Press Suppression

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see OFFENSIVE and other types of suppression

see trump 18 trump trans kash

see press suppr 2 for newer (also ggl doc, but not recover)

see 1st amendment

Ukraine Says It Staged Anti-Kremlin Journalist Babchenko's Death to Save His Life from Russian Hired Gun

By Chris Sosa, AlterNet

The journalist appeared unharmed at a press conference. READ MORE»

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/white-house-bars-spate-outlets-press-briefing

gaggle

Trump administration continued its steep descent into authoritarianism Friday as several news outlets, including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Politico and Buzzfeed among others, were barred from attending a meeting with White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer. Publications that were invited included NBC, ABC and Fox News along with the Washington Times and Breitbart, where Trump's senior adviser Steve Bannon was previously editor-in-chief. Both Time and the Associated Press refused to attend in protest. ...

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/four-more-journalists-slapped-felony-charges-covering-inauguration-unrest

Four more journalists have been charged with felonies after being arrested while covering the unrest around Donald Trump’s inauguration, meaning that at least six media workers are facing up to 10 years in prison and a $25,000 fine if convicted.

A documentary producer, a photojournalist, a live-streamer and a freelance reporter were each charged with the most serious level of offense under Washington DC’s law against rioting, after being caught up in the police action against demonstrators.

The Guardian learned of their arrests after reporting on Monday that the journalists Evan Engel of Vocativ and Alex Rubinstein of RT America had also been taken into custody by police and charged with felonies while covering the same unrest on Friday morning.

Jack Keller, a producer for the web documentary series Story of America, said that he was detained for about 36 hours after being kettled by police at 12th and L streets on Friday morning and then arrested despite telling officers that he was covering the demonstrations as a journalist.

“The way we were treated was an absolute travesty,” said Keller, whose cellphone has been kept by the authorities. Keller’s editor, Annabel Park, said: “It is a maddening and frustrating situation. These are people who were there observing and documenting.”

Matt Hopard, an independent journalist who was live-streaming the Friday protests, was arrested at the same site as Keller, Engel and Rubinstein, according to metropolitan police records. He said in a message that he denied the charge against him.

Also arrested while covering the demonstrations at 12th and L streets were Shay Horse, an independent photojournalist and activist, and Aaron Cantú, a freelance journalist and activist, who has written for outlets including the Baffler, the Washington Spectator and the New Inquiry. Both deny wrongdoing.

In all, more than 200 people were arrested on Friday, after property was vandalized in the US capital in the hours around Trump’s swearing-in as president. Police said that six officers suffered minor injuries.

The National Lawyers’ Guild accused Washington DC’s metropolitan police department of having “indiscriminately targeted people for arrest en masse based on location alone” and said they unlawfully used teargas and other weapons.

“These illegal acts are clearly designed to chill the speech of protesters engaging in First Amendment activity,” Maggie Ellinger-Locke, of the guild’s DC branch, said in a statement.

None of the arrest reports for the six journalists makes any specific allegations about what any of them are supposed to have done wrong. Keller’s report, which also covers the arrests of an unknown number of unidentified other people, includes a note that a police vehicle was vandalized. “I had absolutely nothing to do with the vandalism,” said Keller.

Reports on the arrests of five of the six journalists contain identical language alleging that “numerous crimes were occurring in police presence”. They state that windows were broken, fires were lit and vehicles were damaged. “The crowd was observed enticing a riot by organizing, promoting, encouraging and participating in acts of violence in furtherance of the riot,” the police reports said

...

http://www.ecowatch.com:{/dakota-access-pipeline:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:-amy-goodman-deia-schlosberg-2050793154.html

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/:{nearly-400-journalists-have-been-murdered-over-past-ten-years-:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:180953253/

Native people resist :{Dakota Access pipeline:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}: 9/16. Reporters arrested 10/16

smith quits

http://www.democracynow.org/2016/4/27/headlines/las_vegas_review_journal_columnist_quits_after_being_:{banned_from_writing_on_sheldon_adelson:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:

http://desmogblog.com/2016/01/19/jane-mayer-dark-money-book-koch-brothers-nypd-fbi

The just-published book “Dark Money,” penned by New Yorker staff reporter Jane Mayer, reveals that the Koch Brothers hired the former commissioner of the New York Police Department (NYPD) — and his daughter, a former FBI agent — to smear her as a “plagiarist” in the months after the release of her August 2010 bombshell article on the Kochs.

That article, titled “Covert Operations,” served at the time as one of the first in-depth pieces of long-form investigative journalism on David and Charles Koch and the influential right-wing political and climate change denial Tea Party network they had Frankensteined. Mayer's book exposes that the Kochs hired the firm Vigilant Resources International, run by former NYPD head Howard Safir and his daughter Jennifer Safir (the former FBI special agent), to do dirty work on their behalf.

The story, as Mayer told it in “Dark Money,” began when she received a January 3, 2011 email from her New Yorker editor, David Remnick.

“In his e-mail,” to me, Mayer wrote, “Remnick explained that ten minutes earlier he’d received a baffling inquiry about me from Keith Kelly, the reporter who covered the media industry for the New York Post.”

Remnick's query centered around accusations — most likely emanating from somewhere within Koch World and handed to the New York Post and other outlets — that Mayer's journalistic track record, according to their research, was rife with plagiarism. The main issue: it wasn't in the slightest. Mayer has impeccable journalism credentials.

That didn't stop the witch hunt from proceeding and nearly reaching take off mode, though.

Smear Appears

With or without real evidence, the point of the covert campaign was not to find genuine evidence of plagiarism, but rather a classic case of attacking the messenger.

“Their aim, according to a well-informed source, was to counteract The New Yorker’s story on the Koch brothers by undermining me,” wrote Mayer. “'Dirt, dirt, dirt' is what the source later told me they were digging for in my life. 'If they couldn’t find it, they’d create it.'”

Vigilant Resources International, “Dark Money” details, got a retainer fee to help the effort along according to sources who spoke to Mayer on the condition of anonymity.

“VRI’s Threat, Risk and Vulnerability Assessments focus on safety and value and address a full spectrum of physical security, integrity, intellectual property and other operational risks,” VRI explains of its work on its website.

VRI goes on to explain of its business conduct:

We provide our findings and prioritized recommendations as actionable 'blueprints' for what should promptly and continuously be addressed to drive the best outcomes in risk management, crisis prevention and mitigation for each facility assessed. Our findings, recommendations and plans comport with applicable regulatory requirements and present industry best practices that are custom-tailored to the unique organizational structure, culture, profile and operations of each client.

After receiving initial contact from the New York Post, Mayer also got what she described in her book as a more alarming plagiarism query from theright-wing news website The Daily Caller, along with more benign ones from The Washington Post, ThinkProgress and a couple others. The Washington Post and ThinkProgress denied plagiarism victimhood, however, as did two other outlets not named by Mayer in the book.

“Paul Kane, a reporter at The Washington Post, quickly looked up the story in question and sent me an e-mail saying, 'Not only did you not steal from me, you Frickin’ credited me in the VERY NEXT line,'” Mayer explains in “Dark Money.” “The New Yorker had even linked to his story online. And, I later learned, my husband, who was then an editor at The Washington Post, had edited the story that I supposedly stole.”

Lee Fang, now a reporter at The Intercept and formerly a blogger for ThinkProgress, similarly denied the copyright infringement accusation.

“Ms. Mayer properly credited me in her story, and clearly did a ton of her own research,” Fang declared in a January 2011 statement provided to the New York Post. “I have nothing but admiration for her integrity as a journalist.”

Smear Disappears

Mayer killed the smear campaign before it gained any momentum or press time, however, mostly due to deft handling of the situation before it spun out of control and developed a life of its own.

“With only a few hours before these allegations were set to go online, all I could do was to try to get out the truth before the lies were spread,” Mayer explained of how she management of accusations. “By midnight, I had reached three of the four authors from whom I was alleged to have plagiarized. All offered to make public statements supporting me and denying I had misappropriated their work.”

Most importantly, Mayer had the truth on her side. The allegations? Tantamount to a ruse, as she laid out in the book:

Someone, probably using a computer program, had mechanically sifted through almost a decade of my work and isolated quotations from officials, and other widely repeated phrases, to argue that 'the structure and wording' were 'quite close' to four other reporters’ news stories. None of the supposedly purloined sentences were of any particular significance…Even sillier, in two of the four stories I was alleged to have 'plagiarized,' I had specifically given credit to the authors whose work The Daily Caller was claiming I'd stolen.

Rather than plagiarism becoming the story, then, the genesis of how the smear campaign appeared and subsequently disappeared was picked up by the likes of the New York Post, Business Insider and Salon. At the heart of that campaign was The Daily Caller, an alternative right-wing version of The Huffington Post founded by Tucker Carlson, the former MSNBC host and senior fellow at the Koch-founded and Koch-funded Cato Institute.

“In the end, even the Daily Caller found the allegations to be unfounded, and to its credit, abandoned the story,” wrote the New York Post. “The story is dead but the person or persons behind the allegations remains a shadowy mystery.”

Tucker Carlson proclaimed cluelessness as to how his publication was tipped off to the so-called story to begin with.

“I never ask the reporters where they get stuff, only whether it’s true,” he told the New York Post. “In this case, we didn’t have enough.”

Safir and VRI did not confirm or deny any retainer ties to the effort, Mayer reported in the book.

A source told Mayer that Nancy Pfotenhauer — former head of Koch front group Americans for Prosperity and Citizens for a Sound Economy, as well as former Koch Industries lobbying in Washington, DC and senior adviser to U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) — served as one of several ringleaders of the effort.

Koch Industries already came out swinging in advance of the book's publication, responding to an advanced review by New York Times reporter Nicholas Confessore by accusing Mayer of working to “further an agenda-driven story line [that] is grossly inaccurate.”

potter

Little Guantanamos. This is the phrase that some are using to describe prisons known ascommunications management units, CMUs, highly secretive and dubious of legality. And they're right here in the United States. And an estimated 70 people might be held there. CMUs, largely unknown to the general public and media, are rarely granted access. Well, one journalist was recently able to get inside one of them in Marion, Illinois. And he joins us now to share what he saw. Will Potter is an investigative journalist and TED senior fellow, and author of the book Green Is The New Red: An Insider's Account of Social Movements under Siege.

Watch: Interview with The Real News Network. Full transcript below:

PERIES: So Will, I guess on everyone's minds is how did you manage to get inside the prison? And of course, once you got inside, what did you see?

POTTER: Well, journalists are not allowed in CMUs. But I had been writing about one prisoner in particular for quite some time. From the day of his arrest I'd followed him all the way through the legal process, up through his conviction. And so I was able to able to visit Daniel McGowan, who's an environmentalist who is in the CMU, as a friend. And I was quite surprised by that, even, because I'd uncovered evidence that the counterterrorism unit had been monitoring my work and speeches about CMUs and writing about CMUs that I had done. But I quickly found out how that happened. And it's because Daniel was told that if I asked any questions or if I reported about our visit that he would be punished for my work. And when I arrived at the prison I was reminded of the fact that I was not allowed to ask him any questions. Nevertheless, it was an important insight into how CMUs operate, and an opportunity to see this from a perspective that other journalists have not been able to.

PERIES: And what does one have to do to be relegated to one of these prisons? How is the process determined?

POTTER: That's exactly the problem, is that we don't know. Even considering lawsuits that are pending right now, we still don't have clear answers to that question. All the prisoners I've talked to were transferred to the CMU without any warning. They were just notified in the middle of the night or early morning, and then sent off to this secretive unit without explanation. When they asked for some opportunity to appeal their designation, or some explanation for what has happened and why they're there, they were either ignored or answered in very simplistic terms, and not really elaborated. For some of them it was clearly because of their political beliefs. We found out through legal proceedings and open records requests that the government sent some people to CMUs because of their, quote, anti-government and anti-corporate views. For other prisoners I think it is quite clearly because of their race and religion. The majority of prisoners in CMUs are Muslim, and many of them have connections to very dubious terrorism prosecutions that involve FBI informants and potential entrapment, even. So that's really the breakdown of these prison units right now.

PERIES: And the communications management units, why are they called that?

POTTER: I think that's a really good point. As a writer and someone who is very careful about language, I admire the creativity and how benign that title is, of communications management unit. It sounds very straightforward. And it almost gives the perception that other prisoners do not have their communications managed. That's simply not the case, though. Every communication with every prisoner in a federal prison is monitored. It's received by prison officials. The letters are reviewed. Phone calls can be reviewed. All visitation is monitored. The question then is why are some prisoners singled out for much harsher treatment? And like I said, we don't have a good answer to that. But we've begun to see some of the government's rationale. And that really boils down to their political beliefs.

PERIES: And the other curious term behind all of this is the term 'inspirational significance'. What does that mean, and how are prisoners classified as such?

POTTER: So as I was saying, the CMUs were opened secretly, and in many people's opinion, illegally. They didn't go through any administrative oversight. And only until years later did we start seeing some language describing what these prison units are supposed to do. And the government described them as facilities for prisoners with, quote, inspirational significance. And I think that's a very, again, very benign and quite brilliant way of describing what I think in any other environment would be considered political prisons for political prisoners. People are sent to the CMU because of their race and their religion and their political beliefs. In Daniel McGowan's case, for instance, I think he clearly has inspirational significance in relation to the social movements that he advocates for on environmental issues, on conservation, on climate change and things like that. And all of this, his writings about this while imprisoned, ended up in counterterrorism unit files and were used as evidence of why he should be imprisoned in a CMU.

PERIES: And tell us a little bit more about his case. How did he end up in this classified prison?

POTTER: So Daniel McGowan, like all the other prisoners in CMUs, has been convicted of crimes. In his case he was convicted of participating in two arsons in the name of the Earth Liberation Front, which is a clandestine group which has used property destruction in the name of defending the environment. But like all the other prisoners in the CMUs, or I should say almost all the prisoners, he had no disciplinary violations, and he had no communications violations. He was previously at a low-security prison. In other words, he didn't have anything on his record prior to going to prison or after being incarcerated that would reflect this need for heightened security measures, which I think makes it even more clear of being singled out because of his political beliefs.

