Free Republic

FOR a tycoon whose family owns newspapers, magazines and TV networks and is hailed as a great communicator, Silvio Berlusconi fights with the media a lot. The Italian premier has attacked the domestic and international media for months, suing two left-leaning Italian newspapers for millions of euros and denouncing "scoundrels" in the press. Berlusconi says he wants to protect his image and that of his country, but to critics he just wants to gag the media. A recent press freedom rally in Rome drew tens of thousands of people, some holding signs saying "Now Sue Me, Too!" What makes the...

RADFEST 2004: MIDWEST SOCIAL FORUM FRIDAY, JUNE 44:00-5:15 REGISTRATION Education Center5:15-6:30 DINNER Dining Hall6:45-9:00 PLENARY PANEL Education "LATINOS/AS AND THE STRUGGLE FOR POLITICAL, SOCIAL, AND ECONOMIC ABC JUSTICE" Christine Neumann-Ortiz , Voces de la Frontera, Milwaukee Teofilo Reyes, Labor Notes, Transnationals Information Exchange, Chicago Graciela Sánchez, Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, San Antonio Renée Saucedo, La Raza Centro Legal, San Francisco9:15-? Musical Entertainment Outdoor AmphitheatreThroughout "CORPORATE GLOBALIZATION VS. GLOBAL JUSTICE GUERRILLA PHOTO Conference EXHIBIT" Education Orin Langelle, Global Justice Ecology Project Building An evolving exhibit of photographs from the most recent mobilizations against corporate globalization. The exhibit includes photographs documenting...

A new video of Jeremiah Wright has surfaced, showing Barack Obama's pastor of 20 years praising Marxism and discussing his ties to communists in El Salvador and Nicaragua and the Libyan government. Equally important, Wright is being introduced in the video by Robert W. McChesney, co-founder of Free Press, an organization which has come under scrutiny for its links to the Obama Administration and dedication to the transformation and control of the private media in the U.S. In an article in the socialist Monthly Review, "Journalism, Democracy, and Class Struggle," McChesney declared, "Our job is to make media reform part...

After months of taking incoming fire from the prime-time stars of Fox News, the Obama White House is firing back, "FOX News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican party," said Anita Dunn, White House communications director. "If media is operating basically as a talk radio format, then that's one thing, and if it's operating as a news outlet, then that's another," Mr. Obama said. Last Sept. 20, the president went on every Sunday news show - except Chris Wallace's show on FOX. And on Thursday, the Treasury Department tried to exclude...

The Federal Communications Commission has unveiled the topics it is looking to discuss as it considers revising its media ownership rules, and one area it is looking to explore could have ramifications for future mergers between broadcast and cable companies and newspaper companies. Specifically, the FCC said it will probe whether it could continue to enforce regulations regarding media concentration by industry or should it find an "alternative structure to determine an ownership limit for all media within a relevant market." Cutting through the bureaucratic speak, what the FCC is saying is that currently it regulates broadcast, radio and cable...

I was struck by the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson’s opinion piece today entitled The Biggest Disappointment of the Obama Presidency. In it he berates Obama for giving short shrift to New Orleans when he visited Thursday. Of all the Post’s writers, Robinson has been the most supportive of Obama, seldom finding fault, but this time he skewers him. "President Obama's brief display of drive-by compassion Thursday in New Orleans was, for me, by far the worst outing of his presidency thus far -- and the biggest disappointment..." "So it was strange and disheartening that Obama would wait nine months to...

Free Press has helped put together a letter to the FCC and Congress in support of Mark Lloyd, the FCC's associate general counsel and chief diversity officer. The letter says its purpose is to speak out against the "the falsehoods and misinformation that are threatening to derail important work by Congress and the FCC." Read the whole story here

Ben Scott oversees all governmental outreach and regularly testifies before Congress and the FCC. The Washington Post called him a "driving force" in media and technology policy. Before joining Free Press, Ben was a legislative fellow for then-Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Ben has been quoted in publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times and Salon, and featured as a commentator on MSNBC, BBC, PBS, C-SPAN, NPR and local stations across the country. He is the author of several scholarly articles on American journalism and is co-editor of the books Our Unfree Press and The Future...

