Toronto mayor takes turn for worst

Posted on November 15, 2013 by Alexandra Silver

By ALEXANDRA SILVER

A current article on CNN.com reads, “ Toronto’s Mayor is Stripped of Some Power”. After openly admitting to using drugs such as crack cocaine “in a drunken stupor” and using offensive and sexual language.

After this stunt, I would have expected to see Mayor Rob Ford leave office, but he claims that he will not be leaving his job any time soon. Despite this, he continues to make more mistakes when speaking to reporters and acting on impulse.

Mayor Rob Ford is clearly not too concerned with walking on eggshells. Although he wants to keep his job, he fires back at reporters with offensive responses that are hardly ever thought out well.

When asked about the sexual relations he had with an escort, he claimed that the woman was not in fact an escort, but rather a family friend. He explained that such “allegations” had “hurt his wife.”

He is embarrassing the residents of Toronto and refuses to step down or take a leave of absence. According to sources, most members of the city council support the idea that Ford take a leave of absence, but he has refused, leaving the other council members powerless and helpless.

We can only hope that he gets back on the right path and fixes his mistakes before he destroys his career.

War zones dangerous for journalists

Posted on November 8, 2013 by Shai Fox Savariau

By SHAI FOX SAVARIAU

The bodies of two French journalists were returned to France on Tuesday. They had been kidnapped right after conducting an interview on Saturday in Mali.

Both reporters worked for Radio France International and they had been interviewing a Tuareg rebel near the town of Kidal.

Because of France’s decision to intervene in Mali, the French military secured the area around Kidal, which is why it was thought to be safe for the French journalists.

Both were shoved into a car by four men and were found dead soon after.

An Italian journalist was returned home safely recently after being abducted as well.

He is La Stampa’s war correspondent and entered Syria in April. He had been kidnapped for months before finally being released.

It has been reported that Syria is the most dangerous place in the world for journalists. The government has expressed their opposition towards professional journalists, citizen and international alike.

According the Committee to Protect Journalists, 32 journalists have been killed and at least 12 abducted in Syria in the past 12 months.

These kinds of things happen all the time with journalists. War zones are an extremely dangerous place in general, but journalists are at times targets. This can be traced back throughout history and it only seems to get worse.

With this being said, why do journalists continue to go overseas to these overly dangerous areas?

It is simply this: the world deserves to know what is going on in these war zones and it is a journalist’s job to do so.

Personally, I don’t know how these reporters do it though. I don’t think I could ever have the courage to do so.

Being that I would like to become a photographer after college, I have been asked if I would be interested in doing war photography. The answer is no because of these tragedies that occur in these countries with internal conflict.

Journalists have to be strong people in order to report about things of this nature, but actually having to go to the place and live there for long amounts of time in order to get the story takes a large amount of bravery.

I look up to the photographers who go over to these zones of conflict and take pictures of what’s going on and I have nothing but respect for the ones who have lost their lives.

The ‘unusual’ element found in news

Posted on October 23, 2013 by Daniela Longo

By DANIELA LONGO

On Oct. 10, “the most beautiful night” for Venezuelans took place in Caracas.

A group of girls showed their best looks to engage the jury and have the chance of becoming “Miss Venezuela 2013” and, therefore, represent the country internationally in 2014 in the Miss Universe competition.

After the night ended, Migbelis Castellanos was chosen as Miss Venezuela 2013.

This headline appeared in every newspaper of the country, Twitter and Instagram went crazy from the beginning of night to even a week after it happened.

Radio programs, TV shows and newscasts had the winner and the four finalists as guests.

For Venezuelans, it seems everything else pauses on this night and they are able to escape reality for a while. This event is so powerful in this nation, that has the ability to unify a divided country.

During the “most beautiful night,” it doesn’t matter your political tendency or your social class, everyone is watching. Citizens are all happy to celebrate one more year of one of the things Venezuelans do best, beauty contests.