PERIES: And how did you manage to convince the prison authorities to allow you as a friend into the prison if he's under such surveillance, as far as his communications is concerned?

POTTER: I was--it didn't take any convincing on my part. I mean, I just submitted my request, just as any visitor would. It didn't take any convincing on Daniel's part, either, which is quite surprising. It was approved, really, without any fanfare until, like I said, McGowan was told that if I wrote anything about our visit he would be punished. And then when I arrived I was told they knew all about my work, they knew about interviews on Democracy Now! and in places like that, and that if I asked him any questions the visit would be immediately terminated.

PERIES: And how many of these kinds of prisons are there, and also answer whether--why these are in Indiana and Illinois.

POTTER: There are two CMUs that we know about. One is in Marion, Illinois and the other is in Terre Haute, Indiana. They both exist within larger federal prisons. So they are really prisons within prisons. They were opened, as I was saying before, without any oversight or accountability. There are similar facilities, such as in Carswell, the prison in Texas for women, but that are not being called communications management unit but seem to restrict prisoners in similar ways. And really, the story is still emerging on that, of how--what the government's plans are. If there will be additional CMUs. There's a move to make these facilities permanent now rather than experimental. And we don't know how that's going to play out.

PERIES: And the restrictive nature for the media is something that's written, or did you, did anyone tell you as a journalist you're not allowed to enter this prison? And if so, why?

POTTER: Yeah. It's communicated in several ways. It's through some of the procedural moves that I mentioned about going through the official process now to make these facilities permanent. It's also been communicated and exposed through a lawsuit by the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is taking on the case of Daniel McGowan and others, and advocating for prisoners within the CMU. And as part of that they've obtained, must be thousands of pages of documents through the discovery process, which I was able to use in my presentation with TED to an extent as well. And also through direct communication to me, when I was there at the facility.

PERIES: Right. And you say many of these prisoners are Muslim. Is there any reason to believe that any of these prisoners, Muslim or otherwise, are any security threat to us in the U.S.?

POTTER: No, not at all. I mean, I think that really speaks to the discriminatory nature of these prison units, is that spectre and that fear, that outright racist stereotyping, is being used to create this fear of this community that frankly doesn't exist. The Muslim community that is imprisoned in the CMUs are not the Zacarias Moussaouis of the world. They're not the 9/11 hijackers, they're not anything like that. They're people like [Yasin Arif] who is an imam from upstate New York who was asked to bear witness to a loan, and it turned out one of the people that he was, that was involved in that loan, was an undercover FBI agent who was trying to entrapsomeone else in a fake attack. And Arif didn't know anything about it. So it was really a manufactured plot that Arif found himself wrapped up in, and as a result of that ended up eventually in the CMU. Those are the types of cases that we're talking about here....

94 Professional & Citizen Journalists Killed in 2015

DECEMBER 30, 2015

HEADLINES

Reporters Without Borders says 67 professional journalists and 27 citizen journalists have been killed in 2015 worldwide. The deadliest countries for journalists were Iraq and Syria. The third most deadly country for journalists was France due to the January 7 attack on the newspaper Charlie Hebdo, where eight journalists were killed. Yemen, South Sudan, India, Mexico, the Philippines and Honduras all ranked among the top 10 deadliest countries for journalists. Reporters Without Borders Secretary-General Christophe Deloire spoke about how the majority of journalists killed in 2015 were deliberately targeted for their work.

6/15 iccc

The principled crusaders for free speech [3] at the Heartland Institute [4] today took the pragmatic step of banning credentialed journalistsfrom its event fearing negative publicity.

**Jim Lakely, the communications director** for the oil[5]and tobacco funded think tank, withdrew media credentials made and handed to Brendan Montague, editor of DeSmog UK, and asked hotel security to remove the reporter from the ICCC-10 even [6]t at the Washington Court Hotel [7] in Washington DC.

Gene Koprowski, director of marketing [8], said he “refused to be drawn into a philosophical debate” when asked whether a think tank claiming to champion personal liberty and press freedom should begin blacklisting members of the media.

Gene protested that he had been a journalist for 25 years but was simply following orders when implementing the ban.

Inhofe's Snowball

http://insideclimatenews.org/news/**2014**0724/runaround-three-months-correspondence-epa

...n February, after we published our first stories on the Eagle Ford, we began trying to answer that question by seeking on-the-record interviews with EPA officials in Washington, D.C., and Texas. Five months later, no such interviews have been granted.

Instead, EPA press officers have told us to put our questions in writing, an increasingly common response from federal agencies under the Obama administration. The process usually goes like this: A journalist calls the press office to schedule an interview but instead is told to submit written questions. Once these are in, a press officer gets answers from scientists or other officials and then crafts a written response. In most cases, nobody involved in the process—not even the EPA press officers—will agree to be quoted by name.

Journalists object to this policy because clarity and accuracy are easily compromised when they're forced to discuss complex issues through intermediaries who aren't subject-matter experts. To ask follow-up questions, the laborious process must begin all over again, with no opportunity for the natural give-and-take of a conversation.

The EPA's non-responsiveness in the Texas air pollution story is especially troubling because it keeps taxpayers in the dark about the agency's handling of a critical environmental issue.

http://www.democracynow.org/2014/6/27/journalist_allan_nairn_threatened_for_exposing

AlterNet [1] / By Max Blumenthal [2]

'Witch Hunt': Fired MSNBC Contributor Speaks Out on Suppression of Israel-Palestine Debate

July 22, 2014 |

MSNBC contributor Rula Jebreal’s on-air protest [3] of the network’s slanted coverage of Israel’s ongoing assault on the Gaza Strip has brought media suppression of the Israel-Palestine debate into sharp focus. Punished for her act of dissent with the cancellation of all future appearances and the termination of her contract, Jebreal spoke to me about what prompted her to speak out and why MSNBC was presenting such a distorted view of the crisis.

“I couldn’t stay silent after seeing the amount of airtime given to Israeli politicians versus Palestinians,” Jebreal told me. “They say we are balanced but their idea of balance is 90 percent Israeli guests and 10 percent Palestinians. This kind of media is what leads to the failing policies that we see in Gaza.”

She continued, “We as journalists are there to afflict the comfortable and who is comfortable in this case? Who is really endangering both sides and harming American interests in the region? It’s those enforcing the status quo of the siege of Gaza and the occupation of the West Bank.”

Jebreal said that in her two years as an MSNBC contributor, she had protested the network’s slanted coverage repeatedly in private conversations with producers. “I told them we have a serious issue here,” she explained. “But everybody’s intimidated by this pressure and if it’s not direct then it becomes self-censorship.”

With her criticism of her employer’s editorial line, she has become the latest casualty of the pro-Israel pressure. “I have been told to my face that I wasn’t invited on to shows because I was Palestinian,” Jebreal remarked. “I didn’t believe it at the time. Now I believe it.”

An NBC producer speaking on condition of anonymity confirmed Jebreal’s account, describing to me a top-down intimidation campaign aimed at presenting an Israeli-centric view of the attack on the Gaza Strip. The NBC producer told me that MSNBC President Phil Griffin and NBC executives are micromanaging coverage of the crisis, closely monitoring contributors’ social media accounts and engaging in a “witch hunt” against anyone who strays from the official line.

“Loyalties are now being openly questioned,” the producer commented.

The suppression campaign culminated after Jebreal’s on-air protest during a July 21 segment [4] on Ronan Farrow Daily.

“We are disgustingly biased on this issue. Look at how much airtime Netanyahu and his folks have on air on a daily basis, Andrea Mitchell and others,” Jebreal complained to Farrow. “I never see one Palestinian being interviewed on these same issues.”

When Farrow claimed that the network had featured other voices, Jebreal shot back, “Maybe for thirty seconds, and then you have twenty-five minutes for Bibi Netanyahu.”

Within hours, all of Jebreal’s future bookings were cancelled and the renewal of her contract was off the table. The following day, Jebreal tweeted: [5] “My forthcoming TV appearances have been cancelled. Is there a connection to my expose and the cancellation?”

Jebreal is the author of Miral, a memoir about her coming of age in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Her former partner, Jewish-American filmmaker and artist Julian Schnabel, adapted the book into full length film. A widely published journalist and former news presenter in Italy, Jebreal was a vocal supporter of the now-extinct peace process and a harsh critic of Islamist groups including Hamas. Her termination leaves NBC without any Palestinian contributors.

According to the NBC producer, MSNBC show teams were livid that they had been forced by management to cancel Jebreal as punishment for her act of dissent.

At the same time, social media erupted in protest of Jebreal’s cancellation, forcing the network into damage control mode. The role of clean-up man fell to Chris Hayes, the only MSNBC host with a reputation for attempting a balanced discussion of Israel-Palestine. On the July 22 episode [6] of his show, All In, he brought Jebreal on to discuss her on-air protest.

In introducing Jebreal, Hayes took on the role of the industry and network defender: “Let me take you behind the curtain of cable news business for a moment,” Hayes told his viewers. “If you appear on a cable news network, you trash that network and one of its hosts by name, on any issue — Gaza, infrastructure spending, sports coverage, funny internet cat videos — the folks at the network will not take kindly to it.”

In fact, MSNBC Morning Joe co-host Joe Scarborough has publicly attacked [7] fellow MSNBC hosts and slammed the network [8] for its support for the Democratic Party.

“I did not think that i was stepping in a hornet’s nest,” Jebreal told me. “I saw Joe Scarborough criticizing the network. I thought we were liberal enough to stand self criticism.”

Yet when she appeared across from Hayes, Jebreal encountered a defensive host shielding his employers from her criticism. “We’re actually doing a pretty good job” of covering the Israel-Palestine crisis, Hayes claimed to her. “I think our network, and I think the New York Times and the media all around, have been doing a much better job on this conflict.”

Jebreal appeared on screen as a “Palestinian journalist” — her title as a MSNBC contributor had been removed. When she insisted that American broadcast media had not provided adequate context about the 8-year-long Israeli siege of the Gaza Strip or the roots of Palestinian violence, Hayes protested that he had wanted to host Hamas officials alongside the Israeli government spokespeople he routinely featured but that it was practically impossible.

“Not all Palestinians are Hamas,” Jebreal vehemently replied.

“Airtime always strikes me as a bad metric,” Hayes responded. “I mean there are interviews and then there are interviews. I had [Israeli government spokesman] Mark Regev on this program for 16 minutes, alright? That’s a very long interview but there was a lot to talk to him about.”

The NBC producer remarked to me that the network’s public relations strategy had backfired. Hayes’ performance was poorly received on social media while Jebreal appeared as another maverick journalist outcasted by corporate media for delivering uncomfortable truths.

For her part, Jebreal told me she was disturbed by Hayes’ comments. “I admire that Chris [Hayes] wanted to have me on but it seems like he was condoning what happened to me,” she said. “He was saying, ‘What do you expect? We rally around our stars.’ Well, I rally around reality, if that still matters in media.”

Jebreal continued: “I didn’t tell him this on air but I said, ‘I hope you don’t condone other things the network did, like what happened with Ayman.’”

Jebreal was referring to NBC correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin and his sudden removal by the network from the Gaza Strip. Mohyeldin, a rising star in the network and its only Arab-American reporter in the region, was an eyewitness to the Israeli killing of four young boys who had been playing soccer on a beach near Gaza City.

Moments after the killings, Mohyeldin relayed intimate accounts of the scene through Twitter, then released harrowing footage of the boys’ mother wailing as she learned of their deaths. Oddly, NBC correspondent Richard Engel was summoned [9] to deliver Mohyeldin’s package that evening.

The NBC producer told me that the network was deluged with angry letters and phone calls from pro-Israel activists about Mohyeldin’s reporting.

Hours later, Mohyeldin’s summary of the US State Department’s statement defending Israel’s actions disappeared [10] from his Facebook and Twitter accounts. He had apparently been forced to delete the postings. Next, NBC removed Mohyeldin from Gaza, sending him out of the area on the first plane available.

To replace Mohyeldin, NBC dispatched Engel, a veteran foreign correspondent well-liked by top brass and regarded as the network’s “star.” Engel was the keynote speaker [11] at a 2013 event at the Newseum in Washington DC honoring journalists killed that year. Under Israel lobby pressure, the Newseum had removed [12] the names of three Palestinian journalists killed in targeting Israeli strikes during the November 2012 assault on Gaza, accepting claims by anti-Palestinian groups like the Anti-Defamation League that their employment by Hamas-affiliated outlets rendered them enemy combatants. During his speech, Engel carefully avoided condemning the Newseum for its capitulation.

The removal of Mohyeldin sparked an international backlash, with tens of thousands from around the world protesting the decision through viral Twitter hashtags like, #LetAymanReport and #FreeAyman. Two days later, an apparently chastened NBC returned Mohyeldin to the Gaza Strip, but the damage had been done.

Unwilling to explain its unusual actions, NBC left it up to media critics to guess at its motives. CNN Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter chalked up [13] the removal of Mohyeldin to “infighting and bureaucracy,” claiming that NBC was concerned primarily with ratings. Glenn Greenwald, the editor-in-chief of the The Intercept, wrote [14] that Mohyeldin was ordered out of Gaza by David Verdi, a top NBC executive, for political reasons — his reporting was deemed too sympathetic to Palestinians.

The NBC producer insisted that Greenwald’s account was the more accurate one. “Greenwald was right,” the producer told me. “And I hate to say that.”

For her part, Jebreal does not expect to be welcomed back on MSNBC again. “I’m done there,” she told me. “It’s not happening any more. My contract is over. I’m fine with it. I’m not complaining.”

She cited the distorted coverage of Israel-Palestine in American broadcast as the central reason behind the American public’s support for Israel’s assault on Gaza.

“I believe this is a shifting moment in history and we need to make a decison,” Jebreal said. “It’s easier when there’s Bridgegate but there is another gate: This is Mediagate and we need to begin to challenge our responsibilities.”

