A bona-fide member of the Fifth Estate, practicing Mobile Journalism (MoJo) every chance we get...
The city of New Orleans suffered one of the worst disasters in U.S. history when Hurricane Katrina flooded the city in 2005. Then when the Saints won the Super Bowl in 2010, the people felt like the city was back. But seven weeks later, BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig blew up in the Gulf of Mexico.
An Interview with
photographer David Rae Morris
by Glynn Wilson
LocustFork.Net
The President calls out Republicans for blocking campaign finance reforms that would address last year’s Supreme Court decision opening the floodgates of corporate money into elections.
Target Ain’t People
MoveOn.Org’s ad featuring a demonstration against Target due to the retail company’s campaign contributions mostly to Republicans was refused by MSNBC, which declined to air the ad. In the video, you can see it discusses the boycott on Target by gay marriage supporters.
So much for the idea that corporations would not abuse their new rights guaranteed by the Bush-Roberts Supreme Court to give unlimited amounts to conservative Republican political campaigns.
A few Target and Best Buy shareholders weighed in Thursday on the flap over the companies’ political donations in Minnesota, urging the boards of both retailers to increase their oversight of campaign contributions. Target gave $150,000 and Best Buy $100,000 to a business-focused political fund helping a conservative Republican gubernatorial candidate in Minnesota, triggering a national backlash from gay rights groups and liberals.
The companies made the donations after a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling freed them to spend corporate funds on elections.
Last week right-wing radio entertainer Rush Limbaugh said non-profit organization employees are “lazy idiots” and “rapists in terms of finance and economy.”
Hmmm. Watch this video to see who he might be talking about.
I just listened to this show on National Public Radio on the way back from Montgomery, just after having a conversation about objective journalism and the film idea I’m working on about the subject. This research could help that project, so I’m passing it on and archiving it here.
On NPR’s show “On the Media,” Bob Garfield asked:
Last week, Slate’s press critic Jack Shafer wrote in praise of yellow journalism, quote: “I wish our better newspapers availed themselves of some of the techniques of yellow journalism. Yes, the journalism of William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal and Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World from the 1980s. At its best it was terrific, at its worst it wasn’t that bad.”
Campbell’s response:
In making the case that journalism in the Gilded Age was much better than its tawdry reputation, Shafer cites the book Yellow Journalism: Puncturing the Myths, Defining the Legacies, by American University Professor W. Joseph Campbell. Campbell says that Hearst described his own particular style of journalism as, quote, “journalism of action.”
“He meant that newspapers had an obligation to do more than just comment on the passing scene of news and events in the world, but to actually engage in making society, making the city, making the country a better place,” Campbell said.
Now are you getting the picture?
Online News Outlets and Cable News Sources On the Rise
Americans continue to express near-record-low confidence in newspapers and television news, while surveys show online media outlets and cable news sources growing in popularity, according to the latest Gallup Confidence in Institutions survey.
No more than 25 of Americans saying they have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in either newspapers or TV news.
“These views have hardly budged since falling more than 10 percentage points from 2003-2007,” Gallup reports.
The findings are from Gallup’s annual Confidence in Institutions survey, which found the military faring best and Congress faring worst of 16 institutions tested.
Americans’ confidence in newspapers and television news is on par with Americans’ lackluster confidence in banks and slightly better than their dismal rating of Health Management Organizations and big business.
Kiss Your Independent Media Goodbye
Net Neutrality is The First Amendment Issue of Our Time
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Google and Verizon, two leading players in Internet service and content, are nearing an agreement that could allow Verizon to speed some online content to Internet users more quickly if the content’s creators are willing to pay for the privilege (like BP), according to the New York Times and other news organizations.
“Such an agreement could overthrow a once-sacred tenet of Internet policy known as net neutrality, in which no form of content is favored over another. In its place, consumers could soon see a new, tiered system, which, like cable television, imposes higher costs for premium levels of service,” the paper concludes, and not on the editorial page.
So, you like the corporate world of BP in charge of your environment as well as your gas?
You like the corporate control of the courts and the political system in Washington?
You like the corporate media like it is now?
Well, it’s about to get a whole lot worse — thanks to all those votes for corporate Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats.
Watch the video from MSNBC, and let’s talk about it in the comments and on Facebook.
National Incident Commander Admiral Thad Allen announced new procedures today to allow media free travel within the 20-meter boom safety zones if they have followed simple procedures for credentialing, and provided they follow certain rules and guidelines.
“I have put out a direction that the press are to have clear, unfettered access to this event, with two exceptions — if there is a safety or security concern,” Allen said. “This boom is critical to the defense of the marshes and the beaches.”
“We need to discriminate between media, which have a reason to be there, and somebody who’s hanging around when we know that we’ve had equipment vital to this region damaged,” Allen said.
Previously, media were required to contact local authorities each time they wished to access booming operations. The 20-meter safety zone was created to prevent boats from going over the top of booms; it is not intended to limit media access, according to a press release announcing the change in policy.
Please…
Fox News’s most right-wing nut, off-the-deep-end commentator Glenn Beck criticized Civil Rights leader and Georgia Congressman John Lewis on his show for “comparing himself to civil rights activists?”
“How dare you!” Beck bellows, pointing to the scene on the TV screen with shock and awe.
Guess Beck’s not exactly up on his Civil Rights history after all. Here’s a digital reproduction of an original Spider Martin photograph hanging on my wall from Bloody Sunday on the way from Selma to Montgomery.
That’s none other than John Lewis in the foreground, marching alongside Martin Luther King Jr. That’s the day Lewis was beaten with a billy club in a cloud of tear gas, available to see in Spider Martin’s photo archives at SpiderMartin.com.
Harper’s No Comment
