At a time when access to reliable information can be a matter of life and death, newsrooms around the world are on the brink of collapse after a crushing year of nosediving revenues and systematic attacks on journalists.
The industry was already on the edge, falling newspaper sales coupled with audiences resistant to the idea of paying for online news leaving newsrooms dangerously dependent on advertising and donor funding.
And so while readership numbers soared over the past year for many organisations, a decimation of profits has triggered widespread layoffs and shrinking operations during a period of rampant disinformation. Coupled with global lockdowns and travel bans restricting vital on-the-ground reporting, journalists warn they face their toughest time yet.
Read more at:
Covid: Journalism close to extinction amid rampant disinformation | The Independent
Showing posts with label Journalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Journalism. Show all posts
2/3/21
8/17/16
Journalism Journalistic Hypocrites - by Robert Parry
Over the past few decades, the U.S. mainstream media has failed the
American people in a historic fashion by spinning false or misleading
narratives on virtually every important global issue, continuing to this
day to guide the nation into destructive and unnecessary conflicts.
To me, a major turning point came with the failure of the major news organizations to get anywhere near the bottom of the Iran-Contra scandal, including its origins in illicit contacts between Republicans and Iranians during the 1980 campaign and the Reagan administration’s collaboration with drug traffickers to support the Contra war in Nicaragua. (Instead, the major U.S. media disparaged reporting on these very real scandals.)
f these unsavory stories had been fully explained to the American people, their impression of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush would be far less favorable and the rise of Reagan’s neocon underlings might well have been halted. Instead the neocons consolidated their dominance over Official Washington’s foreign policy establishment and Bush’s inept son was allowed to take the White House in 2001.
Then, one might have thought that the disastrous invasion of Iraq in 2003 – justified by a legion of lies – would have finally doomed the neocons but, by then, they had deeply penetrated the national news media and major think tanks, with their influence reaching not only across the Republican Party but deeply into the Democratic Party as well.
So, despite the Iraq catastrophe, almost nothing changed. The neocons and their liberal interventionist chums continued to fabricate narratives that have led the United States into one mess after another, seeking more and more “regime change” and brushing aside recommendations for peaceful resolution of international crises.
For the complete report click here
To me, a major turning point came with the failure of the major news organizations to get anywhere near the bottom of the Iran-Contra scandal, including its origins in illicit contacts between Republicans and Iranians during the 1980 campaign and the Reagan administration’s collaboration with drug traffickers to support the Contra war in Nicaragua. (Instead, the major U.S. media disparaged reporting on these very real scandals.)
f these unsavory stories had been fully explained to the American people, their impression of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush would be far less favorable and the rise of Reagan’s neocon underlings might well have been halted. Instead the neocons consolidated their dominance over Official Washington’s foreign policy establishment and Bush’s inept son was allowed to take the White House in 2001.
Then, one might have thought that the disastrous invasion of Iraq in 2003 – justified by a legion of lies – would have finally doomed the neocons but, by then, they had deeply penetrated the national news media and major think tanks, with their influence reaching not only across the Republican Party but deeply into the Democratic Party as well.
So, despite the Iraq catastrophe, almost nothing changed. The neocons and their liberal interventionist chums continued to fabricate narratives that have led the United States into one mess after another, seeking more and more “regime change” and brushing aside recommendations for peaceful resolution of international crises.
For the complete report click here
6/1/16
Isis, Isil, IS or Daesh?-has journalistic quest for sensationalism glorified these "Crapules"?
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| Daesh executions - a daily ritual |
In this process of extremely poor journalism, a large number of press outlets have indirectly glorified this bunch of brutal murderers, their followers and ideology, by giving them a variety of names, including,but not limited to - Isis to Isil, IS and Daesh.
Maybe the worst thing the Press did was naming the land occupied by this band of killers, the "Islamic State".
You don't need to be Einstein to understand that these swatches of land are not a state, will never be a state, and have very little to do with Islam.
"Daesh" (or Da'ish) is probably a far better name to call this group of murderers.
Both in the Middle East and further afield, it has been used as a way of challenging the legitimacy of the group, due to the negative connotations of the word.
Daesh is essentially an Arabic acronym formed from the initial letters of the group's previous name in Arabic - "al-Dawla al-Islamiya fil Iraq wa al-Sham".
Although it does not mean anything as a word in Arabic, it sounds unpleasant, and the group's supporters object to its use.
Daesh also sounds similar to an Arabic verb that means to tread underfoot, trample down, or crush something.
So if one feels the need to identify this group of terrorists, please use the name "Daesh", or you can also simply call them "les Crapules", as the French like to call them.
EU-Digest.1/3/16
European Media: 2015, an awful year for Europe’s free media - by Alex Spence
It was a terrible year for journalists in Europe.
Attacks by Islamic militants, unjustified arrests, assaults, harassment, threats and tougher legal restrictions made it harder for editors, reporters and photographers to hold the powerful to account across the region this year, according to media organizations and NGOs.
Hopes that politicians would increase protections for independent media after the murderous assault on Charlie Hebdo in Paris in January — when politicians proclaimed their commitment to free speech as a fundamental tenet of liberal democracy — were quickly dashed, the groups said. Instead, the ability of the press to report freely and critically was diminished in 2015 — and not just in countries on the periphery of the European Union with dubious human rights records.
“It’s been an awful year,” Ricardo Gutiérrez, general secretary of the European Federation of Journalists, the largest professional organization of journalists in Europe, told POLITICO in an interview. “I must say, five years ago I was not suspecting such a bad evolution.”
Dunja Mijatovic, representative for media freedom at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, said: “Unfortunately, we continued to see killings, attacks and threats targeting members of the media throughout 2015, and it has become evident that the overall media freedom situation has deteriorated the past year.”
“We have also seen a shift in how members of the media are being attacked and threatened, with the scale of these threats growing in both magnitude and severity.”
Eleven journalists in Europe were killed in 2015, including eight at Charlie Hebdo, according to the Council of Europe, which in April began monitoring instances of abuse against journalists. Thirty-three journalists across the region were physically assaulted, and dozens more were threatened or intimidated.
The decline of media freedom was most grave in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Turkey and the Western Balkans, Mijatovic said.
In Turkey, independent media organizations opposed to the government have been targeted during President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s authoritarian crackdown. Fourteen journalists are currently in prison there, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. They include Can Dündar, editor-in-chief of the daily Cumhuriyet, and his colleague Erdem Gül, who were accused of espionage after reporting that Turkish intelligence services were allegedly smuggling weapons into Syria.
The crackdown in Azerbaijan has been even more repressive, the NGOs said. In the best-known case, Khadija Ismayilova, an investigative journalist for Radio Free Europe who has published reports about government corruption, was sentenced to seven-and-a-half-years on charges including conducting an illegal business, tax evasion and embezzlement. Other journalists have been jailed on trumped-up charges of possessing guns and drugs.
There have also been alarming developments within the European Union, the media groups said.
Tighter regulation and political pressure has weakened press freedom in Hungary. Journalists in Germany have repeatedly been physically attacked while reporting on anti-refugee demonstrations organized by the far-right Pegida group. Numerous reporters in Italy have been threatened for writing about organized crime.
In Spain, the media’s role as political watchdog has been diminished. Plans by Poland’s new conservative government to reform its media have sparked concerns about editorial independence.
“We’re definitely going backwards,” William Horsley, of the Association of European Journalists, said in an interview. “It’s become clearer than ever that there is a very widespread and many-sided oppression of free media going on. It consists both of coercion — pressure and violence — and also cooption, the taking over of media space by pressure groups and politicians.”
“Media freedom, pluralism, and the protection of journalists are at the very base of a free and democratic society,” a spokeswoman for the Commission said. “The Commission stands for these values and is supporting them through different initiatives and when legally justified in the scope of its competences.”
However, representatives of several journalism and free-speech groups said they have been disappointed by the EU’s commitment to media freedom. Among their concerns is that officials in Brussels will overlook Turkey’s treatment of independent journalists in return for Erdoğan’s help in dealing with the Syrian refugee crisis.
\Read more: 2015, an awful year for Europe’s free media – POLITICO
Attacks by Islamic militants, unjustified arrests, assaults, harassment, threats and tougher legal restrictions made it harder for editors, reporters and photographers to hold the powerful to account across the region this year, according to media organizations and NGOs.
Hopes that politicians would increase protections for independent media after the murderous assault on Charlie Hebdo in Paris in January — when politicians proclaimed their commitment to free speech as a fundamental tenet of liberal democracy — were quickly dashed, the groups said. Instead, the ability of the press to report freely and critically was diminished in 2015 — and not just in countries on the periphery of the European Union with dubious human rights records.
“It’s been an awful year,” Ricardo Gutiérrez, general secretary of the European Federation of Journalists, the largest professional organization of journalists in Europe, told POLITICO in an interview. “I must say, five years ago I was not suspecting such a bad evolution.”
Dunja Mijatovic, representative for media freedom at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, said: “Unfortunately, we continued to see killings, attacks and threats targeting members of the media throughout 2015, and it has become evident that the overall media freedom situation has deteriorated the past year.”
“We have also seen a shift in how members of the media are being attacked and threatened, with the scale of these threats growing in both magnitude and severity.”
Eleven journalists in Europe were killed in 2015, including eight at Charlie Hebdo, according to the Council of Europe, which in April began monitoring instances of abuse against journalists. Thirty-three journalists across the region were physically assaulted, and dozens more were threatened or intimidated.
The decline of media freedom was most grave in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Turkey and the Western Balkans, Mijatovic said.
In Turkey, independent media organizations opposed to the government have been targeted during President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s authoritarian crackdown. Fourteen journalists are currently in prison there, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. They include Can Dündar, editor-in-chief of the daily Cumhuriyet, and his colleague Erdem Gül, who were accused of espionage after reporting that Turkish intelligence services were allegedly smuggling weapons into Syria.
The crackdown in Azerbaijan has been even more repressive, the NGOs said. In the best-known case, Khadija Ismayilova, an investigative journalist for Radio Free Europe who has published reports about government corruption, was sentenced to seven-and-a-half-years on charges including conducting an illegal business, tax evasion and embezzlement. Other journalists have been jailed on trumped-up charges of possessing guns and drugs.
There have also been alarming developments within the European Union, the media groups said.
Tighter regulation and political pressure has weakened press freedom in Hungary. Journalists in Germany have repeatedly been physically attacked while reporting on anti-refugee demonstrations organized by the far-right Pegida group. Numerous reporters in Italy have been threatened for writing about organized crime.
In Spain, the media’s role as political watchdog has been diminished. Plans by Poland’s new conservative government to reform its media have sparked concerns about editorial independence.
“We’re definitely going backwards,” William Horsley, of the Association of European Journalists, said in an interview. “It’s become clearer than ever that there is a very widespread and many-sided oppression of free media going on. It consists both of coercion — pressure and violence — and also cooption, the taking over of media space by pressure groups and politicians.”
“Media freedom, pluralism, and the protection of journalists are at the very base of a free and democratic society,” a spokeswoman for the Commission said. “The Commission stands for these values and is supporting them through different initiatives and when legally justified in the scope of its competences.”
However, representatives of several journalism and free-speech groups said they have been disappointed by the EU’s commitment to media freedom. Among their concerns is that officials in Brussels will overlook Turkey’s treatment of independent journalists in return for Erdoğan’s help in dealing with the Syrian refugee crisis.
\Read more: 2015, an awful year for Europe’s free media – POLITICO
6/27/14
Journalism and Republican Rhetoric: Ann Coulter’s Latest Column Is A Parody Of People Who Hate Soccer -by Ashley Burns
As each day goes by, it becomes more and more difficult to ignore all
of the professional trolls and sh*t-stirrers out there in the
mainstream media. Between Skip Bayless and Jay Mariotti, I’m surprised
that I haven’t been locked away in a dark room, miles below the surface
while I scratch “LeBron James is not clutch” onto every square inch of
the walls, using only my fingernails as writing utensils.
