News

Taking note of the sentencing of an Afghan journalist to two years in prison for publishing an article considered offensive to Islam, the United Nations mission in the country said today the right to freedom of expression applies to everyone, including journalists, and should be strongly defended. The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), which is closely following the case of Ali Mohaqiq...

The Indian Newspaper Society (INS), the apex body of the newspaper industry in the country, has described the Union government's proposal to apply service tax on sale of advertising space as "alarming" and "retrograde". The society's newly-elected president, Jacob Mathew, said the move had no legislative sanction and could have a "disastrous effect" on the newspaper industry. In a statement here...

WASHINGTON -- In the latest fallout from the CIA leak investigation, reporter Judith Miller and The New York Times are engaging in a very public fight about her seeming lack of candor in the case. In a memo to the staff, Executive Editor Bill Keller says Miller "seems to have misled" the newspaper's Washington bureau chief, Phil Taubman, who said Miller told him in the fall of 2003 that she was...

Civil war erupted at America's most famous newspaper yesterday, with senior staff exchanging public recriminations over the actions of a controversial reporter nicknamed "Miss Run Amok". The reader representative of The New York Times, a senior figure in the paper's hierarchy, roundly criticised both its editor and its publisher for their "deference" to the reporter, Judith Miller. Ms Miller...

The editor of a respected women's magazine in Afghanistan has been sentenced to two years in jail for "blasphemy" after the judge in the case was ordered to imprison the editor by the Ulama Council, the country's leading religious body which is dominated by conservative clerics, according to reports from the Associated Press and regional newspapers like the Pak Times. The editor of Haqooq-i-Zan...

NEW YORK–Attracted by the prospect of speaking directly to their customers and appealing to the key people who influence them, corporate marketers are embracing the blogosphere and pressing for ways to leverage "social media" in the enterprise. At the second annual BlogOn conference here last week, a number of business representatives shared their early experiences using blogs even as they sought...

Silicon Valley has its share of would-be utopians. Along with others around the world, they are working overtime to build an online community where the Internet makes everyone equal. But what if this movement ends up doing more harm than good? This provocative question is posed by Nicholas G. Carr, an author best known for a controversial 2003 article in the Harvard Business Review arguing that...

Rupert Murdoch's oldest son, Lachlan - considered by many to be his heir apparent - resigned July 29, 2005 from his job at the News Corporation amid apparent family discord, adding a new twist to one of the business world's most closely watched succession chronicles. The decision by Lachlan, 33, to step down leaves just one of Rupert Murdoch's four adult children, James, in an executive position...

Although News Corp's share price has fallen since the move to the United States, Rupert Murdoch says he is confident that, eventually, investors will see benefits in leaving Australia. Despite the company's record profits, its share price has fallen more than 10 per cent since it reincorporated in Delaware in last November. In his chairman's address at the first annual general meeting since the...

MID-TOWN Manhattan's Hudson theatre is a long way from Adelaide, but the theatrics of News Corp's annual meeting were again provided by Stephen Mayne, who had to take a longer flight to annoy Rupert Murdoch this year. The move to America doesn't seem to have excited the shareholders too much, with only 30 or so turning up for tea and sympathy with Rupert. They were outnumbered by reporters and...