News

Reporters Without Borders today condemned a government decision to withhold state advertising from the Standard Group media, which include The Standard daily newspaper and Kenya Television Network (KTN). “The culmination of a war of words in which the police and courts have at times been enlisted, this decision is absurd and dangerous,” the press freedom organisation said. “A state advertising...

A reporter for a government-run radio station was found dead with a gunshot wound to his chin in the northern Philippines on Wednesday, police said. The body of Carmelo Palacios, 41, a reporter for Radyo ng Bayan in northern Nueva Ecija province, was found sprawled in front of a roadside farm in the township of Santa Rosa, 90 kilometers (55 miles) north of Manila, said Chief Superintendent Ismael...

Dream journals being kept by students in a college psychology class have provided researchers with a unique look at how people experienced the events of 9/11, including the influence that television coverage of the World Trade Centre attacks had on people’s levels of stress. Reported in the April 2007 issue of journal Psychological Science, the study data foud that for every hour of television...

The premises of Mizzima News Agency were reopened Wednesday on orders of the Supreme Court-appointed monitoring committee looking into the sealing issue in Delhi. The office was sealed by Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) on April 16, 2007. The decision to reopen Mizzima's office was made by the MCD Deputy Commissioner and member of the Sealing Monitoring Committee, Deepak Hastir, following a...

Mexico has become only the second country in Latin America to repeal defamation as a criminal offence. Mexican President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa signed the legislation that effectively eliminates criminal defamation, libel, and slander at the federal level last week. Mexico's president Felipe Calderon speaks during the opening of the Plan Puebla Panama summit in Mexico, April 10, 2007. “I welcome...

The competition for the most powerful position in business journalism ended yesterday as Marcus W. Brauchli was named managing editor of The Wall Street Journal, succeeding Paul E. Steiger, who has held the top job in the newsroom since 1991. Mr. Brauchli, 45, who joined Dow Jones, publisher of The Journal, in 1984 as a copy editor and served for many years as a Journal foreign correspondent, has...

(RSF/IFEX) - On the third anniversary of the abduction and disappearance of French-Canadian journalist Guy-André Kieffer in Abidjan, a news conference about the case was held on 13 April 2007 at the French national assembly by Reporters Without Borders, Kieffer's wife, Osange Silou-Kieffer, his brother, Bernard Kieffer, the president of "Truth for Guy-André Kieffer" support committee, Aline...

The staff of the Mumbai office of Star News was attacked Monday and its offices ransacked by about 50 activists of the so-called Hindu Rashtriya Sena after it broadcast an interview with a runaway couple – a a teenage Hindu girl and a young Muslim man. Policemen are seen through shattered glass panel of the office of the Star news network in Mumbai, India, Monday, April 16, 2007. Hard-line Hindu...

MUMBAI (Reuters) - India is set to become the top pay television market in Asia-Pacific by 2015, but excessive regulation could hamstring growth and commoditise the industry, research firm Media Partners Asia (MPA) said in a report. Indian pay TV revenue from advertising and subscription grew 17 percent in 2006 to $4.2 billion, and was likely to more than double to $10 billion by 2011 and then...

If you Googled "Virginia Tech shooting" or "Virginia shooting" this week, the Internet search engine served up dozens of links to news about the university massacre. Yet some media outlets weren't taking the chance of missing readers' attention by being bumped down the list. The New York Times and The Washington Post, for example, bought keyword ads that put their coverage into the prominent...