One of the elements of a good news story is unusualness. This element help journalists to chose whether a story is sufficiently important and interest to show the audience.

One thing is that the dog bites the man and another much different is that the man bites the dog. The first one is a normal behavior that might not deserve to be published by media because it’s a common situation, everyone already knows that a dog can bite a men. However, a man biting a dog its something rare that doesn’t happen often and society should be aware.

For journalists is necessary to find the right angle that develops that touch of uniqueness that can draw peoples attention and also gives society a valuable reason to hear the story.

The main purpose of journalism is to inform society of important things happening around the world that can affect them in some way or another. However, the way journalism functions varies from one country to another. This happens because each society, city and country is different; even each person is different and unique.

Journalism in Venezuela has become a rare thing and in the last five years has turned around completely.

This began with the nation’s political situation and censoring of freedom of expression. Venezuelan journalists in first place have to be very careful on how they communicate things without being subjective or biased by the government.

Another important fact is that with so many bad things happening every day, deaths, corruption, insecurity, bad economy, and more sad things have become the daily life, the common behavior of society. Headlines and news story are always about the same topics and normally are hard to digest.

This has caused a rare phenomenon that people have stopped watching or reading the news. They prefer to not be informed of what is happening.

I’m a Venezuelan and I can tell you how many times I have heard “change the channel or turn down the radio I don’t want to hear anything about the situation in Venezuela.”

People can’t be 100 percent uninformed. As much as a person wants to be far from bad news, the information will always come to you in some way or another.

We live in a world full of media platforms and news will get to you no matter what. Even trough the most basic form of communication, person-to-person communication.

The flip side of the Venezuelan situation is that when good things happen like the selection of the new Miss Venezuela, it becomes a rare situation and gets more attention than a political or economy story.

Normally, in journalism, a story like selection of the new Miss Venezuela might not even be published on the front page of a national newspaper or be the opening story of a newscast because it is not unusual, is something that happens every year.

The case of Venezuela shows how journalism varies depending on the needs of a society, and how something so common as electing a beauty queen every year can become an unusual news story.

Venezuelan press endures tough times

Posted on October 14, 2013 by Valeria Viera

By VALERIA VIERA

“In a public hearing before the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights, journalism organizations called 2011 the worst year for the Venezuelan press because of the rise in attacks against reporters and news media, reported the AFP,” according to the Journalism in the Americas Blog, under the article titled “Venezuelan journalists declare freedom of expression situation as “critical.”

Journalists in Venezuela are going through a difficult time. Freedom of expression and the citizen’s rights are being violated on a daily basis. Furthermore, television news shows are being shut down by the government. With little support and alarming things happening in the country, journalists have to be now more than ever careful in what they write about and who they address their stories to.

TV news show are being controlled by the government, because it wants to control the news they provide for the Venezuelan community, that way the information the government doesn’t want to share will stay in secret.

The article also states the fact that last year 203 violations of freedom of expression were recorded and of these, two-thirds were related to attacks and threats (many of which have gone unpunished, like it generally happens).

In The Media and the Citizen, by Boris Munoz, he let us know a little bit of the extreme situation in which Venezuela has been in: “In April, 2002, in the midst of the most intense period of confrontation between the opposition and the government, media barons actively supported a coup against Chávez by creating a media blackout. The screens of the most important private TV outlets would run only old cartoons; some of the national newspapers didn’t circulate, thus preventing the public from knowing what was going on in the country, or even about the president’s whereabouts.”

During the last three months, the government has taken programs off the air that had most manifestly criticized the government. Globovisión, the last remaining independent TV station in Venezuela was sold to government allies earlier this year. Like the article titled “Globovisión: The Latest Casualty in Venezuela’s Assault on Freedom of the Press” expresses:

“This unfortunate development shows that the threat to freedom of the press—and to all other civil liberties in Venezuela — will not go away with the death of Hugo Chávez.”

