2005-2014

NEW YORK: So what, exactly, is this Lincoln Group that helped plant pro-American propaganda in the Iraqi press, a phenomenon that has made front-page news this week and has now been denounced by everyone from top military leaders to journalism ethicists? And what about its sub-contractor, BKSH & Associates? The story starts with the Washington D.C.-based Lincoln Alliance Corporation, a "business...

A group of private equity firms, including two that own a significant stake in the Orange County Register, is mulling over a bid for newspaper chain Knight Ridder Inc. Blackstone Group, Providence Equity Partners Inc. and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. are working on a possible offer for the San Jose-based company, three people with knowledge of the discussions with Knight Ridder said Thursday. It...

It was a moment both remarkable and uncomfortable. There, on the night of November 21, was Bob Woodward looking nervous and dry-mouthed, trying to defend his hard-earned legacy to – of all people – a suddenly aggressive and sharp-elbowed Larry King. "So it’s quid pro quo," said the cable schmooze-meister to his old pal Woodward, snappily summing up the reporter’s symbiotic relationships with his...

A Somali reporter has been jailed since Monday following his recent online story claiming that a faction known as the Jubba Valley Alliance has been importing arms in violation of the 2004 peace agreement and a United Nations arms embargo, the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) reported. A Somali gunman carries a Russian-made long range machinegun in the port-town of Merca, October 26

Mario Enrique Mayo Hernández, an imprisoned Cuban journalist who wounded himself and waged repeated hunger strikes to call attention to his plight, was released on medical parole Thursday, more than two and half years after he was jailed in the government's massive March 2003 crackdown on the independent press. Cuban President Fidel Castro, gestures while talking during an evening ceremony

Back in 1987, then Prime Minister of France Jacques Chirac called for the creation of a French international news network. Now, 18 years later, his dream is en route to being realised. Culture and Communications Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres announced 30 November the launch of a "chaîne d'information internationale" (CII), dedicated to giving French spin on world news following the model of...

Military autopsy reports provide indisputable proof that detainees are being tortured to death while in US military custody. Yet the corporate media of the United States (US) is covering it with the seriousness of a garage sale for the local Baptist Church, media research organisation Project Censored has said. According to Prof Peter Phillips, director, Project Censored, a press release on these...

At Google, we think business guru Peter Drucker well understood how to manage the new breed of "knowledge workers." After all, Drucker invented the term in 1959. He says knowledge workers believe they are paid to be effective, not to work 9 to 5, and that smart businesses will "strip away everything that gets in their knowledge workers' way." Those that succeed will attract the best performers...

The biases of the New York Times surface in one or another fashion on a daily basis, but while sometimes awfully crude, these manifestations of bias are often sufficiently subtle and self-assured, with facts galore thrown in, that it is easy to get fooled by them. Analyzing them is still a useful enterprise to keep us alert to the paper’s ideological premises and numerous crimes of omission...

TODAY'S execution of Nguyen Tuong Van has forced the mandatory death penalty issue onto the agenda in Singapore, with the local media unable to ignore the political lobbying, threatened trade boycotts and heated public debate in Australia. In a rare break with the government line, the broadsheet Straits Times ran an article discussing the mandatory death penalty, despite numerous government...