Media
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Hersh: Syria Sarin Story 'Was Bought by the Mainstream Press' By Peter Hart
A new piece by veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh argues that the Obama administration’s case against Syria over a sarin gas attack last August relied on cherry-picked intelligence. Hersh’s piece was not published in the New Yorker, where so much of his work appears. And it apparently was not of interest to the Washington Post… Continue reading
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NYT Takes Mandela's Death as a Chance to Mock His Fight to Free His Country By Jim Naureckas
Former New York Times executive editor Bill Keller wrote his paper’s obituary for Nelson Mandela (12/6/13). As you might have guessed, it glosses over the CIA’s role in helping the apartheid government catch Mandela (Extra!, 3-4/90): “Upon his capture he was charged with inciting a strike and leaving the country without a passport” is all… Continue reading
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Red-herring ‘inquisition’: Guardian editor robustly defends Snowden leaks to UK MPs
Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger strongly defended his newspaper’s publication of the Snowden leaks in response to a hostile grilling by a UK parliamentary committee Tuesday, as MPs attempted to show that national security was breached. Continue reading
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The BBC and Government: time for some more light? By Brian Winston
The unwritten conventions of the British Constitution, anyway very much a concept cut from whole cloth by 19th century Vinerian professors of English Law at Oxford, are scarcely of a piece with the low political horse trading that has gone on at every BBC Charter renewal since the first in 1936. A BBC veto is… Continue reading
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CNN cuts ‘most crucial points’ from interview with Russia's UN envoy on Syria
CNN has made significant cuts to its interview with the Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, most notably his comments on the number of people that actually support Syrian President Bashar Assad. Continue reading
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Copyright Maximalists Harm Authors
Copyright maximalists want all sorts of new laws to “help authors get paid”. Well, I’m a published author, and all their efforts to “help” cost me money. Even if we strictly limit the argument to printed books, copyright maximalists still only succeed in harming authors and publishers. This is how. Continue reading
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Media Diversified: An Interview with Samantha Asumadu By Alice Bell
We talked to Samantha Asumadu, a documentary filmmaker, former journalist and campaigner about her project Media Diversified, which tackles the lack of diversity in UK media and the ubiquity of whiteness it both reflects and perpetuates. Continue reading
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9/11 and the Collapse of WTC Building 7: The BBC’s Role in Distorting the Evidence and Misleading the Public By Peter Drew
In their documentary, the BBC went to great lengths to attempt to demonstrate through their own analysis that WTC Building 7 had not actually achieved free fall acceleration, as claimed by the professional experts, and that therefore this was not evidence that could be used to contradict the official version of events on 9/11. The… Continue reading
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Media: Iran's Suspicious Smile By Peter Hart
There are suspicions, mostly coming from some US and Israeli officials, that the country’s enrichment activities are intended to produce a nuclear weapon. But international inspectors have never found evidence of this, and official US intelligence estimates are that Iran is not currently working on a weapons program. Continue reading
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The Rise of Establishment Reporting: How a Crisis in Journalism Led to the “Cult of Balance” By John Nichols and Robert W. McChesney
A crisis in journalism lasted from the 1890s until the 1920s. Party-driven journalism had disintegrated, the increasingly lucrative and powerful newspaper magnates ruled their independent empires and exercised considerable political power, and the pursuit of profit sometimes led to an incredible, even appalling, journalism. Mounting public anger and dissatisfaction with the journalism of this era… Continue reading
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The Battle Over The Future of Journalism is Becoming More Intense By Danny Schechter
America’s largest media reform organization commemorated ten years of a media war but other forces are at work to undercut their efforts Continue reading
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Police State UK: The NSA spy scandal and the attack on press freedom By Chris Marsden
Recently released police documents on the August 18 arrest and questioning at London’s Heathrow airport of David Miranda, the domestic partner of journalist Glenn Greenwald, are a serious warning on the advanced stage of the decay of democracy in Britain and internationally. Continue reading
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Police State UK: The witch-hunt of Britain’s Guardian newspaper By Julie Hyland
Raids on newspaper offices, the forced destruction of computer drives and threats to arrest journalists are actions more commonly associated with military dictatorships. But this is exactly what has been meted out against the Guardian, with threats of worse to come. Continue reading
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Police State UK: Guardian faces parliamentary investigation over Snowden revelations By Chris Marsden
Britain’s Guardian newspaper is facing an investigation by at least one parliamentary committee, in line with demands made by Prime Minister David Cameron, concerning the exposures of Edward Snowden, the whistleblower from America’s National Security Agency (NSA). Continue reading
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NYT's Iraq War History, Still Misleading By Peter Hart
As the story goes (and was reported at the time), Bustani had been working on getting Iraq to agree to join the Chemical Weapons Convention. This was an unwelcome development for the Bush administration, since it could complicate efforts to invade Iraq based in part on its chemical weapons stockpile. Continue reading
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NYT's OPCW "He Said, She Said" Reporting Misses Major Judgement
In 2002 José Bustani, the then head of the now Nobel prized Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, was fired because his insistence on bringing Iraq into the Chemical Weapon Treaty conflicted with the war plans of the Bush administration. Continue reading
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The NHS and You: The BBC wants to hear from you
The BBC is asking for your views on its news and current affairs coverage. This is a good chance to feedback any comments you may have on its coverage of the NHS Continue reading
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Charlie Rose: Media Straight Man for Bashar el-Assad By Cameron Salisbury
On Monday night, September 9, 2013, media personality Charlie Rose sat down with Syria’s leader Bashar el-Assad for an interview that lasted the better part of an hour. It was a remarkable conversation but not for the reasons that Charlie Rose is being treated like a conquering hero at CBS. The person who deserves the… Continue reading
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On Syria, Sunday Morning TV Journalists Don't Need Proof By Peter Hart
The public doesn’t seem to support going to war in Syria–but some high-profile Sunday morning TV journalists are either declaring their support for the war, or professing faith in the case for going to war. Continue reading
The New Dark Age 