2005-2014

Manama: The legal stand-off in Bahrain between liberal media and Islamists has intensified after the Arab Federation of Journalists said it was backing Al Ayam Editor-in-Chief Eisa Al Shayji, who is under fire from religious preacher Wajdi Ghunaim. "We express our full solidarity with Eisa Al Shayji and we put all our technical, legislative and logistic potential at his service so that rights...

Almost half of the articles published by daily newspapers in the US contain one or more factual errors, and less than two per cent end up being corrected. The findings are from a forthcoming research paper by Scott R Maier, an associate professor at the University of Oregon's School of Journalism and Communication. The findings challenge how well journalism’s "corrections box" sets the record...

As the Rugby World Cup is set to begin in France later this week, media restrictions imposed by the International Rugby Board (IRB) threaten full press coverage of the events. England's Mark Regan (left) tries to break a tackle from France's Jerome Thion (centre) and Raphael Ibanez during their Investec Challenge international friendly at Twickenham, August 2007. England's rugby World Cup squad...

A Swedish Muslim group is planning to sue a local newspaper for publishing a drawing of the prophet Mohammed with a dog's body. The Nerikes Allehanda newspaper in Orebro printed the cartoon made by artist Lars Vilks in an August editorial that criticised Swedish art galleries for not displaying Vilks' art. Mahmoud Aldebe, chairman of the Swedish Muslim Federation, told the Associated Press (AP)...

The World Association of Newspapers (WAN) has launched a new weblog to report on and discuss the latest in newspaper strategies and other developments in the global newspaper industry. The Shaping the Future of the Newspaper weblog, www.sfnblog.org, is a product of the WAN Shaping the Future of the Newspaper project, which identifies, analyses and publicises all important breakthroughs and...

Hong Kong English-language business newspaper the Standard will be relaunched on Monday with a new design as a free daily to boost circulation, its publisher said. The move is expected by observers to change the landscape of the Hong Kong media market. The Standard's move followed a change in the information disclosure requirements of the Hong Kong stock exchange, as listed companies are no longer...

Media rights groups have called for the end of the death threats against Ali Moallim Isak, a leader of the Somali journalists union after he received anonymous threatening telephone calls and two armed men went to search for him at the union office in the capital Mogadishu. A Somali journalist, stringing for Reuters, bleeds from the head after he survived a roadside bomb ambush that killed another

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has urged President Joao Bernardo Vieira of Guinea Bissau to put an end to the harassment of journalists reporting on drug trafficking in the country. “We are dismayed that one reporter who interpreted for ITN News, a British television investigating drug trafficking has been charged with libel after the head of the navy filed a complaint against...

Iranian authorities have allowed an Iranian-American journalist for the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) to leave Iran, after keeping her in the country for months, the broadcaster said Tuesday. Prague-based Parnaz Azima, who works for Radio Farda, RFE/RL's Persian service operated jointly with the Voice of America radio broadcaster, arrived in Tehran on January 25 to visit her

Reporters Without Borders today protested against a one-year suspended prison sentence and a one year professional ban imposed yesterday on radio and news agency proprietor Sergio Poma for “insulting” Juan Carlos Romero, governor of Salta, in north-western Argentina, whom he had accused of malpractice. Carlos Romero laid a complaint against Poma, of radio FM Noticias, after he accused him of fraud...