We need independent media so bosses can't silence columnists . . .

. . . as is happening in Vegas. Or I should say, "What happens in Vegas, gets silenced in Vegas."

Is US media system failing?

Typical of similar academic studies over the years, a 2008 study compared the level of public knowledge about current events in Denmark, Finland, United Kingdom and the United States. It found that the countries where TV/radio is dominated by public broadcasting -- Denmark and Finland -- were the best informed. Our country, dominated by corporate commercial media, was the least informed. The U.K.'s public, with its mix of Murdoch-style tabloids and BBC, was in the middle. The study's authors suggest that differing media systems play a role in those results.

A 2003 study of public knowledge of facts related to the Iraq War found that misperceptions among U.S. residents (that evidence linked Iraq and al Qaeda; that weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq; and that world public opinion favored the US invasion) were greatest among those whose primary info source was Fox News -- and least among those whose primary info source was public broadcasting. (A Pew poll taken in Aug. 2010 found that almost 1 in 5 Americans believed President Obama to be a Muslim; only 34% knew he is a Christian. 43% chose "don't know.")

Why can't we have public TV like this in the USA?

Weeks before the 2003 U.S./British invasion of Iraq, the BBC's Jeremy Paxman and skeptical British citizens literally cross-examined Prime Minister Tony Blair about evidence/reasons/legality behind the invasion -- an interview whose transcript and Blair's comments became part of Britain's official Iraq inquiry in 2011. (Here's another tough Paxman interview of Blair . . . unrelated to Iraq. And here, Paxman interviews Russell Brand in Oct. 2013.) 

In our country, pressure from politicians + lack of insulated funding = embarrassing timidity at so-called "public television"...as evidenced by PBS surgically removing Tina Fey's comedic swipes at Sarah Palin from a broadcast in November 2010.

Country by country comparisons of taxpayer spending on public broadcasting here.

In Feb 2015 a mini-scandal blew up over corporate underwriting of U.S. public TV and I was interviewed on the topic by The Real News Network. 

Is fast, open Internet possible in USA . . . where Internet was invented?

In the opening scene of the Outfoxed documentary, media scholar Robert McChesney explains how big media corporations (acting almost like gangsters) have made media policy behind closed doors, dividing the cake among themselves. If the FCC were doing its job, it might pose gentle but probing questions of gangsta Murdoch and "Murdochopoly," as Jon Stewart did in 2013. (Years ago, Murdoch famously said: "Monopoly is a terrible thing, until you have it.")

The USA, where the Internet was invented, lags behind other countries in Internet speed. Here's one recent ranking. In 2009, big Internet providers such as Verizon, Comcast, AT&T DID NOT APPLY for any of the billions in federal stimulus grants for expanding broadband infrastructure, according to the Wall St. Journal, because recipients of our tax money had to agree to respect Net Neutrality.

On HBO in June, "investigative comic" John Oliver offered a powerful commentary in support of Net Neutrality, generating so many comments to the FCC that it crashed the Commission's website. Months of public pressure sparked President Obama in November 2014 to speak clearly that his FCC should protect Net Neut. 

PS "Survey Shows Satire News Programs Inform People Better Than Actual News on Net Neutrality," reports Dan Van Winkle in summarizing a 2014 University of Delaware survey. Respondents said they learned more about Net Neutrality from John Oliver, Colbert and Jon Stewart's Daily Show than from newspapers, online news or TV news. 

PPS In January 2011, I was asked to appear on a talk-radio show on a big city station to analyze Keith Oblermann's exit from MSNBC; when I suggested a link to the Comcast takeover and criticized Comcast's opposition to Net Neutrality, a producer asked me during a commercial break to stop the "Comcast-bashing" because "they're our biggest sponsor."  

Mainstream Media Promoted Breitbart's Video Distortions

The late Andrew Breitbart, a former assistant to Matt Drudge, ran BigGovernment.com and other websites (now found at Breitbart.com). In July 2010, the Obama White House forced U.S. Dept of Agriculture employee Shirley Sherrod to quit after BigGovernment posted a100-second video excerpt purporting to show that, during a speech to the NAACP, Sherrod had boasted about discriminating against a white farmer while she was a federal employee in the Obama administration. Actually, as Breitbart later semi-corrected, Sherrod was describing events in the 1980s when she was Georgia field director for the Federation of Southern Cooperatives, a nonprofit that had grown out of the civil rights movement to help Black farmers long discriminated against by the U.S. Dept of Agriculture. More importantly, a fuller version of the speech (first aired by CNN) showed that Sherrod had told the story to illustrate how she had overcome her bias toward whites and ultimately helped the white farmer save his farm.

