previous  12345678  next  · entire list

What really happened in Florida?
2001-02-16, BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/events/newsnight/1174115.stm

We are coming into Tallahassee. A very expensive contract between Governor Jeb [Bush]'s division of elections and a private company named DBT...accidentally wiped off the voter rolls thousands of Democratic voters. [We're on the] 18th floor division of elections. We have come to ask Mr Clayton Roberts, the director, a few questions. "It says here in the contract that the verification is supposed to be done by DBT. That you paid them $4 million. It could look to others don't you think that you paid $4 million to purchase this election for the Republican party. 95% wrong on the felon list. Mr Roberts, could you answer the question regarding the contract?" Instead, Mr Roberts called out State troopers. The difficult questions are: Did Governor Jeb Bush, his Secretary of State Katherine Harris, and her Director of Elections, Clayton Roberts, know they had wrongly barred 22,000 black, Democrat voters before the elections? After the elections did they use their powers to prevent the count of 20,000 votes for the Democrats? CAMPAIGNER: "Were people taken out of polls and stopped from voting? Yes, I think that was not right." Altogether, it looks like this cost the Democrats about 22,000 votes in Florida, which George Bush won by only 537 votes. In all, Palm Beach voting machines misread 27,000 ballots. Jeb Bush's Secretary of State, Katharine Harris, stopped them counting these votes by hand.

Note: You can watch a video of this and much more fascinating information at the BBC link above. To read a brief summary of BBC reporter Greg Palast's coverage of the 2000 election results in Floriday, see http://www.WantToKnow.info/massmedia#palast. And why wasn't this incredibly vital information reported in any of the American media?

Ted Koppel: Olbermann, O'Reilly and the death of real news
2010-11-14, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/12/AR20101112028...

We live now in a cable news universe that celebrates the opinions of Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly - individuals who hold up the twin pillars of political partisanship and who are encouraged to do so by their parent organizations because their brand of analysis and commentary is highly profitable. The commercial success of both Fox News and MSNBC is a source of nonpartisan sadness for me. While I can appreciate the financial logic of drowning television viewers in a flood of opinions designed to confirm their own biases, the trend is not good for the republic. It is, though, the natural outcome of a growing sense of national entitlement. Daniel Patrick Moynihan's oft-quoted observation that "everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts," seems almost quaint in an environment that flaunts opinions as though they were facts. And so, among the many benefits we have come to believe the founding fathers intended for us, the latest is news we can choose. Beginning, perhaps, from the reasonable perspective that absolute objectivity is unattainable, Fox News and MSNBC no longer even attempt it. They show us the world not as it is, but as partisans (and loyal viewers) at either end of the political spectrum would like it to be.

Note: Ted Koppel, who was managing editor of ABC's "Nightline" from 1980 to 2005, is a contributing analyst for "BBC World News America."

A Vision of Iceland as a Haven for Journalists
2010-02-22, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/22/business/media/22link.html

Iceland, where the journalists run free. Iceland is considering a new vision: to become a haven for journalists and publishers by offering some of the most aggressive protections for free speech and investigative journalism in the world. The proposal, the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative, combines in a single piece of legislation provisions from around the world: whistle-blower laws and rules about Internet providers from the United States; source protection laws from Belgium; freedom of information laws from Estonia and Scotland, among others; and New York State’s law to counteract “libel tourism,” the practice of suing in courts, like Britain’s, where journalists have the hardest time prevailing. “We would become the inverse of a tax haven,” said Birgitta Jonsdottir, a member of Parliament and a sponsor of the initiative. “They are trying to make everything opaque. We are trying to make it transparent.” For many observers, this legislation represents a direct reversal of recent Icelandic history. Secret dealings by a few banks in Iceland, combined with a lack of regulation and oversight, led to calamitous debts that were nine times the gross domestic product. In response, Iceland would institutionalize the most aggressive sunshine laws possible.

Mancow Waterboarded, Admits It's Torture
2009-05-22, NBC Chicago
http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/Mancow-Takes-on-Waterboarding-and-Loses....

Shock jocks shock. And so it went Friday morning when WLS radio host Erich "Mancow" Muller decided to subject himself to the controversial practice of waterboarding live on his show. Mancow decided to tackle the divisive issue head on -- actually it was head down, while restrained and reclining. "I want to find out if it's torture," Mancow told his listeners Friday morning, adding that he hoped his on-air test would help prove that waterboarding did not, in fact, constitute torture. At about 8:40 a.m., he entered a small storage room next to his studio. "The average person can take this for 14 seconds," Marine Sergeant Clay South answered, adding, "He's going to wiggle, he's going to scream, he's going to wish he never did this." With a Chicago Fire Department paramedic on hand, Mancow was placed on a 7-foot long table, his legs were elevated, and his feet were tied up. Turns out the stunt wasn't so funny. Witnesses said Muller thrashed on the table, and even instantly threw the toy cow he was holding as his emergency tool to signify when he wanted the experiment to stop. He only lasted 6 or 7 seconds. "It is way worse than I thought it would be, and that's no joke," Mancow said, likening it to a time when he nearly drowned as a child. "It is such an odd feeling to have water poured down your nose with your head back...It was instantaneous...and I don't want to say this: absolutely torture."

Note: Click on the link above to watch a video of Mancow being waterboarded.

Michael Moore blasts Bush over federal probe
2007-05-11, MSNBC/Associated Press
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18615496

Filmmaker Michael Moore has asked the Bush administration to call off an investigation of his trip to Cuba to get treatment for ailing Sept. 11 rescue workers for a segment in his upcoming health-care expose, “Sicko.” Moore, who made the hit documentary “Fahrenheit 9/11” ... said in a letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on Friday that the White House may have opened the investigation for political reasons. “For five and a half years, the Bush administration has ignored and neglected the heroes of the 9/11 community,” Moore said in the letter. “I understand why the Bush administration is coming after me — I have tried to help the very people they refuse to help, but until George W. Bush outlaws helping your fellow man, I have broken no laws and I have nothing to hide.” Harvey Weinstein, whose Weinstein Co. is releasing “Sicko,” told The Associated Press the movie is a “healing film” that could bring opponents together over the ills of America’s health-care system. “This time, we didn’t want the fight, because the movie unites both sides,” Weinstein said. “We’ve shown the movie to Republicans. Both sides of the bench love the film." Moore won an Academy Award for best documentary with his 2002 gun-control film “Bowling for Columbine” and scolded Bush in his Oscar acceptance speech as the war in Iraq was just getting under way. The investigation has given master promoter Moore another jolt of publicity just before the release of one of his films.

Note: WantToKnow.info founder Fred Burks was hit with a $7,500 fine for a 10-day vacation to Cuba in 1999. For some strange reason, his was the first Cuba travel case prosecuted. He has taken it to court, where the case is still undecided. For more, including a link to a Los Angeles Times article on his case, click here.

Public interest in news topics beyond control of mainstream media
2006-06-09, Seattle Post-Intelligencer (One of Seattle's two leading newspapers)
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/273283_bunting09.html

The blogosphere has been abuzz. But in the days since Rolling Stone magazine published a long piece that accused Republicans of widespread and intentional cheating that affected the outcome of the last presidential election, the silence in America's establishment media has been deafening. In terms of bad news judgment, this could turn out to be the 2006 equivalent of the infamous "Downing Street memo," the London Times story that was initially greeted by the U.S. media with a collective yawn. Robert Kennedy Jr.'s Rolling Stone mega-essay is titled "Was the 2004 Election Stolen?" While Kennedy's article perhaps gives far too much weight to suspicious discrepancies between exit polls and the final election outcome, it meticulously asserts and documents questionable methods of purging voter rolls, intentionally created long lines at Democratic polling places, court-defying practices regarding registrations and provisional ballots, a phony terrorist alert on Election Day and final tallies in some counties and precincts that...simply don't make sense. Three Cleveland-area election officials have been indicted for illegally rigging the recount. Kennedy's 11,000-word article was Rolling Stone's cover story. But for the most part, national and regional newspapers, the major networks and news services have behaved as if the article was never published. But Kennedy's article is not just old news rehashed. Its 11,000 words, not counting the 208 footnotes, most of which contain Web addresses for links to source information.

Note: To read Kennedy's detailed allegations on the Rolling Stone website:
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen

When sluggishness isn't OK
2005-09-04, Chicago Tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-0509040406sep04,1,3926343.c...

