Wow! Mashable reports that the Pulitzer Prize people have opened up the award to online journalists without a print publication, if they meet certain criteria. That means bloggers, e-zine/webzine publishers and perhaps others are seen as legitimate journalists.
As a blogger, publisher of four e-zines, and publisher of five webzines, I welcome this.
And perhaps it’s not surprising that I heard this news on a social media site: Twitter.
How come we’re not hearing about this in the mainstream press? An on-the-scene blogger (and an articulate one who obviously has some journalism training) called it “the biggest political rally ever, in the history of the state.” She’s got photos and videos on the link, too (as well as over 1000 comments, so give it some time to load)
Yet, all three pages of unduplicated results of a Google for “AK Women Reject Palin” (the name of the rally) brought up 24 blogs and one story–it’s unclear whether it’s a staff piece or a hosted blog–at washingtonpost.com. And in the Post story, I learned the delicious irony that the anti-Palin rally was held in front of the public library. Nice!
By contrast, the first page of a search for “Welcome Home” “Sarah Palin ” brings up a different, cheerleader story in the Washington Post, as well as a mildly critical story in the Boston Globe, and coverage in the L.A. Times and Miami Herald. In all, 59,200 results versus 113 for coverage of the protest.
Of course, in sparsely populated Alaska, whose entire population is about equal to Boston’s, that only took 1400 people. Still, it dwarfed the 1000-attendee pro-Palin “welcome home” rally held the same day.
And I find it hard to believe that such an important event could be completely ignored by the mainstream media. Yes, we have free speech in this country (if you don’t get too close to convention halls/corporate events and your skin is the proper color, and you’re not identified as Muslim)–but the media censors the message.
Earth to mainstream media: stop feeding us “Soma” (to use Aldus Huxley’s term) and start reporting the news!
I am absolutely outraged! the Republican National Convention is turning into a replay of the Chicago Democratic Convention of 1968, where cops went crazy violent against activists, who were hauled into court.
Enough is enough!
The first Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects the right to peaceful protest, as well as the right to freedom of the press. Here is the full text. with the relevant parts in bold:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or
abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances
.
At the RNC this weekend, legitimate journalists, credentials around their necks, were thrown roughly to the ground, handcuffed, assaulted, and arrested by police who violated all sorts of protocols. Earlier in the week, the police engaged in pre-emptive raids against citizen-journalists who have been known to record police brutality incidents.
You can read, watch, or listen to the entire account by clicking here. But I want to share a few of the most outrageous bits.
NICOLE SALAZAR: Cars were behind me. We were in a parking lot. And, you know, I was telling them that “I’m press. I’m press. Please, you know, don’t—you know, let me pass.” But I couldn’t turn around. And I tried to move in between the—between two cars, and instead of, you know, letting me pass and following the crowd, they instead came right after me and slammed me into the car, at which point I think my camera came back and hit me in the face. And two cops were also behind me, and they pushed me through that row of cars into the next area of the parking lot and slammed me to the ground and said, “Get your face on the ground! Get your face on the ground!” And I was, you know, at that point—
AMY GOODMAN: So you were on your stomach, on your face, on the ground.
NICOLE SALAZAR: I was on my stomach on the ground. And one of the officers, I think he was trying to grab me. He was trying to drag me. He was grabbing my leg. And another officer put his boot on my back and was pressing me to the ground.
AMY GOODMAN: Had they handcuffed you by now? NICOLE SALAZAR: Yes, they had put me in those plastic cuffs, and my hands were behind my back. And my camera was, you know, two feet away from my face, lying on the ground. And I think shortly thereafter one officer came over and picked up the camera and took out the battery. And at that point I was worried that they were going to take my tape, but I don’t think—I mean, they didn’t, because now we have the tape, but he did take the battery out, I guess so the camera wouldn’t be recording.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, I made it to the police line, where the police in riot gear were lined up. I asked to speak to a commanding officer. They immediately grabbed me. I said, “Sir, I just want to speak to a commanding officer. My reporters are inside.” They’ve got their ID. I mean, we’ve done this in New York, as well, when there is confusion about a reporter. They immediately grabbed me, handcuffed me—and as you haven’t quite talked about, those plastic handcuffs cut right into your wrist, and they make those tight—pushed me to the ground.
