In a show of dissent against Rupert Murdoch, shareholders of News Corp. withheld as much as 15 percent of their vote to re-elect four directors at the media conglomerate's annual meeting Friday to protest the company's failure to consult them on a takeover defense measure. Even though the directors were still re-elected by a large majority, the fact that some shareholders withheld their support...
The Wall Street Journal has unveiled partnerships with major European and Asian newspapers that will see their content featured on WSJ.com. The move coincides with the European and Asian edition of the paper's relaunch in a compact format today. The innovation is the latest drive by the paper's owner, Dow Jones & Company, for greater integration between print and online editions. The new "Across...
Oct. 17 (Bloomberg) -- News Corp. Chief Executive Officer Rupert Murdoch will stand for election to the company's board of directors for the first time in 2007, complying with U.S. regulations after shifting headquarters to New York from Australia. Murdoch wasn't required to face election under Australian law, News Corp. spokesman Andrew Butcher said today in an interview. Corporate governance at...
Yahoo's chairman and chief executive officer Terry Semel strongly defended the company's decision to turn over evidence to Chinese authorities that helped the government convict a local journalist and send him to jail for 10 years. Companies that do business internationally have to respect and abide by the laws of the countries in which they operate, whether that be China or any other country, he...
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Financier Carl Icahn launched a new attack Tuesday against the management of Time Warner Inc., arguing in a letter to shareholders that the media company's board needs new outside directors due to past mistakes. The letter, which was included in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing by Icahn early Tuesday, said the board is not taking enough steps to enhance...
ADD ANOTHER REASON for newspaper companies to worry: It's now more expensive to buy the paper on which to print the words that fewer people are reading. Newsprint prices climbed about 11% in August and September as a host of commodity prices were pushed up by rising energy costs. Throw in worsening demographics – 55 is the average age of a newspaper reader, according to a Carnegie Corp. survey –...
When Amanda Bennett, editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer, heard last month that she had to cut 75 jobs in her newsroom - 15 percent of her staff - she was sick to her stomach. But after some reflection, she said, she realized that the depth of the cuts would force the newspaper to reinvent itself, and this would be to its advantage. "This is a chance to hold everything up to the light and say,...
Ten communications unions representing a million workers are banding together to provide a united front in the face of "rapid media consolidation and massive technological shifts." That will include organizing, collective bargaining, and pushing for public policy. And in a separate move, one of those guilds, the Writers Guild of America East, joined with its West Coast counterpart Thursday to mend...
On the afternoon of April 20, 2004 Shi Tao, head of the Editorial Department of Contemporary Business News, located in Hunan Province, PRC, took notes at a department meeting. Those notes contained references to information in a CPC official document entitled: "A Notice Regarding Current Stabilizing Work" -- a euphemism for the central government's efforts to keep dissent to a minimum on the eve...
China's repressive government may one day allow the full flood of the Internet to sweep through Chinese society, but for now it is still dedicated to building ever higher and stronger seawalls against liberating knowledge. Over the weekend, two state censorship agencies issued new and more stringent rules about what news can be published on the Internet and who can publish it. The rules...