E-mailers sent me copies of two news photos that revealed an apparent double standard regarding black and white flood victims in New Orleans. One of the images, shot by photographer Dave Martin for The Associated Press, shows a young black man wading through chest-deep waters after "looting" a grocery store, according to the caption. In the other, taken by photographer Chris Graythen for AFP/Getty Images, a white man and a similarly light-skinned woman also waded through chest-deep water after "finding" goods that included bread and soda in a local grocery store, according to the caption. Apparently, quipped a cynical blogger at Daily Kos, "It's not looting if you're white."

Note: For both photos and more on this disturbing story, click here.

Solar Challenge Finishes in Calgary
2005-07-28, Detroit News/CBS/Open Source Energy Network
http://pesn.com/2005/07/28/9600141_Solar_Challenge_results/

U of Michigan takes prize, finishing the 2500-mile course in 54 hours. Fourteen of the twenty entrants completed the race. The last to cross the finish line (Kansas State U) came in 12.5 hours after the winner. The ten-day solar car race from Austin to Calgary came to a successful finish yesterday. The University of Michigan's Momentum placed first, completing a few seconds under 54 hours. They also set a record by averaging 46.2 mph in this, the world's longest solar car race. The University of Minnesota's Borealis III came in second, trailing by 12 minutes. MIT's Tesseract came in third. Canada's leading team, the University of Waterloo, came in fifth with their Midnight Sun. Fourteen cars went all the way to the finish line, with the last to cross being Kansas State University's Paragon on its maiden race, at 87.5 hours, a little over 12 hours after the winner.

Note: A solar powered car averaged 46.2 mph in over a 2,500 mile course! Why isn't this making mainstream news headlines? I invite you to do a Google news search on "Solar Challenge" (the annual solar car race). You will find that almost no major media cover this event at all. The few who do somehow fail to mention anything about the speeds attained by these cars. Why is the media not covering these incredible breakthroughs?

Fallout from Dean's scream on news networks
2004-02-09, ABC News/Associated Press
http://www.abcactionnews.com/entertainment/stories/0402/040209cnn.shtml

It probably means little now to Howard Dean, but CNN's top executive believes his network overplayed the infamous clip of Dean's "scream" after the Iowa caucuses. "It was a big story, but the challenge in a 24-hour news network is that you try to keep all of your different viewers throughout the day informed without overdoing it," said Princell Hair, CNN's general manager. The media explosion turned the former Democratic presidential front-runner into a punch line and arguably hastened his campaign's free fall. It's also an instructive look at how television news and entertainment works today. "It was totally unfair," said Joe Trippi, who lost his job as Dean's campaign manager in the fallout. Trippi accepts that the footage was newsworthy, but he figured it was a one-day story. Instead, CNN cable and broadcast news networks aired Dean's Iowa exclamation 633 times — and that doesn't include local news or talk shows — in the four days after it was made. "It shouldn't be an anvil that you keep hammering to destroy his candidacy," Trippi said. The cable news networks ran and reran the video. They analyzed it. They ran footage of the late-night comedians joking about it. They played the instant Internet songs that sampled Dean's shout. Virtually overnight, the "I Have a Scream" speech became legend. It took on such a life, said Paul Slavin, senior vice president of ABC News, that "the amount of attention it was receiving necessitated more attention." Neither Slavin nor Mark Lukasiewicz, NBC News executive producer in charge of political coverage, believe the coverage was overdone. Roger Ailes, Fox News chairman, told ABC News it was "overplayed a bit."

Note: If the above link fails, click here for the full article and more.

After Struggle on Detainees, Obama Signs Defense Bill
2012-01-01, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/us/politics/obama-signs-military-spending-b...

President Obama, after objecting to provisions of a military spending bill that would have forced him to try terrorism suspects in military courts ... signed the bill on [New Year's Eve]. The White House had said that the legislation could lead to an improper military role in overseeing detention and court proceedings and could infringe on the president’s authority in dealing with terrorism suspects. But it said that Mr. Obama could interpret the statute in a way that would preserve his authority. The president, for example, said that he would never authorize the indefinite military detention of American citizens, because “doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a nation.” He also said he would reject a “rigid across-the-board requirement” that suspects be tried in military courts rather than civilian courts. Congress dropped a provision in the House version of the bill that would have banned using civilian courts to prosecute those suspected of having ties to Al Qaeda. It also dropped a new authorization to use military force against Al Qaeda and its allies. Civil liberties groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, still oppose the law, in part because of its authorization of military detention camps overseas.

