Northern Ireland papers pay damages to minister

Posted by Zarina Osman on 25 January 2008 at 15:07
Tags: Law, Online, Regional Newspapers

Three regional newpapers in Northern Ireland, along with the Ulster Unionist Party, have been ordered to pay substantial libel damages to Environment Minister Arlene Foster.

Apologies were also read out at the High Court in Belfast today on behalf of the papers - The News Letter, Tyrone Constitution and Tyrone Courier - for making false allegations against Foster that she betrayed unionists by working to ensure Sinn Fein’s Michelle Gildernew was elected MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone in 2001.

The case centred on a press release carried on the UUP website.

An out-of-court, five-figure-sum settlement was reached today, halting the week-long libel trial that had been due to begin next week.

Gun crime close to home for Sky presenter

Posted by Zarina Osman on 24 January 2008 at 16:59
Tags: Broadcast, Television

A Sky News presenter learned the realities of London’s gun crime problem this week after a family member was shot dead on Saturday night.

Denise Nurse’s cousin Halton MacCollin was shot in a Chinese take-away by two unknown men.

Nurse has written a moving personal tribute to the teenager on the Sky News website and calls for better enforcement of anti-gun laws.

Nurse’s loss is not unfamiliar within the Sky newsroom: the brother of Adam Brown, a producer, was killed in a knife attack in July. Brown also wrote about his loss online.

Moldovan journalist exiled from Russia for investigation

Posted by Zarina Osman on 21 January 2008 at 15:33
Tags: Uncategorized

Natalya Morar, a Moldovan journalist, has been exiled from Russia for her investigative reporting for the Russian magazine The New Times.

According to The Independent, she was refused entry on return to Moscow from a reporting trip to Israel, barred on orders from the Federal Security Service, the FSB.

This is the first case of a local journalist being exiled in Russia. According to Igor Yakovenko, the general secretary of the Russian Union of Journalists, Russia is exercising a “new form of censorship”.

Morar has been investigating a state-run polling agency and an alleged money laundering scheme used by top government officials.

Golfweek editor fired over cover image

Posted by Zarina Osman on 21 January 2008 at 13:53
Tags: Journalism, Magazines

The editor of Golfweek magazine in the US, Dave Seanor, has been fired following a decision to publish a controversial image of a noose set against a purple sky with the caption: “Caught in a Noose: Tilghman slips up, and Golf Channel can’t wriggle free”.

According to The Daily Telegraph, the image appeared on the 19 January cover following a comment made by Golf Channel presenter, Kelly Tilghman, in which she suggested that the only way of stopping Tiger Woods would be to “lynch him in a back alley”.

Golfweek has apologised for causing offence.