2005-2014

LOS ANGELES -- An explosive article in January's Vanity Fair details the sundry adventures of Judith Miller and the New York Times surrounding the controversial reporter’s decision to be jailed for refusing to identify her source to a grand jury investigating the case of who outed covert CIA agent Valerie Plame. The magazine is out on newsstands in Los Angeles. The story, by Seth Mnookin, splashes...

Lee Sang-ho, a reporter from local television station MBC, is likely to face criminal charges over the disclosure of wiretapped conversations by the nation’s spy agency. The prosecution summoned Lee Thursday to question him about the details of his report. He was summoned as a witness in August after his company revealed the eavesdropping story to the public. A prosecutor said that Lee was...

VISAKHAPATNAM: A gag order served by the Visakhapatnam district administration on two Telugu dailies seeking to screen before publication news reports pertaining to public servants created a furore in the media on Thursday. Journalist unions described it as an attempt to curtail the freedom of the press. On learning about the implications of the order, the Government intervened and got the order...

Dec 8, 2005 (KHARTOUM) – The media conference that ended on Tuesday 6 December in Khartoum urged the government of Sudan to dissolve the media council which was formed by the government to regulate independent newspapers in the Sudan. The media council came under fire from the media conference on freedom of expression in Khartoum that ended yesterday, the Sudan Radio Service reported. The media...

NAIROBI, 9 December (IRIN) - The National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) has won a prestigious international award in recognition of its "tenacious fight to defend the international principle of press freedom" in the Horn of Africa nation. The international media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RWB) awarded NUSOJ the Fondation de France International Press Freedom Defender prize at a...

MOSCOW, December 9 (RIA Novosti) - The lower house of the Russian parliament adopted a law in its third reading Friday that gives the Public Chamber the right to control the observance of freedom of speech in the mass media. The bill was backed by 347 State Duma deputies, out of the 226 votes necessary. Six rejected it and one person abstained. The amendments to the law on the Public Chamber...

In the next day or two, the world will get a glimpse of how desirable, or not, newspapers are, when preliminary bidding begins for Knight Ridder. The fate of the company, the second-largest newspaper publisher in the United States in terms of circulation, behind Gannett, is being closely watched as a signpost for the future of other newspapers at a time of great transformation, anxiety and...

CAIRO, 9 December (IRIN) - The arrest of the editor of a local news website this week has raised fresh concerns among defenders of freedom of expression. "Such practices reflect the government's lack of tolerance for freedom of expression and opinion," said Mahmoud Aly of the Egyptian Association for the Support of Democracy. Ahmed Mohammed Mahmoud, the editor of Balady.net, a website devoted to...

On a U.S. tour, award-winning journalist Robert Fisk spoke about his life work as a veteran journalist reporting about the Middle East. Fisk is the Middle East correspondent for the British newspaper, The Independent. For almost 30 years he has been a journalist and with over 28 foreign press awards he is one of the most decorated journalists in the world. With a sunburned face Fisk has lived in...

TREVOR Ncube, the owner and publisher of the Mail & Guardian and Zimbabwe's Standard and Independent newspapers had his passport impounded as he landed in Bulawayo on Wednesday. Ncube, who commutes between South Africa and Zimbabwe, is in Bulawayo on a business and family trip, the Mail & Guradian reported. The impounding of Ncube's passport came as Australia promised to urgently review a list of...