2005-2014

New York, April 10, 2006 - Unidentified men beat Vladimir Katsman, the editor-in-chief of the Stolichniye Novosti (Capital News) publishing house, as he returned home in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on April 8, local and international press reported. "I definitely believe the attack was linked to my work," Katsman told the online newspaper Gazeta Po-Kyivsky from his hospital bed. Katsman said he had...

BRISTOL, England (UPI) -- The al-Jazeera effect, or the growing influence of satellite television news on public opinion, has unnerved many autocratic Arab governments, but the information revolution is not a sure-fire trigger of political reform in the region, experts say. 'Democratization is not an inevitable by-product of information and communication technology (ICT),' Dr. Emma Murphy, an...

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Danish police warned on Tuesday Muslim anger over newspaper cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad had raised the threat of terrorist attacks on Denmark, after new figures revealed some of the economic damage. Denmark was already on alert because of its participation in the U.S.-led war in Iraq, where it has about 500 troops, though it has not yet suffered any attacks on Danish...

1. "We're live, local – and more lurid than ever." The audience for local news has steadily declined in recent years. According to the 2005 "State of the News Media" report from the Project for Excellence in Journalism, both early- and late-evening news lost more than 3% of their audience a year between 1997 and 2003, though the attrition slowed in 2004. As a result, local stations have gotten...

Tallin, April 10, Interfax - The Estonian newspaper KesKus has reprinted the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that caused protracted protests in the Muslim community in a number of countries. "We published the cartoons so that people can see what they are criticizing. My decision was immediate but we took our time because we did not want to add to the already high tensions," says an article by...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has deplored the Pakistani Supreme Court's 6 April 2006 decision to uphold a life sentence imposed on Rehmat Shah Afridi, the former editor for the "Frontier Post" and "Maidan" daily newspapers, for alleged drug trafficking. Afridi has been insisting on his innocence ever since his arrest by the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) in 1999. The press freedom...

New York, April 10, 2006–Reuters news agency said today that an inquiry it commissioned into the shooting of one of its journalists by U.S. troops in Iraq found that the killing was "unlawful" and a violation of U.S. military rules of engagement. The Committee to Protect Journalists expressed concern at the findings. Reuters said the inquiry by Risk Advisory Group (TRAG), a European risk...

Botswana's Minister of Communications, Science and Technology, Pelonomi Venson, has announced that she will be presenting the controversial Mass Media Bill to Parliament. The proposed law has been rejected by media practitioners because they feel there was no extensive consultation with all stakeholders. In a statement in Parliament at the end of March 2006, Venson said the Mass Media Bill would...

SRINAGAR: Want to know about dating in Kashmir? Refer to She, a magazine patronised by Sheeba Masoodi, the wife of chief cleric of Kashmir and chairman of moderate Hurriyat Conference, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq. Inaugural issue of She was released by eminent personalities and educationists here on Saturday. Mirwaiz’s wife, though present on the occasion, ducked the flashing cameras and refused to talk...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A syndication service that delivers commentary from 600 bloggers for use by newspaper publishers is set to launch on Tuesday, further blurring the lines that divide blogs and mainstream media. BlogBurst, as the service from blog technology company Pluck Corp. is known, includes headlines and articles for use by newspaper publishers in the news or feature sections of their...