News Broadcasting
CNN’s Chris Cramer lambasts cyber terrorism
CNN International Networks president Chris Cramer is livid. The reason. “Respected news organisations such as CNN and Reuters have become a target of a war of hatred, misinformation and cynicism,” he says.
Cramer is especially annoyed by the spate of emails which have been doing the rounds denouncing the footage of Palestinians in East Jerusalem celebrating the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre as archival material (it is alleged to date back to 1991) and aired on CNN to sway public opinion. Cramer says that the origin of the rumour was from a chat room in Spain and that Reuters Television has since confirmed that the footage was indeed shot on 11 September and was not older material.
Cramer additionally adds that “fictitious CNN websites have appeared in the past week together with other allegations, disseminated via e-mail in South Africa, that CNN had allegedly reported that the attacks had been planned in South Africa.” He says that this is totally untrue.
And according to him, what makes things worse is the fact that “e-mail attacks on broadcasters by lobby groups and those with special interests have become the norm in recent years. This was a concerted attempt to distort the news not just lobby against certain aspects of it.
Cyber-terrorism like urban terrorism is now an everyday occurrence, and it is equally as difficult to defend against it. Bitter irony when you consider that some of the earliest embracing of the Internet was by the US military to contain civil unrest in the event of a catastrophic war.
News Broadcasting
Book Cricket gets a digital century on News18 amid T20 fever
Nostalgic classroom game revamped in English, Hindi plus Telugu on web and app.
MUMBAI: When the T20 World Cup fever hits fever pitch, News18 decides to flip the script straight back to the classroom. The digital news platform has revived the timeless schoolyard favourite Book Cricket as an interactive online game, perfectly timed to ride the cricket wave gripping fans across the globe. The reimagined Book Cricket ditches textbooks for smartphones, blending old-school nostalgia with modern gameplay. Once a sneaky recess pastime played by flicking book pages to score runs, the digital version now offers seamless fun for anyone craving a quick cricket fix between overs.
Available in English, Hindi and Telugu (with more languages planned across News18’s network), the game sits within the platform’s fast-growing gaming portfolio of over 20 titles, all built in-house. It joins event-driven hits like ‘Kursi Catcher’ and ‘Result Rewind’ during the 2025 Bihar Assembly Elections, plus festive specials such as ‘Durga’s Astras’ for Durga Puja and ‘Mouse Modak’ for Ganesh Chaturthi.
News18 Digital CEO Mitul Sangani said, “Gaming is a key pillar of our engagement strategy. At News18, we uniquely combine our newsroom agility with immersive gaming experiences. By blending credible content with interactive formats, we are creating meaningful engagement in an era defined by shrinking attention spans and evolving consumption habits.”
Select titles have expanded beyond News18.com to CNBC-TV18.com and Firstpost.com, reflecting the network’s push to deepen user interaction across platforms. The Book Cricket game is live now at https://www.news18.com/games/book-cricket/.
In a tournament where every boundary counts, News18’s digital Book Cricket proves the simplest games can still deliver the biggest smiles no syllabus required, just pure cricket joy one page-flip at a time.
