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Nearly 100 journalists were killed in 2023, with Gaza the most dangerous location:
30 Tuesday Apr 2024
Posted ethics, Human Rights, Media, News, violence
in≈ Comments Off on Journalists are dying to report the news
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Nearly 100 journalists were killed in 2023, with Gaza the most dangerous location:
29 Monday Apr 2024
Posted cruelty, Gaza, genocide, Human Rights, Israel, mass murder, Media, News, violence
in≈ Comments Off on Journalists struggle to report about the horrors they witness in Gaza war
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cruelty, Gaza, genocide, Human Rights, Israel, mass murder, Media, News, violence
What journalists see in Gaza is so shocking and sad that it is difficult for them to maintain professional composure without breaking down in grief:
26 Friday Apr 2024
Students have been doing a stellar job in reporting at their universities and colleges about protests against Israel’s genocidal attacks in Gaza:
https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2024/columbia-university-student-newspaper-israel-hamas-coverage/
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/23/us/college-protest-editorial-voices.html
https://dankennedy.net/2024/04/25/student-journalists-are-on-the-front-lines-of-protest-coverage/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/26/pro-palestinian-protests-college-campuses
Here are links to some of the student newspapers that are reporting about the protests at their colleges and universities against genocide:
https://www.columbiaspectator.com/
https://thebarnardbulletin.com/
https://dailynorthwestern.com/
https://www.dailyprincetonian.com/
25 Thursday Apr 2024
Posted Education, Media, News, Riverside City College, Viewpoints
in≈ Comments Off on Viewpoints students publish stories about my emeritus rank, retirement
Allan Lovelace, right, with journalism students at the Society of Professional Journalists awards in 2004.
Viewpoints students wrote two nice stories about my receiving emeritus rank last week and my retirement in 2020 from teaching after 24 years at Riverside City College:
https://viewpointsonline.org/2024/04/24/former-journalism-professor-honored-with-emeritus-status/
Wow! I am so honored to receive such positive coverage in the award-winning newspaper.
I decided to pursue a career in teaching after writing stories for my student newspaper about a tyrannical chancellor’s misdeeds in the 1980s. I had freedom of the press to write those stories, and so I wanted to give back and protect that same freedom for students and to impress upon them the duty to serve the public with a newspaper that makes a difference.
Viewpoints students went on to media positions including with the White House, Getty Images, AP, The Press-Enterprise and many other news media. Others went on to teaching positions, politics and various other careers. Many said that Viewpoints provided opportunities to develop their leadership, confidence and communication skills. Others said that serving with Viewpoints made them feel motivated to go to the college every day where they could interact with other students in the newsroom and do something meaningful. I felt that way, too, and it was a privilege for me to work with students who were so idealistic and full of enthusiasm.
All things must pass, but life goes on.
I had a lot of help along the way in my 24 years at RCC, including from current associate faculty member extraordinaire Matt Schoenmann. I know that he will do a very good job and carry on in helping the students to develop their journalism skills while protecting their freedom of the press.
24 Wednesday Apr 2024
The sleazy National Enquirer secretly schemed to kill stories critical of Trump while bashing his rivals, publishing fake stories and cheerleading for his election bid in 2016:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/24/trump-national-enquirer
23 Tuesday Apr 2024
Tags
Education, ethics, fascism, Gaza, genocide, Human Rights, Israel, mass murder, Media, News
Don’t want thousands of innocent children in Gaza to be blown to bits or starved to death? And you care enough to speak out against this morally indefensible mass murder? Well, that may cost you your high profile job:
https://www.newsweek.com/israel-gaza-hamas-celebrities-social-media-comments-cancel-culture-1845966
Cheerleaders for death or silent cowards may work in the entertainment industry now. Everyone else will find their work prospects cut off or at least challenging. Students are also facing suspensions, arrests and blacklisting for having a moral conscience and the courage to speak out.
If you are not an apologist for genocide or someone who is too afraid to speak out, you may find it difficult to work in entertainment. That has been the sad arrangement for a while now, but it really picked up steam in October, and that is where it remains.
By controlling the narrative, loyal supporters of Israel seek to win sympathy for the country’s genocidal attacks in Gaza. They know they can’t convince everyone that their mass murder of Palestinians is morally defensible, but by influencing enough people and bullying the rest they can murder millions and get away with it, or at least that is what they think.
