Media

"…There’s little interest in what Slovak journalism refers to as 'publicistika': serious news features, profiles and analysis. It turns out such stories can be bad for business."

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia -- Katarina Jenkutova was the sort of student who makes teaching worthwhile. Two years ago, she was one of my 30 Slovak journalism students at the University of Saints Cyril and Methodius, in the provincial but historic city of Trnava.

A new war has emerged on the Internet. Its battleground is our increasingly precious and oft-used social network platforms. And the weapon used on either side is your identity. Welcome to the Nym Wars.

If you need proof of how truly confusing the situation is in Libya, look no further than last Saturday's coverage of the conflict on CNN where one of their reporters, Reza Sayah presented the story of a Benghazi man identified as Al Mehdi Zeu who died fighting against the troops of Moammar Gadhafi. Al Mehdi's story was framed in a heroic manner, with the 49-year old oil company worker described as a man who sacrificed himself so that Libya's rebels might score a key victory.

Slave Labor? I Didn't Get Paid For This Piece -- And I'm OK With That

More and more writers are publishing their work without payment in exchange for the promise of 'prestige' and 'platform.'

Valentine "Sphinx" Eben is a leading African media-maker. Sphinx has a long history of activism, media work, and organizing, including three "convergence and training" houses at the World Social Forum. The latest such house was completed in 2010 in Dakar in collaboration with May First/People Link.

In another coup before Left Forum 2011 officially got underway, The Mantle scored an interview with the iconic (and some say, iconoclastic) leftist academic Frances Fox Piven.

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia — Just days before Christmas, Hungary's new right-wing government, which now controls a near-invincible two-thirds of parliament, succumbed to temptation: It rubber-stamped a draconian-sounding new media law that looked as if it would slip a leash of censorship around the necks of both traditional and online media.