Newspaperindex - the blog | Newspapers of the world, media and free speech

Finaly some girls at this blog! The romanian newspaper Bursa now has completed their 2005 pin-up calender. The special thing about this calender is that all featured girls are employed at the newspapers and they are all wearing sexy traditional costumes. We all know that journalists and pressroom hang-arounds are hot as uranium in hell, but take a look at these co-workers…

We get to see Oana Andreea Stroiescu from marketing in white stockings and matching white leather boots and Georgeta Anca, telephone operator, with an open shirt and an indeed provocative attitude.

- And here dressed up as lover of Djengis Khan, Ancuta Carolina Stanciu, leader of the editorial staff at Bursa:

Click to enlarge

See them all here: http://bursa.ro/cotidian/?pag=calendar

More Romanian newsapers here

Bob55 says:

Whatever you do, don’t click on this one: Link

UPDATE !
While doing my daily scan of 2685 newspapers worldwide I found an amazing thing in the Nigerian Sun News Online:

http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/sungirl/index.htm

These girls may not be as pretty as the Bursa staff pin-ups - but you get these girls phonenumbers and sometimes their emailadresses.

Journalists in Georgia have until December 6 to submit their best reporting on issues related to corruption to a competition organised by the local office of Transparency International. The anti-corruption NGO will award GEL 500 (about EUR 239) to the best report, judged by criteria such as impartiality, writing style, variety of sources, use of Georgian language, and importance of the topic. Submitted works should have been published in a Georgian-language newspaper or magazine from September 1 to November 30. Transparency International will select the winner by December 20. (IJNet.org,November 30, 2005)

US website depicts foreign press coverage of America
WatchingAmerica.com is a website dedicated to showing Americans how their country is reported on in the foreign press. The site is edited by William Kern, former copy editor for the International Herald Tribune, and provides translations of interesting stories sourced from newspapers and broadcasts in Europe, The Middle East, Asia, Africa and Latin America. Kern and his business partner British entrepreneur Robert Koerner view their site as responding to the growing interest among Americans in their country’s image abroad. The importance of translating articles from foreign sources is highlighted by Koerner, who asserts that there is a ‘key distinction’ between information published in English by foreign media, and stories written in native languages. No commentary is provided for any of the translated articles as the aim of the site is to be politically neutral. (Editors Weblog,November 30, 2005)

610-metre TV tower starts construction in South China city
Construction of a 610-metre Xinhua TV tower, expected to be the world’s highest, started recently in Guangzhou, capital city of South China’s Guangzhou province. The Xinhua TV tower, with a 450-metre tower and a 160-metre mast, will be finished in 2009 at a total cost of CNY 2.2 bn (EUR 232m). The TV tower will be used to broadcast the Asian Games to be held in Guangzhou in 2010, said the Guangzhou government to Xinhua today. Sponsors of the TV tower, the Guangzhou-based Construction and Investment Development Co., Ltd and the Guangzhou TV Station, selected a design from the United Kingdom among 13 entries from China and abroad.

Looks a bit like the “Turning Torso” over in Malmö Sweden..

Here is todays Xinhua building:

The Xinhua building

More Chinese news

Leaders of the Islamic community of the northwestern Italian town of Albenga are terming it the ‘first reality show on the life of Muslims in Italy’. In reality, what they will be shooting is more of a documentary on the life of the Muslim faithful in this small town in Liguria. The protagonists of the film, which will be shot next January, are the 1,000 or so Muslims who live in the coast centre, who will show the viewers the hurdles they face in integrating into Italian society. The Albenga town council is providing technical assistance. The project is the brain child of Abdul Kabir Roberto Aliotta, an internet enthusiast and a convert to Islam, who manages an Islamic Italian website. ‘

It will be half way between a journalistic reportage and a reality show’ Aliotta said. ‘In the video we will follow three stories; a single immigrant man, a female high school student and a Muslim family,’ he said

. In May, this year Aliotta established the first Italian radio station specifically catering for Muslims. The web-based Radio Islam, which describes itself as ‘The voice of Muslims in Italy’, broadcasts in Italian; Muslims in Italy come from many different countries in North and West Africa, South Asia, the Balkans and Eastern Europe. With the huge increase in immigrants in the past two decades, Islam is now the second religion in Italy, after Roman Catholicism.

