An interview with veteran Miami Herald reporter Carol Rosenberg, who was recently banned from reporting on the Omar Khadr trial at Guantanamo Bay after publishing the name of an anonymous witness. She defends her actions.
Freedom of the press
scandal 
Pentagon bans journalists from Gitmo trial
The Pentagon has banned four US reporters from the Omar Khadr trial at Guantanamo Bay after they reported the name of a witness whose identity is under protective order. It’s another embarrassment in a disastrous trial, says Scott Horton.
The 40 top predators of press freedom
Reporters Without Borders has named its annual list of press freedom “predators”. This year, Russian PM Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Hu Jintao join Hall of Famers like Robert Mugabe and the Italian mafia.
Stop press! Fiji’s censorship goes bananas
Fiji has announced an even further tightening of its strict media censorship, to lessen foreign ownership and positively depict Bainimarama’s regime. Is this an attempt to better control the Rupert Murdoch owned Fiji Times?
Mark Scott: The trouble with reporting the truth
Today is World Press Freedom Day. ABC boss Mark Scott reflects on the lack of free speech, government censorship and media control in countries — Fiji, Sri Lanka etc — less fortunate than our own.
Hartigan gives the government an FOI report card: so where’s his?
News Ltd CEO John Hartigan has given the Rudd government a glowing report card on its press freedom efforts so far. But what grade would we give News Limited itself? asks Margaret Simons.
Obama’s Soviet-style summit
Obama’s Nuclear Security Summit may have been deemed a “success”, with 47 nations signing a pact to keep nukes out of the hands of terrorists, but rumblings from the DC Press Corp is that the press’s access was so severely restricted, it felt like Soviet-era Moscow.
leaked China’s instructions on reporting on Google
Straight from the Ministry of Truth: the WashPo has a leaked copy of the Chinese government’s instructions to news sites on how to report on Google’s decision to stop censoring its search results.
A win for journalists and their sources
There has been a significant freedom of the press win in the European Court Of Justice in a battle over the protection of journalists’ sources. The ruling should be read by every court in this country.
Ahmadinejad hates press freedom… but loves blogging
Online journalists in Iran are regularly jailed and shut down for speaking out against the government, even though the country’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is himself a prolific blogger. But the English an Farsi versions of his site tell two very different stories.
Was the BBC right to have Nick Griffin on Question Time?
Was extreme right-wing BNP leader Nick Griffin’s appearance on the BBC’s Question Time a win for free speech or a loss for quality television? Guardian commentators and British MPs weigh in.
Fox News is un-American
“The Australian-British-continental model of politicized media that Murdoch has applied at Fox is un-American” says Jacob Weisberg, calling on journalists to boycott appearing on the network. Hey, don’t blame us, Weisberg!
Twitter kills the Guardian gag
An oil trading firm’s attempt to gag London’s Guardian newspaper from reporting on toxic waste it dumped in west Africa has been thwarted by a surge of social media outrage.
Journalists flee Iran — and they’re the lucky ones
Iranian journalists who reported on the country’s post-election riots are now fleeing the country en masse after being “intimidated and terrorized” by the government — and they’re the lucky ones: some are still being held prisoner.
TechCrunch release confidential Twitter documents
Hundreds of pages of confidential internal documents from Twitter have been leaked to TechCrunch, which they claim “rhave so much news value that we think it’s appropriate to publish them.” And so they have.
Iran: The world leader in jailing journalists
In just the 13 days since the Iranian election, the country has become the world’s leading jailer of journalists, with 40 journos detained and arrest by police.
Judge upholds journo’s right to withhold IRA details
A judge has ruled that journalist Suzanne Breen’s life would be in danger if she was forced to hand information garnered during an interview Real IRA to the police.
The Russian media’s reaction to Iran
Unlike other countries, the mainstream Russian press has taken the official Iranian election results largely at face value; could they be feeling a touch of familiarity?
ABC forced out of Iran
The ABC’s Middle East correspondent Ben Knight reports on the censorship facing journalists in Iran, with the government revoking all press cards and refusing to let the press onto the streets.
Mugabe’s daughter in Hong Kong press freedom row
The daughter of Robert Mugabe, Bona Mugabe, has found herself in the middle of a row over press freedom after her bodyguards were spared prosecution for assaulting two news photographers outside her home in Hong Kong.
Breaking the Tiananmen taboo
An official Beijing newspaper made a quiet but unprecented mention of the Tiananmen Square Massacre yesterday. Why did they do it and — more importantly — why were they allowed to?
Will Obama act to save captive US journalists?
Three American journalists, one in Iran and two in North Korea, are currently imprisoned under dubious charges. What — if anything — will Obama do to save them?
China employs “market-based” media censorship
Pressure from advertisers and executives with CCP ties have made China’s media industry effectively self-censoring.
World Press Freedom Day: Australian needs to lift its game
On Monday, we mark World Press Freedom Day, which should give us pause this year as we reflect on how precious freedom of expression can be, and how easily it can be denied, writes Chris Warren.
Fleet Street shouldn’t get its knickers in a twist over Mosley
The fight for press freedom is crucially important, but it becomes a caricature when it is predicated on sleazy stories that festoon tabloids like the News of the World and its stablemates, writes Crikey publisher Eric Beecher.