Ten months earlier, in 2009, other selectively-edited tapes distributed by Breitbart's website (featuring James O'Keefe and played repeatedly on Fox News and elsewhere) helped put the anti-poverty group ACORN out of business. Rachel Maddow dissects the distorted presentation that doomed ACORN. 

It wasn't just Fox News that promoted the misleading ACORN story. The Public Editor of the paper of record, the New York Times, went to absurd lengths to defend his paper's inaccurate coverage.

Drudge "Exclusive" -- readers beware

Perhaps Matt Drudge should stick to aggregating content from others (often with revved-up headlines) rather than "report" -- as demonstrated by this 1999 "World Exclusive," which helped push a hoax into mainstream media.

Amy Goodman inducted into I.F. Stone Hall of Fame

Here's a video clip from Wednesday's award ceremony

Can openly biases or partisan journalists . . .

. . . engage in independent reporting and commentary -- as opposed to partisan propaganda? Here's some critical commentary from the conservative National Review Online within hours of John McCain selecting Sarah Palin as his running-mate in August 2008: 

          Ramesh Ponnuru: "Palin has been governor for about two minutes."

David Frum: "But question: If it were your decision, and you were putting your country first, would you put an untested small-town mayor a heartbeat away from the presidency?"

Shannen Coffin: "If John McCain has said that a year plus of statewide office (plus some small town politics) is good enough, why isn't state legislature and a couple of visits to the floor of the U.S. Senate?"

Jonah Goldberg: "Downside: She may not be ready for primetime. The heartbeat-from-the-presidency issue is a real one."

This isn't the drumbeat GOP cheer-leading one might get from a less independent source like Fox News at that crucial juncture.

Undercover videotaping of animal abuse on factory farms . . .

. . . has prompted "food libel" or "food disparagement" laws in many states, aimed at protecting powerful agribusiness interests that apparently have something to hide. Here's a video report from U.C. Berkeley News 21 students.

HuffPost citizen journalist impacts 2008 prez election

Mayhill Fowler, a citizen journalist for HuffingtonPost's "Off the Bus" project, posted a report that launched the so-called "Bittergate" uproar that nearly derailed Obama's 2008 campaign. The Bittergate of 2012 campaign: "47%-gate." (The 47% bartender/recorder.)

Recently Hillary Clinton reportedly used a noise machine so journalists and others couldn't hear what was happening at her private, high-dollar fundraiser in Colorado.

In getting a later scoop, Fowler said she didn't hide that she was recording ex-President Clinton as he verbally trashed a Vanity Fair reporter as "sleazy" and "dishonest" and "a scumbag, while greeting voters in public as he campaigned for his wife in June 2008. BUT Clinton obviously did not know Fowler was a HuffPost "citizen journalist." Should she have ID'd herself? (She clearly got a more honest response from Clinton than if he'd known she was a journalist.)

Should public figures know nowadays that anything said in public -- especially rants (or racism) -- will be recorded and available forever? Exhibits A (and A-1) features a U.S. senator and B features a comedic actor.

First viral video? George Holliday records 1991 LA police beating of Rodney King

Early "citizen journalist" George Holliday records "world's most famous home video." Here's a brief excerpt. 

Blogger took ethical action

Here's an example of a blogger acting quite professionally and ethically. Ken Krayeske, who questioned University of Connecticut's basketball coach about his big taxpayer-paid salary, announced in Oct. 2009 that he wouldn't be covering Hartford City Hall because his girlfriend had a job there. If he'd disclosed the relationship and kept covering City Hall, that  might have been sufficient from an ethical standpoint.

Ed Snowden Coverage: If US mass media were state-controlled, would it look any different?

My June 2013 piece on some of the mainstream media reaction to Snowden and his revelations about widespread NSA surveillance on people not suspected of any crime. NY Times journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin commented: "I'd arrest him [Snowden] and I'd almost arrest Glenn Greenwald." Meet the Press host David Gregory asked Greenwald, "Why shouldn't you, Mr. Greenwald, be charged with a crime?" (start 1:30)

On the issue of "objective" vs "advocacy" journalism, here's a list of top works of journalism worth studying.

