Americas

All 18 Journal Register Co dailies in the US published a print newspaper and website content on Sunday July 4 using only free tools available on the Internet, according to Editor & Publisher. The Independence Day editions were the next step in Journal Register’s “Ben Franklin Project,” which began in April when a small daily and a weekly produced newspapers using free social media tools to...

Structural changes meant to broaden the authority of Mexico’s special prosecutor’s office to investigate crimes against journalists are still insufficient to address the grave free expression crisis in Mexico, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. The renamed special prosecutor’s office for crimes against freedom of expression will report directly to the attorney-general and will...

Even the top 60 citizen websites and bloggers are not filling the information shortfall that has resulted from cutbacks in traditional media, say US researchers. "While many of the blogs and citizen journalism sites have done very interesting and positive things, they are not even close to providing the level of coverage that even financially stressed news organizations do today," said Margaret...

Detroit's two daily newspapers knew they were shoving some readers overboard in an effort to stay afloat when they decided to limit home delivery to just three days a week, says an Associated Press (AP) report. It was only a question of how many subscribers would abandon the Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News once their print editions were no longer hitting doorsteps and driveways each Monday...

The Canadian Press, the news service that began as a way to distribute reports from the front back to Canada during the First World War, has struck a tentative deal that will transform the 93-year-old organisation, says a The Globe and Mail report. Faced with mounting financial challenges, the organisation is proposing to convert itself to a for-profit company, from an industry co-operative. Under...

The Pentagon on Thursday reversed its ban on a Miami Herald reporter from covering military commissions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and said the reporter can return to the naval base there to cover a hearing next week, the newspaper has reported. In an email sent Thursday, Bryan G Whitman, the principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, said that Carol Rosenberg "will be...

The US government has denied a visa to a prominent Colombian journalist who specializes in conflict and human rights reporting to attend a prestigious fellowship at Harvard University, the Associated Press (AP) has reported. Hollman Morris, who produces an independent TV news programme called "Contravia," has been highly critical of ties between illegal far-right militias and allies of outgoing...

José Luis García Paneque, Pablo Pacheco Ávila, and Lester Luis González Pentón, independent Cuban journalists imprisoned during the 2003 crackdown against the political opposition and the press, are among the five dissidents to be released soon and sent to Spain as part of an agreement between the government of President Raúl Castro and the Catholic Church, international press reports said. “We’re...

Another Mexican journalist, Hugo Alfredo Olivera, was found dead on Tuesday in Michoacán state, according to news reports and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Unidentified assailants shot Olivera three times with a 32 mm gun and left his body inside the reporter’s truck in a rural area near the city of Apatzingán, a spokesman at the state prosecutor’s office told CPJ. Olivera’s body was...

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has tightened rules on media relations for the US military, only days after the top general in Afghanistan was sacked over disparaging comments he and aides made in an interview. In a three-page memo sent Friday to senior military and civilian Pentagon staff, Gates said he was "concerned that the department has grown lax in how we engage with the media, often in...