News

Pakistani security forces allegedly killed Qari Muhammad Shoib, a Mingora-based print journalist on Saturday night when he was driving in his car at Nishat Chowk of Mingora city in the restive Swat Valley of North West Pakistan. Qari Shoib, 32, was a dynamic journalist who regularly reported on the conflict between Taliban militants and Pakistan security forces for daily Azadi and PPA news Agency...

Afghan abductors kept a Canadian journalist captive, sometimes blindfolded and chained, in a cave for four weeks before she was freed, the reporter said Sunday. Mellissa Fung, a journalist with the Canadian Broadcasting Corp in Afghanistan, was freed on Saturday after being abducted a month ago near capital Kabul. Fung was the second abducted foreign journalist to be released in two days. On...

Moderate Iranian weekly Shahrvand Emrouz has been suspended at the behest of the country's Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance after publishing four issues in a row with portraits of politicians seen as potential presidential candidates, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. In a separate development, an online journalist has been sentenced to six months in prison on a national...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned Sri Lankan government pressure that led to the debate programme “Ira Anduru Pata” being cut short as it was being broadcast live on the evening of November 4 on state TV station Rupavahini. It ended a discussion of a new broadcasting law by three guests, including Free Media Movement convenor Uvindu Kurukulasuriya. The presenter announced a break for...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has hailed the arrests of suspects in the fatal shootings of two provincial correspondents of the Bangkok-based daily Matichon—Jaruek Rangcharoen on September 27 in the central province of Suphan Buri and Ahiwat Chainurat on August 1 in the southern city of Nakhon Si Thammarat. “The arrests of two suspects in each of these murders suggest that the police are making...

A Dutch journalist abducted by suspected Taliban rebels in Afghanistan a week ago was freed Friday and is in good health, her employer said. Joanie de Rijke, 43, was captured on Saturday last week while she was en route to do a story about a group of Taliban who had killed 10 French soldiers in August, an editor at the Belgian P-magazine told agence France-Presse (AFP). Michael Lescroart...

A Belgian journalist who was held captive for three days by Mai-Mai militiamen in Congo has been free, the German newspaper he works for said on Friday. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung said on its website that the journalist, Thomas Scheen, and two Congolese co-workers who were seized in east Congo earlier this week were now under the care of United Nations peacekeepers and doing well. Some details...

Media giant EW Scripps Co is laying off around 400 employees at its newspapers. The company has not yet elaborated on where jobs would be cut, but the Knoxville News Sentinel has announced that about 50 jobs, including 13 in the newsroom, would be cut at properties of the KNS Media Group subsidiary of Cincinnati-based Scripps. The move affects about 10 per cent of the KNS work force, according to...

Top mags: Indian Readership Survey 2008 — Round 2 Magazine Language 2007 R2 2008 R2 India Today (Eng) Eng 71.3 68.5 Readers Digest Eng 49.3 40.0 General Knowledge Today Eng 43.7 35.2 Competition Success Review Eng 32.9 26.8 Stardust (Eng) Eng 26.6 19.2 Saras Salil Hin 106.4 84.6 India Today (Hin) Hin 69.7 58.1 Meri Saheli Hin 62.4 54.5 Cricket Samrat Hin 51.0 47.9 Pratiyogita Darpan Hin 41.2 43.6...

Top Dailies: Indian Readership Survey 2008 — Round 2 Newspaper Language 2007 R2 2008 R2 The Times Of India Eng 134.8 133.4 Hindustan Times Eng 60.9 63.5 The Hindu Eng 52.5 52.8 The Telegraph Eng 30 29 Deccan Chronicle Eng 30 28 Dainik Jagran Hin 536.1 557.4 Dainik Bhaskar Hin 305.8 338.3 Amar Ujala Hin 282.2 293.8 Hindustan Hin 235.3 266.3 Rajasthan Patrika Hin 131.9 140.0 Asomiya Pratidin Ass 65...