Nov

20

Just received the information that young journalists from all over Europe have the possibility to take part in the “European Young Journalist Award on EU Enlargement issues“, which has been officially launched in Brussels on november 15th. The title is: “Enlarge your visionâ€?.

The organiser is the European Commission, Directorate-General for Enlargement, in cooperation with the European Youth Press association. The objective of the competition is to encourage young journalists to reflect on and express their views on the European Union’s enlargement policy.

During its 50 year history, the European Union has grown from originally 6 member states to 27. With a population of close to 500 million inhabitants, today’s Union is much stronger and more influential than with its 6 member states and a population of less than 200 million. Enlargement is one of the EU’s most powerful policy tools. The pull of the EU has helped to transform Central and Eastern Europe into modern, well-functioning democracies. More recently it has inspired farreaching reforms in the candidate and potential candidate countries (Croatia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkey, as well as Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia and Kosovo under UN Security Council Resolution 1244). All European citizens benefit from having neighbours that are stable democracies and prosperous market economies. Enlargement is a carefully managed process which helps the transformation of the countries involved, extending peace, stability, prosperity, democracy, human rights and the rule of law across Europe.

Young European citizens in particular are taking advantage of this community of diverse values and cultures, as it is getting easier for them to travel and learn other languages through EU exchange programs. In the long run, they are the ones who will benefit most from EU enlargement. By formulating their ideas of the future Europe, young journalists are important opinion-leaders for their generation. In the framework of the competition, participants are asked to submit a recently published article (publication date between January 2007 and March 15, 2008). On the special competition website (www.EUjournalist-award.eu ) they can find articles on the EU enlargement, written by their colleagues, as inspiration for their journalistic work. Entries for the competition can be written in one of the official EU languages or one of the languages of the candidate and potential candidate countries.

At the end of the competition each participating country will select a national winner and all 35 winners will undertake a 3 day trip through Western Balkan countries together. In addressing the young competitors, EU Commissioner for Enlargement Olli Rehn said: “I welcome the launch of this competition and look forward to learning more about the views of young journalists on the enlargement policy. They are important opinion-leaders for their generation. I would like to invite them to share their experiences and visions of our common European future. Their ideas will further nourish the debates that will determine the shape of our continent.�

National juries made up of media representatives will select the winning article from each country in April 2008 and the articles will be published on the competition website. All the 35 winners will be invited on a trip through Western Balkan countries and will have the opportunity to participate in a conference with media representatives from various countries in June 2008. “Winners will not only be awarded but also get the chance of exchanging with experienced colleagues and media professionals. With this award we foster a network of young journalists between EU countries, candidate and potential candidate countries�, underlined Anna Siitam, spokes-woman for European Youth Press as the umbrella organisation of 48.000 young journalists in Europe.

For information on how to enter the competition, please visit www.EUjournalist-award.eu

Oct

31

In America as well as in England recently two new ideas have been developed to organize the work in pr even more efficient.

The British are testing a system which allows important representatives from politics and economics to be on a group photo without any need to get physicial contact or even be at the same place at the same time like the group. A first test of this system acomplished by the english secretary of culture James Purnell wasn`t very much successful though.


Screen Shot from the article in the Telegraph, which is linked above.

The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, thought that press conferences would be so much more harmoncial and as well faster when they would be done without any single journalist. Having workers to ask the questions also gives the possibility to prepair much nicer answers. You don`t think so? Well:

Oct

30

Now a short one right before bedtime. As I just read this as usually very informative article by Fiete Stegers on the webpage of the German news-programme Tagesschau.de, the picture on the right has caught my attention, because it looks like just cut out of an random PR-picture. So when I searched for “Laptop in der Straßenbahn” (German for: “laptop in the tram”) at Google-picturesearch and went there on page three, I found this:

The page Teltarif offers a text from february 2005 with the title “Telekom stattet Bonner Bahn mit mobilem Hotspot aus” (”Telekom equipts the traincompany of Bonn with a mobile hotspot”). Here on the photo as well laptop, seat covers and hands may seem familiar to the interested reader. Now just for one more time using Google-Picturesearch with the optimized searchterms “telekom + surfen in der bahn” and well:

On Presseportal.de we find another very similiar article about the internet in the public transport in Bonn with the title “Das Internet fährt mit” “(”The Internet drives with [us/the train]“). And there we are even able to zoom the picture:

So this is like we have been able after 40 seconds of work and two searches at Google-Picturesearch to explain why the illustrating picture on Tagesschau.de looks like just cut out of an random PR-picture. Answer: It just has been cut out of an random PR-picture.

And the best is, that such a general photo can also be used in a general way not only for the “Klimakosten des Internet-Booms” (”Climate Expenses of the Internet-Boom”), but as well for a story about the “Bundestrojaner”.

Oct

28

Ok, this is a small and short one. I do not really have a clue about the news-categories at CNN, but I could have imagined that it is rather a topic for “Politics”, “World” or perhaps even “U.S.”, when the CNN chief news executive (who?) is “stepped back”, because of some critical remarks about the growing number of dead journalists in Iraq. Well, it seems that the colleagues found it rather “entertaining”.

Sep

27

Recently I have discovered a practical service, that offers watching a number of television channels via internet. After a short registration process at zattoo.com there are different versions of the basic-software for download supporting either Windows, Windows Vista, Mac or Linux. After installation and registration, a window showing the chosen program appears and another one displaying available channels. Sometimes the screen needs some time to build up but all in all I am really satisfied with the result. One should also not forget that this is still a beta-version and a free service moreover.

Some time ago I have seen Joost (HP, Wikipedia) which is another service for internet-television, but comparing them I indeed prefer Zattoo. It offers several news-channels live and uses a small software that can easily be run with other programs. Joost does not support live-television but on-demand-content only and also inlcludes resource-intensive extras like a chat-tool. As somebody who doesn`t own a television set I appreciate the possibility of having news from CNN, Al Jazeera or France 24 in the background during computer-work.

Overview of the channels featured in Zattoo
Channel (Genre - Language)
Comedy Central (Comedy - German)
Das Vierte (Entertainment - German)
DMAX (Entertainment - German)
DSF (Sports - German)
Entertainment Channel (Entertainment - German)
Giga (Entertainment - German)
MTV (Music - German)
Nick (Cartoons - German)
Tier TV (Special Interest - German)
TV Gusto (Special Interest - German)
VIVA (Music - German)
Al Jazeera (Information - English)
Canal 24 Horas (News - Spanish)
CNN International (News - English)
France 24 (News - English)
luxe.tv (Special Interest - English)
SF Info (News - Divers.)
sumo.tv (Entertainment - English)
Telezüri (General - Swiss German)
The Poker Channel (Special Interest - English)
TVE Internacional (General - Spanish)

 

 

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