News

NEW YORK: Tribune Co. has agreed to sell its two smallest newspapers, both in Connecticut, to Gannett for more than $65 million, The Washington Post reports today. But what does this signal about the company's desire to sell off the entire company? . The Post relates that Tribune offered the Greenwich Time and Stamford Advocate to two prospective buyers, Gannett and MediaNews Group, "according to...

New York, March 2, 2007 —The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed that authorities in the capital, Libreville, have suspended a satirical newspaper for three months, apparently after it published commentary critical of President Omar Bongo, according to news reports and local journalists. The official National Communications Council (CNC) suspended the private bimonthly Edzombolo on Tuesday...

March 2, 2007 · A federal judge issued a one-page order Thursday vacating contempt findings and sanctions in the case of two San Francisco Chronicle reporters who refused to divulge their source in the BALCO steroids investigation. The order from U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White in San Francisco signaled the official end of Lance Williams' and Mark Fainaru-Wada's nearly yearlong legal battle to...

The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned by criminal defamation prosecutions of three Yemeni editors. Independent weekly Al-Deyar Editor-in-Chief Abed al-Mahthari was charged with defaming Watani Bank for Trade and Investment; Al-Shoura.net Editor Abdelkarim al-Khaiwani was charged with publishing false information about the Defense Ministry and defaming Armed Forces Moral Guidance...

Reporters Without Borders has hailed the warrant issued on 1 March 2007 by Sydney coroner Dorelle Pinch for the arrest of Yunus Yosfiah, the former Indonesian army officer who led the attack on the East Timor border town of Balibo on 16 October 1975 in which five journalists working for two Australian TV stations were killed. "We applaud Dorelle Pinch's efforts and determination to end the silence...

(Adil Soz/CJES/IFEX) - International Foundation for Protection of Freedom of Speech (Adil Soz) and the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations (CJES), along with 12 other IFEX members, have joined in solidarity to protest the ongoing harassment of independent journalists and public activists in Uzbekistan and to campaign for the release of independent journalist Umida Niyazova. On 22 January...

(RSF/IFEX) - RSF has voiced surprise at the 22-month prison sentence which Roberto de Jesús Guerra Pérez, a correspondent of the Miami-based Payolibre and Nueva Prensa Cubana websites and the US government-funded Radio Martí, received on 27 February 2007 from a Havana court on a charge of "disturbing the peace," and said it hoped the 19 months he has already spent in detention will be deducted...

(IFJ/IFEX) - The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) holds grave concerns for the future of press freedom in Thailand following a court decision permitting the Prime Minister's Office to demand television station, iTV, pay over 100 billion baht (around US$2.9 billion) in fines by March 6. According to local reports, the military-installed government will terminate the license of iTV and...

Press freedom organisations have welcomed a German Constitutional Court ruling that journalists cannot be accused of betrayal of state secrets for publishing classified information obtained from informers. Cicero’s chief editor, Wolfram Weimer, complained to the Federal Constitutional Court, which ruled Tuesday that the raid was an “unjustified intrusion on the press freedom of the plaintiff.”...

The Internet is spreading across the country, and newspaper websites too seem to be making hay off it. The Web editions of Indian newspapers are now read even in smaller towns, and not just in the metros of the country. A recent study has found that their readership has also spread out to as many as 62 countries, in addition to India. Columnists are read by 42 per cent of the English newspaper...