News

21 August 2008

TRAI seeks regulation over television content

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) wants the Broadcast Audience Research Council to start its audience measurement activities by January next year with representatives from the government, says a report in the Hindu Businessline. The Authority is also seeking regulation over content. “With increased convergence and the blurring of boundaries between carriage and content, the recent...

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21 August 2008

Head constable suspended in Maharashtra for 'roughing up scribes'

The police commissioner of Aruangabad, KL Bishnoi, on Thursday suspended a head constable for threatening to kill a press photographer, says a Press Trust of India (PTI) report. The report against constable Pradeep Dhote and Sudhakar Rathod of MIDC Waluj poilce station and Vishnu Jagdale and Babasaheb Kakade of Cantonment police station will be submitted on Friday. The policemen reportedly...

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20 August 2008

Unidentified gunmen kill journalist in Nigeria, police involvement suspected

A member of the editorial board of the Lagos-based private daily newspaper Thisday was shot dead on Sunday in Dopemu, a suburb of Lagos, by yet-to-be identified gunmen, Media Rights Agenda (MRA) has reported. According to the Nigerian Police, while driving home Paul Abayomi Ogundeji was ambushed by armed robbers who had earlier stolen another car. The police allege that the bandits ordered him to...

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20 August 2008

Government vehicle seen in Senegalese newsroom attacks

A government vehicle was used to ransack the offices of two Senegalese independent newspapers on Sunday, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has eported. The attacks came just three days after a top official threatened unspecified retaliation against the papers over critical stories. A dozen unidentified men stormed the offices of the daily 24 Heures Chrono at about 8:30 p.m...

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20 August 2008

High waste paper costs hit newsprint makers in India

Newsprint producers are feeling the heat of a 30-40 per cent increase in the waste newspaper prices over the first quarter, says a report in Business Standard. “We were buying waste newspaper at Rs 7,000-8,000 a tonne in the previous quarter. Now, we pay Rs 11,000-12,000 a tonne. This has an impact of about Rs 5,400 on every tonne of newsprint made as 1.35 tonne waste paper is required to produce...

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20 August 2008

Scribe, TV crew roughed up during strike in Kerala

A journalist and three crew members of private TV channels were roughed up, allegedly by pro-strike activists in various places, when they were covering the general strike, called by Leftist trade unions here on wednesday, police said, according to a Press Trust of India (PTI) report. Some details: Amrita TV Chief Reporter Deepak Dharmadam was traded blows by a group of persons when he was moving...

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19 August 2008

Court upholds constitutionality of criminal defamation in Indonesia

On the eve of Indonesia's Independence Day, the country's Constitutional Court has dealt a serious blow to Indonesia's press freedom with a decision upholding the constitutionality of criminal defamation, the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA) has said. The August 15 court decision effectively dismisses a petition filed by journalist Risang Bima Wijaya and columnist Bersihar Lubis, who were...

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19 August 2008

Former radio host killed in Philippines, motive uncertain

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has called for more police to investigate the killings of five journalists in the Philippines since the beginning of 2008, including the latest victim, former radio presenter Rolando Anjo Julia, in the central province of Camarines Sur. "Until the motives for these crimes have been discovered and their authors punished, people will continue to doubt the ability of...

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19 August 2008

Journalist wounded by sniper; Israeli journalist shot at by Russian soldiers

Three journalists - Giga Chikhladze, correspondent of Russian Newsweek and head of Alania TV, Alexander Klimchuk, head of the photo agency Caucasus Press Images and correspondent for the news agency Itar-Tass, and Stan Storimans, cameraman for the Dutch TV station RTL-4 - have been killed since fighting began in Georgia on August 8. The death of a fourth journalist, a Georgian, and his driver...

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18 August 2008

Gambian journalist gets four years in prison or heavy fine for criticising president

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned the sentence of four years in prison or a fine of 250,000 dalasis (approx. 8,000 euros), which a Banjul court passed on August 18 on Fatou Jaw Manneh, a contributor to the AllGambian.net website, after convicting her of "sedition" for criticising President Yahya Jammeh in a 2005 article. "This verdict was not the outcome of due process, it was the...

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