More: http://www.adnki.com/index_Italiano.php

After a four-day stoppage of contaminated water supplies, the Chinese city of Harbin is expected to turn the taps back on today, but many citizens have become so suspicious of official safety claims that they say they will not be drinking. The authorities insist that a huge toxic slick released into the Songhua river by a chemical factory explosion earlier this month has been diluted, evaporated and flushed downstream. Although 100 tons of benzene — a colorless, odorless carcinogenic chemical — spilled into the river upstream, the levels are now said to be safe around the intake pipes that supply 3.5 million people in Harbin. To reassure the public, Heilongjiang governor Zhang Zuoji has promised to drink the first glass of water from city taps. But after the government’s botched cover-up attempt last week, public doubts about official pronouncements are proving harder to clear up than the toxins. It has emerged in recent days that the local and central governments were aware of the health risks soon after the blast on Nov. 13 at a factory owned by one of the country’s biggest firms, China National Petroleum Corporation, yet for more than a week officials and company managers told the media that there was no contamination of water supplies. This sense of distrust has been heightened by the latest command from the propaganda department, which ordered all Chinese newspapers to stop investigating the scandal and to withdraw their reporters from Harbin. Among the stories that they were unable to publish was that of a damages lawsuit filed at a Harbin court on Friday against Jilin PetroChemical, the CNPC subsidiary firm that ran the plant where the blast occurred.

Source: Jonathan Watts, The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,,1651816,00.html
Via SPJ.org

Bodhtree, an indian leader in ePublishing and eArchival space is now offering its Pressmart ePaper publishing solution on a revenue-sharing ASP model to leading newspapers, worldwide.

Within a short span of time, a large number of leading newspapers have already adopted the model. Recent additions to Bodhtree’s Pressmart customers include Indian Express, Financial Express, Hindustan Times, Hindustan, Sandesh, Dinamalar, Emirates Today, Emarat Al Yaum and Dawn.

Newspapers and magazines use Bodhtree’s Pressmart ePaper solution to put out their print editions on their subscriber’s web browsers in print-identical format with amazingly user-friendly browsing features. Users can flip through the pages and navigate through the articles and search for the newspaper content. Multimedia capabilities bring the newspaper alive with news audio and video clips, movie trailers, product videos, audio jingles and 3D real estate walkthroughs.

From Express India

The BBC governors have upheld part of a complaint against a journalist who said she ‘started to cry‘ as a dying Yasser Arafat left the West Bank in 2004. Her comments ‘breached the requirements of due impartiality’, they ruled. Barbara Plett was initially cleared by the head of editorial complaints over the ‘From Our Own Correspondent’ report on Radio 4 but a listener appealed. The ruling related to her description of a scene when the Palestinian leader was flown out of his compound. ‘When the helicopter carrying the frail old man rose from his ruined compound, I started to cry,’ she said in the 30 October 2004 broadcast. Plett’s piece led to hundreds of complaints from listeners. The BBC’s director of news, Helen Boaden has apologised for what she described as an ‘editorial misjudgement’. She said it appeared Plett ‘unintentionally gave the impression of over-identifying with Yasser Arafat and his cause’. (BBC News,November 28, 2005)

In one of the harshest court verdicts issued recently against the press, the Yemeni Western Court of Sanaa sentenced Saturday the Al-Tajammu opposition newspaper to closure for six months, banned its editor-in-chief and one of its writers from writing for a year and fined them a total of YEaeed protested the verdict, which journalists describe as ‘another indication of the oppression that the opposition press iR 300,000 (about EUR 1,464). The newspaper’s editor-in-chief Abdulrahman Abdullah Ibrahim and its writer Abdulraman Ss exposed to’. This verdict is the latest in a series of similar verdicts, of which some had gone to the extremes of imprisoning journalists. Alongside court verdicts, illegal violations against the press were also reported to have risen sharply this year. This in turn triggered international concern about the status of journalists in Yemen. (Yemen Times,November 28, 2005)

