Despite the Internet's essential role in journalism today, few reporters take the issue of cyber security seriously. Recent cyber attacks on journalists in Venezuela reinforce the fact that the Internet is not without its risks.
For the third time in the past year, the Associated Press (AP) has updated its social media guidelines, this time to deal with correcting erroneous tweets and deleting tweets, as well as proper procedure for designating a re-tweet, according to a press release from the news agency.
In its first study of online journalism in Colombia, the Consejo de Redacción, or Newsroom Council, (CdR in Spanish) looked at who is producing online journalism in this South American country and how. The report found that since Colombia first connected to the Internet on July 4, 1994, online media have become "the protagonists of a quiet revolution in Colombia."
In protest of two Congressional bills that critics contend amount to censorship of the Internet, Wikipedia announced that it will go dark on Wednesday Jan. 18, reported The New York Times.
After Canadian Twitter users defied a decades-old ban by tweeting last year's election results before polls had closed throughout the country, the government announced Friday, Jan. 13 -- via Twitter, no less -- the repeal of the section of the Canada Elections Act that prohibits the broadcast or transmission of election results before all ballots have been cast, reported the Huffington Post Canada.
A military judge has recommended that Pfc. Bradley Manning, accused of leaking classified military documents to WikiLeaks, face a court martial, reported the Los Angeles Times on Thursday, Jan. 12.
Connecticut's Journal Register newspaper company has experienced its second round of plagiarism accusations in less then three months, reported Poynter. On Tuesday, Jan. 10, editor Matt DeRienzo revealed that a Jan. 5 front-page sports story in the Fairfield Minuteman plagiarized verbatim articles from two competing newspapers.
Honduran freedom of expression NGO C-Libre accused a regional office of the Honduran National Commission of Human Rights (CONADEH) of restricting journalists from taking photos, videos, and interviewing immigrants held in a detention center in the city of Choluteca, in the south of the country.
The Ecuadoran Attorney General and judicial police seized transmission equipment and closed the radio station Perla Orense on Jan. 7, in the southwestern El Oro province, reported Fundamedios.
One-third of U.S. owners of smartphones or tablet computers said they had downloaded news apps in the previous 30 days, according to newly released results from a Nielson survey. Still, news apps came in fifth, behind games, maps/navigation, music, and social networking apps.
Tired of bloggers and aggregators profiting from their work and investments, the Associated Press, The New York Times Co., the Washington Post Co., and 26 other U.S. news organizations have launched a company aimed at tracking the online, unauthorized use of copyrighted content, reported the Associated Press.
The Dominican online newspaper Diario Digital RD denounced a cyber attack against its Google and Twitter accounts, Facebook profile, and damage to its subscription database, reported the publication on its website.