The microblogging service credited with helping free speech flourish goofed this past weekend. After suspending the Twitter account of journalist Guy Adams for a tweet that supposedly violated Twitter’s privacy rules, the service was besieged with media requests and outraged users over the dubious nature of the suspension.

Adams, a Los Angeles correspondent for UK-based publication The Independent, lost his account over a July 27 tweet that included the NBCUniversal corporate email of Gary Zenkel, president of NBC Olympics. On July 29, NBC Sports filed a support ticket with Twitter to suspend the account, which it did.

The Comcast Corporation subsidiary and Twitter entered a non-financial partnership for the duration of the London 2012 Olympics, which led to skepticism about the service’s quick response to its business partner.

There were also questions about the accuracy of Twitter’s privacy rules to ban the posting of “private and confidential information” with regards to Zenkel’s corporate email address, which follows the same format as all NBCUniversal employees: FirstName.LastName@nbcuni.com.

The situation became murkier on July 31, when UK-based publication the Telegraph broke news that the Twitter Olympics team assisted NBC in making the report, according to correspondence with Christopher McCloskey, vice-president of communications for NBC Sports.

Despite silence from the social networking website all weekend, Twitter unsuspended the Independent correspondent’s account on July 31 and issued an apology on its blog:

“The team working closely with NBC around our Olympics partnership did proactively identify a Tweet that was in violation of the Twitter Rules and encouraged them to file a support ticket with our Trust and Safety team to report the violation, as has now been reported publicly. Our Trust and Safety team did not know that part of the story and acted on the report as they would any other.”

Posted by Twitter’s general counsel, Alex Macgillivray, the statement went out of its way to explain the service’s objectivity as a whole, separate from the actions of individual employees, “As I stated earlier, we do not proactively report or remove content on behalf of other users no matter who they are. This behavior is not acceptable and undermines the trust our users have in us. We should not and cannot be in the business of proactively monitoring and flagging content, no matter who the user is— whether a business partner, celebrity or friend.”

In response to the quandary surrounding whether Zenkel’s corporate email address fell into the realm of personal email addresses as defined by Twitter Rules, Twitter responded: “There are many individuals who may use their work email address for a variety of personal reasons— and some may not.” Therefore, the site’s response stemmed from the policy, which, as the post says, “That we can implement across all of our users in every instance.”

However, it had been determined that Zenkel’s corporate email had previously been revealed by a blog protesting NBC’s coverage of this year’s U.S. Open.

A report from Wired states that the Guy Adams incident has its own place in debates about Twitter’s future, and whether it has a place as a technology company or as a media entity.

A tweet from the reinstated account of Guy Adams suggested that his account was unsuspended because NBC rescinded its complaint.

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Journalists at Fairfax Media have gone on a 36-hour strike over job outsourcing to New Zealand. Fairfax Media is the second largest publishing company in Australia, and is accused of making “easy instead of smart” decisions about cost-cutting.

This strike affects journalist staff in both print and online sections of several papers including The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian Financial Review, The Sunday Age, The Sun Herald, Newcastle Herald, and Wollongong’s Ilawarra Mercury.

The strike began at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday evening with staff walking out after hundreds of journalists met with media union officials from the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) that same day.

The cost-cutting, outsourcing plan is causing fear in the journalists for their job safety and will result in 66 jobs lost due to the relocation of the editorial staff.

Rallies were held May 31 in Australia by the striking journalists and the MEAA. Louise Connor, MEAA Victorian secretary, stood outside Fairfax’s Melbourne offices on Thursday with around 100 journalists.

“Our grave concern is that this company makes the easy decisions to cut costs instead of making the smart decisions to move this company into the new era,” Ms. Connor told reporters.

“This is a very dangerous step for Fairfax to be taking. There has been no experience in Australia of companies making the decision to offshore such a central part of the newspaper and this can only destroy the vital nexus between the newsroom and the community. Sub-editors are journalists and the heart of the newsroom.

They should always be embedded in the community to enable the newspaper to tell the local story accurately.” said Chris Warren, MEAA federal secretary. The MEAA said the outsourcing is just Fairfax’s way to finding cheap cuts in journalism.

The striking journalists risk the chance of being fined. To them, it is definitely worth it.

“We don’t think we’ll be fined. We understand the risk that we took in walking out, but there’s frustration at the decision to outsource jobs,” said Ben Schneiders, a journalist at The Age.

Fairfax Media management has expressed disappointment at the journalists’ strike action, but says the changes will put the company in a better position to take advantage of the numerous opportunities in digital media.

Senior staff and sub-editors from the involved newspapers are going to negotiate with Fairfax management over the next few days to find an alternative solution, the MEAA says.

The strike is due to end Friday morning.

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After a Malaysian journalist was shot to death while on a mission trip in Mogadishu Friday, the Prime Minister urges the public not to point fingers. “Let’s not play this blame game,” Malaysia Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak (Najib) said Sunday, in a media conference at the Royal Mayasian Air Force base in Subang. “The most important thing for us is to take stock of what has happened.”

