m e d ii a s t o 0 o r y..*

Pakistan bans YouTube over anti-Islamic film clips

Pakistan's government has banned access to the video-clip website YouTube because of anti-Islamic movies posted on the site, an official said yesterday.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority told the country's 70 internet service providers that the popular website would be blocked until further notice.
The authority did not specify what the offensive material was, but a PTA official said the ban concerned a trailer for an forthcoming film by Dutch politician Geert Wilders. The film portrays Islam as a fascist religion prone to inciting violence against women and homosexuals.
The unnamed official said the PTA had also blocked websites showing the controversial Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. The drawings were originally printed in European newspapers in 2006, but were reprinted by some papers last week.
The PTA urged internet users to write to YouTube and request the removal of the films, saying that the authorities would stop blocking the video-sharing site once that had happened.
Pakistan is not the only country to have blocked access to YouTube. In January, a Turkish court ordered the site to be blocked on account of video clips that allegedly broke the law by insulting the country's founding father, Kemal Ataturk.
Last spring the Thai government banned YouTube for four months because of clips regarded as offensive to the country's revered monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyadej.
Moroccans were unable to access YouTube last year after users posted footage critical of Morocco's treatment of the people of Western Sahara.

m e d ii a sto0ory

Channel 4 names documentaries chief

The Channel 4 executive behind City of Vice and the broadcaster's controversial investigation into the death of Princess Diana has been named the station's head of documentaries.
Hamish Mykura replaces Angus MacQueen, who resigned last month to return to film-making.
Mykura is currently the head of specialist factual at Channel 4, overseeing the channel's history, science and religion output.
His commissions include Diana: The Witnesses in the Tunnel, which caused controversy last year when it used pictures of the crash that killed Princess Diana despite a personal plea from her sons, Prince William and Prince Harry.
Another Mykura commission, Martin Durkin documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle, also sparked a row when it criticised the consensus on global warming.
Mykura's more recent credits include five-part historical drama City of Vice and feature-length documentary, Day of the Kamikaze.
He will continue to report to Channel 4 head of programmes, Julian Bellamy.
"The range and quality of Channel 4's documentary output tends to be a leading indicator of how effectively we're delivering against our broader public service remit, so I'm delighted a commissioner of Hamish's experience and insight is eager to take up this key role," said Bellamy.
Other Mykura commissions include The Human Footprint, Richard Dawkins' Enemies of Reason, historical parenting series Bringing Up Baby and feature-length historical drama The Relief of Belsen. He was also responsible for Nuremberg: Goering's Last Stand and 9/11: The Falling Man.
Mykura said: "The documentary brief at Channel 4 is one of the most exciting and varied commissioning roles within television, ranging from popular innovations like The Secret Millionaire and Meet the Natives to feature-length landmarks like the Lie of the Land. It represents an irresistible new challenge."
He joined Channel 4 in 2001 as commissioning editor, history, becoming head of history in 2003 and later taking on additional oversight of the channel's religion and science programming.
Mykura previously worked for independent producers Blakeway Productions and Mentorn, and spent 10 years at the BBC.

Guardian Story

British reporter kidnapped in Basra
Michael Howard
guardian.co.uk,
Tuesday February 12 2008