Soon after accepting their Izzy Awards in Ithaca in March 2009 at  the first ever Izzy ceremony, Greenwald and Goodman spoke about independent media on public TV's Bill Moyers' Journal.

Indy musicians stay in touch with 'true fans' . . .

. . . by using Facebook and Twitter, reported NPR's Laura Sydell in 2010. The report discusses cellist Zoe Keating and singer-songwriter Suzanne Vega.

Early You Tube Stars Bring In Real Income

What the Buck? Here's Michael Buckley's "My You Tube Story." According to a Dec 2008 NY Times report, "You Tube Videos Pull In Real Money," Buckley earned over $100k in the previous year (plus an HBO development deal) from his YouTube video-commentaries or rants about celebs. 

Since she was about 14, my now 19--year-old daughter's main source of daily news has been Philly D (of "The Philip DeFranco Show"), who offers his take on current events and celeb news. (Should I have been monitoring my daughter's online activities better?)

Cory Williams and his smpFilms hit the bigtime with "Hey Little Sparta" (aka "The Mean Kitty Song" -- over 80 million views). He told the NYT in 2008 that he was earning over $200k per year, partly from (ugh!) product placements in his videos. 

(YouTube star Lisa Donovan or ""Lisa Nova"has talent for sketch comedy and parodies. Like Tina Fey, she liked to play Sarah Palin, including in this infamous McCain/Palin rap.)

The success of The Young Turks

The Young Turks is a web TV phenom,  and YouTube played a major role in its success; here's a Turks' video on media censorship. And here's the trailer for new doc, "Mad As Hell," about Cenk Uygur and The Young Turks. (Here's the original "Mad as Hell" excerpt from the 1976 movie Network.) A 2014 London daily profiled Cenk. 

Brave New Films' "McCain's Mansions" played a role in the 2008 election campaign, thanks in part to YouTube. Ditto for this citizen journalism video about the then-dictator of Tunisia.

AOL's Journalistic Values?

Soon after AOL announced its merger with HuffingtonPost in February, 2011 Business Insider (followed by the Boston Globe) published leaked AOL documents offering a glimpse into that company's journalistic approach -- not one that Arianna Huffington would endorse. (H/t to former indy media student Leah T, for posting the Insider's summary of AOL's guidelines.)

Is mainstream TV news largely responsible for Trump campaign?

Trevor Noah says yes.

Web Censorship in China

After Yahoo provided info to China's government that led to 10-year prison sentences for two Chinese dissidents beginning in 2003 and 2005, the families of the victims (Wang Xiaoning and Shi Tao) sued Yahoo. As a result, Yahoo announced in 2008 that it had established a fund for people persecuted or jailed in China for posting political views online. Too little, too late?

In response to demands from China's government, Google agreed in June 2010 to quit automatically switching its users in China to Google's uncensored Hong Kong search site. But there's a tab users can click to be switched. Should Chinese citizens feel safe when hitting that tab?

Web Censorship in the USA

In 2008, the media reform group Free Press highlighted media and telecom corporations who'd recently been caught censoring web or cellphone traffic.

Inner City Press, a monitor of Wall Street and the United Nations, was temporarily delisted from Google News. The de-listing happened soon after Matt Lee of Inner City Press challenged Google over its commitment to free expression.

Tom Tomorrow, editorial cartoonist

The chaining and corporatization of alternative weeklies can undermine alternative cartoonists like "Tom Tomorrow"/Dan Perkins.

A victory for bloggers' access to courtrooms

In March 2012, a Massachusetts court ruled that bloggers deserve the same privileges in covering courts and trials as traditional media.

Can pay walls save newspapers?

No, says Arianna Huffington, as she testifies on "The Future of Journalism & Newspapers" before the U.S. Senate in May 2009 (at 59:02). (A former indy media student complained about Boston Globe's paywall around the Globe's editorial.)

Cofounder of Brave New Films: "The Internet is my religion."

Intensely personal 2011 speech from Brave New Films' Jim Gilliam (who was raised a conservative Christian evangelical) discussing how the Internet offered him salvation -- and literally saved his life.

Pre-financing of journalism and media projects

A new project, BeaconReader.com, hopes to fund freelance writers and indy media by seeking donations from the public for specific articles or topics. (Here is NY Times write-up from 2014, when it launched.)

