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The oblong table at The Times of India’s building in Mumbai had just enough seats to accommodate the INMA Board of Directors — mostly populated by members from North America, Europe, Latin America, and the South Pacific. The Board was in Mumbai for its semi-annual meeting, followed by INMA’s first-ever conference in Asia. It was, truly, a historic week on many fronts. The Board’s over-arching...

What did Len Downie know, and when did he know it? And more important, why didn't he do anything about it when he knew? On Oct. 24, if not earlier, the Washington Post editor learned that his star reporter Bob "Mr. Run Amok" Woodward had held back key information about the CIA leak scandal for two years. Yet Downie himself withheld that bombshell from his readers until Nov. 16 � a delay of more...

NEWSPAPERS editors were threatened with prosecution under the Official Secrets Act last night if they published details of a conversation between Tony Blair and George Bush in which the President is alleged to have suggested bombing al-Jazeera, the Arab news network. Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney-General, informed newspapers editors including that of The Times that "publication of a document that...

Less than a week after a hyped launch, an online venture designed to bring together top online writers, journalists and commentators under a single umbrella, has decided to change its name to avoid a trademark battle with an existing public radio show. Open Source Media, until last week known as Pajamas Media, will now be called Pajamas Media once again. OSM Media LLC returned to its old name...

You make some important and often overlooked points in your column on confidential sources. I've been in an extended argument with FAIR -- whose work I generally applaud -- on similar issues. FAIR has issued a statement approving of confidentiality protection for whistleblower informants but not for informants spreading government propaganda. In reply, I've used arguments much like yours. We...

Three journalists and a media lawyer – from Brazil, China, Uzbekistan, and Zimbabwe – who have endured beatings, threats, intimidation, and jail because of their work have been presented the 2005 International Press Freedom Awards by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The awards were presented at CPJ's 15th annual awards dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City on...

Internet advertising revenues aggegated a record $3.1 billion for the third quarter of 2005, making this the highest quarter reported and the first time that quarterly revenues surpassed $3 billion. The 2005 third-quarter revenues represent a 33.9 per cent increase over 2004 third-quarter total of $2.3 billion and a 4.7per cent increase over the 2005 second-quarter total of $2.9 billion. Based on...

Through a series of clever acquisitions and in-house creations, Yahoo Inc. has transformed itself from a dot-com survivor into a Web 2.0 powerhouse driven by blogs, podcasts and other forms of user-generated social media. The 10-year-old company is staying true to its search engine roots, but with the aggressive embrace of new technologies–from RSS (Really Simple Syndication) to contextual tagging...

US President George Bush planned to bomb Arab broadcaster Aljazeera, British daily the Daily Mirror has reported, citing a 10 Downing Street memo marked "Top Secret". The five-page transcript of a conversation between Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair revealed that the latter talked Bush out of launching a military strike on the station, unnamed sources told the daily. ZEALOUS ONLY OF...

AL-JAZEERA began broadcasting in 1996 but only achieved worldwide recognition after the September 11 terror attacks on New York and Washington in 2001. Western governments were horrified when the 24-hour satellite news channel screened messages from al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden. The station was also criticised for broadcasting the sickening beheadings of Western hostages by Iraqi insurgents. But...