2005-2014

NEW YORK: Although Cincinnati Post staffers were expecting today's announcement that the paper would cease publication at the end of the year, several newsroom employees admitted the final blow is not easy to take. Members of the 52-person news staff said they were not surprised at the decision by E.W. Scripps Company to fold the paper when the joint operating agreement with Gannett Co. Inc...

NEW YORK: The St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press is seeking to cut some 30 positions in news, classified advertising, and production through a series of buyouts, the paper announced today. The offer comes just seven months after a previous buyout reduced staff by 29 employees, including 22 in the newsroom. In a statement released this afternoon, the paper revealed that it would seek 30 volunteers...

Two journalists from tabloid Aftonbladet have been reported to the police after their boat allegedly crossed into an exclusion zone outside the Swedish royal family's summer palace on Öland, southern Sweden, on Sunday. "Breaking the law on exclusion zones can give fines or up to one year's imprisonment," said Doris Högne Rydheim of the Swedish Security Police (Säpo), the organization responsible...

(FMM/IFEX) - The Supreme Court of Sri-Lanka declared the detention of journalist Sivanathan Sivaramya by the police on 1 May 2006 illegal and ordered the two officers responsible to pay 50,000 Sri Lankan rupees (approx. US$446) in compensation to the journalist. The Supreme Court decision was announced on 16 July 2007 by a three-member bench comprising the Chief Justice and two other judges. At...

Reporters Without Borders today condemned police and judicial harassment of independent journalist Claudia Acuña, which began on 11 July after she revealed the existence of a Buenos Aires prostitution ring controlled by certain authorities by means of threats. The founder of the online news agency La Vaca and the affiliated MU newspaper, Acuña has already been fined 3,000 pesos (700 euros). “It is...

(Mizzima/IFEX) - The Burmese junta has imposed restrictions on media coverage of the National Convention on the drafting of the constitution, to be held on 18 July 2007. Burma has been without a constitution since 1988, when its 1974 charter was suspended following a coup led by a new junta regime. In invitation letters to local media and foreign news agencies in Rangoon, the convening committee...

Most of America’s teens and young adults do not follow the daily news closely, a new report has revealed. Younger Americans are relatively more attuned to soft news stories (such as the death of Anna Nicole Smith) than to hard news stories (such as the congressional vote on the troop surge in Iraq). In many cases, teens and young adults learned of soft news stories through another person rather...

Paraguayan journalist Enrique Galeano has resurfaced 17 months after he went missing on February 4, 2006 in the central department of Concepción, where he lived and worked. The Paraguayan press reported on Monday that Galeano resurfaced in the Brazilian city of São Paulo, where he went into hiding after being threatened by gangsters. He is now in Uruguay, where he has requested political asylum

(BIANET/IFEX) - After an article on pre-election opinions in Batman, a south-eastern province, was published in the "Gündem" newspaper on 12 July 2007, an Istanbul penal court has closed the newspaper for 15 days. Cause for the closure was an article published on 12 July (issue no. 132), entitled: "The Batman Message: Stand By the Guerrillas". The newspaper has been closed for periods of 30 and 15...

A Russian manager of German media group Bertelsmann has been found murdered at her country house, local prosecutors said on Monday. Bertelsmann said there is no connection between its business and the murder. The deputy manager of German publisher, Bertelsmann's Russia office was found dead in her country house outside of Moscow, Russian prosecutors said in a statement on Monday. "The body of 47...