News

9 January 2006

US forces arrest Guardian reporter in Iraq

US forces arrested an award-winning Iraqi journalist after raiding his Baghdad home and opening fire in the bedroom where he was sleeping with his wife and children, the Guardian reported on Monday. Dr Ali Fadhil works for the Guardian and Britain’s Channel 4. SUSPECT IN U.S. EYES: Ali Fadhil, who two months ago won the Foreign Press Association young journalist of the year award, was hooded and...

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8 January 2006

Did reporters quit asking too soon in mine story?

Tim Mulherin of Indianapolis was one of the many readers I heard from Wednesday morning. He and others let me know how disappointed they were at The Star's having printed the wrong information regarding the fate of 13 coal miners in West Virginia. The Star wasn't alone in reporting that 12 of the 13 miners had been found alive. Newspapers, most in the East Coast time zone, that were caught in the...

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8 January 2006

How and why the mining story was wrong

My folks grew up in a town whose fortunes rose and fell on coal mining. When I lived in that town, I thought the men had the most exotic-looking eyes. Try as they would in post-work scrub-downs, the miners couldn't remove all the coal dust from their lids and it looked like permanent eyeliner to my 12-year-old mind. I thought of those vivid, black-rimmed eyes this past week, watching and reading...

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8 January 2006

When the paper gets it really wrong

The relief I felt reading the paper Wednesday morning, with a headline assuring me the miners in West Virginia were safe, evaporated when I reached the newsroom and learned the truth: All but one were dead. The Star Tribune -- along with many other newspapers -- had a story at the top of the front page that was utterly inaccurate. Forty-one readers who felt similarly let down called or e-mailed me...

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8 January 2006

A night when good news turned bad

The News & Observer is incompetent or insensitive or irresponsible or just plain mean, depending on which of our readers you talked to about the paper's coverage of the West Virginia mine disaster. By now it's old news that The N&O ran on its front page Wednesday the incorrect story reporting that 12 miners had been rescued. "'Miracles happen in W.Va.': 12 miners found alive," proclaimed the large...

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8 January 2006

Newspaper owed readers apology

The Sentinel apologized on Thursday's front page for a headline and article in that space the day before, quoting relatives of 13 trapped West Virginia coal miners as saying, "They're alive!" All but one of the miners, it later turned out, were not alive. S. Atticum of Longwood, among others, found the apology unnecessary. "Your readers readily understand how upstream sources can get it wrong...

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8 January 2006

Diligent designers, editors catch turn of mine story

Contrary to the movies, hollering "Stop the presses!" all but never happens. But the mining tragedy last week demanded it. Front page designer Mark Friesen had left the newspaper about 11:30 p.m. Tuesday after revising Page One through the evening with updates from West Virginia. The banner headline read, "Joy as 12 miners found alive." As he walked into his Southwest Portland home, his wife was...

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8 January 2006

Media circus turns us all into spies

"I just want to let everyone know, this man is spying on you." With those words, a woman at the Sago Baptist Church has forced me to think about my profession in a different way – Am I a spy, or worse, a voyeur, a Peeping Tom into another person’s living hell? That’s not how we reporters like to think of ourselves, and mostly, I don’t think it’s fair. But I’ve seen enough covering last week’s mine...

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8 January 2006

Attack on journalist in UP: Arrests yet to be made

LUCKNOW: A photojournalist working with a local English daily suffered severe injuries when he was attacked by a group of traders at AP Sen Road on Saturday. The incident took place when the journalist spotted an organised racket of refilling liquid petroleum gas (LPG) for use as fuel in four-wheelers and tried to take pi ctures of the culprits in action. Though an FIR was lodged with the local...

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8 January 2006

Media sign code of conduct for elections coverage in Guyana

Fourteen media organizations have made a commitment to provide equitable coverage of elections due later this year with the signing of a Code of Conduct at Le Meridien Pegasus last evening. By virtue of placing their signatures on the document, the representatives of NCN, Guyana Press Association, HBTV-Channel 9, AFP, Stabroek News, New Nation, MTV, Catholic Standard, Kaieteur News, Guyana...

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