Censoring freedom of expression

Posted on October 11, 2013 by Daniela Longo

By DANIELA LONGO

When we try to think in a country without freedom of expression, we normally think of dictatorial countries, such as Cuba and North Korea. However, these countries have been like this for many years.

Nowadays it is almost unimaginable to think that a democratic country will censor freedom of expression, and therefore freedom of the press just because some of the news organizations and journalists don’t share the same ideas as the government.

Unfortunately, Venezuela has been dealing with the censorship of freedom of the expression because of the political problems existing at the present time in the country.

When Hugo Chavez to office, he claimed to be a democratic president. But, during the time he has been in office, he created his own movement called the socialism of the 21^st century. At this moment, people who were in favor of a democratic country became to realized that Chavez was leading the country to a dictatorship.

Suddenly the country separated in two sides. “Chavistas” who were in favor of Chavez, and the opposition who are against the government.

Chavez saw the opposition as a threat and he started closing private entities as well as the media that put in evidence the government acts.

Journalists have the important job of reporting information as it really happen, without being subjective or leaning to a preferential side. However, it is okay for a news organization especially in politics to be sympathizer with one political side, as long as they report accurate and truthful information.

In paper, Venezuela claims to be a democratic country, but in practice they are as close as possible to be a dictatorship like Cuba.

In 2007, the Chavez government closed RCTV. For the first time, one of the major national channel was closed for exposing horrible but truthful acts of his government.

After that, he used the channel for governmental matters where he will put programs that will taught the country about his socialism and will brutally attack the opposition.

More channels, radios and newspaper closed for not sharing the same ideas that the government has, and with this more protest in favor of the freedom of expression started to happen, however; it was useless.

Just two months ago, during Maduro’s term, Globovision, which was the last opposition channel standing, was forced to be sold to the government.

The only channel that was still fighting to speak the truth and freely express opinions was taken by the government.

This occasioned the resignation of the entire crew of journalists that were against the selling and the new morals of the channel.

The channel was practically empty, as empty as the country was of journalist that weren’t afraid to speak about the government in broadcast and print.

Thankfully, social media and Internet access isn’t prohibited yet. Now prominent Venezuelan journalist inform through Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and blogs. Also there has been a rise of web programs that can be seen through any device with Internet access.

Nowadays, it is really hard to censor an entire country just by taking away channels, newspaper and radios. Social media has become the voice of a country and its almost unstoppable, even in countries like Venezuela where speaking the truth is a matter of life and death.

Malala and education in Pakistan

Posted on October 11, 2013 by Alexandra Silver

By ALEXANDRA SILVER

Just one year ago, the Taliban in Pakistan shot Malala Yousafzai after standing up for the education of women. At the time, Malala was 15 years old, but never failed to express her opinions and beliefs to the public, despite the danger she is constantly surrounded by.

Yousafzai is now 16 years old and was recently nominated to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, making her the youngest recipient if she had been awarded said prize. Along with that, she is quite possibly one of the most inspirational and wise teenagers of this generation.

Yousafzai is an activist and continues to share her passion for education after being shot in the head by an Islamist militant. Her efforts have received worldwide news media attention and has been a major story in the U.S. national news media this week with her visit to New York.

On the bus ride home from school one day, a militant stepped onto the bus and asked, “Who is Malala?” Shortly after he opened fire in front of the children on the bus, as she gripped her best friend’s hand. Many did not believe that Malala would survive, but she came back stronger than ever.

In a recent interview with Jon Stewart during her New York trip, Yousafzai discussed how she has been a target since the age of 11, but still does not believe in hating the Taliban. She believes that the daughters of the men in the Taliban also deserve a quality education and hopes that one day they will be able to receive that.

Yousafzai’s true dream is to become Prime Minister of Pakistan and she promises to make sure that tax dollars are used for schools rather than “cronies or pork barrel projects.”

