This week on global media show, The Listening Post, Richard Gizbert looks at how racism on a reality TV show turned into an international incident. When Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty was insulted on Big Brother in the UK, it prompted over 40,000 complaints from viewers. In India protesters took to the street and even Tony Blair, British prime minister got involved. But the big question became – is this just a clash of cultures or out and out ratings driven racism?

 

And we get your take on the Big Brother controversy in our regular slot, Global Village Voices.

 

In Newsbytes we look at the other big media stories this week. In Egypt, leaked cameraphone footage of police officers torturing people in custody, was picked up first by Egypt's bloggers and then the mainstream press.

 

In Istanbul, newspaper editor Hrant Dink, a Turkish-Armenian, was shot dead in the street prompting fears of a political crisis. Dink was an outspoken journalist who once received a suspended prison sentence for insulting Turkishness over his articles on what Armenians call the genocide of 1915.

 

In the virtual world of Second Life, the online headquarters of France's far right Front National party was destroyed in a riot.

 

And the New York Times launched an online obituary page with a difference. Columnist Art Buchwald announced his own death on the newspaper's website in an interview filmed last year.

 

In San Francisco, Richard Gizbert investigates a David and Goliath media story, where one blogger took on a radio station owned by ABC. The San Francisco station's hosts made comments the blogger called Spocko's Brain found offensive. He posted them on his site and informed the station's advertisers, who withdrew their business. That's when the lawyers were called in – and the blogosphere rushed to Spocko's rescue.

 

And news of a gossipy website called Gawker Stalker, where amateur celebrity hunters can send in paparazzi style photos taken on their mobile phones.

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