2005-2014

Structural changes meant to broaden the authority of Mexico’s special prosecutor’s office to investigate crimes against journalists are still insufficient to address the grave free expression crisis in Mexico, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. The renamed special prosecutor’s office for crimes against freedom of expression will report directly to the attorney-general and will...

An upstart online news service has led the way in investigating France's latest political funding scandal, defying President Nicolas Sarkozy's efforts to stamp his influence on the media, says a Reuters report. The Mediapart website has published a stream of embarrassing reports of alleged cash donations by France's richest woman, Liliane Bettencourt, to conservative politicians, and meddling in...

The better a politician looks, the more his chances of appearing on television, says a new study. Dr Yariv Tsfati, Dana Markowitz Elfassi and Dr Israel Waismel-Manor surveyed the coverage of all members of the 16th Israeli Knesset on Israeli television channels 1, 2 and 10. In parallel they had the appearance of each member of Knesset -based on their official website photos - rated by Dutch...

Even the top 60 citizen websites and bloggers are not filling the information shortfall that has resulted from cutbacks in traditional media, say US researchers. "While many of the blogs and citizen journalism sites have done very interesting and positive things, they are not even close to providing the level of coverage that even financially stressed news organizations do today," said Margaret...

The deposed government of Hamas movement still bars the circulation of the three major West Bank-based Palestinian dailies in the Gaza Strip for the third day after Israel allowed their entrance into the costal enclave on Wednesday, the dailies' circulation agents said Friday, according to Xinhua. Shukri Shublaq, one of the circulation agents in the Gaza Strip, told Xinhua that officers from the...

Detroit's two daily newspapers knew they were shoving some readers overboard in an effort to stay afloat when they decided to limit home delivery to just three days a week, says an Associated Press (AP) report. It was only a question of how many subscribers would abandon the Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News once their print editions were no longer hitting doorsteps and driveways each Monday...

The Canadian Press, the news service that began as a way to distribute reports from the front back to Canada during the First World War, has struck a tentative deal that will transform the 93-year-old organisation, says a The Globe and Mail report. Faced with mounting financial challenges, the organisation is proposing to convert itself to a for-profit company, from an industry co-operative. Under...

Restrictions on movement of media persons in the wake of curfew in Srinagar and certain other parts of the valley were on Sunday lifted by the Jammu and Kashmir government which issued fresh curfew passes to them. Media persons can perform their official duties, an official spokesman said. He said there was no gag order on the media but "we were only enforcing the curfew strictly". Newspapers...

The Pentagon on Thursday reversed its ban on a Miami Herald reporter from covering military commissions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and said the reporter can return to the naval base there to cover a hearing next week, the newspaper has reported. In an email sent Thursday, Bryan G Whitman, the principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, said that Carol Rosenberg "will be...

CNN has fired a senior editor for Mideast news after she published a Twitter message that said she respected the late Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, branded a terrorist by the US, American and UK media said Thursday. Grand Ayatollah Fadlallah, one of Shiite Islam’s highest religious authorities and an early mentor of Hizbullah, died in Beirut Sunday. The Guardian reported: [ Link] The...