Media

By Charles M. Young

In journalism and in life, it is best to admit it when you’re wrong, and I was wrong last week. In my haste to write something timely about the triumphant return of Occupy Wall Street to the front lines of protest on May 1, I assumed that Fox Five New York and the NYPD were uniquely stupid as they colluded on a story about the possibility of Arab terrorists secreting bombs in their “cavities,” as the reporter referred to certain familiar orifices that are usually unmentioned on television. Fox Five led their 10:00 pm newscast with the story and I, in my cynicism, thought that only the minions of Rupert Murdoch could lead the news with an imaginary explosion of fecal matter and viscera on a day when Occupy Wall Street had tied up traffic all over Manhattan.

Boy, was I naive.

  New York Times Publishes Hate Ad

by Stephen Lendman

The Times notoriously provides one-sided Israel/Palestine coverage. Jewish rights and all things Israel matter. Palestinians don't count. 

  World Press Freedom Day

by Stephen Lendman

America's First Amendment affirms it. So does Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 

By Michael Collins

When things don't work out, doing business with Murdoch can be the kiss of death.

No matter how hard you try, how loyal you are, if something goes wrong, you can be sure it will be your fault.

Reporting has failed to lay the proper foundation for understanding Rupert Murdoch's remarkable testimony before the Leveson Inquiry in London and his behavior of late.

Rupert Murdoch is a nihilist.

Murdoch’s television outlets in the United States stoked the fires for the 2003 invasion of Iraq based on outrageous misrepresentations like the idea that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. The war cost tens of thousands of dead and seriously injured U.S. soldiers, several hundred thousand dead Iraqi civilians, and $3 trillion. (Image: acb)

Last summer, Murdoch went full throttle to support Republicans in the U.S. Congress as they fabricated a debt ceiling crisis that seriously damaged the credit rating of the United States of America.

Murdoch’s support of the Tea Party created an utterly irrational voice in U.S. politics that prevents even the most modest necessary reforms. Created by right wing lobbyists, this pseudo party blocks every vital project, from reviving the economy to an effective, coordinated response to the crisis created by climate change.

  Targeting Murdoch

by Stephen Lendman

Quelle surprise! Britain's parliament discovered what media critics and people wanting real news and information knew decades ago.

By Charles M. Young

I got home at 10:00 pm on the nose, and the first thing I did was take off my shoes after 14 hours of May Day marching with 30-40,000 other conscientious objectors to capitalism. My feet hurt, okay? My second priority was turning on the local news, which happened to be Fox Five New York. According to my watch, it was 10:02. I didn’t see the first few seconds of the story, but it must have have been the lead. There was Ray Kelly, the chief of police, talking about...not Occupy Wall Street?...no, it was a video of him on some talk show, warning of the apparently imminent threat of Arab terrorists “implanting” bombs in their bodies and blowing up airplanes and buildings.

Scott Camil, a veteran of the second-longest U.S. war in history, that on Vietnam, radically changed a discussion of the longest war in U.S. history, that on Afghanistan, on CNN on Sunday.

CNN's Don Lemon tried repeatedly to explain troops posing with body parts as an inscrutable result of war, without questioning the justification of that war.  Repeatedly, Lemon instructed viewers not to judge soldiers. 

A guest to whom Lemon devoted a great deal of time, Dr. Terry Lyles, followed Lemon's leads and was praised by Lemon as the best guest he'd heard from on the topic.  Lyles suggested the problem was one of public relations: "We need to do a better job," he said, "you know, with them psychologically to help them understand that the world is watching.  Be careful about what you do and what you capture while what you're doing every day is very difficult."

Scott Camil took a different tack, saying: "Well no we don't know what it's like to be in combat unless you've been in combat, but I think the real question is: you're nit picking when you're talking about things like people posing with bodies.  The real question should be why are we at war in the first place? Why are we killing so many people in the first place? The concern over posing with someone that's dead, it seems to me the fact that that person is dead and that we're killing people is more important than what happens after they're dead." 

Camil's comment was so effective that the next panelist to speak shifted to his topic.  Holly Hughes remarked: "Scott hit the nail on the head because now we've opened a dialogue.  What are we talking about now?  Shouldn't we be more upset that we're out there killing people? . . . Maybe we need to assess why we're there in the first place." 

Camil continued: "What I understand is what it's like to be in a war zone and I understand the behavior in a war zone.  And I would say that, first of all, that war is really an institution made up of criminal behavior.  When we as civilians want to solve our problems, we're not allowed to murder people and burn their houses down.  I don't see why war is an acceptable means of conflict resolution.  And furthermore, the majority of people that die are innocent civilians."

