Category Archives: Media

Suspect in new Charlie Hebdo attack angered by republished cartoons, say Paris police

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Detained man, believed to be 18 and from Pakistan, arrived in France as unaccompanied minor three years ago

The man arrested after a knife attack on two people outside the former offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo told detectives he had been angered by its publication of cartoons mocking the prophet Muhammad, French media reported yesterday.

The suspect, believed to be an 18-year-old born in Pakistan, is thought to have arrived in France three years ago as an unaccompanied minor.

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Netflix faces call to rethink Liu Cixin adaptation after his Uighur comments

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Five US senators have written to question plans to adapt The Three-Body Problem after its author voiced support for China’s mass internments in Xinjiang

Five Republican US senators have asked Netflix to reconsider its plans to adapt the bestselling Chinese author Liu Cixin’s book The Three-Body Problem, citing Liu’s comments in support of the Chinese government’s treatment of Uighur Muslims.

In a letter to Netflix, the senators said they had “significant concerns with Netflix’s decision to do business with an individual who is parroting dangerous CCP propaganda”. The letter cites Liu’s interview with the New Yorker last year, in which the Chinese novelist was asked about the mass internment of Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang.

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Female voices ‘drowned out’ in reporting on Covid-19, report finds

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Analysis of stories across six countries including UK found fewer than a fifth of experts quoted on the pandemic were women

Women’s voices have been “worryingly marginalised” in reporting of the coronavirus, partly due to the war-like framing of the pandemic, according to a report analysing stories across six countries.

Each woman’s voice in news coverage of the crisis is “drowned out” by at least three men, it said.

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Hong Kong police tighten control on media with new accreditation rules

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Experts say new policy enables government to decide who is a journalist and curbs power of student and online journalism

Hong Kong authorities have moved to further constrain the city’s free press with an announcement by police that they would no longer recognise certain types of media accreditation.

Critics accused the police force of infringing the constitutionally enshrined free press, by attempting to create a government licensing system and reduce independent monitoring of their activities.

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Colombia: spying on reporters shows army unable to shake habits of dirty war

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More than 130 journalists – including at least three US reporters – surveilled in a country where media has long been targeted

María Alejandra Villamizar has had a front row seat of Colombia’s civil conflict. Over a 25-year career, she has reported from rebel-held jungles to territories controlled by violent drug cartels. She also worked as an adviser to several presidents during successive attempts to make peace.

But she recently discovered that her work had put her in the crosshairs of the military.

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Trump says he approves TikTok Oracle deal which may include Walmart

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  • President says he will allow Chinese-owned app in US
  • Walmart could acquire stake and seat on global board

Donald Trump has said he “approves a deal in concept” that will allow TikTok to continue to operate in the US, after threatening to ban the Chinese-owned app.

Related: China attacks US 'bullying' over ban on Tiktok and WeChat

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Trump ‘associates’ offered Assange pardon in return for emails source, court hears

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WikiLeaks founder was asked to reveal source of leak damaging to Hillary Clinton, hearing told

Two political figures claiming to represent Donald Trump offered Julian Assange a “win-win” deal to avoid extradition to the US and indictment, a London court has heard.

Under the proposed deal, outlined by Assange’s barrister Jennifer Robinson, the WikiLeaks founder would be offered a pardon if he disclosed who leaked Democratic party emails to his site, in order to help clear up allegations they had been supplied by Russian hackers to help Trump’s election in 2016.

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Trump aides insist Woodward tapes reveal strong leadership on Covid

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The revelation that Donald Trump deliberately downplayed the coronavirus pandemic forced key aides on to desperate defence on Sunday, barely 50 days from the presidential election.

Related: Roger Stone to Donald Trump: bring in martial law if you lose election

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Jo Malone apologises to John Boyega for cutting him out of Chinese ad

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Perfume brand admits reshooting commercial without Star Wars actor was ‘misstep’

Perfume brand Jo Malone has apologised to the actor John Boyega for cutting him out of an advert he conceived, directed and starred in when it was launched in China.

Boyega was replaced by Liu Haoran after the commercial was recast and reshot for the Chinese market. The original advert, London Gent, which was released last year, featured Boyega walking around Peckham, south London, riding a horse, dancing with friends and hanging out with his family. The original cast was multicultural, while the Chinese remake featured no black cast members.

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Radio reporters to be axed by BBC and told to reapply for new roles

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Critics fear end of an era because of plans to make audio journalists work across media platforms

BBC radio voices have described and defined modern British history. Live reports from inside a British bomber over Germany during the second world war, or with the British troops invading Iraq in 2003, or more recently from the frontline of the parent boycott of a Birmingham school over LGBT lessons have also shaped the news agenda.

But now the BBC plans to axe all its national radio reporters and ask them to reapply for a smaller number of jobs as television, radio and digital reporters, rather than as dedicated audio journalists. Many fear it is not just the end of their careers but the premature end of an era for the BBC.

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Trump uses Fox News interview to accuse Biden of taking drugs

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Fox News will broadcast an interview on Saturday night in which Donald Trump accuses Joe Biden of taking performance-enhancing drugs.

