Covering the Honduran coup
The mixed media messages from Honduras, plus the difficulties of reporting on North Korea.
On The Listening Post this week, the coup in Honduras and the mixed messages received from the media, and the difficulties of reporting the closed world of North Korea.
We start our show with a look at Honduras. It has been more than a month since Manuel Zelaya, the president of Honduras, was overthrown in a violent coup and replaced by Roberto Micheletti.
But watch the television news in the country and you will not hear of a “coup” but of a “legal substitution” of the president.
Across Latin America, the political left and right are battling for greater influence and power. The media is central to this fight and has a huge influence on how the story of the Honduran coup is being told.
Salah Khadr reports on an ‘illegal’ overthrow of an elected president, the lockdown on the Honduran media – and international reporting that has not been able to get the story right.
In part two The Listening Post’s Meenakshi Ravi explores the closed world of North Korea.
The country’s media are under complete state control, and its government has been dubbed the world’s worst violator of press freedom by the media rights body Reporters Without Borders.
But in spite of rare international media access, North Korea continues to hit the headlines across the world with speculation about the health of its leader Kim Jong Il and international condemnation of its nuclear missile tests.
But what do the foreign media really know about this most secretive of countries, and how do they get their information?
In this week’s Newsbytes: Pakistan’s new “cyber crimes” act; controversy over a new Thai website, and the country’s so-called “lost territory”; the Afghan president’s no-show at a televised presidential debate; and a misguided Israeli cell phone advert – and the more realistic Palestinian response.
And finally, we do not often feature commercials as our video of the week, but this week, we think it is worth making an exception.
This French ad for bottled water uses clever CGI and a tune called Rappers’ Delight by Dan The Automator, to turn babies into accomplished hip-hop roller artists.
It has had more than 8 million hits on the web and we were assured no babies were harmed in the making of our Internet video of the week.
This episode of The Listening Post airs from Friday, July 31, 2009, at the following times GMT: Friday: 1230; Saturday: 1030, 2230; Sunday: 0300, 1930; Monday: 0030; Tuesday: 0630, 1630; Wednesday: 0130, 1430; Thursday: 0330, 2330.