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COMMUNICATION

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    When News Meets PR

    From the department of kicking the US mainstream media while it’s already down: it’s not unusual for US TV stations to run corporate product pitches as straight news items, according to a new report by a media watchdog. Over a ten-month period, the Center for Media and Democracy found 77 TV stations guilty of airing >>>

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    Esprit De Apple Corps

    More corporate copyright capers. The Royal Courts of Justice in London swung to the sounds of the latest popular beat combos on the opening day of Apple vs. Apple, in which the Beatles’ record label is demanding damages from the computer giant for the alleged scrumping of its apple logo. QC Geoffrey “Loudmouth” Vos, resplendent >>>

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    Harmful If Swallowed

    Yeah, the Kool-Aid does taste funny. Molly Ivins tears into the assumption that the newspaper business is dying because it isn’t delivering profits. Sure, there’s a steady decline in the industry over the long term. But profits are still happening. What’s killing newspapers is a mania for profits at any cost. Cut reporters and the >>>

  • Multitasking and the Journalist

    A profile of Jon Snow, Channel 4’s chief news anchor, in which he does some “thinking from the mouth” (and nothing about his taste in ties, thank the gimmick editor): As a journalist I think technology where it advances communication is plus, plus. Technology that merely inflects whizzbangs of information I think merely tends to >>>

  • Booted, Suited and Uploading

    Viral video enthusiasts using YouTube: potential copyright infringers or corporate shills? YouTube’s DIY video site includes clips “stolen” from big media companies, allege lawyers representing big media companies – the likes of NBC Uni, CBS and ABC. But big media companies, or at least their marketeers, are starting to realise that mashed-up clips represent, forgive >>>

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    Anti-Muslim Cartoons: A Burning Issue?

    There’s not much to laugh about in European op-ed sections just now. The decision by newspapers in Denmark, Norway, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Hungary and Spain to publish cartoons considered blasphemous by Muslims has the potential to turn into the first skirmishes of a renewed culture war, to morph into the clash of civilisations hoped >>>

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    Iraq – ‘Party’s Over’

    I didn’t see any Westerners at all until my second day, when I contacted the acting bureau chief for an American paper who was staying in my hotel. As we were discussing the state of reporting in Baghdad and Iraq in general, he told me that I was a little late to the game. These >>>

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    A Reporter in Iraq

    We’re supposed to be the voice of the people, the truth-tellers and the ruler of accountability. But the blast walls between journalists in Iraq and the rest of the country grow higher as fear outweighs responsibility. I’m always told that no story is worth your life. – Leila Fadel, Knight Ridder, Baghdad bureau >>>

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    Journalists Under Fire

    Governments around the world are failing to prevent the murder and assassination of journalists, says the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ): The truth is that even democratic governments turn a blind eye to the crisis of violence against media… In Iraq, where media people hardly dare walk the streets, there are 18 cases of unexplained >>>

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    Solid Air

    “All that is newspaper melts…” – Scott Rosenberg on the end of print newspapers: … the same process that ate their classified income is going to affect [newspaper owners’] other revenue streams. Just as classifieds went from costly to free, the display advertising will begin to dry up, as youth-seeking national advertisers follow their targets >>>