2005-2014

2 May 2007

Consumers turn to multimedia, search, aggregators for news

The amount of traffic leaving news and media sites for multimedia sites has risen 196% from April 2006 to April 2007, according to an online competitive intelligence service. Major events, like the execution of Saddam Hussein and the death of crocodile hunter Steve Irwin, have driven the increase, according to a Hitwise analysis released Tuesday. The amount of news traffic going to video Web sites...

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2 May 2007

Media industry faces new reality

Cablevision Systems Corp. and the Tribune Co., which owns Newsday, are moving to take their businesses private. And Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of News Corp., is looking for a little respect, some say, with his $5 billion bid for Dow Jones & Co. and its Wall Street Journal. Analysts and media experts describe it as the transition and turmoil that has become a reality for media...

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2 May 2007

Algeria: Regime continues legal harassment of journalists

Reporters Without Borders today called for an end to the political and legal harassment of two journalists - Arezki Aït-Larbi, the correspondent of the French dailies Le Figaro and Ouest France, and Saad Lounès, the former editor of the daily El Ouma - that has been going on for years. “We are no longer surprised by the Algerian judicial system’s grotesque decisions,” the press freedom...

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2 May 2007

Press Freedom Day: Sri Lanka out of the reckoning

COLOMBO, May 2 (IPS) - "Press and freedom? In Sri Lanka?" was the incredulous response of one journalist when asked what he thought of celebrating World Press Freedom Day, May 3. "Keep my name out of this," was all he would further venture to say. That response summed up the near-petrified state of the media in this island country where a fierce ethnic civil war between Tamil rebels led by the...

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2 May 2007

BBC launches pay-TV in India

BBC Worldwide has launched two pay-TV channels, CBeebies and BBC Entertainment, in India. The CBeebies channel will offer shows such as Tweenies, Tikkabilla and Big Cook Little Cook. BBC Entertainment will air dramas including Doctor Who, Waking the Dead, Cutting It, Hotel Babylon, Spooks and comedies such as Extras. The channels will each be available 12 hours a day to Indian viewers via the Tata...

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2 May 2007

Courts can prohibit repetition of defamatory speech

May 2, 2007 · The California Supreme Court ruled last week that it is constitutional for courts to issue limited injunctions prohibiting defendants from repeating statements that were determined at trial to be defamatory. The ruling arose from a case where the defendant, Anne Lemen, vocally criticized and protested the noise and activities occurring at a bar, the Balboa Island Village Inn, close...

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2 May 2007

World: Threats To press freedom growing more severe

WASHINGTON, May 2, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- Once again, the slain Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya has served as a symbol of the kind of danger journalists around the world live with every day. "Journalists like Anna are on the frontline of human freedom," U.S. Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Karen Hughes told a conference in Washington on May 1. "Yet while her story...

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2 May 2007

CIS: Behind an 'information curtain'

In a historic March 1946 speech, Winston Churchill painted the stark image of an "iron curtain" descending across the European continent. On the far side of that Iron Curtain, a closed and repressive system of governance was rapidly taking hold, in which dissent was ruthlessly suppressed, economic life rigidly managed by communist authorities, and media used exclusively as an instrument of the...

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1 May 2007

Magazine learns to heed its own advice

Business 2.0, the technology-aware magazine published by Time Inc., periodically reminds readers of the importance of backing up computer files. A 2003 article likened backups to flossing — everyone knows it’s important, but few devote enough thought or energy to it. Last week, Business 2.0 got caught forgetting to floss. On the night of Monday, April 23, the magazine’s editorial system crashed...

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1 May 2007

Newspapers seek new way to gauge reach

Newspapers in Massachusetts and across the nation are seeking new ways to measure readership as the traditional measure, paid circulation, continues to decline. For the six months ended March 31, average daily paid circulation fell 5.2 percent in Massachusetts from the same period a year earlier, and 2.1 percent nationally, according to data reported yesterday by the Audit Bureau of Circulations...

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