2005-2014

GENEVA: The United States, Britain and France publicly pledged Thursday to take all necessary steps to ensure the safety of journalists in war zones. The three countries became the first signatories of the Geneva Conventions to accept a new nonbinding accord on protecting correspondents in conflict, said the International Committee of the Red Cross, which oversees compliance with the 1949 treaty...

New York, November 29, 2007 — The Committee to Protect Journalists is angered by the detention of about 17 journalists by Philippine police after a seven-hour standoff between a dissident group of soldiers and government security forces at the Peninsula Hotel in Manila’s Makati business district today. Some of the reporters were released in a few hours while others remained in detention through...

Agence France-Presse (AFP) has bought a 30 per cent stake in the citizen journalism platform Scooplive, which will be renamed Citizenside. AFP has stated that it will not take part in editorial decisions on the site, which allows users to publish and sell films and photos for commission. According to a press statement from the agency, it is hoped the investment will allow AFP to 'get closer to...

NEW YORK - The New York Times, feeling the squeeze affecting newspapers everywhere, said Wednesday it would eliminate about a dozen support staff jobs from its newsroom. Executive editor Bill Keller told Times employees in an e-mail message that the job cuts were the first to affect the paper's newsroom "in recent memory," but would not involve laying off any reporters. Keller said the paper would...

NEW YORK - Leading news organizations and other publishers have proposed changing the rules that tell search engines what they can and can't collect when scouring the Web, saying the revisions would give site owners greater control over their content. Google Inc., Yahoo Inc. and other top search companies now voluntarily respect a Web site's wishes as stated in a document known as "robots.txt,"...

NEW YORK: Nearly two-thirds of Americans do not trust press coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign, according to a new Harvard University survey, which also revealed four out of five people believe coverage focuses too much on the trivial -- and more than 60% believe coverage is politically biased. The findings were among those in Harvard's Center for Public Leadership National Leadership...

Reporters Without Borders voiced concern today about the threats to press freedom from two articles in a reform of the 1999 constitution which the national assembly approved on 26 October and which Venezuelans are being asked to endorse in a referendum on 2 December. The organisation also fears for the safety of journalists in a media war waged during the referendum campaign and fed by clashes...

New York, November 28, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists expressed alarm today at the imprisonment of Nikolai Andrushchenko, co-founder and an editor of the weekly newspaper Novy Peterburg in the Russian city of St. Petersburg. On Saturday, a court sentenced Andrushchenko to two months of pre-trial detention on charges of defamation and obstruction of justice. If convicted, the journalist...

Athens - Greece was under a 24-hour news blackout as journalists launched work stoppages Tuesday as part of a wave of anti-government rallies against social security reforms. The strike, which is to also include a march in downtown Athens, is to disrupt newspaper production, radio and television news broadcasts and internet news sites across the country. Journalists are opposed to government plans...

Reporters Without Borders today condemned allegations made by national police director Gen. Oscar Naranjo against journalist William Parra of the pan-Latin American TV news station Telesur over an interview with an army captain, Guillermo Javier Solórzano, who is being held hostage by the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Gen. Naranjo has accused Parra of being a...