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Despite President Saakashvili's record of reforms, Georgia consistently ranks low on press freedom indices. Similar news reports on the country's three main TV stations are the latest hint of a tightly controlled media.

Earlier this month, newscasters on Georgia's three main TV channels, Rustavi 2, Imedi TV and the public broadcaster Channel 1, read out very similar reports on a controversial death in police custody. The incident has renewed suspicion that the government of President Mikheil Saakashvili maintains firm control of its media, despite its publicly declared commitments to democratic reform.

The news story was about how opposition politicians, linked to Saakashvili's main political rival, billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, had supposedly politicized the death of 46 year-old Solomon Kimeridze. Authorities maintain Kimeridze, a burglary suspect, tripped and fell three floors to his death while in police custody. The story focused on the opposition politicians' reactions, which journalists portrayed as inappropriate, and only briefly mentioned the fact that the politicians were questioning the suspicious circumstances of a man's death in police custody.

Each of the three TV stations used nearly identical video footage and news scripts.

Journalist Nino Zuriashvili wasn't surprised by the similar broadcasts

According to the watchdog group Transparency International, such "coordinated news coverage is a strong indication for a lack of editorial independence of the country's major broadcasters." For independent journalists and ordinary citizens in Georgia, that's not surprising.

"This is not the first time. It happens a lot that the sequence of news stories and the topics of these stories are the same on different channels," said Nino Zuriashvili, an investigative journalist who worked for Rustavi 2 until it dropped its popular investigative program when Saakashvili was elected president in 2004.

Little trust in information

The private owners of Rustavi 2 and Imedi TV have close ties to the Saakashvili administration, while Channel 1 is state-owned. These three are the only nation-wide channels that provide news programs. They never broadcast news negative to the government. Instead the president's ribbon-cutting ceremonies and speeches are covered extensively.

There have been protests calling for more balanced coverage by Georgia media

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Little media freedom in Saakashvili's Georgia

Published on March 26, 2012

By Allyn V. Baldemor

Online social networks mobilized hours after Noemi Lagman, 21, was reported to have been missing January 6, 2010. The student of Asia Pacific College Magallanes left her house in Multinational Village in Paranaque between 9 and 10am. Last seen near Duty Free in Paranaque, Lagman had with her Php33 thousand for enrollment but classmates said they did not see her at school, and her mobile phone could not be reached. A community page on her behalf was created the following day on Facebook, detailing the girls description and contact numbers.

On January 10, an announcement that Lagman has been found and is back safe with her family went viral. We were advised by the authorities that information on how and where she was found be kept confidential for her and her familys security and privacy. We ask for your understanding on this matter, read the post by cousin Allan Capulong.

The account on Lagmans disappearance was shared by at least 8,000 people on Facebook alone. It was through social media where we got the first lead, according to the familys message. Social networks breathed a collective sigh of relief but a few who commented on the developments demanded details, saying the family owes it to those who reposted the initial announcement.

That it took only a few hours for the news to break on a massive level and four days for the matter to be resolved begs the question: Are social networking sites bound to render legitimate news sources obsolete? If it takes mere minutes for anyone with a computer or mobile phone to publish online an incident, are formally trained journalists headed for extinction?

IMHO, no.On both counts.

I searched the Internet for news on this subject and found only a handful of news sites carrying it. The copy often mirrored the post on Facebook. I can only assume that a more detailed account will be published in news sites in the coming days. When and if pertinent details could be had. and Or if not, it is in deference to the familys request for privacy.

The topic calls to mind some basic journalism tenets: There has to be anews-worthylead, yes, but it has to have a follow-through as well. To report the news, the journalist has to tap into various verifiable sources (plural), who have to be protected at all cost. Perhaps more crucial, the reporter must keep a certain distance from the issue.

Case in point: the girls family need not be further anguished by people compelling them to divulge details, which they regard could be potentially harmful. It is unfair for the people who responded to the call for action to believe that the family owes them. If the news was reported by a journalist, s/he would (or should not) be expected to do so. The journalist is required is to follow-up a news-worthy lead and tell the story factually using verifiable information from credible sources. If the reporter finds that no more details could be had, s/he tells it like it is and writes -30-. The development and subsequent substance of a report depends on who writes it: An enterprising journalist or someone just cruising through her/his beat.

Originally posted here:
On Mobile Journalism and Social Networking

Genetic test could reveal those most at risk from next influenza pandemic

By Daily Mail Reporter

PUBLISHED: 02:49 EST, 26 March 2012 | UPDATED: 02:50 EST, 26 March 2012

A genetic discovery could help explain why flu makes some people seriously ill or kills them, while others seem able to bat it away with little more than a few aches, coughs and sneezes.

