The Center for American Progress carries this item:

“Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has launched the latest attack in the administration’s war on a free and independent media. The Pentagon is requiring reporters covering the court-martial of U.S. Army Sgt. Hasan Akbar at Fort Bragg, N.C., to ’sign agreements that limit their ability to perform their jobs under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.’

“In order to gain access to the proceeding, reporters must ‘pledge to not interview soldiers at Fort Bragg about the case or ask legal advisors in the media room to speculate on the outcome.’ Reporters who don’t sign aren’t allowed to cover the case.

“These restrictions aren’t taken lightly. To ensure compliance, journalists are ‘escorted everywhere while on base and some were monitored as they went to the restroom.’ Eugene Fidel, a military law expert, ’said he has never heard of restrictions against talking to soldiers,’ calling such limitations ‘crazy.

“Just because it’s the military doesn’t mean the First Amendment doesn’t apply. The judge can close (or partially close) a proceeding to outside observers, but ‘[t]his can be done only after finding no reasonable alternative will safeguard [a compelling] interest and after providing for a narrow closure based on specific findings that can be reviewed on appeal.’ In this case ‘[n]o public hearing was held, no showing was made and no judicial findings were rendered to justify press restrictions of any sort.’ Moreover, applying these restrictions only to journalists is an unconstitutional ‘content-based form of restriction of speech.’

“Military Reporters & Editors (MRE), the official association of military journalists, has written a letter to Secretary Rumsfeld demanding that ‘the Department of the Army rescind these constraints and assure that similar restrictions will not be imposed elsewhere.’”

THE LEFT AND THE MEDIA

Robert Parry on the left and the media:

In the mid-1970s, after the U.S. defeat in Vietnam and President Richard Nixon’s resignation over the Watergate scandal, American progressives held the upper-hand on media…

“Progressives apparently trusted that professional journalists would continue standing up to conservative pressure, even in the 1980s as well-funded right-wing groups targeted individual reporters and Reagan-Bush ‘public diplomacy’ teams went into news bureaus to lobby against troublesome journalists. [For details on this strategy, see Robert Parry’s Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq.]…

“Through the 1990s, the conservatives poured billions of dollars into their media apparatus, which rose like a vertically integrated machine incorporating newspapers, magazines, book publishing, radio stations, TV networks and Internet sites.

“As the 1990s wore on, mainstream journalists adapted to the new media environment by trying not to offend the conservatives. Working journalists knew that the Right could damage or destroy their careers by attaching the ‘liberal’ label. There was no comparable danger from the Left.

“So, many Americans journalists - whether consciously or not - protected themselves by being harder on Democrats in the Clinton administration than they were on Republicans during the Reagan-Bush years…

“Many on the Left began acknowledging the danger caused by this media imbalance. But even as the Iraq War disaster worsened, the ‘progressive establishment’ continued spurning proposals for building a media counter-infrastructure that could challenge the ‘group think’ of Washington journalism.”

PROGRESSIVES TO FIGHT FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING

“WASHINGTON — Free Press, Consumers Union, Common Cause and the Consumer Federation of America today announced a plan to ‘take public broadcasting to the people,’ proposing a series of local hearings across the country where the public will talk directly to broadcasters and policymakers about the future of public broadcasting.

“In a report released today, ‘A New Standard: Building a Public Broadcasting System that
Deserves Public Support,’ the four organizations called for ‘a public ascertainment process’ before lawmakers and bureaucrats attempt to set politically motivated standards for the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and other public broadcasters. The report recommends town meetings in each community that include a broad array of constituencies, elected officials, and decision makers from local PBS and others.”

EJC: ANCHORS MAY NOT BE ONLY CHANGE IN U.S. TV NEWS

“CBS is looking to shake up the broadcast and rightly so, to break the old paradigms of news, whether it’s taking off a tie or doing new graphics or new kinds of stories ó to experiment with different ways of relating to people. John Roberts, one of several candidates to take over the coveted anchor chair, anchoring the CBS Evening News on a recent Friday (22 April) ditched his tie for the last 23 seconds on the air. No big deal, really, but in network news, the rule is hard and fast: anchormen wear ties in the studio. Never mind that it was done on a 100 Euro bet with his producer and that it drew virtually no attention.

Source: http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050427/1a_cover27.art.htm - USA Today

DANIEL PEARL LIVES ON

The work of Daniel Pearl, the slain Wall Street Journal writer, lives on through the foundation named after him. One of their events:

“Interfaith Dialogue
“The Daniel Pearl Dialogue for Muslim-Jewish Understanding , featuring Akbar Ahmed and Judea Pearl, was at Duke University in February and continues in Ottawa, Toronto and at UC Irvine in May. Professors Ahmed and Pearl also are discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict online via Naseeb Vibes a literary site for Muslims by Muslims. Naseeb members have added their voices through the TalkBack section. For more information, please visit our Dialogue page.”

www.danielpearl.org