Radio Afia, a half-hour radio show broadcast three times daily in Darfur, Sudan, and eastern Chad, started with a noble mission: To provide Darfuri citizens mired in war or displaced by violence with objective news and information about the crisis—the kind they weren’t getting from the Sudanese government. But poor execution has left the promise of that mission unfulfilled, according to a report by Sheri Fink for ProPublica.

Started with funding from the U.S. State Department, Radio Afia’s critics blame its failings on cultural ignorance and a soft approach to coverage of the Sudanese government. The program is broadcast in standard Arabic, which critics say most of the intended audience not only can’t understand, but find “offensive because it [is] associated with the people who were killing them,” according to Fink. Radio Afia has also come under scrutiny for the firing of one of its outspoken newscasters, who reportedly battled with his bosses over what he saw as their lax coverage of the government. 

If true, the shortcomings of Radio Afia identified by its critics are disappointing considering the continued scarcity of free information in Sudan, which the project was intended to combat. According to a recent report by Human Rights Watch, government censorship of media and tight control of free speech is escalating. “Free and fair elections require a free and open media,” said Georgette Gagnon of Human Rights Watch in a press release about the report. “Khartoum's repressive practices and abuse of those who criticize it put such elections at great risk.” And as violence in Darfur intensifies, writes Fink, "[g]etting news to Darfuri civilians is more important than ever.” 

Sources: ProPublica, Human Rights Watch 

Image by hdptcar, licensed under Creative Commons.

The Columbia Journalism Review has compiled a hefty list of goodbyes from Rocky Mountain News staffers. The paper published its last issue today.

Bracing thoughts from sports columnist Dave Krieger:

Honestly? The corporate suits come in and cry their crocodile tears, then whiz on home to continue collecting their seven-figure salaries, pleased to have rid their shareholders of the albatross that was a helluva newspaper. Scripps is in the best financial shape of any newspaper company in America, save the Washington Post Co. . . .

We need publishers with vision and conviction and courage and it’s beginning to look like all we have are profiteers born on third base.

A eulogy of sorts from reporter Tillie Fong:

I feel the Rocky‘s closing as a death—not as an institution but as a part of my life, a part of ME, that has died.

I always felt that the Rockywas this feisty little paper that reflects the spirit of the people that it serves—fiercely independent, outspoken, active, but also caring and compassionate. 

Romenesko posted a Denver Post memo listing the Rocky journalists it's hired; check out the rest of Romenesko's ongoing coverage here.

Sources: Columbia Journalism Review, Romenesko 

Utne Reader librarian Danielle Maestretti shares the highlights (and occasional lowlights) of what's landing in our library each week.

Utne's library is abuzz with a steady flow of 1,300 magazines, journals,weeklies, zines, and other dispatches from the cultural front that are rarely found in big-box bookstores or newsstands. 

Featured in this week’s episode: 

- High Country News on remembering the nuclear west

- The state of American charcuterie, from The Art of Eating (not available online)

- Nigerian author Chris Abani on humanity and writing, in a special issue of Witness on “Dismissing Africa” (PDF)

- Advice for activists on running productive meetings, from Red Pepper (not available online)

Sources: High Country News, The Art of Eating, Witness, Red Pepper

Looking for a job?  Ben Parr directs Mashable readers to “30+ Websites to Visit When You’re Laid Off.”  He handily divides unemployment strategies into five steps, including finding psychological support and managing money, and then lists sites that will help within each step.  While Craigslist and Monster might be familiar, the Careeronestop Unemployment Benefits map might be news to you, not to mention sites like Workstir for contractors and Hotgigs for freelance consultants.

Source: Mashable

Utne Reader librarian Danielle Maestretti shares the highlights (and occasional lowlights) of what's landing in our library each week in 'Shelf Life.'

Utne's library is abuzz with a steady flow of 1,300 magazines, journals, weeklies, zines, and other dispatches from the cultural front that are rarely found in big-box bookstores, or newsstands.

Featured in this week's episode:

- enRoute on Icelandic cuisine

- Science News on “The Dating Go Round”

- A special issue of Southwest Review featuring modern fiction by Arab women (not available online)

- Zine excerpts and Canadian tabloids in Broken Pencil (not available online)

- Nuclear Energy Insight on how a nuclear power plant became a “refuge” for sea turtles 

Sources: enRoute, Science News, Southwest Review, Broken Pencil, Nuclear Energy Insight

Imagine setting up a collective—a business venture, perhaps—tied strictly to majority vote. . . and then two successful decades later, finding yourself consistently in the minority. No harm, no foul, AK Press founder Ramsey Kanaan tells the East Bay Express. In “Beyond Anarchy at PM Press,” Rachel Swan profiles the publisher’s amicable 2007 departure from AK Press and his current project: PM Press, which is armed with “all the attributes that helped AK at its inception: inexhaustible creativity; a staff of idealists willing to volunteer their time; [and] imaginative ways of bringing print to the digital realm.”