Now, let me introduce you now to a friend of Mark Lloyd's. In fact, he is also a friend of Van Jones. He founded a little group called Free Press. They are looking for anything but free press. Let me tell you a little bit about the founder, Robert McChesney. He is the former editor of "Monthly Review," which he himself has described as one of the most important Marxist publications in the world, let alone the United States. He is a backer of Hugo Chavez, the crackdown on the media, and even suggested that owners of a TV station...

From a speech in March of 1918(Lenin’s appearance was greeted with a prolonged standing ovation. The “Internationale” was sung.) In his speech Lenin, in a clear and popular form, explained the essential features and basic points of the Soviet Constitution. The Soviets were the highest form of democratic government by the people. The Soviets were not something invented out of one’s head, they were the product of living reality. They appeared and developed for the first time in history in our backward country, but objectively they should become the form of government by the working people all over the world....

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs and the Obama administration found the press corps slightly less friendly than they are used to yesterday, when CBS's Chip Reid asked why the questions for Wednesday’s town hall on healthcare were being selected beforehand. Gibbs tried to dodge the issue, and asked for it to be asked after the town hall meeting in question, but then Helen Thomas became involved, saying, “We have never had that in the White House. I’m amazed that you people … call for openness and transparency.” Reid and Thomas didn't let up for a second, especially Thomas. To see...

A socialist-oriented “media reform” group with intimate ties to the Obama Administration and George Soros is calling for new federal programs and the spending of tens of billions of dollars to keep journalists employed at liberal media outlets or at new “public media.” The group, which calls itself Free Press, is urging “an alternative media infrastructure, one that is insulated from the commercial pressures that brought us to our current crisis.” However, speakers at this week's Free Press "summit" had nothing to say about the well-documented liberal bias that has contributed to the decline in readers and viewers for traditional...

Conservatives and other Republicans have long been aware of the bias of CNN’s reporting. Friends who have traveled outside of the USA report that the bias of CNN International is not only pro-liberal, but is actually anti-American. The only dispute I would have with this report is that it makes it appear that CNN is the most-biased, pro-liberal network, but those honors go to MSNBC. In saying this, I do not mean to imply that CBS, NBC and ABC are without liberal bias. Anyone who watched the CBS 60 Minutes report on Israel vs. Hamas was reminded of how biased...

An Exclusive Right Side News Interview©2009 On Sept. 15, 2008, the editor of Danish daily Berlingske Tidende summoned historian and columnist Lars Hedegaard to his office to lower the proverbial ax. He received a transparently suspicious explanation. "I'd been tedious and repetitive, and they needed younger people," he said. "I thought, they're not going to get me. There will be a record of what I've done these nine years." The pun on page 22 is lost in translation. In Danish, 'Skat' means both honey or beloved and taxation. Danish is the only language in the world where tax and honey...

File this one under the "I should've seen this coming" category; Connecticut State Representative Frank Nicastro (D-Bristol/Forestville) is petitioning the Connecticut state government to bailout his local newspapers, the Bristol Press and the New Britain Herald. This is the first such effort and it is strictly a local effort by Representative Nicastro and some of his fellow state legislators, but I predict that it won't be the last. With all of the large Liberal newspapers now struggling to survive due to dire reductions in revenue and readership, watch for a push from Democrats in Congress to follow suit.

COB ADDER — Nearly 60 journalists from southern Iraq recently met at Camp Dhi Qar to talk with Italian journalists and discuss the growth of Iraq’s free press. "I think it is very important to have the cooperation between Iraqi media and Italian and international media," said Wathick Abdul Abed, an Iraqi journalist who writes for several local newspapers as well as websites. Anna Marie Greco, an Italian journalist who spoke at the conference, discussed important issues in journalism such as bias in reporting, the Iraqi journalists overcoming their fears of retribution, and newsgathering techniques. "The role of the journalist...

Unrecognized by Americans majorities - domestic and international threats will change our country forever (blame the media) - Part Two - Islam By Vincent Gioia The people in any country are only able to protect themselves and assure their freedom if they are aware of what is going on that affects them. Knowledge of current events was difficult to obtain two hundred years ago when the United States was created but nonetheless early Americans realized the importance of keeping everyone informed so they built into the Constitution a safeguard for freedom of expression which is acknowledged in the First Amendment...

