Why the Feral Beast is going into Hibernation

Huh?
SUN WILL RISE ON SUNDAY!
Shudder. We guess it's bound to be like News of the Screws redux as the old Dingo dodges another crisis. Never mind that the former prime minister's wife is suing for being wiretapped. Nonetheless,
...Murdoch Tries to Reassure Staff After Arrests

This media news, coupled with the untimely death of Tony Shadid, the NYT's wisest Middle East correspondent, makes this beast dismayed and disheartened.

For awhile at least, bye bye 

They just keep falling. We abhor the targeted killing of Marie Colvin, the veteran Sunday Times war reporter, in Homs, where she died, together with French photographer Remi Ochlik, and at least 60 others shelled by the Syrian army that day. Very hard to take this in.

What the Frack? Republicans turn on Fox journalist

The high profile documentary-maker Josh Fox issued the following statement to the press after Republican legislators called for his arrest while he was filming a congressional committee hearing on the environmental impact of fracking chemicals (He was not accredited.):

I was arrested today for exercising my First Amendment rights to freedom of the press on Capitol Hill. I was not expecting to be arrested for practicing journalism. Today's hearing in the House Energy and Environment subcommittee was called to examine EPAs findings that hydraulic fracturing fluids had contaminated groundwater in the town of Pavillion, Wyoming. I have a long history with the town of Pavillion and its residents who have maintained since 2008 that fracking has contaminated their water supply. I featured the stories of residents John Fenton, Louis Meeks and Jeff Locker in GASLAND and I have continued to document the catastrophic water contamination in Pavillion for the upcoming sequel GASLAND 2. It would seem that the Republican leadership was using this hearing to attack the three year Region 8 EPA investigation involving hundreds of samples and extensive water testing which ruled that Pavillion's groundwater was a health hazard, contaminated by benzene at 50x the safe level and numerous other contaminants associated with gas drilling. Most importantly, EPA stated in this case that fracking was the likely cause. As a filmmaker and journalist I have covered hundreds of public hearings, including Congressional hearings. It is my understanding that public speech is allowed to be filmed. Congress should be no exception. No one on Capitol Hill should regard themselves exempt from the Constitution. The First Amendment to the Constitution states explicitly "Congress shall make no law...that infringes on the Freedom of the Press". Which means that no subcommittee rule or regulation should prohibit a respectful journalist or citizen from recording a public hearing.
This was an act of civil disobedience, yes done in an impromptu fashion, but at the moment when they told me to turn off the cameras, I could not. I know my rights and I felt it was imperative to exercise them.
When I was led out of the hearing room in handcuffs, John Boehner's pledge of transparency in congress was taken out with me.
The people of Pavillion deserve better. The thousands across the US who have documented cases of water contamination in fracking areas deserve their own hearing on Capitol hill. They deserve the chance to testify in before Congress. The truth that fracking contaminates groundwater is out, and no amount of intimidation tactics --either outright challenges to science or the arrest of journalists --will put the genie back in the bottle. Such a brazen attempt to discredit and silence the EPA, the citizens of Pavillion and documentary filmmaking will ultimately fail and it is an affront to the health and integrity of Americans.
Lastly, in defense of my profession, I will state that many many Americans get their news from independent documentaries. The hill should immediately move to make hearings and meetings accessible to independent journalists and not further obstruct the truth from being reported in the vivid and in depth manner that is only achievable through long form documentary filmmaking.
I will be thinking on this event further and will post further thoughts and developments.
I have been charged with "unlawful entry" and my court date is February 15.
Josh Fox
Washington D.C.
2/1/12

Whoa Knelly - NPR's new headman

Vanity Fair dishes on NPR's new head honcho, Gary Knell and his challenge to counteract years of "impotent, ineffectual, absentee, and alien management."

...in the balance hangs NPR’s future and perhaps even its soul—as either a nonpartisan defender of in-depth journalism or a target of the partisan sniping of the sound-bite era. David Margolick explores how NPR’s management managed to squander the advantages of the national dole, deep-pocketed donors, a roster of top-notch reporters, and the loyalty of legions of devoted Click and Clack fans—and whether it can recover from the annus horribilis of 2011.

