17 Feb 2020 Giving migrants a voice – and others a history lesson
National Public Radio (NPR) in the United States is demonstrating the importance both of giving a voice to migrants in media, and of ensuring the independence of the public broadcasting platform. As reported by another public broadcaster, BBC (“The immigrants telling stories history missed” 10 February 2020, two young radio producers, one with Iranian and the other with Palestinian backgrounds, are leading a new podcast series that highlight stories that most people have missed in their history lessons.
07 Oct 2019 Media independence: A fundamental question
It’s surprising that the issue of “fake news” took so long to raise its head. Deliberate misinformation and bias have been around for as long as journalism itself – more than 400 years by some accounts. The yellow press (a term coined in the 1890s to describe the sensationalist reporting of two New York City newspapers, the World and the Journal) and tabloid journalism encapsulate a form of writing that is, let’s say, highly economical with the truth. Gossip magazines and reality shows merely fanned the flames of the public’s insatiable desire for speculation and innuendo.
30 Sep 2019 How the 5G wireless dividend can help connect those left behind
Private, public, and civil society actors should work together to encourage more sustainable financing of universal access efforts Access to communication and information tools and platforms, including digital platforms, is essential to enable us all to exercise our human rights. In today’s world, fully exercising basic...
23 Sep 2019 Political accountability in the age of Twitter
Photo: London UK. 24th July 2019. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, delivers a speech outside 10 Downing Street. Credit: Michael Tubi/Shutterstock On 19 September, Veteran BBC journalist John Humphreys hosted his last “Today” radio programme after 32 years. Known for his aggressive interviewing on a morning...
16 Sep 2019 When fact-checking isn’t about ‘right’ or ‘wrong’
The rise of “fake news” charges and deliberate disinformation have led to an important counter effort: fact-checking. News agencies, civil society organisations, and concerned individuals have taken on the fight for “truth” – assessing political claims and struggling to prevent misinformation guiding our decisions and...
09 Sep 2019 Children’s communication rights need better protection
Google should have known better! An Associated Press piece in The Guardian newspaper (“YouTube fined $170m for collecting children’s personal data”, 4 September 2019) notes a serious violation of children’s right to privacy: “Google’s video site YouTube has been fined $170m to settle allegations it collected children’s personal data...
02 Sep 2019 Climate change literacy and community media
Not everyone is familiar with climate change. A new survey released by Afrobarometer paints a bleak picture of how agriculture conditions are worsening due to higher temperatures, delayed rainfall, and crop failure. Crucially, among some people, it also identifies little or no knowledge about climate change itself.
26 Aug 2019 Privacy on the frontier of lawlessness
Privacy was something that used to be taken for granted. Ordinarily, the private life of an individual was not open to scrutiny, while public life was the concern of law and order and decency. In communication terms, privacy meant that only the addressee could open letters...
19 Aug 2019 Ban books, ban people
“For the past twenty years, the main issue restricting ublic debate in terms of Turkish laws has been the prosecution and imprisonment of journalists, writers and intellectuals on the grounds that they contribute to violence and terrorism.” This quote comes from a report by English PEN,...