2005-2014

Washington, DC – An American freelance journalist who was held in captivity in Iraq and a Lebanese television broadcaster who survived a car bomb explosion are recipients of this year’s International Women’s Media Foundation Courage in Journalism Award. These women journalists will receive Courage awards along with a Chinese journalist who was unable to accept a 1995 Courage in Journalism Award...

CREATING ONLINE CONTENT IS NO longer the province of a handful of early adopters. Instead, it's become a mainstream activity, spurred largely by the increased availability of broadband connections, according to a new report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. As of last December, 35 percent of Americans had posted to a blog, created a Web page, shared online photos, or otherwise generated...

The Namibian government has officially called on the owner and editor of a local weekly newspaper, Windhoek Observer, to stop publishing letters with hate messages directed at former president Sam Nujoma. In a written statement, Information and Broadcasting Minister Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah condemned the hate letters and said editor Hannes Smith, a veteran Namibian journalist whom she accused of...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has condemned a 26 May 2006 Versailles appeal court ruling confirming that Dominique Issartel and Damien Ressiot of the daily "L'Equipe" should be formally placed under investigation for "helping to violate the confidentiality of a judicial investigation" into the use of banned drugs by a cycling team. The ruling is inconsistent with justice minister Pascal...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns an attack by security guards on a three-member Ayna TV crew that went to the Afghan parliament on 27 May 2006 to cover the selection of candidates for the presidency of the Supreme Court. "This use of violence was a serious obstruction to the work of the press," RSF said. "We call on the authorities to punish the security guards responsible and...

(MFWA/IFEX) - On 25 May 2006, Joyce Danso, a female reporter for the state-owned wire service Ghana News Agency (GNA), was slapped by Michael Gberbie, a 46-year old official of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, Ghana (ICAG), for arriving late to report on their function. She was also insulted by the official. Danso told MFWA that she had gone to the Accra International Conference Centre, the...

(MISA/IFEX) - On 19 May 2006, a day after Information Minister Patricia Kaliati lambasted him in the presence of his junior staff and reporters from other media houses, the acting managing editor of the Malawi News Agency (MANA), Don Napuwa, was transferred to the Information Ministry headquarters. Kaliati told the media that Napuwa was transferred to the Department of Research and Planning, a...

(MFWA/IFEX) - Lamin Fatty, a reporter for the Banjul-based bi-weekly "Independent" newspaper, who has been in police detention for the past seven weeks, was charged with publishing false information on 21 May 2006 by the Gambian Police Force's Crime Management Squad. While Fatty is yet to be arraigned before a court of law, Musa Saidykhan, the newspaper's editor, has gone into hiding for fear of...

(RSF/IFEX) - The German Parliament (Bundestag) has posted on its website ( http://www.bundestag.de/aktuell/pkg/index.html ) part of a report by a former judge revealing that the country's external intelligence service, the BND, has been spying on journalists. Some passages were censored and names replaced by initials at the request of the journalists. The report was posted on 26 May 2006. BND...

High-level media and advertising executives are to meet for a brainstorming session aimed at capitalising on the surging popularity of social networking websites. McKinsey, the management consultancy, is understood to have asked senior executives from old and new media groups alike – from Yahoo to YouTube – to a session with advertising agencies to discuss ways of turning the hugely popular...