Some fundamental truths are rarely spoken on television.

Watch the video:

Scott Camil was honorably discharged with 13 medals including 2 purple hearts following 20 months voluntarily spent as a Marine in Vietnam in 1966 and 1967.  He testified at the Winter Soldier Investigation in 1971, and was a founding member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War Inc. He is an active member of Veterans For Peace and serves as the President of Chapter 014 in Gainesville, Florida.

Veterans for Peace was founded in 1985 and has approximately 5,000 members in 150 chapters located in every U.S. state and several countries.  It is a 501(c)3 non-profit educational organization recognized as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) by the United Nations, and is the only national veterans' organization calling for the abolishment of war.

By Joseph P. Blake

I believe that absolutely nothing happens in a vacuum.

There is always a connection between why things happen and the something (or someone) that made it happen. All too frequently that connection is not easily apparent, and that creates problems.

I’m convinced there is a connection between the contemporary television shows like “Axe Men,” “Ice Road Truckers”, “Swamp People”, “Hillbilly Noodling”, "Sarah Palin’s Alaska” and a play entitled, “Puddin’ Head.”

The Department of Theater at Temple University in Philadelphia, staged that play – containing racist content – as its contribution to Black History Month this year.

Rupert Murdoch's reign over the $33 billion News Corporation hinges on events surrounding the company's ownership share of Britain's dominant pay TV network, BSkyB (Sky). As Business Insider said, "it's the only asset that really matters" in the News Corp collection of media properties.

As a result of Murdoch scandals, News Corp lost the chance to buy 100% of Sky's shares. More troubling for the media monarch, the company may lose the 39% interest it already holds if British regulators determine that Murdoch is not a fit and proper owner. This would fuel the major News Corp shareholder suits in Delaware and New York that seek to remove Murdoch as board chairman and vastly diminish his power and that of his family and cronies.

Sky reaches 25 million viewers in 10 million homes. Revenues are growing at 10% a year with adjusted operating profit growth averaging around 16% of revenues  (see 2009 through 2011). Revenues from 2012 through 2016 should top $70 billion total with adjusted operating profits around $11 billion. What happens with Sky really matters.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has delivered a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that calls for a resumption of peace negotiations.

Look at the image the Washington Post (4/18/12) used to accompany its story about this :

I will admit that a letter might not lend itself to an interesting graphic, but it sure seems odd to use a fiery Molotov cocktail instead.

By John Grant

Whore: (verb) To debase oneself by doing something for unworthy motives, typically to make money.

-The New Oxford American Dictionary

It’s a challenge to make adult sense of the absurdities coming out of Colombia right now.

By Michael Collins

Rupert Murdoch is in big trouble.  It is not a perfect storm but we're getting there.

British attorney Mark Lewis is in New York to take legal action in behalf of clients who may have had their phones hacked in the United States.

More significantly, News Corp withdrew its bid to buy the remaining 61% of BSkyB, the highly profitable British cable TV franchise (£1.1 billion 2011, News Corp owns 39% now). (Murdoch images: left, right)

Last week, James Murdoch stepped down as chairman of BSkyB after surviving a challenge to his position just weeks ago.

By Danny Schechter

New York: Mike Wallace lived a long life and became one of America’s best-known non-anchor news stars, whose frequent appearances stirred controversies and broke countless stories.

The picture in the New York Times obit showed his wall of Emmys—I am sure he had a museumfull—all thanks to his relentless drive and unlimited energy.

Later in life, he would acknowledge that he was a manic depressive, but it was that manic part that pushed him to interview a who’s who of who was, and expose endless bad guys often with gimmicky confrontational interviews that showcased his considerable talents on 60 Minutes, for decades. America’s most watched news magazine.

My earliest memory of him was not on CBS where he achieved iconic status but on a network that came and went called Dumont, where he did an interview show for many years before he went national.

By Michael Collins

There was something tawdry and disgusting about the phone hacking by Rupert Murdoch's News of the World. The News Corporation owned tabloid hacked the phone mails of several thousand citizens of Great Britain. Victims included celebrities, politicians, and even a murdered eleven year old kidnap victim.

But that wasn't enough to generate type of criminal investigation of News Corporation that would topple Rupert Murdoch and his clan from the throne of the $30 billion News Corporation.

The current revelations of cable television hacking, laid out in detail by Australia's Financial Review and the BBC, provide a more concrete connection between outright criminality and the Murdoch run media giant. This alleged criminal behavior involves hackers on the payroll of a former Murdoch controlled Israel based company, NDS, and the demise of cable television competitors in Great Britain, the United States, and Australia due to that activity.

