News

(IAPA/IFEX) - MIAMI, Florida (May 9, 2007) - The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today described as a very serious setback for freedom of the press in Uruguay a judge's sentencing of journalist Gustavo Escanlar Patrone to three months' imprisonment on a criminal libel charge. On April 18, after the appeal in lower courts failed, the Uruguayan Supreme Court upheld the May 18, 2006...

(CPJ/IFEX) - New York, May 9, 2007 - The Palestinian militant group Jaish al-Islam has issued a recording in which it claims to be holding BBC correspondent Alan Johnston and demands the release of Muslim prisoners held by the United Kingdom in exchange for the journalist's freedom. The audio and visual recording, published on an extremist Web site and sent to the local office of Al-Jazeera, comes...

(Globe International/IFEX) - Globe International and the Open Society Forum in Mongolia organized a roundtable, "Against censorship!", on 2 May 2007, on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day. This day also witnessed several members of Parliament submitting a draft law on freedom of information. A public discussion on the draft law took place in the Open Society Forum's premises on 7 May. During...

(IFJ/IFEX) - The International Federation of Journalists, which is hosting a meeting in Iraq to devise a national safety strategy for journalists and media staff, today condemned the killings of three journalists and their driver, who were reportedly tortured and shot in Northern Iraq. "These killings bring the media death toll to more than 200 and underscore just how urgent it is to confront the...

BEIJING: A Chinese court sentenced a man to life in prison Wednesday for taking nearly $500,000 in bribes while posing as a reporter -- and sometimes a top editor -- for the Communist Party's official newspaper, the People's Daily. Liu Yonghong had promised low-level officials outside Beijing that he could help them get promotions or work transfers by delivering their bribes to top leaders in the...

Lachlan Murdoch, the estranged heir of Rupert Murdoch is in India to consolidate his media interests, reports CNBC-TV18. The former heir apparent of News Corporation and the former blue-eyed boy of Rupert Murdoch, Peter Mukherjea now make a common pair. When Mukerjea resigned from Star TV, it fuelled speculation of a joint venture for the better part of last year. Lachlan Murdoch broke off from...

GAZA (Reuters) - A little-known Islamist group claimed responsibility in an audio recording on Wednesday for abducting the BBC's Gaza correspondent, issuing demands immediately rebuffed by the Palestinian government. As evidence that it is holding BBC correspondent Alan Johnston, the group posted on the Internet a photo of his BBC identification card. The posting appeared to be the first tangible...

(CPJ/IFEX) - New York, May 9, 2007 - The Committee to Protect Journalists mourns the death on Saturday of Mohammed Abdullahi Khalif, a contributor to the private radio station Voice of Peace in Somalia's northeastern, semi-autonomous region of Puntland. Khalif was killed by crossfire while covering an army raid on an illegal gun market in the city of Galkayo. Khalif died from a bullet to the chest...

May 9 (Bloomberg) -- Rupert Murdoch tried today to persuade the Bancroft family to sell him Dow Jones & Co. by offering appeals to their pride. What he didn't offer is more money. ``We admire the Bancroft family and the Dow Jones management,'' Murdoch told analysts on a conference call after News Corp., the third-largest media company, reported quarterly earnings. ``If we didn't have such strong...

Google would normally be the last company you’d expect to be talking up the unlocked value of print advertising. But at a time when the troubled newspaper industry is struggling to hold on to advertisers, the search giant is in the early stages of a partnership with publishers such as the New York Times Co. (nyse: NYT - news - people ) and Tribune (nyse: TRB - news - people ) to sell print ads in...