BBC's election train

Soutik Biswas, Indian Online editor for BBC news and his colleagues are covering this year's indian election in a train. They will sleep, eat, and work on the train to give us updates on Indian general election 09. and During the stop, they will meet politicians and businessmen and give people a feel of what they are thinking on the street india.

The team BBC is off to 8000km journey across eight cities for eighteen days, only to cover 2009 Indian General Elections. It's good attempt by BBC News !!

On the other hand, The "election train" also shows how India has opened up, allowing the foreign media to cover the elections in a special train.

government intervention always makes things worse...

In Korea, from this year, when you want to post content or comment things online, you must use your real name(verified one) on the internet !!!!!!!! blahhhh
The ruling party (GNP) recently passed a bill , called ' real name verification ' on Websites.

On top of the 'real name' rule, the ruling party also passed 'the bulked up copyright law', the government has the power to shutdown an online message board for a maximum six months after the site is warned for a third time to delete pirated content and prevent its movement.

According to the bulked-up copyright law, the government has the power to shutdown an online message board for a maximum six months after the site is warned for a third time to delete pirated content and prevent its movement.

In addition to the “three-strikes” rule, Internet users who repeatedly upload copyrighted content without permission could lose their Internet accounts.

7% decline in newspaper sales

 The collapse of newspaper business....

 Everybody is aware of that. But, I am pretty amazed at the speed and the magnitude of collapse. 

 Day after day, the new and fresh data tells you that it is worse than you've ever imagined. 

Here is another one. 

According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC), at 395 newspapers, daily circulation fell 7% for the six months that ended March 31, compared with the same March period in 2008.

China's official English paper

This week, China's 'Global Times', which covers mainly international affairs, also known to be nationalistic view, launched a new -English language edition and web-site.

The paper says, "the English edition of the Global Times will cover the world from a Chinese perspective, and reflects the standpoints and opinions of Chinese people on significant international issues"

It also notes on its website, "the Global Times has more than 500 overseas correspondents and contributing writers around the world and in addition the English edition has a team of 100 journalist based in China. "

Very impressive. 500 overseas correspondents...!!!

well, it just can't happen to any paper..,The Global Times is published by China's communist party to promote the leadership's particular views on issues such as Tibet, Democracy.

Anyhow, another good stop-by for me.

Another newspaper bailout?

Newspapers are endangered species.

As French President Nicholas Sarkozy has stepped in by giving one-year subscription to 18 year-olds, S. Korean government is also considering State-funded Newspaper subscription.

Just like everywhere else, there are mounting concerns over the lack of respect among Korean teenagers for the newspaper. So, the dozens of lawmakers has proposed a bill that enables monetary assistance to middle and high schools for the newspaper subscriptions.

Minerva finally sentenced

The verdict is finally in.
Minerva, a South Korean blogger who criticized the government's sloppy economic policies and later got indicted in January, has been sentenced 18 months in jail yesterday.

The charges on him : The postings were not only inaccurate, but it had affected the foreign exchange market and undermined the nation's credibility. Meaning, spreading false rumors on the internet!!

To take this further, Korean's ruling party is trying to pass a 'cyber insult law' in which government officials could seek criminal punishment for things like libel and other insults regardless of how the supposed victim feels.

Korea is one of the most wired countries and known for advanced technology. And then very analog things are happening. No fun in joking about government anymore..

Get over yourselves

Google Eric Schmidt spoke at a convention of Newspaper Association of America in San Diego yesterday(April 07). He wasn't booed as some feared he might be.

With growing animosity between the internet giant and the newspaper industry, Google kept saying "We are not your enemy but a partner".

Here are some of the things Schmidt had to say :

"We think we can build a business with you. That is the only solution we can see."

"The reality is that in this new model, the vast majority of people will only deal with the free model. So you'll be forced, whether we like it or not"

"These are ultimately consumer businesses and if you piss off enough of them, you will not have any more."

"I think the sites are slow. They're actually slower than reading the paper, and that's something that can be worked on a technical basis. This is something where better development tools, better hosting tools, and so forth from the industry as a whole will make big difference."

Chalk board blogger in Africa

This week, I discovered this amazing blogger!!! 

His name is Alfred Sirleaf. He is not just any blogger, but an analog blogger who writes major news stories of the day on the chalkboard at the entrance of his village in Liberia where you can  get no electricity. He calls this 'Daily talk'. 

 There are no big words, but very simple language and

  symbols/drawings to make it easier for people who can't read. 

 He had no education, nor media training for news. and why he  got into this? 

He realized the war continues because people don't  have access to any information relevant to their government's  decision making process.  “Daily Talk’s objective is that everybody should absorb the news’’ he says. 

Every morning, he buys 3~4 newspapers and rewrites them and composes the day's headline. Because of his provocative style of reporting the truth, the daily talk was destroyed twice since its inception in 2005. 

Occasional gifts or pre-paid phone cards keep his newsroom alive. 

Here is the details. 

April Fools!!

It's April Fool's day. I won't pass up.

But, since I am terrible at pulling off pranks, I will bring my favorite joke from today.

Guardian Goes Twitter-Only: The Guardian says it will become the first paper in the world to publish only via Twitter, a move that it says will consolidate its "position at the cutting edge of new media technology." All of the paper's archives will be rewritten as Tweets. As a teaser, the Guardian provides some examples, including one from 1961: "Listening 2 new band 'The Beatles.'"