Media Watch
It has been 30 days since Eric Holder called a secret meeting with a compliant press to get their input on when, and under what circumstances, they would like to be wiretapped by secret court order. A few days ago he released his new policy governing when the press could be wiretapped in order to prosecute reporters and their sources. The government-approved mainstream press uniformly thanked the Attorney General for only ignoring the Constitution a tiny little bit when it comes to them. They uniformly failed to note that the entire world is being bulk wiretapped, thus rendering said guidelines completely irrelevant. They also failed to note that the Attorney General has quietly appropriated the Right to define who and what the press is for the first time in history.
Rarely has any American provoked such fury in Washington’s high places. So far, Edward Snowden has outsmarted the smartest guys in the echo chamber -- and he has proceeded with the kind of moral clarity that U.S. officials seem to find unfathomable.
Bipartisan condemnations of Snowden are escalating from Capitol Hill and the Obama administration. More of the NSA’s massive surveillance program is now visible in the light of day -- which is exactly what it can’t stand.
The central issue is our dire shortage of democracy. How can we have real consent of the governed when the government is entrenched with extreme secrecy, surveillance and contempt for privacy?
The same government that continues to expand its invasive dragnet of surveillance, all over the United States and the rest of the world, is now asserting its prerogative to drag Snowden back to the USA from anywhere on the planet. It’s not only about punishing him and discouraging other potential whistleblowers. Top U.S. officials are also determined to -- quite literally -- silence Snowden’s voice, as Bradley Manning’s voice has been nearly silenced behind prison walls.
Bipartisan condemnations of Snowden are escalating from Capitol Hill and the Obama administration. More of the NSA’s massive surveillance program is now visible in the light of day -- which is exactly what it can’t stand.
The central issue is our dire shortage of democracy. How can we have real consent of the governed when the government is entrenched with extreme secrecy, surveillance and contempt for privacy?
The same government that continues to expand its invasive dragnet of surveillance, all over the United States and the rest of the world, is now asserting its prerogative to drag Snowden back to the USA from anywhere on the planet. It’s not only about punishing him and discouraging other potential whistleblowers. Top U.S. officials are also determined to -- quite literally -- silence Snowden’s voice, as Bradley Manning’s voice has been nearly silenced behind prison walls.
In a move that bears striking resemblance to Eric Holder's recent talks with press leaders to suppress reporting of human rights abuses, the British government and large elements of the press have colluded this week to censor coverage about Edward Snowden's latest leak this weekend, which proved that the UK government had spied on its G20 partners during the two economic summits in 2009.
Facing questions about GCHQ's secret surveillance of the summits, defense officials in the British government issued a D-notice to all of the UK's major news outlets to refrain from covering the story whilst the G8, containing many of the same diplomats as before, met in the British capital last week. The D-notice was eventually written about by rightwing blogger Paul Staines despite its being marked as "private and confidential: not for publication, broadcast or use on social media", but aside from some commentary in the Guardian there has been a notable silence throughout the British press on both the serving of the D-notice and the public discussion it hampers.
Facing questions about GCHQ's secret surveillance of the summits, defense officials in the British government issued a D-notice to all of the UK's major news outlets to refrain from covering the story whilst the G8, containing many of the same diplomats as before, met in the British capital last week. The D-notice was eventually written about by rightwing blogger Paul Staines despite its being marked as "private and confidential: not for publication, broadcast or use on social media", but aside from some commentary in the Guardian there has been a notable silence throughout the British press on both the serving of the D-notice and the public discussion it hampers.
In late October 1968, Beverly Deepe, a 33-year-old Saigon correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor, came upon a story that could have changed history. A six-year veteran covering the Vietnam War, she learned from South Vietnamese sources that Richard Nixon’s campaign was collaborating behind the scenes with the Saigon government to derail President Lyndon Johnson’s peace talks.
On Oct. 28, Deepe sent her startling information to her Monitor editors in the United States, asking them to have the Washington bureau “check out a report that [South Vietnamese Ambassador to the United States] Bui Diem had sent a cable to the Foreign Ministry about contact with the Nixon camp,” she told me in a recent e-mail exchange.
At that moment in 1968, the stakes surrounding Nixon’s secret contacts could hardly be higher. With half a million U.S. soldiers serving in the war zone – and with more than 30,000 already dead – a peace deal could have saved countless lives, both American and Vietnamese. Progress toward a settlement also could have meant defeat for Nixon on Election Day, Nov. 5.
