2005-2014

IN August, Mumbai was not only flooded with rain, but also with newsprint. Two new English newspapers - Daily News and Analysis (DNA) and Hindustan Times (HT) hit the stands in a metropolis where The Times of India (TOI) has had a virtual monopoly. Suddenly, piles of newsprint are being dished out to readers, as newspapers compete with quantity as well as quality. For months, DNA kept up an...

Prague, 9 September 2005 (RFE/RL) -- There are fewer sources of information in Tajikistan these days. Independent media, especially newspapers, have been hit hard. Two dailies have simply vanished -- a fact that has been noticed by those selling newspapers. "The popularity of newspapers like 'Ruzi Nau' and 'Nerui Sukhan' was high among our customers, but they have not been putting them out lately...

The most traumatizing images are yet to come. As the fetid water recedes in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, decomposing bodies will turn up in the streets and homes. They will appear on our screens, pushing a nation beyond what once was considered appropriate news coverage. Last week, viewers were shocked to see an elderly woman dead in a wheelchair, a blanket draped over her, pushed against the...

The Washington Post this summer created a bulletin board for staffers to post critiques of the day’s newspaper. On Aug. 26, several days before Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, this bit of revisionism popped up on the board: "Mr. Weather would have liked to see a fuller story on the hurricane further forward in the paper, maybe even A-3, with a front page key; it’s the story people woke up to...

For the first 120 hours after Hurricane Katrina, TV journalists were let off their leashes by their mogul owners, the result of a rare conjoining of flawless timing (summer’s biggest vacation week) and foulest tragedy (America’s worst natural disaster). No one could have anticipated that, suddenly, TV’s two prettiest-boy anchors would be boldly and tearfully (CNN’s Anderson Cooper and FNC’s Shep...

Media people like to believe they were put on Earth to think big thoughts about great global issues, a la Walter Lippmann. But in our hearts, we're really just storm chasers. As the last two weeks have shown, natural disasters speak to us in a way that no G-8 summit ever could. We're in that tiny club of oddballs who are at their best in the absolute worst of human circumstances. All that pain and...

At this weblog, we were very admirative of the work done by newspapers in Louisiana, especially the New Orleans Times-Picayune. For instance the "missing persons list" was launched very quickly by the newspaper and it is a remarkable initiative. But I think to two other consequences: 1) If the goal of newspapers is not only to provide news, but to serve their communities, why have we seen so many...

For the past six weeks the American public has been treated to news reporting of two totally different kinds: five weeks of calculated, controlled lies wrapped in sympathy for modern day saintly "Settlers" being evicted from their homes in their land of Judea, and an open, honest, gut reactive reporting resulting from the uncontrolled mayhem wrought by Katrina. What's to be learned from these...

NEW YORK As Hurricane Katrina's deadly gale-force winds bore down on New Orleans last Monday, dumping water that would later engulf the city, NOLA.com editor Jon Donley was hunkered down in the Times-Picayune's "Hurricane Bunker," listening to the police scanner and posting updates using the site's blogging software. Before its offices were literally swamped with water, the Times-Picayune was...

Natural disasters, whether in the form of storms or tsunamis, make no distinction between developed and developing countries. However, in the face of Hurricane Katrina, the world's richest and most powerful nation was expected to put all the resources at its command to protect its people. Tragically, this did not happen in New Orleans where thousands are reported dead. Despite the early warning...