It's tied for first place with Pakistan as the world's deadliest country for journalists

At the end of January I was at the Royal Courts of Justice to hear Jonathan Heawood, of English PEN, speak to the Leveson inquiry about the importance of a free press. By Friday I had moved continents, going from the unseasonably warm grey of an English winter to the unseasonably chill blue of a Mexican one. A strange dislocation but, by the time my week was done, I realised how strong is the thread joining its beginning to its end.

Mexico City is a grand old town. Its magnificent central square, the Zócalo, built out of the destruction of an earlier civilisation, is sinking slowly into the marshes from which it had once been claimed. A similar process has now all but buried free expression: Mexico has the dubious distinction of being tied for first place with Pakistan as the world's deadliest country for journalists.

In Britain we worry about the chilling effect of the over-regulation of the press: in Mexico they cut to the chase and shoot (or decapitate) the messenger. Since 2000, 67 Mexican journalists have been killed – a number that President Calderón's war on drugs has only helped to increase. In 90% of these cases, no one has been prosecuted, never mind convicted. Which is why I was there. I was part of a PEN International delegation that, in collaboration with Mexican PEN, aimed to draw worldwide attention to the culture of impunity that silences not only the people who speak out, but the word itself.

The trip turned out to be an eye-opener, revealing the way in which competing drug cartels, inept or corrupt government, the police and terrified media join together in the suppression of free expression. We met politicians and prosecutors, writers and journalists, ambassadors and NGOs, our visit culminating in a public event, "PEN Protesta", where dozens of Mexican writers gave eloquent insight into their country's malaise. The tone was set by one of the first speakers who, paraphrasing Mandelstam, told us that "if you kill poets it means you don't respect poetry but if you kill journalists you don't respect society." Mexico, said another, is a country that "vomits blood"; a third described it as "a magical country full of assassinated people and no apparent assassins". It's a country where, according to one of Mexico's pre-eminent writers, Elena Poniatowska, "reporters are hunted like rabbits."

After the event, I was left with a lasting image of the diminutive, red-clad Poniatowska. While we drank tequila from champagne glasses, she posed for photographs with a lineup of members of the Banda de Tlayacapan. The band was a mixed bunch – women in poncho-topped long dresses, old men and boys, their faces almost drowned by large brimmed hats – and their sound that of strident Mexican brass, strangely slowed. "It's a dirge," the novelist Jennifer Clement explained. "They play at funerals. Seemed right, given we are holding a wake for free expression."

Mentions of funerals were on many lips. Journalists spoke movingly about the loss of their friends and colleagues and of a resulting powerlessness so intense that all they could do was bury their dead. Mexico City itself is relatively safe but at least once a week organisations that protect journalists are asked to hide people from other parts of the country for whom the threats have grown particularly serious. And not only are journalists kidnapped: so are their stories. Airports are turned into information black holes as stories disappear into them.

Asked what could be done to help, the requests became eerily familiar: journalists need training in their craft, various people told us, but more than anything they need training in how to protect themselves. Despite the appointment of a special prosecutor to protect journalists, impunity continues almost completely unchallenged. Of the 55 indictments brought by the special prosecutor to the federal courts, only five cases have been allowed to proceed, and from these, not a single person has yet been convicted. It's almost as bad for community radio practitioners who act as the voice of social movements: they are continually harassed or charged with using the airwaves without a licence, and the law has been designed to prevent them from procuring the advertising revenues that might make them even half solvent.

Clement, who is also president of Mexican PEN, had kicked off PEN Protesta by saying that "words are the rocks we throw at each other". By the end of my trip I understood what she meant. For when it comes to the practice of journalism, and to the prosecution of the murderers of journalists, Mexico is caught in a series of interlocking catch-22s. The government blames the deaths on organised crime. But, according to the London-based free expression group Article 19, up to 70% of aggressions against the media are government-inspired. Most of these can be laid at the door of local and regional government, about which the national government says it can do little. Added to this, an inept or corrupted police force joins with a similarly corrupted media to portray the murders as crimes of passion, which means they are never properly investigated.

The big media corporations often lead the charge in denigrating murdered journalists, even accusing them of being linked to the same cartels they were trying to denounce. This obliteration of a free press is not surprising: when a cartel targets a town for take-over it first compromises the mayor with threats or money and then it takes care of the police. Having taken control, it cannot let the press talk about the extent of its corruption and so has to move in on this, the third leg of the stool.

