News

Unique visitors to local news websites are less unique and less local than one would assume. A new study from research and consulting firm Borrell Associates challenges many of core ways that online audiences are characterized and counted by local news outlets. On average, a third of the visitors to a local news site live outside the market, and a quarter of the visitors are “fly-bys.” The Borrell...

Press freedom groups have condemned journalist Hilal Al-Ahmadi’s murder Thursday in the northern city of Mosul. Ahmadi, who worked for two local weeklies, the Mosul Echo and Iraqiyoun, was gunned down outside his home. “We are extremely shocked and dismayed by Ahmadi’s death,” Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) secretary-general Jean-François Julliard said. “The...

Ivorian police in the economic capital, Abidjan, interrogated and issued summonses for questioning last week for editors of newspapers favourable to former presidential candidate Alassane Ouattara, according to local journalists. The UN has recognised Ouattara as the president-elect since disputed November 2010 runoff elections against President Laurent Gbagbo. Police and an assistant prosecutor...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has called for an investigation into the attack on Lara Logan, a reporter for the American TV cable network CBS, last Friday in Tahrir square, Cairo. CBS has confirmed that Logan was the victim of "a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating." "This is a shocking attack which must not go unpunished," said Jim Boumelha. "The Egyptian Prime...

An Istanbul court on Friday ordered three online journalists detained on charges of “inciting hatred and hostility through the media,” membership of a “terrorist organisation” and obtaining and publishing confidential state documents. They are facing possible sentences of more than 20 years in jail, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported They are Soner Yalçin...

Five journalists and the representatives of several NGOs including the Federation of Colombian Journalists (Fecolper) have been directly threatened in a particularly disturbing email that began circulating Thursday. Sent from the Gmail account of “Aguilas Fénix,” it is signed by the central division of the “Aguilas Negras” (Black Eagles), a feared paramilitary group responsible for terror...

Most people “expect the most prolific tweeters or those with most followers would be most responsible for creating” huge trending topics on social networks. But research shows otherwise. Researchers found that the mainstream media, especially those like The New York Times, CNN and BBC, act as “feeders” for news topics on Twitter, helping to amplify and in turn make something into a trend on the...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has described as “inadequate” the response of the European Commission’s Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes to Hungary’s controversial new media law and urged the country’s MPs to amend the measure. It said Croes’ demands to the Hungarian government were “in the right direction” but “not enough to remove all the threats to media...

Iran has launched a renewed crackdown of the past few days including a wave of arrests of journalists that began on February 14 and cases of harassment of journalists’ families. The authorities have stepped up cyber-attacks on news websites and disruption of the Internet in a sweeping form of censorship designed to stifle the protest movement and prevent information about demonstrations from...

Nepal is failing to act in the face of the growing number of attacks on freedom targeting journalists, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has alleged. Nepal has reached an extremely worrying level of attacks on the media, mostly the responsibility of political parties and religious groups. “We call on the authorities to do everything to end these attacks, prevent a...