It is much easier to look backwards, to examine all of those plans, decisions and safeguards which could have been crafted a little better, if we had only known then, what has proven so expensive now. Accordingly, it is also stunning, and downright humbling, for us beneficiaries in that distant future, to now appreciate just how much effort, foresight, and stark brilliance, obviously went into the proposals, conflict and eventual agreement by those of the past who got so much so right. And yet if we are to do our part now, as they did theirs then, we must begin...

It was supposed to be a joke. As an endless parade of corporate beggars marches to Washington in search of handouts for their beleaguered industries, some of us in the news business snarked that journalists would be next in line. I launched a Newspaper Bailout Countdown Clock on my blog after The New York Times Company's bonds plunged into junk territory in October. A few weeks later, columnist Jon Fine published a tongue-in-cheek memo in BusinessWeek outlining a federal newspaper rescue proposal. The jibes were meant to be facetious critiques of for-profit enterprises demanding massive taxpayer expenditures under the guise...

Could the Kremlin censor an entertainment programme on live TV? According to Russian bloggers, that's exactly what happened on one of the country's national television channels. The programme, "Phenomenon," aired on the state-run Rossiya channel on Sept. 5. In the live broadcast, Russian magician and self-styled psychic Alexander Char played a version of the children's game Cluedo, telling the audience that the details of a murder were in a safe. Then he asked three audience members to name first a weapon, then a place, then the person who committed the crime. The first guinea pig in the audience chose a...

Russia could find that it is getting more than it bargained for EVEN by Russia’s recent bloody standards, it was a brazen killing. Magomed Yevloyev, the editor of an opposition website in Russia’s north Caucasus territory of Ingushetia, was detained by the police as he arrived in Nazran on a flight from Moscow on August 31st. Within minutes he was dead, having allegedly tried to seize a policeman’s rifle and been shot in the head. His body was dumped outside the region’s main hospital. The Ingush authorities say they are investigating an accidental death but nobody takes this seriously. There...

MOSCOW: Nearly 60% of Russians agree with state censorship of the media, according to an opinion poll this week, arguing it was necessary to tackle misinformation, violence and vulgarity. Results from the survey for the Russian Centre for Public Opinion Research (VTSIOM) showed that 26% of respondents said censorship was “absolutely necessary”, and a further 32% called it “fairly necessary”. Only 8% said it was “completely unnecessary.” After coming to power in 1999 the former Russian president Vladimir Putin, put large parts of the media under state control and, according to media rights campaigners, silenced several privately owned independent TV...

I want . . Freedom of the press to be the right not to be lied to. You are confused. So very seriously confused about the First Amendment, that you are not thinking any more clearly about it than I was before the mid-1990s, when I began to see through the system by which the "journalistic objectivity" con is perpetrated. And since I was already in my fifties by then, I have every reason to understand how you might see things the way you do. Freedom of the press is much more like "the right to lie to you"...

Obama's Soviet-style Press Relations By Greg McNeilly Feb 26th 2008 4:08PM Barack Obama's message has included "openness" from net neutrality to the government's relations with the public. He speaks of a new open era. But if his conduct, as a candidate, is a prelude to governance, then Obama's rhetoric is a sham and he'll be a hypocrite. The Politico reports today on the state of media openness with the Obama campaign. They compare his campaigning to the the 2000 campaign of then-Governor George W. Bush and the 2004 campaign of U.S. Senator John Kerry (D-MA). Bypassing the national media for...

AP Chief Cites Loss Of U.S. Press Freedoms Curley Honored For Pushing Openness In Government POSTED: 5:10 pm EST March 6, 2008 UPDATED: 5:12 pm EST March 6, 2008 The shadow of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks is eclipsing press freedom and other constitutional safeguards in the United States, Associated Press President and CEO Tom Curley says. Curley, CBS News correspondent Bob Schieffer and NBC Universal vice president Paula Madison will be honored next week for their roles in promoting open government and free speech rights. "What has become clear in the aftermath of 9/11 is how much expediency...

