Media: Israel Limits AlJazeera, Blacks in the Media, Twitter = 1984

February 4th, 2009 - by: danny

IMEMC News: ISRAEL BANS AL JAZEERA FROM BRIEFINGS by Ghassan Bannoura

Note: Everyone in the media world praised AlJazeera’s coverage of Gaza as fair and multi-sided with frequent appearances by Israeli officials. This is Israel’s response, a clear sign that they want to dominate the media with their perspective or else. This is consistent with a refusal to allow journalists from other media into Gaza. It shows contempt for a free media even as Israel mobilizes campaigns against media “bias.”

The Israeli Forging Ministry decided to place restrictions on the Qatari based Al Jazeera Channel office staff in areas controlled by Israel, Israeli media reported on Tuesday.

The decision as Israeli media reported is part of the government response to closing the Israeli trade office by the Qatari government in Doha last month.

Qatar closed the office to protest the Israeli offensive on Gaza which started on December 27th, and lasted for 22 days. 1,340 Palestinian were killed by the Israeli air, sea, and ground bombardment.

According to the sources the restriction will be in three steps and will be implemented in Israeli areas and Palestinian Authority controlled areas. First Israeli will not renew the visas of Al Jazeera staff that hold no Israeli documents.

Second, the reporters of Al Jazeera will not be allowed to speak to Israeli MP’s and will only be given access to three government spokespeople that will include the Israeli PM office, Israeli army and Foreign Ministry.

Third Al Jazeera reporters will have reduced accessibility to government and military bodies, and will not be allowed into briefings or press conferences.

Al Jazeera is the largest Arab satellite News Channel and the only Arab channel that has an English TV and web service. The Jerusalem office of Al Jazeera told IMEMC that their office have not received an official notice by the Israeli government of those new restrictions. http://www.imemc.org/article/58748

Waltzing With Bashir Banned in Lebanon, Hailed and Criticized

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CHINA AIRS MINISTER BEING SHOOED

Chinese TV airs footage of protester throwing shoe at PM Wen A protester interrupted a speech by Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao at Cambridge University in England by blowing a whistle and throwing his shoe at Wen, further proving that the shoe has replaced the cream pie as the protester’s projectile of choice. In a secondary shock, Chinese state television aired footage of the incident — a move prompted by the inevitable proliferation of the video online, according to media observers.

BUT ALSO PROTESTS SHOEING

Reuters: China denounced as despicable on Tuesday a protester who threw a shoe at Prime Minister Wen Jiabao at Cambridge University and said the Chinese leader’s visit to Europe was a total success.

British police said the protester, who shouted that Wen was a dictator during Monday’s incident, had been charged with a public order offence and will appear before Cambridge magistrates on February 10. They did not name the man.

“The Chinese side has expressed its strong displeasure over this incident,” China’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

“The facts demonstrate that the despicable conduct of this troublemaker will win no sympathy, and will not hold back the tide of friendly cooperation between China and Britain.”

The shoe-throwing incident occurred when Wen delivered a speech on the global economy at Cambridge University on the last day of his official visit to Britain.

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MEDIA ISSUES

Some Financial Sites Launch Boycott of CNBC. One is Stock Twits:

Boycott CNBC Day on Tuesday February 3

We are boycotting CNBC on Tuesday February 3, 2009 and ask you to join us.

We are boycotting CNBC because of what we perceive as a gross lack of accountability and editorial judgment.

We are boycotting CNBC because they produce shows with personalities who take zero responsibility for stock picks and markets calls which misinform viewers and distort the severity of the economic crisis.

We are boycotting CNBC because they trot out so called expert guests who have cost investors millions without warning viewers and allow these guests to pump themselves up without demanding the disclosure of performanceÃ¢â‚¬Â¦

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JILL NELSON On BLACKS IN THE MEDIA

At least 300 black journalists left the print media in 2007, and there’s every indication that 2008 was worse. Richard Prince’s Journal-isms column at www.mije.org is an ongoing record of attrition. In this brave new world the playing field’s level, Dr. King’s dream’s been realized, and it’s all about the meritocracy. Yet a look at the unbearably white American media reminds us that even with a black president little has changed in terms of who frames the issues. With the exception of CNN, which probably employs more black people than BET and definitely has more news coverage, for the most part media looks like a meeting of the White Citizens Council, circa 1956. As determined to retain control of the dialogue as those racists were to maintain the Southern way of life.

