MEDIABLAB DAILY DIGEST JAN 23: CHRISTIAN SEX MAG DESTRA SPO PARTNERS GETTY DRUDGE THAI PAY-TV
January 23rd 2008 12:18
A compilation of MediaBlab items published over the last 24 hours
SECRETIVE US INVESTMENT FIRM TIED UP IN AUSTRALIA’S PACKER-MURDOCH DEAL
The Australian today rapports that “amid all of the hoopla about Australia's two best-known family dynasties joining forces to bid for Consolidated Media Holdings, it has almost been forgotten that a firm once described as representing the ‘low-profile rich’ is equally prominent in the deal.”
The Australian, which incidentally was and still is a major contributor to the “hoopla” surrounding the Packer-Murdoch deal, said San Francisco-based SPO Partners and Co is an investment firm that looks after a small group of wealthy private American investors.
“Those who work for the firm are similarly tight-lipped. Associates contacted by journalists have commonly indicated it is ‘not their policy to comment’.”
SEXY AFRIKAANS CHRISTIAN MAGAZINE SELLS BIG TIME
South Africa’s Intiem, the Afrikaans Christian inspirational magazine that says it “peeks under the bed covers and empowers women” is celebrating its first anniversary by launching English version Intimacy in March 2008.
The Christian magazine certainly has a thing about sex. Cover lines of the first issue of Intimacy include: Sex in the Rain; Sex: Duty or Delight; Mister, Can You Really Kiss; Is Your Marriage Intimate Enough; Breast Supplement.
The mag has a Parental Guidance rating.
“Our biggest success has been the ability to make a difference in marriages,” says Liezel van der Merwe, Intiem's managing editor.
Although the publication is aimed predominantly at women, it has reportedly received great interest from men too, exceeding expectations “The men are ecstatic that there is finally a magazine that empowers women in the bedroom in a tasteful manner,” comments Annelize Steyn, editor of Intiem.
Perhaps it’s a case of sexiness is next to Godliness.
YOUNG AFGHAN JOURNALIST SENTENCED TO DEATH, OSTENSIBLY FOR BLASPHEMY
A court in Afghanistan’s northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif has passed the death sentence on a young journalist, Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh, for alleged blasphemy
At a news conference yesterday, Hafizullah Khaliqyar, the deputy provincial prosecutor in charge of the case, threatened to imprison all journalists who support Kambakhsh, adding that "Kambakhsh has confessed to the crime and must be punished."
Kambakhsh was supposedly arrested because of a controversial article commenting on verses in the Koran about women, although it has now been established that he was not the article's author. Rahimullah Samandar, the head of the Afghanistan Independent Journalists Association, said he was in fact arrested because of articles written by his brother, Ibrahimi, criticising the provincial authorities.
Kambakhsh, 23, a reporter for the newspaper Jahan-e Naw (The New World) and a journalism student at Balkh university, was arrested on October 27.
ADS ARE THE MOST POPULAR CONTENT IN NEW MYANMAR PRO-GOVERNMENT PUBLICATIONS
The Myanmar military is countering the media with the media, and local journalists in Mandalay said the authorities have given printing and publishing permits to several private weekly journals.
The new private journals are mostly biased in favour of the government's policies and carry several articles that support the junta's stance.
But Mizzima News reports that oddly the ads in the publications are of more interest to readers than the articles.
Mizzima said, “However, the journals' content are mainly filled with advertisements in order to boost sales as readers cannot be attracted to the articles and news content.”
The Myanmar military government has also blocked blogger sites and redirected links on such websites. According to the Niknayman blog, the military government has recently added more words in their Niknayman blog address. The added words are: “This is Myanmar,” “NLD,” and “stupid sucking blog.”
If people click on the Niknayman blog, its webpage pulls up pornographic pictures and videos.
The Niknayman blog was one of the most active blog sites during the September uprising and put up several pictures of the demonstrations and videos depicting how the military government cracked down on the peaceful protesters and monks.
SOAP OPERA ABOUT SKY-HIGH CABIN-CREW SEX UPSETS THAI INTERNATIONAL UNION
A popular new Thai soap opera about love and infidelity in the high skies has angered Thai Airways flight attendants who demanded the show be canceled.
AP reports that ‘The Air Hostess War,’ which broadcast its first three episodes last week on Thailand's Channel 5, has captivated viewers with a story line about a dashing married pilot having an affair with one of his tall, slim flight attendants. There are love triangles that lead to fighting in the aisles and steamy sex scenes at stopover cities.