Iraqi security forces in Basra were today engaged in "an intensive hunt" for a British reporter and his Iraqi interpreter who were abducted from their hotel by a gang of masked and armed men.
Basra police said the two men, who work for the US television network CBS, were seized at Basra's Sultan Palace hotel on Sunday morning. Police sources said one man had been detained on suspicion of involvement in the raid.
CBS yesterday confirmed that two of its journalists were missing, but it did not name them. The network appealed to other media "not to speculate on the identities of those involved" until more information was available.
In London, a foreign office spokesperson said she was aware that western citizens had been reported missing in Iraq, and that the FCO was looking into the matter "with some urgency".
The news of the kidnapping came as the bullet-riddled body of a young Iraqi journalist was found on the streets of Baghdad, two days after he had left his office to buy supplies.
Hisham Michwit Hamdan, 27, had not been seen by colleagues since leaving the offices of the Young Journalists League, an independent media watchdog, to buy stationery at a market in the Bab al-Mudham area.
The murder and the kidnapping were a reminder that despite recent security gains, Iraq remains the world's most dangerous country for journalists.
According to a report by Reporters Without Borders, 47 journalists lost their lives in Iraq in 2007, up from 41 in 2006, while 25 were kidnapped. The vast majority of the victims were Iraqi citizens. The only foreign journalist killed last year was a Russian photographer who was killed in a bomb blast north of Baghdad. Most of the hostages were freed unharmed, Reporters Without Borders said.
If the accounts of the latest kidnapping in Basra are confirmed, it would be the first abduction of a western reporter in Iraq since Jill Carroll of the Christian Science Monitor was seized and her driver killed in western Baghdad in January 2006. She was released two months later.
The British army transferred security in Basra to Iraqi forces in December. Since then, Iraq's second largest city has been generally quieter, but there are occasional eruptions of violence as Shia political parties, militias and criminal gangs continue to battle each other for dominance.
The Committee to Protect Journalists said three journalists had been abducted in Basra since 2004. Freelancer James Brandon was released, but Steven Vincent, also a freelancer, and Fakher Haider of the New York Times were later found shot dead.
The Basra office of the radical Shia cleric Muqtada al Sadr today appealed for the release of the CBS staff. "We condemn such events and we call on security forces to help in their release," an official said.

Guardian Sto0ory

ITV1 lost prime time share in January as its new-look schedule bedded in, but Channel 4 was the biggest ratings loser among the five main networks.
There was better news for ITV1 across the day, with the network averaging an audience share of 18.1% between 9.30am and 1am last month, only slightly down from 18.2% in January 2007, according to Barb/Infosys figures seen by MediaGuardian.co.uk.
Channel 4 fell from 10.4% to 8.1% compared with January 2007, or to 8.7% if the new +1 channel is factored in, between 9.30am and 1am. BBC1 went down from 22.3% to 21.6% year on year.
In prime time - between 7pm and 10.30pm - ITV1 suffered a bigger fall in share than BBC1, down from 26% to 24.2%; while BBC1 was down one percentage point from 23.8% to 22.8%.
However, in relative terms Channel 4 took the biggest prime time ratings hit last month - not surprisingly, given the absence of Celebrity Big Brother. Channel 4's share in prime time fell from 10.3% to 8%, or 8.5%, including the +1 service.
These figures suggest that ITV1's daytime programming is propping up the network's overall audience share, while its new look primetime schedule finds its feet, complete with the resurrected News at Ten.BBC2 saw its 9.30am to 1am share fall from 8.7% to 8.3%, compared with January 2007. In prime time the network almost held its own, down from 8.9% to 8.8%.
Channel Five kept prime time share stable at 5.2%. But Five lost half a percentage point between 9.30am and 1am across January, down from 5.4% to 4.9%.
Channel 4's decline stems mainly from losses in the 9pm hour, the berth of the highly controversial Celebrity Big Brother last year.
Share on Mondays to Fridays fell from 16.1% in January 2007 to 12% last month in the 9pm hour, with the network's audience share among 16- to 34-year-olds almost halving from 25.8% to 13.1%.
Closer analysis of the crucial 9pm hour on weekdays shows that, year on year, ITV1 has closed the gap with BBC1, although it is losing out to its chief rival on three nights out of five.
In the past four weeks, ITV1 shows have averaged 4.3 million viewers and an 18% share in the slot, compared with BBC1's 4.4 million, also an 18% share, according to data compiled by MediaGuardian.co.uk.
The comparable period a year ago saw BBC1 average 5.7 million viewers and a 23% share, while ITV1 averaged 4.7 million and 20%.
Some of ITV1's new shows - The Palace on Monday, Ladette to Lady on Tuesday and the pairing of Moving Wallpaper and Echo Beach on Friday - are failing to deliver ratings to match BBC1's shows.
But ITV1 is a thumping winner on Thursday, with returning drama Trial & Retribution averaging nearly double BBC1's Fairy Tales.
Honours are almost even on Wednesday night, when ITV1's new Amanda Redman drama Honest has just about edged out BBC1's offerings, which have varied from live FA Cup football to Crimewatch and a repeat of Mel Gibson film What Women Want.
While BBC1 regularly wins with Mistresses on Tuesday night and New Tricks repeats on Friday, it is suffering in comparison with last year, when Waking the Dead, Judge John Deed and Five Days all fuelled its ratings success.