Israel [16],

nbc [17],

palestine [18]

Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/media/witch-hunt-fired-msnbc-contributor-speaks-out-networks-witch-hunt-and-suppression-israel

Links:

[1] http://alternet.org

[2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/max-blumenthal

[3] http://www.mediaite.com/online/msnbc-guest-who-slammed-israel-coverage-claims-upcoming-tv-appearances-cancelled/

[4] http://www.alternet.org/www.mediaite.com/tv/msnbc-guest-scolds-network-for-lack-of-palestinian-views-disgustingly-biased

[5] https://twitter.com/rulajebreal/statuses/491329071800778752

[6] http://www.mediaite.com/tv/msnbc-guest-who-called-out-israel-coverage-returns-for-heated-talk-with-chris-hayes/

[7] http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/31648.html

[8] http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/joe-scarborough-mika-brzezinski-morning-joe-95280.html

[9] http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/ayman-mohyeldin-witnesses-gaza-airstrike-but-richard-engel-reports-on-nightly-news_b232276

[10] https://twitter.com/RaniaKhalek/status/489820440014372864

[11] http://www.newseum.org/programs/2013/0513-special-program/journalists-memorial-rededication-ceremony.html

[12] http://mondoweiss.net/2013/05/pressure-cameramen-journalists.html

[13] http://money.cnn.com/2014/07/20/media/ayman-mohyeldin-nbc-news/

[14] https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/07/17/nbc-removes-ayman-mohyeldin-gaza-coverage-witnesses-israeli-beach-killing-four-boys/

[15] mailto:corrections@alternet.org?Subject=Typo on 'Witch Hunt': Fired MSNBC Contributor Speaks Out on Suppression of Israel-Palestine Debate

[16] http://www.alternet.org/tags/israel-gaza-conflict-casualties-timeline

[17] http://www.alternet.org/tags/nbc

[18] http://www.alternet.org/tags/palestine

[19] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B

http://www.prwatch.org/node/12500

The Supreme Court just refused to hear an appeal by James Risen, The New York Times reporter who has asserted his reporter’s privilege not to testify about a source. As a result, he could be cited for contempt of court and then jailed.

“I will continue to fight,” Risen said in a statement.

But it’s unclear what his options are, just as it’s unclear what the Obama Administration will do.

In Risen’s 2006 book, “State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration,” he wrote about a botched CIA plan to give bogus nuclear weapons blueprints to the Iranians.

The U.S. government alleges that the source was Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA employee, whom the Justice Department is prosecuting under the 1917 Espionage Act.

Risen refuses to release information about his source.

Ironically, the Bush Administration eventually stopped trying to pry it out of him, but the Obama Administration refused to relent.

A lower court ruled in Risen’s favor, but an appellate court ruled against him. So now, with the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the case, the appellate court ruling stands.

This puts Risen is in a box, and it’s up to the Justice Department whether it will allow him to get out it.

“The ball is now in the government's court,” Joel Kurtzberg, an attorney for Risen, told the AP. “It can elect to proceed in the Sterling trial without Jim's testimony if it wants to. If they insist on his testimony and Jim refuses to testify, the court will need to have a hearing to determine if Jim is in contempt and, if so, what the consequence of that will be.”

CDA:

linked version excerpts]

...From the air, you can see enormous white smokestacks 50 miles away. And from the ground, you can talk to those who have been physically harmed by accidental releases from the white ponds of tar sands chemical waste, called tailings ponds, which leech into the Athabasca river and flow downstream to First Nations communities like Fort Chip, where cancer rates have skyrocketed in the last 30 years.

Stories that describe the detrimental effects of Canada’s fossil fuel boom — not to mention the high carbon-intensity of tar sands oil extraction or unlikelihood that mining sites will ever be adequately reclaimed — threaten public support for projects like Keystone XL, and by extension, speedy and lucrative development.

‘A Culture Of Secrecy’

According to Tom Henheffer, executive director of the non-profit Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE), the Canadian federal government has been actively working for the last decade to prevent journalists’ access to information, particularly in science-related fields. The trend only got worse, he said, when current Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a fierce supporter of tar sands development, took office in 2006.

“It’s specifically very bad in science-related fields, but it extends into every other field,” Henheffer said. “This government has a culture of secrecy that is extremely harmful to Canadian society.”

This government has a culture of secrecy that is extremely harmful to Canadian society.

Henheffer, whose group in April released its annual Review of Free Expression in Canada Report Card, noted two main issues at play. One, he said, is an increase in the amount of bureaucracy journalists must go through to get information. The other is a gradual de-funding of research, so the information journalists want isn’t even created in the first place.

The CJFE’s report card gave a failing grade to Canada’s access-to-information (ATI) system, which saw delays beyond the legal time limit affecting almost 45 percent of information requests, and more than 80 percent of responses partially or mostly censored. That report card also slammed the government for cutting scientific research, dismissing more than 2,000 scientists and cutting 165 research programs affecting “almost every federal scientific and monitoring institution.”

The report also noted a nationwide “muzzling” of federal scientists, citing government efforts to ensure its scientists limit discussions with the media on their work — much of which includes the environmental and climate impacts of tar sands development. This was confirmed in 2007, when a leaked PowerPoint presentation from Environment Canada revealed that government scientists were told to refer all media queries to communications officers who would help them respond with “approved lines.”

The current climate, Henheffer said, is frustrating journalistic efforts throughout the country.

“They’ve essentially dismantled our access to information system,” he said. “It makes investigative journalism impossible.”

The ‘Extremist Threat’ Of Environmentalists

Along with access to information for journalists, Stephen Harper’s government has also been working to dismantle environmental groups, a fact that has been revealed, ironically, by document requests from journalists. Those documents show unprecedented attempts from agencies across the federal government to spy on, de-fund, and otherwise disrupt the efforts of environmental groups.....

The most recent example of this has been a rigorous effort by the Canada Revenue Agency to target environmental groups for possible abuse of their nonprofit charity statuses, alleging they may be violating the limits on how much political advocacy work they can do. The CRA’s $8 million effort was launched in 2012, shortly after the pro-tar sands group Ethical Oil kicked off a public campaign to “expose the radical foreign funded environmental groups” criticizing the oil industry.

“There are environmental and other radical groups that would seek to block this opportunity to diversify our trade,” Joe Oliver, then-Natural Resources Minister, wrote at the time. “These groups threaten to hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda. They seek to exploit any loophole they can find, stacking public hearings with bodies to ensure that delays kill good projects.”

One of the original groups targeted was ForestEthics, a British Columbia-based nonprofit with branches in Vancouver and San Francisco. One of the fiercest and more outspoken opponents of the tar sands and the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, the group responded by giving up its charitable status (thereby giving up tax breaks to its donors) so it could focus more on combating what it refers to as “attacks on the environment.”

“Ever since we formed the advocacy group we’ve been under further … ‘intense scrutiny’ I guess is the nicest way to put it, because the advocacy group is set up explicitly for the sake of taking on the Harper government,” ForestEthics tar sands campaigner Ben West said.

West said that since his group founded its advocacy arm, it has been a target of a recently-revealed spying effort by the Canadian federal government. That effort, revealed in November by a public records request from the Vancouver Observer, showed that officials had been sending spies to meetings of anti-tar sands groups, relaying their plans for rallies and strategies for public meetings.

What’s more, documents obtained in February by the Guardian revealed that both Canada’s national police force and intelligence agency view environmental activist protest activities as “forms of attack,” and depict those involved as national security threats. Greenpeace, for example, is officially regarded as an “extremist” threat.

...Can’t Criticize If You Don’t Know

In all, I was delayed for about 45 minutes — a relatively painless experience — but I did get the feeling I wasn’t the only one being hassled in Canada for an association with environmentalism. Indeed, as interviews with multiple reporters and activists show, the federal government places numerous obstacles in the way of those who try to disseminate information about the Canadian tar sands. Many believe this has amounted to a full-on war.

There are logical reasons why impeding environmental journalists could be in Canada’s interest. The tar sands are the third largest oil reserve in the world, and production is currently accelerating so quickly that the government predicts capital investments will reach $218 billion over the next 25 years. Part of that investment could come from the Keystone XL pipeline, the controversial proposal that, if approved, would bring up to 830,000 barrels of Canadian crude oil per day down to refineries in the U.S.

So it makes sense that Canadian officials may want to prevent environmental perspectives on Fort McMurray’s vast tar sands reserves, which have replaced thousands of acres of boreal forest with massive refineries and sprawling mining sites — shiny, black excavated deserts that sit next to glowing white ponds of chemical waste. A small portion of boreal forest remains, but it doesn’t do much to cover the scars.

From the air, you can see enormous white smokestacks 50 miles away. And from the ground, you can talk to those who have been physically harmed by accidental releases from the white ponds of tar sands chemical waste, called tailings ponds, which leech into the Athabasca river and flow downstream to First Nations communities like Fort Chip, where cancer rates have skyrocketed in the last 30 years.

‘A Culture Of Secrecy’

This government has a culture of secrecy that is extremely harmful to Canadian society.

The current climate, Henheffer said, is frustrating journalistic efforts throughout the country.

“They’ve essentially dismantled our access to information system,” he said. “It makes investigative journalism impossible.”

The ‘Extremist Threat’ Of Environmentalists

Along with access to information for journalists, Stephen Harper’s government has also been working to dismantle environmental groups, a fact that has been revealed, ironically, by document requests from journalists. Those documents show unprecedented attempts from agencies across the federal government to spy on, de-fund, and otherwise disrupt the efforts of environmental groups.

[Environmental] groups threaten to hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda.

One of the original groups targeted was ForestEthics, a British Columbia-based nonprofit with branches in Vancouver and San Francisco. One of the fiercest and more outspoken opponents of the tar sands and the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, the group responded by giving up its charitable status (thereby giving up tax breaks to its donors) so it could focus more on combating what it refers to as “attacks on the environment.”

What’s more, documents obtained in February by the Guardian revealed that both Canada’s national police force and intelligence agency view environmental activist protest activities as “forms of attack,” anddepict those involved as national security threats. Greenpeace, for example, is officially regarded as an “extremist” threat.

West said the revelations have had a “chilling” effect on the groups’ volunteer and donor base.

“The word is out that ForestEthics is one of the groups that the federal government is paying close attention to, and that has an impact on people’s comfort levels and their desire to get involved,” West said. “If you look at the pieces of the documents we were able to get our hands on, they explain what was happening at meetings where you would have had to have been in the room to have known the content of that meeting.

‘A Government Of Thugs’

In addition to the more-calculated attempts to prevent environmental criticism, multiple reporters and activists say they experience an egregious amount of defensiveness, spitefulness, and intimidation from the federal government that prevents them from doing their jobs effectively.

“We have a government of thugs in Ottawa these days who are absolutely ruthless,” said Andrew Nikiforuk, an award-winning journalistwho has been reporting critically on Canada’s oil and gas industry for more than 20 years. “It’s a hostility and thuggery, is the way I would describe it. That’s exactly what it is.”

We have a government of thugs in Ottawa these days who are absolutely ruthless.

Nikiforuk says he’s been shut out of government events, “slandered and libeled” by a member of the government’s conservative party, and repeatedly contacted by government flacks who criticize his reporting.

The most blatant example of government intimidation Nikiforuk can recall was when members ofCanada’s Energy Resources Conservation Board actively tried to prevent the publication of his 2010 book, Tar Sands,claiming he made numerous factual errors and posting a long letter about it on its website. Nikifourk rebutted the claims, eventually winning the Society of Environmental Journalist’s Rachel Carson Book Award for his reporting.

Documentary and satire filmmakers Andy Cobb and Mike Damanskis also said they experienced government intimidation when, like me, they were detained at the Fort McMurray airport in October 2013. Unlike me, however, they were deported.

“He basically told us that the tar sands weren’t news, that he wasn’t recognizing us as journalists, and that if we wanted to come to Canada, we weren’t going to be able to do it today,” Damanskis said.

Though it seemed like at first they would be able to enter the country without working papers, Damanskis and Cobb said the border official had an “immediate change of heart” after watching a clip of their previous work — a video satirizing the infamous Mayflower, Arkansas tar sands pipeline spill.

Border spokesperson Lisa White said she was not authorized to speak on specific cases, and declined to specify whether officers were allowed to make entry decisions based on the content of journalists’ work. She did say, however, that documentary filmmakers required working papers to enter Canada, and that all entry decisions are made on a case-by-case basis.

“All decisions are made in accordance with Canadian law,” she said.

Swift And Snarky Push-Back

Of course, it’s important to note that journalists like Nikiforuk, Damaskis, and Cobb are more likely to get negative feedback from Canadian government officials because they are not, and don’t claim to be, completely objective. All three are openly and fiercely opposed to the speed of tar sands development.

But even reporters who are seemingly more objective toward development have been subject to government push-back. For example, Economist correspondent Madelaine Drohan said via e-mail that Alberta’s provincial government once posted a “defensive” response on its website to an article she wrote that mentioned leaks from tailings ponds, which are large lakes of tar sands waste. That response has since been removed, but Drohan said she remembers it happening.

“It made me think that the government was even more sensitive than the industry,” she said.

As for hostility from the Alberta provincial government, one journalist pointed specifically to David Sands, a director at Alberta’s Public Affairs Bureau, whose Twitter account is made up largely of rebuttals to journalism critical of Alberta government. In recent tweets, Sands compared two newspapers’ coverage of Parliament to “jihad,” among other critical responses.

“Yeah, I’m the mean guy,” Sands told ThinkProgress. “It’s definitely my personal style, but nobody told me to be mean.”

Sands said part of his job is tracking down stories that include inaccuracies about Alberta government policies. He said he’s the only one in his department with the specific mandate to do so.

Still, many have criticized Alberta for the number of people they’ve employed to hunt down stories. According to documents obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation in April, Alberta employs 214 communications professionals at a cost of $21 million per year, a number that the National Post noted “far outstrips” the number of reporters who cover government.

Sands rebutted that story too, saying communications staff span a range of departments — healthcare, education, law enforcement — that are not all dedicated to attacking journalists.

“It’s sort of an enjoyment of the media to say we have 214 communications people who are all dealing with the media,” he said. “When reporting is challenged, people take it very personally.”

The Strategy Is Working — Or Is It?