AMY GOODMAN: As I came in and I was speaking to the corrections officers, who did identify themselves—I kept asking every officer to identify themselves—a St. Paul cop behind them kept screaming, “Shut up! You, shut up!” And I asked—I said, “I want to know what your name is or your badge.” “Shut up! Shut up!” he said, I think to the chagrin of the corrections officers. One of the head guys in the jail came over and said, “He’s not ours. We can’t force him to identify himself. Our policy is that they identify themselves.” And stayed there for several hours. Ultimately, they released me, interference with, I think they said, the judicial process or with a peace officer.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: I was taken to prison, as well. But I think one thing that was left out also in the story, and I think this happened to you, as well, Amy, was that while we were standing waiting to be processed and put on the bus, I was standing there with three credentials around my neck: my Democracy Now! press pass, which has my picture; the RNC press one, which gets you inside the convention; and a separate one, which I was supposed to put on Nicole, but I never actually did, was a limited RNC press one. A man walked up to me, who was not in uniform of St. Paul or Minneapolis police—I was later told he was Secret Service—came up and looked at my RNC press badge, said, “What is this?” I said, “It’s my pass to get inside the Xcel Center.” He said, “Well, you won’t be needing that to go—you’re not going to be going inside the convention center today,” and took it and walked off. I immediately protested. I said, “I want this around my neck to prove I’m an accredited journalist to go inside the convention center.” And he said, “You won’t be needing it today,” walked off. I asked my arresting officer, who incidentally was not my arresting officer—they just assigned some guy to take the picture of me and process me—he said, “I don’t know who that guy is. He looks like Secret Service.” I said, “Well, why don’t you acknowledge that this was taken, witness it somehow?” And he refused to do so. And I believe they did the same to you. They took that pass off your neck.
AMY GOODMAN: Right. The Secret Service came up, and they—he ripped it off of my neck.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: And I said, “That is my pass. I want a receipt that you have taken that.” But of course, they didn’t give it.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: And then, once I was put on the bus, as well—and just to reiterate what you were saying, while I was being arrested, I was, you know, slammed violently. I got scratches on my elbow and bruises on my chest and back. But the most painful part of it was these plastic handcuffs. They were extremely tight. Getting onto the bus, I asked one of the officers, I said, “Can you just cut these off and put on new ones?” because you can’t loosen those. And his response to that was to grab them and tighten them. So it was very painful on the way. I actually still don’t have feeling in part of my hand.
In the Bush years, the right to dissent has been unnaturally restricted and restricted. As one among many examples, national political party conventions have colluded with local police departments to deny these rights of free speech, assembly, and redress of grievances, by forcing demonstrators into restricted areas where the politicos don’t have to see and hear them.
But vicious physical attacks on and arrests of journalists is something that isn’t supposed to happen here, in the land of the free–in the dictatorships of developing countries (all-too-often propped up with the help of the U.S., unfortunately), it might be common. But here? The land to which our forefathers and foremothers gave their lives in order to ensure that it would always be free–Thomas Jefferson must be spinning in his grave.
Why there wasn’t mass outrage about the idea that you can cage up demonstrators and herd them away from the institutions they’re protesting against–or why this idiocy hasn’t been thrown out by the courts–is beyond me. But it’s time for the people to say, enough, we won’t take it anymore.
We demand our right to assemble in public places–including directly outside the gates of those we want to reach.
We demand an end to police violence against peaceful protest.
We demand an end to harassment, assault, and arrest of journalists, including the mainstream press, the alternative press, and citizen-journalists
We demand our rights under the First Amendment to the United states constitution to speak, to be heard, and to register our protests, and our rights as citizens of the United states to vote, and to have our votes counted honestly.
