Inquiry comes after tax raid on corporation’s offices and a documentary that was critical of PM Narendra Modi
India’s financial crimes agency is investigating the BBC over alleged violations of foreign exchange rules, less than two months after the corporation’s Indian headquarters were raided by tax inspectors.
According to officials, the latest investigation is being conducted by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), a central government agency.
Continue reading...Move of London’s live broadcast centre to Doha could involve dozens of job losses
Al Jazeera English plans to close its live broadcast centre that operates from London’s Shard skyscraper and move programming to Qatar, with the possible loss of dozens of UK-based jobs.
In an email to staff, the network’s managing director, Giles Trendle, said Al Jazeera was “looking to undertake a restructure involving the move of AJE live programming to Doha. The move would include the news bulletins between 1900GMT and 2300GMT produced from London, and The Stream programme produced from Washington DC.”
Continue reading...Billionaire also says pain level from owning site is ‘extremely high’ but the business is ‘breaking even’
Elon Musk, Twitter’s billionaire owner, has said the social media platform will change the BBC’s label of “government-funded media” after the broadcaster objected to the tag.
The Tesla chief executive made the announcement during a wide-ranging interview with the corporation in which he also said his pain level from running the site had been “extremely high” but claimed the business was now “roughly breaking even”.
Continue reading...Judge chided firm’s lawyers after they revealed for the first time in nearly two years owner’s executive chairman title
A judge said Fox News had a “credibility problem” as it prepares for a $1.6bn defamation trial after the company disclosed for the first time in nearly two years of litigation that Rupert Murdoch was an officer of the company.
On Monday, Fox News and its parent company Fox Corp head to trial over Fox’s coverage of false election-rigging claims. Murdoch, chairman of Fox Corp, is expected to testify.
Continue reading...Centre for Responsible Technology ‘supportive’ of proposed reforms, calling them the ‘first significant upgrade of privacy laws in four decades’
Consumer digital rights advocates have rejected media companies’ call to preserve their exemption to privacy law, warning that commercial models should not be put ahead of public interest.
Peter Lewis, the director of the Australia Institute’s Centre for Responsible Technology, said it was “disappointing” that the Right to Know coalition “set up with the laudable goal of protecting journalists and whistleblowers is now being deployed to prosecute Big Media’s business interests at the expense of the public they purport to serve”.
Continue reading...The six films include the tale of an ogre who preys on women, a sci-fi Nigeria taken over by AI, and a girl on a mission to end drought
Traditional African tales of monsters, genies and malevolent spirits have been reworked for a contemporary audience in a new Netflix series.
Film-makers from Tanzania, South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Mauritania and Uganda have turned six traditional stories into dark fantasy dramas that cover topics including domestic violence, suicide and child marriage.
Continue reading...Wall Street Journal reporter denies charges, while US Senate leaders issue bipartisan call for his release
Russian Federal Security Service investigators have formally charged Evan Gershkovich with espionage but the Wall Street Journal reporter denied the charges and said he was working as a journalist, Russian news agencies reported on Friday.
Russia’s Federal Security Service, the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, said on 30 March that it had detained Gershkovich in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg and had opened an espionage case against the 31-year-old for collecting what it said were state secrets about the military-industrial complex.
Continue reading...Jane Rosenberg was one of three permitted sketch artists during the hearing involving the ex-president on Tuesday
The next cover of the New Yorker will feature a drawing of Donald Trump at his arraignment on felony charges this week – the first time a courtroom sketch has graced the cover of the famous magazine.
Jane Rosenberg was one of three permitted sketch artists during the hearing involving the former president at the Manhattan criminal courthouse on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Coalition of organisations says changes would have ‘devastating impact on press freedom’ and are not in public interest
Media companies have rejected a proposal to reform Australian privacy law, warning that the changes – including a right to sue outlets for serious invasions of privacy – are not in the public interest and would harm press freedom.
The Right to Know coalition warns the attorney general’s department’s proposal, released in February, would have “a devastating impact on press freedom and journalism in Australia without any clearly defined need or benefit”.
Continue reading...US judge says he ‘would not quash’ subpoena from Dominion Voting Systems requesting testimony from mogul and son Lachlan
A judge in Delaware on Wednesday said Dominion Voting Systems can compel Rupert Murdoch and Lachlan Murdoch to testify in the election machines company’s $1.6bn defamation suit against Fox News.
