News

13 December 2005

Layoffs guillotine: Big heads roll at Time Inc

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Time Inc. today slashed 105 employees from its rolls, including some of its highest longtime publishing executives. Presidents, exec VPs Among those losing their jobs are Jack Haire, exec VP in charge of corporate ad sales; Richard Atkinson, exec VP in charge of the news and information group; Eileen Naughton, president, Time magazine; David Kieselstein, president, the...

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13 December 2005

At war: government and the media

SIXTY-FOUR years ago, the governments of Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. Congress replied in kind later that same afternoon. The government had been quietly preparing for modern war, but once it arrived few understood the demands it would make on American society. At some point on that day, President Roosevelt told press adviser Stephen Early that the government needed to...

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13 December 2005

Brazil judge censors website, orders it to withdraw 165 pages

Reporters Without Borders today condemned the censorship of Folha Online ( www.folha.uol.com.br/), the website of the Folha de São Paulo daily newspaper, which was ordered by a federal judge on 9 December to withdraw 165 pages from the site that had details of allegedly illegal services provided by a Canadian firm of consultants, Kroll, to Brasil Telecom. "We deplore this judicial ban, which is...

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13 December 2005

Media Companies Slim Down in 2005

NEW YORK (AP) - Under other circumstances, 2006 might look like a pretty good year for the media industry. The Winter Olympics and a midterm election are sure to boost advertising spending, the economy is humming along and consumers seem to be spending. But these are hardly normal circumstances. The broad shift of viewers and advertising dollars to the Internet is deeply troubling to many media...

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13 December 2005

Media execs off their pedestals

NEW YORK (FORTUNE) - There was a time when Wall Street treated the CEOs of the largest media companies almost like demigods. The heads of Viacom (Research), Time Warner, News Corp., (Research) and Disney (Research) predicted that revenues from their films, television shows, cable networks, and magazines would keep pace with the swiftest growth companies. Investors nodded worshipfully and loaded up...

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13 December 2005

Question Hour report had sent Maharashtra scribe to jail

The sting operation by Aniruddha Bahal’s website Cobrapost on MPs taking money for raising questions in Parliament led to the suspension of MPs yesterday. However, an article in a vernacular newspaper on Question Hour had resulted in a reporter’s dismissal from his job in 1987. Prakash Gupte, who is now 65 years old, was then a sub-editor-cum reporter for Navshakti. He wrote a column on the...

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13 December 2005

Kyrgyz journalists claim govt suppresses free speech

Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev has announced that his government would restructure control over a number of state-controlled media outlets to encourage greater public participation. However, due to previous unsuccessful attempts to reprivatize a number of popular mass media sources, the president's latest initiative raises doubts about whether the restructuring would lead to the promised...

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13 December 2005

Online news site to invite readers to post content, add comments

Topix.net, the Palo Alto Web site that features news stories from around the world, is expanding into the citizen journalism business, offering readers a chance to publish their own stories. The move is a part of a broader overhaul that includes the addition of public forums and the ability to comment on stories. ``The nature of news is changing as interactivity comes into play,'' said Chris...

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13 December 2005

Reality and Spin in the Media

In a speech this fall, Al Gore spoke of the "strangeness" in our political discourse. He bemoaned the "new pattern of serial obsessions that periodically take over the airwaves for weeks at a time," and the lack of desire for accountability in American journalism. On top of all this, the idea that perception is far more important than reality has become the principle of our broadcast politics...

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13 December 2005

European journalists slam UN's treatment of reporters

The Association of European Journalists (AEJ) passed resolutions last week urging the UN not to discriminate against Taiwanese journalists reporting on its activities. The association's call comes after local journalists reiterated during a visit by AEJ members to Taiwan last month that the UN should respect the right of Taiwanese media to cover international conferences. Members of the AEJ...

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