News

Islamabad --- Media in Pakistan faced at least 14 recorded incidents of attacks and harassment in November, raising the total number of such incidents to 114 during the current year, says a report issued by an international media NGO here on Friday. According to the report, titled "State of Pakistani Media Freedom," various government agencies, militant groups and a political party were reportedly...

At the far end of Rafi Marg in New Delhi is located the United News of India (UNI) office. Surrounded by government offices, UNI, inconspicuously works from a colonial style bungalow. To the chagrin of its employees, UNI is known more for its canteen that serves inexpensive south Indian food and snacks, than for what it is – a national news agency. Here, everyone knows, legendary writers...

Interesting things are happening in the world of Indian media. Unknown to newspaper readers and television viewers, ownership of media houses is stealthily passing into the hands of big corporate houses. Traditionally, newspaper groups had been owned by big companies like the Birlas, Sahu Jains and Dalmias, but the latest trend involves a quiet takeover of some established media companies through...

No doubt you have also been part of the great Shah Rukh Khan-Kaun Banega Crorepati discussion that has swept the country over the last week. For the record, I accept some of the arguments that suggest that this extravagant experiment will not succeed. Who Wants to be a Millionaire, KBC’s videshi parent, is on the downslide everywhere in the world. KBC itself has lost its novelty value: in its last...

KARACHI, Dec 1 (IPS) - ''I just reported the truth,'' says 38-year-old Dilawar Wazir Khan wearily, explaining to IPS over the telephone why he was kidnapped and tortured. The last journalist left reporting from South Waziristan, one of the troubled tribal regions bordering Afghanistan, Dilawar Khan works for the Urdu language service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and Pakistan's...

Nov. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Next year's outlook for the U.S. media and entertainment industry is negative for bond investors as advertisers divert an increasing part of their budgets online, according to Fitch Ratings. Newspaper publishers's sales will be hurt by a slowdown in national advertising and automotive classified ads, Fitch said in a report today. Recruitment and real estate ads, which lifted...

The Huffington Post, which started about 18 months ago as a political Web site for celebrity bloggers, is preparing to venture into original reporting, with plans to cover Congress and, already, the 2008 presidential campaign. Arianna Huffington, who started HuffingtonPost.com, said yesterday that the site had hired Melinda Henneberger, a print journalist most recently with Newsweek magazine, as...

SAS Nagar, November 30: IN yet another instance of police high-handedness, a photo journalist discharging his professional duty was assaulted, dragged to a police station and booked for allegedly misbehaving with and manhandling a police personnel. A shocked Samuel, who is a staff photographer with the Hindustan Times, an English daily published from Mohali, said he was beaten up and humiliated by...

(IAPA/IFEX) - MIAMI, Florida (November 30, 2006) - The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today called on newspaper readers throughout the Americas to sign a public letter to Mexico's President requesting his collaboration to solve the February 22, 1988 murder of journalist Manuel Burgueño Orduño. Burgueño, who worked as a columnist for the Mazatlán, Sinaloa state, newspaper El Sol del...

Magazines have not fully embraced the potential of the web, a study by the Bivings Report has concluded. The study reviewed the websites of the top 50 most-circulated magazines in the US and evaluated them on the basis of their use or otherwise of various Web 2.0 features. The report found that overall there had been a failure to adopt the latest web features. It did, however, recognise that US...