rather than two. So now RFA has cameras, teleprompters, and lighting to compete with VOA's cameras, teleprompters, and lighting, for broadcasts to the same countries, in the same languages, covering much of the same news. This story says more about US international broadcasting, and its "many brands," than the Radio World reporter realized.

@americagov, 6 Apr 2012: "VIDEO: See how the Electronic Curtain isolates the people of #Iran from the world. #ConnectIran #NetFreedom http://goo.gl/xv5mo"

Today's Zaman (Istanbul), 8 Apr 2012, Abdullah Bozkurt: China Radio International "has been broadcasting in Turkish since October 1957 using the shortwave frequency. It has a one-hour-long program every day, repeated four times during the day in different time slots. It uses Internet broadband to spread the word and has also used local FM stations in Istanbul and Ankara to reach its audience since 2010. With unprecedented growing ties recently with Turkey, China is set to promote its culture in many areas, including broadcasting more Turkish content on the CRI. Yongmin Xia, the director of the Turkish service, revealed to Sunday’s Zaman that the CRI has decided to boost its presence in Turkey. Going by the Turkish name Murat, Xia said the CRI has chosen Istanbul, the largest city in Turkey, to launch a radio station. 'We are going to start with five people and hope to reach 15 in this service in Istanbul,' he said, adding that the stronger presence would help develop bilateral relations further. ... Though the CRI is funded by the Chinese government, Xia says the staff is free to choose stories and decide on how to broadcast them. The general layout of the program was decided by the board of directors at the CRI, but the staff decided to pick which stories to air and also edit them. 'The government does not dictate the contents of the broadcast,' he explained."

See previous post about Voice of Russia Turkish broadcasts.

Media Bistro, 7 Apr 2012, Alex Weprin: "Al Jazeera wants to grow, but as a news channel there are severe limitations. News is commoditized, and there is heavy competition. In the world of television, the most valuable content is content that viewers cannot get anywhere else. That is why in the U.S. and cross the globe the most valuable TV content is live sports."

Soccer America, 6 Apr 2012, Paul Kennedy: "The most lucrative soccer rights in the world are to the English Premier League, and Al-Jazeera is reportedly prepared to take on BSkyB, which holds a majority stake in EPL rights. The EPL would love a competitor to take on BSkyB and boost its next rights deal up for bid this year. Al-Jazeera may not be able to beat out at BSkyB but it might cut our ESPN, which holds rights to a sliver of the EPL TV pie. ... According to the website EPL Talk, Al-Jazeera will wrest the U.S. rights to Italy's Serie A and Spain's La Liga away from Fox Soccer and Gol TV and could bid on the EPL rights held by Fox and ESPN for 2013-16. ... As a for Fox, it can't afford to lose EPL rights. Al-Jazeera's foray into the U.S. market comes at a time Fox needs to build its audience in anticipation of its coverage of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups."

Arabian Business, 8 Apr 2012, Ed Attwood: "Many of you may remember sitting down to watch the opening game of the FIFA World Cup in South Africa two years ago. After hours of build-up, the opening match between the hosts and Mexico kicked off, only for fans to cry foul when screens across the Middle East suddenly went blank. For broadcaster Al Jazeera, which bought the screening rights for the World Cup across the Arab world for an unnamed sum, the event was something of a public relations disaster. As ‘helplines’ went unanswered, the broadcaster limply blamed outside interference for jamming its signal. ... As Al Jazeera embarks on its plan to roll out its news coverage across the US this year, it may well consider trying to buy rights to screen the sports that Americans hold dearest. Such a move would be fraught with difficulty, but Qatar has the ambition and the money to push the envelope as far as it can. Stranger things have happened."

See previous post about same subject.

