Archive for the ‘Free press’ Category
Will Thibodeau and Wright resign from Press Gallery ?
Now that Charlottetown Guardian has become just another blog
New Blog format for Charlottetown Guardian (image: ruk)
Yesterday the Charlottetown Guardian transformed themselves into just another one of 150 million blogs.
The new online format is clearly a blog. The Guardian is even asking for readers to volunteer as bloggers and citizen journalists.
We applaud their common sense in adopting the format used by CNN, the Washington Post and NJN Network.
Last year the Guardian led the way in purging bloggers and citizen journalists, this one actually, from the Press Gallery of the PEI Legislature. The Halifax Herald reported Press gallery votes to suspend blogger.
“Press gallery president Wayne Thibodeau told the meeting he has researched the issue and he could not find any other gallery in the country that admitted bloggers.”
Since Thibodeau has been transformed into a blogger by his employer, will he resign from the Press Gallery of the PEI Legislature as unfit for the high office of ” professional journalist”? Read the rest of this entry »
Violence in Toronto predictable resulted from police buildup
If you spend $1 billion to line the streets of Toronto with people who look like Darth Vadar’s storm troopers you are going to get reaction.
Toronto police line blocking protests on Queen image: CBC
The violence and property damage in Toronto is lamentable but predictable. Use of military power to limit public protest always results in violence, in Beijing, Tehran and Toronto.
In Beijing of course Canada denounces it as communist suppression of free speech and lack of democracy. The Iranian government is oppressive when it shoots at people protesting the election. In Canada somehow the government finds the use of police violence as appropriate when people want to end poverty or discrimination.
The same conference was held in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania with only $18 million in security costs and minor violence. “In Pittsburgh during the G20 meeting late in September 2009, about $50,000 in damage was caused by a minority of protesters.” CTV That wasn’t ten years ago, it was ten months ago. Read the rest of this entry »
Neda Agha-Soltan, a young Iranian girl is killed by plainclothes in Tehran
A year ago today the symbol of Iranian struggle for democracy – Caution – this video contains graphic violence
A year ago that voter protests in Tehran resulted in death, injury and a crackdown on human rights in Iran. The death of 27 year old Neda Agha Soltan caught the world’s attention. Here was a young girl shot down randomly in the street and caught on cell phone camera. Her death has become an international symbol of the Iranian struggle for freedom.
امروز، سی خرداد، ساعت 7 بعد از ظهر این دختر جوان توسط لباس شخصی ها کشته شد
Basij shot to death a young woman in Tehran’s Saturday June 20th protests
Provincial babysitter lets us down again
If the law supposes that, then the law is a ass, a idiot!
Judy Haldemann, past acting Privacy Commissioner "If the law supposes that, then the law is a ass, a idiot!" Charles Dickens
By Paul MacNeill, Eastern Graphic - Judy Haldemann’s controversial decision not to release a full list of companies that received benefit from the Provincial Nominee Program proves only one thing: the law is an ass.
In a head scratching decision, the acting Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy commissioner relied in part on unsubstantiated rhetoric to justify holding the PNP list as government’s most closely guarded secret.
It’s not surprising. The PEI freedom of information act is a national joke. We are the only province in the country where freedom of information makes it legally impossible to find out who works for government, what their job is and what they are paid. That means 70 per cent of our provincial budget is beyond scrutiny.
Just last month, PEI was the only province in the country with the gall to use the act as justification for not releasing government’s strategy to deal with H1N1, an outrageous abuse of accountability.
Many Islanders hoped that abysmal record would change with this long anticipated ruling on PNP, the controversial immigrant program that saw foreign nationals buy speedy access to Canadian visas by investing in Island companies. Read the rest of this entry »
HBO documentary refutes official Iranian propaganda
Film about Iranian protest victim Neda Agha-Soltan beats regime’s censors Jamming and power cuts fail to prevent documentary going viral
Video showing death of Neda Agha Soltan in new documentary
The Guardian – How the Neda film went viral Link to this video
Iran is jamming satellite broadcasts in attempts to stop people seeing a new film telling the story of, the young woman who was shot dead during the mass protests that followed last summer’s disputed presidential election.
Viewers in Tehran complained of jamming and power cuts on Wednesday and yesterday when the Voice of America Persian TV network broadcast the documentary For Neda, featuring the first film interviews with the family of the 27-year-old.
The 70-minute film, made by Mentorn Media for HBO and being screened in the US this month, has rapidly gone viral in Iran in the run-up to next Saturday’s anniversary of the disputed elections that triggered the protests. It is available on YouTube so can be seen by anyone with access to the internet. The video follows the story break.
Read the rest of this entry »
PNP names stay private after ruling
Overwhelming opposition from companies to releasing ‘the list’ centered on their firm belief it would cause harm to their reputation and hurt their business prospects
Charlottetown Guardian – Coffee shop critics hoping to have the list of PNP businesses to pour over for the weekend were foiled by yet another decision Friday to keep the details of this controversial program private.
P.E.I.’s acting privacy commissioner ruled the names of companies that benefited from the Provincial Nominee Program should not be released.
Judy Haldemann’s ruling came as a result of four applications made through the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy (FOIPP) Act requesting the release of names of businesses that applied to the PNP and how many units they received.
Guardian – PNP list is private: privacy commissioner
The province’s acting privacy commissioner has ruled the list of businesses that benefitted from the Provincial Nominee Program will not be made public.
Charlottetown Guardian – A number of media and members of the public requested the list of businesses that received PNP funds, called units, through the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy (FOIPP) Act.