On Oct. 28, Deepe sent her startling information to her Monitor editors in the United States, asking them to have the Washington bureau “check out a report that [South Vietnamese Ambassador to the United States] Bui Diem had sent a cable to the Foreign Ministry about contact with the Nixon camp,” she told me in a recent e-mail exchange.
At that moment in 1968, the stakes surrounding Nixon’s secret contacts could hardly be higher. With half a million U.S. soldiers serving in the war zone – and with more than 30,000 already dead – a peace deal could have saved countless lives, both American and Vietnamese. Progress toward a settlement also could have meant defeat for Nixon on Election Day, Nov. 5.
March Madness comes once a year. Media Madness is year-round. What the mass media choose to cover and feature try to turn the priorities of any sane society upside down.
People of vice, war, money, spectator sports and business receive media attention – oftentimes ad nausem. People of virtue, peace, civics, health, labor and community engagement have to beg for media attention. Which of these two groups represents the most basic values of a civilized society that would restrain the excesses of the other group? You can guess!
There are many reasons for this chronic bias, beyond the power of commercial advertisers. The media believe that wrongdoing and greed and violence get readers and ratings while their opposites are dull soup.
But aren’t these opposites vital to the survival and well-being of a just society? Aren’t people who wage peace to prevent war, or demand health/safety over sickness/injury, more newsworthy when they expose people or companies that cause danger, damage and deaths?
People of vice, war, money, spectator sports and business receive media attention – oftentimes ad nausem. People of virtue, peace, civics, health, labor and community engagement have to beg for media attention. Which of these two groups represents the most basic values of a civilized society that would restrain the excesses of the other group? You can guess!
There are many reasons for this chronic bias, beyond the power of commercial advertisers. The media believe that wrongdoing and greed and violence get readers and ratings while their opposites are dull soup.
But aren’t these opposites vital to the survival and well-being of a just society? Aren’t people who wage peace to prevent war, or demand health/safety over sickness/injury, more newsworthy when they expose people or companies that cause danger, damage and deaths?
In the final days of the Libyan conflict, as NATO conducted a nonstop bombing campaign, an Aljazeera Arabic television correspondent’s actions raised more than eyebrows. They also raised serious questions regarding the journalistic responsibility of Arab media – or in fact any media - during times of conflict.
Using a handheld transceiver, the journalist aired live communication between a Libyan commander and his troops in a Tripoli neighborhood targeted by a massive air assault. Millions of people listened, as surely did NATO military intelligence, to sensitive information disclosed by an overpowered, largely defeated army. The Doha-based news anchor sought further elaboration, and the reporter readily provided all the details he knew.
Did Abdel-Azim Mohammed, a journalist reputed for his gutsy reports from Iraq’s Fallujah, violate the rules of journalism by transmitting information that could aid one party against another, and worse, cost human lives?
Using a handheld transceiver, the journalist aired live communication between a Libyan commander and his troops in a Tripoli neighborhood targeted by a massive air assault. Millions of people listened, as surely did NATO military intelligence, to sensitive information disclosed by an overpowered, largely defeated army. The Doha-based news anchor sought further elaboration, and the reporter readily provided all the details he knew.
Did Abdel-Azim Mohammed, a journalist reputed for his gutsy reports from Iraq’s Fallujah, violate the rules of journalism by transmitting information that could aid one party against another, and worse, cost human lives?
It's that time of year again--when FAIR goes through the year's archives to collect a sampling of the worst moments of corporate media spin and malfeasance.
The competition was, as always, fierce. And in special recognition of the media's befuddled approach to the Occupy Wall Street movement, next week will see the release of a second round of OWS-related P.U.-litzers.
--Wacky Conspiracy Award: CBS's Steve Kroft
Kroft (60 Minutes, 1/30/11) explained the apparently demented worldview of WikiLeaks' Julian Assange:
Julian Assange is not your average journalist or publisher, and some have argued that he is not really a journalist at all. He is an anti-establishment ideologue with conspiratorial views. He believes large government institutions use secrecy to suppress the truth and he distrusts the mainstream media for playing along.
--Paul's Not Newt Award: Washington Post's Sarah Kaufman
Kaufman (12/15/11) puzzled over the lack of interest in Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul:
The competition was, as always, fierce. And in special recognition of the media's befuddled approach to the Occupy Wall Street movement, next week will see the release of a second round of OWS-related P.U.-litzers.
