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 News From You
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Week ending May 2, 2015
The RCS MediaGroup Board of Directors met today chaired by Maurizio Costa, and unanimously designated Luciano Fontana as editor-in-chief of Corriere della Sera, who will take office once the required procedures have been performed.
The Board expressed its deep gratitude and great appreciation to Ferruccio de Bortoli for his work in directing Corriere della Sera over the past six years, as well as during his previous tenure, ensuring Italy's leading newspaper authoritativeness, independence and top quality information. In an extremely complex time on a global level and with a profound transformation of the world of information, Ferruccio de Bortoli guaranteed Corriere's identity, relevance and dynamic nature, continuing the prestigious history of the paper.
The appointed editor-in-chief will be faced with major challenges: first of all enhancement of Corriere della Sera's journalistic heritage and all of the professional figures who contribute to the paper in order to ensure increasingly effective creation and spread of informational contents, including through the completion of the newspaper's digital transformation and the overall Corriere System along with a in-depth search for an economic sustainability for the newspaper, in line with the guidance expressed by the Publisher, protecting the values of autonomy, independence and authoritativeness of the information, which have always been the mainstays of Corriere's tradition.
The Board next established the following Committees and appointed their respective members:
Strategic Committee: Maurizio Costa, Pietro Scott Jovane, Paolo Colonna, Tom Mockridge
Appointments Committee: Maurizio Costa, Teresa Cremisi, Stefano Simontacchi
Compensation Committee: Gerardo Braggiotti, Teresa Cremisi, Dario Frigerio
Audit and Risk Committee: Dario Frigerio, Laura Cioli, Stefano Simontacchi
The World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) and the World Editors Forum appeal for improved physical protections for journalists, an end to censorship and other pressures facing news media as 3 May, World Press Freedom Day, marks yet another tragic year for the profession and reveals growing threats to freedoms from new challenges worldwide.
Nineteen journalists have been killed so far in 2015 in direct relation to their work, including eight in connection to the 7th January attack on the newsroom of French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo. Those numbers follow at least 61 journalist deaths in 2014.
“WAN-IFRA uses the occasion of 3 May, World Press Freedom Day to repeat the call that ‘enough is enough’ when it comes to the killing of journalists and demands that more is done to better protect the profession,” said WAN-IFRA Secretary General, Larry Kilman. “The Charlie Hebdo attack was a wake-up call to many that critical views even in democratic societies are under severe threat – already a fact, sadly, on a daily basis in many other parts of the world.”
“But it is not simply through the horrendous criminal acts of fanatics that the press is silenced. We are witnessing an alarming rise in attempts to undermine the independence, financial stability and digital security of news organisations from multiple sources, which is something that should be of deep concern to us all. A critical press is more essential than ever in denouncing all forms of attack on freedom of expression in order to hold the powerful to account.”
While killings, physical attacks and jailing continue to dominate the headlines and provide the most shocking reminder of the fragility of the profession, more subtle and often overlooked forms of censorship are fast eroding media freedoms worldwide, often with equally devastating consequences for freedom of expression.
On 3 May, World Press Freedom Day, WAN-IFRA invites media houses, editors and journalists to denounce one of the most sophisticated forms of interference in the media sector worldwide: indirect government censorship, or ‘soft censorship’.
Less visible than more traditional forms of harassment against media professionals, the term soft censorship refers to indirect or under-the-radar abuses of financial, regulatory and other government powers to punish critical reporting and reward favourable coverage. Where the financial leverage of governments and their cronies is used against media, it often leads to unbalanced reporting and promotes a culture of fear among media professionals, finally spiralling into self-censorship.
Launching officially on 3 May, a new WAN-IFRA website www.softcensorship.org and accompanying twitter account @softcensorship / #SoftCensorship have been created to help expose government interference with a free press.
Through its new online platforms, WAN-IFRA aims to denounce cases of unfair official advertising allocation, biased distribution of subsidies, paid “news”, bribery and payments to journalists and editors, and other administrative pressures such as licenses, import restrictions, excessive tax bills and audit procedures that contribute to strangling a free press worldwide.
Media are invited to use the resources to expose instances of soft censorship and contribute to a broader understanding of the phenomenon as a means to better protect transparency and independence.
