News

20 December 2005

US journalism schools shut doors on Jewish journos fleeing Hitler

America's journalism schools and newspaper publishers refused to aid Jewish refugee journalists who were fleeing Hitler, a leading Holocaust scholar has revealed. Another scholar has described how leaders of elite American universities not only ignored the plight of Jews under Hitler in the 1930s, but actually engaged in actions that helped enhance the Hitler regime's image in the West. Professor...

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20 December 2005

The rise and rise of corporate blogs

LONDON, England (CNN) -- As the size, scope and influence of weblogs continue to proliferate, business managers are faced with an increasingly important question: how to make your voice heard above the crowd? According to a research project conducted by Pew, there will be 34 million weblogs -- or blogs, as they known for short -- by the end of 2005. These blogs range from the completely ignorable...

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19 December 2005

A better way to count clicks?

An Internet standards body is hammering out new rules for tallying traffic numbers on Web sites and their content partners, in an initiative called the Nomenclature Project. Under changes proposed by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and its members, publishers will have to work under more stringent rules about what can and can't be counted as part of their site. One prominent issue comes...

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19 December 2005

Blast shakes newspaper office in Albania

An explosion shook the offices of Albania's largest daily newspaper causing damage but no injuries, Associated Press reported. A bomb detonated Sunday at 2020GMT outside the offices of Shekulli "Century" in Albanian), the newspaper's editor�in�chief Robert Rakipllari said. Fifteen staff members were working at the time, he said. "We have had no conflict. We have had no threats. I'm sure this was...

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19 December 2005

Freedom in the World survey: Global gains in freedom

The people of the Arab Middle East experienced a modest but potentially significant increase in political rights and civil liberties in 2005, Freedom House announced in a major survey of global freedom released Monday. The global survey, "Freedom in the World," shows that although the Middle East continues to lag behind other regions, a measurable improvement could be seen in freedom in several...

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19 December 2005

They Want the World, And They Want It Now

NEW YORK In 1985, for the first time, more U.S. TV sets were sold with remote controls than without. It was an amazing taste of empowerment for media consumers: The ability to control one's viewing habits with a click of a button would have implications for everyone from TV programmers and advertisers to consumer-electronics companies and even makers of Barcaloungers and snack foods. Americans...

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19 December 2005

Reuters' AlertNet Gets Funding to Help Journalists Cover Humanitarian Crises

NEW YORK Reuters' AlertNet, the humanitarian news portal, has won financial backing from Great Britain's Department for International Development to create services to help journalists reporting on humanitarian crises. The amount of financial backing was not revealed. AlertNet's "MediaBridge" services are being developed in the wake of the Indian Ocean tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, the South Asian...

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19 December 2005

Icahn seeks to derail Google as partner of AOL

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Dissident shareholder Carl Icahn on Monday labeled as "disastrous" a new deal set to be unveiled this week between Time Warner Inc.'s America Online unit and Web search leader Google Inc., as the billionaire investor argued that AOL could do better. Icahn said in a letter to Time Warner's board of directors that the company appeared to be on the verge of a "disastrous...

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19 December 2005

Expansion-minded Wikipedia asks for users for donations

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The Internet's free encyclopedia has begun an international fundraising effort. "In the coming year, the Wikipedia Foundation anticipates spending millions keeping up with increases in demand, improving our software, and continuing work toward our goal of providing free knowledge to everyone," said a message on Wikipedia.org. "We can do it with your help." In a message...

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19 December 2005

$10m for a Wikipedia for grown-ups

Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger is to launch an alternative to the utopian, all-comers, anything-goes web site, and has raised $10m to hire experts to help edit it. A year ago Sanger, who worked on Wikipedia's predecessor Nupedia and left the project in 2002, criticized its bias against expertise, and his new venture reflects these concerns. Digital Universe aims to garner the best of both...

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