The Thai Airways International union issued a letter on Monday urging the Culture Ministry to order the show to be pulled from the air.
"This soap opera is insulting and damaging to the reputation of flight attendants," Noppadol Thaungthong, a Thai Airways flight attendant leading the union's action, told AP.
"It's all about sex and air hostesses beating each other up in the cabin because of love and jealousy. This kind of thing never happens.
"We are demanding that the station and the producers immediately stop airing this ugly soap opera."
Channel 5 says it has no plan to pull the soap opera but will consider suggesting that scenes found to be offensive be edited out.
Perhaps Channel 5 should base a script about Australia’s Qantas stewardess turned hooker who bonked US actor Ralph Fuentes in the toilet during a flight.
SEND UP OF THE DEMOGRAPHICS OF MAJOR AMERICAN NEWSPAPERS
This jokey and witty analysis on ‘The Demographics of American Newspapers’ is doing the rounds of the web:
1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.
2. The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country.
3. The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country and who are very good at crossword puzzles.
4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don't really understand The New York Times. They do, however, like their statistics shown in pie charts.
5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn’t mind running the country, if they could find the time, and if they didn't have to leave Southern California to do it.
6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country and did a poor job of it, thank you very much.
7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren’t too sure who's running the country and don't really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.
8. The New York Post is read by people who don’t care who is running the country as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.
9. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country but need the baseball scores.
10. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure if there is a country or that anyone is running it; but if so, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped minority feminist atheist dwarfs who also happen to be illegal aliens from any other country or galaxy, provided of course, that they are not Republicans.
11. The National Enquirer is read by people trapped in line at the grocery store.
12. The Oregonian is read by people who have recently caught a fish and need something in which to wrap it.
SON OF RUPERT TO SOON CONTROL MOST OF AUSTRALIA’S MAJOR MEDIA
Crikey reports that there's a “new traffic cop on the media beat in Australia –
Lachlan Murdoch, and once his deal with James Packer is consummated he will be directing the traffic in every major part of Australian media.
His new company will own 25 percent of the Nine Network, Australia's second-biggest TV network; 25 percent of Foxtel, Australia's dominant pay TV operator; he sits on the board of News Corporation, which owns Australia's biggest newspaper network, where he is also a substantial shareholder and is the son of the boss; and his new company will own 25 percent of Australia's biggest magazine publisher, ACP.
Crikey said, “The traffic in the Australian media used to flow through all sorts of big and small roads. Today there are a handful of freeways controlled by a handful of owners and, after the Murdoch-Packer play, traffic on most of those freeways will be channelled onto the Media Concentration Super Highway, all under the watchful eye of the new cop on the beat.
“Democracy in Australia is becoming more like a toll road.”
RUSSIA SETS UP PRESS CENTRE TO IMPROVE ITS IMAGE ABROAD
Moscow Times reports that a press centre aimed at improving Russia's image abroad will open in central Moscow next month and could be overseen by a friend and judo partner of President Vladimir Putin.
The National Information Center will accommodate media events for a pool of Russian and foreign journalists, Ivan Makushok, spokesman for the State Council for the Union State of Russia and Belarus, said on Monday.
The center's aims include improving Russia's image abroad, promoting national projects and providing journalists with first-hand contacts in the presidential administration, Makushok said.
The supervisory board will be made up of around a dozen media representatives, Makushok said. Izvestia editor Vladimir Mamontov and Ekho Moskvy’s radio editor Alexei Venediktov have both agreed to join the board, he said.
State Duma Deputy Vasily Shestakov, a long-time friend of Putin's and a fellow judo enthusiast, said he had been invited to head up the supervisory board. Shestakov represents pro-Kremlin party A Just Russia in the Duma. Billionaire Roman Abramovich, Evraz Group shareholder Alexander Abramov and Boris Hait, head of the insurance company Spasskiye Vorota, will finance the centre, Kommersant reported.
AUSTRALIA’S ATTORNEY GENERAL DEPT INVITES SUBMISSIONS ON THE COPYING OF MOVIES FOR PRIVATE USE
US-based Boing Boing reports that he Australian Attorney-General's department is inviting submissions from the public on copying of movies and images in different formats for private use.
Boing Boing reported, “These were sections of the Copyright Amendment Act introduced in December 2006 that made it legal for Aussies to do things they'd been doing for decades, such as recording a TV broadcast to tape or disc, but illegal to watch such recordings more than once!”
The minister is required by the act to review these exceptions after two years and is now inviting comment.