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NY TImes Investor Carlos Slim Called Narco-Politico

Carlos Slim, the Mexican billionaire whose $250 million cash infusion bailed the New York Times out of a tight cash crunch last week, has long-standing business ties with wealthy Mexican businessmen suspected of involvement in Mexico’s so-called “Cartel of the Southeast,” the drug trafficking organization (DTO) based in Cancun which came to light two years ago with the crash on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula of an American-registered (N987SA) Gulfstream jet carrying nearly four tons of cocaine.

[SNIP]

Owning a piece of the New York Times, goes this reasoning, provides the kind of “cover” which credit card commercials call “priceless.”

“Carlos Slim’s stake is a danger to the New York Times,” said the Seattle Times in a scathing editorial. While calling it “an ominous move,” the editorial neglected to mention any of Slim’s more unsavory connections. American newspapers don’t mention “narco-politicos.” It is something approaching a taboo.

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NAKED CAPITALISM: TWITTER IS DANGEROUS

Twitter is troubling reminiscent of Newspeak, the language being developed by Oceania in George Orwell’s 1984 to control thought.

Orwell, in an appendix, describes the principles of Newspeak, and they are directed towards simplifying language so as to void it of inconvenient (for the power structure) propensities of thought:

The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of IngSoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought — that is, a thought diverging from the principles of IngSoc — should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words. Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party member could properly wish to express, while excluding all other meaning and also the possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods.

Now what does that have to do with Twitter, one might ask? Well, while the main means by which Newspeak was implemented was simplifying and subtly changing the inference of words, another element was the extreme condensation of communication:

Regularity of grammar was always sacrificed to it when it seemed necessary. And rightly so, since what was required, above all for political purposes, was short clipped words of unmistakable meaning which could be uttered rapidly and which roused the minimum of echoes in the speaker’s mind…..So did the fact of having very few words to choose from. Relative to our own, the Newspeak vocabulary was tiny, and new ways of reducing it were constantly being devised. Newspeak, indeed, differed from most all other languages in that its vocabulary grew smaller instead of larger every year. Each reduction was a gain, since the smaller the area of choice, the smaller the temptation to take thought. Ultimately it was hoped to make articulate speech issue from the larynx without involving the higher brain centers at all…..

And it was to be foreseen that with the passage of time the distinguishing characteristics of Newspeak would become more and more pronounced — its words growing fewer and fewer, their meanings more and more rigid, and the chance of putting them to improper uses always diminishing.

Now the idea that have people communicate often within 140 characters and thought control seems awfully remote, no? Particularly since this is voluntary, customer driven, right?

I am not at all certain.”

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YOUR LETTERS

Barbara Flaska writes:

Just finished watching you and Ms Garofolo wring some necks. YEAH!! You all are the best! If it weren’t for you and your prescient look at the financial meltdown over the past few years (although I suspected the day of reckoning would arrive), I wouldn’t have known without your help how the pieces all fit together, all the better to smash us all down so effectively, I guess …

But it’s true: I’m so very appreciative of the work you’ve done and continue to do, I can’t find the words.

I’m a little disappointed that HBO has selected a book by NY Times writers to air on their short attention span theater.

But be assured I’m still pitching your site over and again to everyone I know and encounter. You’ll get a few more readers from my little core group of friends, I’m sure. Then, we can all be outraged together.

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AE Stutor writes:

The only thing missing in the article about Spitzer and the sub-prime sham is the mainstream media’s desire to deep-six Spitzer and gave scant attention to the looming issue. It’s also interesting that all charges were dropped against Spitzer after his public life and probably his private life was destroyed.

By the way, your new format with videos, etc, is awesome!

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Time To Boss The Boss

Scott Pelligrino writes:

Hi Danny. I disagree with you on the Times on Bruce. I thought Bruce was lame. He’s got the biggest platform in the world and all he did was a cheesy Vegas medley and a very tacky plug for Disney (would be nice to know if the Disney mention was paid for). Don’t you think he would have done MUCH better to follow Roseanne’s advice and try to stop people from being murdered? Great if you can post one of these so your readers can see what he should have done.

