News

Every six months, a huge set of numbers descends like confetti on the good people of medialand showing the audited circulation figures for every UK magazine. Time was, not so very long ago, when the publication of those figures was a pretty cheerful event. Sure, there were winners and losers, but the prevailing mood tended to be of a buoyant industry sailing serenely through the choppy waters that...

Kazakhstan is supposed to stage model legislative elections tomorrow as it aspires to hold the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s rotating presidency in 2009 with the support of most European countries. But no election held in this central Asian republic since independence in 1991 has been considered free and fair, and this campaign has been marked by interference in both state...

The BBC World Service has lost its last FM radio outlet in Russia today, adding further substance to claims of a clampdown on foreign media by the country's authorities. Russian station Bolshoye Radio today notified the BBC World Service that it plans to stop transmission of BBC programming in Russian as of this afternoon. Bolshoye Radio was due to air BBC content at 5pm but was ordered by its...

LONDON: Lord Deedes, a vaunted British journalist and former politician and close friend of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, has died, the Telegraph Media Group said Friday. He was 94. Deedes, who edited the Daily Telegraph newspaper for 12 years and served as a Conservative lawmaker for 24 years, was still writing regular columns up until his death, which followed a short illness. He...

The Chinese government’s announced crackdown on “false news” and “illegal news coverage” could be yet another direct threat to media freedom in China, Human Rights Watch has said. The crackdown adds to the Chinese government’s existing arsenal of vaguely-worded prohibitions, such as laws against “spreading rumours,” which help stifle independent reporting through the threat of serious legal...

A peaceful march led by photojournalists in DRC’s capital, Kinshasa, to demand justice for last week’s assassination of freelance photojournalist Patrick Kikuku Wilungula was Thursday interrupted and dispersed by police, according to press freedom group Journaliste en Danger and local journalists. Police turned back at least 200 photographers who were silently walking through Kinshasa’s central...

A Tamil journalist was attacked with acid in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo just as he left hospital where he was undergoing treatment after an assault by soldiers in June, the Free Media Movement (FMM) has reported. A Sri Lankan policeman stands guard beside the bed of KP Mohan (right), an ethnic Tamil Journalist, in the National Hospital in Colombo August 16. An unidentified gang threw acid at...

(IAPA/IFEX) - MIAMI, Florida (August 16, 2007) - The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today welcomed the recent conviction of one of the masterminds of the April 20, 2004 murder of Paraguayan journalist Samuel Román. On August 10 a jury, after deliberating for more than 12 hours, found Eurico Mariano, former mayor of the city of Coronel Sapucaia, in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul...

NEW YORK: The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Daily News are the latest newspapers to join the Yahoo alliance. With the addition of Philly.com, the online home to both newspapers, the partnership with the portal consists of 19 publishing companies representing close to 400 newspapers. "The open nature of the partnership between the newspapers and Yahoo has made this the solution of choice for the...

CUERNAVACA, Mexico – The general manager of a local newspaper was attacked by three unidentified assailants who warned him that he was a marked man. Eolo Pacheco Rodriguez, general manager of El Regional del Sur, in the central city of Cuernavaca, was dragged by three assailants into a truck and then beaten Wednesday afternoon, local news media reported. Before they let Pacheco go, the attackers...