2005-2014

MOSCOW, June 6, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- Hundreds of media bosses from around the world are currently in Moscow to attend the World Association of Newspapers' (WAN) annual congress. Addressing Russian President Vladimir Putin at the opening conference on June 5, WAN chief Gavin O'Reilly painted a bleak picture of the Russian media. But what does the media landscape look like in other former Soviet...

LONDON (Reuters) - News Corp. revealed on Monday its newspaper The Times is on the verge of launching a broadband television news service to build on its rapidly expanding stable of Internet offerings. Les Hinton, the executive chairman of News International, the UK newspaper division of Rupert Murdoch's global media empire, did not provide many details about the service, but said it would pull...

Spain's Supreme Court has upheld a lower-court ruling sentencing former Al Jazeera correspondent Tayseer Allouni to jail for collaborating with Al-Qaida, report the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières, RSF). Allouni, one of 24 people on trial in Spain for terrorism-related crimes, was sentenced to seven years in prison on 26...

The World Association of Newspapers (WAN) has appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin to take measures to encourage press freedom in Russia and forgo control and influence over the media. WAN President Gavin O'Reilly opened the 59th World Newspaper Congress and 13th World Editors Forum in Moscow Monday by telling the president that his legacy would be judged "as much by the fate of the media...

An Iranian journalist who spent the last six years in jail for criticising the Iranian authorities has been awarded the 2006 Golden Pen of Freedom, the annual press freedom prize from the World Association of Newspapers. Akbar Ganji, a leading investigative journalist who is now one of Iran's most renowned dissidents, dedicated the award to "all Iranian dissidents and freedom-fighters." PENNING...

(IFJ/IFEX) - The International Federation of Journalists, joined by the Iraqi Syndicate of Journalists and the Kurdish Association of Journalists, today launched a global campaign to end the terrifying ordeal of journalists in Iraq where at least 128 media staff have been killed and hundreds more injured or disabled in what has become the deadliest media war in modern history. The General...

A research project, conducted by Ball State University's Center for Media Design, tracked the media use of 350 people every 15 seconds. The subjects represented each gender, about equally, across three age groups: 18 to 34, 35 to 49 and 50-plus. The people were monitored by another person for approximately 13 hours, or 80 percent of their waking day. "Someone actually came into their homes and...

Valuations of technology start-ups before investment have soared to their highest levels since the dotcom boom as venture capitalists seek to deploy large amounts of cash in search of the next big thing in the internet, telecommunications and healthcare sectors. A study released on Monday found that the median value of a pre-investment start-up hit $18.6m in the first quarter, up $3m from last...

(IFJ/IFEX) - The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) is concerned that the recent violence in East Timor has undermined the media's ability to cover the political and social crisis as two daily newspapers have had their publishing interrupted during the crisis. The IFJ has received several reports that journalists, like most workers, have not been going to work amid the ongoing fighting...

(CPJ/IFEX) - New York, June 2, 2006 - The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned that courts in Brazil have issued gag orders on two newspapers for their critical reporting on politicians in the run-up to a general election in October. On May 8, the Civil Court in Campo Grande, capital of Mato Grosso do Sul state, granted an injunction to likely gubernatorial candidate André Puccinelli...