MEDIA MARKET DATA - World Association of Newspapers

Sports RightsGlobalWorld football’s governing body, FIFA, and the World Association of Newspapers, WAN,announced that they had reached agreement to lift all restrictions on digital publication ofphotographs of the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany. The agreement came after a privatemeeting between the FIFA President, Joseph S. Blatter, and the Chief Executive Officer ofWAN, Timothy Balding, who was also representing a coalition of leading news agencies,including Agence France-Presse, Associated Press, Reuters, Getty Images, DPA and EPA.Mr Blatter said: “Our talks were constructive and reflected FIFA’s intent to come to amutually beneficial solution. Today, almost all print media of relevance have their own webedition and reader preferences increasingly underline a shift in consumer habits to accesstopical information. (…) We understand that the publication of images and text must betreated with the same approach for the sake of maintaining a transparent informationmanagement policy that respects the Freedom of the Press. (…) I am satisfied that we havebeen able to amend the earlier position taken and thus to recognise WAN’s justifiedrequirements.” In order to respect contractual obligations to rights holders, FIFA hadoriginally limited the number of photographs that could be published on the web and requiredthat they should only be published two hours after games ended. WAN and the coalition ofnews agencies had opposed the restrictions on the grounds that they interfered with mediafreedom to report. WAN Press Release, March 2006Protection of SourcesJapanThe Tokyo District Court and the Tokyo High Court have rendered opposite decisions onreporters' refusals to reveal news sources, the Japanese Newspaper Association NSK reports.The Tokyo District Court ruled on 14 March that a Yomiuri Shimbun reporter had no right torefuse to reveal a news source in connection with a US health food company's lawsuit filed inthe United States over tax evasion. The ruling said that a reporter could not hide a newssource if there was a possibility that the information was leaked to the reporter by a civilservant in a breach of confidentiality. Yomiuri has appealed. The ruling was in sharp contrastwith a ruling by the Tokyo High Court, which on 17 March ruled that a reporter for NHK whohad also refused to reveal sources in the same lawsuit was justified in doing so. Newsletter forDirectors of WAN Member Associations - N ° 36, April 24, 2006Visa for Journalists / Registration / Foreign JournalistsChina - JapanThe Asahi Shimbun opened a branch in the Chinese city of Shenyang on March 15 and theYomiuri Shimbun followed suit on April 1. The opening of the branches in northeasternChina followed an agreement in February for China to lift its quota on the number of Japanesereporters based in China and the inclusion of Shenyang among the Chinese cities whereJapanese media organizations are allowed to station correspondents. With the opening of thebranch in Shenyang, the number of Asahi overseas branches totals 32, staffed by 52correspondents. Yomiuri has 34 branches and 60 correspondents. Both newspaper companiesintend to focus on Chinese government-initiated industrial development in the northeastregion. http://www.pressnet.or.jp/newsb/, May 200666