Arabian Business, 3 Apr 2012, Sara Anabtawi: "The network also plans to offer a graduate internship scheme to local journalists. The Abu Dhabi-based channel will be going head-to-head for viewing figures with the Prince Alwaleed-backed Alarab news channel, as well as long-term players Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya. Last year, the Saudi billionaire [Alwaleed] confirmed he had teamed up with Bloomberg to fund a 24-hour Arabic-language news network, fronted by Saudi-based journalist Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi. Sky News Arabia will broadcast to an estimated 50m households across the Middle East and North Africa."

Sky News (UK), 3 Apr 2012: "Sky News Arabia is a joint venture between Admic, the Abu Dhabi Media Investment Corporation, and BSkyB, which also runs Sky News in the UK."

journalism.co.uk, 3 Apr 2012, Sarah Marshall: "Sky News Arabia joins the BBC, Al Jazeera, Al Arabeya and France 24 in providing round-the-clock news in Arabic."

The National (Abu Dhabi), 4 Apr 2012, Ben Flangan: "The station will have 12 dedicated bureaus, in cities such as Cairo, London, Washington, Beirut, Baghdad, Islamabad and Gaza. It will also use facilities at some of the Sky News English-language bureaus in Britain. It will vie for audience share and advertising revenue with the two incumbent news stations, Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya. Sky News Arabia will also compete with Alarab, a station being launched by the Saudi billionaire Prince Al Waleed bin Talal, which is set to launch in December and will be based in Bahrain. The four news stations will compete in a crowded TV market, which - across all stations - shares estimated advertising revenue of just US$1 billion (Dh3.67bn). Mazen Nahawi, the president of News Group International, a Dubai company that specialises in media monitoring, said Sky News Arabia would find it 'challenging' to become profitable, given the cost of producing TV news. ... However, Mr Nahawi was confident that Sky News Arabia would be able to maintain editorial independence. 'It is feasible that they will have significant independence,' he said. 'They have the opportunity to seriously compete. It all comes down to how good their reporters are.'"

Al Jazeera English, 8 Apr 2012: "A view of the News Operation Centre (NOC) at the Sky News Arabia headquarters in Abu Dhabi. Its British counterpart admitted this week to hacking into emails on two occasions, but defended their actions as editorially justified and in the public interest." With photo.

See previous post about same subject.

Voice of Russia, 6 Apr 2012: "Al Jazeera fabricates news on Syria in favor of the rebels, ex-producer for the channel’s Beirut Bureau Moussa Ahmed stated on Friday. He said that news writers conceal a number of facts and exaggerate the scale of the opposition movement and the number of casualties in the region. Moussa was one of the five employees who resigned in March opposing biased coverage of the Arab Spring in Libya, Bahrain and Syria. Al-Jazeera broadcasting policy is said to be strongly affected by the Emir of Qatar."

Press TV, 7 Apr 2012: "Rafik Lutf a Syrian journalist and a member of the Arab Journalists Union in the US has said CNN, Al-Jazeera and other Western and Arabic satellite news channels are fabricating and falsifying events ,with the help on saboteurs, to accuse the Syrian army of violating and terrorizing civilians. Rafik Lutf, the head of Al-Kawthar office in Damascus was able to track the live streaming of a camera in Homs, at the beginning he felt suspicious about live streaming on the same area for more than 7 hours, he was trying to understand the purpose of this streaming. After 12 hours, a plume of smoke rose from the area where the camera was directed to. CNN and Al-Jazeera crew was the first to arrive there. When CNN correspondent Arwa Damon went on live to talk about the explosion of a pipeline in Homs, CNN broadcasted the same images that were taken from the fixed camera that was streaming before the explosion happened. Which leads to the conclusion that the CNN crew knew about the explosion before it even happened? CNN is not the only news satellite channel that is fabricating crimes to make believe that the Syrian government is shelling Homs. Al-Jazeera with the help of some correspondents in Homs is faking gunshots during their live calls with those reporters to make believe that the Syrian Army is shelling the area."

