2005-2014

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka: A Sri Lankan newspaper chose a graphic way to illustrate how a media rights dispute between Cricket Australia and the major international news agencies is hurting its coverage of the series. With its national squad in Brisbane, Australia, for the first test match against the world's top-ranked team, Sri Lanka's Sunday Times would usually rely on The Associated Press, Reuters...

Last month I speculated that, amid declining newspaper sales, there is some evidence that the market for serious journalism remains strong. October's figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations have reinforced my optimism. Total sales are down across the board, but quality titles have suffered less than their red-top rivals. The Financial Times has increased its circulation again, up by 1.85 per...

A new president will be elected a year from now. Voters will look to the mainstream media, to alternative bloggers and to the candidates' Web sites to help decide who that president will be. A perennial complaint is that the media cover politics too much as a horse race instead of reporting more on the candidates' backgrounds, where they stand on issues and how they would lead the nation. But is...

The Georgian government shut down two popular Tbilisi-based television channels shortly before declaring a state of emergency Wednesday night. Imedi, considered the main Georgian opposition television and radio broadcaster, was raided by special forces and taken off the air. Kavkaziya, a small independent channel, was also shut down. Later Wednesday night, Prime Minister Zurab Nogaideli told a

Islamabad (PTI): The Pakistan government on Saturday ordered three journalists of Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper to leave the country within 72 hours, accusing them of using "abusive" and "foul language" against the country and its leadership. The action was taken against Isambard Wilkinson, Colin Freeman and Damien McElroy under emergency regulations for using "foul and abusive language...

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Ten Darfuris accused of beheading a Sudanese journalist were sentenced to death by firing squad on Saturday, a punishment usually reserved only for the military, the defence said. Sudanese editor of the al-Wifaq daily Mohamed Taha was kidnapped by armed men from his home last year and his decapitated body was found the following morning lying on the street in southern Khartoum...

A Swedish woman who squirted water in the prime minister's face in a fake interview for a TV show has been fined 20,000 kronor ($A3,500) for the prank. The Stockholm District Court fined Hanna Wilenius for recklessly pulling the close-up prank on Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, despite the risk of it being misinterpreted as a real attack, Swedish news agency TT reported. She was also ordered to...

Journalists across Pakistan marked today as a Black Day for the country’s media, led by the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ), in protest at the Government’s failure to meet the PFUJ’s deadline for a withdrawal of anti-media ordinances issued by President Pervez Musharraf at the weekend. Anchors on Pakistan television channels that are able to circumvent the regulations by broadcasting...

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe police on Friday brought in for questioning an editor and two executives from two leading independent media houses, newspaper officials and a police spokesman said. Hama Saburi, editor of financial weekly The Financial Gazette, said he and the newspaper's chief executive were on their way to a police station for apparently violating government price controls. "The...

HEBRON, West Bank, Nov 9 (Reuters) - A major Palestinian news service stopped broadcasting on Friday to protest the arrest of one of its top editors by Palestinian police after his station broadcast a speech by a Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip. Executives from the Maan agency said Mu'taz al-Kurdi, a member of its board and director of Hebron's al-Amal television station, was arrested on Thursday...