The deceased journalist, Noramfaizul Mohd Noor, 39, worked as a cameraman for the Malaysian National News Agency, Bernama. He had a wife and two children. Najib spent time consoling Noramfaizul’s family.  According to Bernama, Noramfaizul “was shot while travelling in a four-wheel-drive vehicle with other Malaysian media personnel covering the humanitarian aid mission to Somalia by the Putera 1Malaysia Club.”

Officials said that a clash between the African Union (AU) troops and other gunmen resulted in Noramfaizul’s death. Another reporter was severely wounded. A security official told the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) that initial reports indicate that AU peacekeepers were responsible for opening fire on the cameraman’s vehicle. Further investigation of the incident is being conducted.

Adbukarim Ali, a security official with the AU-backed government army, reported to Agence France-Presse (AFP) that the shooting occurred at a busy area, which was Kilometer Four, in Mogadishu. “The men were hit by bullets when they were in their car, as they apparently were returning to their hotel,” said Ali.

In an article by Reuters, Muhideen Mohamed, a volunteer with the Malaysians described the deadly scene.“Two bullets hit the journalist, one in the head and another on the shoulder. He died on the spot,” Mohamed said. Mohamed also reported that the second reporter suffered a bullet wound to the arm.

All 54 members of the Putera 1Malaysia Club mission flew back to Subang on board the aircraft carrying the remains of Noramfaizul, reported Bernama. “There’s a limit to what you can prepare for any eventuality,” Najib said. “Isyallah (God willing), we’ll try our level best in the future to prevent such a thing from happening again.” Najib also said, “this deadly shooting is part and parcel of journalism.”

According to the BBC, as the Somalia’s food crisis has intensified. There has been an increase in the number of foreign aid workers and journalists traveling to region to help.

In July, The Washington Post reported that the famine in parts of southern Somalia had already killed tens of thousands of people, mostly children. Humanitarian aid officials described the situation as the “worst humanitarian crisis in the troubled country in two decades.”

On August 30, an article in Bernama said that a group representing the Putera 1Malaysia Club, which included Noramfaizul, had arrived in Mogadishu.Atuk Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim, mission chief and club president, said that their humanitarian work would focus on five areas in Somalia; Magadishu being the first stop.

The mission aimed to distribute 250 tones of food and provide medicine to approximetly 45,000 families.The report by Bernama concluded with the statement that, “Bernama TV reporter Khairulanuar Yahaya and cameraman Noramfaizul Mohd Noor are among the media crew taking part in the mission.”

The BCC said that the crisis in Somalia was “severely aggravated by civil strife.” According to AFP, “Clashes between rival militia groups happen regularly in Mogadishu, a city that has been battered by a bloody insurgency as Al-Qaeda-affiliated Shebab rebels fight to unseat the Western-backed government.”

Such tumultuous conditions make humanitarian aid missions, like the work of Putera 1Malaysia Club, particularly dangerous. Noramfaizul is not the first individual to be killed while trying to better humanity in Africa.

Media rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) rank Somalia as the deadliest country in Africa for media personnel, with 23 media workers killed since 2007.

Image Courtesy of  http://www.flickr.com/photos/oxfameastafrica/

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“Being a Toonarian has made me learn and allows me to achieve my own goals – making me experience new things and allowing me to discover inner strengths that I have. You feel small, and then you start feeling bigger, you feel valuable”

This Toonarian was born and raised in Sardinia, Italy. Since she started this adventurous journey she has learned a lot. Francesca has always lived in Sardinia, but this has not limited her dreams of going abroad. On two occasions she went to Hungary. She did her Erasmus for one semester in Budapest. She likes to experience new cultures, and live through new things. She says: ” I never feel I have just one home”. She explains her desire to leave a small universe for a bigger one; “I love my small universe of course, but I know that I have too many limitations here. I’m always looking outside, to go to a bigger universe.”

As any other young person, she had a dream. “I was fascinated by the idea of being a journalist, I had to see how it would go, since it is not easy to find a job in this area.” She started searching for an internship abroad, checking several websites, created a profile where the companies could see her curriculum. She recalls signing up for Europlacement.com and after two months, and unexpected email surprised her, welcoming her into an internship.

She noticed that the internship was located in United States, but soon realized that this was not an ordinary internship. It was going to be a virtual experience. Francesca thought at this moment, “Everything just sounded so new I have never heard of this kind of internship online”

“When I explained to my friends and family about the new internship I had found everyone was surprise. They asked me questions but I wasn’t sure how to answer since the experience was pretty new to me too, and I didn’t know all the incredible things you are able to do. The first thing that came to my mind was just to tell that it was cool since you talked to your colleagues, learn and work at home. This actually seemed less interesting but it turned out to be the great thing about our internship. That it’s not possible to put it into words because it offers something else that you only experience by being part of it.