Kanaan tells East Bay Express that he's happy to see more of his ideas coming to fruition. " 'It's not that I want to be a dictator," said the publisher, explaining that PM is in fact more collectively minded than AK. It's just easier to run a collective when everyone agrees with you."

Source:  East Bay Express  

With the economy sliding down the tubes, corporate spinmeisters are struggling to come up with new ways to talk about financial woes. Here are a few great linguistic innovations that have come out of the recession so far:

“A retention award” (executive bonus for a government bailed-out bank, via the Huffington Post.)

“Public capital facilitation” (bank nationalization, via the Economist.)

“streamlining and simplification” (Ebay’s layoffs, via Gawker.)

“synergy-related headcount adjustment goal” (Nokia’s layoffs, via Dollars & Sense.)

Sources: Huffington Post, Economist, Gawker, Dollars & Sense 

Some of Quividi’s marketing technologies carry a distinctly Big Brother vibe. Lately, the French company's gotten attention for developing billboard software that uses cameras to gather demographic information about passersby. On the Media recently sat down with Quividi’s chief scientific officer, Paolo Prandoni, to learn how the signs work and gauge how creeped out we ought to be.

In the interview, Prandoni works hard to make the technology sound harmless. He assures listeners that the cameras never record images of people. He also observes that the software isn’t sophisticated enough to reveal much about a person—apparently, it can guess at gender and age based on an analysis of basic bodily features, but not much else.

Prandoni's pretty sure that the static billboard will become obsolete. He thinks tools like Quividi's will eventually allow marketers to tailor their content in reaction to the people moving through a space. Whether or not you buy his argument that Quividi technology is more or less benign, the technology is probably here to stay, and no doubt will continue to evolve. 

Image courtesy of cangaroojack, licensed under Creative Commons.

Sources: On the Media 

Utne Reader librarian Danielle Maestretti shares the highlights (and occasional lowlights) of what’s landing in our library each week in 'Shelf Life.'

Utne’s library is abuzz with a steady flow of 1,300 magazines, newsletters, journals, weeklies, zines, and other lively dispatches from the cultural front that are rarely found at big-box bookstores, or newsstands.

Featured in this week's episode:

- The "Jobless in America" feature in the February 23 issue of The Nation

- Dollars &Sense on "The New Political Economy of Immigration"

- The Texas Observer on Janet Napolitano and the border fence

- "Entertaining in the Recession" from Houston's My Table (not available online)

-Alpacas. That's right, Alpacas. From Radish

Sources: The Nation, Dollars & Sense, The Texas Observer, My Table, Radish

In the endless stream of bleak dispatches about the global economic crisis, you’ve got to pick which calamities to follow or you’ll drown in a sea of misery. I’ve been tracking the news out of Iceland with particular interest—not because it’s cheery but because I can’t seem to look away.

For one thing, I vacationed there a few years ago and, like many visitors, was enchanted by the place’s mix of humongous landscapes, fantastic mythology, and coolly efficient society. For another, the current drama is absolutely riveting, with all the epic plot turns and vivid characters of an Icelandic saga: The country has gone bankrupt, the government has collapsed, they’ve installed the world’s first openly gay prime minister, and young people have been gathering every Saturday in downtown Rejkyavik, lighting bonfires, throwing eggs at Parliament, and banging pots and pans in a grassroots outpouring that some are calling Búsáhaldarbyltingin, or the Saucepan Revolution. Meanwhile, an obstinate central banker refuses to resign and has come to be the most hated man in Iceland.

I’ve been relying on a couple of English-language blogs by Icelanders to give me the news out of this tempest. One of my favorites is The Iceland Weather Report, which is full of fiery, literary, and informed commentary on all things Iceland—and lately that’s been a lot—from a young woman named Alda Sigmundsdottir. She has captured the movement’s politely radical zeitgeist in posts like “Who Needs Concerts When You Have Protests?” and “On Holding the Tycoons Accountable.” And yes, she provides actual weather reports from downtown Reykjavik. (Catch her on a recent BBC report about Icelandic bloggers or a World Focus online radio show about Iceland’s economic collapse.)

I’ve also been checking in at The Reykjavik Grapevine to take the country’s pulse. A “life, travel, and entertainment” guide, it’s lately been full of great political blogging and on-the-scene reporting from the restive streets of the capital. See “Iceland’s Rainbow Revolution” by Valur Gunnarsson for a blow-by-blow chronicle of the march on parliament and “Things Falling Apart” for stunning photos from January 20 by Jóhann Trast Pálmason. (His photos accompany this post.) Gunnarsson even digs up the juicy nugget that the obstinate banker, David Oddsson, “started his career as an actor, playing the part of deranged despot Ubu Roy. It seems he will end his career the way he started it.”

