The integrity and independence of journalism is in dire straits in eastern Europe. The preferential distribution of state advertising has had to do with much of this. Celebrating 175 years of existence last year, Turkey’s leading telecom provider, Turk Telekom, organized a glamorous reception in Ankara, the nation’s capital city, attended by many of the…
The Czech server Motejlek.com is a rare success story of paid online news. The departure of its founder is likely to harm the site – and, to some extent, independent journalism, too. The founder and head of the Czech business news website Motejlek.com, journalist Miroslav Motejlek, quit at the end of April, dealing a blow…
India’s cable industry is a buoyant market. Much of that is in the hands of local politicians who use cable companies to reach their constituencies, stave off unfavorable reporting or to influence regulation. The situation is not at all kosher; but nobody seems to be concerned. In 2011, an investigative TV documentary on illegal iron…
As massive batches of viewers, particularly young ones, give up watching traditional TV, the broadcasting business is rapidly crumbling. For television news stations, that is a very bad omen. When direct-broadcast satellite provider Dish Network launched Sling TV in February last year, it was eying those swathes of viewers able and willing to pay for…
The pathetic state of Greek journalism is not a mystery to anyone anymore. The number of disgruntled readers looking for fresh journalism is growing and stories from Greece aimed at foreign audiences are poor or slanted. Now, AthensLive wants to change all of that. Tassos Morfis, Angelos Christofilopoulos, Yannis Drakoulidis and Gerry Domenikos are a…
Latin America has seen unprecedented growth of digital journalistic enterprises in the past five years. But serious questions about their viability have arisen as many of them only sloppily engage with audiences. When Daniel Eilemberg, 30 at the time, launched Pajaro Politico (Political Bird) back in 2009, a Twitter account curating content from international news…
Local journalists are investing much hope in the newly installed power in Myanmar to reform the country’s media system. But that will be a gargantuan task. Manny Maung argues that it will happen, but slowly. Myanmar has for the first time in five decades sworn in an elected president without military ties. The road towards democracy…
In George Orwell’s 1984, telescreens could capture any sound “above the level of a very low whisper.” Today, that gadget exists. For independent journalism, smart TV is not necessarily bad news: provided it’s not found its way into the wrong hands. Imagine this: you and your wife sitting comfortably in your living room watching the…
Shortly after grabbing the country’s political helm, Croatia’s government has begun brashly purging institutions of whomever is not their friend. The public broadcaster HRT is one of their more prominent victims. Croatia’s public service broadcaster, Croatian Radiotelevision (Hrvatska Radiotelevizija, HRT), has undergone many crises in the past two and a half decades, like many of…
The Romanian public service broadcaster has undergone scores of crises in the past two and a half decades. But now, talk about its insolvency is starting to get serious. The decision-makers’ obsession with the politics involved rather than the reality is likely to provide the last nail in Romanian public media’s coffin. Managed by an interim board…