12 Sep 2011 | Uncategorized
A German TV show depicting a marriage between two men is being prevented from being screened by Italian state broadcaster Radiotelevisione Italiana (RAI). The ARD series “Um Himmels Willen” (literally “For Heaven’s Sake”) has been shown in Italy since 2004, yet episode 125, entitled “Romeo and Romeo” and due to screen on RAI Uno on Tuesday, will be left out of the 10-part season in order to “avoid controversy”, according to the broadcaster.
Gay marriage being if not universally accepted then at least legal in Germany, the TV show itself concerns the struggle of two men to see their marriage and sexuality accepted by the society around them. Ironically given the normally religious basis of anti-homosexual activity in Italy, this particular episode sees the couple seeking advice from regular “Um Himmels Willen” character, Sister Hanna, a nun.
Anna Paola Concia, Italian parliamentary lobbyist for the opposition Democratic Party and the only openly gay person in her profession, was quick to underline the hypocrisy of RAI’s decision. “RAI have pushed for censorship of reality itself here,” she said “especially when you consider that there have been several films showing homosexual relationships on TV here.” Concia told Tagesschau, the news-channel from the ARD network (Arbeitsgemeinschaft der öffentlich-rechtlichen Rundfunkanstalten der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, since you asked), that reactions to her marriage to her wife in the German town of Frankfurt am Main proved that RAI is working on the false assumption that the Italian public will be angered by seeing a gay relationship on TV. “We received thousands of letters from ‘normal’ Italian people; Catholic, non-Catholic, heterosexual, in order to congratulate us and wish us well,” she said. “There is an enormous gap between the beliefs of the government and the people in this country, and it’s getting wider.”
Italy, with its prime minister Silvio Berlusconi known for his promotion of traditional values, also recently banned an IKEA advert depicting two men shopping in the store with the strapline “we are open for all families.” State secretary for families, Carlo Giovanardi, stated in response: “While homosexual marriage is legal in maybe three or four countries worldwide, here it remains unconstitutional.”
Um Himmels Willen also screens in Hungary, which explicitly banned gay marriage in its new constitution of April 2011.
Ruth Michaelson is a freelance writer based in Berlin, Germany
12 Sep 2011 | Index Index, minipost
Al-Sahafa, a Sudanese independent newspaper, was confiscated by security forces on Wednesday, and the Thursday edition was also held from distribution, according to editor Annur Ahmed Annur. Earlier this week, copies of Al-Maydan, the newspaper of Sudan’s communist party, were also confiscated.
7 Sep 2011 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
Iranian magazine Shahrvand-e-Emrooz was closed this week for after publishing a satirical front-page image depicting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad being lectured by his Chief-of-Staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei. The image, published last month, highlighted Iranian conservatives concerns about Mashaei’s growing political influence, his opponents claim he is attempting to undermine clerical power in Iran. Shahrvand-e-Emrooz was faced restrictions before, it was temporarily closed following civil unrest during and after the 2009 elections.
7 Sep 2011 | Asia and Pacific, China
The news earlier this week that two popular Beijing newspapers will now come under the capital’s propaganda department has raised concerns that the two hard-hitting dailies will face tighter control.
The Beijing News and Beijing Times were previously under the control of state-level propaganda authorities.
Most commentators agree that the change means that the papers will not be able to report as freely on local news as before.
We talked to David Bandurski, editor of the Hong Kong-based China Media Project, and asked him what this means for the two papers and why it was happening now.
The thing to understand about this story is just how important the power of cross-regional reporting and top-down media monitoring has been for Chinese media in recent years.
Essentially, publications registered in one city or province are less able to do hard-hitting reporting of local issues because, according to China’s press bureaucracy, they are directly controlled by the Party leaders immediately above them. For example, top city leaders in Guangzhou have fairly direct control through their own propaganda department over any newspaper registered under the city level there. So these papers won’t generally do investigative reporting on corruption in the city government.
By contrast, a paper registered in another city or province can more safely conduct such monitoring because they have little to fear from these leaders. This is what cross-regional reporting, or yidi jiandu, is all about.
He added,
But another important tool is top-down monitoring, which means that a publication registered at a higher administrative level can more easily and safely report on stories about lower-level Party or government institutions.
This was the case with both the Beijing News and Beijing Times. The former was administered by the Guangming Daily Group, under the Central Propaganda Department, and published jointly with the Nanfang Daily Group of Guangdong.
City leaders in Beijing could not control the newspaper through their own propaganda department because the paper was senior.
The Beijing News, which has had a strong professional tradition of reporting — part of its legacy from its southern Chinese co-publishers — certainly exploited this administrative position to its advantage, doing harder coverage of local issues in Beijing.
You can imagine that in some sense, from the standpoint of Beijing leaders, the paper was like a sword of Damocles, constantly hovering over their heads.
The only way for them to deal with the paper was to do so through negotiation with the paper’s managing institutions.
The Beijing Times, as a commercial spin-off of the central Party’s official People’s Daily newspaper, was in much the same position.
So this action by the Beijing city leadership is a clear move to deal with Beijing-based publications that have been beyond their control.
One of the most interesting questions, though, is exactly what sort of behind-the-scenes power shifts made this change possible. I leave that as an open question.
There is little question that this change will have a clear impact on the conduct of watchdog journalism, or “supervision by public opinion”, by both papers on local Beijing issues.
Theoretically, it will still be possible for them to investigative stories in other cities and regions, but the impact on reporting in Beijing should be immediate. This is something we’ll have to watch closely.