One needn’t be an Icelander to apprehend and analyze the situation; in fact, a big-picture perspective can be valuable. U.S. writer Rebecca Solnit uses her Icelandic connections and background knowledge—she spent nearly three months there last summer—to sketch out the social, environmental, and global political ramifications of Iceland’s crisis in a brilliantly incisive essay at TomDispatch.com. The Icelanders she’s talked to since her visit, she writes, “are exultant to have reclaimed their country and a little terrified about the stark poverty facing them.”

Images by Jóhann Trast Pálmason, courtesy of the photographer.

With umpteen publications commemorating the 50th anniversary of Castro’s Cuban Revolution, several newspapers are simultaneously waiting for the dictator to pass on. Editor & Publisher senior editor Joe Strupp gives a breakdown of the extensive plan the Miami Herald has in place for when Castro finally shuffles off this mortal coil.

According to Manny Garcia, the senior news editor for the Herald, Castro is “the journalistic equivalent of a kidney stone -- a constant pain who never seems to go away, and you pray that he passes, soon.” Morbid and a tad insensitive, maybe, but the fact remains that Fidel has stubbornly stayed alive and in power despite failing health and near-constant rumors that he’s suffered a heart attack or slipped into a coma or died in his sleep.

The preparation for the actual event of his death is of epic proportions. “The Cuba plan,” as Garcia calls it, is a three-ring binder filled with information and contact numbers necessary to the story. “The Cuba plan went on a Mediterranean cruise with my family. It's been to Barcelona, Rome, Vancouver, Disney World -- even down North Carolina's Nanthahala River -- safely tucked in a waterproof bag while my son and I rafted.” The Herald already has several different versions of Castro’s obit tailored to time of day or night, plus a range of photos from young to old and an in memoriam webpage ready to go online at a moment’s notice. And when Fidel dies, no matter what the staff members are doing, no matter where they are, everyone is under strict orders to report for duty.

Image by factor_, licensed under Creative Commons.

Public television's international news show, Worldfocus, has entered into a first-of-its-kind partnership with GroundReport to air a new segment consisting entirely of videos produced by GroundReport’s extensive network of citizen journalists. According to the Editors Weblog, this is “the first time that a mainstream U.S. channel has committed to airing a citizen journalism segment on prime time television.”

The first segment asks global contributors to send in their advice for President Obama. Submissions are due February 15.

Utne Reader librarian Danielle Maestretti shares the highlights (and occasional lowlights) of what’s landing in our library each week in ‘From the Stacks.’ 

Utne’s library is abuzz with a steady flow of 1,300 magazines, newsletters, journals, weeklies, zines, and other lively dispatches from the cultural front that are rarely found at big-box bookstores, or newsstands.

Featured in this week's video:

- Brazil's "Lambe Lambe" tradition, profiled in Creative Review 

- A Virginia Quarterly Review report on depression and suicide rates in Cuba 

- The Punk Rock Fun Time Activity Book from ECW Press 

- Make a Zine by Microcosm Publishing 

- The Terrapin turtles of Chesapeake Quarterly 

There’s an arms race taking place between advertisers and viewers, where people block out ads with TiVo or DVR, and companies slip more ads into peoples lives through evermore ingenious tactics. The battle could be self-defeating, because, according to a new study from the NYU Stern School of Business, viewers enjoy TV more when they watch ads.

The more time people spend in front of the TV, the less enjoyable it becomes, according to the study. Ads break up the routine, James Hibberd writes on his blog, and “the interruption helps re-freshen the novelty of the program.”

Most viewers adamantly disagree with the study’s findings, and the study’s authors admit, “Consumers prefer to watch television programs without commercials.” A commenter on Hibberd’s blog put it another way: “No offense but this article is complete crap journalism and comes off sounding like faux-industry sponsored ‘research’. It's like saying soldiers enjoy combat because it gets them out of the house.”

(Thanks, Mediabistro.)

Image by  Stephen Bowler , licensed under  Creative Commons .

Before the media imploded, journalists were allowed to spend months researching in-depth stories and exposés. Today, that style of journalism is “seen as taking too long and costing too much,” former managing editor of the Chicago Tribune James Warren writes for the Atlantic. The parasitic internet is to blame, according to Warren, where “attitude and attack are often valued more than precision and truth” and content is given away for free.

The problem that Warren doesn’t focus on is that newspapers, which still “serve as daily tip sheets for other media outlets,” were caught unprepared for the rise of the internet. It’s not as though they didn’t have time to adjust, back when they were still flush with cash. Here’s a video from 1981, when downloading a paper took more than 2 hours, and cost $5.00 per hour.