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Why no Berlusconi news channel?
One thing I didn’t get round to blogging from the excellent Reuters Institute event at the European Studies Centre was the line from Mediaset CFO Marco Giordani. Mediaset is the Italian media giant owned by Silvio Berlusconi who you would think would want his own news channel. But Giordani said that despite the large numbers…
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Fragment
Arranging to meet a hardcore reporter chum, I suggested a mutually convenient bar in central London. “Hope you’re feeling lucky,” he laughed. “Why?” I asked. “Last bloke I met there was blown to bits six weeks later by a suicide bomber.” His last guest, of course, went home to Iraq.
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Madeleine McCann: defending ritual
James Carey, ancient journalism professor, believed in news as ritual (something he may have got from Hegel). A ritual view of communication is directed not toward the extension of messages in space but toward the maintenance of society in time; not the act of imparting information but the representation of shared beliefs. So is ritual…
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Cramer for Al Jazeera English?
A tiny rumour a couple of weeks back on Jossip (I’m not a regular) had former CNN International boss Chris Cramer heading to Al Jazeera English by September. If there were even a shred of truth to it, would it be to replace Nigel Parsons or Steve Clarke? Both men might feel they’d served their…