Note: This New York Times article amazingly fails to mention that civil liberties groups oppose this law primarily because it eliminates habeus corpus, Posse Comitatus and Bill of Rights protections, and enables the military to arrest and imprison American citizens on American soil and subject them to military tribunals without due judicial process. These protections are what Pres. Obama was referring to when he mentioned "our most important traditions and values as a nation." Is his statement that he will not use the new powers the law gives him sufficiently reassuring?

Japan disaster shows U.S. journalists unprepared
2011-03-18, San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco's leading newspaper)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/03/17/DDFN1ICTA0.DTL

If any institution needs to get back to basics and refocus on what it takes to survive a disaster - or report on it with integrity - it's the cable news business. The triple threat in Japan - earthquake, tsunami, nuclear reactors in peril - is clearly demonstrating how reporters and anchors are bungling the basics and how the producers and executives in charge of them have fallen woefully short of leadership. Yes, the visuals were riveting and horrific, but context was lacking. Covering this trilogy of terror in Japan really underscores how much better prepared reporters and anchors need to be. The incessantly simplistic and embarrassing questions need to stop. It's a shame that going online to watch videos from NHK, BBC and Al Jazeera English was far and away the best option for Americans.

'Code Orange' for press freedom
2007-07-15, San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco's leading newspaper)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/07/15/EDGU9R0PAC1.DTL

The arguments against a federal shield law might be frightening if they were not so ludicrous. There are two ways to reassure yourself that legislation to allow journalists to protect the identity of confidential sources will not be exploited by terrorists, thugs, identity thieves, sleazy sleuths and anarchists who expose trade secrets. One is to look at the experience of 49 state laws that grant varying levels of protection for journalists using anonymous sources. The other is to read the bill. "The Free Flow of Information Act of 2007,'' sponsored by Reps. Mike Pence, R-Ind., and Rick Boucher, D-Va., does not provide an absolute right for journalists to protect their sources. Under their HR2102, a journalist could be forced by the courts to reveal his or her source if the disclosure involved: -- A threat to national security. -- A threat of imminent death or significant [bodily] harm to a person. -- A trade secret of significant value. -- Personal financial or health information. [The] Justice Department, which has wielded subpoenas and threats of jail time against journalists in pursuing government leaks, has never liked the idea of a shield law. So it was hardly a surprise when it recently testified against HR2102. What was eye-poppingly outrageous was a Justice official's straight-faced attempt to suggest that criminals or terrorists would invoke the bill's protection for journalists to thwart prosecutors. "Totally absurd," House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., said of the terrorism argument. However, the dangers that overzealous prosecutors pose to a free and independent press that Pence calls "essential to an informed" electorate are very real and growing. As Pence put it, "there may never be another Deep Throat" if whistle-blowers become worried that journalists cannot keep a promise of confidentiality.

McKinney reopens 9/11
2005-07-23, Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Atlanta's leading newspaper)
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/stories/0705/23natmckinney.html

Rep. Cynthia McKinney led a Capitol Hill hearing Friday on whether the Bush administration was involved in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. "What we are doing is asking the unanswered questions of the 9/11 families," McKinney, a DeKalb County Democrat...said during the proceedings. The eight-hour hearing, timed to mark the first anniversary of the release of the Sept. 11 commission's report on the attacks, drew dozens of contrarians and conspiracy theorists who suggest President Bush purposely ignored warnings or may even have had a hand in the attack — claims participants said the commission ignored. "Congresswoman McKinney is viewed as a contrarian," panelist Melvin Goodman, a former CIA official, said. "And I hope someday her views will be considered conventional wisdom."

Note: Other than this article and C-SPAN (see below), no major media covered this important event. C-SPAN 2 eventually aired the hearing on August 31, 2005 at 8 PM. Many thanks to C-SPAN for being the only media outlet that consistently reports on 9/11 information that should be making headlines in all major media.

4 Networks Reject Ad Opposing Bush on Lawsuits
2005-02-01, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/01/national/01ads.html?ex=1265000400&en=6cb9a4...

