Media News–Strikes, Al Jazeera At One, Rush’s Idiocy And More

November 18th, 2007 - by: danny

STRIKE NEWS: (M & G) Striking United States screenwriters and major film and TV studios agreed on Friday to resume formal contract talks on November 26. The announcement of new talks came hours after the strike claimed its first big-screen casualty, with production of the follow-up to the box-office hit The Da Vinci Code.

CBC: Screenwriters around the world to support U.S. strikers

Screenwriters from Canada plan to participate in an international day of solidarity on Nov. 28 in support of striking U.S. film and TV writers.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY

Al Jazeera’s English channel has been on the air for a year. People all over the world can watch it, but us in the United States of America. Why? The Cable systems that just provided The Fox Business Channel with carriage say they have no room for AlJazeera’s English Channel.

This is a shame. Here’s one blogger who argues that its content is in fact not that radical.

Nalaka Gunawardene: PERSPECTIVE ON THE FIRST YEAR OF ALJAZEERA ENGLISH

RUSH TRASHES KID ON GLOBAL WARMING

The Seattle PI carries this piece by Joel Connelly:

The latest target for demonizing by right-wing talk radio is an 18-year-old Yup’ik Eskimo woman who traveled to Washington, D.C., this month to tell what global warming is doing to her remote home village of St. Michael, Alaska.

Charlee Lockwood spoke of how moose have moved north, berry patches produce less fruit and the catch is
declining at her family’s fish camp. “Our culture will die because everyone will have to move someplace and there will be no one to teach them,” she told a House
panel.

Over about 600 radio stations last week, however, talk- radio king Rush Limbaugh declared that Lockwood’s
testimony made him “really want to puke. I just want to throw up.”

“It’s the Democrats exploiting a young child, ladies and gentlemen, for the advancement of a political issue
that will grow the size of government and increase their control over everyone,” Limbaugh declared.

Rush, you falsifying, pill-popping gasbag!

READ THE REST!

Media News from The European Journalism Center:

Australia court urges Indonesia war crimes charges

A coroner on Friday urged the Australian government to seek war crimes charges against former Indonesian military officers over the 1975 killing of five Australian newsmen during Indonesia’s invasion of East Timor. New South Wales state deputy coroner Dorelle Pinch ruled the five Australians, known as the Balibo five, were deliberately tracked and killed by Indonesian forces who were invading Balibo in October 1975 ahead of a full invasion of East Timor. ‘The journalists were not incidental casualties in the fighting, they were captured, then deliberately killed despite protesting their status,’ Pinch ruled on Friday. Her finding is at odds with Indonesia’s long-held version that the newsmen were killed in crossfire during a firefight at Balibo in the former Portuguese colony of East Timor. Pinch named former Indonesian Special Forces captain Yunus Yosfiah, a retired general and now a senior Indonesian lawmaker, for ordering the killings to stop any reports that special forces were involved in the attack on Balibo. She also said there was strong circumstantial evidence that the orders to kill the newsmen came from the head of the Indonesian special forces, Major-General Benny Murdani. The deaths of the Balibo five – Greg Shackleton, Tony Stewart, Gary Cunningham, Brian Peters and Malcolm Rennie – have been a long-running source of tension between Australia and Indonesia, with family members accusing both countries of a cover up. Pinch said she would now ask the Australian government to consider pursuing war crimes against those involved. (Reuters)

CNN plans expansion overseas – competing with AlJazeera.

The cable news network CNN Worldwide plans to increase its staff of correspondents by 10 percent as part of a multimillion-dollar investment to increase its ability to produce its own reports, the news network said Wednesday. CNN Worldwide, a unit of Time Warner, said it would invest almost USD 10m (EUR 6.8m) to add 15 or 16 correspondents to its staff of 150. The announcement comes two months after CNN said it would not renew its contract to receive news from the Reuters Group and instead bolster its own news resources. The centerpiece of the investment is the expansion of the CNN bureau in the United Arab Emirates. CNN will also hire people in Johannesburg and Mexico City, and it said it planned operations in Afghanistan, Belgium, India, Kenya, Malaysia, Nigeria, the Philippines, Poland and Vietnam. (New York Times)

Pakistan lifts ban on BBC, CNN

Also: International news channels BBC and CNN and two local stations returned to Pakistani screens Thursday after authorities relaxed a ban imposed under a state of emergency.

HOW THE MEDIA BURNED BARRY BONDS

Murli Menon writes:
LETTER: HAVE YOU EVER SEEN RIVER DOLPHINS?

Respected Danny (wow, that’s a firstÃ¢â‚¬Â¦ds)

I am back in Thailand enroute to the remote North-East regions of Thailand bordering Laos. My objective is to reach Ubon Ratchathani to watch the spectaculor Loy Krathong floating candle festival in the Isan triba belt in north-east Thailand.

In the meantime, I have pleasure in inviting you to read my travel blog about cruising on the Mekong river at Kratie (pronounced Kracheah) in Cambodia, along with rare, pictures of the Irrawady river Dolphin.

WHATS SO FUNNY?

I am off on Monday to speak and screen In Debt We Trust at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster PA.

Your comments always welcome

Dissector@mediachannel

The News Dissector