Christian Science Monitor, 4 Apr 2012, Elizabeth Dickinson: "[I]t’s not just Al Jazeera’s audience that has grown. So, too, have its critics. Founded by the Qatari emir in 1996, the channel's main detractors early on came from the West, where its penchant for broadcasting Al Qaeda messages and portraying graphic images of the US-led war in Iraq irked many, including former President George W. Bush. But since the Arab Spring, Al Jazeera’s previous success has been amplified and the Qatari government has started playing a bigger part in regional policy. Suddenly, the cozy relationship between patron and broadcaster carries a bit more baggage. 'It’s important to take seriously where the funding of this network comes from,' says Ethan Zuckerman, senior researcher at Harvard University’s Berkman Center. 'You’re basically talking about a journalistic organization that by definition has a conflict built in.' ... [Al Jazeera English managing director Al] Anstey knows it’s the audience who will ultimately decide the broadcaster’s fate. 'Yes we are headquartered here, [but] we are wholly independent from the state of Qatar,' he maintains. 'Our coverage absolutely demonstrates to our viewers that we are impartial.' ... If viewers perceive a bias, real or imagined, Al Jazeera and its critics alike know the stakes. 'The Arab peoples are used to state-controlled media and it will not be a shock for them to see Al Jazeera sliding back into that category,” says [Professor Ahmed Souaiaia of the University of Iowa]. 'They are very adept in flipping through the channels to find the truth.'"

Both articles are important reading. Nicholas Noe & Walid Raad astutely observe that Al Jazeera is not stressing "accuracy, objectivity and fairness" as its main line of defense. Elizabeth Dickinson correctly notes the consequences "if viewers perceive a bias." Lessons for all of international broadcasting, not just Al Jazeera.

Al Jazeera English, 5 Apr 2012: "Founded in 1940 and administered by the University of Georgia's Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, the Peabody is the oldest award in electronic media and recognises achievement and public service in television, radio and online. 'We are delighted to receive yet another prestigious and coveted award,' Al Anstey, Managing Director of Al Jazeera English, said. ... 'We ... look forward to continuing to provide global, in-depth coverage to our growing audiences in the United States and across the world.'"

Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication press release, undated(!): Also among this year's winners: "NHK’s Surviving the Tsunami, a meticulous post-mortem of the tidal wave and nuclear disaster with an eye to lessons for the future."

Update: Response to Slate from from Martins Zvaners, deputy director of communications, RFE/RL, Inc.: "Concerning Radio Free Europe and the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, to which you refer in today's Explainer -- the tapes of all of the Hungarian Service broadcasts from that time were preserved by chance by the German government. These tapes, along with the findings of several internal and external investigations, refute the charges that RFE incited the revolution, promised Western military assistance, or provoked the Soviet crackdown. What RFE’s programs were most guilty of, according to researcher and former RFE executive Ross Johnson, was 'project[ing] to Hungary the sympathy and moral and humanitarian support of the Western world. In the context of the revolution, this reporting--with few exceptions both accurate and journalistically responsible--inadvertently became a source of false hope.' To read Johnson's "Hoover Review" article on RFE's performance during the Hungarian Revolution, visit http://bit.ly/I9vbQt. Johnson examines the issue in more depth in his December 2010 book, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty: The CIA Years and Beyond, while Arch Puddington discussed the question in his May 2000 book, Broadcasting Freedom: The Cold War Triumph of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty.

International Herald Tribune, 9 Apr 2012, Mark McDonald: "It appears that the United States will soon name Derek J. Mitchell as the new ambassador to Myanmar, according to Josh Rogin on The Cable blog of Foreign Policy magazine. ... Before the recent election, Mr. Mitchell gave a wide-ranging interview to the Voice of America. A video of that conversation is here."

The Raleigh Telegram, 8 Apr 2012, republished a story by VOA's Brian padden about an agreement between the United States and Afghanistan concerning night raids on Afghan homes. "Brian Padden is located in Islamabad and writes for Voice Of America, which is a United States government run news agency."