North Korea criticised CNN for airing footage purporting to show a public execution, accusing it of being part of a US government-organised slander campaign. Earlier this month, CNN aired a documentary with footage defectors claimed to have smuggled out of the North, including a public execution of a person who had helped someone defect to China. The network had said North Korea declined to respond to a request for comment. In commentary by its official Korean Central News Agency, the North said the footage was ‘full of sheer lies’ and accused CNN of airing the tape at the instigation of the US government as part of an alleged psychological campaign to overthrow the regime. (AP, ABC News,November 28, 2005)

More about North Korea propaganda here - even more here

Daily news in english directly from the North Korean dictatorship: Korean News Service

The European Commission has announced plans to regulate television services delivered over the internet. The Brussels executive will publish its Television Without Frontiers proposals next month. The Proposals will update existing rules concerning programme delivery and the need for programme makers to tap new sources of funds as viewers use personal video recorders to skip adverts (I thought people did that 20 years ago!?!). The main elements of the intended legislation relate to extending product placement opportunities in programme content. The new legislation will also seek to define audiovisual services more broadly as a delivery of moving images with or without sound and distributed by electronic networks, so that moving images over the internet are also covered.

Read the entire proposal here:

http://europa.eu.int/comm/avpolicy/regul/regul_en.htm#2

Gerhard Schroeder, German chancellor for the past seven years until this week, is to join Switzerland’s leading newspaper group, Ringier, as a political consultant and lobbyist, working at its offices in Zurich one or two days a week. The ex-chancellor, who resigned his seat in the German Bundestag after handing over to successor Angela Merkel on Tuesday, would take up the post on January 1, the company said Thursday. Two thirds of Ringier’s business is in central and eastern Europe, where it has acquired many major publications. The media group, which publishes both newspapers and magazines, has a workforce of 6,081. One of Ringier’s main Swiss newspapers is the mass-circulation, left-of-centre Blick. It publishes a Swiss business magazine, Cash, and a German political magazine, Cicero, as well as more than 40 titles in Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary. Proprietor Michael Ringier said on Germany’s N24 news television channel that Schroeder would ‘open doors’ for the group. Schroeder’s title will be ‘personal adviser to Michael Ringier on international politics issues’. (DPA, Expatica Germany)

Picture stolen from http://www.qlsenterprises.com/weekly2.htm

Poland’s two leading newspapers blacked out large sections of their front pages Wednesday in an eye-catching protest against media repression in neighbouring Belarus. The main pages of Gazeta Wyborcza and Rzeczpospolita looked as if a censor had taken a black marker to them, with most text and photographs crossed out. Amnesty International, which led the protest, wrote at the bottom of both front pages: ‘This is what freedom of speech looks like in Belarus.’ Amnesty(Editor and Publisher, November 25, 2005)

Update 27/11!

The newspapers have been scanned, see them all here: http://www.br23.net/en/2005/11/23/polish-newspapers-for-press-freedom/

BBCs Story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4463658.stm
Moscow Times Story: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/11/24/015.html

Across the Middle East and North Africa, the Internet is spreading rapidly as a means of accessing information, exchanging ideas and expressing opinions, particularly in countries where the press is tightly controlled by governments.

However, governments are moving to stop the spread of ideas and opinions by blocking websites and jailing Internet users, a new report by Human Rights Watch finds.

“False Freedom: Online Censorship in the Middle East and North Africa” documents online censorship in Tunisia, Iran, Syria and Egypt. It finds that governments in these countries have pursued contradictory Internet policies, writes IFEX.

Find the entire report here

One of the leading chroniclers of US popular culture, Rolling Stone magazine, is taking on the next frontier, China. The monthly has licensed Hong Kong-based One Media Group to publish a Chinese-language edition in the mainland, One Media Group Chief Strategy Officer Robby Yung announced on Wednesday. Yung said the mainland Chinese edition, printed in simplified Chinese characters commonly used in China, will contain a mix of local content written by a mainly Beijing-based staff and translations of pieces from the US edition. Given Rolling Stone’s US emphasis, ‘the trick is to see how you can balance that with popular culture from China or from Asia, as well as popular music,’ he said. Yung expressed confidence that Rolling Stone’s high-quality reporting will impress readers in China.