One strategy in this effort is for any criticism of Israel to be immediately and unfairly branded as antisemitism.
And so for college students and a few celebrities to have the courage to speak out against genocide in this stifling climate of pro-Israel propaganda and intimidation is especially impressive and encouraging.
12 Friday Apr 2024
Posted California, Democracy, ethics, Google, greed, Media, News, social media
in≈ Comments Off on Google blocks search access to newspapers
The biggest driver of traffic for online newspapers has removed them from search results in California:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/apr/12/google-search-blocking-california-news
https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/google-removes-california-news-some-users/
The move, which affects some people in California, is in response to proposed legislation that would require Google and other social media to pay for linking to online newspapers. Google now profits from the links and does not pay for the benefit. Newspapers watch helplessly as Google profits while they get nothing.
The legislation proposes to remedy the imbalance and steer to newspapers a share of the billions of dollars that Google gets. The problem is that newspapers could not exist without the online traffic that Google drives to them. And Google knows this, and so it plays hardball.
Newspapers will either cave to Google’s demands or they will be forced to shut down. Newspapers must allow Google to continue sucking their blood or it will take its ball and go home. Game over. But if they play along and give Google what it wants, they will die a slower death.
Either way, newspapers will die, as many already have. And without newspapers, our representative democracy will die. Thanks a lot, Google. You will make billions while democracy dies.
06 Wednesday Mar 2024
Posted cruelty, ethics, Gaza, genocide, Human Rights, Israel, mass murder, Media, News, Palestinian, violence
in≈ Comments Off on New York Times incites genocide in Gaza
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cruelty, ethics, Gaza, genocide, Human Rights, Israel, mass murder, Media, News, Palestinian, violence
The most influential news organization in the world, The New York Times, encouraged Israel to commit horrific genocide in Gaza:
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/thomas-friedman-animal-kingdom-nyt-rcna137283
https://www.npr.org/2024/03/06/1236130609/new-york-times-hamas-attacks-israel-palestine
https://theintercept.com/2024/02/28/new-york-times-anat-schwartz-october-7/
Because of biased stories — including one that described Hamas as animals and another that falsely reported the decapitation of babies — the blood of more than 30,000 Palestinians is on the hands of New York Times writers and editors.
It is the duty of journalists to hold the powerful accountable and to report what the government does not want the people to know. Instead, The New York Times did exactly the opposite: It carried the water for Israel’s propagandists. And then tens of thousands of innocent people died.
It is encouraging that there is a vigorous discussion going on in the Times’ newsroom about biased and dehumanizing reporting. There are talks that indicate many journalists at the storied newspaper oppose such slanted writing. But until there is a house cleaning to clear out the biased and insensitive staffers and leaders, it is clear that no one should trust The New York Times in its reporting about the Middle East.
The first order of business must be the firing of Thomas Friedman and the editor who approved his insensitive column. Also, Anat Schwartz and her editor should be shown the door. Further, any other editors who allowed these stories to be published should also be fired. There should also be a serious and sustained effort to educate and train all New York Times writers and editors about the ethical obligation to report the news without a pro-Israel or anti-Muslim bias.
18 Thursday Jan 2024
CNN, one of the largest news outlets in the world, requires all news reporting about Israel to be reviewed in advance by its Jerusalem bureau. And that bureau self-censors all of that reporting to comply with Israel’s military censorship rules:
https://theintercept.com/2024/01/04/cnn-israel-gaza-idf-reporting/
Update: CNN newsroom staff say that the network’s coverage is biased in favor of Israel to the point of journalistic malpractice. The Guardian newspaper reported that CNN executives’ abuse of their power over the newsroom has resulted in reporting in which “Israeli official statements are often quickly cleared and make it on air on the principle that that they are to be trusted at face value, seemingly rubber-stamped for broadcast, while statements and claims from Palestinians, and not just Hamas, are delayed or never reported.”
https://theintercept.com/2024/03/01/cnn-christiane-amanpour-israel-gaza-coverage/
CNN has a history of pro-Israel reporting:
https://www.cjr.org/public_editor/palestine-israel-cnn.php
CNN even reported unverified claims by Israel’s military that Hamas had decapitated Israeli babies. No evidence was ever produced, and claims of video evidence turned out to be false. But by the time the truth came out, Israel had killed thousands of Palestinian children.