Thus far, government push-back against environmental journalism seems to be working. As a recent survey of Canadian journalists showed, many environmental and climate stories about the tar sands often go unreported. That survey, titled “The Alberta Oil Sands, Journalists, and Their Sources,” questioned 20 reporters with extensive daily experience reporting on the tar sands.

Of the 20, 14 said stories about the tar sands were not being told, and seven of those 14 said environmental issues were the main ones untouched. Environmental damage done by leaking tailings ponds and bitumen waste; toxic contaminants leeching into the water; the impact of excess sulfur produced in the mining process — all of those were included in the issues journalists perceive as under-reported.

“I hate this story,” one reporter who participated in the study said. “It’s important, but there’s no direction or progression.”

As for activist groups, Ben West of ForestEthics said the hostility has actually been helping his group’s efforts. And it’s not just the group itself. As the government’s attacks have become more and more public, West says his and other environmental advocacy groups have been obtaining record-breaking donations from individuals — what he calls a “clear sign” that Canadians want to protect their environment from the tar sands.

“I actually kind of welcome these attacks from the federal government in a sense, because they are a great opportunity to highlight how crazy our government’s acting, and use it as a reason to ask people for more support,” he said. “Many Canadians feel strongly about this. Let the government create their own disincentives.”

AlterNet [1] / By Bill Berkowitz [2]

Forbes Journalist Fired After Reporting the Truth About Cliven Bundy

May 8, 2014 |

Fallout from the Cliven Bundy affair continues to reverberate in a myriad of ways: Right-wing talk shows hosts have retreated; paranoid rumors appear to be tearing apart the antigovernment militia folk still hanging out at the Bundy ranch; and a well-respected reporter has been unexpectedly and inexplicably dropped by a mainstream outlet. After writing a piece titled “Federal Grazing Program in Bundy Dispute Rips Off Taxpayers, Wild Horses,” which appeared on the Forbes website [3], journalist Vickery Eckhoff was cut loose from her writing gig with the magazine.

In a blog entry headlined “Cliven Bundy Ended My Forbes Gig [4],” Eckhoff writes that while she’s “not quite sure why” she was let go, she assumes that it was no coincidence that she was dumped some 10 hours after the piece appeared on the Forbes website.

Eckhoff notes: “A few people have suggested it may be on account of Steve Forbes keeping cattle on his New Jersey estate [5] to reduce his property taxes. Others have mentioned Forbes' partnership with Fox News.”

Why the editors at Forbes decided she was no longer wanted as a contributor is a mystery. Some of her previous articles included: “Is Your K-Y Jelly Cruelty-Free? Do You Care?”; “Racing Industry Silent About Slaughtered Thoroughbreds”; and “WSJ Serves Up Tainted Journalism On Horse Slaughter Plate.”

Eckhoff's work appears in a number of major media outlets. Some of the topics she covers are, as she describes, “the horse industry, particularly racing, breeding, responsible ownership and the political and industry forces that are working to open horse slaughterhouses again in the US.”

Eckhoff’s firing came the night before she was scheduled to speak at the American Equine Summit. (The topic of her presentation was titled “Disinformation in the Media” [6].)

According to Eckhoff, the Forbes piece “got the largest audience in a single day of any article I’ve ever written. I think it’s now up to 22,000 views.” (As of Sunday, May 4, the piece had received over 33,000 views.) Her story “picks up on the Cliven Bundy story and it looks at the consequences to the federal grazing program for taxpayers and wild horses." [beefs corps wd hate that, plus horses have pathos?; recall ots of rich ppl corps get subsidy for cattle?]

In announcing her firing to the audience at the American Equine Summit, Eckhoff said she’s had “a very great platform” at Forbes, and that she was able “to introduce animal industries as not just a human interest story, but as a political story, as an economic story, as a food safety story, as an environmental story.”

Eckhoff’s American Equine Summit presentation begins with her citing two of Mark Twain’s statements about the power and ownership of the media: “If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uniformed. If you read the newspaper you’re misinformed,” and “Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.”

Among the many interesting points she makes in her presentation is that “disinformation” is driven by a set of mainstream “media values.” She points out that “everybody loves animal stories,” and unfortunately, the media believes anyone can write them, regardless of their lack of expertise, scientific background or familiarity with the subject. Fact checking is lax, “corrections and retractions are discretionary.” The desire to get the story out first is paramount. In addition, she points out that “animal advocates [are] mistrusted as sources unless [they represent] national welfare groups”; “Industry spokespeople [are] viewed as trustworthy.”

On her blog, Eckhoff explained that her Forbes piece basically “covered some of the same territory Paul Krugman of the New York Times, Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow of MSNBC, and Jon Stewart addressed for millions of viewers. The only difference is that mine exposed why the grazing program was not only a bad deal for taxpayers, but [also for] wild horses. Oh, and I got the boot while they got ratings!”

She pointed out that in her two-year experience at Forbes, she had “never been challenged on a single fact.”

Why Eckhoff was fired remains a mystery.

She pledges to “continue writing on this topic, aiming for a more mainstream news audience, to reach the kinds of readers who really care about their taxes being wasted by the federal government on wild horse roundups and a grazing program that damages public lands at the public’s expense. One would think this was right up Forbes’ alley — the story appeared in its ‘Taxes’ section — but, apparently ... no.”

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/forbes-fires-journalist-after-reporting-truth-about-cliven-bundy

http://www.projectcensored.org/vanishing-u-s-science-reporters/

Vanishing U.S. Science Reporters

At the same time that human beings are facing multiple, unprecedented environmental calamities including climate change, acidification of the ocean, the Fukushima nuclear disaster, melting icecaps, ground water pollution, and other ecological catastrophes – the number of U.S. science reporters is rapidly declining, resulting in an information gap that is filled with sensationalized scandals, celebrity gossip and sports. From 85weekly science sectionsin newspapers in the U.S in 1989, there were just 19 left by 2012. Without science reporters the public’s environmental ignorance will spread like an epidemic.

In 2009, Columbia University closed its earth and environmental science journalism program; in 2013 Johns Hopkins University retired its 30 year-old science writing program. Even as environmental tragedies sweep across the world, the reason cited for eliminating these programs is “poor job market”.

Scott Dodd, editor of the Natural Resources Defence Council’s On Earth.org, and who considers climate change the “most urgent story of our times”, told IPS that environmental issues are “consistently under-covered”. “A long-term story like climate change, where the news today isn’t all that different from the news last week or last year, it’s difficult without a deep knowledge of the subject to find a fresh angle and sell an editor on why it should be front page news,” Dodd said.

Sources:

Zofeen Ebrahim, “U.S. Science Reporters Becoming an Endangered Species”, Inter Press Service, October 15, 2013, http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/10/u-s-science-reporters-becoming-an-endangered-species/.

Katherine Bagley, “About a Dozen Environment Reporters Left at Top 5 U.S. Papers”, Inside Climate News, January 17, 2013,http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20130114/new-york-times-dismantles-environmental-desk-climate-change-global-warming-journalism-newspapers-hurricane-sandy.

Peter Sterne, “Networks Lose Two Veteran Science Reporters”, Columbia Journalism Review, April 8, 2013,http://www.cjr.org/the_observatory/robert_bazell_ned_potter_leave.php

Student Researcher: Jennifer Moug (Sonoma State University)

Faculty Evaluator: Edward Beebout (Sonoma State University)

pjt c;

16. Journalism Under Attack Around the Globe

The world is a more dangerous place for journalists. Journalists are increasingly at risk of being killed or imprisoned for doing their jobs, a situation that imperils press freedom. From 2011 to 2012, the number of journalists behind bars because of their work increased from 53 to 232, and the 70 journalists killed in the line of duty during 2012 represents a 43 percent increase, compared with 2011, according to a study by the Committee to Project Journalists (CPJ). Over the past two decades, a journalist is killed once every eight days.

The CPJ also published a Risk List, identifying the ten countries worldwide where press freedom suffered the most in 2012. Notably, half of the nations on the Risk List—Brazil, Turkey, Pakistan, Russia, and Ecuador—“practice some form of democracy and exert significant influence on a regional or international stage.”

“When journalists are silenced, whether through violence or laws, we all stand to lose because perpetrators are able to obscure misdeeds, silence dissent, and disempower citizens,” said CPJ deputy director Robert Mahoney.

The CPJ has been a leader in advocating for full implementation of a five-year-old UN resolution calling for protection of journalists in conflict zones, in order to guarantee a free and safe press. Article 19 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights includes the freedom to “impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers,” making freedom of press a transnational right.

The New York Times ran a story on the CPJ report on February 15, 2013, noting the alarming rise in the number of journalists killed and imprisoned during 2012. However, the Times’ report did not address the possible UN resolution or freedom of press as a transnational right.

Dave Lindorff, of ThisCantBeHappening!, writes that “the incidence of journalists killed by US forces in recent US conflicts has been much, much greater than it ever was in earlier wars, such as the one in Vietnam, or in Korea or World War II,” begging the question of whether some of the deaths have been “deliberate, perhaps with the intent of keeping journalists in line.”

Censored #16

Journalism Under Attack Around the Globe

Roy Greenslade, “Journalism Under Attack Across the Globe Imperils Press Freedom,” Guardian, February 14, 2013, http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2013/feb/14/press-freedom-censorship.

“Attacks on the Press: Journalism on the Frontlines in 2012,” Committee to Project Journalists, http://cpj.org/2013/02/attacks-on-the-press-in-2012.php.

Dave Lindorff, “Incidents Raise Suspicions on Motive: Killing of Journalists by US Forces a Growing Problem,” ThisCantBeHappening!, November 22, 2012, http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/1438.

Student Researcher: Qui Phan (College of Marin)

Faculty Evaluator: Andy Lee Roth (College of Marin)

AlterNet [1] / By Andrew Wasley [2]

Journalists and Activists Risking Imprisonment or Death For Investigating Environmental Issues

October 21, 2013 |

The call came early in the end. Around seven. We were on, our contact said. Tonight was the night. We'd been waiting most of the day after last night's plans had been aborted at the eleventh hour. The taxi picked us up, as arranged. The driver had been paid well above the going rate for this and wasn't interested in the details.

Privately, he must have thought it was unusual. Ferrying two foreigners and a fellow countryman deep into the black countryside, dropping them off in the middle of nowhere, returning at a predetermined time unless - as we'd warned him - he got a call stating otherwise.

As the car lights disappeared slowly into the night, someone approached. The security man. He spoke with our translator in haste before beckoning us through the unlocked gate. Across a piece of rough ground, towards one of several vast shed-like buildings set in a row. You could smell it was a farm well before it looked like one. The unmistakable waft of animal waste and straw and feed and chemicals.

Inside, with the door now closed behind us, hundreds of young pigs were visible under the dazzling artificial lights. We didn't have long. The security man had returned to his post outside, to smoke cigarettes and re-read the same paper he'd been reading all evening. He would be watching his clock closely.

The pigs were crammed in; moving, squealing, eating, shitting - these animals didn't have the luxury of outdoor exercise or daylight. This barn (more like a warehouse in fact) was home for now. Locals told us the farm contained 13,000 pigs, and was an intensive piglet "nursery", where young animals were brought from breeding establishments elsewhere to fatten up before being dispatched to the slaughterhouse and people's dinner plates.

We flicked the cameras on - video and stills, as is normal for assignments like this - and recorded what we saw. There were healthy animals, but plenty were lame and injured. One pig had an abnormal growth the size of a grapefruit. Some pigs looked emaciated, others appeared sick, some looked frail. There were dead pigs left abandoned on the ground, live animals rustling around the carcasses.

On the wall, charts recorded the number of animals that had died on specific days, and summarised medical treatment records - the names of antibiotics and other chemicals administered to specific pigs, along with details of the dose.

Time to go, the security man had summoned us. Out through the door, across the rough ground, the taxi was waiting. Handshakes with the security guard - and an acknowledgement of what he'd enabled. It was tricky and risky, sure, he responded, but what did he care, he was leaving in a matter of days. Good luck with the footage, hope it's useful when it's shown god knows where.

As well as the visual evidence of animal welfare conditions, and proof of the drugs in use (difficult to prove usually), we'd collected testimonies from an ex-employee who had spilled the beans on procedures and processes, and from local people, many of who were complaining about the pollution and other environmental impacts of having a foreign-owned factory farm arrive on your doorstep unannounced.

The locals had taken us to a giant open-air waste lagoon linked to another farm run by the same company. We'd filmed dead pigs floating in the cesspit, along with intravenous needles, plastic gloves and other filth.

It was a relief to leave the farm, the region - and indeed the country. On this occasion we were lucky - we got out safely and the pictures and other evidence we'd obtained received much coverage.

But as the detention of Kieron Bryan, the British journalist arrested on board a Greenpeace ship during a recent protest against oil drilling in the Arctic, shows, investigating environmental issues - whether it's climate change, the illegal timber trade or factory farming, can be an increasingly risky business.

Bryan, along with 29 other activists and crew on the Arctic Sunrise, is currently in prison and face potentially lengthy prison sentences after the Russian authorities stormed the boat earlier this month.

Less reported is the fate of Uzbek journalist Sergei Naumov, currently missing after being arrested in September. Naumov is well known for his tireless coverage of environmental issues, in particular the use of forced labour in the country's controversial cotton industry.

Watchdog groups say they are highly concerned as nothing has been heard from the reporter since he telephoned a colleague on the 21st of September to say he'd been detained.

Bryan and Naumov are just the latest in a long line of journalists - and activists - to run into trouble whilst investigating environmental issues. Across the globe, a growing number face persecution and danger - including violence, intimidation, harassment, censorship and even murder - as they tackle controversial, lucrative and often illegal issues.

The problem is so bad that Reporters Without Borders previously compiled a report dedicated to the subject. 'The gathering of [environmental] information alone is threatening for many companies, organised crime groups, governments and the various kinds of intermediaries that profit from the misuse of the environment,' the report states. 'Environmental concerns complicate their plans. As a result, investigative journalists and environmental activists are seen as an unwanted menace and even as enemies to be physically eliminated.'

Those tackling illegal logging and the illicit trade in timber face particular dangers. Logging costs the global economy an estimated US$10-15 billion a year, and there are clear links between deforestation and global warming, as well as serious social justice and human rights abuses involved.

