Ahmed Jadallah / Reuters

Ayman al-Sahili, a Reuters cameraman, receives first aid after he was shot in the leg by a sniper loyal to Syrian President Bashar el-Assad while filming on the front line in Syria's north city of Aleppo on Dec. 31.

By Reuters

A Reuters television cameraman was shot in the leg and wounded while filming on the front line in Syria's northern city of Aleppo on Monday.

Ayman al-Sahili, a Libyan citizen working as part of a Reuters multi-media reporting team, was hit by a rifle bullet fired from a distance. He was treated in Syria and then driven across the border to Turkey. His injury was not life-threatening.

The ambulance transporting Sahili to Turkey encountered an air strike in Aleppo and maneuvered into an alley until it was safe to continue the journey.

Syria was by far the most dangerous country for journalists in 2012, with 28 killed there during the year according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, a watchdog group. Read the full story.

Ahmed Jadallah / Reuters

Ayman al-Sahili is carried on a stretcher after he was wounded by a sniper loyal to Syrian President Bashar el-Assad in Syria's north city of Aleppo on Dec. 31.

Ahmed Jadallah / Reuters

Ayman al-Sahili is carried away in Syria's north city of Aleppo on Dec. 31.

Ahmed Jadallah / Reuters

A Free Syrian Army fighter pulls a boy off the street as a sniper fires during fighting with forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar el-Assad in Aleppo city on Dec. 31.

Previously on PhotoBlog:

• Israeli airstrike hits media building in Gaza, killing leading militant
• Photographers join together to raise money for a fallen colleague
• Three photojournalists killed as Mexico drug cartels target media
• Colleagues mourn TV cameraman shot dead on Lebanon-Syria border
• The work of photographer Remi Ochlik, killed in Syria
• Attacks in Syria kill several, including French journalist

Slideshow: Syria uprising

Muhammed Muheisen / AP

A look back at the violence that has overtaken the country

Launch slideshow

Facundo Arrizabalaga / EPA, file

James and Rupert Murdoch pictured in London at the height of the phone-hacking controversy in July.

News analysis

LONDON -- Media mogul Rupert Murdoch, CNN anchor Piers Morgan and the entire British newspaper industry are braced for their very own judgment day.

Thursday will see the publication of a report by a major U.K. inquiry into the phone-hacking scandal. It will likely be one of the most important days in the history of the country's newspapers.

Early reports suggest that the findings will be “excoriating.” In the language of the British tabloid press, the U.K.’s journalists are set to get “a bloody good kicking.”

Led by a judge, Lord Justice Leveson's inquiry was set up after journalists, mostly from the now-closed News of the World, were accused of listening to people’s cell-phone messages to gain stories. The paper – owned by Murdoch’s News Corporation -- even allegedly “hacked” the voicemail of a murdered schoolgirl.

News Corporation – home of Fox News, the National Geographic Channel, 20^th Century Fox, and a host of newspapers -- appears to be back on its feet, recently buying into the Yankees Entertainment and Sports Network.

But if Lord Justice Leveson chooses to launch a high-profile attack on the Murdoch’s business practices then the multinational media giant could find itself facing another round of bad publicity.

UK PM's ex-aide, Murdoch protege face charges in phone-hacking scandal

What the Leveson inquiry looked at included what Murdoch’s son James, who was then head of News Corporation’s British newspaper arm, did and didn’t know about phone hacking. It went on to question the Murdochs’ relations with British politicians.

It even asked whether the political support of Murdoch newspapers had been leveraged to gain commercial advantage for the Murdochs’ television networks. Rupert Murdoch told the inquiry that such a suggestion was unfair – he had “never asked a prime minister for anything,” he said. 

Morgan will also be looking anxiously across the Atlantic to see what the Leveson inquiry concludes.

At the end of his evidence in December, Morgan, who was once editor of the News of the World and then the rival Mirror, said he felt like a rock star “confronted with a back catalog of all his worst hits.”

“He made no fatal admission, but the cumulative effect of shifty denials and self-contradictions was awful,” wrote British commentator Michael White in the Guardian, the newspaper which uncovered the phone-hacking scandal.

Former UK PM accuses Murdoch of misleading inquiry into phone-hack scandal

But what matters now is what Leveson has to say. Morgan and the Murdochs await the judge’s verdict.

The British media will concentrate on the proposals for regulation of the newspaper industry.

Dave Hogan / Getty Images, file

Piers Morgan, former editor of the Mirror newspaper, and Rebekah Brooks, ex-editor of the Sun.

But during the inquiry there was one issue that Lord Justice Leveson himself called “the elephant in the room” -- the Internet.

Rupert Murdoch not 'a fit person' to run major company, UK lawmakers say

While the inquiry was still collecting evidence, two stories emerged that suggest Britain is no longer the home of the worst excesses of tabloid journalism.

First, U.S.-based website TMZ published pictures of Prince Harry cavorting naked with girls in a Las Vegas hotel room. Then a French magazine printed topless photographs of Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, which were taken with a long lens while she was on holiday.

Prince William, Kate 'hugely saddened' by publication of topless photos

The pictures could be seen by anyone with a computer. And neither was reproduced by a British newspaper, except for News Corporation tabloid The Sun, which published the Harry snaps after days of consideration. 

