News

The Indian government's decision to block 18 websites including the popular blogging site blogspot.com increasingly appears to be a whimsical and arbitrary one. The loud rumours rife in the online world about the government blocking sites in the wake of the July 11 Mumbai blasts is increasingly ringing a hollow tune. None of the listed sites that this writer visited had anything to do with the...

(CPJ/IFEX) - New York, July 18, 2006 - Two unidentified gunmen killed broadcaster Armando Pace as he returned home today after hosting his radio program in the city of Digos on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao. The Committee to Protect Journalists is investigating to determine whether he was killed in relation to his work. Pace, 51, was shot in the head and chest shortly after 1 p.m. as...

NEW YORK: The Wall Street Journal plans to start printing an ad on its front page starting in September, parent company Dow Jones & Co. announced Tuesday. The advertisement will appear as either a "jewel box" in the lower right-hand corner or a banner running along the bottom of the page. Dow Jones did not disclose the size of the planned ads, which will leave less space for news, but not alter...

The print media's coverage of last week's announcement of changes to media ownership laws provides a telling illustration of just how important - and how difficult - it is to get media reform right. Federal Communications Minister Helen Coonan released details of her legislative package last Thursday outlining how restrictions on foreign and cross-media ownership would be lifted as soon as...

NEW YORK: With many newspapers already limited in their foreign coverage by the ongoing Iraq War, and some budget cutbacks, the current MIddle East conflict -- which escalated over the weekend with new attacks on both sides and numerous civilian casualties -- has thrown a new wrench of staffing and news space demands. Although most foreign editors say they have been able to keep their Iraq...

Israel is fast catching up with its adversaries in its attacks on the press. Seven journalists and media workers were injured in a space of two days during attacks carried out by Israeli forces in Lebanon earlier this week. Two Palestinian photographers were shot at last week in the Gaza area. BOMBED OUT: The compound of buildings housing the television station of the Lebanese Shiite militant...

A Florida newspaper has increased readership 20 percent without spending a dime on printing or distribution. How? By offering the entire paper online for free. Publisher Craig Swill wanted to get more people reading the Boca Raton (Fla.) News — and its ads — yet avoid any increase in the printing and distribution costs which already squeeze newspapers. He found a solution in the PDF sent by the...

The print media in India is a long way from being dead if the official report on the state of the print publications is anything to go by. The Press in India 2004-5, the annual report of the Registrar of Newspapers for India (RNI), says the print media claimed a substantial share in the information space in the country registering 1,948 new newspapers and over a two crore increase in circulation...

It is a newspaper with a circulation of only 20,000 copies, and having online and cable television operations, in the middle of a cornfield in the state of Kansas in the US, which provides a classic case study for newspaper publishers incorporating elements of the practical convergence philosophy into their operations. SAME WORK: Radio journalist Lars Kryger in Ringkjøbing, right, records a radio...

Twenty-eight months after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak promised to initiate legislations to decriminalise press offences comes a new law which does not do enough to protect journalists from prosecution for reporting stories critical of the government. The law, in fact, sharply increases fines for defamation. The National Assembly, controlled by Mubarak's National Democratic Party, passed the...