'Death to Bloggers' decrees Tehran

One dismal news item noted by the Washington Examiner's

Joel Gehrke  does not bode well for so-called citizen journalists who want to get the truth out:

Iranian courts have sentenced two bloggers to death for "spreading corruption," and government security forces have arrested four other journalists, in the lead-up to the nation's March elections.
"In the past two weeks, security forces have reportedly arrested four journalists," the U.S. State Department said in a statement, "including Shahram Manouchehri, Sahamedin Bourghani, Parastoo Dokouhaki, and Marzieh Rasouli, and Iranian courts confirmed death sentences for bloggers Saeed Malekpour and Vahid Asghari, both of whom were not accorded due process and now face imminent execution on charges of 'spreading corruption.'"
The State Department faulted Iran for trying "to extinguish all forms of free expression and limit its citizens’ access to information in the lead-up to March parliamentary elections."

9 Ways Journalists Show They Don't Get Science

Over on Guardian blogs, there's hot discussion about perceptions of hacks and lab geeks, who often seem to work at cross purposes. It was sparked by a post authored by the online editor of Nature, Ananyo Bhattacharya.   The comment below turned the discussion around and drew widesread approval from academics.  Definitely there are some salient points.  Hat tip to "jferdy5" for his/her insights on science reporters' shortcomings, listed below:

• 1. False equivocation: one of the reasons why there's doubt about global warming is because journalists take a handful of crackpots, many of which have never studied science, and then "equivocates," or gives roughly equal weight, to this argument versus broad scientific concensus.
• 2. Anecdotes do not equal systematic evidence (they're inferior): "while vaccinations may work for millions of people, that will not help little Billy who now has autism." Sounds familiar?
•  3. Manufacturing dissent: taking a fringe opinion (anti-Global warming, anti-vaccination, anti-evolution, etc) and giving it a disproportional amount of space. 
•  4. Expert opinion: articles should clearly define why Dr. X is considered an expert. Frequently, I find they're either an economist, statistician, or other person who hasn't published in a particular area and seems to be motivated by political views rather than dispassionate scientific debate.
•  5. Data journalism: this is a particularly insipid form of pseudo-science: journalists should not simply tabulate national rates based on their own analyses because they do not do the correct statistical tests (Fisher exact tests, etc) to check if a result is scientifically valid or not. It's bad to do this because the result may look scientifically valid when it is not.
•  6. The use of "narrative:" linking together anecdotes using emotive language manipulates and misleads readers. In law it's called "leading the witness," in science, "systematic bias." In journalism, why is it considered "good writing?"
•  7. No clear authors of articles: it's hard to examine the validity of science "reporting" if we do not know who is doing it. Simply putting "Guardian" or "New York Times" does not help. Scientists are required to disclose their names and sources of funding, journalists should do the same. 
•  8. No citations: most Guardian articles, and in many papers, will discuss a study in inflammatory terms and not provide a link to the article, when they're available on pubmed. As well, no one cares what an untrained journalists' interpretation is. Just put the results and let us make up our mind. And no, sassy science headlines don't draw in readers, they just make your paper look stupid.
•  9. Sending a reporter to a country does not trump public health statistics: if the WHO reports that malnutrition in Malawi or India is declining, it does not matter how many people your "Development" reporters interview, you cannot recalculate / dispute a national malnutrition / AIDS / TB rate based on a few subjective, systematically biased, personal interviews.
•  The Guardian does all of these. Perhaps we can have a discussion about it, and why journalism is responsible for driving pseudo-science and the decline of Western civilization?

Oops - should have coordinated with the ad dept

Sometimes the advertising department and editorial need to open the lines of communication.

The 10 most dangerous places for journalists in 2011

 Reporters Without Borders website has compiled a list of the world’s 10 most dangerous places for the media – the 10 cities, districts, squares, provinces or regions where journalists and netizens (internet citizens &/or online entities) were exposed to violence and where freedom of information was flouted.