Tell your Senators, your Representatives, and your local political party structure.
And it’s not just journalists. I received this via e-mail from A.N.S.W.E.R this afternoon:
The police have engaged in a widespread riot against social justice organizations, resulting in the arrest of around 300 protesters. Most of the arrested are still in jail, and at least one person with a serious medical condition has been refused care.
Even before the Convention began, protesters had the organizing centers raided. Armed groups of police in the Twin Cities have raided more than half-a-dozen locations since Friday night in a series of “preemptive raids.” The raids and detentions have targeted activists planning to protest the convention, including journalists and videographers from I-Witness Video and the Glass Bead Collective. These media organizations were targeted because of the instrumental role they played in documenting police abuses the 2004 RNC Convention. Their comprehensive video coverage helped more than 400 wrongfully arrested people get their charges thrown out.
You can go sign their petition to protest and demand the release of these hundreds of people.
Some good news in the world of mainstream television. As noted in Huffington Post, MSNBC president Phil Griffin was quoted in the New York Times:
Just in time for the closing rush of the presidential election, MSNBC is shaking up its prime-time programming lineup, removing the long-time host — and one-time general manager of the network — Dan Abrams from his 9 p.m. program and replacing him with Rachel Maddow, who has emerged as a favored political commentator for the all-news cable channel.
I’m lucky enough to live in the Northampton, Massachusetts area, where Maddow got her broadcasting start years ago, as the offbeat news anchor/sidekick on the Dave in the Morning show, on WRNX-FM. I still listened when she did her own morning show on WRSI, also in Northampton, and occasionally caught her show on Air America. She still lives in the area on weekends.
Maddow is smart, sasy, and porogressive, amaziingly well-informed, and has an authoritative voice. Best of luck and congrats, Rachel!
We *have* made progress! A Utah newspaper, the Herald Journal, ran its first announcement of a same-sex marriage–and only four people canceled their subscriptions!
The paper ran a very clear announcement of its rationale here.
Bravo to the paper–and its readers, who I guess have noticed that the world is changing.
I live in Massachusetts. We’ve had gay marriage for I think three years now. And guess what–the sky hasn’t fallen! I think a lot of the people who supported some of the homophobic responses in the past have realized, now that they see openly gay married couples raising families, having jobs, and enjoying such taken-for-granted-by-heterosexuals privileges as visiting their partner in the hospital, that it is no threat to heterosexual marriage.
I have never understood why they felt threatened in the first place. My wife and I will be celebrating our 25th anniversary in October. We’ve been to several gay and lesbian weddings. I think it makes a family stronger when a couple can express their love and commitment and take on the responsibilities and benefits.
If the marketing team had to develop the stop sign. Props to my good buddy Peter Shankman of shankman.com and helpareporter.com for turning me on to this – he’s got it posted on his home page at the moment.
It’s all over the blogosphere–but not in the mainstream news: Cheney’s office considered sending in heavily armed Navy Seals on boats disguised as Iranian craft to create an artificial incident so the US could go to war against Iran, according to Seymour Hersh. The project was rejected, as Americans killing Americans didn’t sound appealing. But that they even considered it makes you wonder–this goes beyond even the deceptions used to get us into Iraq.
And why is the msm so silent on this?
Hersh is one of the most distinguished investigative journalists of our time–the person who broke the My Lai massacre story during the Vietnam war, more than 30 years ago, and who has broken several stories about various nefarious deeds in the Bush administration.
If this allegation is true (as I suspect it is), it is without question grounds for impeachment and probably criminal prosecution. But where’s the investigation?
In the first five pages of Google results for hersh hormuz seals, there is exactly one bit of coverage of Hersh’s very serious allegation in the mainstream media, from WQXT, St. Augustine, Florida. There was a story on today’s Democracy Now, which is where I heard about it–but that’s not the mainstream media.
