News

11 October 2005

OBIT: Chanchal Sarkar

Eminent journalist and founder-director of the Press Institute of India (PII), Chanchal Sarkar, passed away in New Delhi on October 10. Sarkar, 79, had been ailing for some time. He is survived by his wife Lotika Sarkar, a noted women's rights activist and former professor of law at Delhi University. Former Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral, Rajya Sabha member Brinda Karat, and a large number of...

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11 October 2005

Bad News for Newspaper Stocks

ADD ANOTHER REASON for newspaper companies to worry: It's now more expensive to buy the paper on which to print the words that fewer people are reading. Newsprint prices climbed about 11% in August and September as a host of commodity prices were pushed up by rising energy costs. Throw in worsening demographics – 55 is the average age of a newspaper reader, according to a Carnegie Corp. survey –...

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11 October 2005

The Big Tussle over a Tiny Orange Box

Microsoft Corp. set off a storm of comments and feedback–both glowing and damning–this weekend when officials requested feedback on a proposed RSS icon redesign for the Internet Explorer 7.0 tool bar. Details about the planned RSS icon redesign emerged on the Microsoft RSS Team's Weblog on Saturday. "The choice of what icon to use is challenging because it should be universally symbolic, but today...

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11 October 2005

Yahoo adds blogs to its news section

SAN FRANCISCO – Yahoo Inc.'s online news search tool on Monday added Internet journal entries as a supplement to professional media offerings – an experiment that figures to test the public's appetite for information from alternative sources. Under Yahoo's new approach, a keyword search for online news will include a list of relevant Web logs, or "blogs," displayed in a box to the right of the...

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11 October 2005

News, blogs share space at Yahoo!

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Yahoo! Inc. said Monday it will begin featuring the work of self-published Web bloggers side by side with the work of professional journalists, leveling distinctions between the two. Yahoo! News, the world's most popular Internet media destination, is set to begin testing on Tuesday an expanded news search system that includes not only news stories and blogs but user...

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11 October 2005

Yahoo! News goes blogtastic

Yahoo! has revamped its news search tool to grab material from thousands of blogs in addition to headlines from 6,500 newspapers and magazines. The company launched a test version of the new tool on Monday, saying it aims to give consumers a more complete view of the news. Neil Budde, general manager of Yahoo! News, said in a statement: "Our expanded news search dramatically increases the consumer...

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11 October 2005

New media laws will cripple press freedom in Nepal, says IFJ

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), the global organisation representing more than 500,000 journalists in over 110 countries, is alarmed at the King’s decision to dramatically change media laws in Nepal. On October 9, King Gyanendra announced changes to media law that would come into force immediately, limiting media licences, banning the broadcast of news on radio and prohibiting a...

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11 October 2005

Radio Workers in Nepal Defy Government Ban

Only two days after Nepal's monarch Gyanendra promulgated a draconian media ordinance Sunday banning news broadcasts on FM stations throughout the country, Nepal's FM stations continue to air news and are vowing to fight the "black ordinance" in the streets and the courts. "We are continuing with our news broadcasts," said Ghamaraj Luintel, spokesperson of Nepal's Save Independent Radio Movement...

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11 October 2005

Only 55 per cent Net users buy something online

Around 81 per cent of Internet users in India visit online shopping sites but only 55 per cent actually buy something, a recent survey has found. As many as 93 per cent of these users, however, are aware that they can shop online. This is in the backdrop of Rs 570 crore of e-commerce being conducted online in 2004-05, which is expected to grow by 300 per cent to Rs 2,300 crore by 2006-07. The...

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11 October 2005

Getler, in Farewell Ombud Column, Hits 'Wash Post' on Pre-war Iraq Coverage

NEW YORK: In his final column for The Washington Post on Sunday, with his five-year tenure as ombudsman up, Michael Getler took the opportunity to once again criticize the paper, and some others, for not being skeptical enough about Bush administration claims in the run-up to the Iraq war. Getler will soon serve as ombudsman at the Public Broadcasting System. He noted that, despite certain...

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