News

Shortly before 10 a.m. on August 22, a man jumped from the top of the New York Times' 15-story building in Times Square. Allen Myerson, 47, was a staffer at the paper, an assistant business and financial editor, and he landed on the roof of a parking garage next door. That's where police found him. Dead--an apparent suicide. The next day's obits ranged from a respectful one in the Times--declaring...

On 26 November 2002, RSF voiced its dismay over the death of publication director Ram Chander Chaterpatti on 23 November. The journalist died of injuries he sustained after being shot by a member of a religious sect one month ago in Sirsa (Haryana state). The organisation called on Haryana Chief Minister Om Parkash Chautala to ensure that all those involved in Chaterpatti's killing are identified...

International PEN is concerned over the reported harassment and intimidation of journalist and human rights activist Lachit Bordoloi in Assam, India. PEN believes that Bordoloi, chairman of the Organization for the Struggle for Human Rights (MASS), has been targeted primarily for his coverage of police corruption in Nagaon District, Assam. PEN calls upon the authorities in Assam to guarantee his...

One year after the flight of the Taliban from Kabul, 150 publications are being sold on the streets of the city. Electronic media projects are springing up and dozens of journalists are taking advantage of the various forms of training established by international organisations. The change is radical. After five years of Taliban domination, which had turned Afghanistan into "a country without news...

The last time Rem Rieder asked me to do a story for AJR I was standing on the side of a grumbling volcano in Ecuador. But the eruption had blown far to the northwest in Los Angeles with the last belch of the Chandlers' Los Angeles Times as it fell to Chicago's Tribune Co. This time I was hacking my way through a mangrove forest--well, hacking the way aging journalists do it--on the edge of the...

COPENHAGEN, Oct 31 (AlertNet) - Humanitarian specialists and journalists attending a meeting in Denmark last week challenged the widely-held view that media attention is the strongest factor in determining levels of aid, while technology is making more information available faster. Representatives of humanitarian agencies, often critical of the mainstream news agenda for ignoring crises, and...

Business Standard has finally fallen in line with national and international norms in terms of size. After months of holding on to its original height of 56 cm and width of 38 cm per page (full area), Business Standard, the flagship brand from the company with the same name, will reduce its size. Starting today (Monday, October 28, 2002), it will be slimmer with its width at 35 cm (height remains...

On 13 October 2002, armed men shot dead television journalist Yambem Meghajit Singh in Imphal, in the north-eastern state of Manipur. The killing came a few days after two other journalists were kidnapped by a separatist group. "We urge you to see to it that police have the means to find those responsible and establish their motives," RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard said in a letter to...

If some of you marketers/advertisers are still trying to crack that right marketing strategy to reach your rural consumers, a recent study by Marketing and Research Team (MART) sheds some light on how you should approach them. According to the MART study, folk media is an effective vehicle to communicate and advertise in the rural markets. People are drawn to this because it is a source of...

In 1905 oil baron John D. Rockefeller sensed that the attacks he had suffered from muckraking reporters and crusading journals like Joseph Pulitzer's New York World were about to subside. As newspapers became more and more profitable, Rockefeller reasoned, their proprietors would be less inclined to focus on corporate misdeeds and more likely to play by the same rules as the other captains of...