Ahmed Benchemsi, publisher of Tel Quel, Morocco, has had many lawsuits filed against him.

One lawsuit involved a cover story about how drugs reflect sociology, religion, sex, and money.

There was an Islamic group that burned copies of the controversial edition in universities. According to Benchemsi, the government was afraid that there would be demonstrations on the street, and so he and the publication were sued for damagaing Islam.

"Now I can say it was fun; at the time it wasn't," Bencemsi said.

Photo by Brian Powers

The Press Complaints Commission today upheld a complaint against the Bristol Evening Post under Clause 5 (Intrusion into grief or shock) of the Editors' Code of Practice, after the local newspaper ran a story on the funeral of a young man who had committed suicide, the Guardian reported.

The complaint was made by the young man's mother who found the coverage upsetting and intrusive. The offending article included messages from flowers left outside the crematorium as well as photographs of the mourners, which were allegedly taken by a reporter hiding in the bushes in the surrounding area. The newspaper defended itself by stating that crematoriums were public events.

The complaint was upheld however and the newspaper in question has since made an official apology.

Following the ruling the following adjudication was published:

"Newspapers have an important role to play in the reporting of tragic events, which the Commission did not wish unduly to restrict. For instance, some funerals are public celebrations of a person's life, at which the presence of reporters is welcome. However, given the age of the complainant's son - and the manner in which he died - the need for restraint and sensitivity on the part of the press was great, as this would inevitably have been a time of intense grief and shock for the boy's family.

Kotaro Akiyama, president of Asahi Shimbun, Japan's second-largest newspaper, reassured the Financial Times that Japanese newspapers are sitting pretty and will not experience a decline like their European and North American counterparts.

Mr. Akiyama claimed that Japanese newspapers' robustness comes from their strong distribution network that buoys some of the highest circulation rates in the world.

About one newspaper per household is sold every day in Japan.

"From Wakkanai in the extreme north of Hokkaido to Anami-Oshima [a small island far to the south of Kyushu], we have more than 2,600 distribution points employing about 70,000 people. To the extent that we have that base, I don't think there will be any sudden fall in circulation," said Mr. Akiyama.

Home delivery subscriptions account for over 90% of Japanese newspaper circulation, which has remained strong throughout 2009. The Asahi Shimbun's circulation was down only 0.1% in the first half of 2009, while some American newspapers fell 10.6% during the same period.

Well known GMTV presenter John Stapleton used his kudos to speak up for local press, specifically the importance of supporting local newspapers, at The South London Press's Our Heroes awards, an annual award ceremony which celebrates the unsung heroes of the area.

Now an industry veteran, Stapleton started his career as a reporter at a local newspaper. Imploring the audience to go out and buy these publications, Stapleton said:

"Local newspapers are a crucially important watchdog for us all. They are our last chance. They campaign on our behalf to get wrongs righted, and local papers have never been under such threat as they are now. So please, please, please, continue to support local papers - go out and buy them, tell your friends to buy them. They are a crucial part of our democracy."

Senior politicians Harriet Harman, Tessa Jowell and Simon Hughes were also at the award ceremony. Editor of the bi-weekly paper, Hannah Walker said:

"The South London Press is giving ordinary people a voice, positive campaigning is just one part of our job. We have a vital role to play in our local democracy, without local papers a lot of decisions that are made by those in authority would go unquestioned and face it, some bad decisions are made. As a community newspaper we've worked with local people and seen fantastic victories for ordinary people willing to stand up for themselves and make a difference."

While speaking at the Free Press Roundtable at the WAN-IFRA 2009 World Newspaper Congress - World Editors Forum in Hyderabad, India, Joze Ruben Zamora, publisher of El Periodico, Guatemala, detailed his battle against the oppression of free speech in his country.

Guatemala has a long history of violence, including the Cold War in Central America. The war caused the deaths of 220 000 people, between 1965 and 1985. According to Zamora, 150 of the deceased were journalists.

Because his paper was successful in stopping radical groups and helped to expose many corrupt members of parliament, many of whom were involved in organized crime, theft, and drug related crime, Zamora has had multiple threats and attacks made against him.

While describing his reporting, he said, "we just dove into the pool, not smart enough to take baby steps on the issue and perhaps somebody is going to die because of the newspaper tomorrow."

Zamora has had hand grenades thrown at him, been boycotted by the Guatemalan government, and been subjected to tax harassment. Both Zamora and his family have received death threats.