The international community has been slow to recognise the problem however, with resources allocated to fighting the trade hardly registering compared to those allocated to fighting the illicit trades in drugs or arms.

Much of the struggle is being fought - in true David and Goliath style - between a small group of activists and campaigning journalists, and the criminal rackets profiting from the plunder of biologically important rainforests. Those squaring up to these timber barons are paying a heavy price.

In the Philippines in November 2008, journalist Aristeo Padrigao Monday had his face blown off in front of his seven-year-old daughter in Gingoog City after investigating illegal logging for radio station dxRS Radyo Natin and the Mindanao Monitor Today. He had been vocal about the involvement of local politicians. Just months before, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, journalist Khim Sambo and his son were gunned down in the street. A reporter with newspaper Moneakseka Khmer, Sambo often wrote about illegal logging, including the involvement of powerful government figures.

Many others have been killed, injured or persecuted while tackling logging. The problem is so acute in Indonesia that campaigners created a dedicated security network and emergency 'helpline' for those in trouble.

The move followed shocking cases such as that of Arbi Kusno. A tireless exposer of the illicit timber trade, he was attacked by a mob believed to be working for timber smugglers and armed with spears, machetes and hydrochloric acid. Repeatedly stabbed and slashed, one of Kusno's hands and an ear were severed. His injuries were so severe he was assumed dead and carted off to the morgue - only to regain consciousness en route.

In the US, the latest threats to investigative reporting on environmental issues - food and farming in particular - have come in the guise of a raft of controversial laws: in an attempt to thwart the capacity of investigative journalists and activist groups reporting on food scoops, recent years have seen a wave of so-called "ag-gag" legislation introduced in many US states.

Seven states currently have "ag gags" in place, including Iowa, Missouri and North Dakota; seven are believed to have laws pending, including Pennsylvania; and three, California among them, have withdrawn similar legislation. Although details vary from state to state, the premise is the same: to criminalise those who seek to record evidence of animal cruelty and other abuses at factory farms or other farm-related locations.

In Iowa, successfully obtaining employment at agricultural premises under false pretences was made illegal in March 2012. In North Dakota, similar legislation was passed as far back as 1991, making it an offence to trespass or create a recording at a farm. In Missouri, a law passed in July 2012 forces an undercover investigator or journalist to officially report any animal rights abuses seen within 24 hours of their discovery.

New Mexico and California have both recently seen "ag-gags" introduced, but the proposed laws were rejected following public concerns. In Pennsylvania, legislation currently being considered seeks to outlaw trespass and filming at factory farms.

Such unprecedented attempts to stifle investigations are being made, quite simply, because they are bad for PR - especially when accompanied by powerful video images - and thus bad for business. They hit companies where it hurts by shocking consumers and galvanising opinion.

A groundbreaking investigation released in 2008 by pressure group Humane Society of the United States resulted in the largest meat recall in US history, after an undercover worker at the Westland/Hallmark slaughterhouse in California secretly filmed horrific treatment of cattle. The facility had supplied beef to schools across the US.

And campaigners say there is a direct correlation between such image-denting investigations and the roll out of "ag-gags": hot on the heels of "watershed moment" undercover filming by the Mercy For Animals' group at Butterball turkey farms in North Carolina, legislation which hampers this kind of journalism was rolled out.

The investigation, the results of which were published in 2011, led to several arrests and convictions of workers who were caught on camera maliciously abusing animals, including the first ever felony conviction related to cruelty to farmed poultry in US history. The probe also led to the conviction of a senior Department of Agriculture official for obstruction of justice after she attempted to forewarn Butterball that law enforcement planned to raid the company's facility, says Mercy For Animals.

Some commentators believe the current crop of "ag-gags" have borrowed from the model adopted by the controversial American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). The powerful lobby group - made up of corporations and politicians - crafts laws, according to its critics, which serve members' own vested interests before handing them over, pre-packaged and ready to roll, to legislators on a state by state basis.

Unsurprisingly, many food corporations and agricultural organisations support ALEC, which in 2003 introduced the contentious Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act, a federal law designed to target radical environmental and animal rights groups. Some fear that "ag-gags", designed to suppress investigations into factory farming, could be used to target activists and journalists probing other aspects of the food industry or other issues altogether.

Recent years have seen an explosion of investigative reporting being used to highlight, amongst other things, exploitation of migrant workers harvesting fruit and vegetable crops, and poor conditions for those toiling unseen in many restaurant kitchens.

The fallout from these investigations can be just as damaging - and costly - as exposes of farm animal cruelty, particularly when the findings provoke a public outcry. In the ground-breaking book Tomatoland, an examination of the tomato growing industry, journalist Barry Estabrook highlighted the shocking case of the "Immokalee babies" born with severe deformities after their mothers were exposed to pesticides whilst harvesting tomatoes.

Working undercover carries its own inherent risks - not least being caught red-handed whilst wearing a hidden camera or disturbed after entering a property clandestinely - and both activists and journalists, including colleagues of mine, have been threatened or attacked while carrying out their work.

In Brazil, in 2006, one undercover researcher investigating the impacts of the export-led cattle industry was outed in a chilling advert placed in a local newspaper and had to quickly flee the region. His safety - and that of colleagues - was judged to be under threat.

In Japan, two investigators were almost killed in 2003 while trying to document the controversial Taiji dolphin hunt. Morgan Whorwood and Brooke McDonald managed to obtain graphic film of the slaughter of striped dolphins, killed for their meat, but desperate to seize the footage, fishermen attempted to throw the pair off a cliff into the sea.

Although they managed to smuggle the footage out - subsequently beamed around the world and temporarily halting the Taiji killing - the activists were forced to leave Japan after receiving threats.

Legal threatsare also a constant peril. Again in Japan, activists from Greenpeace went undercover to expose an embezzlement ring involving crew members working on the whaling ship Nisshin Maru. Following revelations that some of the ship's crew were linked to the illegal sale of whale meat, in 2008, Japanese police raided Greenpeace offices in Tokyo, and the homes of Greenpeace staff; two campaigners - Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki - were arrested and held in jail for their part in exposing the corruption. Another member of the investigative team cannot return to Japan for fear of being prosecuted.

In 2009 journalists from the UK-based investigative outfit Ecostorm were beaten and arrested whilst documenting the Namibian seal hunt, which is less well known than its Canadian counterpart.

Those investigating large corporations also run the risk of being sued for libel. Swedish journalist Fredrik Gertten was targeted by US fruit company Dole Food in 2009 after releasing a documentary, Bananas!,examining the risks to plantation workers' health from pesticides used on company farms. Dole launched a lawsuit against the Gertten documentary and lobbied the Los Angeles Film Festival to have that documentary removed from its bill, leading to allegations of censorship. It was screened but not as part of the main festival competition.

Similarly, UK filmmaker Tracy Worcester's Pig Business documentary was the subject of several legal threats by pork giant Smithfield Foods in 2008 and 2009. The company sent four letters to Channel 4 threatening legal action, the last of which was sent an hour before the film was broadcast. As a result of the letter, Channel 4 delayed broadcast of the film and footage was removed in order to make one of the perpetrators less identifiable. The lawyers acting on behalf of the company also contacted London's Barbican arts centre, claiming the film was defamatory and asking them not to show it. The screening only went ahead after Worcester agreed to indemnify the Barbican.

Sometimes, the threats - and the dangers - can be more subtle. While I was investigating slave labour and environmental linked to southern Italy's orange and tomato harvests, where thousands of (largely African) migrants suffer brutal exploitation and squalid living conditions, we asked who was really running the show - not the gangmasters, farmers or processors who undoubtedly turn a blind eye to the suffering, but someone else; someone who was benefitting, financially or otherwise, from the racket.

We never had a firm answer. Nobody knew for sure - or would say. Why ask, people said, it makes no difference. The problem is what it is. It was a question better not to answer. This is mafia country after all.

See more stories tagged with:

journalism [3],

Ag-Gag [4]

Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/environment/journalists-and-activists-risking-imprisonment-or-death-investigating-environmental

doc shadows of liberty DN

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/4/5/shadows_of_liberty_new_film_explores

The new documentary "Shadows of Liberty" had its U.S. premiere last night at the National Conference for Media Reform in Denver. Using individual cases of journalists whose attempts to tell their stories have been muzzled by corporations and the government, the film shows how a corporate-controlled media can silence the truth about issues ranging from war to labor practices. In one instance, CBS refused to re-air an investigation by the prize-winning journalist Roberta Baskin on Nike’s use of sweatshop labor in Vietnam. [includes rush transcript]

...

AMY GOODMAN: Jean-Philippe, the examples in your film are extremely powerful. And that’s what we’re going to turn to right now. We’re going to turn to a clip of the film, and this is a clip that involves Roberta Baskin. She is a reporter for CBS. The first story in the film is about this reporter, CBS chief correspondent, who traveled to Vietnam in 1996 to report on labor abuses at Nike factories. This is a clip of Roberta Baskin describing some of what she found.

ROBERTA BASKIN: One of the things that really shocked me was to discover that the word "Nike" had become a verb. The word "Nike" meant to abuse your employees. There were incidences of physical abuse, women who had their mouths taped shut for talking on the line, 15 women who were systematically hit with the top part of a Nike shoe around the face and the neck. It was this disparity between seeing the corporate image that the company sells and the reality in these factories: "Just do it, or else."

AMY GOODMAN: The report sparked protests and boycotts across the country, as Nike rushed to deny the allegations. CBS asked Roberta Baskin to do a follow-up report. The film explains what happened next.

NARRATOR: As Baskin was putting together the updated news report on Nike’s labor practices, she received unexpected news from inside CBS.

ROBERTA BASKIN: I got a call from my executive producer, who said, "The story is not going to air. It’s been taken off schedule. There’s some sort of deal being made between Nike and CBS News for the upcoming Winter Olympics." And the air went out of my soul.

BRIAN HEALY: CBS News was paying an enormous amount of money for the rights. And so, by definition, they would be seeking out commercial sponsors who would pour lots of money into it so that they could recoup the millions that they were paying for the rights of the Olympics.

CBS ANNOUNCER: The 18th Olympic Winter Games on CBS.

NARRATOR: As CBS revealed their Olympic coverage, the deal between Nike and CBS was plain to see.

ROBERTA BASKIN: Correspondent after correspondent are wearing these Nike jackets on the air, with a little CBS something or other—you really couldn’t read it—and a big swoosh on the shoulder. That was the deal. Nike had convinced CBS News to turn its correspondents into billboards. It was heartbreaking.

BRIAN HEALY: The CBS News correspondents were furious. They had to wear the Nike parkas whenever they appeared on air. It’s just not done.

NARRATOR: Baskin wrote a memo requesting CBS management to take the Nike logo off the correspondents.

ROBERTA BASKIN: CBS had crossed this incredible line. How do you trust serious stories when you’re seeing the reporter wearing a bunch of logos? Immediately, the president of CBS News responded, saying, "This was a breach of professional etiquette." It meant that I should shut up. How dare I raise a question about the integrity of CBS News?

AMY GOODMAN: That was Roberta Baskin from the film Shadows of Liberty. You also heard former CBS News producer Brain Healy in that clip. Jean-Philippe Tremblay, why did you choose to open the film with this story?

JEAN-PHILIPPE TREMBLAY: Well, Roberta Baskin is just an example of an amazing journalist. She’s one of the most awarded female journalists here in the United States. She’s won something like over 75 journalistic awards. And the report—the reporting that she does is always trying to tell us what’s happening with power. Here we see an example with the Nike corporation. And because she’s reporting on the Nike corporation, she’s stopped by the very power that she’s working for, CBS News, because they have made a deal with Nike corporation.

press2:

POLICE/PVT SECURITY

US rank on press freedom index fell 27 slots to number 47 ----- when?. Since September 2011, more than eighty journalists have been arrested covering occupy Wall Street. Sometimes the police do not accept their credentials. A cameraman in Oakland got a concussion; a 24 year old Iraqi war vet (two tours) had his skull fractured by beanbag projectile; cops threw a flash-bang at people trying to help him?]. In NY a Fox TV crew was hit with batons and pepper spray when protesters broke through a police barricade. A NYT photographer was arrested and allegedly beaten. (while in custody?)

LEGAL:

One way to fight back is to sue journalists and their companies: Drew Johnson and Jack Anderson won against Fr Coughlin and Fred Napoleon Howser, the Attorney General of California.

CBS

General Westmoreland sued Wallace and CBS for 120 million dollars in 1982 for claiming he had lied (Pentagon Papers? Body count quantification, the IBMization of war; US is the good guy who never loses). Judge set high bar/ “actual malice”? Fought to a draw, though the evidence was overwhelming, so tactical retreat (his lawyer realized the verdict was going to include veracity of Westmoreland, which would “kill the old man”). Westmoreland defended by ur-Washington Legal Foundation (Scaife, tobacco, connected). No money, both sides claimed victory.

In 1995 CBS ran a story on Brown and Williamson spiking nicotine in cigarettes in order to keep people addicted based on a whistleblower Jeffrey Wiegand.

The precedent that saved CBS's ass in the Westmoreland case, New York Times Co, v Sullivan, was expected to be a watershed in terms of protecting the press since it required reckless disregard of falsity. In fact, increasingly the decision on what to broadcast was made by executives concerned with the bottom line, and in-house counsel were increasingly versed not in 1st Amendment law but _] However, the legal precedent did not provide protection because the CBS lawyers were afraid of something quite different than libel: Brown and Williamson's whistleblower Wiegand had signed a confidentiality agreement (one of a number of limitation that have since become commonplace in corporations). This meant that by seeming to be inducing Wiegand to break his contract, they were vulnerable to “tortious interference.” This was the claim made against Texaco for meddling with the merger of a competitor, cost them 10.5 billion dollars with a B and led them filing for bankruptcy in 1987.