What is the point of a paper of record that decides the untarnished record is too much for readers? Do you ever wonder what is the greatest enemy of the free press? One might mention a few conspicuous foes, such as the state censor, the monopolistic proprietor, the advertiser who wants either favorable coverage or at least an absence of unfavorable coverage, and so forth. But the most insidious enemy is the cowardly journalist and editor who doesn't need to be told what to do, because he or she has already internalized the need to please—or at least not to...

President Bush does not use e-mail. The most secretive chief executive since Richard Nixon does not want to risk having his digital communications revealed as part of the official record of the republic he is sworn to serve and protect. Other Americans do rely on the Internet, however. Unfortunately, our off-line president has set the tone for a White House that is almost ridiculously disengaged when it comes to the challenge of preparing the United States for a digital future. A Bush administration report released Thursday claims that high-speed Internet access is now available to virtually every American. This self-congratulatory...

Both Hillary Clinton and GQ have a lot of explaining to do if the Politico has this story correct: According to Ben Smith, Hillary's campaign pressured GQ to kill a piece critical of her by threatening to withhold Bill Clinton's cooperation in the future. The editors of GQ caved into the threat and spiked the article: Early this summer, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign for president learned that the men’s magazine GQ was working on a story the campaign was sure to hate: an account of infighting in Hillaryland. So Clinton’s aides pulled a page from the book of Hollywood...

As American Thinker noted here yesterday, Jimmy Carter came out with some crocodile tears for the ongoing turmoil in Venezuela's democracy over the issue of free speech. Does anyone realize the extent to which Jimmy Carter created the conditions that led to today's turmoil in Venezuela? Not only did Carter validate a fraudulent recall referendum in 2004, which sealed Hugo Chavez's grip on political power based on a political capital and mandate he did not have, Carter also was instrumental in weakening the free press. It's not very well known, but Carter mediated a secretive meeting between Chavez and Gustavo...

Venezuelans protest opposition TV channel closure By Christian Oliver Sat May 19, 4:45 PM ET Tens of thousands of protesters on Saturday denounced President Hugo Chavez's plans to close an opposition television channel, accusing their leader of maiming Venezuelan democracy as he forges a socialist state. Chavez says RCTV, the country's oldest private broadcaster, supported a bungled coup against him in 2002. He has had a long-running battle with opposition television stations, calling them "horsemen of the apocalypse." "Let us defend democracy, let us defend freedom, let us defend free independent media such as RCTV," RCTV's managing director, Marcel Garnier,...

The Roanoke Times is the latest newspaper to discover that just because something can be done does not mean it should be done. As reported by Michelle Malkin and others, the Times on March 11 ran an editorial titled "Shedding Light on Concealed Handguns" announcing that it was publishing a list of everyone in Virginia's New River Valley possessing a concealed carry permit. This type of story has become a ritual event with second and third-tier news outlets across the country. Others who have published similar stories include the suburban New York Westchester-Rockland Journal News, the Argus Leader of South...

Officials identifying themselves as members of a state regulatory agency forced the U.S.-based Spanish-language TV network Telemundo to halt transmission Sunday of its presidential election coverage. "We're surprised by this," said Pablo Iacub, a member of Telemundo's eight-person team, which arrived last week. "We only want to do our work," he said by telephone. At least six people who identified themselves as members of the National Commission of Telecommunications (CONATEL), which regulates electronic media in Venezuela, arrived Sunday afternoon at the hotel from which Telemundo had been transmitting since Friday, said Iacub. The officials said the network needed permission to...

140th in the world - just ahead of the Democratic Republic of Congo? The France-based non-governmental organization Reporters Without Borders recently released their Worldwide Press Freedom index, which ranks Russia as 140th on a list of 168 countries in terms of protecting journalists and media expression. Russia’s 140th ranking is exactly one spot ahead of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the site of the bloodiest conflict in the world, and just a few spots ahead of Iraq, where 85 journalists have died violently since 2003. Russia even allegedly lags nine spots behind Kazakhstan, where President-for-Life Nursultan Nazarbayev erected a...

A U.S.-based press freedom group said Wednesday that President Hugo Chavez is using the courts and legal reforms to weaken journalists critical of his leftist government. Wrapping up a three-day visit to Venezuela, delegates from the Inter American Press Association expressed concern that threats to press freedom under Chavez could increase as Venezuela prepares for presidential elections in December. "The different branches of government appear to have a strategy to weaken the work of the independent press," IAPA President Diana Daniels of The Washington Post Co., told a press conference. "We are worried that, far from improving press conditions in...

