Media & Wikipedia

Mr Fitzgerald said he placed the quote on the website as an experiment when doing research on globalisation.

He wanted to show how journalists use the internet as a primary source and how people are connected especially through the internet, he said. (...)

Fitzgerald was shocked by the result of his experiment.

“I didn’t expect it to go that far. I expected it to be in blogs and sites, but on mainstream quality papers? I was very surprised about,” he said. (...)

Irish Times, 06/05/2009

'Metro' sets world record

Metro International has today been awarded the prestigious accolade of 'World's Largest Global Newspaper', by Guinness World Records, the global leader in world records. (...)
Metro is the largest and fastest growing international newspaper in the world. It publishes 70 editions in 93 major cities in 21 countries and in 19 languages. It has a unique global reach – attracting a young, active, well-educated, metropolitan audience of over 18.5 million daily readers. The first Metro newspaper was published in Stockholm in 1995, followed by Prague in 1997. (...)

Full article here.

Free press

The free newspapers phenomenon is increasing in Portugal. Formerly restricted to the two main cities, Lisbon and Porto, these last weeks the distribution network was extended to three more cities. Destak and Metro, two free newspapers, also state that they will create the conditions for starting to produce local news.
Even if the main press disregarded this subject, concerning the current crisis in this sector, it should be seen as a relevant issue, maybe as turning position for a different approach related with the "conventional" press.

More information here and here.

Memory - when is it too much?

Lately, it seems that "too much memory" can be considered as a legitimate excuse to dismiss journalists.

A fazer fé num relato do último plenário de redacção do jornal Público relatado pelo semanário Sol, um dos administradores da empresa proprietária do diário terá justificado a necessidade de dispensar jornalistas pelo facto de, segundo disse, haver «memória a mais» na redacção (...).

Miguel Carvalho,
in Visão Online, 03-10-2006.

Sol online.

Reading

The Challenger.

When, more and more, what is needed is a Grito de Ipiranga* in journalism...

... the sad news keep on. This time the crisis arrived to the newspaper which once had an editorial stating that "Notre pauvreté est la mesure de notre indépendance.": Libération. The founding manifesto of this newspaper was: "Depend on the people, not on advertisers or banks".
After some years of economic problems (which is not surprising in the press), this statement changed to: "L’indépendance c’est très simple : Il faut gagner de l’argent" and the solution seemed to accept the investment of the financer Edouard de Rothschild, who had no experience about working in journalism before and that even had financed rightist electoral campaigns, being also a Sarkozy's close friend (why lately everyone seems to be a close friend of Sarkozy?): "A New York educated, horse-racing enthusiast, Mr Rothschild is a friend of the conservative interior minister and presidential hopeful Nicolas Sarkozy, with whom he had holidayed. He is adamant that his friendship with Mr Sarkozy has not influenced his attitude to Libé."
But, even if the news at the time seemed to try to show the opposite, who can say that this offer didn't have any second intentions? As it is said by Yves Rebours and Arnaud Rindel, it's difficult to believe that the independence of a newspaper is independent of the demandings of profit, which are set by the main stockholder, when these ones are able to affect the jounalists' work condicions, their name and their position.
First of all, it was Rothschild himself who said that one of the reasons for this investment was the "influence sur la société" and that it is "un peu une vue utopique de vouloir différencier rédaction et actionnaire » (France 2, 30.9.2005)".
This was even confirmed by Le Point: "Vingt millions d’euros, c’est beaucoup d’argent, même pour un Rothschild. 'Et en même temps, poursuit ce banquier [a banker who knows him well], ce n’est pas beaucoup pour mettre la main sur une affaire connue.' De celles qui vous projettent en pleine lumière. Libé, c’est une institution du 'microcosme', un journal qui a plus d’influence que son tirage".
However, the mainstream idea was always that Rothschild's proposal was only related with an economic, almost philantropic, interest and that he would respect the identity of the newspaper, as himself stated several times: "Je m’engage fermement et personnellement [à] préserver l’indépendance de la rédaction, [...] Et, à ce titre, sachez que je considère les droits de la SCPL comme inaliénables et qu’ils seront garantis.". About the question "Libération sera-t-il à l’abri des pressions économiques et politiques?", Edouard de Rothschild has confirmed once more this promisse: "Oui, sans équivoque. Je crois avoir été assez clair sur la question de l’indépendance du journal.".
Furthermore, and one of the main contraditions, Rothschild has also stated that Serge July would keep all his fonctions: "Une chance d’autant plus grande que l’offre du financier inclut - 'à la demande d’Edouard de Rothschild', précise Serge July - l’assurance pour lui 'de poursuivre à la tête de Libération, en cumulant les fonctions de président et de directeur général, jusqu’en 2012'...". Even July, after this promise, was convinced that accepting Rothschild proposal wouldn't change anything in the heart of the newspaper: "Notre journal, affirme-t-il dans les colonnes de Libération (22.01.2005), n’entre pas dans un groupe puissant, où nous aurions été contraints, irrésistiblement, de nous fondre, il s’associe avec un actionnaire qui, s’il sera le premier de l’entreprise, sera minoritaire, et destiné à le rester, comme il en a pris l’engagement. Ce nouvel associé souscrit à la charte d’indépendance et au pacte d’actionnaires qui sont les socles de notre indépendance entrepreneuriale et journalistique.".
Surprinsingly, or not, according to the last news, July and Louis Dreyfus will leave the newspaper, under the pressure of Rothschild: "Selon 'L'Express', l'actionnaire principal est prêt à signer un nouveau chèque, d'un montant compris entre 10 à 15 millions d'euros, 'à une seule condition: le départ de Serge July'."

Some links here (fr), here (fr), here (eng) and here (pt).

* "Liberty or death", considered the declaration of the Brazilian independence from Portugal, pronounced by Dom Pedro near the Ipiranga river on the 7th September 1822.

(Text previously published here.)