DESTRA BUYS AUSTRALIA’S LEADING ONLINE ROCK MUSIC WEBSITE
Destra Corporation Ltd, Australia’s leading independent digital media and entertainment company, has acquired leading online rock music website, Mess Noise for an undisclosed sum.
This acquisition extends destra’s capacity to deliver credible and compelling content and create advertising opportunities on a multi-platform basis around targeted, online communities, particularly in the X and Y demographic.
According to Nielsen Online Market Intelligence December 2007 statistics, destra’s monthly unique browsers increased by 30 percent, and the addition of Mess Noise positions destra as the leading independent digital publisher of entertainment content in Australia.
Mess Noise will be promoted across destra’s digital, physical publishing and broadcasting platforms, enabling collaboration with destra’s other music communities.
Lachlan Murdoch’s Illyria also owns a stake in Destra.
ISSUES TO BE ADDRESSED IN THAI PAY-TV SECTOR BEFORE SUBSTANTIAL GROWTH CAN BE ACHIEVED
The Cable & Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia released its ‘Thailand in View’ market report, providing an up-to-date overview of the pay-TV industry in Thailand, as well as the opportunities and challenges in terms of regulatory and political factors.
Thailand in View provides an in-depth study of the country’s pay-TV environment, plus a regulatory and stakeholder analysis, along with key contacts of Thailand cable TV industry and a draft of the Broadcasting Bill 2007.
According to the report, Thailand’s pay-TV penetration remains relatively low compared with other Asian markets, with just 14.3 percent of 18.7 million Thai TV households.
Meanwhile, there are several issues in the Thai market that need to be addressed before further substantial growth can be achieved, including widespread signal theft and a regulatory environment that permits unlicensed operators in the provinces.
There is also room for significant pay-TV advertising growth. As of now, the Thai government has only given tacit approval for pass-through, non domestic pay-TV advertising, while privately owned pay-TV operators at this time cannot carry any domestic advertising at all, which has suppressed the willingness of industry players to further invest in this sector. The industry hopes that recently-passed broadcasting legislation will unambiguously pave the way for lifting the advertising ban.
“Thailand should have a far more robust pay-TV market given its population, GDP, level of entertainment consumption and the maturity of the advertising industry,” said Cable & Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia ceo Simon Twiston Davies.
“The pay-TV industry is optimistic on progress towards giving Thailand a modern regulatory system. With the Broadcasting Bill 2007 now passed by the National Legislative Assembly, we look forward to having a licensing regime established for all pay-TV operators and further development of the market in Thailand.”
PEARSON FULL-YEAR RESULTS TO SHOW STRONG INCREASES FOR FINANCIAL TIMES SUBSCRIPTIONS
Reuters reports that the Pearson publishing and education company it expects to post adjusted full-year earnings at or above the top end of the range of current market expectations, and its full-year results are due on March 3.
The London-based company said its education arm will report its strongest year ever while the publishing division covering the Financial Times newspaper strongly increased its subscription businesses strongly.
"We now expect to report full-year adjusted earnings at or above the top end of the range of current market expectations, even after the significant weakening of the US dollar during the year," Pearson said.
SONS OF PACKER-MURDOCH DEAL IN AUSTRALIA RAKED OVER BY THE MEDIA
Australian media yesterday continued to be fixated with the James Packer-Lachlan Murdoch Consolidated media Holdings deal.
For example, online business news service Business Spectator ran 16 items about the deal, including commentary from its high-profile co-owners Alan Kohler.
Kohler wrote, “A side issue of the Great James and Lachlan Reconciliation Joint Venture is: how come the directors of Consolidated Media Holdings felt the need to announce a conditional proposal from a joint venture that is not yet fully formed, and to put the shares in a trading halt?”
Perhaps he would have found the answer to his own question if he had read Consolidated Media Holdings ASX statement published on late Monday afternoon which, in part, said, “Although the proposal is highly conditional, the Consolidated Media considers that, as it involves Conspress (its major shareholder), early disclosure to ASX of the approach is warranted in the interests of good corporate governance and to keep the market and its shareholders informed.”
Kohler soldiered on, saying, “Usually boards say things like: ‘A highly conditional indicative proposal has been received – we’ll keep shareholders informed.’ Or else they keep quiet and wait for something definite.”
This is pretty well exactly what the Consolidated Media Holdings statement did say, although at length.