British and American researchers said they had found for the first time a human gene that influences how people respond to flu infections, making some people more susceptible than others.

A genetic clue may explain why some people experience mild flu symptoms while others are hospitalised

The finding helps explain why during the 2009/2010 pandemic of H1N1 or 'swine flu', the vast majority of people infected had only mild symptoms, while others - many of them healthy young adults - got seriously ill and died.

In future, the genetic discovery could help doctors screen patients to identify those more likely to be brought down by flu, allowing them to be selected for priority vaccination or preventative treatment during outbreaks, the researchers said.

It could also help develop new vaccines or medicines against potentially more dangerous viruses such as bird flu.

Read the rest here:
Genetic flaw discovered that turns flu into a killer

In Part 1 of this series, I talked about the building blocks of delivering video across all major desktop and mobile platforms using HTML5 and Flash Player. I provided some simple examples of HTML5 markup, including a way to start with HTML5 and fall back to Flash, as well as an example that begins with Flash Player and falls back to HTML5.

A large part of the article, however, talked about the foundation of this process: the video containers, and audio and video codecs used therein. Unfortunately, the changing landscape of HTML5s journey to ratification, and the degree of the playback puzzle left up to each browser, made this depth helpful, if not necessary.

In this installment, Ill take a break from the heavy lifting and talk about existing players and services that can do the work for you. Then, in the coming weeks, Ill wrap up the final installment of the series with a return to the DIY mindset and provide an overview of a few encoding options, as well as a basic discussion about writing your own JavaScript player when custom solutions are required.

So, without further ado, here are my top five cross-platform video players.

Video for Everybody is one of the earliest solutions to support HTML5 and Flash video, and is also the simplest. It consists of a very basic set of markup that uses HTML5s ability to move to the next supported object if the prior object fails. That is, it uses the

Video for Everybody uses no JavaScript so its ideal for those wanting to include as few dependencies as possible in their markup. One drawback of this approach is that it wont work on Android operating systems prior to version 2.3 (Gingerbread). This technique was the basis for the markup described in Part 1 of this series so, in addition to soaking in the material found at the links herein, you can revisit that article for more information.

There are three niceties worthy of mention here. First is the Video For Everybody Generator, which assists you in putting the code together. Second is the fact that this player supports HTML5 audio playback the same way it handles video. Finally, the player site includes a fairly comprehensive description of problems you may face with HTML5 video use, as well as recommended solutions. I hope most of this material was covered in the prior installment of this series, but it wont hurt to look at the VfE Important Notes.

VideoJS is a free, open source HTML5 Video Player that falls back to Flash or the alternate video playback technology of your choice (such as Silverlight or QuickTime). It starts with embed code based on Video for Everybody, which includes basic playback functionality such as autoplay and preload. However, it also uses JavaScript to fix cross-browser inconsistencies, add support for the HTML5 tags in older versions of IE, and add features such as fullscreen display and subtitles. For the dependency-conscious, its use of JavaScript is library-independent, meaning it doesnt require packages such as jQuery or MooTools to operate.

Best of all, it provides a consistent application programming interface (API), and consistent user interface (UI), for JavaScript and Flash playback. The comprehensive API is easy to use and the UI is managed with easily edited HTML and CSS that affects not only JavaScript but also the lightweight Flash-based player provided.

As an open source player, anyone can alter the code and contribute updates to forks on GitHub. The main files are also hosted meaning that no downloads are required, the code is always updated when new features, devices, and platforms are supported, and the files may even already be cached on your visitors systems. And, unlike some hosted solutions, if you prefer to download a copy of the player, say for use without an internet connection (or to eliminate reliance on any server other than your own), you can do that, too.

Read more here:
The top five cross-platform video players

The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC), which oversees freedom of information and privacy for the federal government, is seeking to migrate to a new website based on the open source Joomla CMS.

Up to $145,000 is on the table for managing the migration from the current Oaic.gov.au flat-file setup created with Adobe Dreamweaver to a database driven site running on Joomla.

Tender documents state that the organisation is seeking migration to Joomla 2.5, though is open to moving to 1.7.5.

Privacy.gov.au, the website of the defunct Office of the Privacy Commissioner, which was integrated into the OAIC in late 2010, is currently published using Joomla 1.5.20.

The office envisages a setup closer to Privacy.gov.au than the current main OAIC site, but "must also incorporate the new functions/services that the OAIC was created to deliver", tender documents state.

The OAIC intends to sign a contract for the migration by the end of June, with tenders closing in mid-April.

Follow Rohan Pearce on Twitter: @rohan_p

Follow Techworld Australia on Twitter: @techworld_au

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Privacy agency taps open source CMS for new website