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Press Releases
02/16/2006
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS STATEMENT OF NEWS VALUES
AND PRINCIPLES
For more than a century and a half, men and women of The Associated Press have had the privilege of bringing truth to the world. They have gone to great lengths, overcome great obstacles - and, too often, made great and horrific sacrifices - to ensure that the news was reported quickly, accurately and honestly. Our efforts have been rewarded with trust: More people in more places get their news from the AP than from any other source.
In the 21st century, that news is transmitted in more ways than ever before - in print, on the air and on the Web, with words, images, grAPhics, sounds and video. But always and in all media, we insist on the highest standards of integrity and ethical behavior when we gather and deliver the news.
Many turn to internet for Sri Lanka war news
By KRISHAN FRANCIS - 11 hours ago
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) - With mainstream journalists barred from Sri Lanka's war zone, Tamil expatriates desperate for news of loved ones have turned to small Web sites for reports and video from across the front lines.
Much of their reporting comes from locals - some of them former journalists and aid workers - who are working anonymously in the war zone and e-mailing their reports to editors in Europe.
Para Prabha said his London-based Euro Television Web site receives clips from about six reporters and cameramen working inside the war zone under dangerous circumstances. The site is devoted to issues related to Sri Lanka's Tamils and the government's offensive against the Tamil Tiger rebels.
"One of our reporters was killed in February, caught in artillery fire, and a lot of other colleagues have left us because it's too dangerous," Prabha said.
Another Web site, War Without Witness, uses aid workers on the ground to film footage, according to one official from the site who would identify himself only as Sam. He would not name the groups helping him, fearing reprisals from the government.
Nguyen Ngoc Loan, South Vietnam's national police chief, executed a prisoner who was said to be a Viet Cong captain. ap photographer Eddie Adams won a Pulitzer Prize for a picture that, as much as any, turned public opinion against the war.
Introduction to a series of reports hosted by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard on citizen journalism, from Winter 2005. Includes articles from BBC world service director Richard Sambrook and Santiago Lyon and Lou Ferrara from AP
Images shape our perceptions. The manufacture of consent has rarely been more engineered. With everything from wars to presidential campaigns being stage managed and with mainstream news increasingly fed by official sources, reliance on usual sources of news images has become increasingly dangerous.
Majority world countries suffer particularly from stereotypical representations, and while the media worldwide is increasingly being dominated by a few players, it becomes particularly important for news sources to be diverse and varied. With Getty and Corbis controlling the stock market, and Reuters, ap, AFP and EPA dominating the wires, communities in the west are looking for new ways to challenge established media, especially through citizen journalism. The majority world has traditionally been represented by white, middle class, western photographers. But having local photographers is not in itself sufficient. While editorial control remains in the North, stories will continue to have a northern slant, and the only way in which this can be challenged is through alternative sources being formed that are independent of western and corporate media.
DrikNEWS is designed to fill this void. This agency, an independent body of Drik Picture Library, aims to cover news photography and investigative reporting by disseminating both locally and internationally through the web.
Defending the Barricade
On Feb. 1, 2006, Associated Press photographer Oded Balilty was in the West Bank settlement of Amona when a violent confrontation broke out between Jewish settlers and Israeli security forces. The troops were attempting to enforce a government order to tear down nine houses built on private Palestinian land after Israel's Supreme Court rejected a final appeal by the settlers.
Balilty, camera ready, stood about 3 meters from the end of the barricade. Crowds lined up on a wall overlooking the holed-up settlers, while Israeli troops in riot gear advanced. "Nili, a young settler ... was standing 15 meters away, biting her fingernails, when she saw them coming and ran toward the barricade," Balilty said.
Said Nili: "I felt a stranger pushing me to defend the barricade. It was God who gave me the courage."
Moments after Balilty took the photograph that won him the Pulitzer Prize, Nili was beaten by club-wielding police.