Related: Trump ally who sought to change CDC Covid reports claims he was fighting 'deep state'

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UK move to classify Extinction Rebellion ‘organised crime group’ comes under fire

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Letter signed by 150 public figures hits back at move to scapegoat protesters

Stephen Fry, Mark Rylance and a former Archbishop of Canterbury are among 150 public figures to hit back at government moves to classify the climate protesters of Extinction Rebellion as an “organised crime group”. In a letter to be published in the Observer on Sunday, XR is described as “a group of people who are holding the powerful to account” – who should not become targets of “vitriol and anti-democratic posturing”.

It comes in response to the prime minister and home secretary’s reported move to review how the group is classified in law after it disrupted the distribution of four national newspapers, including the Sun and the Daily Mail, last Saturday.

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Cuties controversy sparks #CancelNetflix campaign

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French film Mignonnes sparks 200,000 tweets calling for boycott of streaming service over claims the film sexualises its young stars

A call to boycott Netflix on Thursday over the French film Mignonnes – AKA Cuties – has been launched on social media, over claims that its young stars were portrayed in a sexualised way.

The film is directed by French-Senegalese director Maïmouna Doucouré, and started streaming on 9 September. More than 200,000 tweets with the hashtag #CancelNetflix became the top trending topic one day later.

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Joe Biden decries Trump’s ‘almost criminal’ Covid response

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  • Democrat tells CNN president ‘waved the white flag’ on virus
  • Trump attacks ABC’s Jon Karl as ‘a disgrace to your employer’

Joe Biden has branded Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic “almost criminal” after book revelations that the US president admitted in early February the disease was “deadly stuff” but deliberately played it down.

As the death toll from Covid-19 nears 200,000 in America, the world’s highest, Biden excoriated his opponent in November’s election over the way he did not address the defining crisis of his presidency early and comprehensively.

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Diana Rigg: star with an independent streak to match her glamour

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From kick-ass screen roles to award-winning theatre and TV ones, with a curious sideline in nuns, the Yorkshire-born actor’s class and spirit earned her a magnificent career

When Diana Rigg made her Broadway debut in 1971, the theatre programme Playbill introduced her in terms that established the wide range of work and appeal that still marked her career at her death today, five decades later, at the age of 82.

The then-31-year-old Yorkshirewoman, theatregoers were told, was “a highly established star of the theatre, motion pictures and films in England” who had recently “become popular in the United States as the glamorous Emma Peel in The Avengers television series and as the leading lady in the latest James Bond film, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service”.

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MSF ran ‘white saviour’ TV ad despite staff warnings over racism

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Decision to show then withdraw video sparked crisis at MSF Canada, says review

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) broadcast a $400,000 (£307,000) TV fundraising campaign in Canada despite warnings from staff that it was exploitative, reinforced racist “white saviour” stereotypes and breached the medical charity’s ethical guidelines, the Guardian has learned.

A damning review of the decision to run and later withdraw the advert, which featured the REM track Everybody Hurts played over images of crying black children being treated by MSF medics, concluded it exposed a lack of trust in leadership and triggered an “organisational crisis” at MSF Canada.

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Trump knew Covid was deadly but wanted to ‘play it down’, Woodward book says

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US president gave Bob Woodward 18 interviews, forming basis of new book Rage, and said of virus: ‘This is deadly stuff’

Donald Trump knew the extent of the deadly coronavirus threat in February but intentionally misled the public by deciding to “play it down”, according to interviews recorded by one of America’s most venerated investigative journalists.

The US president gave Bob Woodward 18 interviews between December 2019 and July 2020. They form the basis of his revelatory new book, Rage, obtained on Wednesday by the Washington Post and CNN, in which Trump is condemned by his own words.

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China accuses Australia of raiding its journalists’ homes amid reports Canberra cancelled academics’ visas

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China’s state media outlets claim Australian intelligence agents questioned several Chinese journalists and seized their devices

Australia has cancelled the visas of two Chinese scholars because of security concerns, according to reports, adding a new element to the spiralling diplomatic dispute over the treatment of journalists.

Chinese diplomats have also aired claims that Australian intelligence agents have questioned several journalists from Chinese media organisations and searched their devices “in violation of legitimate rights”.

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How China’s strained relationship with foreign media unravelled

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Reporting in China has historically been difficult, but Beijing is now using journalists to retaliate against governments with whom it disagrees

Last Wednesday in the middle of the night, Australian reporters Bill Birtles in Beijing and Mike Smith in Shanghai received simultaneous knocks on the door of their homes. Outside were groups of state security officers, there to inform the journalists they were needed for questioning over a national security matter. In case they were thinking of leaving, they had also been placed under exit bans.

Smith had already packed his bags and Birtles was that night hosting a farewell party, having been warned by Australian government officials of an increased risk to their safety after the recent detention of another Australian journalist Cheng Lei.

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Charlie Hebdo survivor tells of being forced to unlock door by gunmen

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Cartoonist ‘Coco’ gives evidence at trial of 14 suspects accused of complicity in 2015 Paris attacks

A survivor of the Charlie Hebdo massacre has described how Islamist terrorists forced her to open the door of the satirical newspaper’s offices at gunpoint as they arrived to murder 11 people.

Corinne Rey, a cartoonist known as “Coco”, told a Paris court she was convinced she was about to die as the brothers Chérif and Saïd Kouachi entered the building saying: “We want Charlie Hebdo.”

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