News

NEW DELHI: News channels in India are facing a qualitative crisis today because programmes that cater to the "lowest common denominator" are lapping up the viewers, according to heads of prominent news channels. The "race for eyeballs" is forcing news channels into crime shows and sex shows that are voyeuristic and unless the broadcasters regulate themselves now the government would impose a...

Google is expanding its US newspaper print ad sales experiment to involve 225 newspapers and giving all its advertisers the opportunity to place ads in papers covering the major metropolitan areas of the United States. The search giant started the test programme in November by allowing a limited number of advertisers to bid in online auctions for ads in the print edition of 50 US newspapers -...

The 118-year-old Wall Street Journal newspaper is the big prize in Rupert Murdoch’s attempted acquisition of the Dow Jones group. The world’s most prestigious financial publication has 2.6m print and online subscribers and the second highest circulation of any newspaper in the US. The Journal is considered the newspaper of record for the business world. Founded in 1889 by Charles Dow, Edward Jones...

Reporters Without Borders condemns the arrest of Abderrahim Ariri, the publisher of the weekly Al Watan Al An (The Nation Now), and one of his journalists, Mostapha Hurmatallah, yesterday in Casablanca after they published the text of an internal security memo circulated by the General Directorate for Territorial Surveillance (DGST), an intelligence agency. “It is wrong to arrest these two...

MOHALI: The photojournalist of a Hindi daily was beaten up by doctors in civil hospital; phase VI, when he was taking pictures of the hospital. A medical examination conducted at general hospital, Sector 16, Chandigarh reported broken teeth and neck injuries. However, doctors on duty refuted the allegation and wrote to health secretary and human rights commission against the journalist for...

Ethiopia’s High Court has handed down harsh criminal penalties, including life prison sentences, to six journalists and three publishers on anti-state charges in connection with critical coverage of the government during the deadly unrest in the aftermath of disputed parliamentary elections in 2005, according to local journalists. At least 200 people Monday packed the courtroom in the capital...

NEW YORK: The St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press is seeking to cut some 30 positions in news, classified advertising, and production through a series of buyouts, the paper announced today. The offer comes just seven months after a previous buyout reduced staff by 29 employees, including 22 in the newsroom. In a statement released this afternoon, the paper revealed that it would seek 30 volunteers...

NEW YORK: Although Cincinnati Post staffers were expecting today's announcement that the paper would cease publication at the end of the year, several newsroom employees admitted the final blow is not easy to take. Members of the 52-person news staff said they were not surprised at the decision by E.W. Scripps Company to fold the paper when the joint operating agreement with Gannett Co. Inc...

Two journalists from tabloid Aftonbladet have been reported to the police after their boat allegedly crossed into an exclusion zone outside the Swedish royal family's summer palace on Öland, southern Sweden, on Sunday. "Breaking the law on exclusion zones can give fines or up to one year's imprisonment," said Doris Högne Rydheim of the Swedish Security Police (Säpo), the organization responsible...

(FMM/IFEX) - The Supreme Court of Sri-Lanka declared the detention of journalist Sivanathan Sivaramya by the police on 1 May 2006 illegal and ordered the two officers responsible to pay 50,000 Sri Lankan rupees (approx. US$446) in compensation to the journalist. The Supreme Court decision was announced on 16 July 2007 by a three-member bench comprising the Chief Justice and two other judges. At...