According to Zamora, protestors have simulated the execution of him and his family. He has also been given a large dose of drugs to kill him.

He has also had 50 suits filed against him by military men and civil servants.

Just a week after launching, The Detroit Daily Press has halted publishing until after the New Year.

In a statement on its Facebook page, the Daily Press states, "Due to circimstances [sic] beyond our control, lack of advertising, lateness of our press runs and lack of distribution and sales, we find it necessary to temporarily suspend publication of the Detroit Daily Press until after the 1st of the year."

The paper published its first edition last Monday, 23 November, and had planned to start home delivery today.

The Daily Press was conceived by longtime-publishers and brother Mark and Gary Stern as a way to fill the void left by the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News scaling back their delivery to two and three days a week, respectively.

Also from the Facebook statement, "once we can fix these things, we plan to be back stronger and more organized when we return. This is just a bump in the road and not the end of the Detroit Daily Press."

Source: Detroit News

Stephen Nilan, vice-president of marketing for Digital Technology International Ltd., registers for the World Newspaper Congress shortly after the 12:00 p.m. start.

Nilan says he's concentrated on the congress side of the conference. He is registered as an exposant out of the U.K.

The registration for the WAN-IFRA 2009 World Newspaper Congress - World Editors Forum began at noon Monday.

To ease registration traffic, conference badges were sent to the hotels of participants if the hotel was known, said Poland native and information director, Anna Kwawczyk.

Participants should register at the actual conference if their hotel is unknown, she said.

"Some important people registered yesterday," Kwawcyzk said. "We asked other people to register today for convenience."

According to Kwawcyzk, there have been no major problems with registration so far. There have been some misspellings of names and people have been indentified with the wrong countries on badges, but nothing major.

"There are always problems, mistakes happen," she said.

Registration will be open from Monday to Thursday.

Independent News & Media will complete proposed restructuring plans having secured the support of a shareholder, the Guardian reported.

Investors at a meeting in Dublin yesterday gave the go ahead to all resolutions, including INM's rights issue under which shareholders can buy 59 shares at 5 cents each for every 50 they already own, in order to raise funds to complete the repayment of a €200m bond. The group's chief executive, Gavin O'Reilly, said: "We are pleased to announce the approval of all of the resolutions relating to our restructuring plan which can now proceed to final completion."

Other resolutions that received the green light include a resolution to sell the company's South African advertising business, with an overwhelming 99.94% of shareholders voting in favour of selling the INM outdoor unit for a further €98m.

Various staff changes were also announced including the addition of Axel Springer's finance director Lothar Lanz as a non-executive director. Shadow business secretary Kenneth Clarke announced his retirement.

Source: The Guardian

Sorry Rupert, but there's "not a cat in hell's chance" of making charging for general news content on the internet work, according to Stevie Spring, the chief executive of publishing group Future.

However, of course, for the niche and specialty titles and news that makes up Future's content, Spring said there is great potential for charging online.

"Where there's ubiquity and substitutability as in news, can you charge? Actually the basic rules of marketing say no," she said. "My view is that you have a different barrier in specialist interest, that barrier has as much to do with people getting used to it being free."

Future is reported to be trying out a variety of different paywall and subscription schemes, "to see who will pay what and how much" Spring added. The different approaches range from fully paid, partially paid, and free business subscriptions, and are part of the company's trial and error method towards paid content.

The company has raised print issue prices and has recently done CD promotions attached to their magazines.

Spring remains skeptical about media business recovery in the UK, citing the recent upturn in advertising spending as a pre-Christmas desperate measure.

"People are chucking money at Christmas in a last-ditch attempt to have a make or break. There's very, very short visibility, almost nobody is talking about what's going to happen after Christmas," she said.

In a public poll conducted by One News Page, 89% of respondents said that the proposed News Corp partnership with Microsoft's Bing search engine for exclusive news access was a good idea, or 'a winner' in the words of the poll.

Only 11% relied negatively, probably because they were the ones who connected the potential deal with paywalls and a News Corp withdrawal from Google.

utalkmarketing.com hailed the poll results as "a pretty good result for a guy that has been called an "old fool," an "aging idiot," and as exhibiting, "early signs of dementia" in the press this week."

This is a rather interesting poll, as it signals a potential discongruity between public response to paywalls, which has been overwhelming negative, and those who connect the dots between paywall plans and business moves, like the News Corp-Microsoft deal.