2005-2014

A Kommersant journalist who covered military affairs and had more than once angered government officials fell to his death Friday from a fifth-floor window of the apartment building where he lived. Prosecutors said suicide was the likeliest explanation for the death of Ivan Safronov, a retired colonel who was a columnist at the daily newspaper for more than 10 years. But Safronov's colleagues and...

Less than a year ago, Julia Hobsbawm's fledgling business Editorial Intelligence (EI) was attacked in the press for the audacity of its concept, which was to create a "bridge" between the two sparring worlds of public relations and journalism. Some journalists thought it compromised them to have a formal relationship with commercially driven people from the land of the dark arts. So they took an...

Reporters Without Borders condemned the heavy prison sentences passed yesterday by the regional court of Hargeisa, the capital of the northern breakaway state of Somaliland, on the publisher of the privately-owned daily Haatuf and three of its journalists for allegedly defaming the government, the president and his family. “The Haatuf case has been marked throughout by procedural irregularities...

New York, March 5, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the arrest of freelance reporter Mick McCaffrey and the criminal investigation of Irish Times journalists Geraldine Kennedy and Colm Keena for allegedly publishing private information. Police investigated McCaffrey for several months after the independent Dublin-based Evening Herald daily published his August 2006 article about...

For the Sun, Feb. 20 was a banner news day. The tabloid London newspaper led its front page with an exclusive story on lingerie model Caprice Bourret checking into rehab. The story's three paragraphs were dwarfed by a poster-size color photo of the California-born woman wearing nothing but a bra and panties -- an image tailor-made for a newspaper that thrives on images of topless Page 3 Girls and...

BAGHDAD, Iraq: Gunmen killed an Iraqi newspaper editor Sunday morning outside his home in western Baghdad, a colleague said. Mohan al-Dahir, an editor of the independent Al-Mashriq newspaper, was shot dead by assailants who first tried to kidnap him, said Sayed Ali, another editor at the paper. Al-Dahir, a Shiite Muslim, lived in a Sunni neighborhood of western Baghdad. "He had good relations with...

EL FASHER, Sudan, March 3 -- In this dusty market town in northern Darfur, a lucky few with satellite dishes can get news of the war surrounding them from CNN or the BBC. Others rely on a tree. For the past 10 years, Awatif Ahmed Isshag has handwritten monthly dispatches and commentary about life in El Fasher and hung them on a short, wiry tree that scatters shade along the yellow-sand lane by her...

NEW YORK (AP) - The Village Voice, which has had four editors in just over a year, has fired its most recent one after a staff meeting on concerns about racial diversity, a spokeswoman said Saturday. David Blum was fired Friday after just six months as editor in chief of the alternative weekly, Maggie Shnayerson said. His termination followed a Wednesday meeting in which staffers discussed a lack...

Reporters Without Borders today hailed the release of radio journalist Abdul Qudoos after nearly a year in detention. He was set free after a court in the eastern province of Parwan decided on 31 January to drop the charges of attempted murder that had been brought against him. “It is deplorable that Qudoos spent 11 months in prison for no reason,” the press freedom organisation said. “He is the...

International free speech organisations are mounting pressure on the Turkish government to respect press freedom and freedom of expression leading up to presidential and general elections scheduled for later this year. A Turkish woman holds a placard that reads: 'Prosecute me too 301' during a protest outside a courthouse in Istanbul, Friday, February 23, 2007. A group of activists invited