Today, my local paper had an article about Britney Spears’ father continuing legal oversight over her finances. Why is this news, while a plot to take an illegal action and disguise it as the work of a hostile government in order to enter a war goes unmentioned?
I don’t give a flying f about Brittney–but I sure do care about actions on the part of our government that lead to lives lost, decrease the effectiveness of our diplomacy, channel the resources of the US government into all the wrong places, etc.
Video clip and transcript of Hersh’s interview at the Campus Progress journalism conference. Here’s a quick bit:
HERSH: There was a dozen ideas proffered about how to trigger a war. The one that interested me the most was why don’t we build — we in our shipyard — build four or five boats that look like Iranian PT boats. Put Navy seals on them with a lot of arms. And next time one of our boats goes to the Straits of Hormuz, start a shoot-up.
Might cost some lives. And it was rejected because you can’t have Americans killing Americans. That’s the kind of — that’s the level of stuff we’re talking about. Provocation. But that was rejected.
Call for Action: Fight the “Orphaning” of
Writers’ Constitutional Right to Copyright Protection
By guest blogger Jerry Colby, President, National Writers Union
[Note from Shel: This was originally sent by Jerry as a letter to members of the NWU. I asked if I could post it here to share with non-NWU members.]
Librarians typically want to expand the public’s access to their
collections. It’s in their nature to help people grow in
knowledge. While getting a salary, they do not do this just for
money.
Online database companies and publishers, like librarians,
archive works in the arts and sciences. They, too, want to see
more people using the works they have stored in digital format.
Unlike librarians, however, they do this for profit by selling
digital copies of others’ works. For years they did this without
seeking permission from writers and artists who created these
works – until the Supreme Court in 2001 declared this illegal in
its Tasini v. New York Times et al. decision which affirmed that
usage of work must be paid for in electronic media.
The database companies and publishers have not given up their
efforts to seize control of the rights to copyrighted works they
want to sell through the Internet. Beside all-rights contracts,
they have also targeted a category of copyrighted works whose
authors are least likely to defend themselves because their
whereabouts are unknown. The media industry has taken to calling
these books, plays, articles, poems, photographs, illustrations,
and so on “orphan works.” Now the publishers want the legal right
to use these works without the rights-holders’ permission. All
they would have to do, as proposed in new legislation (S. 2913,
the Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008), is make a “diligent
effort” to locate the rights-holder which is “reasonable and
appropriate” according to government standards for “best
practice” overseen by copyright experts hired by libraries. Such
searches would be beyond the budgets of all but the largest
publishers and database companies.
This would stand copyright law on its head. Since the 1976
Copyright Act went into effect in 1978, writers supposedly had to
do nothing to enjoy copyright protection of their works. Any work
not in the public domain cannot be used without permission of the
rights-holder. This “opt-in” requirement is in compliance with
the spirit of the copyright clause in Article 1, Section 8 of the
U.S. Constitution, which vested original and exclusive ownership
of works with their creators for a limited time (currently the
lifetime of the creator plus 70 years) in order to encourage
innovation in American society. Such a bill strikes at the very
heart of capitalism’s success and the source of innovation
crucial to any nation’s cultural and economic growth. What is
really being proposed is the orphaning of our constitutional
right to copyright protection.
Should this orphan works bill become law, infringement of
copyright of orphaned works, both domestic and foreign, would be
permitted after a vague “due diligence” search for the rights-
holder. The negative impact this could have is manifold. Our
foreign trade partners who take copyright very seriously would
fight American companies encouraged by this act to raid works
summarily declared orphan after computer and phone searches. It
takes little imagination to see where this might lead.
Retaliatory raids by competing foreign companies on American
orphan works could escalate into trade wars over orphaned
intellectual property. Given the enormous role intellectual
property plays in the global market, such trade wars could easily
expand and unravel carefully negotiated international trade
agreements. Ironically, this orphan works act could damage
international trade in such intellectual property as music and
movies where the U.S. still holds a favorable trade balance.
