News

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese Olympic officials defended on Tuesday the collection of information on journalists, saying such databases would be used to help the media at Beijing 2008, not to create blacklists or hinder reporting. The comments came a day after state media said authorities were building a database of information on about 30,000 foreign journalists accredited to cover Beijing 2008...

Australian Facebook addicts beware. Users who spend too much work time on social networking sites risk losing their jobs if Britain's experience is anything to go by. Research by one of the country's top newspapers has shown how strongly employers are cracking down on inappropriate use of email and sites like Facebook, MySpace and Bebo. Figures obtained by The Guardian, and obtained under freedom...

NEW YORK (AP) — As the Hollywood writers strike enters a second week, advertisers are worrying it could seriously disrupt the TV schedule — and the number of eyeballs viewing their ads — in coming months. So far, the strike has forced only late-night talk and comedy shows into reruns, since their material must be freshly scripted every day. But when marquee shows like "The Office," "Desperate...

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — A distinguished University of Missouri-Columbia journalism professor will no longer write a weekly newspaper column after admitting he plagiarized material from a student reporter. John Merrill, a professor emeritus at the university's School of Journalism, wrote a Sunday column for the Columbia Missourian, a community newspaper affiliated with the school. His Nov. 4 column...

Nov. 13 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. newspaper industry's Audit Bureau of Circulations said it will change the way it counts paid circulation to provide marketers with more useful information. New reporting standards will count newspapers sold at any price and create a separate category for copies distributed at hotels and purchased by businesses, Schaumburg, Illinois-based ABC said today in a...

(SEAPA/IFEX) - Malaysian authorities have instructed the local media not to give coverage to a rally calling for free and fair elections, to be held on 10 November 2007 in the capital city Kuala Lumpur, reports the Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ), a SEAPA partner in Malaysia. [Editor's note: the rally took place on 10 November and was broken up by police.] The mainstream media - which are...

(BIANET/IFEX) - The Union of Judges and Prosecutors (YARSAV) has reacted to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's comments on the decision by the State Council's 13th Chamber to stop the ban on broadcasts relating to the 21 October 2007 Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) attack in Daglica, Hakkari, calling the prime minister's comments "lacking in legal judgement, deliberate and extremely unfortunate"...

(IRFS/IFEX) - On 11 November 2007, at the Yasamal District Court, presided by judge Tahir Ismayilov, a hearing on the pre-trial detention of "Azadlig" newspaper's chief editor Genimet Zahid was conducted. Zahid was brought to the court at about 8 p.m. (local time). At the end of the over one-hour long court process, which was closed to everyone except for Zahid's lawyers, Rashid Hajili and Osman...

(HRinfo/IFEX) - The Arabic Network for Human Rights information and Hisham Mubarak Centre for Law has sent a communiqué to the Egyptian Prosecutor-General, demanding that he investigate the torture of Karim Amer. Karim, an Egyptian blogger sentenced to prison for four years for "vilifying religions" and "defaming" the president, was tortured on the order and under the supervision of an...

(IPYS/IFEX) - On 7 November, "El Informador" newspaper journalist Gerardo Morón, was beaten by a group of hooded persons when he covered the march which had been organized by university students in Barquisimeto, state of Lara, to protest against the constitutional reform. The assailants took away his camera, his cell phone, his personal documents and a bag with 120,000 bolívares (US$ 55). They...