2005-2014

WASHINGTON – The number of full-time journalists working at daily newspapers continues to fall while the number of minority journalists inched up nearly a half of a percentage point to 13.42 percent in 2004. Since the economic downturn of 2001, newsrooms have lost a net of more than 2,200 journalists while the number of minority journalists has increased. These are among the key findings from the...

Most freelance writers wait in dread for The Call -- their equivalent of the "Dear John" letter from an editor who is calling (or sometimes e-mailing) to say they're no longer needed. A number of years ago, The Call came to me from my editor at CNET, but with a twist. They were killing my humor column because it didn't get enough page views. I even got a rundown of the numbers, though they were...

Former Haryana Chief Minister’s men let lose a reign of terror around his farmhouse amidst reports of the CBI raid there and even bashed up the cameraman of a private TV channel. The raid was conducted in connection with the JBT teachers recruitment scam. When The Tribune team reached Mr Chautala’s farmhouse on Thursday his men were standing at one gate amidst eerie silence, while the other...

A union representing US employees of Reuters Group Plc is mounting a legal challenge against outsourcing of many of their editorial jobs to Bangalore in India. An independent arbitrator will hear the Newspaper Guild of New York's charge that offshoring US-based editorial jobs violates its contract with Reuters. The arbitrator's decision will be legally binding. The case could take months to...

The Police Commissioner of Mumbai, A.N. Roy, has issued a circular to all police stations and other establishments within his Commissionerate not to give any information to journalists. As stunned crime reporters sought a meeting with the Deputy Chief Minister, R.R. Patil, the Opposition Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party assailed the Police Commissioner for taking a dictatorial step that would...

Not that long ago, you had to be a professional reporter to publish defective copy. Not any more. Thanks to blogs, the journalist monopoly on the wide-scale propagation of blunders, boo-boos, and bloopers has vanished. Now, complete amateurs can embarrass themselves before huge audiences. Bloggers demonstrated their skill at botching a story last month when a swarm of them accused the Washington...

Associated Newspapers, publisher of the Daily Mail and self-appointed champion of middle England, is considering launching a title in India. The group has been drawing up plans for the market since the beginning of the year. Associated executives who looked at the subcontinent 18 months ago were encouraged to look again by regulatory changes and marked growth in the urban Indian professional...

Search supremo Google is to gain a toehold in the emerging market of ‘video blogging’ after co-founder Larry Page this week vowed to archive online movie clips. Speaking to a conference in San Francisco, the internet boss said he would upload short visual clips in the next few days to the search site’s existing servers. He said that the experiment into video blogging – or vlogging - invites...

In a move that could spark off another political controversy, the Centre has brought a note before the cabinet seeking to allow 20 per cent foreign direct investment in private radio channels, a market hitherto protected for the domestic industry. The media sector has till now been closely guarded, with political parties divided over the extent to which FDI should be allowed in the print and...

LONDON - A radical revamp of The Independent, less than a year after it went fully tabloid, is set to incur the wrath of media agencies over fears it will lead to hikes in advertising rates. The overhaul, to be unveiled on April 12, will involve a design change from six to seven columns and convert the title into a one-section, compact newspaper. Review content will be folded into the main news...