An advocacy group, USAction, said on Monday that four television networks had turned down its request to run an advertisement opposing President Bush's effort to clamp down on medical malpractice lawsuits. The NBC Universal Television Network, owned by General Electric, told the group, "We are sorry that we cannot accept your ad based on our network policy regarding controversial issue advertising." ABC, CBS and the Fox Broadcasting Company said they had also turned down the advertisement. Mr. Bush has proposed strict limits on medical malpractice litigation, including caps on damages for pain and suffering, as part of a campaign for sweeping changes in the nation's civil justice system.

Note: Doesn't the media promote controversy and sensationalism on other topics? To understand how the media stops key news from reaching the public, click here.

Who decides who'll be allowed on TV debates?
2008-01-24, San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco's leading newspaper)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/24/MNJDUJ0TP.DTL

The Nevada Supreme Court's ruling allowing a cable network to exclude Rep. Dennis Kucinich from a Democratic presidential debate was barely a blip on the media radar screen. But in the long term, the court decision might prove to be [very] significant. It constituted the strongest judicial statement yet of news organizations' near-absolute power to control participation in pre-election forums. Kucinich, the Ohio congressman who polls in the low single digits but has a fervent following among his party's anti-war base, [charged] that the cable channel had promised to let him in when he met its standards, then abruptly changed those standards to keep him out. MSNBC said initially that the debate was open to Democrats who placed in the top four in a national poll. It invited Kucinich on Jan. 9 after a Gallup Poll a few days earlier ranked him fourth. But two days later, after New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson dropped out of the race, the channel narrowed its criteria to the top three candidates and withdrew Kucinich's invitation. The day before the debate, a Nevada judge ordered MSNBC to let Kucinich participate, saying the cable operator had entered into a binding contract that it couldn't rescind once the candidate accepted. The state's high court quickly granted review and, an hour before the debate, ruled 7-0 in the cable channel's favor. The bottom line: Debates, the public's sole opportunity to see competing candidates in a neutral setting, are the prerogative of the sponsoring organizations - typically, these days, the news media - which set the criteria and have free rein to alter them.

Note: For a summary of reliable reports on major problems with the electoral process, click here.

Dan Ellsberg: Sibel Edmonds case "Far More Explosive Than Pentagon Papers
2007-11-19, OpEdNews.com
http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_luke_ryl_071119_dan_ellsberg_3a_sibel...

Bradblog has been chasing the story about former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds' offer to 'tell all.' [Daniel] Ellsberg says: "I'd say what she has is far more explosive than the Pentagon Papers. From what [Edmonds] has to tell, it has a major difference from the Pentagon Papers in that it deals directly with criminal activity and may involve impeachable offenses. And I don't necessarily mean the President or the Vice-President, though I wouldn't be surprised if the information reached up that high. But other members of the Executive Branch may be impeached as well. There will be phone calls going out to the media saying 'don't even think of touching [Edmonds' case], you will be prosecuted for violating national security.'" [Edmonds] said: "The media called from Japan and France and Belgium and Germany and Canada and from all over the world. I'm getting contact from all over the world, but not from here." More Ellsberg: "I am confident that there is conversation inside the Government as to 'How do we deal with Sibel?' The first line of defense is to ensure that she doesn't get into the media. I think any outlet that thought of using her materials would go to the government and they would be told 'don't touch this, it's communications intelligence.' As long as they hold a united front on this, they don't run the risk of being shamed." [Edmonds:] "I will name the name of major publications who know the story, and have been sitting on it --- almost a year and a half." "How do you know they have the story?," we asked. "I know they have it because people from the FBI have come in and given it to them. They've given them the documents and specific case-numbers on my case."

Note: Though this is not from one of our normal reliable sources, Dan Ellsberg is a highly respected whistleblower who has received an abundance of major media coverage over the years. As the mainstream media are clearly and consciously ignoring this story, we felt it deserved to be posted, even though we don't have a major media source to back it up. For lots more reliable information on this courageous woman, click here.