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Cordley Coit writes:

Danny, turned on the AM this A.M. and the first thing I heard from the centrist blabber was some bright light in Illinois congressional delegation introduced some gun control legislation that former Representative Immanuel had sponsored last year. Out here in the West that is considered supkku by event the worst party hacks that run Denver.

Someone somewhere in the pack of Clinton retreads rushing to feed inside the beltway must have lost their mind. By tonight the war drums will be beating though the South and West saying it’s true they are getting ready to steal some more rights. Some congress person some where can smile as they turned on the lights in the once dormant minefield.

People had been talking about the current rush to buy firearms. In the West it comes from: economic worries, illegal immigration, and the horrendous crimes that come along with the Mexican drug cartels new American roots. .The cartels also have shifted to military full auto gear and crew served weapons which are totally unaccessible except to nation states, drug lords and police forces.

Crime rates are currently low partially because of the availability of concealed carry laws in the South and West. Dropping police budgets may change that, its not fear of the law that keeps people honest.

Anyway it looks like the Democrats are about to piss away their advantages over starting doctrinaire turf fights where victory is impossible. I personally wish it was not so but it looks like the start of a real nasty time in Foggy Bottom.

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SUBSCRIBE TO ML-IMPLODE.COM

Aaron Krowne’s http://www.mi-implode.com“>Ml-implode.com is one of the best sites on the internet about the housing crisis and financial issues. They offer a wide range of information from many sources with comments from insiders in the industry. It is an indispensable source. They are now providing a new service.

Krowne writes:

“We’ve set up a system where you can subscribe to get instant alerts and/or digest-style emails for our news pickups channels and original alerts we put out. For “implode-o-followers”, this eliminates the need to obsessively check our web site(s) or have an RSS reader set up. Of course… this system also lets you get direct email notification of “implodes” or updates to our implode/ailing records tracked at the mortgage, bank, builder, hedge fund, or bank sites.

Please spread it around — we need as many subscribers as we can get. It may actually make the difference in us surviving the next 1-2 months (the situation is very precarious — if you aren’t familiar with the frivolous lawsuit by mortgage sleazeballs that has brought us to the brink.

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A NEW DRINK FOR OUR TIMES

SANTIAGO (Reuters) — Bernard Madoff’s alleged $50 billion (34.9 billion pound) fraud may have left a bitter taste in the mouths of thousands of wealthy investors, but in this corner of Chile’s capital, the U.S. financier is the toast of the town.

A swank bar near Santiago’s financial centre has tailored its cocktail menu to reflect the global crisis, cutting its prices and coming up with new fruity blends with names like the Subprime, In Recession, Pyramid (scheme), Bailout and Greed.

Among its “Crisis Menu” best-sellers? The Madoff Nectar — a blend of rum, fresh melon juice, triple sec, evaporated milk, syrup and crushed ice.

“The ‘Crisis Menu’ was a humorous way to say, ‘Why not do something fun with what is happening today, the global crisis, economics,’” said Felipe Farias, a chef at the Catedral bar and grill.

The drinks cost 2,800 pesos (3.10 pound), a discount of nearly $1 on the price of the bar’s regular cocktails.

“The crisis names grab your attention straight away … and the price is good too,” said bank executive Angelica Quezada, 38, sipping a “Down Jones” — a mix of peach and orange ice-cream and vodka.

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CRIME AND PUNISHMENT IN THE AGE OF CRISIS (Harpers.org)

A homeless Louisiana man, who robbed a bank of $100 and then voluntarily turned himself in the next day and apologized, was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. A man in Somerset, England, spent two days trapped beneath his sofa, subsisting on whiskey from a bottle that had rolled within reach. “I thought, Well this isn’t too bad,” he said. A 93-year-old man in Michigan died of hypothermia after Bay City Electric Light & Power restricted service to his home as a result of unpaid bills, and in an elevator shaft in an abandoned building in Detroit a man was found frozen in a block of ice, with only his feet sticking out. “Yeah,” said one homeless man squatting nearby, “he’s been down there since last month at least.” The fire department eventually arrived with a chainsaw, and another homeless man, when asked if he knew the deceased, said, “I don’t recognize him from his shoes.”

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