The Arab Spring, the protest movements it inspired in nearby countries such as Sudan and Azerbaijan, and the street protests in other countries such as Greece, Belarus, Uganda, Chile and the United States were responsible for the dramatic surge in the number of arrests, from 535 in 2010 to 1,044 in 2011. 

There were many cases of journalists being physically obstructed in the course of their work (by being detained for short periods or being summoned for interrogation), and for the most part they represented attempts by governments to suppress information they found threatening.

The 43 per cent increase in physical attacks on journalists and the 31 per cent increase in arrests of netizens – who are leading targets when they provide information about street demonstrations during media blackouts – were also significant developments in a year of protest. Five netizens were killed in 2011, three of them in Mexico alone.The 10 places listed by Reporters Without Borders represent extreme cases of censorship of the media and violence against those who tried to provide freely and independently reported news and information.

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(Listed by alphabetical order of country)

Manama, Bahrain
The Bahraini authorities did everything possible to prevent international coverage of the pro-democracy demonstrations in the capital, Manama, denying entry to some foreign reporters, and threatening or attacking other foreign reporters or their local contacts. Bahraini journalists, especially photographers, were detained for periods ranging from several hours to several weeks. Many were tried before military tribunals until the state of emergency imposed on 15 March was lifted. After months of demonstrations, order was finally restored thanks to systematic repression. A blogger jailed by a military court is still in prison and no civilian court ever reviewed his conviction. Bahrain is an example of news censorship that succeeded with the complicity of the international community, which said nothing. A newspaper executive and a netizen paid for this censorship with their lives.

Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire
Abobo, Adjamé, Plateau, Koumassi, Cocody, Yopougon... all of these Abidjan neighbourhoods were dangerous places for the media at one stage or another during the first half of 2011. Journalists were stopped at checkpoints, subjected to heavy-handed interrogation or physically attacked. The headquarters of the national TV station, RTI, was the target of airstrikes. A newspaper employee was beaten and hacked to death at the end of February. A Radio Yopougon presenter was the victim of an execution-style killing by members of the Forces Républicaines de Côte d’Ivoire (FRCI) in May. The post-election crisis that led to open war between the supporters of the rival presidential contenders, Laurent Gbagbo and Alassane Ouattara, had a dramatic impact on the safety of journalists. During the Battle of Abidjan, the country’s business capital, at the start of April, it was completely impossible for journalists to move about the city.

Cairo’s Tahrir Square, Egypt
The pro-democracy demonstrations that finally forced Hosni Mubarak to stand down as president on 20 February began at the end of January in Tahrir Square, now the emblem of the Arab Spring uprisings. Foreign journalists were systematically attacked during the incredibly violent first week of February, when an all-out hate campaign was waged against the international media from 2 to 5 February. More than 200 violations were reported. Local journalists were also targeted. The scenario was similar six months later – from 19 to 28 November, in the run-up to parliamentary elections, and during the weekend of 17-18 December – during the crackdown on new demonstrations to demand the departure of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.

Misrata, Libya
After liberating Benghazi, the anti-Gaddafi rebels took Misrata, Libya’s third largest city and a strategic point for launching an offensive on Tripoli. But the regular army staged a counter-offensive and laid siege to the city, cutting it off from the rest of the world and imposing a news and information blockade lasting many weeks, during which its main road, Tripoli Street, was repeatedly the scene of particularly intense fighting. The Battle of Misrata highlighted the risks that reporters take in war zones. Two of the five journalists killed in Libya in 2011 lost their lives in this city.

Veracruz state, Mexico
Located on the Gulf of Mexico and long dominated by the cartel of the same name, Veracruz state is a hub of all kinds of criminal trade, from drug trafficking to contraband in petroleum products. In 2011, it became the new epicentre of the federal offensive against the cartels and three journalists were killed there in the course of the year. Around 10 others fled the state as a result of the growing threats to freedom of information and because of the inaction or complicity of the authorities in the face of this threat.