Although she did not win the Nobel Peace Prize this week, she did receive the Andrei Sakharov Prize from the European Parliament for standing up to an oppressive power. Despite this, I am sure she will be nominated in the future and she already knows exactly what she would do with the prize money.

“A Nobel Peace Prize would help me to begin this campaign for girls’ education” (CNN).

Thankful for the freedom to press ‘Enter’

Posted on October 11, 2013 by Melanie Martinez

By MELANIE MARTINEZ

Nowadays, just about everyone has some sort of a blog. Whether it’s light and fluffy with details about fashion or sepia-toned shots of food, or a bit deeper and serious with commentary regarding controversial issues, everyone with access to the Internet reveals who they are and what they believe.

Even if someone doesn’t have a specific blog per se, he or she is bound to have a Facebook profile, Twitter, Youtube, or Instagram account — all Web sites that let you share your opinions, personalities, thoughts, and just about anything else (yes, even the fact that you just worked out at the gym or that your niece does look pretty adorable with those bunny ears on.)

But what if you truly had to think before you pressed the Enter key?

Yesterday I came across an article on BBC about a journalist in China who was just arrested for posting about the alleged corruption of some government officials on his blog.

I immediately thought back to all the times I’ve been scrolling on my Facebook home feed and found countless posts criticizing the government. From “I wish the people in government could let go of their egos and come to an agreement” to “OBAMA SUCKS I’M MOVIN TOO CANADA.”

No matter the post, no matter the content, no matter the truth or the falsity, no matter the, ahem, spelling errors…everyone in the United States is allowed to speak their minds, provided they are not endangering anybody by doing so.

Unfortunately, the same does not go for the people in China.

After posting corruption details of some high-ranking officials onto his blog, Liu Hu, who works for the Guangzhou-based newspaper New Express, was taken by police from his home in August and was then formally arrested at the end of September. When Hu was detained by police, his posts were deleted.

Charged with defamation, analysts call the charge a speech crime, and say it is part of the government’s recent campaign to tighten control over the Internet.

The new Internet guidelines are meant to crack down on “rumor-mongering.” Many believe it is a tool being used by the ruling Communist Party to cut down criticism and control internet opinions and rumors.

In a separate case, four people were arrested for posting about government dissatisfaction on a social media forum. Several other journalists as well as a high-profile blogger have also been arrested for allegedly spreading rumors online.

Remember when President Obama was elected and people wrote posts and made memes calling him an “Islamic terrorist”? And then all those people were arrested and charged for doing so?

Yeah, me either.

So keep posting my fellow Internet-users, because whether it’s regarding your criticism of the government or your cat wearing hipster glasses, you’re safe. You’re free.

Imagine going to jail for posting this on your Facebook page.

Journalism, a career or a death wish?

Posted on October 5, 2013 by Axel Turcios

By AXEL TURCIOS

The practice of journalism in Central America has become more than a career choice, it is considered more of an attempt to find death in an intellectual way.

My country, Honduras, is not an exception for journalists, who fight for exposé of political corruption as well as other internal problems. While working towards the truth, these professionals put not only their lives, but also the lives of their families, at high risks.

Ramón Custodio, Honduran Human Rights commissioner, expressed his concern about the impunity that keeps the murders of 35 people linked to the news media recorded at their institution between 2003 and so far this year, only two of such cases have come to judgment.

According to the Citizen Council for Public Safety and Criminal Justice (a private organization and part of the Mexican Employers’ Association), for the second year in a row, San Pedro Sula, Honduras, remains at the top spot as the most violent city in the world, with 169 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.

Such a ranking brings up the question of what is Porfirio Lobo, president of Honduras, doing to address the criminal crisis?

Juan Ramón Mairena, president of the Honduran College of Journalism, mentioned his sorrow towards the incompetence from President Lobo’s government to complete their promises to implement a protection program mainly targeted for journalists.

