BUCHAREST, ROMANIA — The black-and-white photograph has frayed a bit over 13 years. It shows eight Romanian students and me smiling, glasses raised in celebration of the end of our month-long odyssey to produce the first student newspaper at the University of Bucharest's Faculty of Journalism. The year was 1992. Those students, now in their early 30s, are no longer "emerging adults," as I often...
CNN says it is just thrilled by the transformation of Lou Dobbs–formerly a mild-mannered news anchor noted for his palsy-walsy interviews with corporate CEOs–into a raving populist xenophobe. Ratings are up. It's like watching one of those "makeover" shows that turn nerds into fops or bathrooms into ballrooms. According to the New York Times, this demonstrates "that what works in cable television...
Tough new privacy laws could be introduced here within the coming month. Michael McDowell intends to bring in new laws that would afford strong privacy protection to Irish public figures even when they appear in some public places. The Minister for Justice has drawn up privacy legislation following Cabinet resistance last May to introducing libel reform. The libel reforms, which are expected to be...
NEW YORK - Did a recent Associated Press story examining President George Bush's alleged tendency to use a "straw man" approach in his speeches cross the line from news to biased opinion? Or was it just a long-overdue, in-depth review of the president's public speaking approach? The viewpoint, as often happens in Washington, depends on whose blog you are reading, and what you consider opinion and...
NEW Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark has lashed out at an investigative journalist who unveiled damaging scandals against her ministers, calling him a "creep". Mrs Clark's attorney-general David Parker resigned from all his portfolios this week after journalist Ian Wishart revealed Mr Parker had filed false declarations to the Companies Office. Wishart's Investigate Magazine also published fresh...
China has agreed to drop charges against a Chinese journalist who worked as a researcher for the New York Times. Zhao Yan, jailed since October 2004 after his arrest on charges of fraud and illegally releasing state secrets, is likely to be released soon. Zhao’s case was threatening to overshadow Chinese President Hu Jintao’s forthcoming visit to the United States. Hu is expected to make his first...
Two journalists were charged with exposing German state secrets on al Qaeda's frontman in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in a case their defenders called a blow to press freedom. Prosecutors in the city of Potsdam, near Berlin, said on Wednesday they were pursuing a case against German reporter Bruno Schirra and the foreign editor of Swiss newspaper Sonntagsblick, Johannes von Dohnanyi, over an...
TOKYO, March 15 (UPI) -- In a case involving a U.S. health food firm and its Japanese affiliate, Tokyo District Court ordered a Japanese reporter to reveal his source of information. At a hearing entrusted by an Arizona court, Judge Ken Fujishita on Tuesday ordered the reporter from the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper to reveal his sources of information "if information was provided by a public servant...
THE SOUTHEAST Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA) and the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) will hold a conference on free expression in Asian cyberspace on April 2006 in Makati City, Manila, INQ7.net learned. A three-day conference titled "Free Expression in Asian Cyberspace: A Conference of Asian Bloggers, Podcasters, and Online News Providers," aims to bring together individuals...
In response to reports that the journalism profession in America, and particularly in academia, failed to help Jewish journalists during the Holocaust, the Newspaper Association of America is trying to make amends. It issued a statement last week regretting that its predecessor organization did not give a full public airing to the issue at the time. The association's board has also agreed to hear...