CorridorWatch.org Media Alert (06.04.06) Media > News Media Bulletins & Press Releases CorridorWatch.org – June 4, 2006 TxDOT denies media credentials for David Stall of CorridorWatch.org to attend and report on the Texas Transportation Forum (June 8 & 9). CorridorWatch.org was notified Friday by e-mail from TxDOT Public Information Director Randall Dillard that "applications for media credentials are being accepted only for mainstream news media." This is the first time I have been denied media credentials to cover a transportation function. Many of you have seen me at Commission meetings or working at events, such as the Texas Transportation Summit...

MOSCOW, June 5, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- Some 1,700 editors, publishers, and other media leaders from over 100 countries are in Moscow this week to attend the World Association of Newspapers' (WAN) 59th annual congress and the accompanying World Editors Forum. President Putin was clearly pleased to see so many world media leaders gather in his country. WAN's congress was indeed a prime opportunity for him to defend his regime against long-standing accusations that it is bent on muzzling the media. Addressing the delegates in his opening speech, he delivered a thinly veiled swipe at the Kremlin's detractors. "I was very...

In the early months of 2003, as the coalition offered Saddam Hussein's regime a final opportunity to comply with the United Nations Security Council, an Iraqi nicknamed "Baghdad Bob" served as a spokesman for Iraq's Information Ministry. He was not exactly a poster child for accuracy. When coalition troops took control of Baghdad's airport, this spokesman was on television denying they were there, saying such reports were "lies" or "a Hollywood movie." Even when shown video footage of U.S. soldiers on Saddam's parade grounds, just around the corner from where he was standing, "Baghdad Bob" said, "There is nothing going...

May 16, 1918: U.S. Congress passes Sedition Act http://www.historychannel.com/tdih/tdih.jsp?category=worldwari&month=10272957&day=10272981 http://tinyurl.com/ol7sm On May 16, 1918, the United States Congress passes the Sedition Act, a piece of legislation designed to protect America’s participation in World War I. Along with the Espionage Act of the previous year, the Sedition Act was orchestrated largely by A. Mitchell Palmer, the United States attorney general under President Woodrow Wilson. The Espionage Act, passed shortly after the U.S. entrance into the war in early April 1917, made it a crime for any person to convey information intended to interfere with the U.S. armed forces’ prosecution of the...

[First American magazine with a Mohammad cartoon on the cover!] In this issue, we’ve reprinted two of the now-infamous Danish newspaper cartoons depicting the Muhammad. We do so not to gratuitously offend Muslims; we do so because a vital principle is at stake—a principle that easily trumps any considerations of ill manners or hurt feelings. It is the founding principle of America: individual rights. For us, it is the pre-eminent concern for any publication or journalist: the right to speak and express oneself freely. The editors of this magazine are Objectivists. As advocates of reason, we reject religion and the...

Worldwide protests, riots, and threats aimed at Denmark and its citizens have taken place ever since the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten printed cartoons featuring the Islamic prophet Muhammed. In response to this unprecedented assault on the right to free speech, rallies supporting Denmark have occurred in Washington D.C. and New York,.  Others are planned for Chicago, London, Toronto, Montreal and Sydney. In addition, there will be a "Rally to Support Denmark and Free Speech" outside the Danish Consulate in San Francisco: When:  Friday, March 10, between noon and 1pm. Where:  Danish Consulate - One California Street (Suite 330) - San Francisco - Map....

03.02.06 Know Your Freedoms! Update III (3/3 @ 10:49 a.m.): I’m going to do something today that I haven’t done in a loooong time: go offline. I’ll check via the Treo periodically to approve comments caught in the moderation queue. Enjoy your freedom, and rest easy this weekend! ———————————————————————Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves. - Abraham Lincoln It matters little to me, in 2006, that some of the men who drafted the U.S. Constitution owned slaves or that none of them had people like me in mind when they drafted what is still and will...

