Journalists Re-fight Old Battles; Expose Recurring Wrongs

Dissident journalists of the past exposed many social problems (like the labor weeklies spotlighting the problem of people being jailed simply for being in debt) and brought about reform.  But other journalists --  years or generations later -- may have to keep exposing the issue . . . as these investigative journalists for the big mainstream daily in Minneapolis recently did.

"It's not a crime to owe money, and debtors' prisons were abolished in the United States in the 19th century. But people are routinely being thrown in jail for failing to pay debts. In Minnesota, which has some of the most creditor-friendly laws in the country, the use of arrest warrants against debtors has jumped 60 percent over the past four years, with 845 cases in 2009, a Star Tribune analysis of state court data has found."

I.F. Stone pointed out that some reforms don't happen except through the work of generations of journalists and democracy activists:

“The only kinds of fights worth fighting are those you are going to lose, because somebody has to fight them and lose and lose and lose until someday, somebody who believes as you do wins. In order for somebody to win an important, major fight 100 years hence, a lot of other people have got to be willing - for the sheer fun and joy of it - to go right ahead and fight, knowing you're going to lose. You mustn't feel like a martyr. You've got to enjoy it.”

Early Dissident Newspapers -- Not Very Reader-Friendly

See crowded layout of William Lloyd Garrison's abolitionist publication, The Liberator, here and here. Not exactly HuffingtonPost. No half-naked actresses. Cady Stanton's/Anthony's feminist publication, The Revolution, was almost as dense.  Content was king (or queen) back then.

AOL's Journalistic Values

Soon after AOL announced its merger with HuffingtonPost in February, 2011 the Boston Globe published leaked AOL documents offering a glimpse into that company's journalistic approach -- not one that Arianna Huffington would endorse. (H/t to former indy media student Leah T, for summarizing the Globe piece.)

Internet Hoaxes

Question: Are younger educated people who were raised on the Internet LESS likely to be taken in by hoax emails such as Obama as "radical Muslim" than Jon Stewart's 80-year-old aunt? Or clothing designer Tommy Hilfiger as racist?

Today, viral video hoaxes seem more common than text hoaxes -- like "Golden Eagle Snatches Kid" hoax, that unknown to this ABC News panel, was perpetrated by animation students using computer imaging in Montreal. And like "Worst Twerk Fail EVER - Girl Catches Fire," a hoax perpetrated by the Jimmy Kimmel show as self-promotion.

UPDATE: NBC "Today" show interviewed me yesterday (Sept. 30 -- my bit starts at 2:25) about separating fact from fiction in media and Internet.

Another journalism source pleads guilty

After combing through weeks of phone records (multiple phones) of Associated Press journalists, the Obama Justice Department was able to identify and prosecute AP's source on a story about a terrorist plot in Yemen.  The source, a former FBI agent, pled guilty yesterday. This is from Agence France-Presse:

Although Obama had promised openness when he entered office, his administration has pursued an unprecedented crackdown on leaks from government employees, attempting more prosecutions under the 1917 Espionage Act than all previous administrations. A US Army private, Bradley Manning, was sentenced to 35 years in prison in August for passing a trove of classified documents to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. Manning's supporters defended him as a whistleblower trying to shed light on US wars and secret foreign policy making but prosecutors called the soldier a "traitor."

John Kiriakou, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer, was charged with leaking secrets after he gave an interview to ABC television describing the use of water boarding in interrogations of terror suspects under the Bush administration. He pleaded guilty in 2012 to disclosing the name of a covert CIA officer and was sentenced to two and a half years in prison. Monday's plea agreement serves as a warning to intelligence leaker Edward Snowden, who has been charged with espionage and condemned for his dramatic disclosures on US electronic surveillance.

"Miss Representation" is a 2011 documentary about sexism in media.

The trailer for the doc is here.  (At 2:35, we see glimpses of female Fox News talking heads in business attire.)

Is U.S. media system failing U.S. democracy?

A 2008 academic study compared the level of public knowledge about current events in Denmark, Finland, England and the U.S. It found that the countries where TV/radio is dominated by public broadcasting -- Denmark and Finland -- were the best informed. Our country, dominated by corporate commercial media, was the least informed. The study's authors suggest that differing media systems play a role in those results.

A 2003 study of U.S. public knowledge of facts related to the Iraq War found that misperceptions were greatest among those whose primary info source was Fox News -- and least among those whose primary info source was public broadcasting. (A Pew poll taken in Aug. 2010 found that almost 1 in 5 Americans believed President Obama to be a Muslim; only 34% knew he is a Christian. 43% chose "don't know.")

Night(time) in Tunisia for Longtime Dictator

Tunisia is a small, Mediterranean country in North Africa.  Back in 2007, Tunisian citizen-journalists and bloggers had documented the tourism/shopping sprees of the dictator's wife aboard the presidential plane to Europe and global fashion capitals. (H/t Global Voices)


In 2010, the TuniLeaks website was set up to post (WikiLeaks-released) internal U.S. Embassy documents candidly exposing the corruption of Tunisia's dictatorship.

Fascinating photo (released by Ben Ali's office) of dictator Ben Ali visiting the hospital bed of the desperate young man who set himself on fire in Dec. 2010 -- the young man didn't live long enough to learn that his act led to the overthrow of Ben Ali after sustained nonviolent protests.

Amid the protests, Tunisian rapper El General put out this widely-circulated music video attacking Ben Ali and urging folks to join the protests. El General was arrested for it. Soon after, the dictator fled.

Dizzy Gillespie performs his classic jazz tune "Night in Tunisia," first recorded in 1944.

Video cameras and blogging for human rights

Launched in 1992 with the help of musician Peter Gabriel, the nonprofit Witness.org began distributing video cameras in hopes of minimizing human rights abuses. Their slogan: "See it. Film it. Change it."

The Israeli human rights group, Bet Tzelem, provides cameras to Palestinians so they can record Israeli settlers who harass Palestinians, such as these incidents in the Palestinian city of Hebron, which rightwing Israeli religious settlers believe God has bequeathed to Jews.

Vancouver Film School students created an inspiring video, "Iran, ANation of Bloggers," and put it online months before the tech-fueled protests over Iran's disputed 2009 election.

Mexico's "Yo Soy 132" Youth Movement

This Internet-oriented movement didn't alter the outcome of Mexico's July, 2012 presidential election (the candidate being "imposed" by the two dominant TV networks won), but the student activists had impact.  Yo Soy 132 set up an historic presidential debate carried online (only the TV-promoted frontrunner failed to show up).  It was this YouTube video that launched the movement.

President Caught on Video: "Get Lost, You A*#hole"

Then-President of France Nicolas Sarkozy caught on video in 2008 calling a disgruntled citizen an "idiot" or "dumbass" or "a**hole" (depending on translation). French politicians are having difficulty tolerating the scrutiny from new more aggressive online media (including online video) -- especially compared to deferential coverage they're accustomed to from traditional media.

One of our former presidents (then governor of Texas) caught on video.

Global Voices Online

Global Voices is a community of more than 500 bloggers and translators around the world who publish reports from blogs and citizen media, emphasizing "voices that are not ordinarily heard in international mainstream media."

This 2011 post features short videos from a competition on gender equality in the Ukraine.

This 2010 post features a public protest by a brave professor and blogger in China, offering himself as a slave.

A police murder of 28-year-old sparks Egypt uprising

In June, 2010, Khaled Said was beaten to death by police in public for the crime of Internet use and, apparently, exposing police corruption. His martyrdom inspired protests and Internet organizing that led to the uprising six months later that ended the Mubarak dictatorship. Middle East-based Google exec and activist Wael Ghonim set up the galvanizing "We Are All Khaled Said" Facebook page in Arabic.  (Here's an English FB version of "We Are All Khaled Said.") 

