News

The Kurt Schork Awards in International Journalism celebrate the best in freelance print journalism and local reporters who show great courage and commitment to reporting on controversial issues. Two $5,000 prizes are awarded each year, one to a local reporter covering local stories in a developing country or nation in transition, and the other to a freelance journalist covering international news...

New York, March 1, 2007—The Togolese government on Wednesday indefinitely banned from broadcast veteran journalist and media activist Daniel Lawson-Drackey over a commentary on private radio Nana FM that was critical of a government minister, according to local journalists. “It’s outrageous that the government is censoring a respected journalist for raising critical questions about an issue of...

The moribund International Islamic News Agency (IINA), a media front of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), is set to for a revamp by the year-end. Turkey's Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Secretary-General of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), a 57-member block of Islamic states, attends a meeting in Islamabad, Pakistan on Sunday, February 25, 2007. Ihsanoglu said at the Riyadh...

(BCHR/IFEX) - The Bahrain Center for Human Rights welcomes the release of two Bahraini political activists, known as the "Leaflet Detainees", who were sentenced to prison in January 2007 for distributing political leaflets. However, the BCHR calls for steps to be taken to end the continuous government practice of using detention and prosecution to harass human rights and political activists, and...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Top White House candidates unveiled their own YouTube video channels on Thursday, pushing the 18-month-old Web video-sharing site even farther into the U.S. political mainstream. Google Inc.'s YouTube, best known for short, amusing videos made by users at home, says You Choose '08 ( http://www.youtube.com/youchoose) will allow candidates to control how they exchange views with...

The editor of weekly newspaper AsianWeek has apologised after the Asian-American community in the US condemned a column titled "Why I Hate Blacks." In the article, which appeared in the February 23 edition of San Francisco-based publication, contributor Kenneth Eng listed reasons why he supported discrimination against blacks -- including because "they are the only race that has been enslaved for...

As many newspaper publishers struggle with how to provide access to their printed archives without the content being exploited, small-market publishers are lining up to have their archives digitised and made online-accessible. The SmallTownPapers archive, which includes current editions and those printed back to the 1800s, is available for online search through a distribution partnership with...

One hundred and fifty-five Magazine Digital Initiatives were announced in 2006, according to research conducted by Magazine Publishers of America (MPA) and released Wednesday at MPA’s third “Magazines 24/7” Digital Conference. Time.com was adjudged as the best website in the business/news category at the Magazine Publishers of America (MPA) conference. Among the new initiatives identified in 2006...

LONDON (AFP) - In a tranquil church just yards from the London hubbub, lie tributes to journalists killed as far afield as Vietnam, Somalia, the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq. Welcome to the "journalists' altar" at St Bride's Church, just off Fleet Street -- for generations synonymous with the mighty British press. Their names are engraved on the church's wood panelling, penned on their...

New York, March 1, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by anonymous death threats against Robert Valdec, anchor of the popular weekly program “Istraga” (Investigation) on Zagreb’s independent Nova TV. The phone and e-mail messages did not specify the coverage that prompted the intimidation, but local journalists and press freedom advocates believe they came in response to the...