Between Two Worlds – Freelance broadcast journalist Roxana Saberi’s new book chronicles the incidents surrounding her imprisonment in Iran last year on espionage charges. Saberi’s currently on tour to promote the book, which debuted this week.

Atwood in the Twittersphere – Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood recounts her first year on Twitter on NYR Blog, the blog of the New York Times Review of Books. I won’t spoil the fun – and it is a fun read – but here’s a snippet: “…with their aid, I soon had a few thousand people I didn’t know sending me messages like ‘OMG! Is it really you?’ ‘I love it when old ladies blog,’ one early follower remarked.” We love it when old ladies famous women blog too, especially when they’re Margaret Atwood.

Empowered – Susan Orlean travels a lot as a writer for The New Yorker, which is why she found herself hunting down airport electrical outlets to charge up various computers and smartphones before hopping on a plane, and then realized everyone around her was after the same thing. Orleans is one of those writers you really want to hate – good novels to her credit, a witty Twitterer with a massive following, the New Yorker gig and now she gets to blog for them to? – if only she didn’t seem so damned nice.

Saberi, 32, an American-Iranian broadcast journalist who’d lived in Tehran for six years researching a book on Iranian society, spent four months in the notorious Evin prison after Iranian officials first accused, then convicted her of spying for the United States.

After Saberi landed in prison, U.S. journalism groups and blogs, including this one, took up her plight.

Now Saberi, who freelanced for NPR, BBC, ABC News and others, is back in the news, promoting a book that’s not one she ever intended to write.

Between Two Worlds: My Life and Captivity in Iran, released March 30, tells the story of her imprisonment, trial, eventual release, “and the faith that helped her through it all.” After the U.S. State Department got involved, an Iranian appeals court suspended Saberi’s eight-year sentence and she was allowed to leave the country.

This week, Saberi answered questions about her experience from Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross, including why she initially agreed to confess to espionage charges, and later recanted that confession. In coming weeks Saberi is also making appearances in New York and Washington D.C. (see all Saberi’s upcoming events on her Amazon author page).

On April 12, Saberi will speak at a McCormick Freedom Project event at Roosevelt University in Chicago. The lecture is free but reservations are required; see more information here.

According to news reports, an appeals court reduced Saberi’s sentence to a suspended two-year sentence and as a condition of her release directed her to leave the country and not return for at least two years.

Saberi’s release came a day after a five-hour, closed-door hearing in appeals court on Sunday.

Imprisioned U.S. freelancer ends hunger strike – Roxana Saberi, the freelance broadcast convicted of spying in Iran ended a two-week hunger strike after Iranian authorities agreed to hold an appeal hearing for her next week. The Iranian-American freelance broadcast reporter was arrested in January and convicted of spying in a closed-door trial in April. Saberi’s supporters have created a website, Free Roxana Saberi.

Congress holds U.S. newspaper industry hearings – Plenty of big names held forth on the future of the news business at a May 6 Congresssional hearing. As could be expected, presenters’ POVs varied. HuffPost founder Arianna Huffington was the optimist, declaring, “Despite all the current hand wringing about the dire state of the newspaper industry – well-warranted hand wringing, I might add – we are actually in the midst of a Golden Age for news consumers.” Ex-newspaperman turned Hollywood writer (“The Wire”) David Simon was much more downbeat, saying “High-end journalism is dying in America and unless a new economic model is achieved it will not be reborn on the web or anywhere else.” Replay the entire Webcast here.

Is this what they had in mind? – The Chicago Tribune is working on a new Website called Chicago Now that could be a blueprint for the 21st century news ventures discussed at this week’s Congressional hearings. According to news reports, Chicago Now will combine elements of traditional news coverage with e-commerce, blogs, advertorials and social media. The new site is distinct from RedEye, the Tribune’s free daily paper for “young, urban professionals.” The Tribune and other Tribune publishing holdings filed for federal bankruptcy protection last December.

Other stories, items and websites of interest -

• 2009 Online News Association Awards categories – 14 categories, including four paying a total of $28,000 in cash prizes. Deadline for entries is June 30, 2009.
• The Center for Investigative Journalism is hiring reporters to staff a California investigative reporting initiative funded by $2.4 million in grants.
• The Boston Globe, Las Vegas Sun, ESPN.com and CNN.com each won two 2009 Editor & Publisher EPpy awards for outstanding news industry websites and blogs. See the full list here.
• Neighborlogs – a free service/website template for creating hyperlocal community news sites.
• 17 statistics for monitoring your blog – From ProBlogger.

