“Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened by a would-be dictator.” [Chavez] “stepped down after the military intervened and handed power to a respected business leader.” New York Times Editorial, April 13, 2002
The April 2002 attempted coup against president Hugo Chavez in Venezuela was widely applauded in U.S. corporate media editorials the day after the coup. In Venezuela itself, the mainstream media helped mobilize the anti-Chavez demonstrations which were used as the coup pretext. But a people’s movement, with information and support from online and alternative news sources, ended up reversing the coup. In the months since, evidence is mounting of direct U.S. participation. Continue reading MEDIA, OIL, AND POLITICS: ANATOMY OF THE VENEZUELAN COUP. by Eric Quezada.→
The prison industrial complex–one of America’s costliest public institutions, fueled by billions in tax dollars and millions of devastated lives–operates largely without public scrutiny. While mainstream news outlets flood us with sensational crime reporting, they pay comparatively little attention to the brutal conditions within U.S. prisons. Continue reading MEDIA LOCKOUT: PRISONS AND JOURNALISTS, by Helene Vosters→
In medicine, it’s called Managed Care. In media, it’s Managed News. Corporate media today is in the entertainment business. Market shares, advertising dollars, and political self interest drive the news. Stories about the decisions and manipulations of the powerful and news about challenges to power by the powerless are continually ignored or under-reported in mainstream media.
The arrest of Augusto Pinochet in London on October 16, 1998 was a major victory for progressives and human rights activists around the world. At long last one of the most nefarious dictators of the late twentieth century is being brought to justice–not only for the murder and torture of tens of thousands of Chileans, but also for the murder of foreigners deemed a threat to his regime, including two Americans, Charles Horman and Frank Truggi. Even if the British government or courts eventually decide to release Pinochet instead of extraditing him to Spain for trial, he will return to Chile a discredited figure, recorded in the annals of history as the first dictator ever to be pursued under international law for crimes against humanity. Continue reading PINOCHET AND THE AMNESIA OF THE U.S. PRESS, by Roger Burbach→
As I walk into the Long Haul for the Slingshot newspaper meeting, the smell of boiling beans hits me first, then the moldy odor of old paper.
Or perhaps it’s a whiff of history: Thirty years ago, this Berkeley storefront housed The Black Panther newspaper.
Panther cadres sold as many as 100,000 copies of the paper around the country every week; Slingshot runs 8,000 to 10,000 copies and augments its quarterly mailings by sending bundles home with travelers who agree to distribute them. The Black Panthers operated as a revolutionary organization; Slingshot is one of dozens of independent papers published in the Bay Area, with no ties to any organization or party line. But the two papers share more than a location: Both started from the same impulse. Continue reading THE MORE TIMES CHANGE . . . THE BAY AREA ALTERNATIVE PRESS ’68 – ’98, by Marcy Rein→
The pain the establishment media felt over Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader’s challenge to the two-party system was evident in CBS’s election night coverage. When reporter Ed Bradley commented that Ralph Nader might approach the five percent threshold for receiving federal matching funds, Dan Rather interrupted: “About $12 million, $13 million of your money and mine.” As Bradley pointed out that Nader was “hurting” Al Gore in several states, Rather added: “And every taxpayer.” Continue reading GREENS SHUT OUT BY NATIONAL MEDIA. by Peter Hart.→
The Pentagon has set out to win at least three wars, the one on the battlefield of the moment, the so-called war for hearts and minds in the countries under attack and “the media war.” To translate further, we rely on blunt diplobully Richard Holbrooke, a Balkans negotiator and former UN ambassador, who, true to form, doesn’t mince words. “Call it public diplomacy or public affairs, or psychological warfare or,” he pauses, to cut through this fog, “if you really want to be blunt–propaganda.” Continue reading INFORMATION WARRIORS: PENTAGON’S MINISTRY OF TRUTH SHAPES WAR COVERAGE. by Danny Schechter, MediaChannel.org→
To some observers, the broad protest movement that erupted this summer to defend Bay Area community radio station KPFA (94.1 FM) looked like a near riot.. To others, the grassroots action that reversed the station’s shutdown looked like the deliberate work of a well-organized and media-savvy coalition of professional activists. In reality, our movement–which drew in thousands of ordinary people, commanded front-page media attention, and won the support of celebrities and government officials–was neither pure chaos nor pure calculation. Like all popular movements, the “Free KPFA” mobilization was a lot of both. At this point, we should neither mystify nor deify the struggle, but examine it critically. We can apply the resulting lessons in our ongoing fight to establish democratic, community control of the entire Pacifica network–and eventually of the U.S. media establishment as a whole. Continue reading CALCULATED CHAOS: Inside the Mobilzation that Rocked Pacifica, by Van Jones→