News

A Croatian reporter who exposed a series of organised crime and corruption cases has been beaten with baseball bats in front of his home in an assault the president condemned as an attack on media freedom. Dusan Miljus, who covers organised crime and corruption for the popular Croatian daily Jutarnji List, was assaulted by two unidentified men in a parking lot near his house in Zagreb on Monday...

Azerbaijani prosecutors have failed to conduct a thorough and transparent investigation into the brazen assaults against Azadlyg reporter Agil Khalil. In the last three months, Khalil has been beaten, stabbed, and pushed onto train tracks. He has also escaped a kidnapping attempt. "Yet despite abundant evidence as to who committed the crimes, there has been no progress in these cases. If anything...

The United Nations has apologised to an Iranian journalist who was barred from a food summit in Rome following opposition from the Islamic state whose president was among participants, agencies have reported. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said Wednesday that it was sorry after the incident involving Ahmad Rafat, an Iranian who works for the Italian news agency ADN-Kronos, Agence...

Eight Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporations (ZBC) employees have been summarily sent on paid vacation leave for two months, letters written to them by the Head of Human Resources Benania Shumba in early June 2008 indicate, the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) has reported. The eight include senior employees at the State broadcaster, Robson Mhandu (Television Production General Manager)...

The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) wants to take a close look at a recent ruling by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights that allows criminal proceedings against journalists in libel cases, a move it claims "goes against major progress made in recent years in favor of free speech and press freedom." The Court decision, handed down on May 26, was in favour of (. . .) Argentine...

Gavin O’Reilly, the Chief Operating Officer of Ireland-based Independent News & Media PLC, has been re-elected President of the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) for a third term of two years. O’Reilly, 41, who is Irish, was re-elected President Wednesday by the WAN Annual General Meeting, held during the World Newspaper Congress and World Editors Forum in Göteborg, Sweden. The events, the...

The problem of global warming has emerged as an issue of concern for the world’s newspapers, with calls at the World Newspaper Congress and World Editors Forum to reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions by media industries. “It is probably the biggest challenge that mankind has ever faced,” said Tomas Brunegard, CEO of the Stampen Group in Sweden and Chairman of the Swedish Newspaper...

Unidentified gunmen killed Pierre Fould Gerges, vice president of the Caracas daily Reporte Diario de la Economía, on Monday following dozens of death threats against the paper’s senior administrative staff over the last year. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said Tuesday that Venezuelan authorities must conduct a thorough investigation and determine whether Gerges’...

A Chinese journalist who went to prison for reporting on a health threat before Chinese authorities announced it has been awarded the 2008 Golden Pen of Freedom, the annual press freedom prize of the World Association of Newspapers (WAN). The award to Li Chongqing, who was released from prison in February after serving three years for reporting on an outbreak of dengue fever, marked the second...

Newspapers are well-placed to succeed in the modern media environment, and forecasters who predict the industry’s decline are making "a profound mistake,"the President of the World Association of Newspapers said today, making the case for a vibrant future for the newspaper industry. “Virtually every brokerage report from the investment banks appears to support a new conventional wisdom that...