Twitter tools -

• Tweetmeme – Like a Digg for Twitter, this service finds the hottest stories on the service based on the number of retweets.
• How to integrate Twitter into WordPress – A Web Designer Magazine tutorial that explains in 16 very code-y steps how to weave Twitter into a WordPress.com blog.
• Twitter Secrets – An entire blog dedicated to Twitter apps and tools.

Got Websites, news or tips about the digital media business to share? Send them to me: michellerafter (at) comcast (dot) net.

It was a week for debating whether Google and the Internet have hurt or helped newspapers.

• Search engine guru and ex-newspaper reporter Danny Sullivan doesn’t understand newspapers’ anti-Google stance.
• But a poll of 43 mainstream media insiders conducted by The Atlantic and National Journal reveals 65 percent feel the Internet has hurt journalism while 34 percent say it’s helped.

Meanwhile, new forms of online journalism are getting more notice:

• Buzz Woolley, founder Voice of San Diego, the online reporting site, reports being inundated with requests from people wanting to know how they do what they do.
• In the same panel discussion, held at the recent Logan Symposium at UC Berkeley and reported by PBS MediaShift’s Mark Glaser, the Center for Investigative Reporting’s Robert Rosenthan says collaboration “is going to be very important for profit and nonprofit journalism.”
• ReadWriteWeb interviews David Cohn, founder of Spot.us, the journalism marketplace that lets readers decide what they want to pay to get a story written, on the future of journalism.

A just-launched Online News Association fundraising campaign nets $2,300, enough to offer 31 free memberships. Details at www.Journalists.org.

CBS’ Interactive division launches personal finance and career sites, MoneyWatch.com.

Forbes says it will launch ForbesWoman on May 11. Moira Forbes, daughter of Steve and granddaughter of Malcolm, will serve as publisher of the quarterly print magazine and related Website, which will be sent to Forbes’ 125,000 women suscribers.

News agencies report Iran has formally charged US-Iranian freelance broadcast journalist Roxana Saberi with spying.

The week’s new Twitter tools:

• A geographical directory called LocalTweeps.com. Find me in 97221.
• A collection of WordPress Twitter plugins.

UPDATED: Last but definitely not least – The Freelance Writer’s Helper is a fantastic everything-you-need-to-know about freelancing wiki guide written by long-time Motley Fool freelancer Tim Beyers. The guide’s a list of agents, associations, blogging services, contests, freelancers and other resources that Beyers updates on a regular basis. In case you don’t know him, Beyers is @milehighfool on Twitter and co-host of the popular #editorchat online chat session for editors and freelancers that runs Wednesdays on Twitter.

So here’s an update: various news agencies are reporting that the U.S.-Iranian journalist has been formally charged with spying. London’s The Times, has this story reporting Iranian media as saying an Iranian deputy processor has confirmed she’s accepted the charges. An attorney for Saberi said he hasn’t seen the charges, according to the Times report. Also today her parents were able to visit her in Tehran’s Evin prison for the first time since she was arrested two months ago.

Read the AP’s story on the situation here and the Financial Times’ version here.

* * *
UPDATED APRIL 8: Iran has formally charged Iranian-American freelance broadcast journalist Roxana Saberi with spying, news agencies are reporting today. The Times of London reported Iranian media as saying an Iranian deputy processor has confirmed Saberi has accepted the charges. An attorney for Saberi said he hasn’t seen the charges, according to the Times report. Also today her parents were able to visit her in Tehran’s Evin prison for the first time since she was arrested two months ago.

Read the AP’s story on the situation here and the Financial Times’ version here.

* * * * *

The Committee to Project Journalists is asking writers to help petition for the release of a freelance journalist held without charge in an Iranian prison since last month.

Roxana Saberi, a Fargo, North Dakota, resident and one-time Miss North Dakota, has lived in Iran for the past six years working as a freelance TV and radio reporter for National Public Radio, PRI’s The World, the BBC, ABC News and other media outlets.

CPJ, an independent organization that promotes press freedom worldwide, has launched a Facebook petition drive to collect 1,000 signatures requesting Saberi’s release. Once enough signatures are collected, CPJ plans to send the petition to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

According to a Fargo TV station report, Saberi told her parents on Feb. 10 that she was arrested after a bottle of wine she’d bought – an illegal activity in Iran – was found in her apartment. She hasn’t been heard from since.

Saberi graduated from Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism in 1997 and Jack C. Doppelt, a Medill journalism professor, is helping spread word of her plight. “Roxana is a talented and committed journalist, and a person of warmth and good will. She is someone who deserves our attention, support and thoughts,” Doppelt says in an open letter urging journalists to sign the petition.