The false reports of Hamas killing babies sound eerily similar to false claims near the beginning of the first U.S.-Iraq war when there was a video of a girl claiming that Iraqi soldiers killed Kuwaiti babies in a clinic. A video was provided to hundreds of news outlets in the U.S. in the form of a video news release, or VNR. Without time to verify the accuracy of the videos, TV outlets ran the video shortly before the U.S. military launched massive attacks against Iraq. A year after the war was over, it was revealed that the fake video was produced by one of the largest public relations firms in New York, and that the PR firm had been paid handsomely by the Kuwaiti government to make it. When the truth was eventually reported, it was too late as the damage had already been done.
The difference between what happened in 1990 and what is occurring now is that CNN has a lot more time to verify the accuracy and context of Israel’s claims about Hamas, and yet the network is instead running Israel’s statements carte blanche without bothering to check them for accuracy or to balance them with statements from Hamas or from Palestinians. And so what CNN is doing now is much worse than the journalistic malpractice that occurred in 1990. In the fog of war, the first casualty is the truth, but CNN is going beyond that problem by intentionally slanting its coverage in favor of Israel.
It is well known that Fox “News” intentionally lies to help push its agenda. Now, it can be understood that CNN does the same.
The self censorship now apparently even applies to CNN’s news reporting from within the U.S.
CNN’s reporting of eight topics was affected by this system.
CNN’s extreme pro-Israel bias should come as no surprise considering that its long-time anchor Wolf Blitzer used to work for shady AIPAC, the rabidly pro-Israel lobby group.
Israel murders journalists with other news outlets that are not pro-Israel:
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/17/al_jazeera_journalists_attacked
04 Thursday Jan 2024
It’s late, but California finally got around to requiring media literacy classes for K-12. The goal is to ensure that students will know how to distinguish real news from the fake variety that infects social media and propaganda:
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-11-19/california-commits-to-media-literacy-classes
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-10-26/media-literacy-combats-fake-news
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill
Background:
https://medialiteracynow.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/MediaLiteracyPolicyReport2022.pdf
Here is a great resource about how to teach media literacy:
https://www.democracynow.org/education/resources
It would also be helpful if students are taught how mainstream news media ignore the disgusting spectacle when lobby groups such as AIPAC donate millions of dollars to political parties in the U.S. so that they will do genocidal Israel’s bidding:
23 Saturday Dec 2023
Posted Democracy, ethics, Human Rights, Media, News, Privacy, social media
in≈ Comments Off on Ex-Google executive proposes authoritarian control of all social media
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Democracy, ethics, Human Rights, Media, News, Privacy, social media
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt is lobbying for suffocating censorship of all social media. His oppressive plan would verify and reveal everyone’s identity, prevent the use of VPNs, censor anyone who violates laws or “policies” and block anyone who refuses to agree with the restrictions:
https://reclaimthenet.org/eric-schmidt-verify-users-block-vpns-and-watermark-ai-deepfakes
One monster-sized problem with this outrageous plan is that it disregards the fact that many people at various times must have anonymity, including journalists, bloggers, sources, whistleblowers, attorneys, clients, protesters, activists, critics, witnesses, victims of spouse abuse and many other people. Also, many people are willing to post their opinions in forums only if their identity is protected.
Rather than protecting democracy, Schmidt’s plan would crush it. Democracy requires a wide open, robust and critical discussion of news, ideas and politics. Revealing everyone’s identity would stifle that free-spirited discussion.
Schmidt claims that verifying everyone’s identity would not reveal their identities. But, his plan would reveal identities to social media, police, courts and other entities. No one would be allowed to use VPNs, which means that privacy would be at risk. Privacy would be substantially weakened to the point that the use of social media would be too risky for many people whose comments and ideas are vital for social justice and a healthy democracy.
All social media, websites and legislators should reject Schmidt’s ill-conceived, anti-democracy plan.