Little wonder that The Economist described the Internet as “A naked challenge to Lord Leveson.”

The Internet is awash with stories about the duchess, many of which are entirely speculative or plain wrong.

Clearly criminal wrongdoing by journalists will continue to be investigated. Charges against a list of Murdoch journalists await a court hearing. But when it comes to regulation -- Leveson’s main focus -- the Internet poses a challenge.

If Leveson ignores it and regulates British newspapers alone, he may shackle them to an increasingly insignificant existence amid falling sales. But if he proposes shutting down websites, he could be accused of trying to introduce China-style censorship laws.

Many will view it as a battle for the future of free speech in Britain.

Follow NBC News' Keir Simmons on Twitter.

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• Arafat's exhumation: Palestinians' desire for truth might be dashed again
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Follow World News from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

Reuters

Employees get freshly printed copies of the New Light of Myanmar at the newspaper's office in Naypyitaw, Sept. 19, 2012. Established in 1993, the state-run New Light of Myanmar is the country's only English-language daily newspaper. It will soon face competition from private publishers and is undergoing a redesign.

Reuters

Editor-in-chief Than Myint Tun holds up a dummy of the New Light of Myanmar in Naypyitaw, Sept. 19.

Reuters reports — The New Light of Myanmar has an image problem. That's putting it mildly.

Created in 1993 as the mouthpiece of a military junta, the newspaper once described democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi as "obsessed by lust and superstition," while praising the achievements of generals who kept Myanmar in poverty and fear. Its nickname was "The New Lies of Myanmar."

Now, with the junta gone and a reformist government in power, the mouthpiece is getting a makeover.

"Feel free to ask me any question! We are very transparent now!" cries Than Myint Tun, its affable, betel-nut-chewing editor-in-chief during a Reuters tour of the state-run newspaper, the first by the international media.

The New Light is the country's only English-language daily -- but not for long. Among its reforms since taking power last year, Myanmar's quasi-civilian government has effectively scrapped censorship, boosting an already vibrant weekly newspaper scene. It will allow the publication of privately owned dailies in early 2013.

With competition looming, the long-derided New Light is battling for relevance and readers.

Hate-filled propaganda has been replaced by lively editorials and entertainment news. Cartoons that once showed Suu Kyi as a toothless crone now comment on hot issues such as political transparency and the popularity of Western dress. Full story…

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was made available to NBC News on Oct. 17, 2012.

Reuters

Employees manually insert advertising supplements into freshly printed copies of the New Light of Myanmar at the newspaper's office in Naypyitaw, Sept. 18.

Reuters

Employees manually insert advertising supplements into freshly printed copies of New Light of Myanmar at the newspaper's office in Naypyitaw, Sept, 18.

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Anthony Shadid, the New York Times correspondent who died in Syria on Thursday, was better than the rest of us.  He wasn’t the fastest to a story, or the biggest daredevil or the most technical with a satellite phone.  Sure, he was good at all those things.  But he was absolutely brilliant at something else.  Shadid could hear the story.

He could feel it in the tips of his fingers.  He could do what may be impossible.  He could make war subtle.

This is what I mean.  During the often overlooked, ferociously dangerous 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, reporters in southern Lebanon generally rushed to the bombing sites.  The faster we got there, the fresher and more compelling our stories and pictures would be.  And there were incredibility compelling stories.  In the first three weeks of the conflict, Israel dropped as much tonnage of explosives on southern Lebanon as it used in the 1973 Mideast war.

NYT: Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Anthony Shadid dies in Syria

Hezbollah fired rockets indiscriminately into Israeli cities, driving thousands into shelters.  We rushed and ran and sometimes even dodged and the world watched and read.  Anthony covered it differently.  He’d go out in the morning and find some tiny village, tucked away on a hillside, where none of us thought to go.  He’d find his story in the details, not the fireballs.  It takes a sensitive ear to do that.  War is a loud place, full of emotions, explosions, gore, fatigue, pity, outrage and rage.  But Anthony managed to pick out the quiet notes, and hear the melody playing sotto voce under the cacophony.

I say "us" because there is an "us" in the business, which is really more of a life than a career.  There is a small – tragically, dwindling – brotherhood and sisterhood of reporters who cover conflict, specifically conflict in the Middle East.  Anthony was one of our founding members.  When I first moved to Cairo in 1996, the first person I was told to look up was Anthony.  “He’s got a good feeling of what’s going on over there,” I was well advised.  Anthony and I were together in Baghdad during the 2003 US bombing.  Baghdad for all of 'us' was a defining period, an extended nightmare of car bombings, flag ceremonies, kidnappings and military acronyms.  I last saw Anthony a few months ago.  He looked great.  He was in a good place.

He was relaxed and happy.  We were at the airport in Tunisia.  We’d just covered a year of the Arab Spring.  It was different from all those years in Baghdad.  It was interesting.  It was complicated.  It was big history.  It needed a subtle ear.  It was perfect for Anthony.

It was his time.  I am so sorry his time was cut short.  I’ll miss his voice.  I’ll miss his compassion.  There’s so much more to reporting than just bullets, bombs, rebels and ballots, and nobody knew that more than Anthony.  Rest in peace, brother.

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