CATEGORY: Magazine Editions

Is this all the local news?

Is this all the local news?

The spring 2019 Index on Censorship magazine looks at what happens when local newspapers disappear and decline. Who is there to hold politicians and lawmakers to account locally? In this issue successful journalists and writers Richard Littlejohn, Libby Purves, Andrew Morton and Julie Posetti describe how they began their careers in local news in the UK and Australia. The decline of local newspapers is a global phenomenon. Karoline Kan reports from China about how they are being squeezed out by Communist Party scrutiny; and Rituparna Chatterjee reports on the difficulties of satisfying the Indian appetite for local news. Jan Fox examines the USA’s news deserts. Mark Frary digs into the latest artificial intelligence being used by local newspaper editors. In the rest of the magazine Alessio Perrone looks at how Italy is stopping journalists reporting on refugees crossing the Mediterranean. We publish an original short story by historian and China expert Jeffrey Wasserstrom, plus an extract from the Slovak writer Michal Hvorecký’s latest novel Troll. Editorial

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Birth, marriage and death

Birth, marriage and death

The winter 2018 Index on Censorship magazine looks at why different societies stop people discussing the most significant events in life. In China, as Karoline Kan reports, women were forced for many years to have just one child and now they are being pushed to have two, but it is not something to talk about. In South Korea Steven Borowiec finds men have taken to social media to condemn a new film adaptation of a novel about motherhood. Irene Caselli describes the consequences in Latin America of preventing discussion about contraception and sexually transmitted infections. Joan McFadden digs into attitudes to gay marriage in the Hebrides, where she grew up, and interviews the Presbyterian minister who demonstrated against Lewis Pride. We have an original play from Syrian dramatist Liwaa Yazji about fear and violent death. While flash fiction writer Neema Komba imagines a Tanzanian bride challenging the marriage committee over her wedding cake. Finally Nobel-prize-winning author Svetlana Alexievich tells us that she is sanguine about the mortal dangers of chronicling and criticising post-Soviet Russia.

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The age of unreason

The age of unreason

The autumn 2018 Index on Censorship magazine asks whether we are turning away from facts, reason and science in favour of emotions. TV presenter Evan Davis speaks about why we are willing to believe lies, while philosopher Julian Baggini outlines the difficulties of sharing a viewpoint that is not popular. Meanwhile, Timandra Harkness illustrates how you can have an argument. We also have articles from Kaya Genç in Turkey exploring the current attack on science in the education system, from Stephen Woodman in Mexico on the rise of documentaries as an antidote to a biased media and from Dan Nolan in Hungary on increasing government interference in the arts and now sciences. Outside the special report, don’t miss Amanda Leigh Lichtenstein writing about the Tanzanian government’s attempt to muzzle bloggers through introducing fees that are more than most people’s salaries, and Nobel Prize-winning novelist and poet Herta Müller on being threatened by the secret police in Romania.

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The abuse of history

The abuse of history

he spring 2018 issue of Index on Censorship magazine explores how across the globe, governments and various groups are using their powers to change their narratives – and manipulate history. Lucy Worsley talks about the Tudor Court and Margaret MacMillan discusses how Germany rewrote its past in the interwar period. Louisa Lim says she wouldn’t be able to write her critically acclaimed book on the Tiananmen Square Massacre today. And Irene Caselli meets the duo behind a museum in Cuba seeking to readdress the country’s dissident past. Elsewhere in the magazine bestselling Palestinian author Abbad Yahya talks to Index about the threats against his life, Laura Silvia Battaglia examines how refugees in Italy are self-censoring themselves in order to fit into their new society and ahead of the release of her new book, award-winning author Christie Watson writes an exclusive short story for Index.

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What price protest?

What price protest?

The winter 2017 Index on Censorship magazine explores 1968 – the year the world took to the streets – to discover whether our rights to protest are endangered today. Micah White proposes a novel way for protest to remain relevant. Author and journalist Robert McCrum revisits the Prague Spring to ask whether it is still remembered. Award-winning author Ariel Dorfman’s new short story — Shakespeare, Cervantes and spies — has it all. Anuradha Roy writes that tired of being harassed and treated as second class citizens, Indian women are taking to the streets. Editorial: Poor excuses for not protecting protest

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Free to air

Free to air

The autumn 2017 issue of Index on Censorship magazine explores the enduring power of radio, the most accessible form of media that continues to contribute to freedoms throughout the world.
Wana Udobang and Xinran discuss their experiences as radio hosts in Nigeria and China respectively, where the medium allowed people to open up in ways they wouldn’t otherwise. Ismail Einashe interviews the radio journalists in Somalia who report independently, while Mark Frary shows how the ascent of the podcast has been instrumental in countries including North Korea.

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100 years on

100 years on

The summer 2017 issue of Index on Censorship magazine explores how the consequences of the 1917 Russian Revolution still affect freedoms today, in Russia and around the world. Andrei Arkhangelsky argues that the Soviet impulse to censor never left Russia, North Korea art expert BG Muhn shows how the nation’s art was initially, at least, affected by the USSR, and Nina Khrushcheva, a great-granddaughter of Nikita Khrushchev, reflects on the Soviet echoes in Trump’s use of the phrase “enemies of the people”.

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The big squeeze

The big squeeze

The spring 2017 issue of Index on Censorship magazine looks at how pressures on free speech are currently coming from many different angles, not just one. Don’t miss our special feature on how to spot fake news, articles from former BBC World Service director Richard Sambrook and former UK attorney general Dominic Grieve, an exclusive interview with the Spanish puppeteer arrested last year, and fiction from award-winning writer Karim Miské.

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Fashion rules

Fashion rules

nterviews with Lily Cole, Paulo Scott and Daphne Selfe, articles by novelists Linda Grant and Maggie Alderson plus Eliza Vitri Handayani on why punks are persecuted in Indonesia. Special report on clothes and freedom, how Shakespeare challenges the censors, and assessing Correa’s free speech heritage.

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Front covers of editions and information