Also the CBS lawyers must have been worried about ABC having paid Philip Morris 2.5 million dollars for reporting it had spiked cigarettes with nicotine (which is what Brown and W did; DeNoble fired by PM when he tried to publish scientific research on additive nature of nicotine [did they ever spike?]] Moreover the CBS affiliate in Chicago had paid another tobacco company 3.05 million dollars, a record in a libel suit. Wallace also discovered that the president of CBS was involved some sort of unrelated negotiation with Brown and Williamson, and that the mother company Loews also owned Lorillard [infamous for ]. To thicken the plot still more, at that very moment CBS shareholders were about to vote on a sale to Westinghouse for 5.4 billion dollars, which would give over a million dollars in stock options to CBS executives. To increase the irony and strain the credulity, some years later, perhaps to stick it to CBS for being cowards, ABC parent co release a movie The Informer, although ABC had spiked a “Day One” segment in 1995 that tobacco companies spiked nicotine; sued by PM and RJ Reynolds. Since ABC was in the middle of being sold to Disney, so ABC apologized and paid the tobacco companies' legal expenses, and gagged everyone from speaking about it; USAToday got a copy of the agreement and documents ABC had that proved the tobacco companies were lying [3rd w traveler, no cites 8/22/95 says the two sides disagree on the focus of the report; ABC says it stands by its claim that the companies control the nicotine level to keep people smoking, self evidently proved in the segment; crux is the word “spike” nicotine from outside sources, whatever those are ]. [Eisner killed ABC story on pedophilia]

11/17/95 NYT articles notes that ABC apologized to PM for suggesting they spiked with nicotine., paid at least 3.5 million dollars.

[insert food lion and akre?)

2004

RatherGate: Dan Rather was investigating George W. Bush’s Viet Nam war draft dodging by his father pulling strings to get him into the Texas Air National Guard; records showed that Bush failed to show up at several musters, that he had refused a physical, and had low performance marks. Rather also had interviews with people involved; he was right, but the documents he had were recreations? Blogger Harry MacDougald (pol op, Fed Soc, SE Legal, EPA, Clinton, Scaife] started attack, claiming that font in documents was not used at the date but later proved wrong? These attacks picked up by Drudge, (note escalator effect, also Gannon on Hannity) then more reputable conservative publications such as the Weekly Standard and finally to AP and the mainstream press. Rather stands by the story, the documents have never been proved to be fake. Bush 43 said he could not recall having seen them before. The producer Mary Mapes was fired, several executives resigned, and CBS apologized to viewers. Ended Rather’s career, despite the fact that he was heir of Walter Cronkite, had been a stalwart on 60 Minutes, inspired by the Murrow Boys while a bed-ridden teen.

2006

Inhofe attacks press: Brokaw on climate (Borenstein at AP asked one hundred scientists about An Inconvenient Truth; Inhofe criticized him for not including skeptical scientists). Inhofe compared his 2006 Discovery Channel documentary on climate change to Big Lie Nazi propaganda; Kyoto would shut down agriculture and oil in Oklahoma. In addition he said that the NYT would profit from coverage of climate because on of its reporters had written a book on the subject (Revkin). A reporter who teaches journalism at NYU suggested that Inhofe and Morano's character assassination might be "ginning up the base" for the midterm elections, and that Inhofe's intimidation might scare some smaller newspaper radio and TV stations from running stories on climate. [note crypto/mirror: follow the money]

Arkansas BP Mayflower pipeline: Inside Climate News, which won a Pulitzer for its stories on lax oversight of pipelines, is a scrappy little outfit that is making happen just what we wanted in the era when traditional media/newspapers/investigative reporting is folding; but after the Mayflower Arkansas BP oil spill one of its reporters, Lisa Song was trying to interview US EPA and Dept of Transportation officials, and was told they were in the command center. She tried repeatedly to get their names and contact info. She was initially turned away at the gate, but on her second try was waved through by another (pvt security?) guard. Inside the warehouse serving as the command center she went to a table with a sign “Public Affairs” and got the name of EPA spokesperson, and was in the process of getting it for DOT when Exxon spokesperson told her to leave; a second person repeated the request, adding she'd be arrested for criminal trespass if she did not comply. Another ICN reporter/publisher David Sassoon, revealed Kochs' involvement with tar sands; Koch tried to get Reuters to stop being an ICN partner, and ran ads on Google and Facebook calling him a liar. “agenda-driven, dishonest journalism” [did they say what was incorrect?].

SYNGENTA

Danielle Ivory (Huffpo) kept asking questions that Syngenta did not want to answer, so they tried to figure out how to do opposition research on her to discover some vulnerabilities that could neutralize her. Maverick Strategies Bret Jacobson sent a dossier to Quinn Thomas Public Affairs [former first lady of Gov James] QT had been hired by White House Writers group [actually b1 admin guys] WHWG strategy was to use third party spokesmen and astroturf (half a million budgeted for the latter, overall budget well over a million). Amy Goodman had given Ivory props for breaking the story that EPA had covered up problems with Atrazine. The dossier thus claimed she was driven by ego (and thus was likely to continue?). The dossier also notes she was successful in getting an insurance company to reverse its decision and give at 12 year old boy a prosthetic arm this proves effectiveness, thus confirms she's a threat?)

Pharma giant Novartis Based in Switzerland? combined its agricultural division that joined with AstraZeneca, spun off to become Syngenta second biggest in chemicals and third in seeds. Based in Greensboro NC. Bob Dole lobbies CEO gets almost six million dollars. Does animal testing with HLS

With Bayer, big seller of neonics that poison bees (threaten lawsuit?). With Monsanto and DuPont, control half the world's seed supply.

Atrazine is so evil, Sourcewatch has a whole portal (e.g. coal and tobacco).

EPA has a terrible record on regulating pesticides; traditionally a chemical is innocent until proven guilty, and the burden of proof is on the public. This is hard because symptoms and illnesses can show up years after exposure, and we are all exposed to multiple chemicals, so how to prove X caused Y? Even chemicals that are tested (and the line is very long, so only about 5 percent have been?). The chemical company will do a bait and switch, getting approval for one chemical, and then combining it with others . Dr Warren Porter says even “inert' chemical change properties when combined in this way. [TOSCA involved finding produce with the highest amount and then making that the standard?!]

Syngenta complex and costly campaign to defend: four public relations firms were hired, one run by former first lady of Illinois. they had a list of 130 people and organizations they could mobilize without detection, and wrote op-eds for them to publish under their names (Howard). They paid Elizabeth Whelan's ACSH 100,000 dollars for a hit piece on NYT's Charles Duhiggghost wrote a chapter in AEI book, but also set out to “influence the media, potential jurors, potential plaintiffs, famers, politicians, scientists and the Environmental Protection Agency” CMD report quotes by ). Looked to hire investigative reported to “rattle the cages” at EPA. Looked into private life of judge (“personal conduct...dating websites—pic in robes), members of the EPA panel, but particularly Hayes and his wife, and commissioned a psychiatric profile of Hayes (“paranoid schizo and narcissistic”) (and Ivory, just narcissistic).

Atrazine is the number one herbicide? Eighty million pounds used every year, Especially corn in US but also golf courses and public lands; can contaminate both air and water; used since 50's but problems were found in the Eighties. 14.2 Billion in sales in total; Frog deformities were found at 1/3 of the EPA level; _ sued the EPA to do their job and (re-?)assess. Inexplicably, the government hired Syngenta, the manufacturer, to do the work (p 92)

Class action lawsuit settled in 2012 after eight years; did not admit guilt, paid 105 million dollars for filtration costs in more than a thousand communities in six states.

Tyrone Hayes UCB, youngest tenured faculty, originally was working with a firm that was working for Syngenta, but he got interested in hormone mimicking and went that way, assuming that at some point they would pay for the research (they were interested in it because threatened by it; class action lawsuit in six states?). Finally, he resigned but continued the research. They tried to buy him off (two million if he would keep the research quiet), then started training people sending them to his talks, sometimes videotaping. They contemplated buying his name as a search term to redirect all queries to their sites, but didn't. When he said he was going to publish, they reminded him he'd signed a non-disclosure agreement. Published in Nature and NAS, which ensured EPA would have to pay attention (Weiss). They did opposition research, trying to discredit him or his wife (websites set up for that). He was verbally threatened (said they would go after his wife), and phone calls were set -up to be taped, as well as posting on websites (Howard). He retaliated via email with taunts, some in hip-hop style. Syngenta tried to get him on ethics charges at UCB but failed, although he does now pay twenty times the going rate for lab space, and some highly rated grant applications have been turned down (Howard). Syngenta denied having pressured Duke University not to hire him, but in deposition admitted they had contacted Duke because it was close to HQ. Paid Alex Avery of the Hudson Institute to attack him; claimed Hayes debunked by independent a German professor who was in fact on Syngenta payroll (CMD). Attacked by Milloy (on Fox) called him Berserkeley atrazine-hater”, accused him of lying [he solicited 15 and then 25,000 dollars under various fronts)] but Milloy had been employee of Inst of Regulatory policy, which became Center for Regulatory Effectiveness, founded by Jim Tozzi, who pioneered regulatory capture/paralysis of OMB/OIRA under Reagan, extended brilliantly by John Graham under Bush, who managed to set up ersatz shop to capitalize on Harvard name (risk assessment has become a cottage industry)

AEI published a chapter written by Syngenta scientist, but they were looking for someone else to put name on it (why not Entine? He had already done something similar for Whelan's ACSH which is Syngenta funded ])

Presidential debates; Laura wells green party candidate handcuffed, though she had a ticket at Dominican U

Teachers jailed for T shirt at Bush rally

kos vs mainstream coverage

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/27/1227043/-Let-Me-Show-You-Why-People-Support-Scott-Walker?detail=email

Journalist arrests and press suppression have become so commonplace that the U.S. ranking in a prominent global press freedom index has plummeted 27 spots to number 47.

Since September 2011, more than 80 journalists have been arrested while covering the Occupy Wall Street movement and other protests. Through social media and original reporting, Free Press has tracked and verified these arrests. http://www.freepress.net/press-freedom

===

Benkler, A Free Irresponsible Press, forthcoming Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review

A FREE IRRESPONSIBLE PRESS: WIKILEAKS AND THE BATTLE OVER THE SOUL OF THE NETWORKED

FOURTH ESTATE

Yochai Benkler http://benkler.org/Benkler_Wikileaks_current.pdf

phases of overage/attack .....

C. Direct legal action: Espionage Act, Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and conspiracy

Within a week of the initial release of the cables, Democratic Senator and Chairman of the

Senate Intelligence Committee Diane Feinstein called for Assange's prosecution under the Espionage

Act of 1917.121 The call for using the Espionage Act of 1917 is a remarkable exercise in historical

amnesia. It is consistent, however, with the wording of both the Pentagon’s response in August and the

State Department’s letter in November.122 The Act was the primary legal tool developed in what was

“one of the most fiercely repressive periods in American history.”123

....

D. Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?

Denial of service attacks by an extralegal public-private partnership

Technical infrastructure denial of service:

Beginning a few hours after the release of the first embassy cables, the Wikileaks site came

under a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.133 A pattern of denial of service attacks continued

over the next few weeks. It is difficult to pin down whether these attacks came from government

mastercard etc...

...

Organizational power.

On December 3, 2010, the Office of Management and Budget issued a memorandum to the

various departments, emphasizing that the Wikileaks documents were still classified, and access to

them remained subject to all the legal limitations appropriate to their classification.153 As a result, a

wide range of federal agencies prohibited or technically blocked their employees from reading the

Wikileaks materials online from their federal computers.

...

4. Indirect Legal Assault

The multisystem attack on Wikileaks employs the legal system on two dimensions which are

not directly aimed at the actions of Wikileaks in leaking the cables. Each attack is likely to put pressure

on the continued ability of the organization to function.

The first of these is the actual legal action against the soldier who is accused of having leaked

the materials: a 22 year old army intelligence analyst named Bradley Manning. As of this writing, little

is known about Manning or his motivations beyond a series of articles in Wired Magazine, based on

materials provided by the hacker who turned Manning in, Adrian Lamo.160 That Manning can be

prosecuted under military or civilian criminal law is certainly true. It is clear, however, from what little

is available here, that Manning was under stress and self-medicating, but was operating at least in part

from motives that we would normally consider the paradigm case of whistleblowing: moral and

political disagreement with the course of action of the state.161 Whether the actions exposed in the

documents are indeed illegal or immoral in a manner that would justify blowing the whistle is not

obvious. After almost a year of revelations from this set of materials, they seem more a broad

affirmation of what is widely believed to be the case than offering any new smoking guns.

...

E. Sources of Resilience of the Networked Fourth Estate, and Their Limits

Despite the multi-system assaults it sustained, Wikileaks continued to operate throughout the

period following release of the cables, and its supporters continued to function and indeed respond to

the attack along many dimensions. Just as the attacks provide insight into the ways in which human

practice involves action in and through multiple intersecting systems, so too do the responses.

Jurisdictional arbitrage. The first and most obvious feature of the operation of Wikileaks is its

technical shifts

Socio-political framing as journalism. Throughout the events, Assange and Wikileaks

emphasized their role as journalists. Inverting the practices of those who sought to analogize Wikileaks

to terrorists, some commentators and reporters emphasized the basic argument that Wikileaks is a

reporting organization, fulfilling a reporting function. In particular, Glenn Greenwald of Salon

provided the most detailed and systematic coverage in support of Wikileaks.182

...

