National: Republicans to charge media to cover 2016 convention | Associated Press

Representatives for news organizations who plan to cover next summer’s convention are protesting a move by the Republican National Committee to charge news media organizations a $150 access fee for seats on the press stand. Seats on risers constructed for newspapers, magazines, wire services and online print publications have been awarded without charge in the past. Representatives for daily and periodical press galleries in the Capitol protested Monday that the media “should not be charged to cover elected officials at an event of enormous interest to the public.” The four-day event will be held in Cleveland’s Quicken Loans Arena.

Japan: Media Under New Pressure Ahead of Election | Wall Street Journal

Just days after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he would call a snap election, his ruling Liberal Democratic Party sent a letter to Japan’s five major television networks asking for fair and impartial coverage of the coming campaign. Signed by a top aide to Mr. Abe and another party official, the letter made specific requests: balance in the number of appearances and total airtime given to candidates, for example, and in the political views offered through man-on-the-street interviews. Sent late last month, the letter was the latest example of the tense relationship between Mr. Abe’s conservative government and the Japanese media, particularly left-leaning newspapers and networks.

Pennsylvania: Technical difficulties cause election havoc | Citizens’ Voice

An election happened in Luzerne County on Tuesday, but for two hours after the polls closed the results could only be found on a projection screen at the county courthouse. An apparent traffic overload periodically crashed the county’s usually reliable website, www.luzernecounty.org, and prevented officials from posting results. The outage forced reporters, some candidates and other interested parties to the courthouse rotunda to watch a scroll of results. The top county races, for controller and the county council, shared equal time on the screen with school board races and the campaigns for municipal councils. Some reporters used their cellphones and compact camera to take pictures of the screen to freeze the fast-moving results.

Italy: Rivals battle it out on and off-air | BBC News

From a media baron’s on-air antics to a comedian who shuns television, the campaign strategies employed by contenders in Italy’s election have been poles apart, reports the BBC’s Alan Johnston in Rome. Silvio Berlusconi is in a live television studio, half out of his seat and bellowing furiously at the audience about the Communist past of his left wing opponents. It is just one moment in a typical media performance by Italy’s former Prime Minister. He had gone into what was for him a lion’s den; the Servizio Pubblico political talk show It airs on a channel beyond the control of Mr Berlusconi’s Mediaset television empire. Some of his sharpest critics were lying in wait for him.And over more than two hours they launched attacks aimed at exposing Mr Berlusconi’s many failings. It was a chance to almost put him on trial, and the bookmakers were suggesting he might storm off the set. But he stayed in his seat, and rose to the occasion. He twisted and turned, counter-attacked and blustered and ranted and joked and charmed.