News

CHICAGO (MarketWatch) -- Gannett Co. said Thursday that it has agreed to sell four daily newspapers to GateHouse Media Inc. for $410 million. Gannett, the largest U.S. newspaper publisher, said it is selling the Norwich (Conn.) Bulletin; the Rockford (Ill.) Register Star; the Observer-Dispatch in Utica, NY; and The Herald-Dispatch in Huntington, W. Va. The transaction is expected to close at the...

CBS News said yesterday it planned to install a new level of editorial oversight to its Web site since revelations that the CBS anchor Katie Couric read a plagiarized commentary on the site last week. CBS has fired the producer who wrote the piece for Ms. Couric, and said yesterday it was investigating to see if the producer, whose name CBS has not disclosed, had written any previous commentaries...

Final print copies of InfoWorld, a 29-year-old weekly computer magazine, were shipped to subscribers last week. Death was attributed to plummeting print revenues and declining readership. "There's no guarantee anymore that when InfoWorld landed on a desk, it would be read," explained Bob Ostrow, InfoWorld's chief executive. At the same time, the magazine's online version is thriving. Killing off...

BULAWAYO, 11 April 2007 (IRIN) - The Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) in Zimbabwe has warned journalists of an increasingly hostile working environment after the abduction and subsequent murder of a freelance reporter, and the arrest and torture of two other foreign correspondents. "The unlawful arrest and subsequent severe assault of photojournalist Tsvangirai Mukwazhi while in police...

Reporters Without Borders today voiced deep concern about the fate of the 12 media personnel held hostage in Iraq after the security forces found the body of Othman Al-Mashhadani, the correspondent of the Saudi daily Al-Watan. “The figures are horrendous, but measures still have not been taken to put an end to the butchering of journalists and their assistants,” the press freedom organisation said...

Reporters Without Borders today urged the European Union to be tougher with Uzbekistan after charges were brought against journalist and human rights activist Umida Niyazova on 9 April. According to her brother, she has been charged with smuggling, crossing the border illegally, accepting foreign money and working against the government, and faces between five and 15 years in prison. She was...

Reporters Without Borders expressed concern today about press freedom in Somalia after a presidential spokesman ordered the arrest of a TV crew and the authorities in Puntland, a stronghold of President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, banned journalists from holding professional meetings without permission. “Security problems and the risk of regional destabilisation must not be used as an excuse to settle...

NEW YORK, NY and CAMBRIDGE, MA--(MARKET WIRE)--Apr 11, 2007 -- Hearst Newspapers, a division of Hearst Corporation, and Brightcove, the Internet TV pioneer, today announced that Hearst Newspapers will be introducing ad-supported Internet video channels. The San Francisco Chronicle and Houston Chronicle are expected to be two of the first papers to launch this year. "Video is a crucial piece to an...

New York, January 11, 2007—The director of a newspaper in the capital, Kinshasa, was jailed today for an 11-month term and his publication suspended for six weeks on a criminal defamation charge, according to the local press freedom group Journaliste en Danger (JED) and local journalists. Rigobert Kwakala Kash, who also edits the private twice-weekly Le Moniteur, was arrested on a court order at...

The body of slain Afghan journalist Ajmal Naqshbandi was buried Wednesday in Afghan capital Kabul as hundreds of mourners attended his funeral. Naqshbandi, 26, a freelance journalist, was beheaded on April 8 by Taliban extremists as the Afghan government refused to release Taliban prisoners in exchange. Hundreds turned out to pray in the street and see the journalist’s coffin lowered into the sun...