2005-2014

SAN FRANCISCO – Google, facing its biggest public relations battle yet, has more at stake than competitors as it fights a federal government demand for data on how millions of users search the Internet. As the No. 1 online search company, Google has the highest profile, and a brand built on a "don't be evil" motto that it must defend as it expands further into search-related ventures. "That is...

LONDON (Reuters) - Rupert Murdoch on Sunday said News Corp. needed to do more to take advantage of strong growth in global broadband and Internet use and defended the media conglomerate's controversial anti-takeover provision. In an interview on the BBC's Radio 5 program, Murdoch said the company was positioning itself for major opportunities within media and entertainment as broadband use grew...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Kidnapping is the biggest nightmare of every Western journalist in Iraq but both foreign and Iraqi reporters face many other obstacles that obscure the U.S. public's understanding of the war. Jill Carroll, an American freelance journalist missing in Iraq, was the 36th reporter to be kidnapped since April 2004, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists...

BAGHDAD, Jan 22 (Reuters) - The U.S. military freed an Iraqi journalist who works for Reuters on Sunday after holding him for nearly eight months without charge. Samir Mohammed Noor was the third journalist working for Reuters to be freed from military custody after two others were released a week ago. At least two journalists for other international media organisations are still being held. Noor...

PASADENA, California (Hollywood Reporter) - ABC might have been the first of the Big Four networks to embrace the uncharted waters of download-on-demand TV, but the network says it is treading cautiously when it comes to aligning with new-media platforms and partners. The licensing pact with Apple's iTunes that helped accelerate the marketplace for download-on-demand and portable video players was...

BAGHDAD, Jan 22 (Reuters) - U.S. forces hunting kidnapped American journalist Jill Carroll are raiding Iraqi homes in a race against time but, as with much of their counter-insurgency war, face the dilemma that their tactics can foster resentment. Operations designed to take her captors by surprise have angered those Iraqis who say troops have blasted their way into their homes, put sacks over...

TEHRAN: A reformist daily newspaper called Etemad Melli (National Confidence), published by the party of the same name, appeared on newsstands yesterday, a month after the party’s satellite channel was banned. The party is headed by Mehdi Karoubi, a former parliament speaker who came third in the first round of last June’s presidential elections. He protested against the handling of the poll by...

WASHINGTON – An experiment in open expression and free speech has proved a bit too free for The Washington Post and its Web site. The newspaper company temporarily shut down Post.blog – a section of Washingtonpost.com that invites reader comments – after receiving hundreds of posts, many using profane or sexist language, responding to columns by The Post's ombudsman, Deborah Howell. The deluge...

LONDON: Public relations experts call it the "big bang," and for years it has been a mainstay of corporate media and marketing strategies. Trot out the chief executive in front of the TV cameras and news reporters with an important new-product announcement. Start an advertising blitz. Then hope that the goods fly off the shelves. Plenty of companies still follow this approach. But there is one...

CONVERGENCE is back, but it is not what it used to be. Following its release after about five years in the halfway house for overblown business ideas, it has been swiftly rehabilitated in the form of various online-offline business ventures. This time around, though, some fairly radical wrinkles on the theme are in the works. One notable example is Google's deal last week to acquire dMarc...