In the past year, President Lobo has maintained a confrontation with different media outlets, especially with the ones that criticize his administration by pointing out his security, economic and social failures.

One of the main causes for deaths in the Latin America country is the constant fight among the drug cartels and politicians who are related to extortion, corruption and money-laundering schemes.

A mass communication career is very difficult in a nation where drug trafficking has influenced many people to begin campaigns to stop journalists from denouncing the corrupt.

Journalists, in their attempt to portray the reality of things, lose their fear and end up throwing themselves into the enemy’s claws.

Believe it or not, if I had to live in Honduras again, my passion for journalism would still be the same. In other words, I’d still choose to communicate with others regardless the risks to which I would be exposed.

For more information:

Peace journalism is great idea, in theory

Posted on October 3, 2013 by Marissa Young

By MARISSA YOUNG

In my Freedom of Expression class at the University of Miami, we have been discussing peace journalism. Advocates for peace journalism recognize that today’s media are too eager to focus on violence and tend to favor what they consider to be the victimized parties and assign blame to the “others.”

Peace journalism attempts to give everyone a voice and expose untruths on all sides, while promoting peace and reconciliation instead of war and violence.

In this style of writing, journalists are not supposed to use words like “terrorists,” as these words are considered demonizing language. Instead, they are supposed to call groups by what they call themselves, like al-Qaeda.

Our assignment was to find articles and rank them according to a peace journalism rubric. As I read through articles, I realized how difficult it would be to adhere to the peace journalism standards. For example, “murdered” has negative and obviously violent connotations, but what else are you supposed to say if that’s what happened? Saying that a man “killed” somebody may have a little less of a negative connotation, but the connotation is there nonetheless.

I agree that an author should make every effort to quote or at least talk to and write about all parties involved and I do think that in many cases this can be done better than it is done now. Sometimes, though, it may be too dangerous.

Should journalists have to reach out to a group that just bombed a civilian’s house? And how are they supposed to talk about this incident without victimizing the civilian? I’m not sure how peace journalism advocates would answer these questions, although it seems to me that the rubric is arbitrary; the person rating an article can interpret the categories and define them however he or she chooses.

One part of the peace journalism rubric is “writer advocates for one side/position.” (A score of three indicates deviance from the peace journalism philosophy.) This is where peace journalism contradicts itself: it says that authors should be objective, but one of its main goals is to promote peace and reconciliation rather than violence. Even peace journalism has its own agenda and is inherently biased.

I believe that peace journalism is a noble concept, but it is impractical. It is an unattainable ideal, but we can at least shift toward it, combining some ideas, like less thirst for blood and more open-mindedness, with traditional reporting styles.

China’s journalists and the government

Posted on October 1, 2013 by Rebecca Fernandez

By REBECCA FERNANDEZ

Tensions are flaring between China’s journalists and government officials after the Southern Weekend newspaper took a stand against government censorship. Recent protests against the nation’s long-standing government involvement in the press launched what many are referring to as the Beijing News incident.

It all began when the New Year’s issue of a Guangdong province newspaper, Southern Weekend, printed a piece by the local propaganda minister that ran without the knowledge of any of the editors. This was the final straw for several of the newspaper’s employees who, up to that point, had been obeying China’s censorship laws by not running pieces that the government had asked them to pull from print.

Southern Weekend’s fed-up editors publicly spoke out on Chinese microblogging site Weibo, claiming that the article allegedly written by Tuo Zhen, a provincial-level official, was “raping” the newspaper’s independence. The post went viral and was eventually taken down, but that hasn’t stopped a flow of criticism against China’s censorship laws.

The most recent backlash occurred when officials answered Southern Weekend’s plea for less government involvement with increased censorship and additional propaganda.

