'2023 is the worst year of internet shutdowns ever recorded — highlighting an alarming and dangerous trend for human rights' say digital rights advocates Access Now in their #KeepItOn report who documented 283 shutdowns in 39 countries
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A thread by our Research Fellow Felix M. Simon on a week full of AI announcements

“To be of use when things are so chaotic was really great”

Three student journalists from Portland State Vanguard Columbia Journalism's City Newsroom and CCNY's The Campus share with Matthew Leake how they covered the Gaza campus protests, stayed safe and lessons they learnt
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A Guatemalan court has ordered journalist José Rubén Zamora to be released from prison. His conviction for money laundering was overturned and he awaits a new trial. Zamora said he is the 'victim of attacks, abductions, aggressions for the work that I do'
apnews.com/article/guatem…

'Today is a dark day, significantly undermining press freedom and whistleblower protections in this country' say Peter Greste Kieran Pender after Australian military whistleblower David McBride was jailed for nearly 5 years for leaking files to the media
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“Instead of engaging in robust exchange, we are increasingly discouraged from speaking up at all.” Some reporters at the NY Times say there is an 'unwillingness to tolerate dissent' among senior leadership.
-via Max Tani
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This observation from Adriaan Basson hits the core of journalism's challenges this year. #SouthAfricavotes #journalism #Elections2024

'I'm so proud of our journalists...our public appreciates what we do. Many of them are willing to put their money to support investigative journalism. It remains a privilege to do to do this job,' says Adriaan Basson

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'Preparing for this is always is always tough. The best you can do is make sure you have a range of sources. We also have election observers from across the world who are quite handy in alerting us in the media when there are tensions,' Adriaan Basson
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'[News24] is not unlike many other media companies in the world with with checkered pasts...the question for me is always, can I do my work without fear of failure today with the resources available? And the answer to that is yes,' says Adriaan Basson
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'That has been a phenomenon since 2016: that ANC voters don't necessarily go out and vote for another party, but they would withdraw their vote,' says Adriaan Basson
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'We've had a problem with with hate speech specifically on X for the past few years. Journalists are still being targeted on Twitter or X on a daily basis,' says Adriaan Basson

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'Around 50% of our content is still free to view to any reader. This includes breaking news content, so that will typically include election results. News about election violence or election risk will be free,' says Adriaan Basson on news paywalls.
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'In terms of what you report or not, I always err on the side of transparency and complete openness. Unless there's a very good reason to hold back information, I can't see us doing that easily,' says Adriaan Basson on the threat of violence when reporting
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'In the past few weeks we've rolled out the largest data reportage we've ever done on election results and at the same time we had to buy bullet bulletproof vests for our reporters,' says Adriaan Basson
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'Fears and anxiety exist around the possibility when you have a coalition government that they may not be in it for the long haul,' says Adriaan Basson

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'It's not unexpected that that the ANC have finally reached the point where they may dip below the 50%. mark...there's a lot of debate at the moment going on in South Africa on on where the party lost the plot,' says Adriaan Basson
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🇿🇦 We are kicking off our Global Journalism Seminar with News24 🇿🇦's editor-in-chief Adriaan Basson on South Africa's upcoming election.
💬Follow our automated transcript here:
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LIVE: Who will rule? The significance of South Africa’s upcoming election. Global Journalism Seminar with Adriaan Basson, Editor-in-chief, News24 🇿🇦 #RISJSeminars x.com/i/broadcasts/1…

AI news that's fit to print: The New York Times’ new AI leader on what this powerful tech can do for journalism reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/ai-news-t…