Ethics and Freedom

The Associated Press has terminated its relationship with a freelance reporter in Haiti after learning she was working for a U.S. government-sponsored organization. The National Endowment for Democracy confirmed Regine Alexandre began working for the organization in October as a "part-time facilitator" between the NED and Haitian groups. The NED describes itself as a private, nonprofit...

(Japan Economic Newswire)TOKYO, Dec. 27_(Kyodo) _ Japan's two major media groups on Tuesday opposed a government decision the same day that allows police to decide whether to disclose names of crime victims, saying that anonymity would make news-gathering activities about victims very difficult and could help the police hide matters unfavorable to them. The Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors...

A Chinese researcher for the New York Times was indicted Friday for revealing state secrets to the newspaper and on a lesser charge of fraud, a move that should send the case to trial within six weeks, his lawyer said. The indictment signified a decision by prosecutors to proceed with a trial of 43-year-old Zhao Yan, after 15 months of investigation by the State Security Ministry during which Zhao...

BELEM, Brazil --Journalist Lucio Flavio Pinto's crusade against the destroyers of the Amazonian rain forest has earned him an International Press Freedom Award -- along with death threats and some 32 lawsuits aimed at keeping him silent. He was too busy working on his legal defense to fly to New York to accept the press award last month. "In the 1960s, deforestation represented less than 1 percent...

China is sending a Chinese journalist working for the New York Times to trial charged with exposing state secrets, his lawyer said on Friday. Zhao Yan, who worked as a researcher for the paper before his arrest in September last year, won the Reporters Without Borders 2005 prize this month for journalists who have “shown a strong commitment to press freedom”. “The way they have done this shows...

New Delhi, December 22: "Media is in no way to blame for exposing genuine wrong doing." This was how the Lok Sabha inquiry committee, which went into the cash-for-query scam, has commented on the sting operation exposing corruption among MPs aired by a television news channel last week. The committee, headed by senior Congress MP Pawan Kumar Bansal, endorsed the view taken by the first report of...

Most of the time these days, when I scour the "media" looking for a sign of hope about mankind, I inevitably trip over a discouraging spew of waste matter passing as news of importance. Historically, the name we give this offal is propaganda. Its spewers are often reporter-impersonators. The Defense Department, CIA, and White House have been hiring these performers in large numbers lately to...

America's journalism schools and newspaper publishers refused to aid Jewish refugee journalists who were fleeing Hitler, a leading Holocaust scholar has revealed. Another scholar has described how leaders of elite American universities not only ignored the plight of Jews under Hitler in the 1930s, but actually engaged in actions that helped enhance the Hitler regime's image in the West. Professor...

The people of the Arab Middle East experienced a modest but potentially significant increase in political rights and civil liberties in 2005, Freedom House announced in a major survey of global freedom released Monday. The global survey, "Freedom in the World," shows that although the Middle East continues to lag behind other regions, a measurable improvement could be seen in freedom in several...

The sting operation by Aniruddha Bahal’s website Cobrapost on MPs taking money for raising questions in Parliament led to the suspension of MPs yesterday. However, an article in a vernacular newspaper on Question Hour had resulted in a reporter’s dismissal from his job in 1987. Prakash Gupte, who is now 65 years old, was then a sub-editor-cum reporter for Navshakti. He wrote a column on the...