Khuzdar, Pakistan
The many cases of journalists who have been threatened or murdered in Khuzdar district, in the southwestern province of Balochistan, is typical of the extreme violence that prevails in this part of Pakistan. The province’s media are caught in the crossfire between the security forces and armed separatists. The murder of Javed Naseer Rind, a former assistant editor of the Daily Tawar newspaper, was the latest example. His body was found on 5 November, nearly three months after he was abducted. An anti-separatist group calling itself the Baloch Musallah Defa Army issued a hit-list at the end of November naming four journalists as earmarked for assassination.

The Manila, Cebu and Cagayan de Oro metropolitan areas on the islands of Luzon and Mindanao, Philippines
Most of the murders and physical attacks on journalists in the Philippines take place in these three metropolitan areas. The paramilitary groups and private militias responsible were classified as “Predators of Press Freedom” in 2011. The government that took office in July has still not come up with a satisfactory response, so these groups continue to enjoy a total impunity that is the result of corruption, links between certain politicians and organized crime, and an insufficiently independent judicial system.

Mogadishu, Somalia
Mogadishu is a deadly capital where journalists are exposed to terrible dangers, including being killed by a bomb or a stray bullet or being deliberately targeted by militias hostile to the news media. Although the Islamist insurgent group Al-Shabaab withdrew from the capital, fighting continues and makes reporting very dangerous. Three Somali journalists were killed in Mogadishu this year, in August, October and December. And a visiting Malaysian cameraman sustained a fatal gunshot injury to the chest in September while accompanying a Malaysian NGO as it was delivering humanitarian assistance.

Deraa, Homs and Damascus, Syria
Deraa and Homs, the two epicentres of the protests against Bashar al-Assad’s regime, have been completely isolated. They and Damascus were especially dangerous for journalists in 2011. The regime has imposed a complete media blackout, refusing to grant visas to foreign reporters and deporting those already in the country. The occasional video footage of the pro-democracy demonstrations that began in March has been filmed by ordinary citizens, who risk their lives to do so. Many have been the victims of arrest, abduction, beatings and torture for transmitting video footage or information about the repression. The mukhabarat (intelligence services), shabihas (militias) and their cyber-army have been used by the regime to identify and harass journalists. Physical violence is very common. Many bloggers and journalists have fled the country. Around 30 journalists are currently believed to be detained.

Sanaa’s Change Square, Yemen
Change Square in Sanaa was the centre of the protests against President Ali Abdallah Saleh and it is there that much of the violence and abuses against journalists took place. Covering the demonstrations and the many bloody clashes with the security forces was dangerous for the media, which were directly targeted by a regime bent on crushing the pro-democracy movement and suppressing coverage of it. Two journalists were killed while covering these demonstrations. Pro-government militiamen known as baltajiyas also carried out punitive raids on the media. Physical violence, destruction of equipment, kidnappings, seizure and destruction of newspapers, and attacks on media offices were all used as part of a policy of systematic violence against media personnel.

Yearly total of journalists killed since 1995

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Israel apologizes for sorry treatment of NYT photographer

Israel's Defense Ministry apologized Monday for the treatment of a pregnant American news photographer who was repeatedly strip searched and humiliated by Israeli soldiers during a security check, the Associated Press reports. (Olive -skinned Lynsey does look vaguely Palestinian, one colleague noted. But this incident shows how few rights can be counted on, especially when tight security is in place at borders.) The rather tepid apology for this so-called "mishap" took more than a month.

Lynsey Addario, who was on assignment for the New York Times, had requested that she not be forced to go through an X-ray machine as she entered Israel from the Gaza Strip because of concerns for her unborn baby.

Instead, she wrote in a letter to the ministry, she was forced through the machine three times as soldiers "watched and laughed from above." She said she was then taken into a room where she was ordered by a female worker to strip down to her underwear.

In the Oct. 25 letter sent by the newspaper said Addario, a Pulitzer Prize winner who is based in India and has worked in more than 60 countries, had never been treated with "such blatant cruelty."

The ministry said an investigation found that the search followed procedures but noted that Addario's request to avoid the X-ray machine had not been properly relayed.

Addario said she made the request not to go through the X-ray machine before arriving at the crossing.

