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JSE-listed media stocks have benefited from SA's buoyant consumer confidence levels as much as the country's retailers have over the past few years. The media index was among the best-performing sectors on the local bourse last year, largely driven by the surge in share prices of the publishing and electronic media groups. During the past year, Johnnic Communications (Johncom) shares climbed 79,9%...

I feel badly for Gather. What started out as good publicity in its hometown newspaper ended up in blue ruin as bloggers roundly pommelled the blog aggregation service for its poor business plan and awkward approach to the market. Is Gather just one more would-be Web 2.0 company that's been thrown under the blogosphere bus? Perhaps. Gather is a kind of blog aggregation service: It hosts your...

WASHINGTON (AP)--The Washington Post (WPO) shut down one of its blogs Thursday after the newspaper's ombudsman raised the ire of readers by writing that lobbyist Jack Abramoff gave money to the Democrats as well as to Republicans. At the center of a congressional bribery investigation, Abramoff gave money to Republicans while he had his clients donated to both parties, though mostly to Republicans...

LUSAKA, 20 Jan 2006 (IRIN) - The Zambian media has largely ignored the drought that has left more than a million rural Zambians in need of food aid. Despite President Levy Mwanawasa's declaration of a national food crisis last year, when harvests failed in parts of southern, eastern and northern Zambia, the national broadcaster, the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC), has not carried...

MAPUTO, Jan 20 (Reuters) - A Mozambican court convicted a man on Friday for the November 2000 killing of journalist Carlos Cardoso and sentenced him to 30 years for a crime that threw the spotlight on corruption in the southern African country. "The judges consider the charges proven and therefore decide in the name of the Republic of Mozambique to condemn Anibal dos Santos Junior", judge Dimas...

19 January 2006 (RFE/RL) -- Tajikistan has suspended the local FM radio service of the British Broadcasting Corporation, the BBC. The move affects broadcasts in the capital Dushanbe and the northern city of Khujand. The BBC's services on medium and short wave are unaffected, RFE/RL's Tajik Service reports. The decision to suspend the service was made on 10 January and follows the adoption of a law...

One of the central problems for scholars seeking to study ideological bias in the media is the lack of agreed-upon data. Natural scientists and even most social scientists can run experiments where their variables are to a considerable extent controlled. But this is simply impossible in the coverage of politics. An impeachment scandal over a fib about extramarital sex is simply not comparable to...

"PAIN is temporary, film is forever." That hopeful thought, which found its way into the original script of Peter Jackson's recent re-make of "King Kong", might be seized upon by today's beleaguered entertainment industry. Media companies are suffering intense pain–and it is starting to seem worryingly permanent. In America shares of "old" media firms such as News Corporation, Comcast and other...

NEW YORK (AP) _ An investment group sued a Japanese media company Thursday, saying it had been wrongfully and maliciously accused of being associated with members of Japanese organized crime. Cerberus Capital Management LP, headquartered in Manhattan, filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, accusing The Mainichi Newspapers Co. of publishing a story last week alleging that the...

Iraq has recommended that US authorities release six of the eight Iraqi women in military custody, but has denied that it was part of a bid to free a kidnapped American journalist, according to Al-Jazeera. The kidnappers of Jill Carroll have threatened to kill her unless all Iraqi women detainees are freed by Friday, January 20. WILL HER DEADLINE BE MET? Christian Science Monitor freelancer Jill...