North Korea Tech, 20 Apr 2012, Martyn Williams: "The satellite will broadcast remote data in the UHF band and video in the X-band, the ITU quoted the DPRK’s notification as saying. The UHF band runs from around 300MHz to 3GHz and has several chunks of frequency reserved for satellite use. It’s commonly used by satellites to send data back to earth and is also utilized by the International Space Station and radio amateurs for voice communications. The X-band is a little more exotic. It runs from around 7GHz to 12GHz and is most often used via satellite for military and government communications."

From Kai Ludwig in Germany: "Thank you for alerting me on this story that has so far slipped past my attention. Besides the usual rhetoric it can be gathered from Press TV, 5 Apr 2012 that it is the legal position of IRIB (or rather their attorney) that BLM has acted beyond its authority which for such cases lies by a joint body of all media authorities called Kommission für Zulassung und Aufsicht, in short ZAK. BLM for its part responded to the inquiry of a blogger. As quoted there they stated that foundation for the retransmission on Astra 1H was the Ofcom licence. After its revocation Press TV has no longer the required licence from an EU body. They say that the case was in their authority because Press TV was uplinked from Unterföhring (that's correct, there, between Munich and Ismaning, are TV studio facilities as well as the uplink of APS-Astra, a subsidiary of SES) and that a licence application for Press TV is pending at Medienanstalt Berlin-Brandenburg. APS-Astra has replaced Press TV by this slide."

Press TV, 5 Apr 2012: "The fugitive journalist had earlier filed a lawsuit against Press TV after the Iranian news network aired a 10-second soundbite, which was part of an interview with Bahari in 2009. In October 2011, the British media regulator, Ofcom, claimed that Press TV violated its broadcasting codes by airing the interview. The ruling led to the imposition of a 100,000 pound fine on Press TV, the closing of the Iranian news network's office in London and its removal from the Sky platform. In the 10-second clip, Bahari made reference to post-election events in Iran around three years ago and said, 'On Monday, June 15 [2009], I sent a report about the attack against the base, a military base of Basij, to Channel 4 News as well as to Newsweek magazine.'"

Federal News Radio, "In Depth," 6 Apr 2012: "E-diplomacy is one area in which the State Department is taking a leading role, but not many other countries are following. Fergus Hanson, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution and director of polling at the Lowry Institute, discusses the definition of e-diplomacy and State's growing online presence. In a Lowry Institute analysis, 'Revolution @ State: The Spread of Ediplomacy,' Lowry writes: 'In Public Diplomacy, State now operates what is effectively a global media empire, reaching a larger direct audience than the paid circulation of the ten largest US dailies and employing an army of diplomat-journalists to feed its 600-plus platforms.'" With audio interview.

Al Arabiya, 6 Apr 2012, Guy Golan: "The Obama administration has time and again expressed its commitment to genuine relationship building with Muslims around the world. Through social media, it launched an ambitious multiplatform public diplomacy campaign that allows for direct two-way communication between the State Department and Muslims. Through videos and blogs, Facebook pages, and mobile phone applications, America can now both talk and listen. It seems like technology is reinventing the very essence of international relations. Yet, recent evidence indicates that launching a successful public diplomacy campaign via social media may be easier said than done. An innovative global digital outreach campaign was recently introduced by the U.S. State Department. Their campaign allowed citizens from across the world to ask Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy, Judith McHale, questions in ten different languages using the #AskUSA Twitter hashtag. This campaign turned out to be a bust. Most of the tweets consisted of either spam or communication from American officials from outside the USA. Yet, the American State Department should not let one failed effort deter them. All relationships both off and online take time to develop."