"We would like to apologize for this particular mishap in coordination and any trouble it may subsequently have caused to those involved," the statement said.

It said that security is tight on the border with Gaza "in order to prevent terror from targeting and reaching Israel's citizens."

The defense ministry has "decided to hone the procedure for foreign journalists," it said.

The New York Times bureau chief in Israel, Ethan Bronner, welcomed the planned changes but said the newspaper remains shocked at the treatment Addario received and how long the investigation took.

Foreign journalists working in Israel have repeatedly complained of overly intrusive security checks by of Israeli authorities. Israel says the inspections are necessary measures.

In March, Addario was among four reporters captured in Libya by forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi and held for six days. Another of the four, reporter Anthony Shadid, related later that they were bound with wire, blindfolded, hit with fists and rifle butts and threatened with death. Addario also was groped, he said.

Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Crossposted on Israelity Bites

Chelsea Clinton to report for NBC Network News

As first families get accustomed to the spotlight, the offspring of presidents and candidates become attractive hires for television, with instant name recognition.  The latest to join Jenna Bush as a tv reporter at NBC is Chelsea Clinton, 31, a composed campaign trail speaker who presumably has discovered that professional life at McKinsey, a financial management firm,  is rather cut throat and alientating from the other 99 per cent of the population. Today, the New York Times reports that the only child of Bill and Hillary will henceforth be a full-fledged, full-time correspondent for NBC News. (Shades of Maria Shriver, erstwhile First Lady of California?)

Chelsea's new beat will be the "Making a Difference" profiles of community volunteer workers.  Well, the Clinton contact book of family friends is unmatched.  Hmmm. The jury is out until we see how the public handles her first "hot mike" incident. Few former hedge fund employees move on to the media.

Has Poynter's New Romenesko-ish blog, MediaWire, Just Imploded? The Spin's Still Coming In

This is a fractured fairy tale about an aggravated aggregator. His hastened departure at Poynter Institute has touched off a brouhaha of tweets and cybersnark this week. The veteran blogger Jim Romenesko has resigned a full seven weeks before his scheduled "semi-retirement" into reporting mode, and it looks as if he's intent on taking all his advertisers, along with some 38,000 regular followers, with him to his new stand-alone blog, JimRomenesko.Com.

It's all about the clicks, folks. And the Missing Links.

Some disgusted hacks say they won't ever click again on a Poynter link. The respected  Jim Romenesko quit under the shadow of a public rebuke from his boss Julie Moos, who evidently "had a cow" when the Columbia Journalism Review's Erika Fry  emailed her about some attribution concerns.  To pre-empt an interview and forestall an embarrassing expose about frequent under-attribution and over-aggregation on the Poynter Institute's most venerable blog, Moos rushed to post an article that repriminded JR about how his missing quote marks might imply the use of lifted quotes.  This taint of plagiarism smeared the uber-blogger and unleashed an angst storm in cybermedia circles.  It read like the revenge of the nerds.  The piece was then followed up by the personal take from all the Poynter head honchos at the St Petersburg, Florida institute on Journalism ethics.  Meanwhile, the abruptly abandoned blog, which had been running as Romenesko+, has transmogrified further.  The new moniker, MediaWire, sounds rather retro and, um, mediocre.
Kicker, the CJR blog for journos, has been weighing in, as has the NYT's Media Decoder (Behind the Scenes, Between the Lines).  They proclaim: "Romenesko's Posts Now Toast."  The conclusion? Despite all appearances, Ms Moos article was "not a paradoy of church-lady journo etiquette."  Self-aggrandizing and self-promoting hacks are not well served in such circles, commenters reminded the blogger, David Carr.  Let's watch this space.

Cartoonist Arrested at Occupy Oakland Raid

Susie Cagle, a spunky young graphic artist who has been covering the Occupy Oakland protests since the beginning, has been released from jail after her arrest.  She was charged with a misdemeanor for being present at a demo, even though her press accreditation was in order.  Colleagues are encouraging her to take the Blue Meanies of the Oakland police to court for prohibiting her from doing her job as a member of the press, protected by the First Amendment. 

