Did Wiwibloggs Cause EBU Press Crackdown? Fact Check

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been taking steps to thwart news coverage of the Pentagon for more than a year. Now he has finally met some resistance.

Wiwibloggs is a YouTube channel focusing on the Eurovision Song Contest. It launched as a fansite in 2009 by journalist William Lee Adams. In April 2015, Wiwibloggs won the Arts & Culture category at the UK Blog Awards. Adams has judged at national selections for a number of countries, among ...

In 2007, Jim Prentice, then-member of the Parliament of Canada for Calgary Centre-North and Minister of Industry, introduced copyright protection legislation, which was compared by many to the DMCA. The legislation was controversial and Prentice withdrew it in December 2007. By June 2008 there was a great deal of speculation in the Canadian press that Prentice would eventually succeed Stephen Harper as Prime Minister of Canada.

Weibo (Chinese: 微博; pinyin: wēi bó) is a general term for microblogging, but normally understood as Chinese-based mini-blogging services, including social chat sites and platform sharing. Weibo services make it possible for internet users to set up real-time information sharing communities ...

Failure to exclude Israel will lead to the literal end of ESC, with the 2026 edition taking place with the least amount of countries since the contest’s expansion and with potentially one less semi-final.

The EBU didn’t find that Israel broke the existing rules (which will be modified for 2026). What was possibly jeopardized by the advertising campaigns and diaspora voting is the spirit of Eurovision. However, it applies as well to jury members ignoring Israel for political reasons (some of whom openly admitted doing it).

Does the EBU think we have short-term memory or something…? We’re still seeing the atrocities in Gaza with our own eyes. ... Simple solution: allow Israel to participate with the same security arrangements of every either delegation. That means no Israeli secret service protection officers in the venue, green room, or press room.

For William Lee Adams, founder of the independent Eurovision website Wiwibloggs, the atmosphere will be very different, with many die-hard fans sensing bad vibes and sitting this one out. "This is not going to be the festival of rainbows and kisses as it was in the past," he told AFP. "There's great unease colouring everything." Eurovision is run by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the world's biggest alliance of public service media.

But the EBU investigated the allegations following Eurovision 2025 and concluded that there was no wrongdoing. Jordi Pedra, a reporter for Wiwibloggs, a Eurovision website, wrote that Spotlight, Eurovision’s investigation branch, found that, ...

Seit Liverpool organisieren die Wiwibloggs auch jedes Jahr mehrere Talkrunden mit den ESC-Acts. Wie wichtig diese für die Fans sind, um den Stars endlich nah sein zu können – gerade in Zeiten gestrichener Pressekonferenzen durch die EBU und Abschottung der Acts – hat Douze Points in der Reihe Bye Bye Basel schön zusammengefasst.

Das alles war hochprofessionell organisiert und kompensierte einmal mehr die nachlassende Arbeit der EBU für die Fan-Presse und -Bubble. Für das Engagement kann man dem Team von Wiwibloggs nicht genug danken.