Journalism
Less than a month after Buzzfeed acquired HuffPost, it now has laid off 47 US HuffPost employees – mostly journalists – and closed HuffPost’s Canadian operation, with more layoffs expected in the United Kingdom and Australia.
Australia's government has passed a new law that will require tech giants such as Facebook and Google to pay publishers for using their news content. Market regulator Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) publishers have had little negotiating power until now because they are so reliant on tech monopolies like Google and Facebook.
After Facebook blocked Australian users from accessing and sharing news on its platform, the Australian government heavily criticised the move, calling "an assault" to democracy while still moving forward in passing a law that would force Big Tech giants to pay for news.
“Facebook’s actions to unfriend Australia today, cutting off essential information services on health and emergency services, were as arrogant as they were disappointing,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison wrote on Facebook. “They may be changing the world, but that doesn’t mean they run it.”
The journalist Can Dündar, who fled into exile in Germany, has been sentenced to more than 27 years in prison by a Turkish court. The court accused the Turkish newspaper journalist of obtaining state secrets for espionage purposes. It also convicted him of supporting terrorism.
Can Dündar's defenders stated that they think that the verdict against Dündar is political. Germany would therefore be unlikely to extradite the journalist.
According to the annual press freedom survey published by the organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF) at least 387 journalists are imprisoned worldwide. According to the data, fifty-four journalists are currently considered abducted, and four disappeared in 2020.
Over 130 journalists have been arrested for their reporting on the Covid-19 pandemic.
Tens of thousands of demonstrators marched in Paris and other French cities to protest against the "Global Security" law.
Syrian photographer Ameer al-Halbi, a war correspondent known for his coverage of the fall of Aleppo and winner of a World Press Photo award in 2017, was wounded during a police charge while covering the march on Saturday afternoon, AFP reported.
The "Global Security" law would punish punishes the so-called "malicious" dissemination of the image of police officers, particularly during demonstrations.
Controversy over the law was heightened by the heavy-handed evacuation of a migrant camp in Paris on Monday and the revelation on Thursday of the beating of music producer Michel Zecler by four police officers.
Multiple broadcast news networks such as ABC and NBC have cut away from the United States President Donald Trump as he made remarks regarding the presidential elections on Thursday evening. With the vote count still underway when Trump faced the cameras, he made multiple unsubstantiated claims regarding voter fraud. The networks then made the decision to cut away from the screening.
Australian journalist Cheng Lei has been detained since August 14th and is suspected of "criminal activity endangering China's national security". Lei is a news anchor for China Global Television Network (CGTN) and was arrested in Beijing and was taken into secretive detention. The reason for her detention is still unclear.
Journalists working for western media outlets had their accreditations removed on Saturday in Belarus. This comes a day after a German ARD TV crew was arrested in their hotel and later deported. Journalists affected worked for Reuters, Radio Liberty, AFP, AP and BBC, among others.
Twitter announced the introduction of labels for accounts and tweets tied to government officials and "state-affiliated media."
In a blog post, the company says: "Twitter provides an unmatched way to connect with, and directly speak to public officials and representatives. This direct line of communication with leaders and officials has helped to democratize political discourse and increase transparency and accountability"
Russia Today (RT) was one of the first accounts to be labelled "affiliated media", with Twitter pointing the ties of the media outlet with the Russian Government.
Twitter suggested that these labels are part of a more significant effort "to protect that discourse because we believe political reach should be earned not bought."
Facebook News, the social network’s section dedicated to journalism, launches today for all users in the United States. The product was announced by Facebook back in October but as a limited test to some users.
Out of the test phase, Facebook News allows users to react and share articles, but not to comment. Users are also able to hide articles, topics and publishers they don’t want to see.
Facebook is also now testing news video, which it didn’t have last fall, and it has introduced a local news section to Facebook News
In addition to algorithms, journalists make the selection of stories.