SES Global has plans afoot to dramatically improve how viewers talk back to broadcasters. They are working on 'SatMode', an 'always on' two-way return path that send messages directly from the set-top box up to the satellite, and onto the broadcaster. The intention is to develop an ultra-low cost two-way …
Read More »What The World’s Poor Watch On TV
Is television an outpost of cultural imperialism? More than two billion people in poor countries now have access to a set. But, rather than envying the West, they are increasingly tuning in to local programs. In 1999, an extremist group in Karachi launched a campaign against un-Islamic practices in Pakistan, …
Read More »Credo of a Crouching Couch Potato
Sunday, March 23, 2003 Watching BBC and Al Jazeera (9-10.30 approx.) Both running live coverage of operations in Umm Qasr. BBC correspondent is "on a raised platform" with the officer (US marines) directing the operation and a cameraman (who has to duck every now and then - it is implied …
Read More »“Friendly Fire?” – the Peter Arnett Affair
When NBC and National Geographic fired Baghdad correspondent Peter Arnett for his comments to Iraqi state television, it seemed like the journalistic equivalent of 'friendly fire." As Tim Goodman pointed out in the San Francisco Chronicle, the affair raises several issues for debate among journalists. TBS reproduces an article from …
Read More »Moral Dilemmas of the Press
From The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/11/opinion/11JORD.html? April 11, 2003 The News We Kept to Ourselves By EASON JORDAN ATLANTA - Over the last dozen years I made 13 trips to Baghdad to lobby the government to keep CNN's Baghdad bureau open and to arrange interviews with Iraqi leaders. Each time …
Read More »Parties to the Conflict
From The Daily Star (Lebanon) http://www.gvnews.net/html/dailynews/alert3948.html April 8, 2003 GVNews.Net Daily World By Rami G. Khouri The Daily Star (Lebanon) Between the biases, distortion and cheerleading of American and Arab television coverage of the Iraq war, a viewer of both U.S. and Arab broadcasts can piece together a picture of …
Read More »Media on Media: Introduction
In no previous war has the media been so much a part of the story. Whereas in the past, interest has been largely directed at the information that journalists have collected and passed on, in the current Iraq war a large part of the press's attention has been directed at …
Read More »Covering The Iraq War in India
"Just because the microphone in front of you amplifies your voice around the world, is no reason to think we have any more wisdom than we had when our voices could reach only from one end of the bar to the other." Edward R. Murrow Indian entertainment, primarily recognized as …
Read More »Video Cairo Sat: the Pressure of War
It is impossible to visit Video Cairo Sat during the war on Iraq without staring at the news desk. Hooked to his computer, the news desk coordinator enters the latest changes to the booking schedule while answering phone calls, receiving faxes, and printing out emails coming from different television channels …
Read More »New Compression Technologies Aid War Reporting, Save Cash
BBC journalists covering the Gulf crisis are being equipped with the latest technology for transmitting TV reports over satellite phones. The technology is the result of a partnership between TVZ Ltd - a company with strong links to the television newsgathering business - and Fourth Broadcast Network Ltd. (4BN), specialists …
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