Category Archives: Media

Shireen Abu Aqleh: thousands attend state memorial in West Bank

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Palestinians line streets in Ramallah as journalist’s coffin travels through, after shooting in Jenin on Wednesday

Shireen Abu Aqleh, the Palestinian American journalist shot dead during an Israeli army operation, has been honoured with a full state memorial in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

At least 5,000 people lined the streets on Thursday as her coffin, draped in the Palestinian flag, was driven through the city and the Qalandia checkpoint en route to St Joseph hospital nearer her home in occupied East Jerusalem. Her funeral will be held in the holy city on Friday.

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GB News chairman has history of dismissing threat of climate crisis

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Revelation Alan McCormick has tweeted articles denying climate science fuels fears of GB News’s role as climate sceptic platform

The new chairman of GB News has a history of sharing articles that dismiss the threat of climate breakdown, it can be revealed, sharpening concerns about the TV channel’s role as a platform for advocates of the continued burning of fossil fuels.

Alan McCormick, a co-founder of Legatum Group, a Dubai-based investment firm and one of the channel’s key funders, tweeted several articles by climate science deniers, an investigation by DeSmog found, including one claiming there was “no scientific proof” that humans were causing the climate emergency.

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Spanish journalist held in Poland on suspicion of pro-Russian espionage

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Pablo González, who has joint Spanish and Russian nationality, alleged to have worked for GRU military intelligence

A freelance journalist from Spain is spending his 10th week in Polish custody while prosecutors there investigate what they claim is a case of espionage linked to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In a case that raises red flags about press freedom in Europe at a time of war, prosecutors are expected next week to ask a judge for a further three-month extension to the detention of Pablo González, who has freelanced for media including Spain’s La Sexta TV channel, Spanish state news agency EFE and the US-government funded Voice of America.

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BBC to invest £10m and double comedy pilots in bid to find next Fleabag

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BBC Comedy development drive to fuel search for ‘relatable British characters’

The BBC will double the number of half-hour comedy pilots it makes and invest an extra £10m in the genre in a bid to find the next Fleabag or Motherland.

Sharing plans for the future of comedy at the corporation, the director of BBC Comedy, Jon Petrie, said his department was investing in its “development process”.

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Al Jazeera accuses Israeli forces of killing journalist in West Bank

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Israeli official appears to back away from earlier claims Palestinians to blame for death of Shireen Abu Akleh

Al Jazeera has accused Israel of deliberately killing one of its reporters during a military raid in the occupied West Bank town of Jenin.

Shireen Abu Akleh, 51, a Palestinian American and one of the Arab world’s best-known journalists, who had covered the conflict for decades, was shot in the head on Wednesday morning and taken to hospital in a critical condition.

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French TV news presenter faces multiple allegations of sexual offences

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Twenty women have accused Patrick Poivre d’Arvor, also known as PPDA, of sexual harassment and abuse

Twenty women have come forward to openly accuse one of France’s best-known television news presenters of sexual harassment and abuse – including rape – following an investigation by French journalists.

Patrick Poivre d’Arvor – known as PPDA – has faced a number of accusations that emerged after a writer first went to police to accuse him of rape, in February last year. The investigation was later dropped.

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Adidas sports bra ads banned in UK for objectifying women

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Twitter and poster campaign featuring dozens of sets of breasts was harmful and offensive, says ASA

An Adidas campaign featuring dozens of sets of breasts to promote the diversity of its range of sports bras has been banned by the UK advertising watchdog for using explicit nudity and appearing where children could see the ads.

The campaign, versions of which ran on Twitter and select large poster sites, prompted 24 complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) that the ads were gratuitous, objectified women by “sexualising them and reducing them to body parts”, were harmful and offensive and were able to be seen by children.

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‘Wagatha Christie’: Vardy ‘deeply regrets’ intimate Peter Andre remarks

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Coleen Rooney lawyer reads from 2004 tabloid interview in which Rebekah Vardy described singer’s ‘manhood’

Rebekah Vardy has said she deeply regrets making unflattering personal remarks about Peter Andre in a newspaper interview, as the multimillion pound “Wagatha Christie” libel trial against Coleen Rooney got under way at the high court.

The trial between the two footballer’s wives is taking place in a wood-panelled Victorian-era courtroom in central London that has heard many important cases over the years – but this could be the first where physiological matters were discussed at such length.

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‘I almost got hit’: the Ukrainian journalists turned war correspondents overnight

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Initially writing stories and making television reports was secondary for the journalists as many focused on survival

When the war started journalists in Ukraine found themselves at the centre of the biggest story in the world. They became war correspondents overnight.

Ukrainian journalists were spotlighted this week when the Pulitzer prize board awarded them with a special citation, hailing the country’s reporters for the “courage, endurance and commitment to truthful reporting” they have shown since the Russian invasion.

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Ex-Facebook moderator in Kenya sues over working conditions

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Petition alleges local workers subjected to irregular pay and inadequate mental health support

A former Facebook moderator has filed a lawsuit against its owner, Meta Platforms, alleging poor working conditions for contracted content moderators violate the Kenyan constitution.

