VPRO Television, based in the Netherlands, is currently recruiting innovative videojournalists and filmmakers from all over the world for a new global network of correspondents. The network aims to provide strong local news and background stories, video diaries, clips and creative short films based on weekly themes, with a personal touch. They are looking for skilled young journalist and filmmakers, who can contribute 1 - 4 short stories monthly. The videojournalists need to have filming/editing skills and access to equipment in their countries, and will be paid accordingly. The stories will be featured 24/7 on a website in Dutch and English, and a selection will be shown in a weekly broadcast on national Dutch TV.
Please contact the editors of this program at metropolis@vpro.nl if you are interested.
On December 16, Krygyzstan held parliamentary elections. Two days later, Mirsulzhan Namazaliev, a blogger for neweurasia, was arrested and eventually jailed for protesting the election results.
Along with other youth, Namazaliev mounted the “I don’t believe” campaign, arguing against the government’s acceptance of election results that were deemed flawed by the OSCE and various pro-democracy groups in Kyrgyzstan. He stood outside the Central Election Commission building holding a sign in protest, and police soon detained him and several other youth. They spent three days in jail.
In his new TOL article, Namazaliev says his experience in jail gave him new strength to work for freedom and democracy. He and other Kyrgyz youth have plans to push forward — and never to surrender.
Click here to read the full article.
No longer a nerdy neologism, the word “weblog” celebrates its first decade, the BBC reports:
Weblogs rack up a decade of posts
The word “weblog” celebrates the 10th anniversary of it being coined on 17 December 1997.
The word was created by Jorn Barger to describe what he was doing with his pioneering Robot Wisdom web page.
The word was an abbreviation for the “logging” of interesting “web” sites that Mr Barger featured on his regularly updated journal.
A decade on and blog-watching firm Technorati reports it is tracking more than 70 million web logs.
Fast growth
While many people maintained regular journals or diaries before the word was coined, 1997 marked the point when they started to become a particular online pursuit.
For some time after Mr Barger coined the term, the numbers of people who could be said to be actually writing one was small.
Official numbers are hard to find but some estimate that the size of the blogosphere in late 1998 encompassed only 23 sites.
In 1999 the phenomenon took off as easy to use tools started to appear which made it much easier to write and maintain these sorts of websites. Also in 1999 the word “blog” was coined as a shortened form of the original term.
Blogs arose to partly solve the problem of finding interesting sites on the rapidly expanding world wide web.
Many blogs, then as now, specialised in one subject and kept those interested up to date with new sites or up-to-date information about developments or breakthroughs in that field.
Many bloggers attach comments to the web links they post and many become well-known for their particular view of events or way with words.
Technorati, which keeps an eye on the blogosphere, estimates that there are now 120,000 new blogs being created every day. Posts are being added to blogs at a rate of 17 per second - a total of 1.5 million per day, says the firm.
Not all blogs are now about what people find online. Many people, artists, industry figures and professionals, use them to keep people up to date with their movements or thoughts.
The rising popularity of social network sites such as MySpace, Facebook and Bebo has arguably grown out of the blogging phenomenon.
Source: BBC
The Polish-Czech-Slovak Solidarity Foundation has launched a new edition of its journalism internship program entitled “Independent Media 8.”
Since 1996, the Polish-Czech-Slovak Solidarity Foundation has been conducting the “Independent Media” program, including internships and study trips for journalists and editors working in the print and electronic media. So far, some 280 people representing every post-Soviet country have taken part in the Foundation’s 2- and 3-week programs in Poland.
The sixth edition of the “Independent Media” program is planned for next year. Nearly 30 journalists from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine will be invited to Poland. During study visits, they will have an opportunity to visit the editorial offices of newspapers and magazines, radio and TV stations, internet portals and information agencies. They will acquaint themselves with the work and experiences of their Polish colleagues. The study visits will be tailored to the professions and specializations of the guests. Also planned are seminars and lectures on such subjects as: the transformation of the Polish media after 1989, laws regulating public and private media, investigative journalism, media ethics, journalists’ organizations, advertising and the media, the problem of competition in the media, political lobbying and independence of the media.
The program is financed by the National Endowment for Democracy (USA).
Participants will be selected by means of an open competition, with the winners chosen by the social Council of the Programme.
First deadline for the applications is December 15. Please e-mail ironsidek@tol.org if you would like to receive the application package.
Dear loyal TOL bloggers,
TOL Blogs has been experiencing some pesky problems with spam blogs and mysteriously registered users as of late, necessitating a massive internal clean-up. This should not affect regular bloggers, but if you find that your log-on is suddenly not working for some reason, please contact ironsidek AT tol.org as soon as possible and I will re-register you. Thanks!
Kristy
