2005-2014

Dec. 28 (Bloomberg) -- The move to online advertising is happening faster than analysts anticipated as companies devote more of their budgets to the Internet than traditional media. The market for online ads will increase 32 percent to $16.6 billion next year, fueling growth at companies including Google Inc. and Yahoo! Inc., Credit Suisse First Boston analyst Heath Terry said in a research report...

New York, December 28, 2005–The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns Thursday's court decision upholding the conviction of Internet writer Zheng Yichun on charges of "inciting subversion" for his articles criticizing the government. The Liaoning Supreme People's Court rejected Zheng's appeal, making it more likely that he will serve a prison term of seven years. "Zheng has done nothing more...

Reporters Without Borders journalists continue to be hounded in Egypt, in remarks to two journalist being sentenced despite official announcements on decriminalizing press offenses, "each year such harassment increases." Two journalists with the independent daily "Al Fajr" (Dawn), Mohamed Abdul-Latif and Manal Lasheen, were sentenced on 14 December 2005 to six and four years in prison...

MINSK, Belarus -- Authorities have halted an investigation into the stabbing death of an opposition journalist, a top prosecutor said Wednesday. Veronika Cherkasova, 44, who had worked for independent media outlets for the past 15 years, was killed in her home in the Belarusian capital of Minsk in October. Sergei Ivanov, a top prosecutor in charge of the investigation, told The Associated Press...

BEIJING - A Straits Times reporter arrested in China on charges of spying will have his case referred to the prosecution department within days, Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang said on Wednesday. Mr Tsang had brought up the case of Ching Cheong, who was based in Hong Kong, during meetings in Beijing with President Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao. Mr Ching, 56, was first detained in April in...

A union bid to buy nine newspapers owned by Knight Ridder Inc. is apparently a nonstarter because the chain says it will only consider offers for the entire company. San Jose's Knight Ridder said last month that it is exploring "strategic alternatives,'' including the possible sale of its 32 news-papers. Major investors in Knight Ridder stock who are critical of the company's management have...

A Saudi journalist, Mshari Al-Zaydi, wrote about the "disease" of the Arab press blaming others for the Arab world's misfortunes in a London-based newspaper, Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, on November 20. "This huge obsession among some Arabs and Muslims regarding conspiracy theories and the belief that the world is lurking in wait to pounce on us, as if the world has no worries other than cooking up plans...

THE British government gagged the media yesterday to stop them revealing the identity of a spy reported to have helped torture terror suspects held in Greece. A leading Greek paper has named a man it claims is the MI6 station chief in Athens. He and another British official are alleged to have helped the Greek authorities arrest and then interrogate 28 Pakistani-born detainees seized in connection...

One of the biggest failures of the Nigerian media is its inability to purge itself of all hurtful presuppositions that generate a gulf between its news reports and the people whose lives reflect in – or are shaped by – that news. Indeed, there is a continuously shrinking space in our newspapers, for stories of the pedestrian daily existence of people on the blind spot of the social spectrum. The...

Dakar, Senegal, 12/28 - The Tribunal of Dakar on Tuesday sentenced the editorial director of the daily, L`Observateur, Alioune Ndiaye, a journalist of the same organ, Jean-Pierre Man`, and the editorial director of Le Courrier du jour, Pape Amadou Gaye, to three months of imprisonment with a suspended sentence. They were convicted of defaming Karim Wade, chairman of the National Agency for...