Another article was written, however. It was not as easy for officials to get news outlets to run the article this time around. Officials issued an order to several newspapers nationwide to run the article Tuesday, but only a handful followed through. However, newspapers like the Beijing News, who chose not to run it on Tuesday, were forced to do so the following day. The Beijing News did not give in easily and caved only when authorities physically arrived at its offices.

What really happened at the Beijing News office is still unclear, but several posts on Twitter said that the Weibo accounts of Beijing News employees were all deleted. Alleged photos of a chaotic Beijing News newsroom also made its way through Twitter.

One Beijing News employee, who chose to remain anonymous, confirmed that there was a meeting of administrative-level employees Wednesday morning.

If Dai’s resignation is confirmed, this will likely be the most defiant act a newspaper leader has taken in response to the recent Southern Weekend situation.

Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, has blocked all chatter on the Southern Weekend situation, as well as of the Beijing News incident, but that has not stopped Chinese sources from getting the news out.

News leaks could be threat to security

Posted on October 1, 2013 by Danielle Cohen

By DANIELLE COHEN

Reporters are responsible for making information and news accessible. Sometimes, the information that may be newsworthy might not be safe to share as public knowledge.

A prime example of reporters leaking information that is not safe to share has happened recently and has put our country’s security as risk.

There was a report made by the McClatchy DC news service Washington bureau chief about how “odd” a story was on the front-page of The New York Times.

James Asher, the Washington bureau chief for McClatchy, made this statement in regards to a leak that took place in the beginning of August regarding the closing of 19 embassies that stirred media chaos.

McClatchy at the time supported publishing the details, which included intercepted communication between the Al Qaeda Leader Ayman al Zawahiri and Yemen AQAP head Nasir al Wuhayshi.

Other sources, such as The New York Times, decided it would be beneficial to hold back publishing this information and honor the government’s request. The Times did report communication involving “senior operatives of Al Qaeda,” but did not release any identities.

The evening of the release of The Times story , a Yemen expert explained “that an August leak regarding an Al Qaeda plot undermined U.S. intelligence gathering as — laughable.”

Now that it is about two months later, U.S officials who request anonymity told The Times that the leak promoted terrorists to change their methods of communication.

There are reports that this news leak damaged national security.

The Huffington Post stated that the U.S. government never raised concerns following the story released on Aug. 4 and that “multiple sources inside and outside of the Yemeni government confirmed our reporting and not one of them told us not to publish the facts.”

Gregory Johnsen, a Yemen expert and author of a book on al Qaida in Yemen, made the point that the U.S. publicly closed 19 embassies and that the facts about Wuhayshi and Zawhiri were known in Yemen. The point she made was once the government leaks something, the information is hard to control.

We are unsure if our government is investigating the source of these leaks. We do know that the FBI and the office of the director of National Intelligence refused to speak about the subject. The Times also did not contribute and did not contact McClatchy for information.

For more information visit http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-calderone/mcclatchy-new-york-times-al-qaeda-leak_b_4022429.html?utm_hp_ref=media

Violence against journalists in Mexico

Posted on September 27, 2013 by Melissa Mallin

By MELISSA MALLIN

Reporting can be a dangerous job.

Ask any reporter who has reported from Mexico recently and they will tell you the same thing.

Mexico is one of the world’s most dangerous countries for reporters. Last year, there were at least 172 confirmed attacks on the media in Mexico. Press Freedom Group Article 19 claims that public officials are responsible for more than half of the attacks. Most, if not all of the attacks, have involved journalists reporting on the Mexican drug cartel.

These attacks have involved death threats to journalists, kidnappings, and even deaths.

Even though Mexico has recently passed a law making it a federal crime to attack reporters, violence often goes unpunished and murders are often not investigated. Now, there are very few crime reporters in Mexico and those who do choose to report crimes are forced to use pseudonyms or use social media.

This is a prime example of how corrupt government can create a chilling effect for reporters. Nobody wants to report from Mexico because nobody wants to get killed for doing their job. Many reporters who received death threats didn’t take them seriously and then wound up dead. When almost every reporter shows up dead or goes missing, That’s enough to send the rest of the reporters out of the country.