13 Wednesday Dec 2023
And one of his first targets would be the news media:
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-12-12/trump-2024-election-dictator-day-one
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-12-13/trump-second-term-authoritarian-2024-election
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/donald-trump-news-today-latest-b2459600.html
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/07/trump-dictator-authoritarian-president-2024
Trump’s long connection with Hitler:
12 Tuesday Dec 2023
Posted ethics, Gaza, genocide, Human Rights, Israel, mass murder, Media, News, violence
in≈ Comments Off on Young Palestinian citizen journalists overcome nearly impossible hurdles to report Gaza news
Tags
ethics, Gaza, genocide, Human Rights, Israel, mass murder, Media, News, violence
As explosions blast all around them and concerns about their families weigh on their distressed minds, heroic young citizen journalists somehow find the courage to report the horrific news in Gaza on social media:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/12/gaza-citizen-journalists-war-footage-israel
https://www.thenationalnews.com/mena/palestine-israel/2023/10/26/gaza-strip-journalists-war-crimes/
They aren’t giving up even as Israel intentionally murders their colleagues. A total of 62 journalists have been killed in Gaza, with some of the deaths the result of Israel targeting the news media with attacks.
This is so sad. But, somehow the citizen journalists find the strength to comfort terrified and injured children:
21 Tuesday Nov 2023
Posted cruelty, ethics, Gaza, Human Rights, Israel, mass murder, Media, News, violence
in≈ Comments Off on Report: Israel murders journalists with targeted attack
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cruelty, ethics, Gaza, Human Rights, Israel, mass murder, Media, News, violence
More than 50 journalists have been killed by Israel’s military in Gaza and the West Bank:
https://cpj.org/2023/11/journalist-casualties-in-the-israel-gaza-conflict/
https://newsmustread.wordpress.com/2023/10/24/journalists-suffer-high-losses-covering-war-in-gaza/
The conflict in Gaza has been the deadliest in three decades for journalists:
24 Tuesday Oct 2023
At least 23 journalists have been killed covering the brutal war in Gaza. The number of deaths is extremely high for such a short stretch of just a few weeks:
https://cpj.org/2023/10/journalist-casualties-in-the-israel-gaza-conflict/
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-10-24/journalists-killed-gaza-israel
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-middle-east-67314396
There are also several journalists missing, and others were wounded.
One respected journalist’s entire family — his wife, son, daughter and grandson — were killed by an Israeli air attack. He then returned to his work reporting about the war:
Soldiers are revered for their sacrifices. We should also appreciate the sacrifices journalists make to report the news in dangerous places. To the journalists who bring us the news about wars, I say “thank you,” and “may you find peace.”
Update: At least 31 journalists have been killed in Gaza.
Update: Israel intentionally targeted and murdered one Reuters journalist:
Update: Hundreds of journalists have signed a petition demanding that Israel stop killing journalists in Gaza. The petition also states that journalists should include Palestinian voices in their reporting.
Update: Reporters Without Borders is calling for an investigation into the war crimes Israel committed when it killed 40 journalists. SPJ is also calling for the safety of journalists reporting Gaza.
30 Saturday Sep 2023
Russia’s criminal dictator, Putin, threatens, imprisons, tortures and murders journalists who dare to report the truth:
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/putin-vs-the-press/
One journalist, Nobel Peace Prize-winner Dmitry Muratov, defends human rights and the independent press in Russia. In return, violent thug Putin has declared Muratov a “foreign agent.”
21 Thursday Sep 2023
The same irresponsible billionaire who sells flame throwers, advocates nuking Mars and calls his enemies “pedos” now has another mark of shame. Elon Musk’s latest transgression is fueling violent hatred toward the news media:
27 Sunday Aug 2023
Posted CNN, Jeanne Moos, Media, News
in≈ Comments Off on Jeanne Moos: best humor news storyteller
Tags
CNN, Jeanne Moos, Media, News
No one reports a humorous news story better than CNN’s Jeanne Moos:
https://www.cnn.com/videos/entertainment/2023/08/23/fedex-snake-killer-moos-cprog-orig-bdk.cnn
https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2023/11/15/baby-musk-ox-frolic-fall-leaves-moos-pkg-vpx.cnn
https://www.cnn.com/profiles/jeanne-moos-profile
22 Tuesday Aug 2023
Many news outlets are treating the rabid right wing propaganda channel Fox “News” as if it were a legitimate news organization:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/22/media/fox-news-reliable-sources/index.html
It isn’t. Instead, Fox is a 24-hour-a-day mouthpiece and enabler for the loopy, lying Trump worshipping MAGA crowd.
