United States

More than 1,000 journalists have visited Guantanamo Bay since the U.S. military began locking up suspected al-Qaida and Taliban militants there 4 1/2 years ago. But access has been severely restricted: Journalists could not talk to detainees, they had to be accompanied by a military escort and their photos were censored. Now, the Pentagon has shut down access entirely - at least temporarily -...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Dow Jones and Co. Inc. (DJ.N: Quote, Profile, Research) plans to "retool" its Wall Street Journal Asian and European newspaper editions after reader complaints about their new tabloid formats, Chief Executive Officer Richard Zannino said on Wednesday. Zannino, speaking at the Bank of America Media Telecommunications and Entertainment conference, said some readers feel "there...

NEW HAVEN, Conn. --Three central Connecticut newspapers will switch to a tabloid format in May as their parent company, Journal Register Co., tries to boost advertising revenue and reverse circulation losses. The Herald of New Britain, The Bristol Press and The Middletown Press announced the change in Wednesday's newspapers, saying the new editions will be easier to read and more attractive to...

NEW YORK, Jan 17 (Reuters) - The chief executive of U.S. mining company Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold accused The New York Times on Tuesday of "disturbing and provocative misstatements" for criticizing the company's financial support of the military in Indonesia, where it operates a huge mine. Richard Adkerson also acknowledged that as a result of the newspaper report, the company has received...

After the pounding from nature the world took in 2005, our hearts were ripe for the "miners miracle" in West Virginia. We wanted to believe it. And there seemed to be ample reason to do so. Before I went to bed Tuesday night, I heard on the 11 o'clock news that 12 of the 13 miners were alive; their loved ones were euphoric. My heart went out to the family of the man who had not survived, but I...

Sometimes, even journalists want to believe in miracles. We are, after all, unfailingly human, which might help explain why we got it so wrong last week. In hindsight, there appears to be no professional excuse for the lapse in reporting that led so many television stations and newspapers to run stories declaring that 12 of the 13 men trapped in a West Virginia coal mine had been found alive. A...

The sad but safe assumption about the Sago miners is that when their funerals are over, we will forget about them, their mourning families, and the working conditions that still threaten so many like them. We will forget and, with occasional exceptions in the pages of liberal magazines and daily newspapers, we won’t be reminded until the next mesmerizing catastrophe shows up on the cable channels...

It was the most heart-rending and humiliating botch of a life-and-death story in modern memory, yet most journalists, naturally, aren't blaming themselves. It was everyone else's fault, they say. We just published and broadcast what we were told, and it turned out to be wrong. Tragically wrong, as in the Washington Post headline in Wednesday's late editions: "12 Found Alive in W.Va. Coal Mine." Or...

Tim Mulherin of Indianapolis was one of the many readers I heard from Wednesday morning. He and others let me know how disappointed they were at The Star's having printed the wrong information regarding the fate of 13 coal miners in West Virginia. The Star wasn't alone in reporting that 12 of the 13 miners had been found alive. Newspapers, most in the East Coast time zone, that were caught in the...

My folks grew up in a town whose fortunes rose and fell on coal mining. When I lived in that town, I thought the men had the most exotic-looking eyes. Try as they would in post-work scrub-downs, the miners couldn't remove all the coal dust from their lids and it looked like permanent eyeliner to my 12-year-old mind. I thought of those vivid, black-rimmed eyes this past week, watching and reading...