As much as I would like to report on the Mexican drug cartels and be the one to uncover the truth, I don’t think I would be willing to lose my life over it. That goes back to how much a reporter is willing to sacrifice in order to tell a story. Clearly, when choosing to cover a story that ultimately results in death, you become a lot less likely to cover that story.

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestoryamericas/2012/05/2012524111528391905.html

What Francis says, what media perceives

Posted on September 25, 2013 by Danielle Cohen

By DANIELLE COHEN

Decades of popes have consistently been well spoken and have paid special attention on emphasizing the pastoral care of the Catholic Church. The current church leader, Pope Francis, does not differ from previous popes in his way off addressing his people. He is careful and has a very selective choice of words.

What the pope says is not always perceived the way it is meant to be by journalists and is released into the press with false statements that the pope did not actually say or mean.

Former Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio picked his words carefully as an Argentine priest and then prelate of Buenos Aires. He was impeccable in his word choice, especially with the politics that attacked Argentina for many years.

Journalists are very interested in what the pope has to say, knowing it could potentially make international headlines. With this, the problem of journalists misunderstanding and misdirecting the media was noticed last spring after Pope Francis’s installation. There was a report in USA Today, for example, about the pontiff’s supposed “obsession with Satan,” of which many Protestants, Catholics and other Bible readers were skeptical.

The newspaper stated that the pope “mentioned the devil on a handful of occasions.” The reporter took an incident where Pope Francis gave a blessing to a handicapped man and speculated the idea the Jesuit pontiff was an exorcist, or from the film “The Exorcist.” The Vatican then went further to tell the international press that no priest performs “ad hoc exorcisms” and the popes usually pray with and bless’ victims.

Any reporter covering this story could have flipped through canon law, the Bible or Catholic catechism, which are available to the public.

A couple of days later, reports came out that Francis declared that atheists would go to heaven as long as they did good deeds. The media took his words out of context when really Francis spoke of “ecumenical communion between believers and good-hearted atheists.” Nothing Francis said had contradicted the belief that work for the poor and downtrodden people would provide a meeting place in people’s hearts.

Two months following this false media report, the media then again reported something out of context. They claimed that Francis declared that the church would no longer “judge” homosexuality. What he actually said was “Who am I to judge” in response to a question about the “gay lobby” and focused on “lobbies” of all kinds focused on the segment of society destroying Christian unity and brotherhood.

Last week, a lengthy interview with American Magazine took place with Francis, which was published by and for the Jesuit Society in America. What the media got from this interview was that the pope was going to change the doctrine — or at least soften it up a lot.

ABC then went on to report this as the pope scolding the Catholic Church over “divisive rules.” A European wire service reported that the “pope seeks easing of rigid Catholic doctrine,” which references other media sources that states he was “pushing a shift” in the Catholic Church. The abortion rights group, NARAL, went on with this false information and published a thank-you note to the pope, only to find him excoriate abortion a few days after.

Continued media failure upsets Catholics who truly understand Francis’s true message. This brings up the question of media credibility on religious matters and even more broadly than that. Catholic documents are easily obtainable and yet the media doesn’t appear to be checking facts before publishing news stories that change the words of Francis and the Catholic Church.

Blackberry struggles to keep up

Posted on September 23, 2013 by Axel Turcios

By AXEL TURCIOS

Is anybody buying Blackberries anymore? Are there any new models coming out soon? Why is it is hard to see them around?

Well, I believe that those are questions that everybody wants to find the right answer. However, in reality it is true that the phone maker is going through a hard moment in its history.

“It’s just too good to only keep it to us,” Thorsten Heins, Blackberry CEO, said of its once famous messenger service BBM.