(CNN, AP,November 24, 2005)

The director-general of the Al-Jazeera satellite TV network is demanding an official denial from Washington after the British Daily Mirror cited a leaked memo which suggested the US was planning to bomb its Qatar headquarters. Waddah Khanfar said that they also want an ‘immediate’ halt to verbal attacks by representatives of the Bush administration against journalists of the Arabic channel. Given the precedents, an attack against Al-Jazeera’s bureaux in the Afghan capital, Kabul in 2001 and in Baghdad in April 2003, in which a correspondent Tariq Ayub was killed, the leaked memo portrays a ‘worrying’ picture, Khanfar said. In light of the memo, he believes that those previous attacks were not ‘accidents’ carried out unintentionally, as US command declared. Khanfar is concerned that journalists from the network or their families could also become ‘targets’. ‘For three years now, the continual attacks, the continual criticism that the American authorities have directed at our work, has created a climate of fear in which it is difficult to work,’ he said, adding that ‘one of our journalists, Taysir Alouni, has been arrested in Spain [and sentenced to seven years jail] on accusations of links to al-Qaeda, while he is innocent. And we have a cameraman [Sami Muhyideen al-Hajj], detained [in 2001] at Guantanamo and tortured without any formal charges against him.’ (AKI news,November 24, 2005)

Readers are making up for the slide in print circulations by reading their favorite broadsheets online. http://www.editorsweblog.org/news/2005/11/online_newspapers_growing_readership.php

Newspaper Association of America redefines newspaper circulation to include websites
Due to the success of many newspaper websites, the NAA adds website readership which will hopefully boost advertiser confidence.
http://www.editorsweblog.org/print_newspapers/2005/11/redefining_newspaper_circulation_to_incl.php

Aljazeera.net is the official site of the Qatar-based television company. But there is also aljazeera.com, an English-language website operated by the Aljazeera Publishing of Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, and London. In March the Qatar channel filed a complaint at the World Intellectual Property Arbitration and Mediation Centre in Geneva requesting that the Dubai/London-based site stop using the same domain name, and charging the other company with breach of copyright and ‘bad faith’. But the panel ruling questioned Al-Jazeera’s claim that it had only ‘recently’ become aware of the existence of aljazeera.com, and said that in continuing to use aljazeera.com as its e-mailing address for its correspondents had not acted in good faith. Al-Jazeera confirmed in Doha that the network had lost the case, and was now considering its next step, probably an appeal. News sources in Doha said that Al-Jazeera is challenging the rival website now because it plans to launch its own exclusively English-language news and commentary channel, Al-Jazeera International, next year and would like to have a clear field for its new news venture.

A new weekly newspaper for young British Asians has launched in London, with the aim to cover the entire country in a matter of months. Page 2 Page, a freely distributed paper, is aiming to target a more upmarket audience with a focus on ‘quality’ editorial and news. Managing editor Shashi Singh said: ‘We seek to reflect the richness of our multi-cultural world. We fill the vacuum that both Asian and mainstream media have created… The English mainstream press often overlooks the increasing diversity in our communities while the ethnic media is increasingly mired in its own editorial parochialism.’ Unlike tabloids such as Eastern Eye and Desi Xpress, which ‘cover mainly showbiz and Bollywood’, Page 2 Page is set to bring its readers ‘the news of the Diaspora spread across continents and reach out to others who have come here from different nations’. Distribution is currently limited to the capital but there are plans to take the paper nationwide and then international next year. (Asians in Media,November 23, 2005)

The Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, who once made a living as a smartass singer on cruise ships, is soon to release a second album of love songs in the run-up to next year’s election. The first album, ‘Meglio na Canzone’ (Better a Song), contained mostly typical Neapolitan ballads which told of broken hearts, love, loneliness and jealousy. The album briefly broke into Italy’s top 100, but was dismissed by music critics and given little airtime on the country’s radio stations. Berlusconi is the first national leader to launch a recording career while still playing an active role in politics. He faces a tough election battle next year and critics say the release of the album is a brazen attempt to win votes and show himself as a typical Italian smartass who likes a good sing-song. (moderated from The Telegraph,November 22, 2005)

Update 24/11 2005.
Berlusconi quotations:

* I’m a gentleman, a truthful person, a sir of absolute morality (From “La Repubblica”, July 13, 2003)

* Mussolini never killed anybody, he just sent dissenters abroad for vacation.

