■Fined
The US Federal Communications Commission has proposed a fine of $1,43-million against 52 ABC-owned and affiliate stations for screening an episode of NYPD Blue, in which a female’s naked backside can be seen, before 22:00. ABC will appeal the fines – the second-largest fine of this kind to date, the Washington Post reported.R
■In court
The Northern Ireland court of appeal is considering a case in which damages of £25,000 were awarded to a Belfast restaurant, the Ciaran Convery, after a review in the Irish News was found to be defamatory (MediaGuardian.co.uk).
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■Criticised
Lad mag Loaded caused a stir when it published a photo of kidnapped Maddie McCann’s mother, Kate, under the heading: “Is it just us? Unlikely ladies that float our boat”, the British Daily Star reported. On the photo Kate was “clutching Maddie’s cuddly toy”.
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■Angered
The American Parade magazine was distributed 10 days after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto with the cover story entitled: “Is Benazir Bhutto America’s best hope against al-Qaeda”. A photo of Bhutto and the quote: “I am what the terrorists most fear”, was featured on the cover. The editors said “recalling, reprinting and redistributing (the issue) was not an option”. Readers were not impressed (Poynter.org/www.parade.com).
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■Caught
Saw Wai, a poet from Myanmar, was arrested after it was discovered his Valentine’s poem, which was published in a weekly entertainment magazine, contained the hidden message: “Power crazy Senior General Than Shwe”. Than Shwe heads the military junta (Sapa-AP/The Star).
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■Jailed
Editor Faustin Bambou was jailed for six months in the Central African Republic after he had written an article about two government officials who had allegedly received “large sums of money” from nuclear energy company Areva (Sapa-AFP/CPJ).
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■Restricted
China seems “keen to step up its control of the cultural arena ahead of the Olympic Games”, Reuters/The Weekender reported. Authorities have restricted internet sites and have given producers of audiovisual content three weeks to confess “vulgar” material in their possession.
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■Fired
Yahoo plans to lay off 1,000 of its 14,300 employees because of a 23% drop in profit (Business Report).
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■Facebook optimist
Anti-Semitism could be fought through social networking websites such as Facebook, Israeli President Shimon Peres, told students at an international Holocaust conference. Peres, who blogs, does not have a Facebook profile yet, reported IOLtechnology.co.za.
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■MySpace celebrity
Corey Delaney, the 16-year-old Australian who used MySpace to invite people to a party at his parents’ house while they were on holiday, has turned professional. The teen, whose party was broken up by police after party goers had caused damage of A$20,000, is now a party host with a celebrity agent (Reuters/The Star).
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■MySpace partnership
The BBC and MySpace have formed a partnership that would allow for certain BBC programmes to be broadcast on the social networking site. (Sapa-AP/Sake24)
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■With or without the stars
Producers of the Oscar ceremony, to be held on 24 February, have vowed the event will proceed, even if writers and stars do not participate because of the 3-month-old Writers Guild of America strike, AFP/news24.com reported.
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■Those to watch
When the Guardian Media Group asked 120 digital practitioners which brands, sites and people they considered worth watching this year, the results included: Google and its mobile platform Android, James Murdoch, chief executive of News Corp Europe and Asia and Rupert Murdoch’s son, href=”https://www.bebo.com/” target=_blank mce_href=”https://www.bebo.com/”Bebo, Apple, Microsoft, the video phone service href=”https://www.tokbox.com/” target=_blank mce_href=”https://www.tokbox.com/”TokBox and the online travel service href=”https://www.dopplr.com/” target=_blank mce_href=”https://www.dopplr.com”Dopplr.com. Predictions included the sale of LinkedIn and that a Chinese web firm would “break into the western market” (guardian.co.uk).
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■Online superstars
US rapper 50 Cent is among those with the biggest internet presence according to href=”https://www.garlik.com/index.php” target=_blank mce_href=”https://www.garlik.com/index.php”Garlik. The site rates people’s “digital status”, The Independent reported. A rating of 2,000 and higher is considered high. 50 Cent’s rating is 10,682. Presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s rating is 9,983.
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■Age and video-sharing
Sixteen percent of adult internet users older than 65 who participated in a phone survey of 2,054 adults said they had used a video-sharing site before, the Pew Internet and American Life Project ( href=”https://www.pewinternet.org/” mce_href=”https://www.pewinternet.org/”https://www.pewinternet.org/) has found.
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■Americans and media credibility
Under a quarter of American respondents (19.6%) in a Sacred Heart University poll said they believed all or most news media reporting (Xinhuanet).
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■End to format war?
Warner Bros’ decision to back Blu-Ray instead of HD-DVD “will end the latest format war”, Financial Times/The Weekender, predicted.
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■Radio sushi
Radio signals can be used to track the freshness of sushi, according to Singapore’s Ngee Ann Polytechnic (IOLtechnology.co.za).
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■Give us a hand
Demonstrations at the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas indicated that we would “soon” be able to control computers, TV sets and “even cellphones” with hand gestures alone (IOLtechnology.co.za).
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■Flower Power
Bernie Boston (74), the photojournalist known for the image of a Vietnam war protester putting a flower into the barrel of a rifle held by a National Guardsman, died in Virgina, USA. The image is known as Flower Power (Los Angeles Times).
