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BOSTON (Reuters) - Two days after her abduction in Baghdad, American journalist Jill Carroll desperately pleaded with her captors to believe she was not hiding an electronic chip somewhere in her body to communicate with U.S. Marines. In a personal account of her 82 days held captive in Iraq, Carroll said a leader of the militant group accused her of secretly tipping off U.S. forces to her...

(FLIP/IFEX) - Seven years after the 13 August 1999 murder of journalist and humourist Jaime Garzón in Bogotá, not one person is being detained for the crime. The only person found guilty of it was paramilitary commander Carlos Castaño, whose whereabouts have been unknown since April 2004. During the trial Juan Pablo Ortiz and Edilberto Sierra Ayala were detained as suspected of having carried out...

When a new medium like the Internet comes along, it is very easy to predict the doom of the old. Exciting new media dynamics certainly cast a shadow over the incumbents, but the advent of new technology has always caused people to predict the demise of the seemingly obsolete established players. The invention of radio was going to kill newspapers; the advent of television was going to kill radio...

Blogger Anthony Citrano is on the hunt to purchase an add-on car navigation system before he takes a cross-country trek from Massachusetts later this year. Rather than relying solely on information found on several manufacturers' Web sites, Citrano is getting feedback from consumer-generated content on blogs and wikis. "I went to the companies' Web site for the technical stuff, but what meant more...

NEW YORK: The newspaper industry faces a $20 billion revenue gap over the next five years if advertising and circulation revenue continue its downward spiral, according to a new report from the Burlingame, Calif.-based research firm Outsell. The firm based its projection on the industry's reliance on paid circulation, which has been slipping at an alarming rate over the past several years. "The...

New York, August 15, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by a television editor’s court conviction on a criminal defamation charge. The municipal court in the southern city of Prokuplje upheld a lower court ruling against Slavko Savic, senior editor of the local television station RTV Kursumlija. The court, ruling on August 10, sentenced Savic to a suspended prison term and one...

Legislation and a strong industry code of conduct are necessary to end the complicity of Western Internet companies in political censorship in China, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. China’s system of Internet censorship and surveillance, popularly known as the “Great Firewall,” is the most advanced in the world. In the 149-page report, “Race to the Bottom: Corporate Complicity...

Leaders of local Jubo Dal and Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal yesterday burnt copies of the daily Prothom Alo and Janakantha for publishing what they say 'false news reports' against State Minister for Expatriate Welfare and Overseas Employment Lutfor Rahman Azad. Jubo Dal and Chhatra Dal leaders at a meeting also declared local correspondents of the dailies persona non grata and pledged to resist the...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has written to Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza voicing concern about the pernicious state of relations between his government and the media, and the alarming number of press freedom violations during his first year in office. "The press plays a stabilising role in democracies by channelling and giving structure to the debates taking place within society...

RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has condemned a months-long campaign of legal and personal harassment of weekly newspaper editor Margarita Zakora and her family and called on the authorities to stop it immediately. "The cynical nature of these attacks is matched by her courage," the worldwide press freedom organisation said. "We demand that the legal action against her be dropped and that...