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Thursday, 03 June 2010 20:40 Reporters Without Borders Editorial Dept - Free Press
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Reporters Without Borders reiterates its urgent appeal to the Israeli authorities to release the journalists who were accompanying the Gaza-bound humanitarian flotilla that was intercepted on 31 May. According to the latest information available to the press freedom organisation, at least 60 journalists were aboard.

“We point out that the journalists were there to do their job, which was to cover what happened,” Reporters Without Borders said. “They should not be confused with the activists. Three hundred of the flotilla’s passengers are about to be deported but journalists are still being held. We call on the Israeli authorities to free all the detained journalists and return their equipment, which was seized by the military.”

Three hundred passengers are currently at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport, from where they are to be deported today. Some journalists are among them.


Reporters Without Borders has also learned that the Al Jazeera crew that was aboard the flotilla, including correspondent Abbas Nasser and cameraman Isaam Zaatar, was expelled yesterday.
 

 
Monday, 17 May 2010 22:30 Reporters Without Borders Editorial Dept - Free Press
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Who are Firing the Shots that are Injuring Journalists?Reporters Without Borders called on the Thai Army and the Red Shirts to guarantee the safety of journalists covering ongoing clashes in Bangkok after three reporters were injured: a cameraman for France 24, a photographer for Thai newspaper Matichon, and a photographer for the Thai daily The Nation.

“The confusion reigning in various parts of Bangkok do not suffice to explain the shooting injuries sustained by several Thai and foreign journalists since April,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Both camps must comply fully with the requirements of international law, according to which journalists cannot be military targets. We also call for an investigation to establish who gave the orders to shoot a rebel general as he was being interviewed by journalists.”

The press freedom organisation added: “We note that Thailand has just got itself elected to the United Nations Human Rights Council, and we urge the government to guarantee the safety of civilians and put an end to news censorship, in particular, the blocking of the Prachatai website.”


Nelson Rand, a Canadian reporter employed by the French TV news station France 24, was badly injured today by automatic gunfire near the Suan Lum night bazaar. Cyriel Payen, France 24’s Bangkok bureau chief, said he was hit in an exchange of shots between soldiers and Red Shirts. A photographer with the Thai newspaper Matichon also sustained a gunshot injury in the same place.
 

 
Monday, 26 October 2009 19:00 Reporters Without Borders Editorial Dept - Free Press
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Reporters Without Borders urges the Sri Lankan authorities to take all necessary measures to investigate threatening letters received six days ago by Frederica Jansz and Munza Mushtaq, two journalists who work for the Leader Publications media group. "We will slice you up if you do not stop your writing," the letters said.

At the same time, senior newspaper employees have been questioned by the police about their sources in a new attack on editorial independence.


"The police must treat these death threats written in red ink with the utmost seriousness, especially as they were sent to two journalists whose press group has repeatedly been the target of physical violence," Reporters Without Borders said. "We urge the police to track down and arrest those who wrote these letters."

The press freedom organisation added: "It is also vital that the authorities order the security forces to put a stop to their unwarranted summonses and arrests of journalists, and to register the complaints submitted by journalists when they are physically attacked."

 

 
Wednesday, 21 October 2009 19:00 Reporters Without Borders Editorial Dept - Free Press
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Press Freedom Index 2009Obama Effect in U.S., While Europe Continues to Recede - Israel in Free Fall, Iran at Gates of Infernal Trio - "Press freedom must be defended everywhere in the world with the same energy and the same insistence," Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Jean-François Julliard said today as his organisation issued its eighth annual world press freedom index.

"It is disturbing to see European democracies such as France, Italy and Slovakia fall steadily in the rankings year after year," Julliard said. "Europe should be setting an example as regards civil liberties.

How can you condemn human rights violations abroad if you do not behave irreproachably at home?

The Obama effect, which has enabled the United States to recover 16 places in the index, is not enough to reassure us."

 

 
Monday, 19 October 2009 19:00 Ron Marr Editorial Dept - Free Press
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ImageHaving worked in, on, and around newspapers for over two decades, I can say with some authority that the vast majority of reporters, editors, and publishers are about as sharp as a pound of wet leather. The general consensus amongst their fraternity is, quite simply, that readers are too addle-brained to know what is good for them.

The conventional wisdom within the hallowed swamps of journalism is that your garden variety reader doesn’t know what is important, that they are a wrong-thinking lot who put on their shoes and socks in that order.

Journalists, as a rule, feel that the unwashed masses should be force-fed “the truth,” that they require some sort of Kubrickian, Clockwork Orange procedure in order to get their minds right.


Of course, readers immediately recognize such hubris as a load of malarkey. Their response is to simply quit reading the newspaper. There might have been a time when readers believed that newspapers attempted at least a semblance of objectivity, roughly around the time when the Hula Hoop and those new-fangled television sets first came into vogue, but that era has gone the way of the dodo.
 

 
Thursday, 08 October 2009 07:55 Reporters Without Borders Editorial Dept - Free Press
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The Russian School of Journalism

Anna Politkovskaya, Murdered Oct. 7/06Anna Politkovskaya

Images Coutesy of Reporters Without Borders
Related Stories:

Journalist Anna Politkovskaya's Killer Remain at Large

Russia - Politkovskaya's Killer 'Found' but Masterminds Still Undisclosed

 

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