News

The story that most aroused N&O readers in the past week has to do with the press and national security. When is it appropriate for newspapers to publish information that could jeopardize our common safety and well-being? The question arises from the disclosure in The New York Times and other national papers, and reported subsequently in The News & Observer, that the government is monitoring an...

THE Bush administration's unusually harsh attacks on The New York Times for exposing a secret banking-data surveillance program have turned a glaring spotlight on the paper's decision to publish the article. President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Republican legislators have singled out The Times in recent days for disclosing the counterterrorism program, even though The Los Angeles Times and...

WHEN government officials ask journalists to withhold information on national security grounds, they face a natural skepticism. Many reporters believe that the government routinely exaggerates the need for secrecy. They suspect that security officials try to snuff reporting that is merely embarrassing or at most politically troublesome. And most journalists are deeply reluctant to pass up a scoop...

Tampa radio personality Tedd Webb has one thing to offer reporters - or anyone else - who reveals details of any secret government program aimed at fighting terrorism during the current war. A bullet. Sparked by several newspapers' publication of stories on the Treasury Department's monitoring of terrorist suspects' money transfers worldwide, Webb told listeners to his radio show on WFLA-AM 970...

THE voice on the telephone was that of a trusted contact whose advice on security in Iraq has often been a source of reassurance. But the message he passed on last Wednesday and the urgency of his tone could hardly have been more alarming: my name had been placed on a hit list by one of the groups whose death threats have spread fear through countless communities in this stricken country. “A...

Colombo - A journalist who reported on defence matters and worked as a government press advisor was shot dead by unidentified killers outside Sri Lanka's capital, police said Sunday. The bullet-riddled body of Lakmal Sampath was found by police on Sunday morning at Dehiwala, eight kilometres south of Colombo, police said. He was a former defence correspondent for a Sinhala-language newspaper...

MEXICO CITY - In the old days, working the news media during a Mexican presidential campaign was a pretty simple affair: The ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, routinely pressured and/or bribed newspapers and radio and television stations to run stories favorable to the government. For the most part, the media complied. So airtight was the alliance between the major media and the...

Newspapers have long said that businesses must advertise to survive - but they've been reluctant to follow that advice. Until now. The new owners of The Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News, and their Web site, Philly.com, pledge to spend at least $5 million to advertise and promote their new property, for which they paid $515 million on Thursday. That kind of spending - about 1 percent of...

THE Newspaper and Magazine Dealers Association of the Philippines (MDAP) says newspaper readership is declining steadily. Lawyer Raymund J.A. Mercado, MDAP president for Visayas, echoed the consensus of association members nationwide after attending the MDAP summit at the Development Academy of the Philippines on June 15 and 16. "The decline could be attributed to the onset of news on the net and...

In recent days, the Iranian government has launched a campaign designed to malign the foreign press, blaming demonstrations that followed the contested June 12 presidential elections on foreign news media, particularly British and US news outlets. On June 19, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei blamed foreign media for social unrest, calling it "evil" for allegedly misleading and agitating the...