"There is silence in our country," we were told, "and it is the silence of death." Yet even now, courageous journalists risk speaking out. As I flew back to a freezing London, I realised how brave they are and also how much my visit reinforced my belief in the importance of a free press not just for journalists but for a whole society.

• Gillian Slovo is the president of English PEN.

In a world abuzz with Facebook, Twitter and live TV, what is it about radio that keeps us tuning in?

A couple of weeks ago I was messing about on Twitter at home on a Friday night when a tweet from the Conservative blogger, publisher and talkshow host Iain Dale brought me up short. He was on the train on his way home to Kent, and posted a picture with the caption: "This is the drunk woman opposite me. I think she's about to puke. Disgusting slapper."

I didn't look at the photo and clicked on "unfollow" straightaway so I wouldn't see any more of Dale's tweets. Holding this woman up to ridicule in front of the 26,000 people who follow him was abusing his position, I thought.

The chorus of outrage now commonly known as a "Twitter storm" followed. Within about five minutes angry voices were calling for Dale to be sacked and I switched my computer off.

The next day Dale posted a blog defending his use of the word "slapper" and explained how, as a non-drinker, he is horrified by public drunkenness. But when I rang him up this week he agreed his comment had been "rude and unchivalrous" and suggested there is something about the spontaneous nature of microblogging sites such as Twitter that brings this out.

"Twitter and blogs are full of bile. A lot of people say things on these sites they would never say to your face or on the phone. I think on a blog, people think you have to be quite aggressive or abrasive," he told me.

This idea is not new. For years commentators, and particularly women, have complained about the personal abuse that often passes for debate on the internet. This style seemed to suit Dale, who launched his blog 10 years ago after failing to win selection as a Tory parliamentary candidate.

But more recently he has switched his focus to radio, where he adopts quite a different persona on his LBC evening talkshow. I asked him whether he thinks the gentler and more polite style of radio (with some exceptions) explains why its audience continues to hold up in the face of new media's continuing onslaught.

"I think people who have only ever known me from my blog and then listen to my radio show think, is this the same person? I cover a lot of subjects that traditionally would have been covered by female presenters – how men react to miscarriage, living with an alcoholic. I've built up this audience of people who are prepared to ring me up and tell me these amazingly personal things. I think people have always regarded radio as a quasi-friend."

With an audience of around a million in the London area, LBC remains small compared with the national BBC and commercial stations. This week's quarterly figures, which showed a small drop-off overall from the previous quarter, but still more than 700,000 more radio listeners than at the same time two years ago, again showcased radio's remarkable resilience, a story that has become familiar over the past few years. Nine out of 10 of us listen to radio every week, with the three biggest BBC stations (1, 2 and 4) holding on to audiences above 10 million.

Overall, the BBC retains well over half the total market, with commercial stations including Talksport and Capital also performing well in a difficult advertising market. In the mornings, Radio 4's flagship Today programme is snapping at the heels of Radio 1's Chris Moyles in the same slot.

What is it about radio that has made it so durable, and able to coexist not only through the age of television, but the age of new media too? As social networking giant Facebook prepares to float itself and raise an astonishing £5bn, what has enabled radio to stand its ground?

The licence fee is the obvious first answer. Former Radio 4 controller Mark Damazer, now master of an Oxford college, says that ever since a crisis of confidence at the BBC in the 1990s, when people wondered whether the Radio 4 spectrum should be given over to rolling news and current affairs, backing for the station and for radio more broadly has been solid, and continued throughout the last decade in spite of predictions that its audience would shrink.

"When 5 Live was launched in 1994, Radio 4 was anxious, it looked like a challenge, but what happened was the reverse. It liberated Radio 4, which then didn't have to worry about breaking a story every five minutes."

Audiences may be booming, but the freezing of the licence fee is still a headache for BBC radio. Recent cuts have left many producers complaining of impossible workloads, and following the reprieve granted 6 Music after a public campaign in 2010 (the station has just recorded its largest audience, of 1.5m), a big row over proposed cuts to local stations is in the offing. But while commercial stations believe the BBC exploits an unfair advantage and is overly dominant, the security of the licence fee has undoubtedly enabled the BBC's radio stations to build and retain an enormous and loyal audience.

