29
Aug
Every Foreign Journalist A Suspect
CORN’S LATEST ON THE PLAME LEAK CASE
http://www.davidcorn.com/archives/2006/08/bushbackers_arm.php
HAMAS TO LAUCH PALESTINE CHANNEL
”Palestinian government party Hamas will launch a satellite television channel in October, the Palestinian news agency Ramattan reported on Monday.
Hamas launched an experimental terrestrial channel last year to give its candidates visibility in the electoral campaign leading to general elections in January.
Ramattan said it will be the first Palestinian political channel to broadcast via satellite.
http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=CultureAndMedia&loid= -
AKI News
Dan Kennedy Writes about Boston Radio
http://medianation.blogspot.com/2006/08/we-live-in-political-world.html
Time Editor Richard Stengel: ‘All the Rules Are Being Remade’
”The managing editor of Time magazine says the Internet is forcing a rethink of newsweeklies. If Time co-founders Henry Luce and Briton Hadden were creating a newsmagazine today, “it would probably be electronic only.”
http://www.iwantmedia.com/people/people61.html
KATIE GETS “THE BIG GET”
TV Week reports that CBS, no doubt for services rendered (shilling for the war, firing Rather etc) has scored THE big interview for new anchor Katie Couric:
“CBS News announced Monday that Ms. Couric is set to talk with President Bush at the White House for her first CBS News prime-time special, “Five Years Later—How Safe Are We?,” airing at 10 p.m. (ET) Wednesday, Sept. 6, at the end of a day of 9/11 fifth-anniversary programming.”
Will that be good for his credibility or hers? Meanwhile in New York Magazine, Kurt Anderson asks in all seriousness in pro-Katie spread: “Can Katie Couric Make News Fun?”
FOREIGN JOURNALISTS FACE NEW RULES IN COVERING THE US
Wayne Madsen reports on Information Visas (I-Visa) — a Bush administration method for controlling the foreign media’s coverage of the United States.
”You’re a foreign journalist and you want to visit the United States to cover a story. If you think it is as easy as hopping on an airplane, even if you are a citizen or resident of a visa-waiver country, guess again. Journalists wishing to travel to the United States — whether they are with print, television, radio, or Internet media — must first obtain an “I-Visa” from the U.S. embassy or selected consulates responsible for their jurisdictions. Freelance journalists who are not under contract to a U.S.-recognized media organization need not apply.
Journalists must fill out a detailed application in which they are required to outline what story they are writing about and they must personally visit the U.S. embassy and consulate for “administrative processing, biometric collection and a personal interview.” Biometric processing at the U.S. embassy in Copenhagen entails having one’s thumb electronically scanned. Journalists visiting some U.S. diplomatic missions for the interview cannot bring in electronic devices (cell phones, PDAs, laptops ) [or] backpacks, suitcases and attaché cases.” At certain missions, U.S. embassy security personnel refuse to store such items during the interview process.
Others confiscate cell phones and tag them for pick up after the interview process (needless to say, the interview process might last a bit longer if the local U.S. spooks decide to examine the journalist’s cell phone call list and perform certain “modifications.” At the Madrid embassy, the only bags that are permitted inside the compound are those having medical purposes, such as insulin kits.
Journalists must also provide their addresses in the United States and the names and addresses of those who they will be interviewing. So much for freedom of the press and the protection of journalists’ sources.
The real rub comes with the I-Visa application fee. Journalists who believe they can pay the 85 Euro (US$ 108) fee in Germany and Denmark by check, cash, or credit card are out of luck. Certain U.S. embassies, like those in Copenhagen and Berlin, through a bank wire contrivance, require visa fees to be paid into special bank accounts established by the various U.S. embassies.”
http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/
IRAQ NEWSPAPER ATTACKED
”A suicide car bomber attacked Iraq’s largest newspaper, detonating his vehicle inside its fortified compound in downtown Baghdad on Sunday and killing 2 people and wounding 20 others, the executive editor and government officials said. The bombing took place on a violent day across Iraq in which explosions and gun battles killed at least 34 people, including an American soldier.
The bombing Sunday of the newspaper Al-Sabah, a publication financed by the Shiite-led Iraqi government, also destroyed more than a dozen vehicles and collapsed a quarter of the building where journalists and printing press operators work, said the executive editor, Falah al-Mishaal.
The attack was the second on Al-Sabah in three months. ‘The terrorists are trying to stop the media project in Iraq,’ Al-Mishaal said in and interview last month. ‘We have received many threats from Zarqawi’s assistants. We published them in the newspaper.’ He said the bombing Sunday had also been retaliation for his newspaper’s organising a meeting of Iraqi television and newspaper editors this month to sign a ‘pledge of honour’ to respect the government’s reconciliation efforts and to avoid printing or broadcasting inflammatory statements or violent images.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/08/27/news/iraq.php -
HOW OTHERS SEE OUR MEDIA
Bill Kauffman comments in The Calgary Sun on US media obsessions:
”Most surefire news anesthetic: The triumphant return of wall-to-wall JonBenet Ramsey media coverage.
“Just when the birth pangs of a new Middle East, homelessness and global warming become too inconvenient, we can seek refuge by exhuming a junior beauty queen who has been dead a decade.
But don’t worry — what Mark Karr digested on his plane ride back to bondage will balance out all the morbid and fluff with some genuine journalistic substance.“Maybe botox injections for embarrassingly elusive Mullah Omar would resuscitate interest in him.
http://calsun.canoe.ca/News/Columnists/Kaufmann_Bill/2006/08/27/1780466.html
ANALYSIS OF FOX KIDNAPPING FROM Asharq Alawsat newspaper
http://aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=2&id=6169
Whats interesting is that the Fox’s journalists say the same thing:
“American media organization, is irrelevant and does not justify the kidnapping operation that was carried out against them. The operation came at a time when the Palestinians are in dire need of media coverage, western coverage in particular, in order to reflect the tragedies and painful realities that this nation is enduring.
NYsun.com
