Crisis Reporting

The New York Times: "America’s three broadcast network news divisions have stopped sending full-time correspondents to Iraq. - - Iraq has been, according to some executives, the most expensive war ever for TV news organizations."

New Business Models

Melinda and Bill Gates Foundation starts to fund international health reporting.

The NYT: Gates Foundation Gives Millions for Coverage of World Health

Foreign Correspondents

Two American news companies start sharing the work of their foreign correspondents.

AP: McClatchy, Christian Science Monitor to share copy

Crisis Reporting/Mumbai

The role of citizen journalism was important in reporting the terrorist attack inMumbai according to the NYT: "The attacks in India served as another case study in how technology is transforming people into potential reporters, adding a new dimension to the news media".

The New York Times: Citizen Journalists Provided Glimpses of Mumbai Attacks

Crisis Reporting/Mumbai

The newest test for the global news media was the terrorist attack in Mumbai, India. According the first news media analysis the traditional news media was beaten by social media, Twitter.

The New York Observer: Twitter Grows Up

Ethics

"When it comes to foreign news journalism, you can earn a lot of points by going to a dangerous place."

Sending reporters to dangerous places is a difficult procedure, and can cause a lot of pressures among journalists and their families. The Guardian just reported this sad example, which should rise ethical talks within the BBC News, and elsewhere in foreign news business.

BBC journalist shot dead in Somalia felt under pressure to go, family say

Citizen Media

AllVoices, the newest online-try to use non-journalists as main contributors for creating a new international news media. Innovative, indeed.

See also the review by EJC.

Crisis reporting

We all know that there is nothing as expensive in journalism as producing foreign news. Therefore, in these economically turbulent times, this model by Pulitzer Center On Crisis Reporting can been as a model for future of international reporting.

Innovations in Foreign Reporting

A new foreign news media is to be born January 2009, which tries to fill the holes of the struggling American news media. According to MarketWatch GlobalPost, based in Boston, "will be the first Web-based news organization to provide daily international news coverage by its own team of experienced correspondents from every corner of the world."

Watch the video

PR and War Reporting

Peter Wilby (The Guardian): Georgia has won the PR war

The Role of Bloggers: War in Georgia

CNN: Bloggers weigh in on Georgia

Global Voices (Harvard): Georgia, Russia: Tbilisi Reports

New Global News Media - Twitter

Twitter is possible able to challenge the old news media behemoths. Read more from Wired.

Images/Iraq War

Without images the war stories lack of authenticity needed to tell the big picture of the world. Controlling, that is censoring, the flow of pictures, the military and political leaders can prevent "emotional shocks" created by graphic images. This is the outcome of the lessons of Vietnam war coverage, when the flow of images were not controlled, and caused massive reactions among the audience in the U.S. Since then wars have transformed mainly into numbers of casualties. The War in Iraq is the latest example as The New York Times summarized 4,000 U.S. Combat Deaths, and Just a Handful of Images.

Foreign Reporting/CBS News

In times, when the U.S. news media is still diminishing its foreign reporting, journalists like Lara Logan, the CBS News chief foreign correspondent is really needed. Last week she criticized the war coverage of the U.S. media in the Daily Show with Jon Steward, and now she was promoted to be as chief foreign affairs correspondent, says The New York Times.

China/Censorship Practices Under Pressure

The New York Times: Earthquake Opens Gap in Controls on Media

"One of the biggest challenges, though, is to the country’s sometimes sophisticated, sometimes heavy-handed propaganda system. China’s censors found themselves uncharacteristically hamstrung when they tried to micromanage news coverage of the earthquake, as they do most major news stories in China. By Wednesday, so many reporters had ignored the government’s instructions that the Propaganda Department rescinded its original order, replacing it with another, more realistic one, reflecting its temporary loss of control."

Crisis Reporting/Tibet

WSJ: Journalists Begin Tibet Tour Under Close Watch of Chinese

War Reporting/Iraq

War reporting is always reporting from the borders of journalism. The question is, how is it possible to make good journalism in extreme working conditions. Almost impossible, see especially the situation in Iraq.

The New York Times: The War Endures, but Where’s the Media?

Freedom of Speech/Internet Filtering

Four world-class schools, Harvard, Toronto, Cambridge, and Oxford have put their efforts together in order to monitor state-based Internet filtering. And, they have published the results of their observations in a joint-blog called OpenNet Iniative Blog, already since 2004.

A great model for other scholars, educators to follow.

1) Pick up your important topic,

2) Gather a team of schools, or research institutions around you,

3) Start posting your observations in recular basis in a news, and commentary blog, and

4) Finally do a summary, organize a seminar, or a conference, and do a research paper, or even a book based on your blog postings, feed-backs, and visitor data as a starting point.

Latest postings by OpenNet Iniative Blog:

* Tibet, China and the information gaps between

* YouTube and the rise og geolocational filtering

* Armenia imposes Internet censorship as unrest breaks out following disputed Presidential elections

Press Freedom/Russia

"Russia has witnessed a steady rollback of post-Soviet media and political freedoms during President Vladimir Putin's eight-year presidency," says CNN.com, and it showed the newest sad evidence.

Global News

New web only international news publication, yes, Global News, is scheduled to launch next year based in the U.S., Boston, but promised to have correspondents in about 70 countries. In addition, the venture has succeeded to collect more than $ 7 million, so far. It is run by veteran journalist Phillip S. Balboni. In times of diminishing original foreign reporting, new international news sources are really needed. Especially, in the U.S.

Boston Globe: NECN founder starting news site