Today’s MediaWireWorld roundup of journalism news from outside the U.S. Send tips to Kristen Hare: khare@poynter.org
United Kingdom
John Humphrys, a presenter on the United Kingdom’s Radio 4 program “Today,” doesn’t recommend journalism, Dominic Ponsford reported Tuesday in the Press Gazette.
“As to my advice for aspiring journalists…. that’s easy. Don’t do it! I am deeply pessimistic for the future of serious print journalism and I tell my own children and grandchildren to train for a profession where they’re more likely to get a decent job with some hope of security.”
The story, Ponsford reported, was one in a series asking famous journalists “to talk about their training and offer some advice to aspiring journalists as part of a print guide to journalism training which is being published next month.”
Japan
Since 1949, 89-year-old Toshio Hiratsuka has published the local newspaper in Watanoha, Japan, Japan Daily Press reported Monday.
But the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami of 2011 almost permanently shut down the paper and Hiratsuka’s career, as his house and life’s work was washed away and 547 people from the town perished, including his sister. He did not plan on publishing again and for six months he did just that, until public clamor made him realize “I’ve got to do it,” he said.
Now, the Japan Daily Press reported, Hiratsuka’s daughter-in-law types in his stories and his grandson delivers the newspapers.
He still cycles around the town in order to get the latest news as it happens. He says the success of the paper is not really a new secret since he has been doing it for decades: creating something that “can be appreciated by people” and telling the stories of the town
Thailand
Two journalists, Thanapol Eawsakul and Pravit Rojanaphruk, were detained last week in Thailand, Reporters Without Borders reported Monday. “The army is continuing its efforts to halt the flow of news and information, imposing its editorial line on news organizations and ordering them not to publish anything that might ‘fan the conflict.'”
Yesterday, 19 editors and publishers were summoned to a meeting called to discuss coverage of the news in an “abnormal situation”, while General Prayuth, appointed by the king as head of the NCPO, today threatened news organizations with closure if they used Facebook pages to “fan the conflict” or to undermine peace and public order.
According to Reporters Without Borders, 14 stations won’t be allowed back on the air “unless they undertake not to disturb the peace and public order.”
Libya
Newspaper editor Muftah Bu Zeid was killed in Benghazi on Monday, Voice of Libya reported Monday. He was the editor of Berniga, a weekly newspaper.
Mr. Abu-Zaid appeared on the “Libya Al Ahrar” TV the night before criticizing the government and current state of chaos that is sweeping the country. He have received a number of threats on his life from unknown sources; He was also urged to leave the country 24 hours before his he was assassinated.
Ukraine
Andrea Rochelli, an Italian journalist, and Andrei Mironov, a Russian human rights activist, were killed in Eastern Ukraine on May 24 “by mortar fire near Sloviansk, in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region on 24 May. William Roguelon, a French photographer working for the Wostok Press agency who was with them, sustained leg injuries from the same shell,” Reporters Without Borders reported Monday.
The two had been in eastern Ukraine for a few weeks.
Since founding the Cesura photographers’ collective with four other photographers in 2008, Rocchelli had covered the conflict in Afghanistan and the Arab Spring in Tunisia and Libya. He had also visited Kyrgyzstan and the Caucasus. Based in Milan and Moscow, he worked for leading western media including Le Monde, L’Espresso and Foreign Policy, as well as Russian media such as Novaya Gazeta and Kommersant.
Canada
I’m telling you guys, cats are leaving the Internet for print. Here’s more evidence, courtesy the Newseum, from The Province in Vancouver.
