U.S. reporter is shot, wounded in Ramallah
A Boston Globe reporter was shot and wounded in the shoulder in Ramallah on March 31, and Israel warned that foreign journalists were at risk and should not be in the occupied West Bank city, The Associated Press reported.
Anthony Shadid, 33, a Washington-based Boston Globe reporter on assignment in Ramallah, was standing in a doorway of a shop with Globe stringer Said al-Ghazali when he was shot in the shoulder, said Globe foreign editor James F. Smith.
Shadid, 33, was conscious and taken to a private Arab hospital in Ramallah for treatment, Smith said.
The Israeli army said it was investigating the shooting.
Meanwhile, the Israeli government was irritated in late March by protesters and foreign journalists who breached the siege around Yasser Arafat’s compound and said reporters who remained in Ramallah could be stripped of their credentials or even have their offices closed down, according to The New York Times.
The government is frustrated at foreign news coverage of the military operation in Ramallah and has declared the city a “closed military zone,” saying it is illegal for foreign reporters to be there.
Controversy surrounds Russian network bid
A team of journalists kicked off the air in January won the right in March to start a new television network in a deal approved by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has sought to eliminate criticism from the country’s independent media.
A government licensing commission voted unanimously to award a five-year broadcasting license to Media-Sotsium, a nonprofit organization that includes a former Russian prime minister, business magnates and some of the country’s most critical journalists.
The government commission’s decision will return controversial anchorman Yevgeny Kiselyov to the airwaves along with a group of journalists who were forced to move from one network to another over the past two years, The New York Times reported.
But the journalists have teamed up with the Kremlin, which has raised questions about the independence of the new network as Russia’s sixth channel.
Kiselyov refused to discuss what accommodation his group had reached with the Kremlin. Asked whether the new network could operate free of political interference, he responded, “The future will judge.”