* Foreign press is usually leftist and describes us differently from what we really are.

Much more like this at: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Silvio_Berlusconi

Eritrean authorities have released a journalist whom they held for four years while 12 others still remain in custody, the Paris-based Reporters without Borders (RSF) said in a statement on Saturday. Dawit Isaac, 41, an Eritrean who also took Swedish citizenship in the 1980s and the proprietor of the former weekly Setit, was one of ten newspaper owners, editors and journalists accused without evidence of being Ethiopian ‘traitors’ and ’spies’ by the government, the statement said. Earlier this year, RSF accused Eritrea of violations of press freedom, ranking it 166th out of 167 countries in its annual report. (AFP, The Local,November 22, 2005)

See former post about this here

Again today nothing happened and.. Wait a minute! As I am writing we are recieving this…

“Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is mearly energy condensed through a slow vibration, we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no death, life is only a dream and we are the imaginations of ourselves. Here’s Tom with the weather”

- Bill Hicks

Prince Charles took legal action Friday against a British newspaper that published details from his private journal, which included his description of Chinese officials as ‘’appalling old waxworks.'’

The prince’s office said it had lodged papers at the High Court against Associated Newspapers, publishers of the Mail on Sunday, for breach of confidentiality and copyright.

The journal, entitled ‘’The Handover of Hong Kong, or The Great Chinese Takeaway,'’ contained the heir to the British throne’s views on the 1997 transfer of Hong Kong to the Chinese. From Chicago Sun-Times

The Sunday Mail published parts of Prince Charles private journal.

More about China from Newspaper Index.

New languages are added to Newspaperindex.com, in order to make it easier for people from all over the world to find today’s newspapers.

The entire backend has for this operation been rebuild, which can be compared to operating the skeleton out of a middle size mammal and putting it back in again in hope that the fury patient will survive. This has been done by Jens Hilligsøe, known as Hilli, who actually is a part of (silent, stealth, backendish - but still) NewspaperIndex. Passionate readers will remember him from this year’s motorcycle trip in Spain as reported here.

Take a look at the new language frontpages here:

Chinese
Arabic
Romanian
French
Ukranian

Hindi and Russian will be added shortly.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said it was outraged after the Tunisian authorities turned back its Secretary General Robert Ménard on his arrival in Tunis to attend the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). Plain clothes Tunisian police officers yesterday physically prevented Ménard from leaving an Air France plane after it touched down in Tunis, while another police officer filmed the incident without permission from the Air France crew. The plane?s captain told Ménard to stay on board and issued him with a return ticket on the same aircraft. Executive director of the WSIS, Charles Geiger, had said in a statement on 16 November that Robert Ménard was not welcome at the summit, although his office had given him accreditation. He referred to a claim made by the Tunisian authorities that an official complaint had been laid against Ménard in Tunisia. Geiger admitted that he had not confirmed the existence of the complaint. Moreover, the president of the Tunisian bar told RSF?s lawyer that he was unaware of any such complaint.

Meanwhile, RSF activists yesterday stuck a giant poster representing the ‘black holes in the web‘ inside the building hosting the summit. The poster illustrated the 15 ?enemies of the internet?, the countries that trample on free expression on the net. (Reporters Without Borders,November 18, 2005)

What is http://www.google.com/microsoft ?

I found it today when looking at my logfiles. It is a modification of Google, made by the Google team that obviusly includes the word “microsoft” in your search.

What is the point? Is it a joke? If it is - is it funny?

By the way, the newspaper Information today asked its readers to do a google search for the words: “miserable failure”

This is what google says about it

Jake writes:

Dear Hans
Hope this finds you well. I’ll come straight to the point - I’m writing with the cheek to ask you, straight out, to buy our new book, Peace Journalism, for £25, available through PayPal on peacejournalism.org

Why should you take the radical step of actually buying a copy?
First, because it’s a riveting read and second because we’re working with a very small impoverished publisher and could do with a bit of support - if there’s to be a reprint, second edition etc. We believe it’s a worthy cause. Don’t just take my word for it - Peace Journalism has already proved a hit with senior academics and journalists alike:

Endorsements:

Peace Journalism has an Introduction by Roy Greenslade, Telegraph media commentator and Professor of Journalism at City University. He calls it ‘wholly refreshing - offers journalists a coherent, practical set of guidelines… the undeniable merit of the authors’
approach is that it makes journalists think more deeply about their overall responsibilities to society’.

In the Preface, New Statesman editor John Kampfner says ‘the merit in this book lies as much in the prescription as the critique. The authors have provided an important set of guidelines for the rest of us to follow’.

Phillip Knightley, author of The First Casualty, says: ‘You cannot put it down without being convinced that the authors are right’.

Professor Richard Falk of Princeton University calls it ‘worth its weight in gold - exciting as well as instructive’.

Professor Stuart Rees, Director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney:

‘Elegantly written, often humorous, always encyclopaedic - the most refreshing and constructive analysis of media practice for years’.

It’s an attractively produced volume as you’ll see from the cover design attached - it would good on your shelves or coffee table :-)

Best wishes

Jake

The Indian government has ordered the repatriation of a Pakistani journalist who has spent 14 years in prison in the north-western state of Rajasthan. Sajid Bashir from Pakistan’s Bahawalpur district was arrested when he accidentally crossed the border into Rajasthan in 1991. Bashir was kept in prison even after he completed a local court sentence of 12 years in jail in 2001. The government ordered his release on the state high court’s orders. The Rajasthan high court, acting on a petition by an Indian civil liberties group, directed the government to release foreign nationals who had not been released despite completing their sentences. Four other Pakistani nationals in jails in Rajasthan will also be released. (BBC News,November 15, 2005)

Most used “prenomes” for newspapers in Portuguese:

* Jornal
* Diário
* Correio
* Folha
* Gazeta
* Tribuna
* Revista
* Expresso
* Arauto
* Voz
* Eco
* Farol
* Monitor
* Sentinela
* Vigilante
* Guardião
* Clarim
* Trombeta
* Grito
* Notícias
* Relator
* Orador
* Mensageiro
* Boletim
* Opinião
* Observador
* Lanterna
* Ilustração
* Espelho
* Época
* Arquivo
* Abelha
* Academia
* Amigo
* Analisador
* Apóstolo
* Arcádia
* Artilheiro
* Artista
* Aurora
* Baluarte
* Bússola
* Campeão
* Publicador
* Progresso
* Vida
* Luta
* info
* Cidade
* Estado
* Província
* Planeta
* Espaço
* Tempo

From Wikipedia.org “Nomes típicos de jornais”

The list is followed by the most widespread middlenames and surnames. Someone please build a Brazilian newspaper title generator on this invaluable data.

Newspapers have no future without online and digital services, media executives heard at a two-day conference in Madrid jointly organised by the World Association of Newspapers, the IFRA publishing association and the International Federation of the Printed Press.

‘We are getting the whole organisation ready for a digital future,’ said Simon Waldman, director of digital publishing at Guardian Newspapers, whose Guardian Unlimited site is by far the most popular British newspaper online site. Within ’six to seven years’, the group plans to dedicate 80 per cent of its time to digital activities, compared to 20 per cent at present, Waldman told the conference, entitled ‘Beyond the Printed Word’.

Meanwhile the internet arm of El Mundo, Spain’s second-best selling daily in print, has the highest readership of all online European papers with 750,000 visitors a day, and is the most read title in the Spanish-speaking world. ‘Digital revenue is serious business … Online business is a growth business, while newspapers are not,’ echoed Helmar Hipp, regional director of Austria’s Voralberger Nachrichten, which draws 15 per cent of its revenue from the internet and related activities. (AFP, journalism.org,November 14, 2005)