The petition, also filed against Meta’s local outsourcing company Sama, alleges that workers moderating Facebook posts in Kenya have been subjected to unreasonable working conditions including irregular pay, inadequate mental health support, union-busting, and violations of their privacy and dignity.

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Two slain in Mexico are the latest in unrelenting slaughter of journalists

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The president has been accused of failing to address the wave of violence and has been incessant with his attacks on reporters

The unrelenting slaughter of Mexican journalists has continued after two more newspeople were gunned down by unidentified assassins – taking the 2022 death toll to 11 in what is the deadliest country for media professionals outside a warzone.

Yesenia Mollinedo Falconi and Sheila Johana García Olivera were murdered in the town of Cosoleacaque, about 350 miles east of the capital Mexico City, around 3pm on Monday.

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Washington Post wins public service Pulitzer for Capitol attack coverage

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Paper beat out two other finalists, the New York Times and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The Washington Post has won the 2022 Pulitzer prize for public service journalism, for The Attack, its account of the deadly assault on the US Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump on 6 January 2021.

The paper beat two other finalists: the New York Times, for challenging official accounts of US military engagements in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, for an exposé of electrical fires in city rental operations.

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Ben Roberts-Smith defamation trial: witness expected to deny wrongdoing in killing of Afghan villager

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Person 11 to give evidence on allegation by newspapers that Roberts-Smith kicked handcuffed man off cliff before ordering him shot

An Australian soldier alleged by three newspapers to have participated with Ben Roberts-Smith in the “joint criminal enterprise” of murdering an Afghan villager named Ali Jan is set to appear in the federal court this week as a witness for Roberts-Smith in his defamation action against the newspapers.

Anonymised before the court as Person 11, the SAS’s soldier evidence will be critical to Roberts-Smith’s case over the events in the village of Darwan on 11 September 2012, when Roberts-Smith is alleged, by the newspapers in their defence, to have kicked a handcuffed Ali Jan off a cliff before ordering him shot.

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Russia summons UK ambassador over new sanctions on media outlets

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Russian foreign ministry says it will continue to react ‘harshly and decisively’ to all sanctions imposed by London

The British ambassador to Moscow, Deborah Bronnert, has been summoned to the Russian foreign ministry to be warned over new UK sanctions imposed on Russian media outlets, in a move seen as likely to presage reprisals on British press operations in Russia.

In a statement late on Friday, the ministry said Russia would continue react “harshly and decisively” to all sanctions imposed by London.

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Guardian wins Amnesty media award for best use of digital media

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Award given for the interactive reconstruction of the moment Israeli forces hit a residential tower block in Gaza

The Guardian has won a prestigious Amnesty media award for the interactive reconstruction Countdown to the airstrike: the moment Israeli forces hit al-Jalaa tower, Gaza, showing the race to evacuate residents of a block of flats before their homes were turned to rubble.

The Best Use of Digital Media award was given to the Guardian’s Global Development reporter Kaamil Ahmed and interactive designer Garry Blight, Airwars’ Joe Dyke and the Gaza-based journalist Anas Baba for their use of video, images and audio captured by the residents of al-Jalaa tower in the hour after Israeli forces called to tell them it would be demolished.

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UK watchdog will have power to impose huge fines on big tech firms

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According to the government, Digital Markets Unit will protect small businesses and consumers

A new tech watchdog will be given the power to impose multibillion-pound fines on major firms such as Google and Facebook if they breach rules designed to protect consumers and businesses.

The Digital Markets Unit (DMU) will protect small businesses from predatory practices and will give consumers greater control over how their data is used, the government said.

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Elon Musk considers ‘slight’ Twitter fee for commercial users

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Government users may also be charged, says billionaire, who has agreed to buy platform for $44bn

Elon Musk has said Twitter may charge a “slight” fee for commercial and government users, in the latest hint of the changes the world’s richest person could introduce after he completes his takeover of the social media platform.

“Twitter will always be free for casual users, but maybe a slight cost for commercial/government users,” Musk said in a tweet. In another tweet, he added: “Some revenue is better than none!”

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Kirsty Young to anchor Queen’s platinum jubilee coverage on BBC

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Presenter will return to broadcaster for first time since 2018 to oversee weekend of programming

The radio and TV presenter Kirsty Young will return to the BBC for the first time since 2018 to lead the broadcaster’s platinum jubilee coverage.

Young, who presented BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs for 12 years, stepped back from the programme in August 2018 because she had a form of fibromyalgia, a long-term condition that causes pain all over the body.

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Biden will meet with parents of US journalist abducted in Syria 10 years ago

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Marc and Debra Tice are expected to meet with the president at the White House to speak about their son, Austin Tice

Joe Biden said he was meeting Monday with the parents of American journalist Austin Tice, who was abducted in Syria 10 years ago.

The meeting with Marc and Debra Tice was expected to take place at the White House.

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Netflix drops Meghan’s animated series amid cutbacks – report

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Pearl was to have focused on the adventures of a 12-year-old girl inspired by historically influential female figures

Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, has fallen victim to cutbacks at Netflix, according to a US report that said the struggling streaming giant has dropped plans for her animated series Pearl.

Announced to fanfare last summer, with Meghan as its creator and executive producer, the “family series” was to have focused on the adventures of a 12-year-old girl inspired by historically influential female figures.

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