The United Nations’ Security Council has publicly condemned any attacks on journalists operating in war zones, and has called on all parties to put an end to violence aimed at the press.

The council’s unanimously adopted resolution also insisted upon the fact that these attacks “may constitute a threat to international peace and security.”

Resolution 1738 “sends a clear message, with no ambiguity, to all parties involved in armed conflict: journalists and media employees must be protected in accordance with international human rights,” said Adamantios Vassilakis, the Greek ambassador to the UN.

On the other hand, the council condemned the use of media to incite conflict, and encouraged the prosecution of those guilty of such behavior.

The UN’s resolution comes after the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists reported on the increasing number of journalists killed in duty this year, up to 55.

Source: AFP - L'Express (link in French)

In 1998, the McClatchy Co. bought the Star Tribune for $1.2 billion. Now it’s selling the Star to Avista Capital Partners for a mere $530 million. Something going wrong?

It’s just a deal representative of the press’ current hardships. "Certainly in straight financial terms, based on what's been happening to circulation, ad revenue and earnings, it's a much tougher business than it was eight years ago," said Rick Edmonds, media analyst at the Poynter Institute.

"The substantial loss on the sale is a vivid reminder of the industry's declining fortunes ove the last several years," Goldman Sachs declared.

McClatchy is selling the Star after several years of losses and to obtain a $160 million tax benefit from the sale – after emitting optimistic projections at the beginning of the year. Apparently, Avista deemed the Star to still be a worthwhile investment in the long term.

"They're terrific platforms, they have very broad reach, and we think they're going to be around for a long long time," said a partner at Avista.

Despite the overwhelming importance of television and freesheets, Italian paid-for dailies have put up a good fight, and even grown in the past years.

Since 2002, these dailies increased their readership by about 1.5 million, up to almost 21 million.

Even more surprising, the young readership category recorded the most significant growth for that period, up by 6.5%.

Thanks to educational programs inciting children to read newspapers.

While overall circulation is now fairly stagnant at 5.7 million daily copies – not decreasing at least – online newspaper readership has been growing.

Even revenues and profits have been increasing for the Italian press, because of a vast diversification strategy that extends to DVDs, books, gadgets and more.

The real question now would be: apart from educational programs and multimedia diversification, how do they do it? Or is that enough for a start…

Source: Le Figaro

A new English-language monthly has created its market in Mexico. Inside Mexico will try to target a readership that’s generally under-represented in the press.

Aran and Margot Lee Shetterly, a married couple, had come up with the idea in Maine, before moving to Mexico City.

"There's actually one million English speakers from America here, and another 500,000 Canadians -- it's basically the size of a whole state in the United States," said Margot, the paper's managing editor.

The paper, distributed in Mexico City and areas with a high density of English speakers, such as Cancun and Acapulco, currently has a circulation of 20,000. Its website has just as many readers.

"We could easily distribute 35,000 copies, and maybe more, but first we wanted to focus on distributing the 20,000 right," said Aran.

The venture illustrates the progressive intermingling of American and Hispanic languages, an experiment already well-underway on the US side of the border.

"We look at this project as a way to build a bridge between English-speakers in Mexico and this country itself, and we knew to build that bridge we would have to have a team that was mixed," Aran said.

Inside Mexico’s third issue will be published in January.

Source: Media Info

Newspaper publishers News Limited and Fairfax’s discussions with Cricket Australia are locked up over copyright issues for broadcasting. This is the first time a sports governing body is openly challenging newspapers’ “fair use” policy.

Until now, the tacit agreement between sports’ governing bodies and newspapers has been that of “fair use”: newspapers could run up to two minutes of licensed sports audio and video coverage.

If the situation with Cricket Australia worsened, or even resulted in the removal of licensed products, it could set a precedent for many other sports governing bodies that wouldn’t mind the strengthening of press accreditation rights.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) is potentially threatening that newspapers’ online licensed coverage of newt year’s World Cup be removed.

The World Association of Newspapers has arranged a meeting with the Dubai-based ICC to discuss the issue, as well as with the International Rugby Board to discuss next year’s World Cup in France.

International publishers and newspapers are closely following the evolution of the talks, which are set to resume.

Source: Media Guardian

The World Association of Newspapers (WAN) has asked the Chinese government to release 2007 winner of WAN’s Golden Pen of Freedom, journalist Shi Tao.

Shi is serving a 10-year sentence, charged with “leaking state secrets” after he wrote an e-mail about the state-imposed media censorship.