Once she started, she recalls despite being full of excitement, she was also nervous since she didn’t know exactly how it was going to develop. Especially because this is not exactly how one would picture the first day of work. Actually, you will meet and talk to people, but not physically. Once the meeting started she realized something amazing, “the first training, it wasn’t like a regular lesson where you write down things and are assigned work, but it was more open. The interns could actually exchange their ideas, learn new things, and learn to create their projects with their own suggestions.”

“At the beginning, Toonari Post was about to be launched. We were assigned to write a lot of articles. I was like ‘O.M.G! I have to do a lot of things in such a small period of time’. I thought I have to do my best because it was at the start. I was a bit nervous but now I feel more comfortable and I trust myself more because I found myself achieving things that brought me inner satisfactions and made me proud.”

The internship surprised her in a way that helped discover inner talents and taste of different fields. She explained that having her article published on the website the first time was a very enriching feeling. “It was so strange – I believed I could do it, but I had never actually tried. When I started I said ‘okay I will try, but it is hard to come up with the most important thing that I should write’. But mainly just trying to be clear, putting altogether the ideas and hoping that people can actually understand what I really mean”.

She asked for her friends’ opinion, in order to make sure that her article was understandable. “After the first, second and third article you see the audience that likes or criticizes what you wrote, and this is the main thing that brings me motivation to keep going, and writing.

Regarding the English language, the explains what it is like to come from Italy. “At the University I don’t write in English that often, mostly just for the exams. But as part of this internship, language is another field that it includes for me, and it helps me learn and practice the English language. I can learn about languages, journalism and communication all at the same time!”

“It is not so easy to find a job that you really like. And that makes you happy. The best part of it is the relationships we are building between us. Because of the great work atmosphere, relations between your colleagues and your boss go hand in hand.”

The virtual element is a different way of working.” We’ve never seen each other; we don’t have the visual impact that often can generate different perceptions. When you meet a person, of course you judge their physical appearance and even if you don’t want to, you do it. We know each other through conversation, expressing our ideas, and collaborating. Therefore, we can truly express ourselves from our insides, leaving apart physical judgments.”

“I think we should explain to new interns, that you really create something through your work and effort. And when you see the results, you think ‘I did it! It is my job!’. You really feel it is something of yours! When you start, you don’t have any idea if you would like it or not, but if you stay, you find in yourself the right things, discover the field you like to work on. You make connections, and you even learn how to create these connections. Maybe you think that a small topic about a small event can be indifferent, but then you understand that if you take this small thing and you connect it with a bigger thing it becomes a global thing.”

Also, the international aspect is something that has grabbed her attention. “Since we are all international, this is a way of exploring, maybe even more depths of a person coming from the other side of the world, than from a person that lives next to you. It is a good opportunity to learn, by exchanging opinions, ideas, and points of view. You learn what people think and how they share things in common. You compare, and understand certain cultural differences and mentality that probably you could have never get to experience without living your country.

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Toonari post is a good platform; one that could grow into something new and innovative. You can trust me when I say that it is a good place to get your message out there in the world. If there is something that is not being covered out there, tell us about it and we will cover it.

Opportunities in life come and go, but the people we meet can make an unexpected offer to us, that could bring along a great experience. This was the case with Erin Chavez. Erin was born in a small town in Western New York where she studied Psychology. After getting her Bachelors degree, she moved to Florida to go to graduate school and begin to work in a Mental house center where she met Sherol.

After some time, Sherol contacted Erin again and made her a proposition. “ I was pretty burned out of the mental house center, and Sherol proposed to me the idea of starting work with Africana Online. This was the first Project before Toonari Post was created, and all I started doing is writing 2 articles per day, and submitting them to the website. It used to take me all night to write two or three articles, but now ‘m doing even nine articles per day. The more you do, the more you know to do your research, and everything becomes easier and faster”.

She started writing and accomplishing one of her dreams. “ Since I was 6 years old, I always wanted to be a writer. I would sit in my room and write stories. But I guess the only thing that backed me a bit was the thought that journalists don’t make much money. But now I’m back, this is my first real journalist experience. We just get to do our own thing, and if you need support you have it there, you just need to go online and reach out for your colleagues.

Even thought she has never worked for a newspaper, or had a journalist job in previous jobs, Erin is glad to have joined Toonari. “It is a great experience, because any job you apply to in the future as a journalist will want to see some published work. This is something that people admire and think, ‘ooh what is this’”.

When you write, you wait for an article to be exposed and discover by the readers. “I was exited about the articles that were linked to a big blog. I’m really exited about those. Information cannot get anywhere if its not being shared. If you get that buzz going it can get bigger”.

“I like that I feel that it can really do something. I love having all these interns from all parts of the world. We are working from all over. And if I get the chance to travel now I have friends to visit.”

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