Broadband TV News, 6 Apr 2012, Robert Briel: CCTV9, "which boasts a daily peak audience of 94 million in China alone, already has many coproduction deals in place with the BBC Worldwide, NHK, ITV, France Televisions, National Geographic, KBS and many others including series such as Generation Earth, China’s Hidden Landscapes: Sinkholes and Chinese Mega Projects. CCTV9 Documentary Channel was launched on January 1, 2011 by China Central Television. In China, it attracts mainly an upmarket audience that is curious to learn about China itself as well about other countries around the world. The broadcaster has acquired over 1,000 hours of imported programming during the past year. The international version, also available in both Chinese and English, aims to offer a window on China to the world. The name CCTV9 was formerly used for the Chinese broadcaster’s English language news channel, that was since renamed CCTV News.

Deutsche Welle, 4 Apr 2012: "Born in Darmstadt in 1959, the journalist Christoph Lanz has worked at Deutsche Welle television since it went on the air on April 1, 1992. The station was made possible by the breakup of the Berlin broadcaster RIAS-TV, whose studios DW took over - and for whom Christoph Lanz had worked as editor-in-chief. For the next ten years, he served as editor-in-chief at DW before being named Director of Television in 2002. ... The 52-year-old is also proud of the sweeping reorganization of Deutsche Welle's television programming, which since February 2012 has been broadcast in German, English, Spanish and Arabic." Video of DW Talking Germany interview with Christoph Lanz is here. -- Recommended viewing, for the most part. DW was ahead of its time in the development of international television. A good graduate school thesis could compare USIA's Worldnet and DW-TV, discussing why the former went nowhere, while the latter has been a relative success.

Radio Canada International, 4 Apr 2012: "Speaking to employees at RCI's headquarters in Montreal on Wednesday, RCI director Helene Parent declared that two out of three RCI employees---about 40 people---will lose their jobs by the end of July." See also the comments.

Montreal Gazette, 5 Apr 2012, Brendan Kelly: "The mood at RCI was very dark Wednesday."

Embassy, 4 Apr 2012, Kristen Shane: RCI "will close its Russian and Portuguese departments, keeping the others 'to help audiences discover and especially understand democratic and cultural life and values in Canada,' said CBC president Hubert Lacroix. 'This allows us to concentrate our efforts on what are among Canada’s largest communities of diverse origins,' the CBC website reads, outlining the budget cut details. ... The service started in 1945 to broadcast to Canadian Forces overseas."

Sun, 6 Apr 2012, Brian Lilley: "Did you know that CBC was broadcasting in Portuguese to audiences in Brazil? Did you know about the Russian programming or the shortwave? Do you think that continuing an online radio station in Arabic or Mandarin is a good use of tax dollars when other priorities are being squeezed?"

The Mark, 5 Apr 2012, Daryl Copeland "Canada is withdrawing from foreign-language broadcasting in two of the four BRIC countries. Think about it. What about power shift? We are talking here about pulling the plug on Canada’s voice in two of the major poles in an emerging heteropolar world order. This amounts to no less than shooting yourself in the foot when you are in a race."

See also RCI Action Committee blog.

No news bulletins? This indicates that RCI embracing more completely its latter day mission of serving Canadian immigrants rather than audiences abroad. No news, coupled with "disseminating Canadian democratic values abroad" suggests a flat-out propaganda operation. "To help audiences discover and especially understand democratic and cultural life and values in Canada" points more towards an educational function.

Presumably, the parent CBC, despite its large budget cut, will remain a formidable news operation. RCI could provide a valuable international service by translating much of this news into its languages and posting that news on its website.

ABC News, 3 Apr 2012, Kieran Ricketts: "The report says Sky eventually spent over $1.4 million, the ABC spent over $475,000 and DFAT spent $770,000 on the bungled tender process." With video.

BigPond, 4 Apr 2012: "Federal Trade Minister Craig Emerson conceded the process had been less than 'elegant'. 'I'm not going to stand here as a politician and pretend that the process was beautiful and smooth,' Dr Emerson told the National Press Club on Tuesday. 'There were problems in the process - I acknowledge that, we've acknowledged it.'"

