2005-2014

Reporters Without Borders calls for the immediate release of Moussa Kaka, director of privately-owned Radio Saraouniya and Niger correspondent of Radio France Internationale and Reporters Without Borders, who was arrested yesterday evening and who is being held at police headquarters in Niamey. “Our correspondent’s arrest indicates that, under pressure from the Tuareg rebellion, the Niger...

The former head of a district in Chechnya has been charged as an accomplice in organizing the execution-style murder of a Russian investigative journalist, his lawyer said Friday. Shamil Burayev, who was detained by police last week in Moscow, was charged with "complicity in murder as an accomplice" in the death of Anna Politkovskaya, defense lawyer Pyotr Kozakov told The Associated Press. He gave...

During the reign of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi newspaper Azzaman could only be published in London. Fleeing the government's muscular arm in the 1990s, the newspaper's founder, former Hussein aide Saad al-Bazzaz, was forced to run his media operation out of Europe for nearly a decade. But after Mr. Hussein's expulsion in 2003, Mr. al-Bazzaz set up offices in Baghdad, and he has since been busy...

The Economist Group is using the power of the blogosphere to build 'buzz' for its political stories before they are published. Having identified a group of influential US political bloggers, the media company gives content to these individuals in order to begin circulation, Mike Seery, chief information officer of The Economist Group, told delegates at an AOP forum, in London yesterday. Seery's...

NEW DELHI (AP) -- Time Inc. plans to start an Indian edition of its Fortune magazine under a licensing deal with a local media company, an editor at the U.S.-based business publication said Friday. Under Indian laws, a foreign company has to form a joint venture with a local company or give a license to one to publish news in India. Fortune plans to bring out an Indian edition through a licensing...

Long a staple in Europe, free dailies are relatively new to the US market. Don Nizen, operations director for Boston Now, says free dailies represent 50 percent of the newspaper market in Europe, but just 6 percent in the US. There are now some 39 free daily newspapers in the US, 12 of which have been launched in just the past seven years. While circulation numbers continue to fall for large metro...

Google (GOOG) on Thursday released a free software tool that allows Google AdWords advertisers to create their own Google Print Ads for display in newspapers. The company released Google Print Ads in July, a service that enables advertisers, large and small, to buy traditional print newspaper ads. Citing a 2006 Scarborough Research report, Google on its Web site claims that 3 out of 4 adults in...

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The government banned a TV news channel for a month on Thursday after it aired a misleading sting operation in which it accused a Delhi teacher of blackmailing her students into becoming prostitutes. Live India showed hidden camera footage and an anonymous interview with a supposed victim last month, accusing the teacher of drugging her students and making pornographic images...

The Iranian justice system has just made public charges against journalists Ako Kurdnasab and Soheil Assefi, in two unconnected cases, more than one month after the two were arrested. They are among a total of ten journalists currently behind bars in Iran, one of them, Mohammad Sadegh Kabovand, who was arrested on 1st July 2007, still does not know what charges he faces. “Iran is one of the Middle...

Reporters Without Borders voiced concern today about Amaury Ribeiro Junior, a crime reporter with the Correio Braziliense national daily, who was hospitalised yesterday after being shot in the stomach on a street in the Brasilia suburb of Cidade Occidental, where he had gone to cover organised crime. “We do not yet know if Ribeiro was personally targeted or if he was the victim of random criminal...