U.S. corporations are sitting on huge stockpiles of cash
2006-05-28, Seattle Post-Intelligencer/Associated Press
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/271828_market27.html

Imagine the dilemma of having so much cash in your bank account that you didn't know what to do with it. This pipe dream for the average American is now reality for the country's biggest corporations. The industrial companies that make up the Standard & Poor's 500 index...have a staggering $643 billion in cash and equivalents. "We're in a time that is out of whack with all historical numbers," said Howard Silverblatt, equity market analyst at Standard & Poor's. "People are demanding why corporations need so much cash, what are they going to do with it?" Companies began propping up their reserves through 16 straight quarters of double-digit profit growth. Leading the pack with the most cash is Exxon Mobil Corp., which has about $36.55 billion on its balance sheet. That amount is nearly equal to its 2005 profit of $36.13 billion, the highest ever for a U.S. company. Some results of the cash riches: An unprecedented $500 billion of stock buybacks. Last year, ExxonMobil spent $18.2 billion buying its shares. One of the biggest avenues in which companies have spent this excess money has been through mergers and acquisitions. Some 75.4 percent of all deals under $1 billion so far this year were done purely with cash.

Note: A Google search reveals that though this Associated Press article was widely picked up by medium-sized newspapers in the U.S., none of the top 10 papers picked it up. The Seattle newspaper above also removed the word "huge" from the title after it was published. $36 billion means that more than $100 for every man, woman, and child in the U.S. went into ExxonMobil profits last year, and another $100 for each person went into their cash reserves. If ExxonMobil and other oil companies have so much extra cash, why are gas prices so high? It's also quite interesting that the advertisements of these mega-corporations continually invite us to go into debt buying their products, while their profits and cash reserves grow ever higher.

Top 10 Censored News Stories of 2005 Published by University Research Team
2006-01-27, Project Censored/WantToKnow.info
http://www.WantToKnow.info/060127newsstoriescensored

Project Censored specializes in covering the top news stories which were either ignored or downplayed by the mainstream media each year. Project Censored is a research team composed of nearly 200 university faculty, students, and community experts who review about 1,000 news story submissions for coverage, content, reliability of sources, and national significance. The top 25 stories selected are submitted to a panel of judges who then rank them in order of importance. The results are published each year in an excellent book available for purchase at their website, amazon.com, and most major book stores.

1. White House Erodes Open Government
2. Media Coverage on Iraq: Fallujah and the Civilian Death Toll
3. Distorted Election Coverage
4. Surveillance Society Quietly Moves In 
5. U.S. Uses Tsunami to Military Advantage in Southeast Asia
6. The Real Oil for Food Scam
7. Journalists Face Unprecedented Dangers to Life and Livelihood
8. Iraqi Farmers Threatened By US Mandates
9. Iran’s New Oil Trade System Challenges U.S. Currency
10. Mountaintop Removal Threatens Ecosystem and Economy

Emotional Rather blasts 'new journalism order'
2005-09-19, ABC News
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=1141521

Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather said Monday that there is a climate of fear running through newsrooms stronger than he has ever seen in his more than four-decade career. Rather famously tangled with President Nixon and his aides during the Watergate years while Rather was a hard-charging White House correspondent. He said that in the intervening years, politicians "of every persuasion" had gotten better at applying pressure on the conglomerates that own the broadcast networks. He called it a "new journalism order." He said this pressure -- along with the "dumbed-down, tarted-up" coverage, the advent of 24-hour cable competition and the chase for ratings and demographics -- has taken its toll on the news business. "All of this creates a bigger atmosphere of fear in newsrooms," Rather said.

BBC says sorry to Israel
2005-03-12, The Guardian (One of the U.K.'s leading newspapers)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1435973,00.html

The BBC has bowed to an Israeli demand for a written apology from its deputy bureau chief in Jerusalem, Simon Wilson, who was barred from the country for failing to submit for censorship an interview with the nuclear whistleblower, Mordechai Vanunu. The climbdown has angered some BBC journalists, who say it will compromise their work in Israel. Mr Wilson was allowed to return to Israel on Thursday after signing a letter to the government acknowledging that he defied the law by ignoring demands from the security service and military censors to view tapes of an interview with Mr Vanunu after he was released from 19 years in prison last year. The agreement was to have remained confidential, but the BBC unintentionally posted details on its website before removing them a few hours later. Officials of Ariel Sharon, the prime minister, demanded a letter of apology and a promise not to re-offend when the authorities refused to extend Mr Wilson's work permit at the end of last year and barred him from re-entering Israel. At the time, the BBC said it could not meet such a demand. The BBC website said Mr Wilson had now acknowledged to the Israeli government that he was in the wrong. "He confirms that after the Vanunu interview he was contacted by the censors and was asked to give them the tapes. He did not do so. He regrets the difficulties this caused," the BBC statement said.

previous

12345678

next

· entire list