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Freelance correspondent for Dutch financial newspaper Het Financieele Dagblad (FD) Ans Boersma went to the immigration service office in Istanbul to renew her Turkish residence permit this past Wednesday (January 16). Recently her press credentials had been renewed. Instead of working through that bit of bureaucracy, common to those working abroad, she was detained then deported the next day. Turkish authorities cited “reasons of security.”
Infamous for harassing, detaining and jailing journalists, domestic and foreign, Turkish authorities are always viewed with a certain suspicion by media organizations. FD executive editor Jan Bonjer called the deportation of Ms Boersma “a flagrant violation of press freedom,” quoted by Reuters (January 17). He said he was “profoundly shocked.” (See more about media in Turkey here)
Later Turkish presidential communications director Fahrettin Altun clarified that Ms Boersma was believed connected to a “terrorist organization” and sent back to the Netherlands “as a precaution,” reported Turkish daily Gazete Karinca (January 19). He also indicated the Dutch intelligence service had alerted their Turkish counterparts that Ms Boersma had falsified Dutch immigration documents for a Syrian refugee allegedly associated with al-Nusra Front, a known terrorist organization, who was arrested in the Netherlands last October. She had been under surveillance since December, reported RTL Nieuws (January 17).
Mr. Bonjer met Ms Boersma’s arriving flight. She then admitted “this must have to do with a previous relationship of mine,” reported De Telegraaf (January 18). Mr. Bonjer was “shocked.” After longer “conversations” with the FD editorial board in which she was “unable to provide sufficient clarity about her role,” Ms Boersma’s relationship with the FD was terminated. She will have longer conversations with the public prosecutor’s office next week.
"If you want to be sent as a young journalist to a difficult country, you are one who has to take responsibility for your safety,” said Mr. Bonjer, quoted by public broadcaster NOS (January 20). “If I ask questions of journalists who want to work for the FD, they put everything on the table, they answer all my questions seriously. And that has unfortunately not happened.”
That RT, the Russian Federation international broadcaster known formerly as Russia Today, seeks to expand its coverage beyond the internet is well known. It is also well known as a disruptive, conspiracy theory-laden propaganda shill. That doesn’t make it bad, does it?
It recently came to light that a lobbyist with ties to a regional German public broadcaster is aiding RT in obtaining a German TV broadcasting license. RT has operated its German language online portal since 2014, largely through YouTube. "In order to reach the audience better, we have also been working for some time on the possible expansion of our distribution possibilities,” said RT Deutsch managing director Ivan Rodionov, through an “advisory board of renowned German personalities from the most important social groups,” quoted by news agency dpa (January 13). He said RT Deutsch has become “an important, popular and appreciated voice in the German media landscape." (See more about media in Germany here)
An email from former Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR) editor-in-chief Wolfgang Kenntemich, obtained and published by news magazine Bild (January 10), pitched support for RT obtaining a German broadcast license. That objective, it said, might “mitigate” Russian Federation complaints - including threats of sanctions - about German international broadcaster Deutsche Welle. Bild also reported that Herr Kenntemich could take an active role in RT Deutsch if a broadcast license is obtained.
To Süddeutsche Zeitung (January 10), Herr Kenntemich said he would have no comment on clients or client contracts nor the email in question. After several years with several German newspapers, he joined MDR in 1991 as a TV news commentator and editor-in-chief, retiring in 2012. Since he has been a media consultant and honorary professor at the University of Leipzig.
“Russia Today is not an information medium,” said German Journalists Association (Deutsche Journalisten-Verband - DJV) chairman Frank Überall, quoted by media portal dwdl.de (January 14), “but a propaganda tool of the Kremlin that tries to influence policy with disinformation. There must be no broadcast license for propaganda channels.”
Publishing is evermore careening into a digital-only business. It seems this was always in the cards. The corner kiosk is now Google News. The brand strength of legacy titles shifting away from the printed page, remains a question, and not just among luddites.
The Italian edition of pop-culture title Rolling Stone, published monthly, will no longer appear in print, reported media news website primaonline.it (January 11). “Rolling Stone does not close but evolves to follow where the world goes,” said publisher Luciano Bernardini de Pace. “The advertising market today asks for digital and it is an opportunity that I think should be taken without hesitation.” He noted site traffic - two and a half million unique visitors - and nearly a half million Facebook followers. (See more about media in Italy here)
The print edition of Rolling Stone Italia has been selling “17 to 20 thousand copies” at newsstands and 3 thousand subscriptions, he said. ”Now it doesn't matter how many copies you sell, when you go to a media buyer they tell you clearly that (advertisers) today are interested in digital.” Rolling Stone Italia was first published in 1980.
Rolling Stone Italia, like its US namesake, has gleefully covered politics, appropriately, as it might concerts, albums and other aspects of popular culture. In recent months, right-wing populist politician Matteo Salvini became a target of the magazine’s editorial ire. “We are not with Salvini,” announced the cover of the July 2018 print edition. “Anyone who doesn’t speak up is an accomplice.”
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