Congress should signal an end to the decades-long indulgence of
corporate greed and insist everyone play by same the rules. It
should table the onerous bill until a more thought-through
version that respects the property rights of creators can be
crafted.
Congresspeople are very sensitive to influence during national
election years. Writers would be wise to remind their
representatives to observe the constitutional covenant with
American writers and artists. I urge all NWU members to take the
lead here, look at the two letters on orphan works currently
posted on the nwu.org website for ideas, and write your own
letters to Congress. Be sure to also send a copy of your letters
to the National Office.
Gerard Colby, trade union activist, investigative journalist and author, is currently serving his second term as the President of the National Writers Union, UAW Local 1981. Colby is co-author (with Charlotte Dennett) of Thy Will Be Done: The Conquest of the Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil (HarperCollins, 1995), author of Du Pont Dynasty: Behind the Nylon Curtain (Lyle Stuart, 1984), and lead contributor to Into the Buzzsaw: Leading Journalists Expose the Myth of a Free Press (Prometheus, 2003), winner of the 2003 National Press Club award for press criticism.
He can be reached at
By some weird coincidence, both Seth Godin and David Garfinkel (names well known to any student of modern marketing) went after the media for distorting the news to artificially create drama this week.
Godin, posting today, looked at CNN’s report on yesterday’s Indiana and North Carolina primaries, and found the headline and focus only told one part of the story. While accurate on its face, the headline, “Clinton ‘full speed ahead’ After Indiana Nail-biter”, was misleading.
A more appropriate but less dramatic rendition of the results, he says, would have conveyed a very different story.
The page would have been more accurate if it had said things like, “Obama gains more than 200,000 votes over Clinton” or “Obama campaign further extends delegate lead, picking up 12 more delegates” or even “Obama pummels Clinton in the bigger state.”
That’s not dramatic, though, and as William Randolph Hearst taught us a long time ago, the goal is to sell newspapers, not to report the news.
A day earlier, Garfinkel attacked the San Francisco Chronicle for similar manipulation on a totally different topic: “Is Any Web Site Safe? No Way to be Sure.”
First, Garfinkel points out that the paper is using a technique for which journalists often diss marketers:
The headline is bad enough — but we all know that fear sells, and it certainly sells newspapers. (Don’t think I’m going to take it lightly though the next time I see or hear a journalist taking a swipe at an ad because it preys on people’s fears.)
And then he points out the neurolinguistic programming (NLP) implications of a headline that could be read several different ways.
This intersection of the journalist mind and the marketer mind is a stream where I swim regularly, and I think both of these guys are right. What do you think?
More on the scandal I wrote about Sunday regarding the Pentagon’s shills infiltrating the media in the run-up to the Iraq war.
This from Jim Lehrer’s Online News Report. Lehrer’s guest was John Stauber, founder/executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy and author of Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush’s War on Iraq and other books:
What happened here was a psy-ops campaign, an incredible government propaganda campaign whereby Donald Rumsfeld and Torie Clark, the head of public relations for the Pentagon, designed a program to recruit 75, at least 75 former military officers, as your report said, most of them now lobbyists or consultants to military contractors, and insert them, beginning in 2002, before the attack on Iraq was even launched, into the major networks to manage the messages, to be surrogates.
And that’s the words that are actually used, “message multipliers” for the secretary of defense and for the Pentagon. This program continues right up to now.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And is the essence of this that what they did was — what the Pentagon did was illegal?
JOHN STAUBER: Yes, what they did was illegal. Now, the Pentagon might contest that, but we’ve had various laws on the books in our country going back to the 1920s. It is illegal for the U.S. government to propagandize citizens in this way.
In my opinion, this war could have never been sold if it were not for this sophisticated propaganda campaign. And what we need is congressional investigation of not just this Pentagon military analyst program, but all the rest of the deception and propaganda that came out of the Bush administration and out of the Pentagon that allowed them to sell and manage this war.