2005-2014

From 16th February – 8th March 2006, hundreds of gender and media activists, human rights groups, grassroots communication organisations, academics and students of communication, media professionals, journalists associations, alternative media networks and church groups from North America, Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific will join forces to take...

I'M SLIGHTLY embarrassed by the bagpipe dirges played when American newspapers drop employees like autumn leaves. Some columnists practically bawled over the accelerating decline and decay of the American newspaper. How many tears rolled down columnists' cheeks when GM announced it would cut 30,000 jobs by 2008? Their self-pity showed that some journalists believe the planets orbit around them...

BRUSSELS .– While attempting to exploit the international information conference in Tunis for its own benefit and against Cuba, the organization Reporters sans frontiers (RSF) was charged in Paris with refusing to give any help whatsoever to a respected Iraqi journalist kidnapped by the CIA in Baghdad. In an interview with Granma International, Iraqi labor leader Subi Thoma, currently exiled in...

LONDON (Reuters) - British journalist and think-tank fellow Anatol Lieven wrote his book "America Right or Wrong" as a wake-up call for the United States to curb its nationalism or face the consequences. For his trouble, Lieven received hate mail, was derided on Internet blogs and, in possibly the cruelest cut of all, was labeled "anti-American" in a review in the New York Times. "It was actively...

PHILADELPHIA - The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear a suit filed against a Pennsylvania newspaper that identified a 15-year-old rape suspect. The suspect, who was charged with raping a 7-year-old girl, had appealed a federal appellate court's dismissal of his 2003 suit against the Herald Standard of Uniontown. "I'm disappointed that they chose not to hear it," said the suspect's...

Lord Goldsmith has been a busy attorney general in the past few days, caught up in two controversies and having to scatter denials and explanations all over the media. Question one: Is he trying to gag newspapers by threatening to use the Official Secrets Act against those who publish the contents of the memo said to contain President Bush's idea of bombing al-Jazeera and Tony Blair's advice to...

In 1997, the new Labour government published a white paper setting out its proposals for a Freedom of Information Act. The opening paragraph stated: "Unnecessary secrecy in government leads to arrogance in governance and defective decision-making. The perception of excessive secrecy has become a corrosive influence in the decline of public confidence in government. Moreover, the climate of public...

NEW YORK - Knight Ridder Inc., publisher of the St. Paul Pioneer Press and other newspapers, has hired Morgan Stanley to help advise it as it explores strategic alternatives, including its possible sale. Morgan Stanley will provide a second opinion to Goldman Sachs, financial adviser to Knight Ridder since its creation in 1974. Knight Ridder spokesman Polk Laffoon said Morgan Stanley had been...

When search giant Google asked for $85 per share in its initial public offering on Aug. 19, 2004, more than a few people thought its wunderkind founders had perhaps drunk a bit too much of their own Kool-Aid. Fifteen months later, it looks like, if anything, they underestimated investors' enthusiasm for their fast-growing company. Google's stock price continued its upward march Monday, finishing...

Press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned the decision by the management of REN-TV to prevent a star presenter on the news analysis programme "24" from broadcasting. Olga Romanova was told on November 24 that she was not going on air that night. Three security guards, none of them employed by the station, physically stopped her from entering the studio after she refused to