If Dominion files the appropriate subpoena, Judge Eric M Davis said, “I would not quash it and I would compel them to come.”
Continue reading...Canadian politician, poet, an India MP and journalists are among 120 accounts that have been withheld
Twitter has been accused of bowing to government pressure in India by blocking scores of prominent journalists, politicians and activists from its platform in recent weeks.
The Indian government issued notices to Twitter to remove people in the aftermath of an internet shutdown in Punjab during the search for a fugitive Sikh separatist leader.
Continue reading...Novelist compares UK to Hungary in Radio Times interview, while Ken Bruce criticises handling of Radio 2 exit
The BBC is “under threat, politically,” the novelist Ian McEwan has said, as he compared sections of the Conservative party to the populist right in Hungary.
The author of Amsterdam, On Chesil Beach and Atonement recently collaborated with the BBC Symphony Orchestra for an evening of words and music at the Barbican. The event came as the BBC’s classical music performing groups faced “catastrophic” cuts, and the corporation’s high-profile presenters including Gary Lineker clashed with the government over its policies.
Continue reading...Russian foreign minister rejects request and says US must not ‘make a fuss’ over arrest of Evan Gershkovich
Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, called for Russia to free the detained American journalist Evan Gershkovich in a rare phone call with his Moscow counterpart since the start of the war in Ukraine.
The American’s plea was rejected by Sergei Lavrov, who responded by saying that US officials and media outlets must “not make a fuss” or try to politicise the plight of the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reporter.
Continue reading...Le Monde and Libération correspondents sent home in junta’s latest move against media from former colonial power
Burkina Faso has expelled correspondents from Le Monde and Libération, the newspapers said on Sunday, the latest move the junta running the west African country has taken against French media.
Burkina Faso, where two coups took place last year, is battling a jihadist insurgency that spilled over from neighbouring Mali in 2015.
Continue reading...The Daily Mail’s owner, the prince and Elton John could be on the road to one of the biggest media trials in British history
When the Duke of Sussex unexpectedly arrived at the high court on Monday morning he became the most senior royal to appear in a courtroom since Princess Anne admitted being in charge of an English bull terrier that was dangerously out of control in a public space.
Prince Harry was there to allege that Associated Newspapers, the parent company of the Daily Mail, was similarly out of control.
Continue reading...NUJ members’ 24-hour stoppage on 5 May will coincide with the reporting of poll results
BBC journalists in England have announced a second 24-hour strike, to run from midnight on 5 May to coincide with the reporting of local election results, in a dispute over cuts to local radio.
The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) said the broadcaster’s management want local radio stations to share programmes across the network from 2pm on weekdays and at weekends, going from more than 100 hours of local programming on every station each week down to 40.
Continue reading...Anti-monopoly consumer groups slam multibillion-takeover of Shaw by Rogers that will create a media and sports behemoth
Canada has approved a major telecoms takeover that would create a media and sports behemoth in an already concentrated media landscape, in a landmark deal that anti-monopoly consumer groups slammed as “a dark day” for competition in Canada.
On Friday the industry minister, François-Philippe Champagne, said he had approved a multibillion-dollar takeover of Shaw by Rogers.
Continue reading...Evan Gershkovich could face up to 20 years in prison after allegedly ‘collecting classified information’
Russia’s top security agency has said a reporter for the Wall Street Journal has been arrested on espionage charges.
The Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Thursday that Evan Gershkovich had been detained in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg while allegedly trying to obtain classified information.
Continue reading...Molan and media outlet mutually agree to discontinue legal proceedings at federal court mediation on Thursday
The legal stoush between the Daily Mail and Sky News broadcaster Erin Molan has been settled.
The Daily Mail on Thursday reached a walk-away settlement with the television presenter.
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Continue reading...Former US president tells Sydney audience that media coverage has helped exacerbate divisions and that we no longer have a ‘shared story’
The former US president Barack Obama has suggested that Rupert Murdoch’s media empire has led to greater polarisation in western societies through news coverage designed to “make people angry and resentful”.
Speaking to a capacity crowd of about 9,000 people at Sydney’s Aware Super Theatre on Tuesday night, Obama mixed childhood memories of transiting through Australia as a child with pointed observations about the current political discourse and the rise of China.
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