10
Jul
Justice Overdue: One Of The Angola 3 Now Free, Who Owns TV?
AP: Judge overturns ex-Black Panther’s conviction
BATON ROUGE, La.—- A federal judge on Tuesday overturned the conviction of a former Black Panther in the 1972 stabbing death of a Louisiana prison guard.
Albert Woodfox, who was held in solitary confinement for over 30 years, is one of three former Panthers known as the ‘’Angola Three.'’ He and two other black prisoners at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola were convicted in the killing of guard Brent Miller on April 17, 1972.
OLDER REPORT AND CHART:
“All those hundreds of TV channels may lead you that there’s a true diversity and variety in today’s television … but you’d be wrong. A handful of large companies control what you see, hear, and read every day.
“Let’s take a look at who owns what on television - here are the TV channels owned by 6 of the largest companies in media, as depicted by their logos.”
ON TO THE DIGITAL TRANSITION
Johnathan Rintels writes:
For some cable systems, the cable guy may have been right. Some cable companies are using the broadcast digital transition as an opportunity to terminate their analog cable service and transition to all digital networks. In those cases, analog subscribers with analog TVs will then need to use set-top converter boxes that downconvert digital to analog. These cable digital converter boxes are completely different from the broadcast DTV converter boxes. This is one of the less well known challenges, among too many, facing consumers in the DTV transition.
The Leadership Conference just released “Transition in Trouble: Action Needed to Ensure a Successful Digital Television Transition,” a comprehensive report that details many of these problems and provides a series of recommendations for policymakers. It’s available here:
TIME TO UNTIE THE STATES—Chellis Glendinning
Waxman Threatens Mukasey With Contempt
Laurie Kellman, for The Associated Press, reports: “A House panel threatened to cite Attorney General Michael Mukasey with contempt of Congress unless he produces documents from an FBI interview with Vice President Dick Cheney regarding the leak of a CIA agent’s identity.”
MORE ON CHENEY CENSORSHIP OF SCIENTIFIC TESTIMONY
MAKING BLACKWATER SMELL AND SPIN SWEET
Source: Politico, July 8, 2008
Private military corporations such as Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR) have lauched a new public relations and lobbying initiative to counter what David Marin calls “the steady drip of negative front-page media reports about contractors and growing public concerns about the effectiveness of the federal contracting process.” Samuel Loewenberg reports that Marin is the industry’s “point man charged with heading off criticism.” A former Republican staff director of the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee, he now works for the Podesta Group, a PR and lobby shop. His client is the Professional Services Council, a trade association whose members include KBR, Blackwater USA, Boeing and DynCorp International.
– U.S. Military Tries to Influence Hollywood’s Take on War
PAUL O HANLON WRITES FROM SCOTLAND
“Dadelut dadelut dadelut!!!”
This is the noise Rush Limbaugh makes when announcing what he considers to be very important breaking news or update. It is often used in Limbaugh’s radio show and alternately known as trumpet fanfare.
I am not a big fan of American `shock jock` Rush Limbaugh and thankfully we don’t see too much of him in the British media. I was however amazed to read (in the Daily Mail foreign service) about his new £25 million a year contract – that’s around $1 million a week. I wonder what Danny Schechter thinks of it – after all it must be close to Danny’s salary – ho, ho. If only the likes of Globalvision had the income of bigots like Limbaugh. The likes of Clear Channel Radio say they promote `free speech` but at £200 million over 8 years it is anything but `free`.
Keep on trying Danny!
RESPONSE: My salary seems to be moving in the other direction.
Fidel Castro Tells the Story of His Life
By Greg Grandin The Nation
DON’T MESS WITH BRUCE LEE, ALIVE OR DEAD
HONG KONG (AFP) The owner of Bruce Lee’s family mansion in Hong Kong has abandoned his plan to sell the property and will consider turning it into a museum celebrating the kung fu film legend, a report said Thursday.
Millionaire philanthropist Yu Panglin, who bought the house for 850,000 Hong Kong dollars (109,000 US) in the 1960s, had invited bidders for the property, the South China Morning Post said.
But he decided to withdraw from the sale, following calls from fans of the star to preserve Lee’s former home.
“I will consider the views of the community and different parties. I may consider donating the property if the majority thinks we should preserve it,” he told the newspaper.
Your comments welcome along with tax deductible donations to the Global Center at 575 8th Ave #2200 NY NY 10018 to keep Mediachannel.org channeling. Thanks to the reader who sent his tax “stimulus” check.
Write: Dissector@mediachannel.org
On The Story of Deep Capture, you said, “Check this out and tell me what you think?”
OK. Every voter should know about it; it should be taught in schools.
But that ain’t gonna happen. While the powerful and callous steal our minds with 3-second sound bytes, the opposition drones on and on, listing every detail and enjoying their own words. I wish we had better communicators — ones who know you have to make it short and sweet, or no one will read or listen.
Meanwhile, keep up the good work. We need it.
July 10th, 2008 at 2:56 pmSpeaking of justice … has anyone seen Laurie’s story ?
July 20th, 2008 at 9:42 am