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Editoral Policy | Webeditorial
Newswire Archive                   Hidden

Media

Turkey Targets Press Freedom

by Stephen Lendman

No country imprisons more journalists than Turkey. Ragip Zarakolu understands well. He's a prominent human rights activist/publisher. He's a former Nobel Peace Prize nominee. He's been maliciously targeted for years.

In 1998, he won the International Publishers Association (IPA) International Freedom to Publish Award. He couldn't attend the Frankfurt ceremony. Authorities confiscated his passport.

In 2003, he received the NOVIB/PEN Free Expression Award. In 2008, IPA gave him a second Freedom to Publish Award.

In March 2012, he was imprisoned. He was targeted after receiving the Assyrian Culture Centre's Assyrian Cultural Award. It honored his human and minority rights advocacy.

Two weeks ago, on 31st January, the Nottingham Indymedia collective disabled the ability to publish new newswire items. This drastic action was taken in order to demonstrate what will be lost if the collective folds, in the hope that those who use the site will step up to keep it going. A meeting will be held at the Sumac Centre tomorrow, on Monday 18th Feb, to discuss the future of the project and all those with an interest in being involved are invited to attend. From CEASEFIRE quarterly

FAIR v. Scoundrel Media Misreporting on Venezuela

by Stephen Lendman

Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) is a "national media watch group." It's an "anti-censorship organization."

It features "neglected news stories." It "defend(s) working journalists when they are muzzled."

It prioritizes truth and full disclosure. Since 1986, it's held media scoundrel feet to the fire.

It exposes their managed news misinformation. It does so in their own words. It hoists them on their own petard.

"What's Wrong with the News," it asked? Democratic freedom requires independent journalism. People have a right to know. Media scoundrels support wealth, power, privilege and dominance.

The arrests of the five men, whose detention came days after a Nepalese soldier was held in Britain on charges of torture, are the first in Nepal for crimes committed during the decade-long conflict that ended in 2006.

The five men, all middle-ranking cadres, have been charged with the abduction and murder of Dekendra Raj Thapa, a radio reporter and human rights activist who died in 2004.

Lachhiram Gharti, one of the accused, had confessed to taking part in the murder, Binod Sharma, an inspector in the western district of Dailekh, told AFP.

'He confessed to us that they kidnapped (the victim) under the pretext of a discussion on water supply and took him to a local school,' Sharma said.

Good Guys We're Not

by Stephen Lendman

David Cromwell is a Scottish writer, activist and oceanographer at the National Oceanography Centre in Britain. He and David Edwards are Media Lens.org co-editors.

It's an antidote to misinformation. It critiques mainstream media propaganda, bias and censorship. It provides credible facts, opinion, and in-depth analysis on issues mattering most.

It's what journalism should be but isn't in an age of mass deception. People are on their own to separate truth from fiction. Media Lens provides help.

Both writers co-authored "Newspeak in the 21st Century" and "Guardians of Power." They explain what everyone needs to know. Media reliability along with free and open societies are at risk.

The report by Washington-based NGO Freedom House places Britain only eighth when measuring digital freedoms such as access to the internet and online free expression laws.

The US came second, Germany third, while Estonia was found to have the greatest level of freedom on the internet. Unusually, the Eastern European country allows its citizens to vote online.

Compared to Estonia and the US, the UK performed badly in terms of restrictions on online activity, surveillance and privacy.

In June, Google revealed that the number of UK government requests for users' private data had increased by 25 per cent on the year.

 After non-stop war mongering, The New York Times took a second to wipe the blood off its hands to report the true state of things in Syria.  Apparently, the previous, ongoing reports about the Syrian army indiscriminately massacring citizens in the city of Homs was simply a lie, repeated over and over.
 
It now turns out that the exact opposite was true.

 

David Sanger's War on Iran

by Stephen Lendman

Sanger is New York Times chief Washington correspondent. Previously he held other posts. He's reported on foreign policy, globalization, Asian issues, and nuclear-related ones.

Cooperatively with other Times correspondents, he won two Pulitzer Prizes. Its board might consider retracting them.

After Obama's 2009 inaugural address, his characterization of the new president was dishonest and delusional. He called his new administration "a stark repudiation of the era of George W. Bush and the ideological certainties that surrounded it."

His connection to Chicago politics and monied interests reflected otherwise. So did his Illinois and US Senate records. Policies he supported told all. Few took time to check.

You can tell that I'm conditioned by certain sights and phrases. I looked at a blog post and saw a photo of a woman on CNN who questioned Tony Perkins (The post accurately identified Perkins as the "SPLC-certified hate group leader") and I don't know, just something about her bearing and manner suggested a very pro-Establishment kind of reporter, so I immediately thought "Aw yeesh! How his this woman embarrassed the liberal cause? What wingnut phrases has she adopted wholesale? What right-wing misinformation has she been spreading?"