Eideard

Karen Matthews, AP reporter, arrested by NYC coppers
Photo by AP photographer Seth Wenig, also arrested

Associated Press has reprimanded some of its journalists for breaking news on Twitter before posting it on the wires.

The news agency issued the warning after some staff members tweeted that AP journalists had been arrested at the Occupy Wall Street camp in Manhattan. An email from bosses followed reminding staff about AP’s social media policies…

While Twitter is an invaluable tool in newsrooms around the world, it has also forced news organisations, including AP, to draw up strict rules.

“If you have a piece of information, a photo or a video that is compelling, exclusive and/or urgent enough to be considered breaking news, you should file it to the wire, and photo and video points before you consider putting it out on social media,” the AP policy reads.

After the recent incident in New York, AP’s managing editor Lou Ferrara wrote an email to employees explaining that their first duty was to the agency not Twitter.

And executive editor Kathleen Carroll issued a memo saying much of the resulting “chatter” had missed the point.

“When we lose contact with a journalist, our main focus is making sure they are safe, no matter where they are. Sometimes, talking about it while things are still uncertain can endanger them,” she said.

“It’s not outlandish to think that a tweet that’s taken by someone in authority to be opinionated or sarcastic could lead to one of our staffers being held longer than necessary…”

But Anthony de Rosa, social media editor at Reuters, thinks that such policies may need to be overhauled. He tweeted: “News agencies must evolve or face extinction.”

He expanded the point in his official Reuters blog.

“The wire is still a huge part of our business and always will be. However, acting in a way that handcuffs us from doing our best work on Reuters.com and on social networks, which help drive traffic and extend our brand, is writing a death sentence for us as a future media company.

“To bury our head in the sand and act like Twitter (and who knows what else comes into existence next month or five years from now?) isn’t increasingly becoming the source of what informs people in real-time is ridiculous,” he wrote.

RTFA – the discussion moves in a few directions not the least of which is hoax tweets – which are generally reprehensible.

You might not even use all the accessories

Within the next month, the BBC is set to roll out an iOS app that will allow field reporters to broadcast live from their iPhone using nothing but the 3G service to carry the data transmission, an article from Journalism.co.uk states.

The app will also allow BBC field reporters to file still photos, video and audio directly into the BBC content management system from any iPhone or iPad.

As Journalism.co.uk points out, the ability to broadcast right from an iPhone would mean that reporters could no longer have to carry cumbersome satellite or codex equipment.

Martin Turner, BBC’s head of operations for newsgathering, told Journalism.co.uk, “Reporters have been using smartphones for a while now, but it was never good quality. You might do it when there was a really important story. Now it is beginning to be a realistic possibility to use iPhones and other devices for live reporting, and in the end, if you’ve got someone on the scene then you want to be able to use them. That capability is a really important one.”

Interesting as all get-out. The choice of device and carrier is up to reporter and IT department preferences. There will be alternative platforms and combinations available soon – if they aren’t already. But, this really fills a long-term demand by field reporters in broadcast journalism. Close to the ultimate in portability.

Yes, it’s pretty funny to have the Beeb quoting an article from another source – about changes at the BBC.

The BBC World Service is to receive a “significant” sum of money from the US government to help combat the blocking of TV and internet services in countries including Iran and China.

In what the BBC said is the first deal of its kind, an agreement is expected to be signed later this month that will see US state department money – understood to be a low six-figure sum – given to the World Service to invest in developing anti-jamming technology and software.

The funding is also expected to be used to educate people in countries with state censorship in how to circumnavigate the blocking of internet and TV services…

Fortunately, the U.S. government need not rely on state censorship to prevent access to BBC World Service in the United States. Self-censorship by the major networks, cable and satellite TV distribution systems takes care of that.

The deal, which is expected to be formally announced on International Press Freedom Day, 3 May, follows an increase in incidents of interference with World Service output across the globe, according to its controller of strategy and business, Jim Egan…

“Governments who have an interest in denying people information particularly at times of tension and upheaval are keen to do this and it is a particular problem now,” said Egan…

Egan added that the battle against jamming is likely to be an ongoing one because repressive countries are likely to develop methods to counter any anti-censorship technology that is developed.

I was surprised to find the Obama administration doing this. Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats think of the BBC with the same brain cells that quiver in fear at mention of AlJazeera’s English service.

My guess is that the grant will come with provisos requiring BBC World Service to barely continue efforts to enter the U.S. online – and forget TV here altogether.

