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→
“Most of them are kind of cuckoo and not real clean.”
From a Matier and Ross column in the San Francisco Chronicle (11/17/99) headlined “Influx of Homeless People Angers Youth Hostel Tenants,” this quote is emblematic of the tenor of reporting on the homeless by San Francisco’s dailies. The story follows the standard frame: Dirty, smelly homeless people are ruining the enjoyment of facility X (the hostel) by upstanding group Y (tourists). City department Z (the Office on Homelessness), while trying to do its best, is just too overwhelmed to make anyone happy. Middle- or working-class citizens are interviewed about the latest dilemma, and lo and behold, out from their mouths pop prejudice and stereotypes about the homeless. A reaction quote from advocates for the homeless rounds out the picture. Continue reading Commentary: S.F. DAILY PAPERS PIT MIDDLE CLASS AGAINST HOMELESS, by Ben Clarke→
When searching for the perpetrators behind this nation’s current cops-and-incarceration boom, media workers need only look in the mirror. While reporters and writers may occasionally finger demagogic pols for shamelessly campaigning on soft-headed, tough-on-crime promises, our industry typically primes the public to salivate in anticipation of each new slab of lock-’em-up legislation. This is nowhere more obvious than with youth crime. Continue reading DISTORTED MEDIA COVERAGE FUELS ANTI–YOUTH PROP. 21, by A. Clay Thompson→
In the early 1980s, Ben Bagdikian’s famous book The Media Monopoly concluded that fewer than 50 firms dominated U.S. media, with the result that journalism was increasingly losing its ability to address the role and nature of corporate power in the U.S. political economy. By the time the fourth edition of The Media Monopoly was published in 1992, Bagdikian calculated that mergers and acquisitions had reduced the number of dominant media firms to two dozen. Since 1992, there has been an unprecedented wave of mergers and acquisitions among media giants, highlighted by the Time Warner purchase of Turner Broadcasting (CNN, TNT) and the Disney acquisition of Capital Cities/ABC. Continue reading CORPORATE MEDIA, ALTERNATIVE PRESS, AND AFRICAN AMERICANS, by Salim Muwakkil→
