Breaking: An Ethiopian court has declared Swedish photojournalist Johan Persson and reporter Martin Schibbye guilty of supporting terrorism and entering the country illegally, according to an AFP report.

“Guilty as charged, period, unanimous vote,” the judge declared, according to the AFP story. The judge added that just because Persson and Schibbye are journalists doesn’t mean they didn’t engage in “criminal acts.”

“They have not been able to prove that they did not support terrorism,” the judge reportedly said.

Prosecutors are calling for 18-year jail terms, and sentencing is scheduled for December 27. (Editor’s note: See update, below.)

Persson and Schibye were arrested last July in the Ogaden region of the country. Ethiopian troops are currently fighting rebels in the oil-rich region and the government has barred journalists from the area. Schibbye and Persson, who is represented by the Swedish photo agency Kontinent, gained access to Ogaden with the help of a group of rebels that the Ethiopian government classifies as terrorists. Persson and Schibbye admitted at trial they had entered the country illegally, but vehemently denied they were aiding the rebels.

More on this disturbing developing story here…

And the Atlantic is asking why…

“The Occupy Wall Street protests that began in New York City a month ago gained worldwide momentum over the weekend, as hundreds of thousands of demonstrators in nine hundred cities protested corporate greed and wealth inequality. Protesters from London to Sydney echoed the anti-capitalist, populist rhetoric of the Occupy movement in what was deemed a “global day of protest”.

“The unrest comes amid a mounting European sovereign debt crisis, which has contributed to ongoing market volatility and fears of another global economic recession. Governments around the world–particularly in the indebted eurozone periphery–have implemented harsh austerity programs, making economic growth all but impossible. In the United States, anger at Wall Street bankers seen as responsible for the global financial crisis–and at the government, for bailing out the banks with taxpayer money–is exacerbated by a persistently dismal job market.” more here…

(Picture via UPI.com)

According to the PEJ News Coverage Index: August 15-21, 2011

Barack Obama and Rick Perry Drive the Week’s News. Here’s the official breakdown:

The economy and presidential election led the news agenda last week as two men vying for the same job played a dominant role in those narratives — President Barack Obama and Texas Governor Rick Perry.

From August 15-21, the economy was the top story, accounting for 25% of the newshole according to the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. That marked the ninth straight week the subject has topped the news even as the level of economic coverage dropped for the third consecutive week. More here…

More info here…

VERACRUZ, Mexico – A journalist, his wife, and their 21-year-old son were shot to death inside their home in this Gulf coast city Monday, authorities said.

Journalist Miguel Angel Lopez Velasco and his family were shot with a 9 mm handgun, said Veracruz state prosecutor Jorge Yunis.

Lopez Velasco wrote a column about politics and crime and was editorial director for the daily newspaper Notiver. His son had been working as a photographer for the same newspaper.

Yunis said investigators haven’t determined a motive in the killings and no one has been arrested.

Earlier this month, state police in Veracruz found the body of reporter Noel Lopez in a clandestine grave. He had been missing since March. The two reporters are not related.

Via Gizmodo:

Urban historian Steven Duncan and videographer Andrew Wonder explore the Undercity. Wonder shot the compilation of urban explorations—appropriately titled Undercity—on a Canon 5d Mark II. The journeys range from the sewer to the subway to the Williamsburg Bridge, and give us a look at the world that’s happening underneath our feet, unbeknown to us, every single day. Duncan’s made a mission out of these journeys, collecting his photographs and videos at Undercity.org.

See the video here…

From The Atlantic…by Conor Friedersdorf

One school of thought contends that balance is paramount: a contested matter demands that the reporter gives equal space to “both sides,” presents the debate to readers, and allows them to make up their own minds. “We report, you decide!” But there are those who lament that approach. For example:

It’s depressing to see how often dubious and even outright false health claims, such as the claim that vaccines cause autism… are reported credulously. Often this takes the form of a journalistic convention that is more appropriate for politics and other issues but not so appropriate for scientific and medical issues, namely telling both sides as though they have equal or similar weight… almost invariably there is an anti-vaccine crank like Barbara Loe Fisher, Jenny McCarthy or someone else from Generation Rescue, or someone like Sallie Bernard from SafeMinds cited as though she were on equal footing, scientifically speaking, with scientists who have dedicated their lives to the science of vaccines.

Read more here…

Saturday morning, young Moscow journalist Oleg Kashin was attacked and savagely beaten by two men. Everyone believes it was retaliation for his work. Today, video of the beating emerged. See the video here… Read the Gawker piece here…

The Huffington Post is firing back at Mayhill Fowler, one of the site’s many unpaid bloggers, who scored a major political scoop during the 2008 presidential campaign.

Huffington Post spokesman Mario Ruiz took issue with Fowler’s decision Monday to publish private emails between her and Editor-in-Chief Arianna Huffington and editor Roy Sekoff. He also objected to the premise of a post on her personal site that got attention in media circles: “Why I left the Huffington Post.”

“Mayhill Fowler says that she is ‘resigning’ from the Huffington Post,” Ruiz wrote in a statement to The Upshot. “How do you resign from a job you never had?”

Read Mayhilll Fowler’s essay on why she’s leaving the Huff Post.

Courtesy of PDN, Canon displayed this futuristic “SLR wonder camera” at their expo yesterday at the Javits Center in Manhattan: