Blog Post

Southeast Asian Media Legal Defense Network Launches in Kuala Lumpur

SEAMLDN officially launches regional network to support the legal defense of media freedom in Southeast Asia.

Media controls are a complicated business.  We are all aware of the overt control exerted over the media in markets where the media is owned or “affiliated” with the government or where access to the Internet is filtered through a firewall.  But, in markets across Asia less overt but equally effective techniques are used to keep the media under control or out of the picture.  These techniques often take the form of legal or administrative barriers to operations.

In th

Ideas para aumentar el Voz a Voz de un medio digital

Un mercadólogo que cree en el poder de referenciadores usa un método sencillo para escoger un restaurante en la carretera.

Para él los referenciadores son los camioneros. Escoge un restaurante donde hay muchos camiones estacionados porque se supone que los conductores son los expertos de la comida en la carretera.

Before the last lesson

We are now going to the final week of lessons offered to a group of citizen journalists from peripheral areas of São Paulo, that have become the first wave of trainees of the "Mural" project.

Business Models and OpenWebAsia 2010

Looking at new business and funding models for independent online media at the annual OpenWebAsia conference held July 13th and 14th in Kuala Lumpur.

Looking for more background on developing sustainable business models for the independent online media in the region, I attended the Open Web Asia conference that was held in Kuala Lumpur this past week.  This is a semi-regular event last held in Seoul in 2008.  This year’s event was sponsored by the Multimedia Development Corporation MDeC a branch of the Malaysian government responsible for the

Tinker tailor soldier spy, where does my future lie?

We are pursuing a great story: More than a hundred teen girls are having fainting spells in a school outside Maputo. The community says ancestors are upset and rituals need to be performed. The Ministry of Health says it is collective hysteria.

A young journalist that I coach is covering this story.  After a press conference at the Ministry of Health, we go for coffee to discuss story angles, ways of asking questions and of taking notes (he takes notes verbatim and slowly, and admires my arrows, bullets and shortcuts, capturing best quotes as they are spoken).

Endless Possibilities of the New Media

Editors Note: Ghana's Sylvia Vollenhoven attends Knight Foundations/MIT COnference on the Future of News and Civic Media 2010.

My career started on the media timeline with yellow copy paper in triplicate and an Olivetti typewriter. In my son’s book this era followed shortly after the Gutenberg Bible. I am now at a place where the possibilities stretch into infinity and I’m not sure my head can hold it all or that we’re still talking linear progress here.

Journalists working at the Panama provinces will receive an uncommon training opportunity

Freelance journalists working in the Panama provinces are usually the last ones to receive training and support.

Enabling India's Most Isolated Regions to Produce and Deliver News

As a Knight International Journalism fellow, I am working on a project that uses mobile technology to enable citizens in India’s most isolated regions to produce and deliver news.

I am sending along a video from a Citizen Journalism Training Workshop we organized in February 2010 in Kunkuri Chhattisgarh. We trained 33 tribal citizens on basics of journalism and on how to report using mobile phones.

In Chhattisgarh there are no tribal journalists or journalists who understand the tribal languages in the state.

Sound + vision

For the third consecutive week, we had a high attendance rate, except for a few colleagues who were unable to come for health reasons. Those who couldn't attend have already sent emails asking to be updated on the content and pitching the stories that were asked in class.

Journalists, non profits, citizens working together in Panama

A big coalition of journalists, citizens and civil society organizations is being formed in Panama to track and reduce crime and corruption and prompt better governmental policies. 

It's been just a few weeks since our Website Mi Panama Transparente was launched to help journalists track crime and corruption using advanced online tools.