2005-2014

The much-hyped World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) event suffered a setback even before it could begin. International Freedom of Expression Exchange's Tunisia Monitoring Group (TMG), a coalition of 14 organisations, has pulled out of the event. In a statement last night, IFEX said "There has been a series of serious incidents against journalists and human rights activists. Most shocking...

American Journalism Review Managing Editor Lori Robertson is leaving the magazine this month to concentrate on freelance writing, and current AJR senior writer and part-time editor Rachel Smolkin is being promoted to Robertson's position. AJR Editor and Senior Vice President Rem Rieder announced the changeover today. Robertson plans to spend several months in Latin America, traveling, writing and...

Brian Roberts, chief executive of the biggest cable operator in the US, recently quipped that Comcast Corp's shares could be picked up in a "going-out-of- business sale" in the stock market. In the two months since then, Comcast's stock price has fallen further, despite growth in revenues and profits. Comcast is no exception. Shares of media and communications companies have been underperforming...

Fifty-one journalists have been killed so far this year and more than 500 arrested, making 2005 a dark year, the World Association of Newspapers said Monday in its annual review of press freedom worldwide. North Koreans read a newspaper at the Yonggwang underground station – which means glory station – in the North Korean capital Pyongyang October 17, 2005. Little or no information on the

Making the most of digital broadband interactivity requires an understanding of new consumer behavior and preferences that already are challenging media's major players and much of the industry's conventional wisdom. The traditional consumer demographics that have defined success in the television, film and print media businesses are but a starting point in a new era in which respecting the deeper...

Newspaper websites grew 11 per cent year-over-year to 39.3 million unique visitors in October 2005, comprising 26 per cent of the active US Internet population, or one out of every four Internet users. The 11 per cent increase exceeds the growth of the active Internet universe as a whole, which rose three percent year-over-year, according to the latest Nielsen//NetRatings research. This research...

The World Association of Newspapers (WAN) has called on the summit meeting of the Islamic Conference in December to drop from its agenda an item concerning caricatures of Mohammed that were published in a Danish newspaper. NOT THAT FUNNY: Muslim religious leaders in Denmark, who saw the cartoons as an insult to Islam and the prophet called on the conservative daily to withdraw the cartoons and to

A Senegalese journalist is among the three winners of this year's Integrity Awards given by Transparency International (TI) for contributions to the fight against corruption in their countries. The 2005 Integrity Awards were given to Abdou Latif Coulibaly, an investigative journalist from Senegal; Khairiansyah Salman, an auditor at the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) in Indonesia; and an independent...

The world's media markets are becoming hotter, setting the stage for the Top 100 global marketers to crack the $100 billion level this year. The Top 100, an elite group of marketers that drive just over a quarter of the world's total media and that spend those dollars on three continents or more, notched $93.94 billion in worldwide media in 2004, according to Advertising Age's 19th annual Global...

Akbar Ganji, a leading investigative journalist who is now one of Iran's most renowned political prisoners, has been awarded the 2006 Golden Pen of Freedom, the annual press freedom prize of the World Association of Newspapers (WAN). WE WANT HIM FREED: An Iranian woman brandishes a picture of journalist Akbar Ganji, Iran's highest profile political prisoner, during a protest staged outside Tehran...