News

New York, November 30, 2006—Sri Lankan authorities should either charge or release a freelance Tamil journalist detained for nearly a week, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Parameswaree Maunasámi, who wrote for the Sinhala-language weekly Mawbima, was arrested at her home south of Colombo on November 24 along with another Tamil woman, according to the local media advocacy group...

Growing at an annual rate of 15.6%, the media and entertainment industry will double its revenues from Rs 36,100 crore in 2005 to Rs 74,400 crore by 2010, according to a Crisil report. "The media and entertainment sector is expected to be one of the key beneficiaries of the increase in discretionary spending by the Indian consumer. All segments in the industry are projected to grow, but growth in...

An online study conducted by the Department of Communication and Journalism, University of Pune, has claimed that readers of online editions of English newspapers in India have outstripped Non-Resident Indian readers. According to the survey, a majority 67 per cent of online English newspaper readers resided in India and 12 per cent in the US. In a similar survey conducted by the University in...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders condemned Taliban reprisals against the press in North Waziristan in response to an inaccurate report carried by several national and international media. A journalist's son was kidnapped for several hours, media offices were attacked, copies of newspapers were burned and a two-day ban on newspaper distribution was proclaimed. "The Taliban reaction to an...

Quetta --- Pakistani journalists Saleem Shahzad and Qamar Yousufzai, who had been arrested by the Taliban in southern Afghanistan, returned home on Tuesday. The two journalists crossed into Pakistan through the border town of Chaman from Spin Buldak and reported at the FIA immigration post in the afternoon. "Both reported at the immigration post of FIA in the afternoon and we allowed them to enter...

NEW DELHI: Print is back in focus. Worldwide, marketers seem to be trimming their television dependence by focusing more on print, outdoor media and the internet. The trend is also taking root in India. Be it pricing, geographical flexibility or a better medium for fulfilling consumer education needs, advertisers in India are upping their print media spend faster than television, and sometimes...

A new phrase was coined in Germany recently, triggering a debate which reflects the rapidly changing nature of the country's newspaper landscape. Journalist Wolfram Schütte, who used to work for the daily Frankfurter Rundschau, dared denounce the "Tchiboisation of the Süddeutsche Zeitung." He compared the Munich-based daily newspaper, which now sells books, CDs and even wine on the advertising...

New York, November 28, 2006—Yemen’s leading state-run newspaper Al-Thawra attacked independent editor Jamal Amer upon his return from the United States where he received the Committee to Protect Journalists 2006 International Press Freedom Award. The daily ran a front-page article on November 26 suggesting that he was a U.S. agent and warning of possible legal action in response to his critical...

New York, November 28, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by death threats against two colleagues of murdered Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya. The independent Moscow newspaper Novaya Gazeta said in a statement yesterday that two of its leading journalists received anonymous death threats on November 24. Deputy Editor Sergei Sokolov told the independent radio station Ekho...

Shi Tao, the Chinese journalist who was imprisoned after the American search engine company Yahoo provided information to the Chinese authorities that led to his arrest, has been awarded the 2007 Golden Pen of Freedom, the annual press freedom prize of the World Association of Newspapers. Mr Shi is serving a 10-year sentence on charges of "leaking state secrets" for writing an e-mail about media...