News

(CPJ/IFEX) - New York, November 17, 2006 - The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the arrest of two independent journalists in Azerbaijan over an article that authorities claim insulted the Prophet Muhammad. Samir Sadagatoglu, editor-in-chief of the independent newspaper Senet, and reporter Rafiq Tagi, were detained after publishing an article on November 1 titled "Europe and Us." Tagi, the...

New York, November 17, 2006—José Manuel Nava Sánchez, former director of the Mexico City-based daily Excélsior and columnist for the national daily El Sol de México, was found murdered yesterday in his apartment. The Committee to Protect Journalists is investigating whether the killing is connected to his work. According to the Mexican press, Nava’s body was found around 9 a.m. by a cleaner in his...

Refusing to grant a stay on sealing of the premises of Indian Express newspaper, the Delhi High Court today asked the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), the land owning agency, to file a status report on the lease deed and land use tomorrow. Adjourning the matter till tomorrow, the bench of acting Chief Justice Vijender Jain and Justice Rekha Sharma asked the DDA to file the status report. Counsel...

The resignations of Ross Levinsohn at News Corp. and Jonathan Miller at AOL this week took industry watchers by surprise because the two executives had spearheaded turnarounds at their companies and led them into the digital age. More notable was the fact that the successors to the two New Media titans are regarded by some as Old Media managers who lack a strong understanding of Internet...

AUSTRALIA'S largest newspaper publisher, News Ltd, has called for a revamp of the way newspaper readership is measured after a survey showed big falls for some of its leading mastheads. The call coincides with a new way to measure circulation, which reveals publishers discount up to 9 per cent of their papers to boost circulation. In the separate Roy Morgan readership survey, Fairfax Media, which...

The lead story on the debut of Al Jazeera's new English language channel yesterday was the re-election of President Joseph Kabila of Congo. There were also features on the hip, multicultural scene in Damascus; traffic in Beijing; Brazilian indigenous tribes; and the trials and tribulations of a Palestinian ambulance driver in Gaza. "Everywoman," a weekly woman's program, took on "the horrors of...

PLEASANTVILLE, N.Y., Nov. 16 (UPI) -- A U.S. investor group led by Ripplewood Holdings LLC will purchase The Reader's Digest Association Inc. for about $2.4 billion. The definitive agreement for the New York state publisher calls for an all-cash deal that marks a 25-percent premium over Reader's Digest Association 's volume-weighted average price over the past 60 trading days. Reader's Digest, the...

BAKU, November 16 (RIA Novosti) - The Azerbaijani Prosecutor General's Office ruled Thursday that the chief editor of a local newspaper be jailed for two months for insulting the Prophet Mohammed in a November 1 article. Earlier, Western mass media reported that the article, titled "Europe and Us," in the small-circulation newspaper Senet, accused Islam of standing in the way of humanity's...

BAKU, Azerbaijan: Azerbaijani police on Thursday broke up an opposition rally demanding an end to pressure on independent media, and said they had detained at least four activists. About 60 activists from the Popular Front of Azerbaijan gathered at a central subway entrance in the capital, Baku, and shouted "Freedom!" Police tried to push them into the subway, but the activists managed to disperse...

In a surprising memo to Washington Post staffers, Leonard Downie, Jr., executive editor, announced several general and specific shakeups "to maximize readership of the printed newspaper, build audience on the Web site and further reduce costs in the newsroom." This includes a plan to "shrink" the newsroom. "tightening up the paper's newshole," cracking down on story length and moving reporters and...