News

The world's media markets are becoming hotter, setting the stage for the Top 100 global marketers to crack the $100 billion level this year. The Top 100, an elite group of marketers that drive just over a quarter of the world's total media and that spend those dollars on three continents or more, notched $93.94 billion in worldwide media in 2004, according to Advertising Age's 19th annual Global...

Akbar Ganji, a leading investigative journalist who is now one of Iran's most renowned political prisoners, has been awarded the 2006 Golden Pen of Freedom, the annual press freedom prize of the World Association of Newspapers (WAN). WE WANT HIM FREED: An Iranian woman brandishes a picture of journalist Akbar Ganji, Iran's highest profile political prisoner, during a protest staged outside Tehran...

An Egyptian blog, Manal and Alaa’s Bit Bucket, has won a special prize at the Deutsche Welle Best of Blogs 2005. In light of current events in China and Tunisia, the BOBs international jury members unanimously decided to announce the winner of the Special Reporters sans Frontières Award a week early to draw attention to weblogs that work to promote freedom of expression, often under the most...

It has become a staple of Sunday newspapers, television talk shows, and late-night news programs: the cautionary tale about the Internet turning America's youth into a generation of socially inept zombies, plugged in but tuned out, incapable of any conversation longer than an instant message, and headed for a sedentary life of weight gain, eye strain, and information overload. But if anyone is in...

NEW YORK: Gannet reported today that newspaper advertising revenue for October grew 0.6% compared to the same period last year. Local and classified advertising revenue was flat on a 3.5% and 4.0% decline on ROP volume respectively. For the local category, the company's small and medium-sized advertisers in its domestic newspapers outpaced the revenue performance of its largest advertisers. In the...

AS CRAIGSLIST AND OTHER FREE classifieds have taken a chunk out of newspaper revenues, print papers have started competing by offering their own free online classifieds. Now, the upcoming merger between alternative chains New Times Media and Village Voice Media is expected to expand the availability of free classifieds. New Times plans to use its pending merger with Voice Media--each a leading...

DULLES/BURBANK, November 14: America Online and sister company Warner Bros. have announced In2TV, an Internet service that will let users watch for free full-length episodes from old television shows in a resolution approaching DVD quality. Set for launch in early 2006, In2TV will offer thousands of episodes from TV classics like Welcome back Kotter, Sisters, Beetlejuice, La Femme Nikita and...

Over 2,000 professionals from various walks of life including lawyers, journalists, teachers and doctors staged demonstrations in Nepal's capital Kathmandu on Sunday to protest media repression and the recent rejection by the Supreme Court of a petition seeking a stay order on the controversial media ordinance introduced by the government in early October. Pro-democracy activists demonstrate in...

Abdullatif Al Sayegh, chief executive of Arab Media Group, publishers of Emirates Today, Al Bayan and Al Emarat Al Youm, told delegates at the GulfMarketing Forum that his journalists had the freedom to write what they wanted – but only within limits. He said: "I think we have it. It’s just that the Government needed to see people who would treat freedom of the press to the advantage of the...

TUNIS (AFX) - A world summit on the Internet is heading for a showdown over online governance, amid attempts to shift the balance of power away from the US. Delegates from some 170 countries gathered in Tunis yesterday to start a final attempt to break their three-year deadlock on the issue, said Agence France-Presse. Preliminary negotiations are not expected to be completed by the time the summit...