Another explanation for radio's staying-power is its cheapness. Radio can be made at a fraction of the cost of television, meaning that programme-makers, DJs and entrepreneurs can all have a crack at it. Commercial broadcasters as well as the BBC value it as an incubator for future TV talent. Added to which, radios themselves are cheap, and all over the place: by people's beds, in the bathroom, in the car.

"Despite the fact you think we're a visually saturated culture, there are all sorts of places where you get radio and nothing else. The technology of radio is cheap, simple and idiot-proof, and older listeners in particular are going to be very reluctant to let it go," says Damazer.

But this attachment on the part of consumers to low technology is also problematic. The switch to digital radio is proving much slower and messier than anyone expected. Digital listening stands at just under 30% and the analogue switch-off looks like being postponed for several more years, meaning more expense and inconvenience for broadcasters who must cater to different signals.

Is radio old or new media? The Wikipedia "new media" definition doesn't mention radio at all, perhaps uncertain whether to lump it in with printing presses or mobile apps. Radio has affinities with the current age of mobile gadgets. The wireless beaming broadcasts into the family living room in the 1920s was a forerunner of the wi-fi box streaming internet signals into the 21st-century home.

Podcasts, downloadable audio and websites such as Radioplayer have enabled radio to make a smooth transition to the computer age. It hasn't suffered the existential threat experienced by the music industry. But plenty of challenges remain, chief among them attracting younger listeners and persuading them to choose DJs rather than making their own playlists on their iPods, or streaming music through Spotify.

Journalists working in talk radio proudly point out that they were talking and listening to members of the public via on-air phone-ins long before newspapers and television began worrying about "mutualisation" and "open-sourcing" of content. James O'Brien, host of another LBC talkshow, says that while he would welcome a change to the broadcasting rules so that opinionated news shows such as his were allowed on TV, he would miss the intimacy of radio. "Television is more declamatory. It's as if you're addressing an audience rather than an individual, and it's the same with a newspaper column, which I think is the closest print equivalent to what I do.

"The image I always have in my head before my show is that I'm getting into the passenger seat of your car, and ideally I'm not going to get on your nerves enough in the next three hours for you to throw me out."

There is a confidence among many of those who work in radio that what they do will carry on. We remain attached to radio and its rhythms, to the hum and the sound of it. And we get attached to the people who present it, when we don't violently take against them. Radio is personal.

Media historian David Hendy says: "The thing about radio is that it's very clever at popping up in new spaces. In America there are groups of people who get together to listen to a programme, like a book group."

Hendy suggests that radio's sense of its own past will serve it well. Last weekend's opening up of the archive of 70 years of Desert Island Discs is a good example. But more than the richness of its back catalogue, or the new technologies that will make it ever more accessible, he believes that what is unique about radio is the place it accords to the human voice. "I think there is a deep, natural, human desire to be accompanied by sound, whether music or voices. It stops us from feeling alone. Radio has intrinsic qualities that give it a good chance of surviving."

A few additional links to read this afternoon:

• Spokane police ombudsman says local media should have ombud, too (The Pacific Northwest Inlander)
• Agence France-Presse responds to Israeli embassy, says photo taken in West Bank wasn’t staged (AFP)
• Shorenstein

… Read more

Research on website user comments suggests that uncivil comments push readers away from fully grappling with new information and into intellectual shortcutting. It offers an argument in support of comment tending and curation by news websites. >>>

Note: Make sure you’re following @lostremote for our live-tweets during the Super Bowl for the best social media moments during the game.

Nearly 60 percent of mobile phone users will be checking their devices during the Super Bowl, according to a new survey by Velti and Harris Interactive. And about half (47%) of all viewers say they expect to check up to 10 times during the game. “There’s no going back now from the fact that the Super Bowl is truly a two-screen experience,” said Krishna Subramanian, Chief Marketing Officer of Velti.

As we outlined earlier this week in our Super Bowl social TV preview, startups, advertisers and media brands are rolling out second screen experiences and campaigns in force for the big game. Here are some other interesting stats from the survey:

• 83 percent of viewers who plan to use their mobile device expect to use it as much or more than they did during last year’s Super Bowl.
• 13 percent of viewers with phones say they’ll check during game play compared to 26% during commercial breaks.
• Men are twice as likely as women (26% vs. 13%) to use their devices during the halftime show.
• Among 18-34 year olds, those who say they’ll check their phone during the game predict they’ll use the device an average of 19 times.

