Latvian entrepreneur Viesturs Koziols has bought the majority stake in the Latvian daily Diena from the British Rowland family. Writing in her blog with the portal Politika, Dita Arāja fears politics will now hold sway over the paper: “Free and independent media have been pretty much snuffed out in Latvia with this move. The journalists [...]
On May 25, Ookla, the global leader in web-based network diagnostic applications, announced the results of broadband internet penetration and performance, with Latvia taking second place in the world. Lithuania came in 10th and Estonia – 20th. The fastest internet in the world is in South Korea, while average download speed puts U.S. in the [...]
With Lena Meyer-Landrut’s hands-down victory at the Eurovision Song Contest, a German has won the event for the first time in 28 years. But Lena’s charm offensive has taken not only Germany but all of Europe by storm, fostering feelings of oneness from Riga to Barcelona, writes the left-liberal Frankfurter Rundschau: “While the bleak evaluations [...]
Adam Michnik, chief editor of the liberal daily Gazeta Wyborcza, has not only endorsed the candidacy of his favourite Bronisław Komorowski in the presidential elections with his signature but also the candidacy of the national conservative politician Jarosław Kaczyński. His explains his principles to readers who have harshly criticised this move: “I have been accused: [...]
In recent weeks various Finnish politicians have demanded that anonymity be limited on the Internet. This ever-recurring debate will do nothing to change the fact that anarchy and anonymity are simply part of the Internet, writes Jussi Pullainen in her column for the daily Helsingin Sanomat: “Intelligent anonymous use is simply the cornerstone of the [...]
The data and passwords of around 130,000 users have been made public because of a security gap on a popular Finnish quiz website. The daily Kaleva criticises the careless attitude of many Finns in their dealings with the Internet and says more should be done to explain computer security: “Computers and the Internet have made [...]
Media mogul Rupert Murdoch has sold the two Latvian private broadcasters LNT and TV5 to Latvian businessman Andrejs Ēķis. The daily Latvijas Avīze warns that their quality could now deteriorate: “Ēķis, the lord of the airwaves, is proudly philosophising about how one politician is good while the other is bad, how he likes one party [...]
Russians victims of their own propaganda The number of negative articles on Lithuania is growing by the day on Russian Internet sites, writes the news portal Balsas: “The readers then put their comments at the bottom, in which they delight – very much along the lines of Russian propaganda – that Lithuania has so many [...]
A growing number of businesses and government offices are stopping their employees from using social networks like Facebook during working hours. A big mistake, writes the daily Göteborgs-Posten (Sweden): “Studies reveal that employees who feel good on the job and who are confident that their employers trust them do better work. Social media have the [...]
The golden era of journalism has come to an end, Lluís Bassets concludes commenting on the annual report of the Reporters without Borders organisation: “It’s difficult to say which year was the best but 1974 is among the candidates. I’m referring to the life of journalists of course. In that year a couple of young [...]
