Silencing the critics: Iraq’s media muzzle

On The Listening Post this week: Silencing the critics: Baghdad’s broken press promises; plus, reinventing the 24-hour wheel: TV news’ fight for survival.

Iraq’s media muzzle

When Haider al-Abadi took over as prime minister of Iraq in 2014, he lifted bans on media outlets that had been shuttered under the former administration.

Less than two years later, press freedom appears to be in decline once again – and critics say silencing the media is the government’s way of dodging tough questions about political turmoil and the threat of ISIL.

Talking us through the story are: Rafid Jaboori, former spokesperson for the Iraqi PM; Ibrahim al-Marashi, assistant professor at California State University; Amal al-Jubouri, founder of Arab Human Rights Academy; and Ali al-Khalidi, presenter at Al Iraqiya TV.

On our radar

• Just weeks after the Russian media group RBC published stories on the finances of the Putin family, three of its editors announce their resignations.
• In the northeast of India, two local journalists are murdered – gunned down in public – in the space of 24 hours.
• The diplomatic spat between Turkey and Germany over a poem that mocked President Recep Tayyip Erdogan took a new turn this week when a court in Hamburg found the poem to be “abusive and defaming”.

Reinventing the 24-hour wheel: TV news’ fight for survival

Experiment or die – that’s the choice faced by traditional TV news in the age where we can get news on any mobile device, anytime, anywhere.

This week, we take a look at how broadcasters are repackaging their output to avoid becoming technologically outpaced, journalistically outmoded and economically outdated.

Talking us through the story are: Sahil Patel, video reporter at Digiday; Richard Sambrook, director at Cardiff School of Journalism; Ritu Kapur, cofounder of Quintillion Media; and Anders Hosfeth, strategic analyst at the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, NRK.

Our end note this week comes from US-based Youtube channel The Kicker and is called “Every Sports Debate Show Ever”.