Kohler continued, “Lachlan Murdoch and James Packer have put a final price on their proposed offer for CMH, but it is conditional on a board recommendation, an independent expert’s view, ASIC relief, due diligence, funding, and ‘execution of a joint venture agreement’ between James Packer’s and Lachlan Murdoch’ companies. Just the odd condition.
“And as for the funding, Murdoch has only a ‘highly confident’ letter from ANZ Bank, as well as equity money from a San Francisco-based investment firm called SPO Partners & Co.
“Presumably the only reason the board felt it should announce and suspend trading is the presence of the names Packer and Murdoch on the letter. Indeed that is the only thing that gives one any confidence at all that this bid will get off the ground in the current market.”
Overall Kohler’s commentary seems to be much ado about nothing.
NEPALESE JOURNALIST ATTACKED AND HIS WRITING HAND CUT OFF
A Nepalese freelance journalist, Manoj Sah, was attacked on January 17 in the southern city of Janakpur and one of his hands was cut off.
Sah belongs to the Association of Revolutionary Journalists, a Maoist group.
The attack came just after a fourth visit to Nepal by the International Press Freedom Mission, highlighting the dangers that journalists still face.
Sah was attacked by a dozen men armed with traditional khukuri knives as he was returning home from work in Janakpur, near the Indian border. As well as severing one of his hands, the attackers inflicted serious injuries to his head and wrists.
According to Ashok Rauniyar, a local representative of the Federation of Nepalese Journalists, his assailants shouted, "Do you write the news with these hands?" before cutting one of them off. Sah underwent an operation in a Kathmandu hospital, where his condition is no longer considered life-threatening.
Rauniyar said the attack may have been linked to an article about the Janaki temple in the local newspaper Bishwojagaran, and that the assailants may have been people who worship at this Hindu temple.
GETTY IMAGES UP FOR SALE AFTER BEING HIT HARD BY LOW-COST ONLINE RIVALS
Getty Images, the world's largest supplier of pictures and video to media and advertising companies, has put itself on the market and could sell for as much as US$1.5 billion, The New York Times reported.
Goldman Sachs is the banker and suitors are mostly private equity firms, including Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Bain Capital and others.
Getty, based in Seattle, was founded in 1995, and has expanded through a series of acquisitions and claims it has 4 million monthly unique visitors to its website.
But Rafat Ali reports that Getty and its main rivals Jupitermedia and Corbis have all been hit hard with the rise of low-cost online rivals, called microstock photography.
Last August, Getty laid off about 100 employees, or about 5 percent of its full-time staff, its second round of cuts in as many years
DUTCH GOVERNMENT FEARS PROTESTS FOLLOWING BROADCAST OF PROVOCATIVE ANTI-MUSLIM FILM
The Dutch government is bracing itself for violent protests following the scheduled broadcast this week of a provocative anti-Muslim film by a radical right-wing politician who has threatened to broadcast images of the Koran being torn up and otherwise desecrated.
The Observer reports that cabinet ministers and officials, fearing a repetition of the crisis sparked by the publication of cartoons of Muhammad in a Danish newspaper two years ago, have held a series of crisis meetings and ordered counter-terrorist services to draw up security plans.
Dutch nationals overseas have been asked to register with their embassies and local mayors in the Netherlands have been put on standby. Geert Wilders, one of nine members of the extremist VVD (Freedom) party in the 150-seat Dutch lower house, has promised that his film will be broadcast –
on television or on the internet – whatever the pressure may be.
Government officials hope that no mainstream media organisation will agree to show the film, although one publicly funded channel, Nova, initially agreed before pulling out.
VIENNA-BASED SECURITY ORGANISATION PROTESTS JAILING OF BELARUS NEWSPAPER EDITOR OVER MUHAMMAD CARTOONS
Europe's largest security organisation lodged a protest last Friday with authorities in Belarus, where a newspaper editor was ordered to be jailed for three years for reprinting cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that were originally published in Denmark.
KYTV Post said Miklos Haraszti, media freedom representative for the Vienna-based Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, urged officials in the ex-Soviet republic to release Alexander Zdvizhkov, the former deputy editor of the Zhoda newspaper.
Haraszti said Zdvizhkov’s sentencing to a term in a high-security prison was excessive, and accused Belarus of misusing hate speech laws.
Zhoda newspaper was closed down by a court in March 2006 following the reprinting of the caricatures, which originally appeared in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.
Criminal proceedings alleging ‘incitement of religious hatred’ were reopened following Zdvizhkov's arrest in November 2007 when he returned to Belarus after spending the past two years living in Russia and Ukraine.