Kickstarter.com is "a funding platform for artists, designers, filmmakers, musicians, journalists, inventors, explorers..." A key aspect of Kickstarter and some other funding platforms is "All or Nothing funding."

On Kickstarter, a project must reach its funding goal before time runs out or no money changes hands. Why? It protects everyone involved. Creators aren’t expected to develop their project without necessary funds, and it allows anyone to test concepts without risk.

Here was a successful Kickstarter fundraising drive in 2013 that saved a local movie theater. Here's a documentary movie project that I'm a small part of, which has used Kickstarter successfully.

Before Kickstarter was launched, the Robert Greenwald documentary on war-profiteering (Iraq for Sale) was PRE-funded mostly by small donors -- an example of grassroots financing of a work that had real impact.

Citizen journalist harassed/arrested

FAIR reports on recent arrest.

Historic outlets profiled in class

Common Sense by Tom Paine; focus on documents, not authors (or leaker), e.g. Ed Snowden; Frederick Douglass' North Star; Woman's Journal in 1911 reports on a victory; The Nation leader for decades, Oswald Garrison Villard; the muckracking magazine McClure's and a new website that seems to be the anti-McClure's; the weekly Appeal to Reason was one of our country's biggest ever indy; The Catholic Worker featured writers like Thomas Merton -- he and editor Dorothy Day recently praised by THE POPE; The Ladder, pioneering lesbian publication; one of the most important alternative weeklies, L.A. Free Press; the publication that inspired Steve Jobs, Whole Earth Catalog.

"Boggers Bring in Big Bucks" (2007)

This Business Week slideshow from July 2007 summarized some of the most financially successful early blogs covering technology, fashion, celebs, politics. Most are still success stories today. (Here is the intro to the slideshow.)

President Teddy Roosevelt on "The Man with the Muck Rake"

TR's April 1906 speech: 

The men with the muck rakes are often indispensable to the well being of society; but only if they know when to stop raking the muck . . . if they gradually grow to feel that the whole world is nothing but muck, their power of usefulness is gone.

Speaking of muckrakers, Warren Hinckle edited one of the most explosive muckraking magazines in U.S. history, Ramparts.

Biggest moments in journalism blogging history?

A list of historic moments in blogging from 1998-2008

Cops vs. Journalists Who Covered Occupy Wall St. Movement (2011/12)

HARASSMENT OF JOURNALISTS COVERING OCCUPY MOVEMENT: A citizen journalist with a video camera taped himself apparently getting shot by police rubber bullet while covering a seemingly peaceful moment during Occupy Oakland (CA) protests.  At Occupy Nashville, a reporter for the long-established weekly Nashville Scene was arrested for violating a curfew imposed by Tennessee's governor (a night judge questioned whether that's legal), was threatened with a "resisting arrest" charge, and was ultimately charged with "public intoxication." Nashville's big daily reported on the dubious arrest.

Between Sept 2011 and Sept 2012, more than 90 journalists (both independent and mainstream) were arrested while covering Occupy protests in the U.S. Removing journalists and citizen journalists from the scene seemed to be a strategy because acts of police brutality -- when recorded by citizen journalists and ubiquitous cameras & cell phones -- led to more sympathy and activists for the movement: for example, in NY City and at University of California, Davis. Like in the 1960s, the federal government built a large surveillance apparatus to spy on Occupy activists. 

And the surveillance of social movements continues today. 

"THE MAYOR'S AFRAID OF YOU TUBE": In October 2011, hours after New York City authorities made a last-minute decision NOT to clear protesters from the original Occupy Wall Street site in Lower Manhattan, filmmaker Michael Moore said this to MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell (begin 2:54 for context): 

"One cop down there actually today. I asked...'Why don't you think the eviction happened?' And he said, 'Cause the Mayor's afraid of You Tube.'...The power of the new media, the media that's in the hands of the people -- that those in charge are afraid of what could possibly go out."

Harassment of indy media in 2008

Since the 1960s when the FBI and local police engaged in violence and continuous harassment against "underground weeklies," repression against dissenting U.S. outlets has decreased. But it has certainly not ended. Case in point: the 2008 Republican Convention in Minnesota. Three years later, the journalists' suit against the police was settled, with $100,000 in compensation being paid by the St. Paul and Minneapolis police departments and the Secret Service. The settlement included an agreement by the St. Paul police to implement a training program aimed at educating officers regarding the 1st Amendment rights of the press and public, including proper procedures for dealing with journalists covering demonstrations.