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

An international system of tracking tuna – a vital tool in the preservation of stocks – has been found to be full of gaps, reports Steve Bradshaw.

In Japan, diners are being urged to curb their craze for one of their favourite kinds of sushi – unless Mediterranean suppliers can prove it is legally and sustainably caught.

Masanori Miyahara, chief counselor of the Fisheries Agency of Japan, said consumers may have to “just forget about tuna for the time being…”

Spawning stocks of Eastern Atlantic bluefin tuna – the kind caught in the Mediterranean – are widely estimated to be down by around 75% in the last four decades, and some scientists believe they might be on the verge of collapse…

The Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) – which has spent months analysing the trade – calculates that more than one in three bluefins caught in the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean between 1998 and 2007 was fished illegally.

The illegal catches gave rise to an off-the-books trade in bluefin tuna, conservatively valued at $4 billion, according to ICIJ…

In Japan, Mr Miyahara is particularly concerned about the Bluefin Tuna Catch Document (BCD), a paper-based system of tracking tuna introduced in 2008…In theory the BCD also enables ranches and exporting countries to prove their catch is legal – and within the quotas set by ICCAT’s governing commission of tuna-trading member states.

But Mr Miyahara has described some BCD entries as “weird”, and Japan has refused to accept thousands of tonnes of Atlantic bluefin, alleging suppliers cannot demonstrate it is legally caught because the paperwork is not in order…

“You can use this for really good things, but there are so many holes in this data that it’s not much better than a pile of papers,” said the ICIJ’s Kate Willson.

A pile of papers is good enough for most bureaucrats, most of the time. In some countries that’s changing. In others, like the United States, we can look forward to reverses in every aspect of commerce requiring oversight, truth in purpose. The mid-term elections helped that along with voters who presume that changing one group of clowns for another group of crooks somehow improves daily life.

You can read the report [.pdf] over here.

“Not much. How about you?”

Here’s a guy who has a rolling conversation with the Virgin Mary every day. And– big surprise– he likes to have an audience present.

Judging from his demeanor while he is doing this, it must be pretty exciting. I imagine it goes something like this:

Guy: “How are you doing today?”
VM: “Fine. How about you?”
Guy: “Fine. How’s the Father?”
VM: “He’s fine.”
Guy: “Good. How’s Jesus?”
VM: “Fine.”
Guy: “OK.. well.. good seeing you again.”

You can watch the video here: [The exciting BBC report and video]

Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

British police said Wednesday they have arrested a BBC television presenter on suspicion of murder after he told viewers he carried out a so-called mercy killing on a former lover.

Ray Gosling, 70, a freelance broadcaster, admitted on a BBC show aired in central England that he had smothered the unnamed partner in hospital where he was being treated for AIDS. Assisting in another person’s death is illegal in England.

Police in Nottinghamshire, 160 kilometers (100 miles) north of London, confirmed they had made an arrest after the apparent confession on the BBC’s “Inside Out” show…

He told viewers: “Maybe this is the time to share a secret that I have kept for quite a long time. I killed someone once.

“He was a young chap, he’d been my lover and he got AIDS.

“In a hospital one hot afternoon, the doctor said ‘There’s nothing we can do,’ and he was in terrible, terrible pain.

“I picked up the pillow and smothered him until he was dead. The doctor came back and I said ‘He’s gone’. Nothing more was ever said…”

“And if it happens to a lover or friend of yours, a husband, a wife, and I hope it doesn’t, but when it does sometimes you have to do brave things and you have to say – to use Nottingham language – bugger the law.”

I couldn’t agree more.

The coppers are just doing their job. That’s a lower-level responsibility than the prosecutors who may – or may not – respect anguish or love.

The BBC has today said it has “no intention” of charging for online news, in a declaration that is unlikely to please James Murdoch and his father Rupert as they prepare to start charging for News Corporation content on the internet.

Sir Michael Lyons, the BBC Trust chairman, said the corporation has “no intention of diluting BBC commitment to universal access to free news online” as he outlined the areas director general Mark Thompson’s ongoing strategic review will cover.

The BBC’s internet news operations came under fire in August at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival from James Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of News Corporation in Europe and Asia, who accused the corporation of “throttling” the market and preventing its competitors from launching or expanding their own services online.

News International, the News Corp subsidiary that owns the company’s British newspapers, including the Sun and the Times, is planning to start charging for its journalism online.

