2005-2014

8 February 2007

SC issues notice to Zee, reporter on sting operation

The Supreme Court has issued notices to Zee News and its reporter Vijay Shekhar for carrying out a sting operation purportedly to expose corruption in lower judiciary, news agencies have reported. Zee News and Shekhar were issued notices Tuesday for carrying out sting operation in 2004 showing how non-bailable warrants can be procured against any person by paying a hefty amount in a court. A three...

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8 February 2007

US newspaper websites clock record growth in traffic

Monthly unique visitors to newspaper websites in the US averaged more than 57.6 million in the fourth quarter 2006, a record number and the largest in any quarter since the US-based Newspaper Association of America (NAA) began tracking online usage in January 2004. These numbers come on the heels of a separate study from Nielsen//NetRatings indicating that traffic to blog pages at the top 10...

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8 February 2007

Italy to try US soldier for death of agent who saved journalist

An Italian judge ordered Wednesday a US soldier to stand trial on homicide charges for shooting dead an Italian intelligence agent in Iraq in 2005 as he was escorting a freed journalist to safety, Reuters has reported. Mario Lozano of the US Army's 69th Infantry Regiment was charged with voluntary homicide for shooting Nicola Calipari at a checkpoint near Baghdad airport. Italian journalist...

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8 February 2007

In Tunisia, police arrest TV journalist

(CPJ/IFEX) - New York, February 8, 2007 - The Committee to Protect Journalists is troubled by the overnight arrest of an opposition television station director by Tunisian police in the capital Tunis. Tahar Ben Hassine, director of Italy-based satellite channel Al-Hiwar Tunisi, was detained by Tunisian police in the al-Manar neighborhood after leaving Tunisian dissident journalist Taoufik Ben Brik...

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8 February 2007

TV homes to jump 47 percent by 2050: Study

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Television on the wane? Not according to a forecast released Wednesday by Nielsen Media Research, which projects that the nation's TV households will grow 47 percent to 163.7 million by 2050. Nielsen pegged the number of television households in January at 111.4 million using Claritas demographic estimates. But armed with U.S. Census Bureau population estimates for...

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7 February 2007

Mohammed cartoon trial begins in France

Two French Muslim organisations are suing magazine Charlie Hebdo for printing cartoons satirising the prophet Mohammed. The trial began in Paris today in a civil lawsuit by the Grand Mosque of Paris and the Union of Islamic Organisations of France. Charlie Hebdo’s decision to reprint the Danish cartoons was taken at an especially fraught moment. Some 10 news media had been banned or suspended in...

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7 February 2007

Iran: Conservative daily banned for insulting Sunni Muslims

Reporters Without Borders today condemned the closure of the conservative daily Siassat Rouz since 3 February on the orders of the Press Monitoring Commission because of an article deemed to be an insult to Iran’s Sunni minority. “There was no justification for closing this newspaper,” the press freedom organisation said, calling for the immediate lifting of the ban. “In Iran, censorship is...

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7 February 2007

Corporations Co-opt Citizen Journalism

Advertising forecasters predict double-digit growth for online media outlets in the new year. Traditional media, including television and newspapers, are slated for flat growth, at best, during 2007. We all know what this means. The big media companies are migrating to the Internet as fast as possible, simultaneously laying off workers and cutting budgets in their traditional broadcast and print...

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7 February 2007

Sierra Leone: Execs of rival newspapers fight, one lands in jail

Reporters Without Borders voiced concern today about the mutual hostility between Sylvia Blyden, a government ally and publisher of the privately-owned Awareness Times daily, and Philip Neville, the executive editor of the privately-owned Standard Times daily, which led to Neville’s arrest yesterday in Freetown on a charge of libelling Blyden. “This regrettable case shows that Sierra Leone lacks...

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7 February 2007

When Will Media Deeply Probe Corruption in Iraq Contracts?

BAYSIDE, Texas: Show me the money, or at least some receipts scribbled on the backs of old envelopes and grocery bags. This week, we were treated to the spectacle of the former U.S. civilian overlord of Iraq, Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, squirming in the hot seat as he attempted with little success to explain what he did with 363 TONS of newly printed, shrink-wrapped $100 bills he had flown to...

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