News

Swedish journalists' views diverge wildly from those of their readers, with the average journalist well to the left of the public as a whole, according to a new survey. While normal Swedes want tax cuts and favour retaining nuclear power, Swedish journalists reject both ideas. The findings are presented in a book published on Wednesday by researchers at Gothenburg University. The book, 'Den...

(IFJ/IFEX) - The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) today expressed its fear that Chief Ebrima Manneh, who has been missing for more than a year and was reportedly being held incommunicado, has been killed in jail in The Gambia. "This information is extremely devastating for the media community in The Gambia and journalists around the world," said Gabriel Baglo, Director of the IFJ...

CHICAGO: Seoul intends to banish newsstand from the streets of the Korean capital by the end of 2009. Korea Times reported on its Web site that the Seoul city government announced sweeping new regulations on commercial installations on streets and walkways that will ultimately get rid of newsstands, kiosks, sidewalk shoe-repair shops, and similar stands. If approved by the city council, the...

Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association are outraged by the measures adopted by the military junta to prevent journalists and activists covering the on-going crackdown on protests. Most of the country’s mobile phone lines have been cut and the Internet network has been drastically reduced. Charges by police and troops on demonstrators in Rangoon, especially near the Shwedagon...

(IAPA/IFEX) - MIAMI, Florida (September 26, 2007) - The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today denounced an attack on the plant of the Venezuelan daily newspaper Panorama and called on the authorities to carry out a full investigation to bring those responsible for the incident to justice. A group of unidentified assailants attacked the paper's building in Maracaibo, in the western state of...

NEW YORK The number of free dailies tripled since 2000 and the growth is not necessarily in cities with a mass transit system, according to a new study from the North American Free Daily Newspaper Association. There are 60 free dailies in North America, said the organization, including the launch of two new publications this summer in North Carolina, SmartNews in Fayetteville and the Messenger in...

The American view of the advertising profession could use repair, according to a J. Walter Thompson study titled “Ad Industry Perception Survey.” When asked about respect for the profession, only 14 percent of those surveyed say their fellow Americans respect ad people. The top three most respected are military personnel (79 percent), physicians (75 percent) and teachers (71 percent). The study is...

England may no longer be an empire in the classic sense, with colonies about the world, but it's still very much an empire in the new virtual world, truly a global media empire to which the rest of the world still turns. Indeed, for all the power of The New York Times, for example, it's the British newspapers that draw the biggest share of traffic from nations outside its borders, and by huge...

(PEN/IFEX) - Washington, DC, September 25, 2007-The Campaign for Reader Privacy, a coalition of organizations representing librarians, booksellers, publishers, and authors, cheered the introduction on 25 September 2007 of legislation to safeguard the privacy of ordinary Americans and curb the FBI's abuse of the National Security Letter power granted under the USA Patriot Act. National Security...

The prosecutor in Hrodna, eastern Belarus, has summoned two independent journalists and threatened them with legal action for “working without accreditation” and for “bringing the international image of Belarus into disrepute”, following the publication of articles on local police negligence. A warning received by Ivan Roman, correspondent for Polish-based Radio Racyja, on 3 September 2007...