F. The Response to Wikileaks:Wrap up.

The response to Wikileaks was dramatic, extensive, overwrought, and ineffective. If the

purpose was to stop access to the cables, it failed. If the effort was to cast a doubt on the credibility of

the cables, it failed. If the purpose was to divert attention from the cables, it failed. And if the effort

was to prevent the future availability of decentralized dissemination of leaked documents outside of the

confines of the responsible press, it failed. Indeed, it is possible that, had Secretary Clinton adopted the

same stance as Secretary Gates and shrugged off the events as embarrassing, but not fundamentally

destructive, a measured response to Wikileaks could have significantly advanced the State

Department's Internet Freedom agenda by allowing the U.S. to exhibit integrity and congruence

between its public statements in support of Internet freedom and its actions.196 The actual response

will create a visible incongruity should the State Department continue to assert Internet freedom as a

major policy agenda.197

koch sum 7/13 http://grist.org/news/heres-how-the-koch-brothers-retaliate-against-journalists-they-dont-like/

alec conf reporters barred/tossed lee fang and

ALEC Assembles "Most Wanted" List, and Oklahomans Say "ALEC Is Not OK"

by Brendan Fischer [1] — May 6, 2013 - 7:44am

Topics: Corporations [2], Democracy [3], Politics [4]

Projects: ALEC Exposed [5]

Share this [6]

-- by Brendan Fischer and Nick Surgey --

In anticipation of protests at ALEC's recent meeting in Oklahoma City, state legislators were handed a set of talking points [7] that read "The American Legislative Exchange Council recognizes the first amendment rights of free speech and assembly, and asks that ___ do the same," apparently to prepare legislators for press questions about citizen activism. But ALEC didn't live up to those spoon-fed talking points: ALEC assembled a dossier of disfavored reporters and activists, kicked reporters out of its conference who might write unfavorable stories, and managed to boot a community forum critical of ALEC from its reserved room.

In what might be the biggest anti-ALEC rally yet, the ALEC legislators and lobbyists arriving at the Renaissance Hotel on May 2 were greeted by a wave of protesters [8] that outnumbered the conference attendees.

More than 600 firefighters, teachers, environmentalists, and church leaders carried signs reading "ALEC is Not OK" and chanting "backroom deals are ALEC's game/sweetheart deals for corporate gain," while a giant inflatable pig wearing a banner reading "Hi, my name is ALEC" floated overhead. Two big rigs adorned with Teamsters logos circled the convention center, honking their horns and blowing air brakes. Harold A. Schaitberger, President of the International Association of Fire Fighters, told the crowd that ALEC's "sole purpose is to develop the most anti-worker, anti-employee, anti-union, anti-middle class, pro-business, pro corporation policies, legislation and agenda possible."

Inside, white men in dark suits milled in the lobby of the Renaissance Hotel and the neighboring Cox Convention Center. Laughter floated through the hotel bar as corporate lobbyists (with a "private sector" tag on their name badge) huddled with state legislators (wearing "public sector" tags).

Fresh-faced interns hustled through the crowds, appearing exhilarated to be in the midst of dealmaking and power brokerage. Oklahoma City Police Officers in full uniform -- but reportedly off-duty and paid by ALEC -- stopped anyone not wearing a name badge from entering ALEC's sections of the convention center.

"We Know Who You Are"

On the morning of May 3, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin -- an ALEC "Legislator of the Year" in 2009 -- gave the ALEC meeting's keynote address. The short, relatively generic speech was the only portion of the ALEC event open to the press: the task force meetings where prospective "model bills" are discussed and adopted were entirely closed-door and guarded by police.[OCCUPY PHOENIX?}

http://www.connexions.org/CxLibrary/Docs/CxP-Anti-globalization_movement.htm

Washington A16

04:45 PM - November 9, 2011

The Kochs and Keystone XL

InsideClimate fails to make its case about brothers’ interest in the pipeline—but it should keep trying

By Curtis Brainard

Koch Industries, a giant oil and energy conglomerate, has InsideClimate News, a four-year-old online news startup, in its crosshairs.

In October, the company launched an online ad campaign via Google, Facebook, and its KochFacts.com website (which rebuts coverage it finds unsatisfactory) claiming that InsideClimate “misleads readers and asserts outright falsehoods” about Koch’s interest in the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. The pipeline would transport crude oil from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, to Gulf Coast refineries in the US, and has drawn vigorous opposition from environmentalists. Koch’s ads feature a jaundiced image InsideClimate’s founder and publisher, David Sassoon, calling him the “activist/owner” of the site. Sassoon calls the ads “media intimidation.”

2. Exxon Allegedly Threatens an InsideClimate Reporter With Arrest

Hazards on the trail of a hot environmental story, in this case the recent oil spill in Arkansas.

Daniel McGowan Released After Lawyers Confirm He Was Jailed For HuffPost Blog

Posted: 04/05/2013 1:02 pm EDT | Updated: 04/05/2013 5:25 pm EDT

UPDATE: 5:25 p.m. -- Lawyers for environmental activist Daniel McGowan said in a statement Friday afternoon that he had been returned to his halfway house in Brooklyn. They added that they had confirmed McGowan wasjailed by federal marshals on Thursday for his Huffington Post blog post -- on the basis of a prison regulation that was declared unconstitutional by a judge in 2007.

Their statement read:

Daniel McGowan has been released from the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn where he was taken into custody yesterday and is back at the halfway house where he has been residing since his release from prison in December. Yesterday, Daniel was given an "incident report" indicating that his Huffington Post blog post, “Court Documents Prove I Was Sent to Communication Management Units (CMU) for My Political Speech," violated aBOP regulation prohibiting inmates from "publishing under a byline." The BOP regulation in question was declared unconstitutional by a federal court in 2007, and eliminated by the BOP in 2010. After we brought this to the BOP's attention, the incident report was expunged.

The Bureau of Prisons did not immediately return a request for comment.

The earlier story ...

NEW YORK -- The jailing of environmental activist Daniel McGowan is under review, a Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) official said Friday morning.

McGowan, who pleaded guilty to arson linked to the Earth Liberation Front in 2006, was serving out the final months of his seven-year sentence in a Brooklyn halfway house when he was jailed by federal marshals Thursday morning, allegedly for writing a commentary on The Huffington Post critical of a harshly restricted federal prison unit in which he had spent time.

Tracy Rivers, a residential reentry manager for the BOP in New York, told HuffPost Friday morning, "We are reviewing this case to determine if the actions that were taken were appropriate."

Rivers declined to say more about why McGowan was moved to the Metropolitan Detention Center, citing privacy issues. But she noted that a determination would be made in McGowan's case by the end of Friday.

In general, Rivers said, prisoners can be punished for violating a BOP rule that prohibits giving interviews to the news media without official approval. But that rule says nothing about prisoners writing blog posts.

McGowan's wife, Jenny Synan, told HuffPost that neither he, his lawyers nor a BOP official she talked to about the case had heard of a regulation prohibiting prisoners from writing blog posts.

In a statement Thursday, McGowan's lawyers at the Center for Constitutional Rights said, "If this is indeed a case of retaliation for writing an article about the BOP retaliating against his free speech while he was in prison, it is more than ironic, it is an outrage."

UPDATE: 1:25 p.m. -- Daniel McGowan may soon leave jail. His attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights, Rachel Meeropol, told HuffPost Friday afternoon, "We have been told by the BOP that he will be sent back to the halfway house today."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/05/daniel-mcgowan-jailing_n_3021613.html?view=print&comm_ref=false

wise use:

PRESS SUPPRESSION:

The Vancouver Sun, the biggest newspaper in British Columbia, with a daily circulation of 260,000, soon fell under the influence of the Alliance. Forest company officials and Alliance members were soon visiting its offices. Before the launch of the BC Forest Alliance, the Sun had five full-time reporters covering forestry, native affairs, and other environmental issues. Soon only one environment journalist remained. The rest were assigned to a category called "resources" in the business section.

Reporters who wrote critically about the forest industry, and those who probed the workings of the Forest Alliance and Burson-Marsteller itself, say they were subjected to pressure. The Sun's forestry reporter, Ben Parfitt, was pulled from environmental issues after writing about Burson-Marsteller and the Forest Alliance, and reporter Mark Hume was grilled by a logging company official and an industry consultant, in the editor's office, about columns he had written about a pro-logging coalition, while the editor, Hume says, stood by in silence[44].

Ken Rietz of Burson Marsteller produced a seven- part TV series, entitled The Forest and the People to spread pro-industry propaganda[45].

journalists ejected from lobby of hotel where koch conf was going on by off-duty cops?

Our pusillanimous press barons

By Jim Hightower- Wed., 10/31/12

TIME FOR AN UPDATE on the free press of our land: The headline is that it's recently given away a fat chunk of its freedom.

The newest feature of hardnosed reporting in America is called "quote approval." PR flacks for public officials and political candidates demand that reporters agree --as a price of being granted an interview--to submit any quotes attributed to their boss for approval. Thus, when a Bigshot blurts out something shocking, stupid, or actually newsworthy, Bigshot's bowdlerizers can tidy it up, or even erase it: zzzt. It's gone, as though it were never uttered.

It's not surprising that today's media-sensitive political figures (including Barack Obama and Mitt Romney) would demand this extraordinary editorial control over what comes out of their own mouths. But it's utterly despicable that media bosses and reporters have gutlessly caved-in to the demand. It reduces reporters from hard-nosed diggers to brown-nosed beggars, and it makes a mockery of the free press our democracy so desperately needs. Still, many of America's major publications have meekly surrendered their reporters' freedom to this restraint.

And now, business executives have realized that-- hey, we can emasculate the press, too. Wall Street barons, Silicon Valley hotshots, and even the bosses of media conglomerates are demanding (and getting) quote approval for stories about their operations.

The media columnist for the New York Times admits that he has also succumbed to these demands: "If it's [a quote] I feel I absolutely need," he recently wrote, "I start negotiating." Never mind that it's his independence and journalistic integrity he's bargaining away.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/11/keystone-xl-new-york-times_n_1959033.html?ref=topbar XL pipe: landowner then reporters

Monsanto and Fox: Partners in Censorship

by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber

By all accounts, Jane Akreand Steve Wilson are tough, bulldog reporters--the sort of journalists you'd expect to make some enemies along the way.

That, according to Florida TV station WTVT, was why it hired the husband-and-wife team with much fanfare in November 1996 to head the station's "news investigative unit." Now, in the wake of their firing barely a year later, the Fox network affiliate is accusing them of theft for daring to independently publish the script of the story that they were never allowed to air.

"This is really not about a couple of disgruntled former reporters whining that their editors wouldn't let them do a story they thought was important," Wilson said in announcing that he and Akre are suing WTVT for breach of contract. "Jane and I have each spent more than 20 years in the news business. . . . It doesn't take that long for every reporter to learn that every now and then--usually when the special interest of your news organization or one of its friends is more important than the public interest--stories get killed. That's bad enough, but that's not what happened here. . . . Fox 13 didn't want to kill the story revealing synthetic hormones in Florida's milk supply. Instead, as we explain in great detail in our legal complaint, we were repeatedly ordered to go forward and broadcast demonstrably inaccurate and dishonest versions of the story. We were given those instructions after some very high-level corporate lobbying by Monsanto (the powerful drug company that makes the hormone) and also, we believe, by members of Florida's dairy and grocery industries."

The hormone in question is genetically-engineered recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH), the flagship product in Monsanto's campaign to take command of the ultra-high-stakes biotechnology industry. Injections of rBGH (sold under the brand name Posilac®) induce higher milk production in dairy cows, but critics warn of potential health risks to both cows and humans.

The Florida dispute offers a rare look inside the newsroom at the way stories get spun and censored. It is also cracks the facade that Monsanto has erected through a highly effective, multi-million-dollar PR offensive aimed at preventing the news media from reporting the views of rBGH critics.

The Dairy Coalition

Coordinated by the DC-based PR/lobby firm ofCapitoline/MS&L, the pro-rBGH campaign brings together drug and dairy industry groups in an ad hoc network called the Dairy Coalition, whose participants include university researchers funded by Monsanto, as well as carefully selected "third party" experts; the International Food Information Council, an industry funded coalition that attacks health and safety concerns about food as unwarranted and unscientific; the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture, representing the top executive of every department of agriculture in all fifty states; the American Farm Bureau Federation, the powerful right-wing lobby behind the movement to pass food disparagement laws like the one under which Oprah Winfrey was sued in Texas; the American Dietetic Association, the national association of registered dietitians which hauls in large sums of money advocating for the food industry; the Grocery Manufacturers of America; the Food Marketing Institute; and other dairy and food associations at the state and regional levels

Immediately after FDA approval of rBGH, attorneys for Monsanto sued or threatened to sue stores and dairy companies that sold milk and dairy products advertised as being free of rBGH, to make sure that any dissenters within the well-organized food industry would be frightened into towing the industry line.

Extensive media monitoring and aggressive intervention and punishment of offending journalists has been critical to the media management campaign. As early as 1989 the PR firm of Carma International was hired to conduct a computer analysis of every story filed on rBGH, ranking reporters as friends or enemies. This information was used to reward friendly reporters while complaining to editors about those who filed reports that were deemed unfriendly.

Leaked internal documents from the Dairy Coalition reveal how journalists who do not toe the line are handled. In January of 1996 dairy officials wrote Mary Jane Wilkinson, assistant managing editor of the Boston Globe, to complain about an upcoming food column by Globe writer Linda Weltner. "On February 23rd, [Dr.] Samuel Epstein . . . made unsupported allegations linking milk and cancer. We're concerned that Ms. Weltner will give Epstein a forum in the Boston Globe to disseminate theories that have no basis in science." The letter invoked carefully cultivated contacts to smear Epstein as a scaremonger with "no standing among his peers in the scientific community and no credibility with the leading health organizations in this country." It noted that "others in the news media who attended Epstein's press conference or reviewed his study--such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and the Washington Post--chose not to run this 'story.' . . . USA Today was the only newspaper to print these allegations and we recently held a heated meeting with them."

Another internal dairy industry document bragged about the handling of USA Today health reporter Anita Manning, whose balanced article on the subject offended the rBGH lobbyists. "On Wednesday representatives of the Dairy Coalition met with reporter Anita Manning and her editor at USA Today. When Manning said that Epstein was a credible source, the Dairy Coalition's Dr. Wayne Callaway pointed out that Epstein has no standing among the scientific community. . . . When Manning insisted it was her responsibility to tell both sides of the story, Callaway said that was just a cop-out for not doing her homework. She was told that if she had attended the press conference, instead of writing the story from a press release, she would have learned that her peers from the Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press chose not to do the story because of the source. At this point Manning left the meeting and her editor assured the Dairy Coalition that any future stories dealing with [rBGH] and health would be closely scrutinized."

A February 1996 internal document of the Dairy Coalition notes that "The Coalition is convinced its work in educating reporters and editors at the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and the Associated Press led to those organizations' dismissal of Samuel Epstein's pronouncements that milk from [rBGH] supplemented cows causes breast and colon cancer. They did not run the story."

