SUBMITTED BY SUSAN MOELLER ON TUE, 04/06/2010 - 14:53

Reposted from the World Bank's People Spaces deliberation Blog

Documentary maker Erik Gandini tells Giulio D'Eramo why appearance matters more than truth in Italy

Erik Gandini is the acclaimed documentary maker of Surplus: Terrorised into Being Consumers and Sacrificio: Who Betrayed Che Guevara. He was born in northern Italy and now lives in Sweden. His new documentary Videocracy is a critical portrait of the Italian broadcast media and its impact on the country's culture. The film's release last year coincided with embarrassing revelations aboutSilvio Berlusconi's romantic escapades and went on to win the Toronto film festival award for best documentary and the special jury award at the Sheffield film festival. It has also been a surprise hit at the Italian box office.

Videocracy is an overview of the past 30 years of Italian television, starting 

Taking the piss may be the most powerful tool at the disposal of journalists and bloggers facing scrutiny. So say our friends at the Tactical Technology Collective, who have seen tools from karaoke to comedy aid in organizing.

Hugh Pope on Dining with Al-Qaeda
Uploaded by thomascrampton. - Up-to-the minute news videos.

While in Istanbul, social media guru Thomas Crampton had an impromptu video discussion with Hugh Pope about his new book Dining with al-Qaeda. A touch raw and unedited, it is nonetheless compelling for the home truths Hugh tells about the editing process of the US mainstream media.

In addition to covering the region as a foreign correspondent, for among others The Independent and the Wall St Journal, Pope has written some excellent books about Turkey and the Turkic peoples. Sons of the Conquerors is a must-read.

Pope describes the book as a reflection on his meeting with the Middle Eastern society; how he learned that it is not all about caravans, poetry and desert oases. Instead, it is a region of concrete buildings, violence and shattered societies.

By Fareed Zakaria 

Toward the end of his 118-day ordeal inside Tehran's Evin prison, Newsweek reporter Maziar Bahari had a bizarre exchange with his interrogator. Bahari had been held in solitary confinement since his arrest after Iran's disputed presidential election in June; he had been subjected to near-daily beatings and interrogation sessions that stretched for hours. But his jailers had not been able to prove their accusation that Bahari was a spy for Western intelligence agencies. So they had an ominous-sounding new charge to levy against him: "media espionage."

Provocatively headlined "Come, let's discuss the burqa once again"......an article by the Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin cost two lives on Monday when it was used without her permission

Reposted from Sans Serif

The front page of Saptahika Prabha, the weekly magazine section of the Kannada daily Kannada Prabha of the New Indian Express group, carried a controversial piece on the burqa by Taslima Nasrin, which led to protests and riots in Karnataka chief minister B.S. Yediyurappa's hometown, Shimoga, killing two people on Monday.

The story titled Purdah hai purdah begins on page one of the section with the clarion call "Come, let's discuss the burqa once again" and spills over to page 5, occupying nearly half the broadsheet page. The article states upfront that it has been translated from the original English by "Sindhu" but does not mention the source.