Saturday, May 18th
Last update07:13:55 AM GMT
Journalism Glance
Investigative journalism is hard enough in a country as small as Israel, and an intensifying onslaught against freedom of the press is endangering it even further.
Conducting a journalistic investigation is like climbing a mountain studded with bear traps. When you finally reach the top, you find the glory all too short-lived. En route you pass lawsuits, embarrassed publishers, boycotts by advertisers. You lose your friends and get threatened with prison. Sometimes you die.
Earlier today I asked whether American news outlets would do their due diligence in evaluating the content of the newly-released batch of "Climategate" emails hacked from the University of East Anglia two years ago. It didn't take long for our esteemed print outlets to disappoint.
Writing on the Washington Post's website, Juliet Eilperin quotes an email exchange that she said was about "whether the IPCC has accurately depicted the temperature rise in the lower atmosphere":
The phone hacking scandal roiling the British press has claimed a Murdoch — James Murdoch.
The son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch has resigned as head honcho of New Group Newspaper Ltd., which publishes London-based newspapers The Times and The Sunday Times, and a racy tab called The Sun, British media reported Tuesday.
Australian police are investigating a former senator's allegations that an executive from Rupert Murdoch's News Limited offered him favourable newspaper coverage and "a special relationship" in return for voting against government legislation.
The allegations are embarrassing for News Corp, whose ownership of 70% of Australia's newspapers has raised criticisms from within the government that Rupert Murdoch's empire has too much control over the country's media.
The poll surveyed New Jersey residents about the uprisings in Egypt and the Middle East, and where they get their news sources. The study, which controlled for demographic factors like education and partisanship, found that "people who watch Fox News are 18-points less likely to know that Egyptians overthrew their government" and "6-points less likely to know that Syrians have not yet overthrown their government" compared to those who watch no news.
This isn't the first study that has found that Fox News viewers more misinformed in comparison to others. Last year, a study from the University of Maryland found that Fox News viewers were more likely to believe false information about politics.
The phone hacking scandal has taken a new twist after it was revealed computers used by News of the World journalists were destroyed by putting them 'through a grinder'.
They were 'taken out and smashed up' last autumn at a time when News International was being sued over the illegal activity at the now-defunct Sunday tabloid.
The station and other critics said the move was politically motivated, and part of a broader assault on democracy by conservative forces in the government.
Some members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition have pushed forward a series of measures recently that critics say are aimed at stifling opponents.
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