Click here to see a clip of her, courtesy of the Crooks and Liars website.
Her dad, cartoonist Daryl Cagle, has been following her plight.

UPDATE #3: Susie has been released from Santa Rita, but she has been charged with misdemeanor “present at raid.” According to Susie, she had her press pass in full view when she was arrested, and one of the Oakland Police Department officers even recognized her and knew her comics.
UPDATE #2: Susie has been “signed out” of Santa Rita, but it’s still an indefinite amount of time before she is released.

UPDATE #1: Susie is being held at Santa Rita Jail in Alameda County, California, charged with unlawful assembly, even though she was there covering the event and had a press badge. Obviously, they took her phone when she was arrested, but you can follow updates on her Twitter feed, @Susie_C. It’s being updated by her friend Joel Kraut (@myunderpants).

Court to Rule on Julian Assange Extradition Today

The founder of WikiLeaks faces extradition to Sweden to face sex crime allegations. Julian Assange , who wears an electronic monitoring device on his ankle while in Britain, maintains that these accusations are politically motivated. The Press Association reports:

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will hear on Wednesday if he has won or lost his high court bid to block extradition to Sweden where he faces sex crime allegations.
His lawyers asked two judges to rule that extraditing the 40-year-old Australian would be "unfair and unlawful".
The Swedish authorities want Assange to answer accusations of raping one woman and sexually molesting and coercing another in Stockholm in August last year.
Assange, whose WikiLeaks website has published a mass of leaked diplomatic cables that embarrassed several governments and international businesses, denies the allegations and says they are politically motivated.
The high court in London is having to decide whether to uphold or overturn a ruling in February by District Judge Howard Riddle at Belmarsh magistrates' court in south London that the computer expert should be extradited to face investigation.
Judgment will be handed down by President of the Queen's Bench Division Sir John Thomas, sitting with Mr Justice Ouseley.
The Assange legal challenge, which has attracted worldwide attention, centers on a European arrest warrant (EAW) issued by a Swedish prosecutor, which led to Assange's arrest.
His QC, Ben Emmerson, argued at a two-day hearing in July that the prosecutor was not a "judicial authority" entitled to issue the EAW.
The warrant had also contained "fundamental misstatements" of what had occurred in Stockholm last August while Assange was in Sweden to give a lecture, said the QC.

This extradition case is not  linked to the Australian's notorious work as editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, which has so upset U.S. authorities. Assange's organization, which enables the anonymous uploading of secret information onto its website, has published around a quarter million confidential U.S. diplomatic cables in the past year, embarrassing to the government and possibly putting some named informants in potential danger. If the court rules in his favor, he will walk free.

UPDATE:  The British judges have ruled against Assange, but he has two weeks to appeal his case to the highest court, according to the Associated Press. It is increasingly likely that Sweden will be his next destination.

Female Soldier Jailed for Leaking IDF Assassination Policy

Israel is punishing its kosher version of Bradley Manning, the fomer IDF conscript and online reporter Anat Kam, who was just sentenced to four and a half years behind bars, despite her lengthy secret house arrest.  But the journalist who reported on her leaked documents about the IDF's hit list, Uri Blau of Haaretz, is presently holed up in Britain -- in an odd echo of Wikileaks' Julian Assange.  He's not as defiant, though. In a plea bargain, Blau has returned all confidential documents to the Israelis.

So, what is the price of speaking truth to power inside Israel? The Independent of London's Catrina Stewart reports on this crime, its punishment, and the Israeli gag order:

Israel has sentenced a former soldier to four and a half years in prison for leaking classified documents to a journalist who used them to expose an alleged army policy to assassinate wanted Palestinian militants in violation of court rulings.

Anat Kam, 24, was convicted in February for copying 2,085 military documents on to a disc as she completed her mandatory army service and passing some of them to Uri Blau, an investigative reporter with the left-leaning Haaretz newspaper.

She escaped the much more serious charges of harming state security after reaching a plea bargain.

