The Africa Water Journalists Network seeks to promote dialogue, information exchange and coverage about water issues among African journalists. Its website provides news and information, and a database of more than 1,000 journalists who have joined the network. A blog allows journalists to share comments and opinions on various water-related issues.
China on Sunday imposed more restrictions intended to limit the news and other information available to Internet users, and it sharply restricted the scope of content permitted on Web sites. The rules are part of a broader effort to roll back what the Communist Party views as a threatening trend toward liberalization in the news media. Taken together, the measures amount to a stepped-up effort to police the Internet, which has become a dominant source of news and information for millions of urban Chinese. Major search engines and portals like Sina.com and Sohu.com, used by millions of Chinese each day, must stop posting their own commentary articles and instead make available only opinion pieces generated by government-controlled newspapers and news agencies, the regulations stipulate. The rules also state that private individuals or groups must register as “news organizations” before they can operate e-mail distribution lists that spread news or commentary. Few individuals or private organizations are likely to be allowed to register as news organizations, meaning they can no longer legally distribute information by e-mail. Existing online news sites, like those run by newspapers or magazines, must “give priority” to news and commentary pieces distributed by the leading national and provincial news organs. This restriction on the ability of Web sites to republish articles produced by the huge array of news organizations that do not fall under direct government control seems intended to ensure that the Propaganda Department has time to filter content generated by local publications before it can be widely disseminated on the Internet, writes The New York Times via SPJ.org
Most dominant chinese newspapers
Or click to view printversion on screen:
Political bloggers who offer diverse views on Republicans and Democrats, war and peace argued on Thursday that they should be free of government regulation. The notion was echoed by some members of the government agency trying to write rules covering the Internet’s reach in political campaigns. Amid the explosion of political activity on the Internet, a federal court has instructed the six-member Federal Election Commission to draw up regulations that would extend the nation’s campaign finance and spending limits to the Web. The FEC, in its initial rules, had exempted the Internet. Bloggers told the Committee on House Administration that regulations encompassing the Internet, even ones just on advertising, would have a chilling effect on free speech. The FEC vice chairman also questioned the necessity of any rules.
Source: The Associated Press via MSNBC
The U.S. Attorney’s Office probing newspaper circulation practices tied to the Newsday scandal has turned its attention the magazine business. Time Inc. said yesterday that it was hit with a subpoena from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of New York in late July. The company is “cooperating fully with the investigation,” said company spokeswoman Dawn Bridges. It could not be determined if Time was the only company hit or whether the probe had expanded to other publishers. There have been three arrests in the Newsday probe, although The Post, the Daily News and The New York Times all had their records subpoenaed. The other major magazine publishers yesterday indicated that they did not believe they had been been contacted by the Feds.
The New York Times and two Philadelphia newspapers are announcing major job cuts as the industry comes to grips with severe financial problems that include weak advertising and circulation declines.
The Times says it will eliminate about 500 jobs whle the Philadelphia papers will cut a total of 100 jobs.
The Times job losses represent about 4-percent of their overall workforce, including 45 jobs in the newsroom.
The Philadelphia Inquirer will cut its editorial staff 15-percent with the Philadelphia Daily News cutting editorial staff 19-percent. Both are owned by Knight Ridder Inc., the nation’s second largest newspaper company.
ÙÙŠ Ùال دل كوكا، Ø£Øد أقاليم جنوب شرق كولومبيا، يضطر الصØÙيون إلى التزام الصمت خوÙا من اعتداءات وتهديدات تجار المخدرات والمنظمات شبه العسكرية والعصابات المسلØØ© والسياسيين المØليين، Øسبما يشير تقرير جديد لخمس من منظمات Øرية الصØاÙØ© المØلية والعالمية التي زارت المنطقة ÙÙŠ يوليو 2005.
Ùقد قامت المنظمات الأعضاء بإÙيكس Ù€ مؤسسة Øرية الصØاÙØ©ØŒ ومعهد الصØاÙØ© والمجتمع، والÙدرالية الدولية للصØÙيين، ومراسلون بلا Øدود، ولجنة Øماية الصØÙيين Ù€ بزيارة المنطقة ÙÙŠ الÙترة من 13-16 يوليو Øيث التقت صØÙيين ومنظمات اجتماعية وممثلين عن السلطات المØلية ÙÙŠ كالي وبويناÙنتورا وتولو وكارتاجو وبالميرا.
للاطلاع على التقرير الكامل للبعثة الدولية إلى Ùال دل كاوكا:
http://www.ifex.org/en/content/view/full/69191
كما يمكنكم زيارة:
Ù€ مؤسسة Øرية الصØاÙØ©:
http://www.flip.org.co
ــ معهد الصØاÙØ© والمجتمع:
http://www.ipys.org
Ù€ الÙدرالية الدولية للصØÙيين:
http://www.ifj.org/default.asp?Issue=LATAM&Language=EN
Ù€ لجنة Øماية الصØÙيين:
http://www.cpj.org/attacks04/americas04/colombia.html
ـ هيومان رايتس ووتش:
http://www.hrw.org/doc?t=americas&c=colomb
Ù€ تقرير “مجموعة الأزمة´Øول كولومبيا:
http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=3556&l=1
Ù€ تقرير رويترز عن” لماذا Ùر 3 ملايين كولومبي من بلادهم”:
http://www.alertnet.org/thef acts/reliefresources/112015044380.htm
The search engine Internet media company breaks into journalism, sending a veteran war reporter on a tour of the world’s hottest conflict zones.
http://www.editorsweblog.org/2005/09/newspapers_now_.html
Two new compact newspapers to “shake up the Middle East media scene”
Two new newspapers, wanting to “shake up the Middle East media scene”, will hit the streets in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) next week, reports Campaign Middle East. One of the papers will be in English language and the other in Arab. Working titles of the papers are Emirates Mail for the English and Emirate for the Arab edition.
