News

LONDON (Reuters) - Traditional media companies are ideally placed to benefit from the explosion of user-generated content and should see it as an opportunity and not a threat even though the potential revenue is limited, a report says. The phenomenon of consumers contributing their own photographs, video and blogs took the media industry by storm in 2006 through Web sites such as YouTube and...

(AJI/IFEX) - The essence of press freedom and freedom to access information, as stipulated in Article 28 of the Second Amendment of the 1945 Constitution, has not been fully realised. Various obstacles, threats and violence against the press and journalists occurred in 2006, in worrying levels of intensity. According to AJI records, from January to December 2006, there were 53 cases of violence...

New York, January 3, 2007— The Committee to Protect Journalists called today on the Nepalese government to investigate attacks on journalists in the western town of Nepalgunj which prompted nine newspapers to suspend publication from December 26 to 30. The attacks came amid sectarian violence that killed one person and injured dozens. “We are concerned that journalists were a specific target of...

New York, January 3, 2007—Police in the northern self-declared republic of Somaliland stormed the offices of the Somali-language daily Haatuf late Tuesday and seized two journalists over an article alleging corruption by the president’s wife, according to local media reports and local journalists. Managing editor Yusuf Abdi Gabobe and editor Ali Abdi Dini have been held for questioning at the...

New York, January 3, 2007—Ethiopia’s Supreme Court has confirmed a 15-month prison sentence against a journalist who was out on bail, and sent him back to prison, according to CPJ sources. In a December 27 decision, the court ordered that Leykun Engeda, former editor of the defunct Amharic-language weekly Dagim Wonchif, should serve out the rest of his term for allegedly publishing false...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 3 — One of the two men convicted of murdering a retired reporter for The New York Times was sentenced today to 26 years in prison. Michael C. Hamlin, who was 24 when he was arrested, had faced up to 60 years in prison after pleading guilty to second-degree murder, robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery late last year. He was tried for his part in the death of the reporter, David...

(RSF/IFEX) - Every effort must be made to obtain the rapid release of Agence France-Presse photographer Jaime Razuri, a Peruvian national, who was kidnapped in Gaza City on 1 January 2007, RSF said, condemning a lack of political will on the part of the Palestinian authorities to put an end once and for all to the wave of criminal kidnappings of journalists in the Gaza Strip. "We realise that the...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has condemned the closure of the Baghdad studios of privately-owned satellite TV al-Charkiya, which was accused of "inciting sectarian violence" for showing footage of Iraqis mourning the death of former president Saddam Hussein. The announcement of his execution and the broadcast of footage of his hanging produced sharply different reactions in the Iraqi...

Public broadcaster Prasar Bharati will need Rs 9,431 crore to telecast Commonwealth Games, 2010, in high-definition TV (HDTV) format. It is under pressure to shift to the format for the games. Prasar Bharati is the host broadcaster for the games. According to the contract requirements, Prasar Bharati has to produce the entire television and radio content in the digital format. Otherwise it will...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Washington Post Co. plans to have its veteran editors help shape the way stories appear on the Web in the latest example of how top U.S. publishers are retooling news operations for the Internet. The Washington Post's Web site, launched more than a decade ago, has been a bellwether among online news publishers because of its early success at attracting readers online and...