Lyons said today that the BBC Trust “recognises external concerns over scale and growth of BBC online operations”. But he added: “Equally, it’s an immensely popular service with audiences and an important tool for the economy…”

One would hope the Beeb also realizes their reach is well beyond the UK or the Dominion. They have an intact newsgathering organization that is replacing the role of many other news media operations – that have become dedicated to News as Entertainment. Which requires little or no journalistic skill.

Just ask anyone who used to enjoy CNN.

The BBC has been accused of wasting public money and creating unnecessary environmental damage by spending nearly half a million pounds a year on bottled water. Responding to a freedom of information request from the Guardian, the public broadcaster said it spent £406,000 annually on large bottles for its water coolers.

In addition, BBC staff are allowed to order bottled water for the organisation’s hospitality events. The BBC refused to reveal how much it did spend on bottled water at the 103,000 events it held last year, claiming the cost of finding out was more than the Freedom of Information Act required.

Bottled water can also be ordered by staff for internal meetings, provided a meeting lasts more than two hours. The broadcaster said it was assessing the “health issues” of switching from bottled to mains-fed water…

Dave Prentis, Unison’s general secretary, said: “Workers work better if they are hydrated and have access to good clean drinking water. Bottled water is no better than mains water and the effect on the environment of all that water being transported around is enormous.”

Susie Squires, political director the Taxpayers Alliance said that paying for bottled water was an unnecessary waste of money. “What is wrong with the tap? It is the little things that add up to unacceptable waste at the BBC. Splashing out on bottled water is a frivolous expense. Families are having to cut back on the little luxuries and time the BBC did also…”

The water cooler bottles used by the BBC are also made from a type of plastic derived from oil, which is not recyclable and takes up to 1,000 years to biodegrade.

Dimwits who do everything in their lives by habit are no better than criminals who plot to screw us over. They just use a different excuse.

Mr. Darshandas

India has 828,804 polling stations in the current general election, but one of them is unique. It has just one voter. The BBC’s Soutik Biswas travels into the forest to meet him.

In a desolate, seemingly endless, lion-infested forest in India, a single man waits to exercise his fundamental right.

On 30 April, five polling officials accompanied by two policemen will travel into the wild to pick up the ballot of Guru Bharatdas Darshandas, who looks after a temple in the Gir forest in the western state of Gujarat.

Mr Darshandas is the only voter at the polling station of Banej in Gir, the last abode of the Asiatic lion.
Barely a few hundred metres from the Shiva temple where Mr Darshandas lives and work is the freshly whitewashed forest office that will serve as the polling station.

In the search for Mr Darshandas, I travel over stony, brown earth and parched rivers and thin streams, past cacti and bougainvillea and trees wilting in the oppressive heat. I pass sluggish deer and antelope and wild cats and buffaloes tethered to huts.

It is 100F (38C) in the shade in this sprawling, 1,412 sq km forest and even our beat-up SUV is groaning. I spot none of the more than 300 lions that live here; the heat must have driven them deeper into the shade.

Read the whole tale. Sitting before your computer, consider Mr. Darshandas who feels honored by his vote, honored by “how India values its democracy.”

Daylife/AP Photo used with permission

One of those stories “from our own correspondent” worth reading – even if it isn’t good news. The news is that the sort of incompetents you’d expect to be put in place during the Bush administration – are still leftover.

The day started badly with a rabid policeman waving his Kalashnikov menacingly at us, screaming “where’s your card – get back!”.

My mistake had been, foolishly, to try to drive to the front-gate of the American Embassy where we had been invited to go on a press trip.

But fortress Kabul has become addicted to security – rather like those bodybuilders who cannot stop pumping iron and popping pills until they resemble some hideously bulging comic book villain.

The city keeps building ever more layers of barbed wire, blast walls, checkpoints, guns and angry policemen.

The US and the rest of Nato keep telling us how the security situation in the capital has improved.

But they are unwilling to practice the confidence they preach.

Now whole streets of Kabul are off-limits to the majority of us who don’t have “the card”.

I have not actually seen “the card” but rather like the “golden ticket” from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, I believe it does exist and grants almost magical access to the lucky holder…

The tale carries forward in much the manner you’d expect. Sadly. The journey – and return home – were “thanks to the good grace, generosity and ingenuity of our new Afghan friends – and no thanks to our US hosts.”

Doesn’t have to be that way, you know.