"Judith Miller, The New York Times reporter who has been jailed since July 6 for refusing to identify a source, has been released, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on its Web site tonight. Knight Ridder's news service then carried the account to other newspapers."

"... Both the government and the press share interests in keeping promises of confidentiality and avoiding the appearance of favoring any side in litigation. Yet only the executive branch currently is empowered by Congress to shelter its employees from the subpoena power of the judicial system, in part through use of the federal housekeeping statute."

"Reporters Without Borders voiced alarm at a seven-year-prison sentence imposed on journalist Zheng Yichun on 22 September 2005 by a court in Yingkou in northern China following his conviction two months ago for "incitement to subversion.""

"THOSE who treasure freedom of expression should not be too elated about Australia's climb from 50th to 41st place on the international press freedom index for 2004. The improved ranking still leaves us a quarter of the way down the league table of 167 nations."

"The government threat to journalistic privilege is now as great as it has been since the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press began its annual Homefront Confidential report six years ago."

"The Detroit Free Press has won a partial victory in a legal battle to require the U.S. Marshals Service to release photos of criminal defendants who appear in U.S. District Court in Detroit."

"Government lawyers said that the privacy of people who received emergency aid after the 2004 Florida hurricanes outweighs the public's interest in learning how the Federal Emergency Management Agency operated after those storms."

"With the brief arrest of Basma al-Jandaly, a reporter with a leading English daily in Dubai grabbing headlines around the world, the issue of media censorship in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has become a hot topic in the Arabic and English press in the country."

"Court documents in the Apple v. Does case were unsealed last week, and they reveal that the software giant sought to subpoena two reporters' anonymous sources without first conducting a thorough investigation inside the company... the First Amendment and the California Constitution require that Apple exhaust all other alternatives before trying to subpoena journalists."

"Nepalese police Friday arrested 87 journalists gathering to protest press restrictions imposed since King Gyanendra assumed absolute power earlier this year. Separately, police arrested 200 protesters at a rally of thousands demanding that democracy be restored."

"Kent Police seized the 60,000-run paper at Dover yesterday as it made its way into the country from Slovakia where it is printed, but the BNP went ahead and produced the edition on its website."

"At the request of CNN, a federal judge in Texas Friday night blocked emergency officials in New Orleans from preventing the media from covering the recovery of bodies from Hurricane Katrina."

"Yahoo had to comply with a demand by Chinese authorities to provide information about a personal e-mail of a journalist who was later convicted under state secrecy laws and sentenced to 10 years in prison, the company's co-founder Jerry Yang said Saturday."

"TAIWAN - In his latest e-newsletter to the public, President Chen Shui-bian yesterday warned about abuse of free speech and freedom of the press, in reference to two recent controversies that revolved around accusations of "bootlicking."... How freedom of speech and information are used is a key indicator in distinguishing between an advanced democracy and a backward one, the president said."

"... That's just one of the big stories the mainstream news media ignored, blacked out, or underreported over the past year, according to Project Censored, a media watchdog group based at California's Sonoma State University."

"... a police officer from out of town raised the muzzle of her weapon and aimed it at members of the media... obvious members of the media... armed only with notepads... the fact that the National Guard now bars entry (by journalists) to the very places where people last week were barred from LEAVING (The Convention Center and Superdome) is a kind of perverse and perfectly backward postscript to this awful chapter in American history."

"Reporters Without Borders voiced concern today about police violence against journalists covering the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, especially about the attacks on reporters and photographers that took place on 1 September. "We understand that the security forces are overwhelmed and we are aware of the great tension and the difficult conditions under which they are having to work in areas hit by Katrina, but it is very worrying that this is reflected in violence against journalists," the press freedom organization said."

"When U.S. officials asked the media not to take pictures of those killed by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, they were censoring a key part of the disaster story, free speech watchdogs said on Wednesday."

"... "Information supplied by Yahoo ! led to the conviction of a good journalist who has paid dearly for trying to get the news out. It is one thing to turn a blind eye to the Chinese government's abuses and it is quite another thing to collaborate.""

"... As a journalist, I believe the public should see, uncensored, the shelter conditions that Hurricane Katrina's survivors are experiencing. So I believe the media should be granted some access to the shelter. But in my past four days volunteering here, I've also become increasingly attuned to the physical, mental and emotional exhaustion of shelter residents. Many are tired of feeling like a public spectacle."

"... this tragic affair places fundamental questions before us all: when does the personal become political, and when is the media duty-bound to report aspects of any public figure's private life, regardless of any personal hurt inflicted?"

"Reporters Without Borders today called for the immediate release of Nosir Zakirov, the correspondent of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in the eastern province of Namangan, who was convicted of "insulting a government official" and sentenced to six months on prison on 26 August."

"Journalists may make a living out of being busybodies, but just lately they have started worrying about privacy. Their own, that is. Do reporters have the right to belong to political parties? If so, do they have a duty to tell the editor? And do members of the public deserve to know about journalists' political affiliations?"