 Her case provoked a domestic uproar - in part because she was held for four months under secret house arrest with the Israeli media banned from reporting on it, but also because it was viewed as an assault on the freedom of the press. The Independent was the first newspaper to report on Ms Kam's arrest.

In passing sentence yesterday, the three-judge panel elected to send a clear message to other would-be whistleblowers. "If the army cannot trust the soldiers serving in various units and exposed to sensitive issues, then it cannot function as a regular army," the judges wrote. They said that Ms Kam's motive for taking the documents was "mainly ideological". Ms Kam has already served nearly two years of house arrest, which will not count towards her prison term, and she received a further 18-month suspended sentence.

As a clerk in the Israeli Defence Forces' central command, Ms Kam stumbled across documents that appeared to point to the premeditated killing of Palestinian militants in the West Bank, despite a Supreme Court ruling that severely restricted such operations, determining that the army should arrest suspects if possible.

 The photo of Anat Kam, above, comes courtesy of SabbahReport, where reporter Gila Svirsky has probed into the scandal of the Shin Bet hit list, the gagging of the gag order, and the perils of whistle blowing.


Crossposted on Israelity Bites

WikiLeaks plugged

A bank blockade is about to staunch the flow of information from Julian Assange's notorious WikiLeaks website. According to reports in the Guardian and the New York Times, two of the newspapers that splashed the news from a torrent of secret documents uploaded to the website mostly by a low-level American soldier, Bradley Manning, publishing has stopped abruptly. What's lacking is, er, liquidity.

Julian Assange announced Monday that his pro-transparency hacker website will temporarily halt publication because of a cash shortage and will now concentrate on fundaising efforts. Bank of America, Visa, Mastercard, Western Union, and Paypal boycotted WikiLeaks last year after the release of thousands of classified U.S. State Department cables and a threat to leak a big stash of documents incriminating the Bank of America. Consequently, the organization has lost about 95 percent of its revenues, Assange said at a press conference in London. Mortgage frauds hinted at in B of A emails were published on the related site Anonymous in March, but had less impact than anticipated. Arizona and Nevada had already filed charges for

a host of deceptive practices by Bank of America, including falsely advising people that they must be in default before getting a modification, promising modifications would be made permanent after an initial trial period, and pursuing foreclosures even after assuring homeowners that the foreclosure process was stopped.

Already, the death knell is sounding and commentators are writing obituaries for the website, like this one in the Atlantic. While Manning remains in solitary confinement, the Australian whistleblower Assange is out on bail in Britain.

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Rebel Without A Clause? Review of 'Rimbaud in Java'

Writer Jamie James attempted to fictionalize his research for a novel,  after nine years of investigation, but ultimately he abandoned make-believe dialogue for the dogged truth.  That's a reporter. The book is released this week, and I got a chance to review it.

Long before Rambo, there was Rimbaud.
In fact, the poet Arthur Rimbaud can be seen as a kind of anti-Rambo: a literary child prodigy, army deserter, and blue-eyed French fop.
Consider "Bad Blood": A Season in Hell.

It sounds like an appropriate title for a Sly Stallone action movie sequel, but the punchy phrases are taken from an extraordinary prose poem, self-published by an openly gay teenager in 1873, which still is considered a milestone in French literature.

Jamie James's latest book, Rimbaud in Java-The Lost Voyage,  details the poet Arthur Rimbaud's inspiration and desperation to keep a low profile in a weird bygone Java replete with magic and carnal mysticism, then traces his travels back to Europe incognito as a deckhand aboard a steamer. Detours into sexual deviancy in the Victorian age and amorous French attitudes towards Orientalism and Islam are relevant and gripping.
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Arthur Rimbaud, decadent teen poet

 

(Hat tip to cartoonist Matt Bors.)

Hari-kari at the Independent?

