"U.N. human rights council takes steps to protect journalists"

The U.N.’s new resolution to safeguard journalists, Facebook’s editorial responsibilities and more in this week's Digital Media Mash Up, produced by the Center for International Media Assistance.

Media freedom groups welcome resolution to protect journalists

The U.N. human rights council (HRC) has adopted a ground-breaking, comprehensive resolution aimed at protecting journalists and demanding the release of all journalists who have been arbitrarily detained.

It urges the reform of laws designed to obstruct editorial work, and calls on states not to interfere with the use of encryption and digital security tools that enable anonymity. (The Guardian, 9/30)

Facebook is being taken somewhere it never wanted to go

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has hit a rough patch in his quest to prove to the world that his company is a technology platform rather than an editorially driven, sentient publisher of the world’s self-expression, which carries a social responsibility beyond its next earnings call. (Emily Bell, Columbia Journalism Review, 9/26)

Covering a potential terrorist attack? Keep these things in mind

Terrorism relies on the spread of fear, so any publicity—from journalists or otherwise—threatens to play into its aims. The ability of terrorists to disseminate information and recruit has only gotten more powerful with the rise of social media. In the past month, the Tow Center for Digital Journalism has published three reports on how journalism should cover terrorism. (Columbia Journalism Review, 9/29)

Connecting Cuba: More space for criticism but restrictions slow press freedom progress

Cuba’s press, emboldened by President Raúl Castro’s call for reforms in 2010, are finding more space for critical comment, but harassment and intimidation from authorities, a legal limbo caused by outdated and restrictive press laws, and limited and expensive access to the internet is slowing the island nation’s progress toward press freedom. 

Mukti Majid, Peelkhana Post Office, Dhaka, Bangladesh [ Courtesy by International Journalists Network]