"TORONTO (CP) - The media has every right to seek out and report on Canada's most notorious female ex-con despite her pleas for privacy - but only to a point, media ethicists said Wednesday."

"NEW YORK Gov. George Pataki called for a federal investigation on Monday after transcripts of taped telephone conversations, some involving him and his wife, appeared in a New York City tabloid. The conversations, all featuring former Pataki patronage dispenser Thomas Doherty, were reported in Monday's New York Post. The newspaper said it received a tape recording of the telephone conversations anonymously."

"There's no reason investigators who finally solved the Lynda Shaw murder can't officially release the killer's name, the provincial privacy watchdog said. Ontario's assistant privacy commissioner said yesterday he wouldn't object if the murderer is officially identified, a stance countering the OPP's insistence hours earlier that the Freedom of Information and Privacy Protection Act prevents the release of the dead man's name."

"Why did we need to see Alan Craig MacDonald? Learn his name? Unearth his secret? Lynda Shaw had her privacy, her life, her body, her dignity and her future torn up then tossed away. Virtually every thread of her brilliant life and tortuous death were exposed in the weeks after the 21-year-old university student was raped and murdered in 1990."

"Government lawyers asked a federal judge in Fort Myers to rule that it shouldn't have to turn over Federal Emergency Management Agency records sought by three Florida newspapers."

"This week's court decision granting public access to Portland police and fire disability files should, by rights, be the beginning of a new era of transparency in city government, but don't hold your breath. When it comes to this kind of real accountability, local governments here are notoriously slow learners."

"A reporters' group petitioned the IOC to pressure China to allow more freedom of expression as it prepares to host the 2008 Olympics. Reporters Without Borders called China "the world's biggest prison for journalists, cyber-dissidents and Internet users." It said in addition to blocking hundreds of foreign news Web sites, the public security department keeps foreign correspondents under surveillance and does not hesitate to "detain, threaten or even rough up" those who violate the guide for correspondents working in China."

"The South Carolina Supreme Court opened the door for the release of disciplinary records of a Hilton Head Island doctor, ruling yesterday that an administrative judge erred by closing a hearing without giving a reason. The (Hilton Head) Island Packet filed the lawsuit after it was unable to get disciplinary records of Dr. James Johnston, who has been barred from practicing medicine until he completes an alcohol-abuse treatment program. Several news organizations, including the Associated Press, filed briefs in support of the newspaper in the suit."

"In July 1997 Dan Agent learned he would be fired from his position as editor of the Cherokee Nation's tribal newspaper - the Cherokee Phoenix and Indian Advocate. His crime? Running front-page stories that detailed allegations of misconduct against then Principal Chief Joe Byrd. The problem Agent faced was that his employer was none other than the tribal government itself."

"... At its best, the media's role as a watchdog of society can ferret out wrongdoing that goes undetected by other institutions. It can expose corrupt politicians, uncover accounting frauds at big corporations and spring the wrongly convicted from jail. But the competitive pressures also drive various media outlets to chase every detail of a story - sometimes even the trivial and the deeply personal. That can erode the media's credibility and the public's faith in the media's ability to serve as a watchdog."

"Under the terms of a legal settlement announced on Thursday, the Pentagon will make available "as expeditiously as possible" some photographs of the coffins of service members killed in Iraq. The agreement runs counter to a long-standing Pentagon policy that bars the public release of such photographs. But in response to requests under the Freedom of Information Act, the Pentagon has already released hundreds of such photographs this year, and it agreed under the settlement to continue to do so."

"The astonishing case of the actress who may or may not be pregnant has confirmed what everyone in the newspaper industry has believed for some time: celebrity requirements for protection of privacy are spinning out of control."

"In an attempt to "safeguard national culture," China said Wednesday that it will refuse to allow any new foreign-owned television satellite channels into the country and that it would tighten controls on the 31 international broadcasters already operating in China. In a statement announced by the state news agency Xinhua, China's Culture Ministry said the country "will not again allow a foreign satellite TV station to have landing rights in the country.""

"Declaring its full support for the management and journalists of the Kathmandu-based radio station Nepal FM 91.8, Reporters Without Borders today called on the Nepalese government to immediately withdraw its threat to close the station unless its stops broadcasting news."

"China disclosed on Wednesday that it had frozen approvals for foreign satellite broadcasters entering its market and would strengthen restrictions on foreign television programs, books, newspapers and performances in an effort to exercise tighter control over the country's cultural life."

"A recent court decision allowing the Michael Jackson case to stand as a precedent on secrecy could shut off public access to information in high-profile cases, some legal experts say. In a one-sentence decision Wednesday, the California Supreme Court denied a request by news organizations, including The Associated Press, to "depublish" the ruling -- meaning it will stay on the legal books and can be used by judges and lawyers on the issue of sealing documents in other cases. The ruling Supreme Court was made available Friday."

"The case of Lee Sang-ho, an MBC journalist who broke the news about a 1997 political scandal based on private conversations secretly recorded by intelligence agents, promises to become a sticky legal conflict between the rights to individual privacy and freedom of expression and the public interest."