But can an aspiring world-class newspaper find happiness operating in a part of the world where freedom to oppress and suppress is much more entrenched than freedom of the press?

From CBC.ca:

An Afghan television station has pulled an Indian soap opera from the airwaves on the orders of the government.

Kumkum had already raised the ire of conservative clerics in the country, who had called it "un-Islamic."

"Under pressure from the Ministry of Information and Culture, we had to stop running one of our famous shows, an Indian drama," Abdul Qadir Mirzai, chief news editor for leading private station, Ariana, said Sunday. ...

Kumkum is the first victim of a government edict which had given stations until Tuesday to stop airing several programs it had deemed inappropriate because they undermined Afghan culture.

The Conservative Party tried to pre-empt tomorrow's release of the search warrant used by the RCMP this past week on behalf of Elections Canada by holding some cozy chats with select news outlets.

Er, not for His Blackness, aka Inmate No. 18330-424, but for Canadian Press photographer David Chidley. From CBC.ca:

A photo of former Canadian media baron Conrad Black giving the finger to reporters during his trial in Chicago has taken top prize for spot news at the second annual National Pictures of the Year awards competition.

The awards are a creation of the News Photographers Association of Canada (NPAC) and winners were judged from more than 2,200 entries.

Conrad Black gives the finger to a member of the media as he arrives at the courthouse for his fraud trial in Chicago in July 2007. (Dave Chidley/Canadian Press)

The winners were announced at a gala in Vancouver on Saturday night.

The Conrad Black photo was taken by David Chidley of the Canadian Press during the businessman's trial, in which Black was convicted of obstructing justice and defrauding shareholders of his former newspaper company, Hollinger International Inc.

Black is currently serving a 6½-year sentence at a jail in central Florida.

 

No one stage-manages propaganda like the Pentagon. This NYT story looks at the very thin veneer of objectivity that covers some military experts often seen appearing on U.S. TV news.