Shi is to receive the Golden Pen award in June 2007, during the World Newspaper Congress which will take place in Cape Town.

Another unduly imprisoned journalist, Gao Qinrong, was freed earlier this month.

WAN’s letter to Premier Wen read:

"We respectfully call on you to do everything possible to ensure that Mr Shi is immediately released from prison and that all charges against him are dropped. We urge you to take all necessary steps to ensure that in future your country fully respects international standards of freedom of expression."

Source: WAN Director of Communications Larry Kilman

Even The New York Times is planning on a tabloid-format newspaper to suit the younger generation’s desires, although “it’s way too early to talk about it,” said executive editor Bill Keller.

“It’s one of many projects that are still in the noodling stage,” he added.

Other approaches broached by the Times’ committee included a daily e-mail newsletter listing events around the Big Apple.

Similar ventures attempted by other major dailies have had mitigated success until now: RedEye and Red Streak, tabloids launched in 2002 by the competing Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times respectively, ate each other up as a result. Red Streak shut down in 2005.

To avoid a head to head with amNewYork and Metro, the Times would probably distribute a weekly, with emphasis on event listings.

It won’t be – at least – another six months before a hard copy is actually distributed.

Source: New York Observer

Metro International, world leader in circulation, is to launch more Irish editions in January. The new editions will be distributed in Cork, Galway and Limerick.

Metro already has an edition in Dublin, launched in October, with daily 60,000 copies. The new editions will bring this figure up to 100,000.

Source: Warc.com

In light of the harsh hurricane weather that’s been hitting the Seattle area, The Seattle Times changed its face to issue a local warning to the population.
Poynter Institute’s Al Tompkin congratulated and reported on the initiative.

160 000 people were without power Wednesday evening. At least six people have died and another hundred were hospitalized due to carbon monoxide poisoning. Many of the victims were immigrants.

The Seattle Times published a health a safety warning, in six languages, not to use grills or generators. The warning ran across the top half of the front page – and the Time’s website.

The initiative came with its share of editorial risks: choosing the languages representative of the community, having the message translated appropriately, and convincing management to face a probable decline in sales.

Fortunately, management was “universally supportive,” said David Boardman, the Time’s executive editor.

The public reaction was “overwhelmingly positive” he said, and the regional director of Public Health promptly thanked the paper for its “commitment and leadership”.

Although the front page was one of the “ugliest we've ever published -- it is one of which I'm most proud," said Boardman.

Editors and managers tend to believe that their audience is fleeing because it expects new media that aren’t offered in the current traditional news model. Lance Duston, writer for the Maine Sunday Telegram and the Portland Press Herald, offered an opposite view.

New media “is changing the world because it is allowing truly egalitarian access to the media for the first time ever,” wrote Duston. Not because of underlying technology that should be incorporated into newspapers.

In fact, Duston argues that blogs get their power precisely from their non-affiliation to traditional news sources, and the partial opinion and proving resulting from that.

Maine’s newspapers, instead of resurfacing with a strong voice and in-depth investigation, have sunk into paralyzed impartiality said Duston. And in the course of doing so, have let blogs fill in the gap.

“The near-manic concern for decorum among Maine's traditional press has resulted in a disenfranchised public, cheated out of a thorough understanding of a reality the press has a responsibility to reveal.”

Newspapers need to get back on track, a message analogous to Dan Froomkin’s injunction to get back to “calling bullshit.”

Source: Mainetoday.com

Everybody noticed Time’s glamorous Person of the Year award, but The New York Observer’s Media Mensch 2006 may prove to be just a little more helpful for newspapers. Don’t panic and fight back he says.

The Observer crowned Dean Baquet, former editor of the Los Angeles Times, who forcefully resigned after refusing to undergo additional – unnecessary – job cuts.

Baquet went down in order to save a company and an industry from going down. A man of principle in that sense, who decided he would rather take the hit than carry out corporate orders that went against the interests of a business he wishes to serve – and save.

“Don’t be shy about making the public-service argument,” Baquet advised other editors. Newspapers have to “put up a little bit more of a fight than we have put up in the past,” he said.

Indeed, newspaper sales have arguably suffered as much from self-pity and preventive cost-cuts as they have suffered from, well, their declining sales.

“The hive-mind of the industry has not been thinking—it’s been reacting,” read the Observer’s article.

Unfortunately for newspaper-caretakers, it all comes down to, as Baquet puts it: “does the owner understand that a newspaper is not just a business?” Probably not.