These allegations are reinvigorating the institutional shareholders revolt that may be the end of the Murdoch clan's control of News Corporation.

People who know better gave Rachel Maddow's new book unqualified praise in blurbs on the dust jacket. Maybe they see more good than bad in the book, which is called "Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power."  That's a fair assessment.  I'd love for a hundred million Americans or so who never read books to read this one.  It wouldn't be the first book I'd pick, but it would probably do a lot more good than harm. 

Get the latest edition free right here: PDF.

By Linn Washington, Jr.

I don’t know Temple University photojournalism major Ian Van Kuyk, despite his enrollment in Temple’s Journalism Department, where I teach.

I do know that dynamics embedded in the recent arrest of Van Kuyk by Philadelphia police--an arrest now generating news coverage nationwide--provide yet another snapshot of the systemic abuses I’ve reported and researched during three decades spent examining and documenting the lawlessness of supposed law enforcers.

I also know that police attacking civilians for lawfully photographing public spaces, police routinely employing unlawful excessive force and prosecutors too frequently turning a blind eye to such police misconduct are all nationwide problems.

By Dave Lindorff

If you want to know where the real government of the United States is located, just check out one of the documents received by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund in response to their Freedom of Information Act request to the Dept. of Homeland Security relating to surveillance of the Occupy Movement. That document, from the Secret Service, dated September 17, 2011, the day the Occupy movement began on Wall Street, from the US Secret Service Intelligence Division, titled Prism Demonstrations Abstract, list the location as “Wall Street Bull” -- a reference to the bronze statue of a bull on Wall Street in front of the

 New York Stock Exchange, and the “protectee” as “The United States Government.”

  New York Times Promotes War on Syria and Iran

by Stephen Lendman

As America's leading broadsheet, what it reports matters, especially on war and peace. 

Instead of accuracy, full disclosure, and supporting right over wrong, The Times consistently cheerleads US wars and prospective ones.

  Asking the Wrong Questions About War

by Stephen Lendman

Former New York Times executive editor Bill Keller now writes Times op-eds on alternate Mondays, as well as articles for The New York Times Magazine.

Too bad his columns get failing grades. Scoundrel journalism is featured. Truth and full disclosure are excluded. His March 18 article is typical. 

By Linn Washington, Jr.

The continuing exodus of advertisers from the Rush Limbaugh radio show following his vulgar rants about a female law school student is generating many strange twists.

One exodus-related twist is the filling of the air-time ad void on Limbaugh’s program with public service announcements.

Ironically, that void is now being filled by public service announcements from entities Rush loves to hate like the federal Environmental Protection Agency – the entity responsible for regulating the toxic polluters Limbaugh’s always so quick to defend.

One of the stranger twists in having PSAs fill the paid-ad void on Limbaugh’s program is broadcasting PSAs from the United Negro College Fund.

By John Grant

When does a determination to look on the bright side turn into a state of denial? That is, when do leaders of a secrecy-obsessed US government admit the decision-making surrounding the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan was misguided from the beginning and the endgame is a mess because of it?

While the leadership of America is mud-wrestling with itself in the election "silly season," the nation is watching the wheels come off its military occupation of Afghanistan. It feels like that special effects TV ad for a new SUV in which, as the SUV speeds forward, thousands of its parts magically come flinging loose until we see nothing but the truck chassis speeding ahead.

  New York Times Wages War on Palestine

by Stephen Lendman

Like all US major media scoundrels, longstanding New York Times policy features one-sided pro-Israeli reports, commentaries, and opinions. 

Its coverage of Israel's latest Gaza aggression is one of many examples. More on that below.

  Waging War on Truth

by Stephen Lendman

Major media scoundrel reports, commentaries, and editorials distort, misreport, censor, and suppress. Truth and full disclosure lose out. Readers and viewers deserving better are cheated.

By Dave Lindorff

The sorry state of American journalism is on full display in the coverage by the corporate media of the ongoing crisis surrounding Iran’s nuclear fuel program.

The leaders of both Israel and the U.S. have publicly threatened to attack Iran -- Israel saying it could do so within weeks, President Obama warning that he would consider attacking Iran militarily if he were convinced that that nation was building an atomic bomb. 

  Lies, Damn Lies, and Major Media Scoundrel Journalism

by Stephen Lendman

Merriam-Webster's defines journalism as involving "writing characterized by a direct presentation of facts or description of events without an attempt at interpretation."

In other words, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing else.