International

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) was honored Monday with the fourth biennial Thomas J Dodd Prize in International Justice and Human Rights. The $75,000 prize is given "to an individual or group who has made a significant effort to advance the cause of international justice and global human rights." CPJ was selected for the prize by a committee representing the University...

Zero Hora of Brazil and Express & Echo of the United Kingdom were presented with World Young Reader Newspapers of the Year awards Monday at the annual competition organised by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA). The awards, which honours innovative newspapers with the best projects to attract young readers, were presented at the 8th World Young Reader Conference in...

Insult laws are designed to protect politicians, government leaders and officials and state institutions, arming the state with access to resources and legal doctrines that no other citizen has, says a new report by the World Press Freedom Committee (WPFC). The report, "The Right to Offend, Shock or Disturb: A Guide to Evolution of Insult Laws in 2007 and 2008", points out that these laws are...

Negotiations are under way in Paris to select a new Director-General for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) to replace Koichiro Matsuura of Japan, who has held the position for 10 years. UNESCO’s executive council will choose his successor by secret vote in a session that began Monday and ends on September 23. Egyptian culture minister Farouk Hosni is one...

Zero Hora of Brazil and Express & Echo of the United Kingdom have been named World Young Reader Newspapers of the Year for two vital kinds of excellence in the annual competition organised by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishing (WAN-IFRA). The awards are part of WAN-IFRA’s annual World Young Reader Prize competition, which honours innovative newspapers that have devised the...

The Associated Press (AP) will create a news registry that will tag and track all AP content online to assure compliance with terms of use. The system will register key identifying information about each piece of content that AP distributes as well as the terms of use of that content, and employ a built-in beacon to notify AP about how the content is used. "What we are building here is a way for...

Google has eliminated an experimental feature that allowed people quoted in articles in Google News to post comments on those articles, the New York Times has reported. [ Link] People in the news media were intrigued by the idea of giving article subjects the power to comment, and the idea drew considerable coverage. But the feature never got a lot of use — the company declined to provide numbers...

The World Association of Newspapers and IFRA, the leading international associations for print and digital news publishing, have merged into a new organisation, the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA). The combined new organisation will represent more than 18,000 publications, 15,000 online sites and over 3000 companies in more than 120 countries. WAN-IFRA is dedicated...

Eleven Sri Lankan journalists were driven into exile in the past 12 months amid an intensive government crackdown on critical reporters and editors, the Committee to Protect Journalists says in a new survey. The surge from Sri Lanka accounted for more than a quarter of the journalists worldwide who fled their native countries in the past year after being attacked, harassed, or threatened with

Global advertising spend is expected to drop 5.5 percent in 2009, more than previously thought, before a mild recovery begins in 2010, Reuters has reported quoting a new forecast. WPP's GroupM said on Wednesday that spending on measured media was expected to drop to $417 billion in 2009 and to be down 1.4 percent to $411 billion in 2010, according to the forecast which looked at 70 countries. Its...