ABC News, 3 Apr 2012, Naomi Woodley, via Yahoo! 7 News: "The Federal Opposition says a scathing audit report on the Australia Network tender process calls into question the future of Communications Minister Stephen Conroy. ... Opposition senator Simon Birmingham has been pursuing the issue in the Upper House and says the Communications Department and Senator Conroy are responsible for many of the problems with the tender."

The Australian, 4 Apr 2012, editorial: "Even a casual viewer of both television services could attest that Sky News easily outperforms ABC News24 in its coverage of news. Sky News's presenters and producers are highly qualified and respected. In contrast, ABC News24 looks like the television arm of Radio Triple J. In the region, the ABC's service has been little better."

The Australian, 4 Apr 2012, letter from Penny Svasti: "To call this government's handling of the Australia Network tender a 'bungle' is very kind. In addition to the legal expenses, many man hours go into the preparation of a tender of this nature. More troubling than this, Sky reached an agreement with the Chinese national broadcaster, CCTV. The arbitrary nature of the withdrawal of the tender would not have been lost on the Chinese, who will regard our government as one without honour which would go back on its word for no apparent reason."

The Australian, 3 Apr 2012, Dennis Shanahan: "Two weeks ago, the government decided to quietly pay Sky compensation of more than $2m, which the news service sought after cabinet denied its bid to take over the Australia Network contract. Sky is one-third owned by BSkyB, which is 39 per cent owned by News Corporation, publisher of The Australian."

The Australian, 7 Apr 2012, Paul Kelly: "The terms of the tender were altered to include new international events, notably in the Middle East and North Africa. The justification for these extra criteria was widely criticised at the time. Both tenderers said their original submissions met such requirements. The tender evaluation chairperson said much the same. One tender board member criticised the additional criteria. The Australia Network does not broadcast to the Middle East or North Africa."

The Australian, 9 Apr 2012, Peter Van Onselen: "Gillard and Conroy were never going to let an organisation owned by News Corporation (about one-ninth of it, anyway) run the Australia Network. Especially not in the middle of the British hacking scandal at News International. Better to ensure the ABC (whose charter expects it to operate free of government interference) continue running the Australia Network, which is officially the 'soft diplomacy' arm of DFAT. Work that one out. A change to the ABC charter must surely be in the offing."

The Australian, 5 Apr 2012, Lauren Wilson: "Two key crossbenchers have questioned the government's bungled handling of the $223 million Australia Network tender, with Andrew Wilkie branding it a 'shambles' and Rob Oakeshott flagging that his parliamentary committee could further investigate the Auditor-General's damning findings."

The West Australian, 4 Apr 2012, Paul Murray: "In the grand scheme of the national accounts, $2 million doesn’t add up to much. But the $2 million that the Gillard Government paid secretly to Sky News two weeks ago as compensation for the ham-fisted way it scuttled the $223 million Australia Network international news service tender means something far more than the sum involved. What makes this issue so damaging for the Government is that the dysfunctional handling of the tender was polluted by the poisonous relationship between Prime Minister Julia Gillard and former foreign affairs minister Kevin Rudd leading up to Labor’s recent leadership spill."

World Radio Switzerland, 4 Apr 2012: "De Weck ... said an English-language radio isn’t part of the core mandate of Switzerland’s public broadcaster. The SBC bought WRS, which was then World Radio Geneva, in 2007 to transform it into a national English-language radio." World Radio Switzerland is a domestic English-service in Switzerland. It is not to be confused with former shortwave broadcaster Swiss Radio International, since replaced by swissinfo.ch.