--Wacky Conspiracy Award: CBS's Steve Kroft
Kroft (60 Minutes, 1/30/11) explained the apparently demented worldview of WikiLeaks' Julian Assange:
Julian Assange is not your average journalist or publisher, and some have argued that he is not really a journalist at all. He is an anti-establishment ideologue with conspiratorial views. He believes large government institutions use secrecy to suppress the truth and he distrusts the mainstream media for playing along.
--Paul's Not Newt Award: Washington Post's Sarah Kaufman
Kaufman (12/15/11) puzzled over the lack of interest in Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul:
The late Herbert Marcuse, author of One Dimensional Man, and Noam Chomsky, America's most cited scholar, both have pointed out the advantage of controlling news through private corporate conglomerates. In 1947, in his seminal book Inside USA, John Gunther called the Wolfe family of Columbus perhaps America's most ruthless media monopoly.
Last week, the Wolfe family's closely held private corporation, the Dispatch Printing Company, was at it again. The Dispatch bought up the last independent weekly newspapers in Columbus, owned by American Community Newspapers. They picked up the Suburban News Publication (SNP) chain of 22 local community weeklies; The Other Paper, a weekly entertainment and commentary newspaper; Columbus Monthly, the only serious magazine in the capital; and a dozen other specialty magazines including Columbus CEO and Columbus Bride. John F. Wolfe, the CEO of the Dispatch Printing Company, told Business First that, "Putting all of these titles under one roof opens up enormous and exciting possibilities for local readers."
Really?
Last week, the Wolfe family's closely held private corporation, the Dispatch Printing Company, was at it again. The Dispatch bought up the last independent weekly newspapers in Columbus, owned by American Community Newspapers. They picked up the Suburban News Publication (SNP) chain of 22 local community weeklies; The Other Paper, a weekly entertainment and commentary newspaper; Columbus Monthly, the only serious magazine in the capital; and a dozen other specialty magazines including Columbus CEO and Columbus Bride. John F. Wolfe, the CEO of the Dispatch Printing Company, told Business First that, "Putting all of these titles under one roof opens up enormous and exciting possibilities for local readers."
Really?
Coverage of the situation in Libya over the past three days, while useless to anyone trying to understand what is actually happening in Libya, nevertheless provides an interesting peek into the modus operandi of the global media that has broad application for the decoding of its coverage of all of the issues that touch our lives.
The manufacture of events in Libya has been underway since the lead-up to the US-led invasion, including the narrative that enabled the UN resolutions 1970 and 1973 - prominent among these were the claim that the Libyan government was conducting an aerial war against protestors, countered by satellite evidence from the Russian military showing no such attacks took place, and the claim that African mercenaries were firing on protestors, which was both untrue and provoked racist killings of Libyans with African features and skin by rebel gangs.
The manufacture of events in Libya has been underway since the lead-up to the US-led invasion, including the narrative that enabled the UN resolutions 1970 and 1973 - prominent among these were the claim that the Libyan government was conducting an aerial war against protestors, countered by satellite evidence from the Russian military showing no such attacks took place, and the claim that African mercenaries were firing on protestors, which was both untrue and provoked racist killings of Libyans with African features and skin by rebel gangs.
Columbus city officials ended public access TV about 10 years ago after it had existed for decades in Central Ohio. The reason given was lack of funds. In subsequent years, city officials gave the same reason in response to suggestions to restore public-access TV.
But the financial situation has changed. At the urging of city officials, Columbus voters passed a substantial increase in the city income tax in 2009, resulting in the city having millions of dollars of surplus funds. Nevertheless, city officials are still refusing to restore public access TV.
The officials, including Democratic mayor Michael Coleman and an all-Democratic city council, now say that because of the Internet, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, citizens can communicate by those means and don’t need TV to communicate to the public. Volumes could be written about problems with their position.
But the financial situation has changed. At the urging of city officials, Columbus voters passed a substantial increase in the city income tax in 2009, resulting in the city having millions of dollars of surplus funds. Nevertheless, city officials are still refusing to restore public access TV.
The officials, including Democratic mayor Michael Coleman and an all-Democratic city council, now say that because of the Internet, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, citizens can communicate by those means and don’t need TV to communicate to the public. Volumes could be written about problems with their position.