Obama in China on Freedom of Information

"I think that the more freely information flows, the stronger the society becomes, because then citizens of countries around the world can hold their own governments accountable. They can begin to think for themselves. That generates new ideas. It encourages creativity."

– President Barack Obama, speaking at a town hall in Shanghai, China on November 15 (Photo: White House)Full speech

Los Angeles Times: Internews Afghanistan and the "journalism of hope"

"We can't mask over the terrible realities of war, but it's also our moral responsibility to give people hope. I call it the journalism of hope. And I think it's very important."

– Masood Farivar, Manager of Salam Watandar (Hello Countryman), Internews' radio programming service for Afghanistan, in an interview with the Los Angeles TimesFull article

Earth Journalism Awards: Internews Announces 15 Winners and Launches the Global Public Award via Twitter and Facebook Vote

Internews has announced the fifteen winners of the Earth Journalism Awards today, and opened the online public voting to find the winner of a sixteenth prize. The finalists were selected out of some 900 journalists, bloggers and young creatives from 148 countries who registered to send in their best climate change reports from 2009 in the lead up to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen next month.More

From a Hut in Southern Sudan, Children’s Voices Fill the Airwaves

In Kauda, a remote town in the heart of the Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan, southern Sudan, many children don’t attend school at all. If they do have access to a teacher, the lessons are often held under trees and the teachers lack even basic resources such as desks, books and pens. Mary Joseph, who works for the education department of the government of South Sudan, and her friend Maclena decided to do something about it. More