Doc Society launched Safe + Secure to assist in mitigating risks to documentary filmmakers and their crews, subjects, and sources. The group, with support from the Ford Foundation, has been working with experts to develop tools for both filmmakers and funders to assist with digital, legal, journalistic, and safety and health risks. Check out their handbook and checklist, which includes resources on safety and security issues and where to get more information and training, and read up on their suggested protocol on filming in a hostile environment.
Source: Doc Society
Faced with huge demand for this year’s Global Investigative Journalism Conference, GIJN and its partners have suspended ticket sales to ensure we have enough capacity to cope with the large crowds expected. An unprecedented number of fellows, co-sponsors, and other attendees has pushed the number of participants to a record level. For the latest news on conference availability and programming, be sure to follow our hashtag #GIJC19.
Source: GIJN
Three men have been formally charged with the assassination of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who reported on politics and corruption in Malta. She was killed in October 2017 in a car bomb attack near her home. The three accused — Vince Muscat, George Degiorgio, and Alfred Degiorgio — were arrested several months later, in December 2017. They would have been eligible for bail next month had they not been officially charged before then. According to the Malta Independent, for which Caruana Galizia wrote, many on the island still feel that the mastermind behind the murder is still be at large.
Source: Malta Independent
A new study out of Harvard that incorporates data on the four primary revenue components of traditional newspaper companies — print subscription, print advertising, digital subscription, and digital advertising — has found that for companies with high circulations and large amounts of exclusive content, paywalls can increase overall sales, often by increasing demand for print subscriptions. Newspapers with less exclusive content, however, have generally experienced losses when they started charging readers to access digital editions, according to the research, which studied major newspaper firms in the United States.
Source: Harvard Business School
An official decree issued in Cuba on July 4 will ban Cuban citizens from running websites hosted outside of the country. The new law will deal a major setback to Cuba's growing independent media, which depends heavily on foreign hosting services and blogging platforms. “The law leaves independent media without ‘legal’ hosting options,” warns journalist Elaine Díaz, who runs the sole GIJN member organization in Cuba, Periodismo de Barrio. “By imposing fines, they are criminalizing a decision that should not have any legal consequence.”
Source: Global Voices
Online hatred of the press in Pakistan reached a troubling high on Thursday as a hashtag calling for arrest of journalists briefly became the nation's top Twitter trend. The hashtag, #ArrestAntiPakjournalists, was tweeted more than 28,000 times, often with photos of prominent journalists and TV anchors deemed critical of Pakistan's ruling party and military. The traffic has deepened already grave concerns over the shrinking space for free expression in the country.
Source: Dawn