“While we must use every means available to prevent the killing of journalists and better protect those most at risk, equally, we cannot afford to ignore challenges to independent media from elsewhere,” said Larry Kilman. “Left unchecked, these threats will grow to undermine the work of our colleagues who have sacrificed their lives in the name of freedom of expression. All attacks on a free press have the goal of silencing critical reporting, and we must be alert and ready to denounce them, wherever and however they arise.”
As part of WAN-IFRA’s 3 May resources, an editorial addressing press freedom concerns – including journalists killed and soft censorship - is available to freely download and publish from http://www.wan-ifra.org/node/129940/
More information about soft censorship can be found online at http://www.softcensorship.org and by following the twitter account @softcensorship.
Together with the Open Society Foundations, the Washington D.C.-based Center for Media Assistance (CIMA) and in-country research partners, WAN-IFRA has analysed the use of soft censorship practices in Hungary, Serbia, Mexico and Malaysia. In addition, the first global review, collating examples of soft censorship practices worldwide - Soft Censorship, Hard Impact - reveals that, regardless of the levels of market development or political freedom, media around the world consider economic pressure to be a major challenge to editorial independence and financial survival.
WAN-IFRA will exceptionally award its 2015 Golden Pen of Freedom to ‘Journalists Killed in the Line of Duty’ during the World News Media Congress in Washington D.C. on the 1st June. The award is being made in recognition of their sacrifice, but also as a rallying call to focus global attention on an issue that is undermining media freedom worldwide.
A BBC Nepali channel has been launched on the instant messaging and calling app, Viber, to deliver public service and emergency information in Nepalese and English. The service, produced by BBC Nepali in collaboration with the BBC’s international development charity, BBC Media Action and BBC Monitoring, is aimed at those affected by the devastating earthquake, in the region or elsewhere in the world.
The BBC Nepali account viber.com/bbcnepali on the ‘Public Chats’ feature within Viber will help maximise the reach of vital information in the aftermath of the quake that has left thousands dead and many more injured or displaced. The channel offers daily updates in text and images, with lifeline public service information on the latest situation in the country, including details of relief efforts, rescue services and safety information.
BBC World Service Controller of Languages, Liliane Landor, comments: “BBC World Service has been a global leader in the innovative use of chat apps over the past year. We have a successful ongoing Ebola WhatsApp service for people in West Africa, and we are using a lot of the expertise and experience from that project to launch this latest initiative on Viber. It’s vital that we do all we can to get potentially life-saving and critical information to all those affected by the earthquake, across all the platforms at our disposal. Our partnership with Viber will allow us to reach many of these people directly through their mobile phones.”
In response to the aftermath of the earthquake in Nepal, BBC World Service is broadcasting news and additional ‘lifeline’ programming on FM and shortwave in Nepalese (11995, 15510, 9650 and 5895 kHz) and in English (5895 and 9540 kHz). BBC Media Action is working with BBC Nepali and local partner radio stations in Nepal to broadcast the BBC’s special ‘lifeline’ programming.
The BBC Nepali radio programming is available for listening via the website, bbcnepali.com, on BBC 103FM in Kathmandu (which also airs BBC World Service’s global English radio programming) and via more than 260 FM stations across the country. The BBC Nepali Facebook page has 1.7 million likes.
BBC Nepali is part of BBC World Service.
ITU has deployed emergency telecommunication equipment in Nepal following the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that hit the country on 25 April 2015. The emergency equipment includes 35 satellite mobile phones and 10 satellite Broadband Global Area Network terminals along with solar panels and laptops to support relief coordination efforts.
“I would like to express my deepest condolences to the people and the Government of Nepal following loss of life even as the toll continues to rise and widespread devastation across the country,” said ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao. “The emergency communication equipment sent by ITU will help restore vital communication links that are essential to coordinate relief and rescue efforts.”
“Emergency telecommunications play a critical role in the immediate aftermath of disasters,” said Mr Brahima Sanou, Director of ITU’s Telecommunication Development Bureau. “They ensure timely flow of information that is much needed by government agencies and other humanitarian actors involved in rescue operations.”
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), initial government reports confirm that 30 out of 75 districts in the country have been affected in the Western and Central Regions, including Kathmandu Valley. This includes mountainous and hilly terrain in areas where rural populations are widely dispersed as well as some very densely populated cities – the greater Kathmandu area, Bhaktapur and Pokhara.
At the Third UN Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction held in Sendai, Japan, ITU addressed the importance of linking information and communication technologies to disaster risk reduction.
ITU considers emergency telecommunications an integral part of the post-2015 development agenda.
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