News

Digg continues to crack down on users who plant phony stories on behalf of marketers, recently deleting a user who posted a story about a company that offered to compensate him. The news aggregate site, which allows users to play editor and decide the value of a news story, deleted the user account belonging to Karim Yergaliyev, one of Digg's top-rated users. Digg spokesman David Fonkalsrud, who...

NEW DELHI: A revolutionary move is afoot to open the deliberations of standing committees of Parliament to the media with a view to ensure greater transparency and accountability. Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee, who took the initiative, said on Tuesday that he had discussed the matter with Leader of Opposition L K Advani, who has endorsed the proposal. As the winter session came to an end...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) supports calls from Australian affiliate, the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance (the Alliance), for full cooperation in an upcoming coroner's inquest into the deaths of five journalists, dubbed the Balibo five, who were killed in 1975 in the East Timorese town of Balibo while covering the Indonesian invasion. According to recent Australian...

(FNJ/IFEX) - Top leaders of eight political parties signed the Interim Constitution on 16 December 2006 at the prime minister's official residence at Baluwatar, Kathmandu. The Interim Constitution, under its preamble, has expressed full commitment to complete press freedom along with competitive multi-party democracy, civil liberties, fundamental rights, human rights, adult franchise, periodic...

(MFWA/IFEX) - Three radio journalists in Burundi face prison sentences if found guilty on charges resulting from material they broadcast a few months ago. On 14 December 2006, a prosecutor asked a Bujumbura court to sentence each of the three journalists from privately-owned radio stations to three years' imprisonment. Mathias Manirakiza, director of Radio Isanganiro, Serge Nibizi, editor-in-chief...

(IFJ/IFEX) - The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) today welcomed the announcement by the government of India that it will set up wage boards for newspaper employees, which will provide a nationally negotiated agreement on wages and working conditions for the country's media staff. "This announcement is a good start to setting fair and equitable standards for journalists and other...

New York, December 18, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by an upsurge in arrests and the harassment of journalists by rival groups battling for control of Somalia. Both the Islamists who hold Mogadishu and the U.N.-backed transitional government based in Baidoa, northwest of the capital, have cracked down on the press this month. On December 17, the Islamic Courts Union (ICU)...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Free and open debate has become a rarity in Russia's media which is mostly controlled by the state or business moguls. In a country where three high-profile journalists have been murdered since 1991, many believe speaking out can cost you your life. So many independent thinkers escape to a virtual space free of vested interests where anonymity goes hand in hand with a worldwide...

New Delhi: The Union Cabinet on approved the setting up of separate Wage Boards for journalists and non-journalist newspaper employees under a common chairman. ''The two boards, which will be under a common chairman, will be for working journalists and for the non-journalist newspaper employees,'' Information and Broadcasting Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi said, as quoted by UNI, after the Cabinet...

The internet speeds up the dissemination of not only information but also misinformation. So what are we to do about this? Regulate? Legislate? Complain? Ignore? Or respond? Consider the experience of Tim Toulmin, director of the Press Complaints Commission, when the BBC reported online that he thought bloggers should subscribe to a voluntary code of conduct, or else there is no redress for errors...