Newsworthiness

(IFJ/IFEX) - The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) today supported its member unions' call that a Reuters' trust ensure that its editorial independence and quality of reporting is not damaged if the proposed merger deal with Thomson Corp. is finalized. "We are concerned that this deal could lead to changes in editorial policy that could damage Reuters' reputation for independent and...

The numbers are stark. Eight months into Katie Couric’s job as the first woman to anchor a network newscast on her own, her “CBS Evening News” has not only settled back into its long-held position of last among the evening news broadcasts, but also regularly falls short of the newscast that Ms. Couric replaced. In the latest week’s ratings, “CBS Evening News” had its worst performance since the...

Here's a silver lining in last month's avalanche of news coverage of Don Imus: The disc jockey's racist and sexist remarks inspired at least one Sunday morning talk show to invite women and people of color to discuss Imus' comments. Seeing nonwhite men on the Sunday shows is as rare as seeing them on the floor of the U.S. Senate. According to a study to be released Monday by the liberal media...

One of the trickiest things for a news organization to do is cover itself. That was the situation some editors at The Wall Street Journal found themselves in last month when they learned that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation was making a $5 billion bid for the Journal’s parent, Dow Jones, at least a week before the news broke elsewhere. It was one of the biggest business news events of the year...

A SURVEY of six mainstream local media outlets has found that 75 per cent of journalists, photographers and camera crew do not feel free to write, shoot or edit news as they find it. The survey was carried out two weeks ago by former Fiji Times night and deputy editor Sophie Foster. She presented the findings at a Media Freedom Day seminar at the University of the South Pacific last week. She said...

NEW YORK (AP) -- The New York Times said Thursday that it has appointed Pulitzer Prize-winning newsman Clark Hoyt as its new public editor. Hoyt, 64, is a veteran journalist who spent much of his career at Knight Ridder newspapers, where his coverage of Democratic vice presidential candidate Thomas F. Eagleton during the 1972 election won a Pulitzer. He was Washington editor for the chain until...

The Indian Paparazzi has come of age. Just when we were thinking that Abhi-Ash saga was behind us, it turned out that there was more to follow! Thanks to an enthusiastic photographer getting roughed up by the Big B’s security personnel.– the actor first apologized and then lashed out through the media, at the media for what he called nauseating interest in a private affair. This hungama was a...

The orthopaedic surgeon Wynne Lieberthal accused The Star of destroying his and his family's life after its journalists doggedly pursued complaints of malpractice against him. He was eventually struck off the medical practitioner's register and, according to the Health Professions Council of South Africa, lost all his assets as a direct result of the negative (but probably fair) publicity. "When...

Mumbai: Picture this: Star filmmaker Karan Johar interviews each and every celebrity in Bollywood. Actors Saif Ali Khan and Rani Mukherji speak to camera on their roles in Tara Rum Pum. Eklavya’s A-list star cast talks about Making Eklavya to each other. And Aamir Khan answers questions at a press conference asked to him not by a journalist but by the host of the evening. So, promotions are on in...

MADRID (Reuters) - Spies and soldiers, politically engaged and deeply partisan -- such is the way a new exhibition portrays some of the intriguing band of foreign correspondents who risked their lives to report on the Spanish Civil War. It is well known that novelists like George Orwell, Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos wrote in defence of Spain's Republican government troops as they battled...