The popular and rather egomaniacal columnist Johann Hari, who has admitted lifting quotes and bolstering his own profile on Wikipedia under a pseudonym while savaging his rivals, handed back his Orwell Prize for political reporting before it was officially rescinded. But it appears he kept the cheque! His apology in today's edition of the Independent may have satisfied his editors, though most of his journo colleagues are aghast. The Oxbridge chap, a wily wannabe Christopher Hitchens without Hitch's intellectual wattage , will go on leave from his newspaper for four months, apparently to take a little refresher course in journalism and ethics at his own expense. (Some say this will be at Columbia's prestigious J-school. But how did he get admitted so quickly?) And then , folks, he is expected back at the Independent. You have been warned. Same crass company as Stephen (Shattered) Glass and Jayson Blair , although The Independent has been remarkably soft on him.

For more reaction in the British press on this incident: click here, there, everywhere.

update:
The Orwell Prize and Political Quarterly has invited Hari to make a donation in the amount of the 2000 pound sterling prize to the press freedom charity, English PEN, of which George Orwell was a member, but no donation has yet been made.
 

Russ Baker bashes New Yorker piece on 'Getting Bin Laden' for sketchy sourcing

The spin cycle apparently ain't what it used to be. Is the New Yorker's exclusive article on the Bin Laden raid mainly based on whoppers circulated by the writer's dad, a top brass with military intel? [pictured above] A veteran reporter warns us not to be, er, schmidled:

When you look closely, nothing seems right about what will surely become the accepted account of the raid that nailed America’s enemy number one. And then things get even weirder…


•It is based on reporting by a man who fails to disclose that he never spoke to the people who conducted the raid, or that his father has a long background himself running such operations (this even suggests the possibility that Nicholas Schmidle's own father could have been one of those "unnamed sources.")

•It seems to have depended heavily on trusting second-hand accounts by people with a poor track record for accurate summations, and an incentive to spin.

•The alleged decisions on killing bin Laden and disposing of his body lack credibility.

•The DNA evidence that the SEALs actually got their man is questionable.

•Though certain members of Congress say they have seen photos of the body (or, to be precise, a body), the rest of us have not seen anything.

•Promised photos of the ceremonial dumping of the body at sea have not materialized.

•The eyewitnesses from the house -- including the surviving wives -- have disappeared without comment.

We weren't allowed to hear from the raid participants. And on August 6, seventeen Navy SEALs died when their helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan. We're told that fifteen of them came, amazingly, from the same SEAL Team 6 that carried out the Abbottabad raid -- but that none of the dead were present for the raid. We do get to hear the stories of those men, and their names.

Of course, if any of those men had been in the Abbottabad raid -- or knew anything about it of broad public interest, we'd be none the wiser -- because, the only "reliable sources" still available (and featured by the New Yorker) are military and intelligence professionals, coming out of a long tradition of cover-ups and fabrications.

Meanwhile, we have this president, this one who according to the magazine article didn't ask about the core issues -- why this man was killed, who killed him, under whose orders, what would be done with the body.

Well, he may not want answers. But we ought to want them. Otherwise, it's all just a game.

Hat tip to the new'Forensic Journalism' website, whowhatwhy.com


How's this for Bad assery??

(Russ Baker, the investigative reporter behind whowhatwhy -- a site that we hope will not overlook where, when, and how??-- points out that he is not the well-known Pulitzer Prize winning columnist

Elementary my dear Watson....run!

He may be synonymous with crafty detective work and putting criminals behind bars, but it seems that even Sherlock Holmes never saw this one coming. Mark Gatiss, the executive producer and co-writer of BBC show Sherlock, tweeted how the cast and crew had to abandon the set during the London riots. "This is a new one on me. Scene incomplete owing to approaching looters. Unbelievable times," he tweeted (http://twitter.com/#!/Markgatiss). "Unit evacuated. F*****g terrifying!". The i, P15

hat tip to Media Guardian

Breivik calls journalists 'Category B Traitors'

Killing the messenger in a massive hack attack?

Confessed Oslo attacker Anders Behring Breivik mentioned journalism conferences that attract droves of reporters and editors from around the globe as major targets for possible attacks to advance his xenophobic, right-wing agenda.

In his 1,500-page manifesto, Breivik called these gatherings “THE MOST attractive targets for large scale shock attacks" of what he deemed "category B traitors."

Hat tip to the Center for Public Integrity for this link