The Global Journal, 5 Apr 2012, Irina Pavlova: "The Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SSR) has announced a wide review of all of its internet platforms, radio and television stations across Switzerland. The oldest English language radio with national broadcasting, World Radio Switzerland (WRS), finds itself in a peculiar situation. While the review process is projected to take place over the next seven months, WRS has already been threatened with either closure or privatization. The key argument invoked by the head of SSR is that WRS should no longer be funded by public money since it operates in English, a non-official language of the Swiss Confederation. ... The chairman of Saatchi and Saatchi Switzerland and outspoken media observer Pedro Simko adheres to the view that not only Geneva, but the whole of Switzerland, is bound to lose from the closure of the WRS, a national media platform. 'It is a completely short-sighted decision and a monstrously erroneous argument that WRS is not in one of our national languages. But beyond that, the role of WRS is to help a very large ex-pat community to integrate into Switzerland. And Switzerland lives from the very important relationship that we have with that community. Without WRS I think we are losing an opportunity to acquire some of these companies, which is the foundation of our economy.' The final outcome remains to be seen, even though it appears that a decision to close the WRS would be equally disappointing for its staff and dedicated listeners. The latter have already begun generating comments and ideas on a dedicated web page.

Yemen Post, 3 Apr 2012: "The Freedom Foundation for Media Freedom, Rights & Development, Yemen based, followed up closely the issue of threats targeted the correspondent of BBC TV (Arabic Service) in Yemen, Abdullah Ghorab, which reached in some cases to threat of killing in a dangerous move discloses bad intentions in the continuing repression of the media and put media freedoms in critical situation."

AP, 3 Apr 2012: "A new Arabic-language TV news channel with links to media magnate Rupert Murdoch said Tuesday it plans to begin broadcasting next month. The announcement of the May 6 launch comes after more than two years of preparation for Sky News Arabia to join the increasingly crowded Arabic news market. It is also a boost for Abu Dhabi’s efforts to challenge Dubai as a regional media hub. The channel is a joint partnership between the Abu Dhabi Media Investment Corp. and British Sky Broadcasting, whose biggest shareholder is Murdoch’s News Corp. ... The channel would compete against established pan-Arab networks such as Qatar-based Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya in Dubai. Last year, Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal said he plans to start an Arabic television news channel that will be based in Bahrain."

TSL press release, 2 Apr 2012, via Advanvced Television: "TSL, leading systems integrator for the broadcast industry, today announced that it has completed the installation of Sky News Arabia’s new 24/7 news station in Abu Dhabi; one of the largest of its kind in the region. ... Designed and built by TSL, the fully file-based TV station is comprised of a state-of-the-art production facility housed in a studio on the twofour54 campus, with a separate building for the newsroom, graphics and editing, machine rooms and operations centre."

See previous post about same subject.

EPL Talk, 29 Mar 2012: "Al Jazeera has hired Imagina US, a Miami-based production company that specializes in the US hispanic industry. Imagina US has been advising Al Jazeera as well as being involved in building a facility for Al Jazeera in South Florida. ... The big question about the upcoming launch of beIN Sports in the United States is whether the network will be ready and available via most major cable and satellite TV providers across the United States before the [European soccer] seasons kick off in August."

USA Today, 30 Mar 2012, Nancy Trejos: "Sofitel Luxury Hotels has partnered with TV5MONDE, a French language network broadcasting in the United States, to create a new channel called Tivi5MONDE, a French language children's channel. Children at all eight Sofitel properties in the United States can begin watching it this year. It will broadcast - commercial-free, 24 hours a day, every day - educational programs for children 3 to 13. Called the Le Petit Prince series, it will offer animated films, cartoons and original series."

The Atlantic, 30 Mar 2012, Steve Clemons: From memo by AJE MD Al Anstey: "From April 15th, we will no longer be opting-in with presentation from the DC Centre into news bulletins. Instead we will be taking more live contribution from the field from stories we are covering across the USA. We will continue to produce Inside Story from DC five days a week. ... This change is part of the wider restructure which began over two years ago in order to enhance one of our core strengths of news gathering and reporting from the field. We recently started up our bureau in Chicago. We are soon to formally open our office in Los Angeles. And we are now fully operational from Miami. These bureaux add to our existing presence and strength in Washington DC, and New York, and our bureaux across Latin America. Our commitment to coverage of the Americas remains as strong as ever. With the US and Mexican elections this year, and with all the other stories from the United States and global stories which relate to the USA it is very important we continue to improve and enhance our coverage from the region."

