Ethics and Freedom

A confrontation between Dehra Dun-based journalists and secretariat employees over entry into the State Secretariat has ended in the two sides lodging FIRs against each other. It all began last week when an altercation broke out after some newspersons working with television channels were denied entry into the State Secretariat by security personnel. Sources said Pawan Negi, a cameraman with a...

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has stayed the proceedings in a criminal defamation case against the Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of The Hindu, N. Ram, before the Judicial Magistrate of Jagadhari in Haryana. The Magistrate had issued summons to Mr. Ram on a petition filed by Darshan Lal, Haryana State unit chief of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS). The case came up for hearing before the...

Commodification of women and their derogatory portrayal in the media – be it films, television, advertisements, cable or cyber network, electronic or print media – are growing into Frankenstein proportions that the Delhi police have decided to sit up and take notice. On the eve of International Women's Day on Tuesday, the custodians of law organised an interaction on `Obscenity in Media: Impact on...

Indian newspapers need to reinvent themselves to meet the popular demands but they should remain rooted to the original intent of journalism to serve public interest, Vice Chairperson of Hindustan Times Shobhana Bhartia said on Tuesday. Noting that 47 per cent of the readership is now under 20 years of age, Bhartia, who was delivering a keynote address on the occasion of presentation of the...

Little newspapers, otherwise known as tabloids or "compact format" editions, are all the rage in Europe. Will they someday come to dominate U.S. newspapers? Or, while we were looking the other way, have alien formats already made gains in the U.S. market? Are we facing, in other words, the Invasion of the Broadsheet Snatchers? It’s no secret that U.S. as well as European newspaper readership and...

Andaman and Nicobar Islands authorities are planning serious action against some journalists for entering reserve areas and taking photographs of the highly endangered aboriginal tribals without legal permits during news coverage of the tsunami tragedy. "At least two journalists of different national news channels had illegally entered the tribal reserve areas with cameras. The administration has...

If information and Broadcasting Minister Jaipal Reddy has his way, television censorship will pass into the hands of an independent Broadcast Regulatory Authority of India, minimising the Union Government’s role in scanning content. But any such regulation will come only after the programme has been beamed, as the Ministry does not believe in pre-broadcast censorship. That will mean the panel...

It wasn’t long ago that bloggers and money had nothing to do with each other. But as the blogosphere exploded into the public consciousness over the past year – PubSub estimates there are more than 8 million Weblogs, or online journals – it was inevitable that the captains of commerce would latch onto this increasingly popular form of personal media.Blogging is growing up. For better, for worse...

The International Federation of Journalists has today condemned the assault of two journalists in Chitradurga, Karnataka allegedly by followers of N.Y. Hanumanthappa, Congress Member of Parliament (MP) for Chitradurga. "Independence of the press is the hallmark of a functioning democracy. It is essential that the journalists' right to report in a free and independently is protected," said IFJ...

Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper's 6-year-old son doesn't read the New York Times or watch C-SPAN, so as Christmas approached he remained blissfully ignorant that his father faced up to 18 months in jail for refusing to reveal his confidential sources. While a three-judge federal appeals court panel in Washington weighed whether the First Amendment and legal precedent bestow a "reporter's...