Chris Anderson's recent book release "Free: The Future of a Radical Price" has been garnering a lot of vitriolic attention in the press, voiced most prominently in Malcolm Gladwell's critical article for the New Yorker. Anderson, Wired's editor-in-chief and author of "The Long Tail," looks at the history of free models in business, as a lens through which to view today's proliferation of free content online. At Link TV we offer all the videos we can online for free, but we're constantly dealing with the struggles of broadcast TV, documentary filmmakers and other content creators.

We were recently in New York for the Open Video Conference, where Wikipedia announced its plans to add video support. Check out my article "Free and open: video's Cambrian explosion" at SF360, which talks about Anderson's book, free content online, the future of video, and Wikimedia's plans. From the article:

"In the next few months Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that allows anyone to edit entries, will start allowing visitors to add videos to articles. Users will be able to click on that edit button and add some demonstrative video to illustrate the point at hand, and then any other user will likewise be able to delete it. But then there’s a Wikipedia twist: anyone will also be able to edit that video, or create it from scratch using in-browser video editing, and any other user will then be able to say, that sucks, and re-edit it however they like. Don’t like that title card? Bam! Gone! Bad timing on that close-up? It’s off to the History scrap pile, just like any other piece of text." Continue reading...

For Chris Anderson's take on the future of news and newspapers, check out this video from Link TV partners ForaTV:

Link is proud to be home to two programs, both from Qatar-based channel Al Jazeera English, that have been nominated for International Emmy Awards this year! An Al Jazeera English News Hour segment on the Russia-Georgia war picked up a nomination in the News category for superb on-the-ground journalistic coverage. And Al Jazeera English's Witness documentary series, airing weekly on Link TV, was nominated in the Current Affairs category for the special Return to Nablus. Part of that special, Two Schools in Nablus, aired on Link, and is available to watch online now. International Emmy Award winners will be announced on September 21, 2009, and we'll keep you updated on the results.

If you haven't already, be sure to catch these fantastic, internationally-recognized programs on Link! The Al Jazeera English News Hour has been airing every weekday on Link since June, part of Link's Global News Hour with Mosaic: World News From the Middle East. Daily online news bulletins from AJE are also available online. Al Jazeera English - Witness airs Mondays at 8pm Pacific and Wednesdays at 7pm Eastern, and most episodes are available to watch online.

Congratulations to our partners at Al Jazeera English for their second consecutive International Emmy Award nomination in a row! We'll have our fingers crossed for an AJE awards sweep in September.

U.S. President Barack Obama visited Russia in early July to much media fanfare in the West, but was anything really accomplished? In a carefully choreographed diplomatic dance, Obama met first with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, and allocated only a breakfast with Prime Minister (and de facto Russian leader?) Vladimir Putin. Clearly Obama hoped, in the Bushian turn of phrase, to "see into the soul" of Medvedev and lure him away from the omnipresent Putin-Sputnik.

But during the visit, the Russian leaders both seemed steadfast in their attempts to slip out of America's crumbling unipolar dominance of world affairs and maintain their own sphere of influence over the former Soviet Union. And although there were some agreements made between the U.S. and Russia on cuts in nuclear arms, at least one prominent supporter of nuclear disarmament, journalist Jonathan Schell, told Democracy Now's Amy Goodman that he found the nuclear agreement between Obama and Medvedev to be "disappointing".

On a lighter note, somehow the trim President Obama was able to mostly resist the temptation of this fantastic Saint Basil's Cathedral cake, featured in this Russia Today report: 

Cake aside, the diplomatic ballet continued earlier this week, as Vice President Joe Biden paid a requisite visit to NATO hopefuls and Russian archenemies Ukraine and Georgia. While Russians merely yawned in the face of Obama's star power, Biden was greeted with adoring crowds in Georgia's capital of Tbilisi, as he drove by "George W. Bush Street" (the former president was always a popular figure in Georgia, due to his support of Georgian independence from their domineering Russian neighbors).

In Ukraine, Biden affirmed U.S. support of Russia's near abroad, rejecting Russia's "sphere of influence" in the region. But it remains to be seen if Washington can back up these words of support with true action. With Russia's civil society and politics drifting back to the authoritarian, stifling dissent from human rights activists, journalists, and competing politicians, the U.S. has some tough decisions to make in dealing with the Russian bear.

This week, the final episode of the fascinating BBC series African School airs on Tuesday, July 21st at 4:30pm PST and Wednesday at 8:30pm PST. This chapter centers on the diverse ambitions of three Masindi pupils as they enter the most crucial time of the school year: exams. Young Anifa hopes to attend secondary school and has one last chance to pass the exams; Esther struggles to win a government scholarship, her only hope for nursing college; and Patrick, less interested in his school career, focuses on his music. Find out what happens on the final installment of African School.

African School might be out for summer, but school definitely isn't out forever. If you've enjoyed following the daily lives of young Africans and their teachers in the Ugandan town of Masindi, stay tuned for Indian School, beginning next week. Indian School takes us to Kalmadi Shamrao High School and Rewachand Bhojwani Academy in Pune, near Mumbai, into the lives of India's "rising generation." The series gets delves into India's middle class, exploring their dreams and anxieties in a mercurial world.

The first episode of Indian School, The New Boy, airs Tuesday, July 28th at 4:30pm PST.

Written by John Hamilton

These are dangerous times to be a journalist. According to Reporters Without Borders, 60 journalists were killed in the line of duty last year. 673 others were arrested, more than 900 were assaulted and 29 journalists were kidnapped. Unfortunately, this year isn’t shaping up to be any better.

In the past few weeks, Link TV has highlighted several incidents in which reporters have faced censorship, imprisonment, and even death—all for doing their jobs.

Link TV’s original series Latin Pulse presented the special program, Stories that Kill, looking at the dangers faced by investigative journalists caught in the crossfire of a long-simmering civil war between leftist guerillas and government forces.

The award-winning Democracy Now! covered the case of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, two American reporters sentenced by North Korean authorities to twelve years of hard labor after inadvertently crossing into the country from China.

Mosaic: World News from the Middle East brought news that Al Jazeera has been banned from the occupied West Bank by the Palestinian Authority.

Our newest addition to Link’s news lineup, Al Jazeera English World News, reported on the execution-style killing of Natalya Estemirova, a human rights campaigner and independent journalist critical of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Despite the mortal danger that comes with reporting from some of the world’s most dangerous places, Link TV consistently brings you some of the most comprehensive and wide-ranging international news on American television.

So as the brave men and women of the international press corps put their lives on the line to get the story, it’s more important than ever to support the channel that brings their work to a national audience, Link TV, television without borders.