Freedom Of The Press

Press authorities on Monday ordered the temporary closure of Shargh, Iran's leading reformist newspaper, just days after the publication printed a cartoon that appeared to lampoon Iranian nuclear negotiations. In a letter to the paper's managing director, the Press Supervisory Board ordered the shutdown "for publishing articles insulting to religious, political and national figures, and fomenting discord."

My 1st Amendment hero brings close-up photos of celebrity rear ends to the world, under the witty, witty headline "Beach Bums." My 1st Amendment hero delivers us the news any time someone famous looks fat, drunk or plain gaga. My 1st Amendment hero posts Mini-Me's sex tape and treats the Kardashians as if they were America's first family. And my hero also lands real scoops that the rest of the media, including this newspaper, would love to have. Yes, Harvey Levin is my 1st Amendment hero, and I'm not (that)

Chapman University will present a panel on freedom of the press in Latin America at 6 p.m. Thursday in the Humanities Lounge of Wilkinson Hall. The panel discussion, titled "The High Cost of a Free Press," will feature journalists Jairo Marin, a reporter for Noticiero de las Siete in Colombia; Tom Mashburg, former foreign editor of the New York Times, and Jardiel Padilla, a reporter for the publication El Norte in Monterrey, Mexico.

Media law experts and journalism groups expressed outrage Thursday that Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies obtained phone records from a notable Hollywood gossip journalist during a leak investigation, calling the action a serious violation of the reporter's rights. Several said they believed that sheriff's investigators violated state and federal law when they obtained a search warrant for the records of TMZ founder Harvey Levin as they tried to identify who gave him details about Mel Gibson's anti-Semitic tirade during a 2006 drunk-driving arrest.

Peace negotiations have brought a vigorous breeze of press freedom to Nicaragua, giving radio stations and an opposition newspaper wide leeway to question, criticize and challenge the Marxist-oriented Sandinista government. The government has relaxed control of the media in keeping with a Central American peace agreement signed last August in Guatemala. A preliminary cease-fire pact signed Wednesday by the Sandinistas and Contras also calls for unrestricted freedom of information.

Synanon has dropped two libel suits against Reader's Digest and has paid an undisclosed amount of money in an out-of-court settlement, the magazine's publishers announced. The action involved 1981 publication of an article about the Point Reyes Light, a Northern California weekly newspaper that won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the controversial California drug treatment program. The Digest contended that Synanon's suits were an attempt to interfere with freedom of the press.

Random House asked a federal appeals court to reconsider a ruling that blocked publication of a biography of author J. D. Salinger, saying the decision threatened the freedom of the press. "It is essential to the First Amendment values on which our system of government is founded that the panel's decision be reconsidered by the full court," the publishing house said. A two-judge panel of the appeals court on Dec. 29 blocked publication of "J.D.

The Military Collegium of the Supreme Court upheld a treason verdict against a military journalist in a case that has raised questions about Russia's commitment to freedom of the press. Grigory Pasko had been sentenced to four years in prison by a military court for attending a meeting of Russian naval commanders and taking notes while there. The court said he intended to pass the notes to Japanese reporters with whom he had worked.

Attorneys for accused murderer Michael R. Pacewitz tried Wednesday to stop the news media from publishing jailhouse interviews with him, but a judge refused to issue such an order, saying freedom of the press was at stake. Deputy Public Defender Kevin J. Phillips sought a temporary restraining order to bar The Times and the Orange County Register from publishing comments Pace-witz made to reporters in a joint, one-hour interview in the medical ward at Orange County Jail.

A federal judge's dismissal of a case against the American Broadcasting Co. and television reporter Geraldo Rivera has been called a breakthrough for the use of secret recording devices by reporters. U.S. District Judge Alice Bachelder ruled Thursday that reporters may use secret recording devices to record events and conversations as long as the reporters use the recording equipment for the purpose of gathering news.

Turkey's main opposition party and leading journalists association accused the prime minister of trying to muzzle the press, after the government hit the country's biggest media company with a fine of about $500 million for an allegedly late tax payment. Opposition lawmaker Atilla Kart said the fine faced by media mogul Aydin Dogan was an attempt to silence critics before local elections in March. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government has said the issue is about tax code violations, not press freedom.

Yes, we reporters might get stuck covering the late shift or -- egad! -- a parade. When disaster strikes or a source calls back on deadline, the nights can be long. Newspaper layoffs and hard economic times can cast a pall over just about everything we do. But those concerns seem a piffle every time I read dispatches from around the world about journalists who, fighting for the story, also must fight for their lives.

The Ventura County Star was rebuffed Thursday in its efforts to quickly overturn a judge's order to withhold publication of a story that details the slashing death of a 6-year-old boy last year. Legal experts and the newspaper's editor said the ruling earlier this week by Superior Court Judge Ken Riley is a clear violation of 1st Amendment protections. But Riley, who was out of town, declined to hold an immediate hearing and set one for Monday.

Spacious and airy, the newsroom of the National seems a newfangled journalistic field of dreams, with its stylish furniture, flat-panel monitors and roomy, uncluttered desks. Though the new United Arab Emirates newspaper has a daily circulation of only 70,000 to 90,000, it has grand ambitions and leaders who are bullish on print journalism. "Don't panic!" editor Martin Newland advises his counterparts in the West. "Don't head to the hills yet.

FBI Director Robert Mueller has apologized to the editors of the Washington Post and New York Times for improperly obtaining phone records of the newspapers' reporters while investigating terrorism four years ago. A Post reporter and researcher and two Times reporters were working in Indonesia and writing about Islamist terrorism at the time.

Former Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona's request to file a secret motion to move his corruption trial out of Southern California violates the 1st Amendment's free-press protection, a media attorney argued Thursday. Carona's attorneys have asked U.S. District Judge Andrew J. Guilford to keep their motion to move the trial sealed because releasing it would create additional inflammatory publicity about the case.

Jean Stapleton's troubles arrived a year and a half ago in an envelope with no return address. Next month, they will end when she goes back to work as a journalism teacher and adviser to the campus newspaper at East Los Angeles College after winning a prolonged battle with the school. In April, 1988, Stapleton had almost completed her 15th year as faculty adviser to Campus News, the student newspaper at ELAC.

With a presidential election scheduled for March, the Zimbabwean government Monday announced changes to security and media laws that it has used in the past to suppress demonstrations and close independent newspapers. Analysts quickly countered that the measures would not ensure a free and fair vote unless the election was delayed in order for newspapers to reopen and for the other reforms to have an effect.

Setting up a potential confrontation with the Bush administration over press freedoms, the House on Tuesday overwhelmingly passed legislation to extend new protections to journalists and their confidential sources. The so-called shield law would for the first time establish standards that limit the power of federal authorities to compel reporters to testify or to disclose documents and unidentified sources they have used in their reporting.