Companies

PARIS (Reuters) - Journalists on Les Echos said on Wednesday they had suspended a strike to protest at the possible sale of the French business newspaper after further talks with its owner, Pearson (PSON.L: Quote, Profile, Research). In a statement, the journalists said they remained unhappy with proposals Pearson had made to guarantee editorial independence in case of a sale and were ready to...

The Mercury News will reduce its newsroom staff by 40 positions through layoffs that will take place in July, the company announced Tuesday. The reduction - a nearly 17 percent cut - will leave the paper with 200 newsroom positions, down from a peak seven years ago of about 400. The cuts are in response to declining advertising revenues, said Executive Editor Carole Leigh Hutton. "Revenue is not...

Tens of thousands of journalists are planning a co-ordinated day of protests in every European capital to highlight a dramatic media crisis over political pressure, falling standards and poor working conditions across Europe. “It’s time to stand up for journalism,” said Aidan White, General Secretary of the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) at a national conference of German journalists on...

LONDON: Journalists at Les Echos, a French financial daily, walked off the job Tuesday, stopping publication of Wednesday editions, as Pearson, its British owner, confirmed that it was considering a sale of the newspaper. Pearson declined to name the interested party or parties, but a union representative at Les Echos, Katty Cohen, said journalists assumed that the potential buyer was Bernard...

General Electric Co. and Pearson Plc, weighing a bid for Dow Jones & Co., may struggle both to top a $5 billion offer from Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. and to agree on a proposed structure for the combined business. Murdoch’s $60-a-share bid values the publisher of the Wall Street Journal at 65 percent more than its price before Dow Jones disclosed the offer. GE and Pearson envision an entity that...

June 19 (Bloomberg) — Josh Rushing has gone from Marine Corps spokesman (the role in which he appeared in the 2004 documentary “Control Room'’) to Washington-based reporter for Al Jazeera, known in some quarters as Osama bin Laden’s favorite TV network. A profound conversion by most standards, though in his memoir “Mission Al Jazeera'’ Rushing argues it was a natural progression. A Texan who...

The mother of a Chinese journalist thrown in jail after US Internet giant Yahoo provided user information to the Chinese government arrived in Washington Thursday to campaign for her son’s release. “There is a lot of international concern, it is not an isolated case now,” Gao Qinsheng told AFP after meeting her American lawyer and the Washington representative of Reporters Without Borders, a press...

THE Bancroft family, which controls Dow Jones & Co. — publisher of the Wall Street Journal — on Thursday rejected a plan designed to preserve the paper's independence and integrity if the company is sold to Rupert Murdoch. The Australian-born head of News Corp. has long coveted the Journal and recently offered $60 a share for its publicly traded parent company, which the sprawling Bancroft clan...

Yahoo shareholders have vetoed with an overwhelming majority the company's proposed Chinese anti-censorship policy. This comes close on the heels of the mother of jailed Chinese journalist Shi Tao announcing plans to continue with the lawsuit against Yahoo. Proposals to set up a human rights committee with the task of reviewing Yahoo’s policies around the world, specifically in China, were also...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Wall Street Journal said on Wednesday it is reorganizing its editing ranks to integrate print and online news operations as well as simplify its international news structure. The changes will deal with what the newspaper called "profound changes sweeping the news business." The Journal is owned by Dow Jones & Co. Inc., whose controlling family is considering whether to...