Fear kills off the news in the Valle del Cauca
Reporters Without Borders and four other press freedom groups went on a joint fact-finding commission to investigate two years of attacks on press freedom in the Valle del Cauca province of southeastern Colombia from 13 to 16 July 2005.
The murder of two journalists in the space of a few months in 2004 and then threats to at least four others showed how vulnerable the region’s media workers are. The right to be informed has been undermined and little news has appeared in local media about the situation in Valle del Cauca, even though armed groups are fiercely fighting each other there and the area is plagued by violence linked to drug trafficking.
Read the entire IFEX report here: Link
List of major newspapers in Colombia
Another disturbing report from Reporters Without Borders:
“You have no rights here, but welcome to Tunisia !”: Direct link to pdf. 
List of major newspapers in Tunesia
There’s a dramatic revolution taking place in the news business today and it isn’t about TV-anchor changes, scandals at storied newspapers or even the fierce tensions between government and the press. The future course of news, the basic assumptions about how we consume news and information and make decisions in a democratic society, are being altered, perhaps irrevocably, by technologically savvy young people no longer wedded to traditional news outlets or even accessing news in traditional ways. While the news business is in the news more than industry leaders might prefer, the most important issue they face revolves around the news habits of today’s news consumers, and, in particular, those of young people. There’s an inescapable conclusion to be drawn from research I completed earlier this year for the Carnegie Corp. of New York about the news habits of 18- to 34-year-olds. In short, the future of the U.S. news industry is seriously threatened by the seemingly irrevocable move by young people away from traditional sources of news.
Source: Merrill Brown, The Seattle Times
When NBC anchor Brian Williams and his crew were trying to take pictures of a National Guard unit securing a Brooks Brothers shop in downtown New Orleans, a sergeant blocked the footage by ordering them to the other side of Canal Street. “I have searched my mind for some justification for why I can’t be reporting in a calm and heavily defended American city and cannot find one,” Williams said yesterday.
“I don’t like being told when I can and cannot walk on the streets and take pictures.”
But he grumbled and told his crew to stop shooting Wednesday, Williams said, because “authority in New Orleans is as good as the last person to make the rule. I didn’t have time to take it up the chain.” As rescue and recovery efforts continue in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, reporters and press analysts are growing increasingly critical of restrictions on media access. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, under heavy journalistic fire for its slow response to the disaster, has sparked new criticism by asking news organizations not to take pictures of bodies being recovered in Louisiana and Mississippi.
Source: Howard Kurtz, The Washington Post via spj.org
Two institutions release figures showing that more journalists’ lives have been taken in two and a half years of war in Iraq than during 20 years of the Vietnam War.
According to Peter Feuilherade’ analysis (BBC Monitoring Media Services), “The number of journalists and support staff killed in Iraq since the start of the war in March 2003 now exceeds the toll among the media during two decades of fighting in Vietnam from 1955 to 1975, according to separate reports from two international journalists’ organizations: The Brussels-based International News Safety Institute (INSI)
and the Paris-based organization Reporters Sans Frontieres.
American firepower is the next most significant cause of death. -From the INSI report.
Read all about it at Editors Weblog:
Link
Get your daily Iraq news from the local newspapers in Iraq. They are online, they are here: Link
American News | 09/04/2005 | Kids who read newspapers could become addicts
Despite the notion that electronics keep kids from reading, and especially from reading newspapers, a child will eventually pick up a newspaper and start to read it. A fresh newspaper feels good. It smells interesting. It’s fun to hold one and turn the pages.
That’s when the trouble begins.
If smoking a tube of tobacco and paper makes some kids think they’re big stuff, holding and reading a paper makes them seem even more adult. When they get to the point where they read beyond headlines, it’s usually the point of no return.
Read the amusing article from http://www.aberdeennews.com here: Link
Free 28-page guide to the basics of public relations
Here is a gift for you all. I have done a lot of public relation work during the last 6 years. Mostly it has been the written part, pressreleases, newsletters, ghostwriting, texts for websites etc. Now I have collected some of my experiences in Newspaper Index´ PR-Guide - and it is free to download.
If you are working in journalism or communication you probably won´t find anything new here. If you are struggling to get attention from your local journalists and newspapers, this might help you.
The 28 pages will cover the following topics like: How to write a press
release, The Press Conference, how to use websites and newsletters in public
relation and much more.
Download the Pdf.-file here:
NewspaperIndex´
Publix Relation Guide
From the foreword:
In this compendium I am going to deal with the most common problems and processes of the PR-work from preparing a press release, holding a press conference to PR-strategies. As a new thing in this edition I will also here describe the use of media monitoring, and how you can use electronic newsletters as a very powerful PR-tool.
I want to emphasize that the compendium is written in such a way that you can use it directly in your daily work. Therefore, there will be no long complicated backgrounds, but on the other hand there will be a number of ideas and explanations of how public relations can be used on a busy weekday in your company.
The Public Relation Guide is completely free to use and distribute. - If you like what I have written consider supporting Newspaper Index here.
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