The same document brags of knocking prominent New York Times food reporter Marian Burros off the beat entirely: "As you may recall, the Dairy Coalition worked hard with the New York Times last year to keep Marian Burros, a very anti-industry reporter, from 'breaking' Samuel Epstein's claim that milk from . . . supplemented cows causes breast and colon cancer. She did not do the story and now the NYT health reporters are the ones on the [rBGH] beat. They do not believe Epstein. Marian Burros is not happy about the situation."

Given this climate of systematic intimidation and capitulation by news media management, the remarkable fact about the case in Florida is not that the story was killed. What makes this case unique is the dogged persistence that Akre and Wilson have shown in standing by their story.

The Deal that Soured

Steve Wilson is an Emmy award-winning former top investigative reporter for the TV news program "Inside Edition." His past work has produced stories that forced two recalls of faulty door latches in Chrysler minivans and exposed ABC news anchor Sam Donaldson's moves to accept farming subsidies while criticizing them on the air. Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz calls Wilson "a dogged and careful investigator" with a "high-decibel level of journalism." Jane Akre has been a reporter and news anchor for 20 years and has won a prestigious Associated Press award for investigative reporting.

The couple's contract with the station stipulated that Akre would be paid $149,500 over two years to to file short investigative pieces every few days and anchor the station's weekend morning newscasts. Wilson's contract offered $85,500 for 10 hours of work per week on larger stories that would be timed for the all-important "sweeps" rating periods.

At the time of their hiring, it seemed like a good deal for all concerned. Akre had recently given birth to the couple's first child, and Wilson hoped signing up with a local station would give him the chance to spend more time at home and less on the road. "Jane and Steve, quite frankly, were only interested in a package deal . . . which suited me. They're both talented individuals who happen to be married," explained news director Daniel Webster.

A few months after their hiring, however, Webster was shown the door as part of a management shakeup following a $2.5 billion package deal in which WTVT and nine other stations were sold to the Fox network. By then, Webster had already given Wilson and Akre the editorial go-ahead for their first big investigative piece--an expose about possible health risks of rBGH-treated milk, which also provided solid documentation of numerous disturbing facts about Monsanto and its product:

Posilac® was never properly tested before FDA allowed it on the market. A standard cancer test of a new human drug requires two years of testing with several hundred rats. But rBGH was tested for only 90 days on 30 rats. Worse, the study has never been published, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has refused to allow open scientific peer review of the study's raw data.
Some Florida dairy herds grew sick shortly after starting rBGH treatment. One farmer, Charles Knight--who lost 75% of his herd--says that Monsanto and Monsanto-funded researchers at University of Florida withheld from him the information that other dairy herds were suffering similar problems.
Interviewed on camera, Florida dairy officials and scientists refuted Monsanto's claim that every truckload of milk from rBGH-treated cows is tested for excessive antibiotics.
Also on camera, Canadian government officials described what they called an attempt at bribery by Monsanto, which offered $1 to $2 million to gain rBGH approval in Canada.
A visit by Akre to seven randomly-selected Florida dairy farms found that all seven were injecting their cows with the hormone. Wilson and Akre also visited area supermarket chains, which two years previously had promised to ask their milk suppliers not to use rBGH in response to consumer concerns. In reality, store representatives admitted that they have taken no steps to assure compliance with this request.
Finally, the story dwelt heavily on concerns raised by scientists such as Epstein and Consumers Union researcher Michael Hansen about potential cancer risks associated with "insulin-like growth factor-I" (IGF-1). Treatments of rBGH lead to significantly increased levels of IGF-1 in milk, and recent studies suggest IGF-1 is a powerful tumor growth promoter.

Sudden Death

The resulting story, a four-part series, was cleared by management and scheduled to begin airing on Monday, February 24, 1997. As part of the buildup to network ratings sweeps, the story was already being heavily promoted in radio ads when an ominous letter arrived at the office of Fox News chairman Roger Ailes, the former Republican political operative who now heads Rupert Murdoch's Fox network news. The letter came from John J. Walsh, a powerful New York attorney with the firm of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, who accused the reporters of bias and urged the network to delay the story in order to ensure "a more level playing field" for Monsanto's side of the story. "There is a lot at stake in what is going on in Florida, not only for Monsanto but also for Fox News and its owner," Walsh wrote.

"Monsanto hired one of the most renowned lawyers in America to use his power and influence," Wilson says. "Even though our stories had been scheduled to run, even though Fox had bought expensive radio ads to alert viewers to the story, it was abruptly cancelled on the eve of the broadcasts within hours of receiving the letter from Monsanto's lawyer."

Initially, the story was postponed for a week, during which station editors and lawyers fine-combed the story but could find no inaccuracies. Akre and Wilson also offered to do a further interview with Monsanto and supplied a list of topics to be discussed. In response, Walsh fired back an even more threatening letter: "It simply defies credulity that an experienced journalist would expect a representative of any company to go on camera and respond to the vague, undetailed--and for the most part accusatory--points listed by Ms. Akre. Indeed, some of the points clearly contain the elements of defamatory statements which, if repeated in a broadcast, could lead to serious damage to Monsanto and dire consequences for Fox News."

What followed next, according to Wilson and Akre, was a grueling nightmare of perpetual delays and station-mandated rewrites--73 in all, none of which proved satisfactory to station management. "No fewer than six airdates were set and cancelled," Wilson recalls. "In all my years as a print and radio and local and national television reporter, I've never seen anything like it."

At one point, their lawsuit claims, WTVT general manager David Boylan told them he "wasn't interested" in looking at the story himself and pressured them to follow the company lawyer's directions, adding, "Are you sure this is a hill you're willing to die on?" On another occasion, Boylan allegedly told them, "We paid $3 billion for these television stations. We will decide what the news is. The news is what we tell you it is." Boylan then notified them they would be fired for insubordination within 48 hours and another reporter would make the requested changes.

"When we said we'd file a formal complaint with the FCC if that happened," notes Wilson, "we were not fired but were each offered very large cash settlements to go away and keep quiet about the story and how it was handled." The reporters refused the settlement, which amounted to nearly $200,000, and ultimately were fired in December 1997.

The Perfect Case

Notwithstanding the dramatic issues and allegations at stake for reporters everywhere, the lawsuit has generated almost no national media attention and only a few stories in the Florida press--most of which are couched in timid "he said, she said" language that is sure to please Monsanto. One editorialist could not resist putting quotation marks around the word "facts" in discussing the case: "The 'facts' at issue were as slippery as a just-milked cow. . . . And the lines between advocacy, truth integrity and insubordination thin to pencil width when an expensive lawsuit's in the offing."

"Is this an example of local TV's growing reluctance to air hard-hitting investigative news pieces?" asked Eric Deggans of the St. Petersburg Times before concluding that "The truth, as always, lies somewhere in the middle." After examining "the personality conflicts and lack of definitive scientific evidence" about rBGH, Deggans concludes that "Wilson's and Akre's case may not be the perfect example to illustrate the trend of increasingly irrelevant reporting in TV news."

Actually, the case isa perfect example to illustrate that trend. In fact, Deggan's response to the case shows how corporate interests have succeeded in dramatically shifting the terms of acceptability in journalistic discourse.

Good journalism--in particular, good investigativejournalism--is almost always controversial and accompanied by "personality conflicts." In dealing with technologically novel products like genetically-engineered hormones, "lack of definitive scientific evidence" is part of what makes the story controversial.

"Is there smoking-gun, iron-clad evidence available today that drinking milk from hormone-treated cows will lead to cancer in you or your children?" asks Wilson. "No. Many scientists will tell you because this is a drug injected into animals and not directly into humans the testing of its effects on milk-drinkers has never been thorough enough to know for sure. But ask yourselves this: how long did it take us all to learn about the effects of tobacco while the special interests insisted there was no evidence of any harm? Was it wrong to raise those issues before the link was indisputable? Or how about Agent Orange, dioxin, PCBs--all Monsanto products, by the way, all approved by the government, sworn by Monsanto to be safe. Was it wrong to raise those issues before we knew for certain?"

In reality, journalistic reluctance to discuss hypothetical, as-yet unproven health risks is driven more by fear of corporate lawsuits than by a desire to be "responsible." One such lawsuit by the Food Lion grocery store chain resulted in a $5.5 million judgment against ABC-TV in January 1997--just one month prior to Monsanto's threatening letter aimed at killing the Akre-Wilson story. It was a verdict that Monsanto's attorney made sure to mention in his letter to Roger Ailes. "What has Monsanto concerned . . . is the assault on their integrity . . . blatantly carried on by Ms. Akre and Mr. Wilson," Walsh wrote. "In the aftermath of the Food Lion verdict, such behavior would alone be cause for concern."

"A lot of people now are more fearful of doing investigative journalism since Food Lion . . . which is why we have so many lawyers involved," admits Phil Metlin, who took over as WTVT's news director in July 1997. "We have to be careful . . . and prudent."

The result, of course, has been that attorneys rather than reporters are empowered to make journalistic decisions.

For its part, WTVT insists that this system of institutional self-censorship must be defended in order to avoid "chilling the give-and-take essential in any newsroom in getting the news on the air in a timely and responsible manner." In legal court filings, the station insists that its "editorial discretion and judgment should not and cannot be the subject of second-guessing by a judge or jury, consistent with the First Amendment."

WTVT also objects to the fact that Akre and Wilson "conducted two press conferences the day they filed their suit" and "have also created a web site to publicize their issues, where they have posted the complaint and exhibits and where they are soliciting public comments." Worse yet, the website includes two complete scripts of their controversial rBGH report--one version showing how they wanted to write the story, and the other showing how the network wanted it edited. Neither version has ever aired. In fact, its filings in court claim that by posting the scripts on their website, Akre and Wilson "have misappropriated . . . property. . . . This misconduct by Plaintiffs is in itself a material and serious breach of the employment agreements [and] amounts to theft."

Theft it may be, in some strange legal sense, but Akre and Wilson don't care at this point. "I am risking my career by doing this, and I will probably never work in television again," Wilson said, "But we wanted to get this story out."

"As a mother, I know this is important information about a basic food I've been giving my child every day," Akre said. "As a journalist, I know it is a story that millions of Floridians have a right to know. The television station we worked for promised the story would be told. Instead, we spent nearly a year struggling to tell it honestly and accurately, and four months after we were fired for standing up for the truth, the station has done nothing but continue to keep this important news secret. It is not right for the station to withhold this important health information, and solely as a matter of conscience we will not aid and abet their effort to cover this up any longer. Every parent and every consumer has the right to know what they're pouring on their children's morning cereal."

Postscript: In May 1998, a month after Wilson and Akre filed suit, the station aired an rBGH story by the investigative reporter who was hired to replace them. His story, predictably, omitted many of their criticisms of Monsanto.

A version of this article appeared in the June 1998 issue of The Progressive magazine. Further information about the Akre-Wilson lawsuit is available on their website at <http://www.foxBGHsuit.com>.http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/1998Q2/foxbgh.html

Published in PR Watch, Second Quarter 1998, Volume 5, No. 2

wiki:

Jane Akre

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Jane Akre is an American former journalist and current editor-in-chief of InjuryBoard.com. She is best known for the whistleblower lawsuit by herself and her former husband, Steve Wilson, against Fox Broadcasting Company station WTVT in Tampa, Florida. Akre and Wilson are featured in the 2003 documentary film The Corporation about the same lawsuit.

Contents

Professional life

Akre began her career at a small radio station as a news reporter and occasional disc jockey in 1978. She moved around the country as a news reporter and news anchor until spending some time at CNN.^[1] Following her firing from a Tampa-area station, she joined WTVT, a Fox Broadcasting Company affiliate.^[2]

Following her issues with WTVT, she took a series of jobs and was featured in The Corporation regarding her whistleblower lawsuit. In 2007 Akre became the editor-in-chief of the national news desk at InjuryBoard.com.^[3]

Whistleblower lawsuit

In 1997, Wilson and Akre began work on a story regarding the agricultural biotechnology company Monsanto and recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH), a milk additive that had been approved for use by the Food and Drug Administration but also blamed for a number of health issues. Wilson and Akre planned a four part investigative report on Monsanto's use of rBGH, which prompted Monsanto to write to Roger Ailes, president of Fox News Channel, in an attempt to have the report reviewed for bias and because of the "enormous damage that can be done" as a result of the report.^[4]

WTVT did not run the report, and later argued in court that the report was not "breakthrough journalism." Wilson and Akre then claimed that Monsanto's actions constituted the news broadcast telling lies, while WTVT countered that it was looking only for fairness. According to Wilson and Akre, the two rewrote the report over 80 times over the course of 1997, and WTVT decided to exercise "its option to terminate their employment contracts without cause,"^[5] and did not renew their contracts in 1998. WTVT later ran a report about Monsanto and rBGH in 1998, and the report included defenses from Monsanto.^[4]

Following Wilson and Akre's contract not being renewed, the two filed a lawsuit concerning WTVT's "news distortion" under Florida's whistleblower laws, claiming their termination was retaliation for "resisting WTVT's attempts to distort or suppress the Monsanto recombinant bovine growth hormone story."^[6] In a joint statement, Wilson claimed that he and Akre "were repeatedly ordered to go forward and broadcast demonstrably inaccurate and dishonest versions of the story," and "were given those instructions after some very high-level corporate lobbying by Monsanto (the agriculture company that makes the hormone) and also ... by members of Florida’s dairy and grocery industries."^[7] The trial commenced in summer 2000 with a jury dismissing all of the claims brought to trial by Wilson, but siding with one aspect of Akre's complaint, awarding Akre $425000 and agreeing that Akre was a whistleblower because she believed there were violations of the Communications Act of 1934 and because she planned on reporting WTVT to the Federal Communications Commission.

An appeal was filed, and a ruling in February 2003 came down in favor of WTVT, who successfully argued that the FCC policy against falsification was not a "law, rule, or regulation", and so the whistle-blower law did not qualify as the required "law, rule, or regulation" under section 448.102 of the Florida Statutes.^[8] ... