Glenn Greenwald: The presence of military leaders makes journalists stupid

You'll need to look long and hard to find a journalist who, while interviewing a U.S. military leader, takes that leader to task. Glenn Greenwald offers a recent example of a journalist hero-worshiping a military leader instead of practicing real journalism: This incident involves Scott Pelley (of Sixty Minutes) pretending to interview Leon Panetta. Unfortunately, this phenomenon of pretend-journalism is not unusual:

There’s no effort even to pretend they’re doing journalism. They just proudly put it right out there: we’re going to spend the next 15 minutes paying homage to your government leaders and their war-fighting machine.

Continue ReadingGlenn Greenwald: The presence of military leaders makes journalists stupid

The remedy for a very bad reputation: money.

What do you do if 10,000 of your own people have been killed in your brutal crackdown, which is broadcast worldwide? According to this article by the NYT, you hire a sophisticated PR firm and get your pretty wife out front:

In March 2011, just as Mr. Assad and his security forces initiated a brutal crackdown on political opponents that has led to the death of an estimated 10,000 Syrians, Vogue magazine ran a flattering profile of the first lady, describing her as walking “a determined swath cut through space with a flash of red soles,” a reference to her Christian Louboutin heels. Fawning treatment of world leaders — particularly attractive Western-educated ones — is nothing new. But the Assads have been especially determined to burnish their image, and hired experts to do so. The family paid the Washington public relations firm Brown Lloyd James $5,000 a month to act as a liaison between Vogue and the first lady, according to the firm.

Continue ReadingThe remedy for a very bad reputation: money.

Congress votes to keep you in the dark regarding the funding behind political ads

Dear Erich, With their bottomless reserve of lobbyists and money, broadcasters are betting they can muscle their way into Congress and reverse a victory that tens of thousands of us fought hard to win.  And their bet has just paid off. A House Appropriations Subcommittee slipped a provision into the draft budget that strips the FCC of the ability to disclose political ad spending on TV stations. Moments ago that subcommittee voted to pass it! We need your help right now to stop Congress from selling out our democracy: Demand Your Right to Know. Don't Let Congress Kill Transparency. In April, the FCC adopted new rules that require broadcasters to make their political advertising files available online. The decision was an enormous victory for anyone hoping to shed light on the shadowy groups and Super PACs that are inundating local airwaves with misleading political ads.1 Yet as with any hard-won reform in the age of big-money politics, this change is being attacked by unscrupulous members of Congress who answer to fat-cat media lobbyists. The National Association of Broadcasters paid lobbyists nearly $14 million in 2011. And it's spending millions more this year on campaign contributions to Congress. But that's a drop in the bucket compared to over $3 billion in political ad revenues that television stations stand to rake in this election cycle. It's clear that the broadcast industry is pulling out all the stops to bury information about political ad spending on the public airwaves. What's more appalling is that some elected officials are willing to help them do it. Please sign this letter to your members of Congress to demand that they serve the public and not media lobbyists. In the post-Citizens United era, we can't let broadcasters hide their political profits. With the help of you and your friends we can kill this before it reaches the Senate. Thanks for taking action, Tim, Candace and the rest of the Free Press Action Fund team P.S. Last month's victory against commercial broadcasters was a milestone in the fight for accountable media. We defied every ounce of conventional wisdom in Washington by proving that activists, bloggers, consumer advocates and everyday people can join forces with Free Press to defeat a corporate agenda. Help us protect that victory. Contribute to the Free Press Action Fund now. Thank you! 1. Timothy Karr, "Reform in the Age of Corporate Lawyers," Huffington Post, June 6, 2012.

Continue ReadingCongress votes to keep you in the dark regarding the funding behind political ads

Democracy is attacked when the federal government prosecutes Wikileaks.

As Glenn Greenwald explains, an attack on Wikileaks is an attack on traditional investigative journalism.

A coalition of leading journalists and media outlets in Australia have explained: WikiLeaks “is doing what the media have always done: bringing to light material that governments would prefer to keep secret” and prosecuting them “would be unprecedented in the US, breaching the First Amendment protecting a free press“; they added: “To aggressively attempt to shut WikiLeaks down, to threaten to prosecute those who publish official leaks . . . is a serious threat to democracy.” The Committee to Protect Journalists sent a letter to Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder expressing “deep concern” over “reports about a potential WikiLeaks prosecution,” which “would threaten grave damage to the First Amendment’s protections of free speech and the press.” Although American journalists were reluctant at first to speak out, even they have come around to recognizing what a profound threat an Assange indictment would be to press freedoms, with The Washington Post Editorial Page denouncing any indictment on the ground that it “would criminalize the exchange of information and put at risk responsible media organizations,” and even editors of the Guardian and Keller himself — with whom Assange has feuded — are now vowing to defend Assange if he were to be prosecuted.
To take it a step further, an attack on investigative journalism is an invitation for the government to act unaccountably, in secret, which is absolutely in conflict with the notion that the U.S. government is being run by the citizens. To connect the dots, a federal criminal prosecution of Wikileaks is an attack on democracy. For more see this post, and see this article demonstrating that Wikileaks is doing nothing different than the New York Times when the Times is doing its job well.

Continue ReadingDemocracy is attacked when the federal government prosecutes Wikileaks.

Obama Administration attempts to defend its war on investigative journalism

The Obama Department of Justice continued its attack on news reporters trying to protect their confidential sources with regard to stories based on government leaks. Before the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals is a case concerning NYT reporter James Risen, who has refused to respond to a federal subpoena demanding that he provide the source of information on which he based a story about a botched CIA plot against the Iranian government. Oral arguments occurred this morning. Fortunately, several of the judges were not receptive to the arguments of the Obama Administration that there is no such thing as a "reporters' privilege." Why is this issue critically important? James Risen explains in this Huffpo article by Michael Caldeone and Dan Froomkin:

"They've said in that there is no reporter's privilege," Risen said. "I think they want the court to rule on a fundamental constitutional issue of whether or not there is a reporter's privilege in a criminal case, which makes this case kind of have a broader import than it might otherwise have." "That's why I think it's become a pretty important case," he continued. "It's a fairly basic constitutional issue for the press, whether or not there is a reporter's privilege. It's something a lot of people outside the press don’t really understand, don't really care about. I think the basic issue is whether you can have a democracy without aggressive investigative reporting and I don't believe you can. So that's why I'm fighting it."
The hardline stand against reporter's privilege -- the DOJ briefs always put the term in quotation marks -- is a hallmark of the Obama administration's unprecedented crackdown over leaks. So is trying to throw the book at the alleged leakers.

Continue ReadingObama Administration attempts to defend its war on investigative journalism