The study did not address what people would be doing on their phones, such as texting and tweeting. But an earlier study by Yahoo and Razorfish found 94% of mobile multitaskers communicate while watching TV (texting, talking, email, social networks and IM), while 60% are looking up content.

read more

Logo, “the entertainment network for savvy and trendsetting adult viewers from Viacom Inc.,” has had some big social TV successes with it’s highest rated show, RuPaul’s Drag Race. For the fourth season of the “ultimate drag queen” reality show, the network has developed a multi-legged social media blitz to compliment the linear launch. “Highlights include a fantasy football-like game on Facebook, live Tweeting with cast members (past and present) during show premieres, Tweets from fans displayed on TV during show premieres, and live animating GIFs on Tumblr,” according to the network.

In addition to the fantasy game and their announcement to post the first ten minutes of each episode before it airs on Facebook (where they’ve seen a 94% increase in likes from where they started at the season 3 premiere) they’re cleverly using Tumblr to engage their viewers. We asked our readers in September if it was time to take Tumblr seriously and Dan Sacher, Vice President of Digital for VH1 and Logo explains why his network is. “Tumblr brings an added dimension to our show content — whether it’s outrageous commentary, over-the-top animations or mash-ups with Internet memes,” Sacher told Lost Remote. “It’s a great playground for our superfans to gather to celebrate our shows and share unique content with their friends,” he added. To engage viewers using Tumblr in real-time, they strategized with live animated-.GIFing (here’s one) during premiere episodes on Logo’s Tumblr.

Animated .GIFing as a social TV strategy is something that’s perfect for both making you laugh while encourage you to share. While Tumblr is definitely in for a big 2012 brands are still struggling to find the right groove since as Sacher described, it’s a playground and the playground can often get messy. GetGlue smartly integrated with Tumblr in 2011 and accounts like The New Yorker‘s have been able to build a huge audience by translating the quirkiness of their content to the quirkiness of Tumblr. What’s your favorite brand Tumblr?

Stuart Elliott, the Times's advertising columnist, will be producing a live blog during the Super Bowl about the commercials being aired then.

Michael Jones, CEO of tech studio Science: "Now that Facebook has gone public, I think we can call the era of Web 2.0 over. The Social Web is taking its rightful place as the new King."

Alex Salkever: "I am fairly certain, however, that a class of local [Pinterest users] will begin to emerge who have followers and who specialize either in a city or a part of a city and, most likely, down to a specific specialty. And this will happen because pinterest is an extension of blogging and tweeting, really."

The micro-messaging service has set up an official account called @TwitterForNews that says it will be “Spotlighting best practices and innovative uses of Twitter by journalists and newsrooms.”

Facebook's IPO filing also revealed just how close the relationship between the social network and founder Mark Zuckerberg's friend Washington Post Co. CEO Donald Graham is. Graham, who has been a member of Facebook's board since 2008, holds 1 million shares of Facebook stock.

For years, many advertisers simply set up shop for free on Facebook, displaying their brands to users who "liked" them. But the social network wants advertisers to stop relying on free marketing and start spending on ads.

A reader who relied on Saturday Guardian's Work and Money sections to help him through tough times and back into work

I started reading the Guardian at about the time I turned 20. I remember buying a copy of the paper on my 21st birthday to keep hidden away for the future, only to find my mother had thrown it away on one of her frequent cleaning blitzes! I really only buy a physical copy of the paper on a Saturday and I go straight for the magazine; I enjoy Your Pictures as well as Blind Date and Experience. I pick at the sections over the next couple of days and always find articles that interest me.

I check the website when I first turn on my computer, and there is always a wide variety of news and features that often have me sending links to various people. I have started to get more of my news via Twitter and follow most of the Guardian feeds, meaning I can get information wherever I am.

In the past couple of years I've spent a long time out of work after my estate agency went into administration. Times were tough while I was looking for work, but I always scraped together some money to go out and get a bit of normality in my life, and reading the Work and Money sections always gave me hope that I'd get back to the real world soon. I am glad to say I have spent just over a year fully employed again.

Our user-comments researcher encourages you to listen to an excellent recent On the Media discussion with Ta-Nehisi Coates of The Atlantic on the value of cultivating an engaging comments section. >>>