Clemons: "It's been interesting to watch Al Jazeera gain prominence in Washington over recent years -- with the likes of Hillary Clinton, David Petraeus, Stanley McChrystal, Leon Panetta, Susan Rice and others appearing on Al Jazeera and Al Jazeera English. President Obama still seems to be maintaining an informal, perhaps unintentional, boycott of the news channel, which still smarts a bit from Obama's decision to grant an exclusive interview to the smaller Al Arabiya during his first year in office. Many of these high level political interviews might not have been secured if Al Jazeera had not had the robust array of DC-based news products in house at the time. Many employees of AJ English now fear layoffs will decimate their operation. And all this after Al Jazeera just did a deal to move their highly cramped operations to a new building in DC. Guess they won't need all that space after all?"

BBC Worldwide press release, 29 Mar 2012: "Ken Munekata has been appointed as President of BBC Worldwide Japan, effective immediately. He joins BBC Worldwide after nearly three decades at Sony Corporation, where he most recently held two roles concurrently – President of Sony Pictures Entertainment Japan and President of Sony Broadcast Media. Based in Tokyo, Ken will report to Joyce Yeung, General Manager & Senior Vice President, BBC Worldwide Sales & Distribution Asia. He will be responsible for leading the commercial activities and strategic development for BBC Worldwide across its Sales & Distribution and Consumer Products businesses, as well as live events and theatrical distribution. ... Joyce Yeung commented, 'I’m delighted that Ken will be heading up our business in Japan. With his extensive management and business development experience in the Japanese media industry, I’m confident he will bring new growth opportunities to BBC Worldwide Japan and create collaboration with other Asian territories.'"

Beet.TV, 28 Mar 2012: "With very limited cable distribution, Al Jazeera turned to London's Livestation, a portal for dozens of global broadcasters, to take its satellite signal and stream it on the Web, explains Livestation CEO Lippe Oosterhof in this segment from the Beet.TV Executive Summit in Vieques, Puerto Rico." With video.

Broadband TV News, 30 Mar 2012, Robert Briel: "Michael Peters, CEO of Euronews, commented: 'I’m delighted to welcome Arnaud Verlhac to euronews, and particularly appreciate his determined, pro-active personality. He will dynamise our distribution operation beyond its classic commercial function, with the mission of consolidating euronews’ base in Europe, the Middle East and Africa; establishing the channel in Asia; and expanding its reach in the other continents.' 'I’m delighted to be joining euronews, the only news channel in the world that offers 11 linguistic services and, in addition, distributes them globally,' said Verhlac. ... 'Besides my team’s presence at all our business sector’s big events, I wish to more strongly differentiate euronews in the news-channel space, which is continually growing larger and thus more competitive,' he added."

Broadband TV News, 1 Apr 2012, Robert Briel: "International Lyons-based news channel Euronews said it has reached its goal of becoming the most connected media worldwide, and announces the launch on 11 smart TV platforms. The channel offers on-demand short format programmes, multiple services in different languages and fast reacting news produced by the 400-strong journalist team. The list of 11 manufacturers includes Panasonic (EMEA), Philips (world-wide), Roku (US, UK, Ireland), Toshiba (Europa, with ME and Asia to follow in Q2, 2012), NetRange MMH (connected TV solution for around 60 brands including Loewe, Vestel, PEAQ and SES Astra/HD+; availability is worldwide), Samsung (Europe), Sharp (Europe), TechniSat (Europe), Google TV (US); with Sony launching now (worldwide) and LG to follow later this month (also wordlwide). All content is available in five different langiuages: English, French, German, Italian and Spanish."