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According to research by The Radio-TV News Directors Association, the percentages of women and minority journalists in local broadcast newsrooms increased in 2007. However, the percentage of minorities in newsrooms has yet to reach parity with minority population in the U.S.: 34 percent.  Click here to read the RNTDA study.

May Chidiac, a 2006 recipient of an IWMF Courage in Journalism Award, has published a book called Heaven Can Wait, which details her life in Lebanon and her near-death in a car bomb incident in 2005. Watch a video interview with May Chidiac from EuroNews.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced a memorial to journalists killed while reporting. The monument, which is atop the BBC Broadcasting House in London, is dedicated to all slain news journalists and those who have worked with them.  Read more on the BBC News Web site.

Peta Thornycroft, winner of the 2007 IWMF Lifetime Achievement Award, spoke about violence and the political situation in Zimbabwe on National Public Radio on June 24.  Click here to listen to Peta speak on NPR.

A journalist and her two cameramen were abducted in the Philippines on June 9. Ces Drilon, a journalist for Philippine network ABS-CBN, and cameramen Jimmy Encarnacion and Angelo Valderama were abducted by armed men in Sulu.
Read the CPJ alert.

Abdul Samad Rohani, a journalist working for the Pashtu service of the British Broadcasting Corporation, was murdered over the weekend in Afghanistan. Rohani, 25, was kidnapped and appeared to have been tortured before he was killed, said Reporters Without Borders.  Read the RSF article.

Jane Ransom, executive director of the IWMF, and IWMF board member Ferial Haffajee, who is the editor of Mail & Guardian in South Africa were interviewed for an article by the Inter Press Service about female underrepresentation in management positions, specifically in the media.  Read the IPS article.

A Russian Court last week deemed that criminal charges against Manana Aslamazyan, the former leader of a Russian media NGO, were unconstitutional. Aslamazyan is the former head of the Russian-based Educated Media Foundation, an organization that was the successor to Internews Russia. She was the keynote speaker for the IWMF Leadership Institute held in April in Lithuania.  Read the Internews press release.

Tamerlan Makhmudov, who was charged in the October 2006 assassination-style killing of Anna Politkovskaya, was released. He is the third of nine suspects linked to the murder to be released recently. Politkovskaya was a 2002 recipient of an IWMF Courage in Journalism Award. Read the Reuters article.

The World Association of Newspapers released its half-year press freedom review, which details the attacks, imprisonment and violence faced by journalists in many countries since November.  Click here to read the WAN report.

Thursday, October 16, 2008 • 6:30 Reception, 7:30 Dinner

Beverly Hills Hotel • Los Angeles

 

 

Eleanor Clift, a contributing editor at Newsweek and a member of the IWMF board of directors, will be honored May 15 by the Washington, D.C., chapter of the Association for Women in Communications. Clift will receive the 2008 Matrix Award during a luncheon at the National Press Club. Helen Thomas, a veteran reporter who is a former IWMF Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, will introduce Clift. Maureen Bunyan, another IWMF board member who is an anchor for the ABC affiliate television station in Washington, D.C., will emcee the luncheon.  Visit the AWC Web site to read more.

Bisharo Waeys, a television journalist in Somalia, escaped attempts on her life on May 4. Waeys was driving to her home in Bossasso when she came under fire from several armed men but escaped by accelerating quickly and driving away. The next day, she received two text messages threatening to kill her if she did not stop her program. Waeys is the only woman working openly as a journalist in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland in northeastern Somalia.  Read about Waeys on Reporters Without Borders' Web site.