Two Stars of 1960s Alternative Media

RAMPARTS: One of the most explosive indy magazines of the 1960s, Ramparts published photos of the impact of U.S. napalm (a chemical weapon that eats away human flesh) on Vietnamese civilians in its Jan. 1967 issue. Martin Luther King, Jr. credited those photos with being the spark that got him to break his silence and speak out loudly against the Vietnam War a few months later.  Besides its investigative scoops and dramatic story-telling, Ramparts was known for its cover art, shown here and HERE.

"DR. HIP": Syndicated widely to "underground weeklies," Dr. Eugene Schoenfeld dispensed blunt and humorous advice about sex (and drugs). That legacy is carried on by Dan Savage's "Savage Love" column in today's alternative weeklies. Savage started the "It Gets Better" project.

Two leading political reporters take joy ride with Trump . . .

. . . aboard his helicopter. Who could ever question their objectivity or independence?

I.F. Stone Inspires Today's Independent Journalists

New educational documentary, "The Legacy of I.F. Stone," in two parts.

Robert Abbott and Margaret Sanger

Robert Abbott of the Chicago Defender played a major journalistic role in the "great migration" of African Americans from the U.S. South.

Margaret Sanger, publisher/journalist/founder of Planned Parenthood, is proof that heroes, including heroes of indy media, are often flawed. This article from Women's E-News discusses her flirtation with eugenics-oriented arguments in support of birth control in the early 1920s.

Dinner with Amy Goodman

In the early 1900s, the socialist Appeal to Reason newspaper offered yachts, fruit farms and motorcycles as premiums to bring in subscriptions and revenue. Democracy Now! offers Dinner and Show with Amy Goodman. 

Where are today's Upton Sinclairs?

Colbert accepted the challenge of experiencing difficult working conditions as a farm worker. Here he is doing farm labor (in upstate New York).

Or is it Barbara Ehrenreich, who worked at low wage jobs (waitress, maid, Wal-Mart employee) for her book Nickel and Dimed to see if she could make ends meet?

Students Continue Ida B. Wells Tradition

Over the last 15 years, Northwestern University students (in journalism and law) and their professors  were instrumental in proving the innocence of many prisoners in Illinois, several of whom had been sentenced to death. Their investigative journalism was controversial and far from perfect, but it ultimately sparked the abolition of the death penalty in Illinois in 2011.

Lynching prompted the classic Billie Holiday song,"Strange Fruit," which she recorded independently in 1939 -- getting around the objections of Columbia, her record company: "Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze, strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees." It ultimately became her biggest selling record. Time magazine denounced the song as a "piece of musical propaganda." The song's lyrics were inspired by this photograph of a 1930 lynching in Indiana.

Re Legacy: I'm not aware of any schools named after newspaper editors because they ignored or apologized for racist lynchings. But Ida B. Wells has a high school named after her (school home page here) in San Francisco (just across the park from the famous "painted ladies" Victorian houses.)

Journalists have to re-fight old battles

Dissident publications throughout history exposed many social problems (like the labor weeklies in the 1830s spotlighting the problem of people being jailed simply for being in debt). Exposure led to reform; debtors prisons were abolished. But other journalists --  years or generations later -- may have to keep exposing the issue . . . as these investigative journalists for the big mainstream daily in Minneapolis did in 2011.

"It's not a crime to owe money, and debtors' prisons were abolished in the United States in the 19th century. But people are routinely being thrown in jail for failing to pay debts. In Minnesota, which has some of the most creditor-friendly laws in the country, the use of arrest warrants against debtors has jumped 60 percent over the past four years, with 845 cases in 2009, a Star Tribune analysis of state court data has found."

The Nation returned to the topic of debtors' prisons in 2014, and Izzy Award-winner John Carlos Frey reported on the same theme for public TV in 2015.

 I.F. Stone pointed out that some reforms don't happen except through the work of generations of journalists and democracy activists: 

“The only kinds of fights worth fighting are those you are going to lose, because somebody has to fight them and lose and lose and lose until someday, somebody who believes as you do wins. In order for somebody to win an important, major fight 100 years hence, a lot of other people have got to be willing - for the sheer fun and joy of it - to go right ahead and fight, knowing you're going to lose. You mustn't feel like a martyr. You've got to enjoy it.”