SUPREMES REBUFF NY TIMES ON LEAK

The United States Supreme Court refused today to stop a federal prosecutor from reviewing the telephone records of two reporters for The New York Times. The records, the paper said, include information about many of the reporters’ confidential sources. In a one-sentence order offering no reasoning and noting no dissenting votes, the Supreme Court rejected a request from The Times to stay a lower court’s decision while the paper tried to persuade the high court to review the case.

Today’s order effectively allows the United States attorney in Chicago, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, to begin reviewing the records, which he has already obtained from phone companies, as early as this week.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/27/washington/27cnd-leak.html?ex=1322283600&en=92a4a5db616723ac&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

THREATS IN RUSSIA (EJC)

Two reporters at Novaya Gazeta received death threats last week, editors said Monday. In a statement posted on its website, the paper’s editors said the threats were made Friday to two unidentified employees in connection with an article about problems in the North Caucasus and another article about the recent murder of the newspaper’s most prominent reporter Anna Politkovskaya. One of the reporters also received a threatening text message.

Novaya Gazeta has specialised in investigative reporting, especially in the area of government corruption, and has been highly critical of the Kremlin’s policies in Chechnya and other restive southern regions.

Politkovskaya was gunned down in her Moscow apartment building in an apparent contract killing on October 7. She had exposed killings, torture and other abuses against civilians in Chechnya. Former spy and
Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko, who died in London last week, told police he believed he was poisoned while investigating the slaying of Politkovskaya.

Source: http://www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/2006/11/28/018.h

NEW WEB TOOL DEVELOPED

A tool has been created capable of circumventing government censorship of the web, according to researchers. The free program has been constructed to let citizens of countries with restricted web access retrieve and display web pages from anywhere. The University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab software, called psiphon, will be released on 1 December.

COPYRIGHT REFORMS

Some reforms of the copyright laws have been announced:

See the AP story

and the Copyright Office website for details.

Among the changes:

* Professors copying snippets of video from DVDs for educational purposes
* Blind people breaking DRM so they can read use text-reading software on digitally published works

MEDIA LAW IN PARLIAMENT

A British member of the European Parliament has asked that media libel be included in a new EU law on cross-border disputes, citing the growth in Internet journalism. The amendment to the so-called Rome II bill would give jurisdiction over media libel issues to the country where an article or story is published or broadcast, regardless of the home country of the individual filing a libel suit.

Niri Shanm a partner in the London office of the international law practice Taylor Wessing and a noted attorney for the media industry says; “I believe that the status quo will be maintained for a considerable time to come. It is very hard to envisage the Commission designing a legislative solution which suits everybody….

I hope to hear from someone on the other side of this issue too.

ALSO IN THE UK, FROM THE EUROPEAN JOURNALISM CENTER

BBC News 24 is to launch what it has billed as the UK’s first news program based entirely on user generated content. Your News, which began a pilot run on Saturday, will broadcast stories, features and videos that have proved most popular with viewers on television and the internet.

The News 24 controller, Kevin Bakhurst, said the new programme would use some of the huge amount of content submitted to the BBC on a daily basis by the public. The BBC’s news website receives around 10,000 emails a day with story suggestions, comments and pictures.

The weekly program will include items such as news stories covering issues raised by members of the public as well as a segment answering questions that have been sent in. The BBC said all the material used will be credited on-air to the person who sent it in. New BBC internal guidelines on paying for user generated content were published recently. The BBC permits payment for material that is ‘particularly editorially important or unique’.

Source: http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,,1956485,00.html - Media Guardian

AUSTRALIA: MEDIA PASSING INTO MYSTERY HANDS
http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/media-passing-into-hands-of-mystery-owners/2006/11/26/1164476066696.html

HEADLINE: Iraq parliament bars media as tension mounts

REPORT FROM AMSTERDAM IDFA FESTIVAL

Kookie Habtegaber, an Eritrean student studying in Holland is covering the annual IDFA documentary festival for us:

”It is in the middle of November and 18 degrees here in Amsterdam. The good thing about this: I can walk with my coat and enjoy this typical ‘early summer weather’, only now the scenery looks different. The worrying part: it brings climate change so close to home. It is in this context I went to see the green documentary The Planet.

“The effect of global warming and the ensuing climate change has been an important issue in the past 20 years or so. What is has surprised me is the fact that Al Gore’s documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth”, has been able to move the complacency of the average citizen to the ‘recognition/realization’ state. Why did this elicit more action from politicians and the public whilst many environmental activists and experts have been trying to put it on top the agenda for many years? I was thus curious to see what new information this documentary was going to show.

The film does not contain so much new information if one has been following the topic; rather it links up other political issues with environmental issues.

One such point highlighted by George Monbiot is the role of television in manipulating nature films and giving the impression that there are vast areas around the globe where animals and plants live in isolation and without the intrusion of humans in their habitat. But to my utter amazement, I discovered some zebras have the same horizon as I do when I look out of my urban window: factories, cars, and concrete walls. Similarly, the film showed the power of close ups and framing; animals in the zoo could be depicted as if they are filmed in the wilderness, nor are humans present in these footages, giving the wrong impression on the state of affairs; unrealistic view.

Another point that I picked up was made by Professor Daly, professor of Economics at Maryland University. He emphasized the role of economics in fostering consumption by ever emphasizing economic growth as the bloodline of survival of mankind, but without posing the question on how far this growth can be taken as a positive factor. How do we factor in the negative effect of economic growth, which has become synonymous with more consumption?

Unfortunately the film does not interview and in any way bring the business community into the picture, whilst I believe this is the group that needs to be engaged if there is to any real change.

Finally most of experts that were interviewed and who gave their opinion were all western scholars while the countries and regions that are directly being affected non-western countries. It would be have been useful and interesting to know what and how local experts see the situation and also in what way indigenous conservation methods could help in mitigating further degradation.

One thing that was very obvious however, is the global environmental interdependence that has become apparent. This message is never repeated enough.

BYE BYE BBC

The Beeb reports:

’ BBC chairman Michael Grade is to leave the public service broadcaster and move to its biggest terrestrial rival ITV. The move will be a blow to the BBC, where Mr Grade was steering it through complex licence fee negotiations with the government.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6189994.stm