2005-2014

Reporters Without Borders reiterated its call for the release of Armando Betancourt, 45, as he today completed a year in detention without trial. A contributor to the Nueva Prensa Cubana website and founder of the underground magazine El Camagüeyano, he was arrested by the National Revolutionary Police (PNR) on 23 May 2006 in the central city of Camagüey. “Betancourt’s only offense was to work as...

Reporters Without Borders today condemned the government’s intention to try journalist Yuri Chernogayev, a Tashkent-based freelancer for the German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle. The prosecutor’s office told him on 18 May that he will soon be formally charged with a range of offences including threatening national security. He faces up to 10 years in prison. “This is a travesty of justice...

Back in March 2004, Mukesh Kapila, the top U.N. official in Sudan at the time, grabbed the media limelight for Darfur by appearing on BBC Radio 4's Today Programme and describing the conflict as "ethnic cleansing" and "the world's greatest humanitarian crisis". He compared the killing that began in Sudan's western region in early 2003 to Rwanda, and asked why the world wasn't doing more. His...

A number of major news outlets plan to announce today that they are adding a new way to search their Web sites, a move aimed at boosting traffic by encouraging readers to use them as a first stop for information gathering, just like Google or Yahoo. Inform Technologies LLC, which is based in New York, said 16 online publications plan to include its new search function. Among them are...

Internet advertising revenue in the U.S. set a new record in 2006, growing 35% to reach almost $17 billion, according to a report released by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC). Revenue for the fourth quarter of the year, $4.8 billion, also set a record and similarly showed a 35% increase compared to the fourth quarter of 2005. Randall Rothenberg...

The future of journalism is in your hands. That's the message today as the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation today hands out more than $11 million in prize money to a motley crew of bloggers and organizations ranging from MIT to MTV -- winners of the first Knight News Challenge contest. The contest challenged applicants to develop ways of using digital media to foster local communities, and...

For years now, newspapers have quietly watched Google index their headlines and offer users a synopsis of their stories without paying them a dime. Google is supposed to make it easier for newspaper readers to find content online. But some in the industry are questioning whether it makes business sense to allow Google to use their material for free. "If all of the newspapers in America did not...

The International News Safety Institute (INSI) has dismissed the Iraqi government's restrictions on news coverage of bombings as irrelevant to the safety of journalists. According to a report on state-run Al-Iraqiyah television last week, an Interior Ministry spokesman said the ministry had decided to prevent news teams from approaching the scenes of incidents out of concern for their safety...

The International Press Institute (IPI) has decided to retain Ethiopia, Nepal, Russia, Venezuela and Zimbabwe on the IPI Watch List. The IPI board, which met in Istanbul on May 12, also voiced serious concerns about press freedom in Sri Lanka and resolved to make a final decision on whether to add Sri Lanka to the IPI Watch List at the IPI board meeting in November 2007. A final decision will be

Reporters Without Borders has asked the US ambassador in Afghanistan, William Wood, to intervene on behalf of Claire Billet, a French journalist working for the independent Hamsa Press agency, who was notified by email on 17 May that she has been blacklisted by NATO’s International Security Assistance Force. Last month, she was arrested by private security guards and interrogated by US soldiers in...