"When a thinking person sees or reads something that offends them in a newspaper, they write a letter to the editor; they don't torch KFC. Clearly, there is more than a touch of irony in the violent reactions of Muslims around the world as a result of these cartoons."

He's made his points with images of a cartoon Jesus being stabbed by Santa Claus, playing poker with other religious figures (including Muhammad), punching a heckler who referred to him as a "glorified Easter bunny" and wondering if he has the requisite male body part during a sexual encounter with a woman. Those depictions have sparked anger among many students, both Christians and non-Christians, and concern among administrators. In a statement Friday, Vice President for Student Affairs Norleen Pomerantz said a meeting between student affairs and student media about how to balance First Amendment rights while maintaining good taste will...

This time, the press failed the public By William J. Bennett and Alan M. Dershowitz February 24, 2006 There was a time when the press was the strongest guardian of free expression in this democracy. Stories and celebrations of intrepid and courageous reporters are many within the press corps. Cases such as New York Times v. Sullivan in the 1960s were litigated so that the press could report on and examine public officials with the unfettered reporting a free people deserved. In the 1970s the Pentagon Papers case reaffirmed the proposition that issues of public importance were fully protected by...

Bill Clinton called them "totally outrageous" and an "appalling example" of stereotyping. He was talking about the Danish cartoons that sparked the rioting and killings throughout the Islamic world. Similarly, Sen. John Kerry was appalled by the cartoon depictions of Mohammed -- one, for example, showing the prophet in a turban shaped as a bomb. "Inflammatory images deserve our scorn," he said. French President Jacques Chirac, likewise, urged caution in regard to upsetting anyone's apple cart, especially if it's a faith-based cart: "Anything liable to rub the wrong way the beliefs of others, particularly the religious beliefs, must be avoided."...

Childish. Irresponsible. Hate speech. A provocation just for the sake of provocation. A PR stunt. Critics of 12 cartoons of the prophet Muhammad I decided to publish in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten have not minced their words. They say that freedom of expression does not imply an endorsement of insulting people's religious feelings, and besides, they add, the media censor themselves every day. So, please do not teach us a lesson about limitless freedom of speech. I agree that the freedom to publish things doesn't mean you publish everything. Jyllands-Posten would not publish pornographic images or graphic details of dead...

Throughout the cartoon controversy people on both sides talk about free speech and a free press. While in general, these can be construed as the freedom to say what you want, people are conflating Constitutional protections with the idea that one shouldn't face any consequences to their speech. Free speech, but more specifically, the Constitutional protection of free speech has absolutely nothing to do with private individuals and what they can do. The First Amendment is not a protection from your fellow citizens (or foreigners). It is a protection against what the government can do, and the government alone. When...

It doesn't take Valentine's Day for me to acknowledge my lifelong love affair with the First Amendment. But these days as I read the free press and watch the TV news, I'm enraged by these violent, self-righteous, Islamo-fascists who are threatening to destroy and kill anyone who dares express beliefs in a fashion of which they do not approve. It disappoints me that anyone, never mind people of my guild, would kowtow to these fanatics. "I don't understand why anyone would even publish these cartoons," said Evan Thomas of Newsweek on the "Imus Show" last week, in a moment of...

Creeping Fascism in Europe: Press Regulation Coming What is the lesson to be learned here? 1) Muslims threaten Europe with boycotts and violence and demand press regulations.2) Europe begins the process of outlawing images deemed offensive to Muslims. Lesson: If you want Europe to adopt sharia (Islamic) law, simply threaten then. My guess is that next Muslims will demand an end to public displays of pornographic material, something common in Europe. Also expect a demand for the prohibition of Christian missionaries trying to convert Muslims in the near future, sex-segregates schools, and tax supported mosques. In fact, European Muslims are...

The Danish cartoon saga has placed the US media in a fantastic pickle over the competing cherished American imperatives of free speech and politically correct self-censorship. So far only one major media organisation - the Philadelphia Inquirer - has published the offending cartoons of the prophet Mohammed. The approach of the rest was captured by the New York Times in an editorial yesterday, a characteristically pompous and ponderous piece of chin-stroking sanctimony. News organisations, it noted, were right to "refrain from gratuitous assaults on religious symbols". That homily raised a few eyebrows among those who remember The Times's lovingly recaptured...