Egyptian bloggers/Net activists paved the way for 2011 uprising

With the Mubarak dictatorship in control of all major media in Egypt, brave Egyptian "citizen journalists" risked imprisonment and torture to blog or tweet about human rights abuses. Here's renowned Egyptian blogger Wael Abbas interviewed on BBC. Over the years, Abbas was harassed, censored and assaulted by authorities -- and was briefly detained during the uprising early in 2011.

P.S. Sharif Abdel Kouddous covered the 18-day uprising last year for Democracy Now!, and he was the central character in an HBO documentary about the Egyptian revolution. For his work in Egypt, he received last year's Izzy Award for outstanding achievement in independent media.

Upworthy.com

Upworthy.com promotes social/political issues virally through clever headlines and visuals or video, like this video featuring a child of gay parents and this animation on advertising/media impact on girls.

Local Nonprofit Watchdog News Sites

As dailies have shrunk, local online nonprofit news sites have sprouted, such as the well-funded VoiceofSanDiego.org and the professionally-staffed MinnPost.com ("a thoughtful approach to news"). Across the country, local watchdog outlets try to survive, reports Jodi Enda in American Journalism Review.

News vs. Advertising

The following quote has been attributed to George Orwell and to a U.S. newspaper publisher: "News is something somebody doesn’t want printed; all else is advertising.”

The WikiLeaks Controversy

Blogger Glenn Greenwald (a WikiLeaks supporter) explains independent journalism to CNN correspondent Jessica Yellin. WikiLeaks website is here. This leaked video (with more than 14 million YouTube views) shows the killing of employees of the Reuters news agency and wounding of children by US attack helicopters in Iraq. Photo above was taken in August 2012 when I visited the Ecuadoran embassy in London (with WikiLeaks' founder having taken refuge inside); I was there days after the British government threatened to invade the embassy.

Glenn Greenwald & Amy Goodman: Winners of First Izzy Award (2009)

Soon after accepting their Izzy Awards in Ithaca, NY in March 2009, Greenwald and Goodman spoke about independent media on public TV's Bill Moyers' Journal.

Matt Drudge's success as news curator

David Carr in NY Times tries to explain success of www.drudgereport.com.

News 21: Student Journalism, Multimedia Presentation

News 21 is a well-funded student journalism outlet (launched by two big foundations) that emphasizes in-depth reporting and multimedia presentation. It originated with 8 journalism schools/departments at big campuses that each investigated and reported on a different area, for example: Univ of Southern California(USC)/money in politics; UC Berkeley/food safety.

Short Video Impacts 2008 Presidential Election

This 2008 Brave New Films video short "McCain's Mansions" (with over 600,000 views) boiled up through the media food chain into the mainstream.  It impacted the campaign, as shown by this self-promotional video, "The Making of McCain's Mansions."

Miley Cyrus Twerks on Famous Paintings

Don't blame me. I saw this in The Ithacan, which found it on Buzzfeed.

Are some journalists too cozy with their official sources?

In 2003, a CNN executive actually boasted about having given the Pentagon an advisory role on who his on-air experts would be during the Iraq war. . . . At 2007 Radio-Television Correspondents Association Dinner, top journalists were literally dancing with a top source, controversial Bush aide Karl Rove. These are social/charitable events where journalists and newsmakers are expected to have some fun, but is it symbolic of too much coziness? . . . Whether dealing with political leaders or celebrity athletes, the quest for access to star newsmakers can undermine independent journalism, according to indy TV host Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks, one of the most successful web-based TV shows.

Bold, indy blogger launches major controversy

Former IC journalism student Chris Lisee reports on the impact that a single off-key journalist can have.

"Independent Media in a Time of War" featuring Amy Goodman

A group of volunteer citizen-journalists (Hudson Mohawk Independent Media Center) produced a short documentary based on an April 2003 speech by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!  At the time, many in mainstream media were cheering what they believed was a successful, nearly-completed invasion of Iraq.

Brazil's Media Ninja reporters

Going deeper into the mass protests that have shaken Brazil -- armed with smartphones, cameras and the Internet -- Brazil's nonprofit, volunteer "Media Ninja" journalists have had scoops and some influence on the big outlets in the country.