JAPANESE PUBLIC TV BROADCASTER TO PROBE EMPLOYEES OVER INSIDER TRADING ALLEGATIONS
Japan’s public broadcaster NHK said on Saturday that it will ask each of its 11,000 employees about their stock transactions, including whether they trade based on unpublished information obtained through their work.
Japan Times reports this comes after two reporters and a director were accused on Thursday of engaging in insider trading in 2007.
NHK has also decided to draw up clear rules on stock trading and to improve the information management of its news editing system, officials said.
NHK president Genichi Hashimoto said that the broadcaster is in the middle of questioning about 5,000 employees involved in news gathering and reporting about stock-trading activity.
The probe will then proceed to the rest of its employees, including contract-based and part-time workers entitled to access its news story system.
The move was triggered by Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Hiroya Masuda, who urged the broadcaster to immediately question ‘all employees’ in the news division about stock-trading activity and announce any findings to the public.
First casualty of the probe was the head of NHK, Genichi Hashimoto, who quit on Monday, taking responsibility for reporters' alleged involvement in insider trading. Two reporters and one director allegedly bought 1,000 to 3,000 shares each in a popular restaurant chain on March 8 when an exclusive report about its plan to absorb a sushi group was broadcast by NHK.
They sold the stocks the next day and earned between 100,000-400,000 yen (A$1,100-4,400) in profits each, according to NHK. Two of the three employees have admitted obtaining the corporate information through NHK's internal news editing system and making the stock purchases shortly before it was broadcast.
MATT DRUDGE CELEBRATES A DECADE OF NOTORIETY SINCE BREAKING THE MONICA LEWINSKY SCOOP
Pioneer online news buster Matt Drudge made web history on the night of January 17, 1998, when he revealed that Newsweek editors had spiked a story about Bill Clinton and an intern named Monica Lewinsky.
Although the story of course became one of the biggest scoops in modern American history, Drudge was derided, attacked not onky for his political views, but also for working out of a $600-a-month rented Hollywood apartment.
Today his website reputedly makes him US $500,000-a-month and Drudge lives in an exclusive penthouse in Florida.
Drudge has millions of readers and more influence than any other single newsmaker in America. Ironically his ability to direct reader traffic means he is now probably the biggest gate-keeper to conventional journalism today, having earlier been reviled and rejected by mainstream media.
The Pew Research Centre produced data on the influence of news sources on the 2008 Presidential campaign. When American respondents were where got their campaign information online, the New York Times website was cited by 6 percent of respondents, followed by the Drudge Report at three percent.
NEW YORK TO FIGHT THE SCOURGE OF LIBEL TOURISM
New York will fight ‘libel tourism’ according to Publishers Weekly which reported, “In the wake of two recent highly publicised libel cases against American authors in the UK, New York State legislators last week introduced a bill that would help protect authors from libel tourist cases in plaintiff-friendly foreign courts.
Senate deputy majority leader Dean Skelos and assemblyman Rory Lancman announced legislation that they say will make it harder for “libel tourists” to threaten American authors and publishers in New York by bringing meritless defamation actions in overseas courts.
Publishers Weekly said the proposed legislation would amend New York's code of civil practice to prohibit enforcement of a foreign libel judgment unless a New York court determines that it satisfies the free speech and press protections guaranteed by the US and the New York State constitutions.
It said the legislation would also amend New York's “long-arm” statute to allow courts, under certain circumstances, to exercise personal jurisdiction over non-residents who win foreign libel judgments against New York residents in order to grant resident writers declaratory relief in those cases.
Publishers Weekly reported that the legislation was introduced in response to a December 20, 2007, ruling that New York courts lacked jurisdiction to hear American author Rachel Ehrenfeld's lawsuit seeking to have a British default libel judgment against her declared unenforceable in the US.
Ehrenfeld, author of Funding Evil: How Terrorism Is Financed and How to Stop It (Bonus Books), was sued by Saudi billionaire Khalid bin Mahfouz in a London court under UK libel laws.
In her book, Ehrenfeld identified bin Mahfouz as a financial supporter of terrorist organisations. Bin Mahfouz sued Ehrenfeld even though the book was never published in Great Britain and neither he nor Ehrenfeld resides there.
Ehrenfeld refused to participate in the suit, but was nonetheless hit with a default judgment of US$225,000 in damages and legal fees to bin Mahfouz, as well as a “declaration of falsity” against Funding Evil and a promise to destroy existing copies of the book, a demand for a public apology and an injunction against UK publication.
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