Independent Media Company Welad El Balad Under Attack in Egypt

WAN-IFRA has received disturbing reports of an unprecedented public assault against hyper-local Egyptian news company Welad El Balad. Amongst a number of outlandish statements directed towards the organisation and broadcast over a private satellite channel in recent days, the company is accused of being “the agent of foreign powers” and of “working to undermine the Egyptian state.”

Claims some Latin-American governments promote plans to “asphyxiate” the independent press through #SoftCensorship

Independent media in Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela are under serious attack from soft censorship – a combination of administrative and financial practices used by government’s to favour positive coverage and punish critical reporting. That’s the view of Argentina’s DYN news agency and Vice President of the country’s Press Association (ADEPA), Daniel Dessein. He spoke to Mariona Sanz.

New research: Changed reporting practices & stronger laws required to protect sources in the digital age

For many journalists, going 
back to pre-digital basics is the new norm when dealing with confidential sources in the post-Snowden era. As traditional source protection frameworks are eroded in the digital age, the attention of investigative journalists and their editors is necessarily turning to risk-assessment, self-protection and source education. And, as Julie Posetti reports, there is a also a need to update laws globally.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to speak at World News Media Congress

John Kerry, U.S. Secretary of State, has accepted WAN-IFRA’s invitation to address the audience at the Opening Ceremony of the World News Media Congress on the 1st of June 2015 in Washington, D.C.

Three months after ‘Charlie’, Paris newsrooms are still under armed guard

There has been a significant increase in threats to Paris newsrooms following January’s Charlie Hebdo attack, according to the Director General of France’s TV5 Monde. An international Francophone broadcaster, the network is one of the most identifiably vulnerable media groups in the aftermath of the newsroom massacre, in which 12 people were killed. Julie Posetti reports.

Google’s Richard Gingras on journalism innovation, the value of trust, and the creativity renaissance

Google’s Senior Director of News and Social Products, Richard Gingras, is pitching for closer ties with legacy news organisations. Google has a complex relationship with publishers but proudly sends 10 billion visits to news websites each month.

Delivering a keynote address at the #MediasDemain conference in Paris last week, Gingras called for increased collaboration with publishers: “in sharing of ideas, in providing enabling platforms, in helping improve information architectures.” Here are the edited highlights of his speech.

New Study: Combating the rising threats to journalists’ digital safety

A new UNESCO study underlines the growing threats confronting online journalism, and provides a framework to help build digital safety for journalists. The study identifies 12 key challenges and it recommends that practitioners develop a “threat model” on which to build a personal security plan that covers both digital and physical threats. Julie Posetti reports.

Tom Rosenstiel breaks down what millennial trends mean for journalism

Millennials discover news through Facebook, not the homepage of a legacy newspaper, and they don’t care much about government spying, as the American Press Institute’s (APi) study on ‘How millennials get news’ reported. APi’s Executive Director Tom Rosenstiel tells the World Editors Forum what he takes away from the study, and how the trends of the first digital generation are likely to impact journalism.

The Bloomberg News recipe for newsroom transformation

When Bloomberg News turned 20 in 2010, the founding Editor-in-Chief Matthew Winkler says the organization was forced to face a disturbing reality: graphic gender imbalance. “Whenever I looked at our reporting on markets, companies, governments, virtually any subject, the voices on these stories were overwhelmingly men. As a reporter and editor this disturbed me, because although some of the most authoritative voices on the issues belonged to women, they were conspicuously absent,” he told a UN panel on media and gender in New York last week. Julie Posetti reports

Swedish investigative journalism project clears funding hurdle

A Swedish team which hopes to uncover the untold stories of the world in new and immersive ways will be putting boots to the ground after clearing their one million krona funding target, writes Jake Evans.