The mobile company’s decision to release its messenger app to other mobile platforms looks to many like a strategy to save the company from an expected bankruptcy. The service features BBM Chat for instant messaging with other users. Additionally, each user has a unique PIN, so you don’t have to give out your phone number to use the service mostly a privacy feature.

I think this should be something positive for the phone maker that seems to be struggling to bring revenue to its stock share.

The Canadian company that once was at the top of the list of the most-sold mobile devices in the United States, announced this week that they would eliminate of 4,500 positions. In other words, that means 40 percent of its current work force.

In fact, things like these seem to predict the end of the Blackberry era.

Many experts believe that the company’s biggest loss comes from phones that were not sold because of competition from other smartphones, such as the iPhone, in the last couple of years.

A little bit more than four years ago, Blackberry controlled 51 percent of the mobile global market. Today it stands at three percent.

When the iPhone came out, cell phone history changed. Apple released a new device that revolutionized the way many people talk to each other. It created a touch screen smartphone that was capable of running a variety of apps.

Alongside the iPhone came the Android operating system that rapidly became iPhone’s biggest competition.

Are Blackberry’s final hours are here? Will the company be able to rise from this fall? Well, we don’t know those answers yet but if it does fall or rise, it’ll certainly be a top story.

Asking questions can result in trouble

Posted on September 20, 2013 by Melissa Mallin

By MELISSA MALLIN

A reporter’s job is to ask questions.

But what happens when you’re in a different country and you ask too many questions? Or questions about issues nobody wants to talk about or admit? What happens when asking questions leads to incarceration and interrogation by government officials?

Thats what happened to journalist Leah McGrath Goodman (along with MANY other investigative reporters).

Goodman was locked up and interrogated for more than 12 hours by British authorities before being thrown out of the country after disclosing the subject of her work in 2011.

Her work focused on the island of Jersey, a cosseted tax shelter in the Channel Islands controlled by the British Crown, whose government repeatedly ignored the atrocities of nearly 200 children since 2008 who were abused by the hands of government officials.

Upon arriving at Heathrow Airport near London, Goodman walked through passport control and was asked to answer a few questions. She was then escorted to a windowless room in the basement of the airport. At no point was she told why she was being taken into custody.

Officials treated her like a common criminal. She said they gave her no information as to what was happening and locked her in a room for hours. Officials rummaged through her belongings and she was not allowed to speak to a lawyer. She described the interrogation process as being “demoralizing and hostile.”

Once the officials were done rummaging her things, she was banned from the country for two years and given no precise reason as to why.

Her crime was researching a topic that the British authorities preferred she didn’t.

You don’t hear about it too often, but many journalists are being wrongfully held in other countries and interrogated. It seems, today, that many issues needing light are being covered up and silenced.

There are certain stories that once they get out can destroy an entire nation. I idolize the journalists that actually go out and try to investigate such stories. I believe more people need to go out and uncover such dark truths, however, the problem lies with how much a journalist (and his/her employer) is willing to sacrifice in order to tell a story? Are they willing to sacrifice their rights? Their credibility? And even themselves?

I’ve often asked myself why certain things don’t get covered. Why do we hear so little about global genocide happening all over the world? Why is Miley Cyrus news? Instead of covering celebrities and intruding on their lives, why don’t we report on all the evil and wrongdoings going on elsewhere in the world and why don’t we spend our resources trying to fix them? Instead of worrying about chemical weapons in Syria, why can’t our government worry about feeding the hungry or sheltering them? Or at least just reporting about it!

For the longest time, I just figured nobody cared. Now, however, I realize authorities are just silencing the people trying to uncover the truth, which in itself is a great atrocity to journalism.

For more information, go to http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leah-mcgrath-goodman/david-miranda-uk-detention_b_3844480.html and http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leah-mcgrath-goodman/how-much-is-too-much-to-sacrifice_b_3931755.html.

DIGITAL NEWS REPORTING

Journalism and Media Management Department, School of Communication, University of Miami

Tag Archives: International