2005-2014

(May 22 issue) "If I only had a little humility, I would be perfect." Ted Turner always managed to give us good quote. For that alone, we will miss the outrageous from Captain Courageous, as he became known for his yachting prowess. On May 19, Robert Edward Turner III bids adieu to the media world when he steps off the Time Warner Inc. (TWX ) board at the company's annual meeting in Atlanta...

CHICAGO -- The boyfriend of a former Time magazine reporter was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in her 2003 death after a judge rejected a more serious charge. George Thompson, 36, had faced a first-degree murder charge in the death of Julie Grace. Grace worked in Time's Chicago office from 1991 to 2001. Prosecutors argued during the non-jury trial that Thompson pushed Grace into a...

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - As a backpack journalist traveling solo across the world in dangerous regions, Kevin Sites' load just got a little lighter. Not that the 60 pounds of digital equipment he totes on his back has lessened any. But Sites has made it to the halfway point of a global trek that has found him documenting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Syrian government -- and...

Reporters Without Borders and its Somali partner organization, the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ), paid tribute to journalists trying to work in strife-torn Mogadishu, where an alliance of warlords is battling an Islamist militia, and offered advice on how to do their jobs effectively. "The effect of the fighting on the media's capacity to report confidently and independently is...

(IPYS/IFEX) - The National Elections Jury (Jurado Nacional de Elecciones, JNE) has annulled the fine of 102,000 nuevos soles (approx. US$31,140) that the Special Elections Jury (Jurado Electoral Especial, JNE) of San Martín previously levied against the regional daily newspaper "Aldía". The newspaper was fined for publishing an electoral survey without having been registered in the JNE's electoral...

New York, May 16, 2006–The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the detention of two journalists who have written about divisions within Syria. Military intelligence service detained prominent activist and writer Michel Kilo on May 14 in Damascus, according to CPJ sources. Online journalist Muhammad Ghanem has been in detention for 47 days. Kilo, who contributes to the leading Lebanese...

In an attempt to improve the media landscape in Swaziland, the government has engaged Commonwealth experts to help review the country's unfriendly media laws. As many as 32 unfriendly media laws currently exist in Swaziland, according to a 2003 study by the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Swaziland. The Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Public Service and Information, Cyril Kunene...

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) -- Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, under pressure from Islamists to curb reforms, has warned local media against showing pictures of Saudi women, local newspapers reported on Tuesday. Many Saudis have said they hope the king, who came to power last year, will loosen strict political and social mores in the ultra-conservative kingdom which imposes an austere version of...

May 16, 2006 -- A new trial of the editor of an Armenian-Turkish newspaper began today in Istanbul. Hrant Dink, a Turkish citizen of Armenian origin, is accused of "attempting to influence the judiciary" when his newspaper ran articles criticizing a law that makes it a crime to "insults Turkishness." The law has been used to indict writers and intellectuals, including Dink himself and novelist...

NEW YORK, May 16 (Reuters) - Controversial Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad have been reprinted in a U.S. magazine with commentary by leading U.S. cartoonist Art Spiegelman, who offers what he calls a "fatwa bomb meter" to rate their offensiveness. Harper's Magazine published the article by Spiegelman in its June edition available on newsstands from Tuesday, joining only a handful of U.S...