Fortunately, I’ve been able to train myself in an almost ninja-like way to ignore all of the political writers out there from both parties and beyond, because life is just too short to worry about what fart-sniffing partisan cheerleaders have to say about what’s going to end this world.
But then Ann Coulter had to go and mess with the growing respect and appreciation for soccer that casual American sports fans have been experiencing in this 2014 FIFA World Cup, and the lady broke me on the morning of the U.S. Men’s National Team’s most important match of all-time.
Last night, she published a new column, “America’s Favorite National Pastime: Hating Soccer,” on her website, and it is a milestone in trolling the likes of which Mariotti only wishes he could pull off.
There is basically no way that this hilariously and pitifully ignorant screed wasn’t written as parody, because it had me cracking up from her very first point about how there is no individual glory in soccer.
Like a really bad stand-up comic at a casino in a rural town with a name you can’t pronounce or a complaint to the FCC about the way people answer questions on Family Feud, I ask that you just try to appreciate this for the sake of comedy, because there’s no way the people who actually believe Coulter’s latest rant can ever be brought back from the deepest end. Check it out, journalism students with minors in political science, because this is a course in taking it to the next level.
Read more: Ann Coulter’s Latest Column Is A Parody Of People Who Hate Soccer
Fortunately, I’ve been able to train myself in an almost ninja-like way to ignore all of the political writers out there from both parties and beyond, because life is just too short to worry about what fart-sniffing partisan cheerleaders have to say about what’s going to end this world.
But then Ann Coulter had to go and mess with the growing respect and appreciation for soccer that casual American sports fans have been experiencing in this 2014 FIFA World Cup, and the lady broke me on the morning of the U.S. Men’s National Team’s most important match of all-time.
Last night, she published a new column, “America’s Favorite National Pastime: Hating Soccer,” on her website, and it is a milestone in trolling the likes of which Mariotti only wishes he could pull off.
There is basically no way that this hilariously and pitifully ignorant screed wasn’t written as parody, because it had me cracking up from her very first point about how there is no individual glory in soccer.
Like a really bad stand-up comic at a casino in a rural town with a name you can’t pronounce or a complaint to the FCC about the way people answer questions on Family Feud, I ask that you just try to appreciate this for the sake of comedy, because there’s no way the people who actually believe Coulter’s latest rant can ever be brought back from the deepest end. Check it out, journalism students with minors in political science, because this is a course in taking it to the next level.
Read more: Ann Coulter’s Latest Column Is A Parody Of People Who Hate Soccer
4/14/14
Libya: Hands-On Training for Aspiring Libyan Journalists - by IWPR
“In Libya we are in need of young well-trained journalists,” Culture
Minister Habib al-Amin said. “We know journalism is not an easy job, but
we want to use it as a weapon that brings hope to us.”
The minister was speaking last week at the launch of a new Media Lab which will provide hands-on training for hundreds of Libyan journalism students who are about to take up careers in the country’s fast-growing media industry.
The Media Lab, the first “skills incubator” of its kind, was set up by IWPR in partnership with the University of Tripoli. It provides a modern learning environment with up-to-date television and radio broadcasting equipment, training studios and individual workstations where students will be able to create content under the tutelage of dedicated teaching staff.
“I’m very impressed by how it turned out. A few months ago it was completely empty, but now it is full of life and the hope of building a new media in Libya that starts from universities,” said Dr. Al-Madani Dakheel, head of the University of Tripoli.
A lab curriculum providing 100 hours of instruction for each student per year will supplement the existing four-year course of media studies at the universities, and give graduates a solid foundation in basic TV, audio and print/online production. In addition, up to 50 students will be selected for internships with IWPR’s media partners around Libya, giving them real-time newsroom experience. The trainees will go on to
join the first post-Gaddafi generation of professional journalists, operating in a difficult environment.
“The media in Libya was part of the revolution,” British ambassador Michael Aron said at the launch event. “We see that there were many incidents where journalists were threatened, kidnapped or even assassinated, and TV stations being attacked. Despite this, I encourage students to learn journalism and practice it, because Libya needs it.”
Read more: Hands-On Training for Aspiring Libyan Journalists - Institute for War and Peace Reporting - P57060
The minister was speaking last week at the launch of a new Media Lab which will provide hands-on training for hundreds of Libyan journalism students who are about to take up careers in the country’s fast-growing media industry.
The Media Lab, the first “skills incubator” of its kind, was set up by IWPR in partnership with the University of Tripoli. It provides a modern learning environment with up-to-date television and radio broadcasting equipment, training studios and individual workstations where students will be able to create content under the tutelage of dedicated teaching staff.
“I’m very impressed by how it turned out. A few months ago it was completely empty, but now it is full of life and the hope of building a new media in Libya that starts from universities,” said Dr. Al-Madani Dakheel, head of the University of Tripoli.
A lab curriculum providing 100 hours of instruction for each student per year will supplement the existing four-year course of media studies at the universities, and give graduates a solid foundation in basic TV, audio and print/online production. In addition, up to 50 students will be selected for internships with IWPR’s media partners around Libya, giving them real-time newsroom experience. The trainees will go on to
join the first post-Gaddafi generation of professional journalists, operating in a difficult environment.
“The media in Libya was part of the revolution,” British ambassador Michael Aron said at the launch event. “We see that there were many incidents where journalists were threatened, kidnapped or even assassinated, and TV stations being attacked. Despite this, I encourage students to learn journalism and practice it, because Libya needs it.”
Read more: Hands-On Training for Aspiring Libyan Journalists - Institute for War and Peace Reporting - P57060
7/6/13
Edward Snowden is a whistleblower, not a spy – but do our leaders care? - by Spencer Ackerman
According to US legislators and journalists, the surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden actively aided America's enemies. They are just missing one essential element for the meme to take flight: evidence.
An op-ed by Representative Mike Pompeo (Republican, Kansas) proclaiming Snowden, who provided disclosed widespread surveillance on phone records and internet communications by the National Security Agency, "not a whistleblower" is indicative of the emerging narrative. Writing in the Wichita Eagle on 30 June Pompeo, a member of the House intelligence committee, wrote that Snowden "has provided intelligence to America's adversaries".
Pompeo correctly notes in his op-ed that "facts are important". Yet when asked for the evidence justifying the claim that Snowden gave intelligence to American adversaries, his spokesman, JP Freire, cited Snowden's leak of NSA documents. Those documents, however, were provided to the Guardian and the Washington Post, not al-Qaeda or North Korea.
It's true that information published in the press can be read by anyone, including people who mean America harm. But to conflate that with actively handing information to foreign adversaries is to foreclose on the crucial distinction between a whistleblower and a spy, and makes journalists the handmaidens of enemies of the state.
Once elected and appointed leaders casually conflate leaking and espionage, it is a matter of time before journalists take the cue. For insight into the "fear and isolation that NSA leaker Edward Snowden is living through", CNN turned to Christopher Boyce – who sold US secrets to the USSR before becoming a bank robber.
Perhaps Snowden lied. Perhaps he might change his mind. But all of that is far off in the realm of speculation. As things stand now, there is no evidence Snowden has aided any US adversary or intelligence service, wittingly or not.
In an email meant to discredit Snowden in the press, an anonymous "senior administration official" told reporters on 24 June that Snowden's ostensible idealism "is belied by the protectors he has potentially chosen: China, Russia, Cuba, Venezuela and Ecuador". That's something to remember the next time Washington wants to talk about its commitment to human rights while cooperating with, say, Saudi Arabia, China, Russia and others who don't take human rights too seriously
Read more: Edward Snowden is a whistleblower, not a spy – but do our leaders care? | World news | guardian.co.uk
An op-ed by Representative Mike Pompeo (Republican, Kansas) proclaiming Snowden, who provided disclosed widespread surveillance on phone records and internet communications by the National Security Agency, "not a whistleblower" is indicative of the emerging narrative. Writing in the Wichita Eagle on 30 June Pompeo, a member of the House intelligence committee, wrote that Snowden "has provided intelligence to America's adversaries".
Pompeo correctly notes in his op-ed that "facts are important". Yet when asked for the evidence justifying the claim that Snowden gave intelligence to American adversaries, his spokesman, JP Freire, cited Snowden's leak of NSA documents. Those documents, however, were provided to the Guardian and the Washington Post, not al-Qaeda or North Korea.
It's true that information published in the press can be read by anyone, including people who mean America harm. But to conflate that with actively handing information to foreign adversaries is to foreclose on the crucial distinction between a whistleblower and a spy, and makes journalists the handmaidens of enemies of the state.
Once elected and appointed leaders casually conflate leaking and espionage, it is a matter of time before journalists take the cue. For insight into the "fear and isolation that NSA leaker Edward Snowden is living through", CNN turned to Christopher Boyce – who sold US secrets to the USSR before becoming a bank robber.
Perhaps Snowden lied. Perhaps he might change his mind. But all of that is far off in the realm of speculation. As things stand now, there is no evidence Snowden has aided any US adversary or intelligence service, wittingly or not.
In an email meant to discredit Snowden in the press, an anonymous "senior administration official" told reporters on 24 June that Snowden's ostensible idealism "is belied by the protectors he has potentially chosen: China, Russia, Cuba, Venezuela and Ecuador". That's something to remember the next time Washington wants to talk about its commitment to human rights while cooperating with, say, Saudi Arabia, China, Russia and others who don't take human rights too seriously
Read more: Edward Snowden is a whistleblower, not a spy – but do our leaders care? | World news | guardian.co.uk
4/24/12
Journalistic Ethics: James Murdoch appears at Leveson Inquiry - by Sam Marsden
James Murdoch is being grilled in London today about his stewardship of News International during the years when the phone-hacking scandal was growing.
The media boss is being asked asked about his time in charge of his father's UK national newspapers when he gives evidence to the Leveson Inquiry into press standards. He is likely to face fresh questions about when he learned that phone-hacking was not restricted to a single “rogue reporter”.
Two News of the World executives claim they warned him in June 2008 that the practice of illegally intercepting voicemail messages extended beyond the paper's former royal editor Clive Goodman, who was jailed in January 2007..
Mr Murdoch, 39, admitted last month that he shares the blame for not uncovering hacking sooner but denied turning a “blind eye” to alleged wrongdoing.
For more: James Murdoch appears at Leveson Inquiry - Home News - UK - The Independent
11/18/11
EU steps up attack on major credit ratings agencies - by David Gow
On Friday the author of the proposals, EU internal market commissioner Michel Barnier, fired a shot across the bows of the dominant US trio of agencies after the hugely embarrassing error committed by Standard & Poor's on Thursday, when it issued a downgrade of French sovereign debt by mistake.
Barnier, who will unveil his plans on Tuesday, said pointedly that they would create a European framework for civil liability "in the case of serious misconduct or gross negligence" indicating that this was especially relevant in the current case.
"This incident is serious and shows that in the current tense and volatile market situation, market players must exercise discipline and demonstrate a special sense f responsibility," he said. "This is all the more important since we are not talkig about just any market player but one of the biggest rating agencies."
Note EU-Digest: Great initiative by EU internal market commissioner Michael Barnier It is also recommended that not only the credit rating agencies should be scrutinized but also the Anglo Saxon corporate controlled financial communication/news agencies who are continuously on the war path against the EU while downplaying the problems in their own market areas. Its high time we get some balance in financial reporting.
For more: EU steps up attack on major credit ratings agencies | Business | The Guardian
3/15/10
Ads-oriented media breeds biased journalism - Mark Crispin Miller
Modern America’s media is a cartel system that is owned and dominated by a handful of huge corporations saddled with heavy debts, said author Mark Crispin Miller, who shared his views on American media and propaganda.
Miller says: “What they tend to do is cut costs wherever possible and at the same time go for the kind of material that they think will sell the most and the quickest,” said the author, “You basically get a new system that resembles the worst aspects of the Internet and that is simply because it is profit-driven, advertising-based and controlled – that is probably the most important – by a handful of enormous commercial entities that are very close to our government and that is not good for democracy.”
Note EU-Digest: It is not only in America where this happens, but in just about any country in the world. Unfortunately sensationalism sells and the media applies it in order to survive. The Ménage à Trois of Free Enterprise, Politics and Journalism has resulted in poorly informed and polarized citizens and the situation can only be expected to get worse.The positive side of the coin is that people are now turning in droves to the Internet and news blogs to form their own opinion. This fact obviously is also noticed by the world's corporate cartels and political establishment and has led them to also start infiltrating this last bastion of "freedom of expression" in a variety of devious manipulations. In this context it is also good to remember the saying, "that if hierarchy is inaccessible on the human level, then chaos will prevail rather than natural order."
For the complete report: Ads-oriented media breeds biased journalism – author - RT
Miller says: “What they tend to do is cut costs wherever possible and at the same time go for the kind of material that they think will sell the most and the quickest,” said the author, “You basically get a new system that resembles the worst aspects of the Internet and that is simply because it is profit-driven, advertising-based and controlled – that is probably the most important – by a handful of enormous commercial entities that are very close to our government and that is not good for democracy.”
Note EU-Digest: It is not only in America where this happens, but in just about any country in the world. Unfortunately sensationalism sells and the media applies it in order to survive. The Ménage à Trois of Free Enterprise, Politics and Journalism has resulted in poorly informed and polarized citizens and the situation can only be expected to get worse.The positive side of the coin is that people are now turning in droves to the Internet and news blogs to form their own opinion. This fact obviously is also noticed by the world's corporate cartels and political establishment and has led them to also start infiltrating this last bastion of "freedom of expression" in a variety of devious manipulations. In this context it is also good to remember the saying, "that if hierarchy is inaccessible on the human level, then chaos will prevail rather than natural order."
For the complete report: Ads-oriented media breeds biased journalism – author - RT
12/31/08
CTV.ca : The year in words: 2008's most overused clichés - by Jered Stuffco
For the complete report from CTV.ca click on this link
The year in words: 2008's most overused clichés - by Jered Stuffco
When the clock is ticking and developments on breaking stories come over the wires fast and furious, a well-placed cliché is a tried and true way of delivering up-to-the-minute information for readers young and old.Clichés even turn up in the work of great writers, broadcasters and columnists from time to time; not even the editors and writers at CTV.ca are immune to their time-saving charms. So, as part of a New Year's resolution to crusade against trite and untrue phrases, here's a rundown of some clichés that burrowed their way into the year's biggest stories and lingered like a bad hangover.By now, it would seem that many reporters have a single-keystroke shortcut for the misleading and overused term "bailout." Initially, we had the $700 billion Wall Street "bailout," and as 2008 ends, reporters and public policy people have again pulled out the term in relation to the Detroit automakers.Among the worst is the now-overused phrase "tough economic times" and its many derivatives, which have been bludgeoned to death by reporters, TV anchors and politicos. Stephane Dion dropped the phrase in his ill-focused and ill-timed address to the nation in early December, when he said: "We believe that in these tough economic times, the government has a role to play."
3/2/08
Digital Journal - Two-Thirds of Americans Believe Traditional Journalism is 'Out of Touch' - by Chris Hoqq
For the completereport from Digital Journal click on this link
Two-Thirds of Americans Believe Traditional Journalism is 'Out of Touch' - by Chris Hoqq
According to a new poll, more than two-thirds of the U.S. believe traditional journalism is out of touch with what Americans want from their news. The survey also showed more people are turning to the Web to get their daily news fix. he survey found that the Internet outweighs TV, radio and newspapers as the most frequently used and important source for news and information. Websites were also cited as being more trustworthy than traditional sources by 32 per cent of respondents. 69 per cent believe media companies are becoming too large and powerful to allow for competition, while 17 per cent believe they are the right size to adequately compete.
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