16 Wednesday Aug 2023
Fascist abuse of a Kansas newspaper staff’s First Amendment freedom and right to privacy led to the death of one of its co-owners and global condemnation of the Gestapo tactics:
The newspaper is vowing to take legal action against the sheriff. “I can assure you that the Record will take every step to obtain relief for the damages your heavy-handed actions have already caused my client,” said the newspaper’s attorney, Bernie Rhodes.
Hate-filled comments from Trump and the rabid MAGA crowd fuel violence, threats and other mistreatment directed toward the news media at large:
The police chief must be fired immediately, along with any other official involved in the illegal mistreatment of the newspaper.
With extreme difficulty, the newspaper managed to produce a new edition. This is what every newspaper staff should do when officials seize equipment or censor the publication. And not just commercial newspapers, but school or college papers, too. Don’t let the fascists win.
When news media were shuttered in dictator Putin’s Russia after the start of the war in Ukraine, one news outlet relocated to Latvia and kept publishing. Its amazing perseverance is inspiring.
Another way to defeat the fascists is with encryption of cellphones, tablets, computers and back up drives:
https://freedom.press/training/blog/marion-record-police-raid/
And journalists and editors should use Proton VPN, which was developed to protect journalists and is based in privacy-focused Switzerland:
https://newsmustread.wordpress.com/2023/07/30/proton-releases-tool-to-gauge-attacks-on-democracy/
Also, journalists and editors should use Signal for texting with end-to-end encryption:
https://newsmustread.wordpress.com/2023/08/05/signal-protects-privacy-for-texting/
The newspaper:
02 Wednesday Aug 2023
More than 2,000 weekly newspapers have closed, leaving huge news deserts across the U.S. without much if any news coverage.
The result: There isn’t a voice of reason in those communities to advocate for change or to expose wrongdoing. That leaves communities lacking needed services and in some cases with corrupt or incompetent leadership:
https://www.canadianrecord.com/news/canadian-record-featured-aug-2-pbs-newshour-segment
30 Sunday Jul 2023
The Santa Barbara News-Press is no more:
https://apnews.com/article/santa-barbara-newspaper-bankruptcy-stops-publishing
https://www.independent.com/2023/07/23/santa-barbara-news-press-files-for-bankruptcy/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/24/santa-barbara-news-press-bankruptcy
She could have at least had the decency to sell the newspaper.
22 Saturday Jul 2023
Google, aka the devil, is trying to tempt news media with AI to help write headlines and stories, while claiming the tech is not intended to replace journalists. Yeah, right.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/07/google-ai-journalism-tool
Imagine a search engine that plagiarizes or pseudo-plagiarizes news content and profits from it on a massive scale. That is what AI-fueled search will do:
CNET, the once reliable and authoritative tech website, recently published 75 stories written with artificial intelligence, even though some of them had inaccuracies and plagiarism. CNET’S shill-in-chief then published a weak-sauce statement defending the indefensible:
https://www.cnet.com/tech/cnet-is-experimenting-with-an-ai-assist-heres-why/.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2023/01/17/cnet-ai-articles-journalism-corrections/
14 Friday Jul 2023
Posted Democracy, ethics, Human Rights, Los Angeles, Media, Mindless idiocy, News, police
in≈ Comments Off on Los Angeles police reveal their ignorance about free press
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Democracy, ethics, Human Rights, Los Angeles, Media, Mindless idiocy, News, police
The LAPD claim they should not be held accountable by the news media for recklessly injuring innocent people with explosives:
Not only does this bizarre argument claim that the police can do whatever they want without repercussions, but it also reveals extreme ignorance about the role of the news media in a free society. These police officers, including their chief, should consider relocating to China or North Korea where they would fit in better than they do in the U.S.
21 Wednesday Jun 2023
Google siphons too big of a slice of the advertising pie–nearly all of it–and leaves almost nothing for news publishers. The biggest news publisher in the U.S., Gannett, claims that practice is illegal and that it is killing the news:
The lawsuit should have been filed in 2009.
Update: Greedy bully Google is threatening to eliminate all search links to news stories wherever it is required to pay to the news media a portion of the revenue it gets from stealing their advertising. Google has started this bullying tactic in Canada:
Update: California legislators have pulled their plan to try to force Google and Facebook to pay news publishers.
Update: News publishers have reached a deal with Google in Canada.