Judy Haldemann, acting information and privacy commissioner, released her decision on these requests this morning. She received numerous submissions from businesses who said they made their applications under an expectation of confidentiality. They also argued they would suffer harm from the release of the information.
Haldemann said she agreed with this and concluded they should be protected.
UPEI Abuses Human Rights as Policy
Denial of Human Rights for media, employees and those with disability is policy for outgoing President Wade MacLauchlan and Board of Governors
It has been 2 years since UPEI pushed the disabled to the edge of the campus in violation of their human rights
Human Rights aren’t worth much if the strong are allowed to pick on the weak. Wade MacLauchlan has made himself a human rights pariah. PEI will be well rid of him when his term of office is up next year.
The question is: is he the problem or are the UPEI Board of Governors and other senior managers of the same mind?
Human Rights violations at UPEI are extending beyond people living with disabilities. Recently UPEI refused to provide the media with basic information like the salary of its president Wade MacLauchlan.
Earlier this year UPEI declared it would not respect the ruling of the PEI Human Rights Commission. It will continue to retire employees at 65 despite a ruling the policy is illegal.
Two years ago in June the University of PEI removed accessible parking for those living with disabilities. When we spoke out against the human rights abuse of those with disabilities, some scoffed. The evidence is piling up against their record. Does UPEI consider itself a good corporate citizen of Canada or above the law? Read the rest of this entry »
When public records are less than public
Public access to information from internet journalists is improving while governments try to limit access through a variety of means including copyright claims
Illustration by opensource.com
By Helen Fu at the Citizen Media Law Project, Harvard University
In March, Google launched its Public Data Explorer, expanding upon its public data search feature that’s been around since last spring. Earlier this month, Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism announced a joint degree program to train tech-savvy journalists. It looks like computer assisted reporting is finally going mainstream and moving past its “hacker journalist” label and identity crisis.
That’s all well and good, but having all those programmer journalists looking for access to public data brings to the forefront questions about who owns public records and who has the right to put limits on their use. Oklahoma, for instance, brought in $65 million in the last five years from selling data, and the state legislature has proposed a law to limit the availability of data for such public records requests. Journalists can run into frustrations when data they’re relying upon become unavailable. Read the rest of this entry »
New Hampshire Supreme Court Rules Website Has Reporter’s Privilege
New Hampshire rules bloggers can be journalists something the Supreme Court of Canada already acknowledged
By Sam Bayward, Citizen Media Law Project
This morning, the Supreme Court of New Hampshire handed down an important decision holding that a mortgage industry website, The Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter, is entitled to protection under the state’s reporter’s privilege.
The case is Mortgage Specialists, Inc. v. Implode-Explode Heavy Industries, Inc., which was argued before the New Hampshire Supreme Court last fall. The dispute centers on an article that Implode-O-Meter published in August 2008, which detailed administrative actions taken by the New Hampshire Banking Department against The Mortgage Specialists, a mortgage lender.
The article included a link to a financial document that The Mortgage Specialists allegedly submitted to the state banking authorities, which Implode-O-Meter had obtained from an anonymous source. After the mortgage company discovered the disclosure, it sued the website, demanding that the document be removed from the Internet and that the anonymous source be identified. A Rockingham County Superior Court judge granted these requests. Read the rest of this entry »
UPEI too secretive, says policy group
UPEI not included under Freedom of Information, salaries are a secret
UPEI President Wade MacLauchlan, his salary is private but should it be? photo: Nina Linton
CBC News – The University of Prince Edward Island should be included under the province’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, says the Atlantic Institute of Market Studies.
The Halifax-based policy group was frustrated recently while doing a study on first year university students in the region. Research manager Bobby O’Keefe said every university in the region sent information except for UPEI. O’Keefe believes the university does not have the right to withhold information.
“It does aid in helping the school community and the university community, and the taxpayers who are funding the universities, find out what they’re getting for their money,” he said. Read the rest of this entry »
Apple backs down from censorship of cartoons
Media need to look at who they are jumping into bed with
An image from one of the Flash cartoons on Mark Fiore’s site that Mr. Fiore says would have gone on his iPhone app.
Cartoonist Mark Fiore caused a ruckus this week when he revealed the Apple Store refused to list his cartoon app.Apple rejects Pulitzer winner’s iPhone app because it ‘ridicules public figures’
Winning a Pulitzer gave Fiore more notoriety than somebody else but the principal is the same. What right does Apple have to infringe free speech? Satire is a long cherished part of free speech, except on the PEI Media where it got one satirist banned from the Press Gallery.
Apple did a turnaround on this and asked Fiore to re-submit his application. Cartoonist: Apple Backs Down After Denying iPhone App
Apple rejects Pulitzer winner’s iPhone app because it ‘ridicules public figures’
Apple censors satirical cartoons as objectionable to iPhone users – let’s compute like it’s 1984
By Rob Pegoraro, Washington Post - A Pulitzer Prize can win you a round of applause in a newsroom, but it won’t necessarily get your application in Apple’s App Store.
Freelance artist Mark Fiore, winner of the 2010 prize for editorial cartooning and the first online-only recipient of a Pulitzer, found that out in December.
This story surfaced yesterday, when the Nieman Journalism Lab blog (a product of Harvard University’s Nieman Foundation) reported on Fiore’s computing rejection in a piece about his critical success. Author Laura McGann wrote that Apple refused to list an iPhone program presenting Fiore’s animated cartoons because … well, they were mean to name-brand people. She quoted an Apple e-mail forwarded by Fiore: Read the rest of this entry »
