2005-2014

More than 100 new channels are awaiting government approval in India as media companies jostle for position in a second wave of expansion in the television industry. However, the surge towards 300 channels could come at a heavy cost for new entrants, as up to $1 billion (£500 million) is pumped into a fast-growing market with technical shortcomings and a dearth of creative talent. According to...

Israeli forces have been holding a Syrian TV reporter for three weeks without offering any explanation, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) said today. RSF called for the immediate release of Ata Farahat, the correspondent of Syrian public television and the daily newspaper Al-Watan in the Golan Heights, who was arrested on July 30 and is currently held in Al-Jalama prison (14 km southeast of Haifa)...

British-Russian relations have taken a nosedive. BBC's Russian-language service will no longer be heard on Russian FM radio, after the country's media regulator ordered that it be removed. On August 17, the management of Bolshoye Radio announced that it would no longer broadcast the BBC’s World Service programmes in the Russian language. The radio station is the BBC’s last FM partner in Russia

The International Press Freedom and Freedom of Expression Mission to Nepal has expressed serious concern about continuous violence against journalists in Nepal. Nepalese listen to a speech by unseen Maoist Chairman Prachanda at a rally in Kathmandu. Nepal's Maoists are cementing their new found political clout by establishing unions that could cripple the country and undermine a fragile peace deal...

The Centre for Science and Environment is inviting active journalists to address issues revolving around rivers in India through the Seventh CSE Media Fellowships. Selected Fellows will be expected to devote time to travel, research and report on the subject. Background: India has 12 major river basins that account for 85 per cent of its river waters. Entire civilisations have grown and thrived in...

As Tribune Co. shareholders prepare to convene in Chicago on Tuesday to vote on an $8.4-billion buyout led by investor Sam Zell, the noise in the background is Wall Street traders chirping that the deal might never get done -- at least as proposed. Amid one of the most turbulent summers in years for the stock market, Tribune shares have slid steadily and steeply. The stock closed Friday at $25.67...

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Google Inc revealed on Monday that it had acquired a stake in Chinese community Web site Tianya.cn, indicating a foray by the global search leader into social networking in the world's second-largest Internet market. A Google spokeswoman confirmed the stake holding by email, but declined to give further details. Various local media reports on Monday put the estimated size of...

The nearly eight-year-old Shivani Bhatnagar murder trial entered a crucial phase last week with the prosecution starting its final arguments, says a report in the Times of India. This phase of the trial is the penultimate step before a verdict is delivered in the case that involves suspended IPS officer R K Sharma and five others as accused. Shivani, a print journalist, was strangled and murdered...

The US media's reporting of the war in Iraq fell sharply in the second quarter of 2007, largely due to a drop in coverage of the Washington-based policy debate, a study released Monday said. Taken together, the war's three major story lines — the US policy debate, events in Iraq and their impact on the US homefront — slipped roughly a third, to 15 per cent of an index of total news coverage, down...

Am I worried about the future of the newspaper industry? No, because as an artist, I find that literature is its own reward. I care only for the pitch, roll and yaw, the warp and the woof -- the yipping and the twittering -- of our beautiful language. But corporate realities are getting harsh around here, and thus I've decided to blog a lot more about sexual deviancy, inebriated starlets,...