06 Tuesday Jun 2023
So many journalists have been laid off at the nation’s largest newspaper chain, Gannett, that there won’t be much of a difference with the breadth of news coverage during the news strike:
Gannett newspapers leave the same old stories up on their websites for days or even weeks. Now the strike will shrink the news coverage even more, but it was already so pitifully shallow that the difference will be barely noticeable.
People say they get their news from social media, but what that actually means is that one person comments in social media about a news story they read in a newspaper and then others comment. They may not realize it, but people are still getting their news in that situation from newspapers. What happens, however, when no one can comment about local news because there aren’t any journalists still working in many areas? What will people discuss in social media then?
The result of the newsroom layoffs for communities is that scoundrels and corrupt politicians get away with their bad behavior because there aren’t enough journalists to expose their wrongdoings. What we are left with are political extremists and corporate PR teams spinning the truth and outright lying, and we get the end of representative democracy.
One ray of hope are the nonprofit news websites that are being created in many communities around the nation. There aren’t enough of them, however, to fill in the gaps in news coverage as newspapers’ newsrooms are gutted and as entire newspapers close. And so we have news deserts where there is no local news coverage and where crime in government runs rampant.
Update: The Los Angeles Times is laying off newsroom employees:
31 Wednesday May 2023
Women have made their mark in journalism, and now a new book documents their work and impact:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/may/31/undaunted-brooke-kroeger-book-women-journalism
25 Thursday May 2023
Posted California, Community Colleges, Education, Human Rights, Media, News, Student journalism
in≈ Comments Off on Censorship of student newspaper plagues LA City College
Censorship of the student press is a continuing problem at L.A. City College:
https://www.lacitycollege.edu/sites/lacc.edu/files/2023-05/Collegian_spring_2023_Issue4.pdf
We hear about this sort of thing happening in authoritarian countries, but we do not expect it to occur in the U.S. But it does, and it should be stopped.
One lesson the censors should learn is that censorship of student journalism almost always backfires and draws more attention to the students’ stories and photos. Thousands of additional readers will visit the student news website, and they will then side with the students. And they will rally to the defense of the student journalists if the problem continues. The censors can’t win.
Information about the rights of student journalists:
https://rccjournalism.blogspot.com/2007/11/freedom-of-press-for-college-students.html
03 Wednesday May 2023
Posted ethics, Human Rights, Media, News
in≈ Comments Off on Press freedom under attack around the world
Tags
Scoundrels and dictators are targeting the message more widely than in recent years, according to a new report. Control the narrative, and one controls the country, the ruthless titans of power believe. And so journalists are pressured, fired, imprisoned or even murdered.
The U.S. ranks only 45th, despite having a constitutional amendment to protect press freedom.
01 Monday May 2023
In an obvious move to grab ratings, CNN has decided to host a town hall with the racist, sociopath, criminal, terrorist, liar and lunatic Trump:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/01/cnn-donald-trump-town-hall-pushback
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/may/07/us-media-trump-election-coverage-cnn
The only people who should be hosting Trump are prison guards.
https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/1653141295521488897/history
Update: Critics of the event say that it was a disaster that attempted to pretend that Trump Republicans — aka fascists — are normal and deserve equal treatment:
https://slate.com/business/2023/05/trump-cnn-town-hall-kaitlan-collins-new-hampshire-disaster.html
Update: CNN’s chief executive defended the fiasco:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/may/11/cnn-chris-licht-trump-town-hall
Remember, folks, that Trump is the nutcase who wanted to build a moat along the border with Mexico and fill it with alligators and snakes that would kill immigrants. And Trump demanded that his staff draw up a strike-first nuclear attack plan. Obviously, Trump is a lunatic who does not deserve to get any air time on TV except to report when he is convicted of crimes.
If CNN’s goal was attracting eyeballs and making more money: mission accomplished. If the goal was to serve the public: colossal failure. And so the event signals CNN’s new mission: rake in profits without informing the public with useful news. CNN is now just another business.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2023/06/cnn-ratings-chris-licht-trump/674255/
Update: The town hall fiasco caused dissension among CNN’s journalists, who said it was little more than an infomercial for Trump. The network’s executive eventually apologized. It is encouraging to see that CNN’s journalists are trying to right the ship. It is an important news outlet, and for the health of our representative democracy we need CNN to get back to its mission of holding the powerful — especially Trump — accountable.
Update: CNN’s chief executive, Chris Licht, has been fired.
Update: CNN is regaining its feisty approach to reporting.
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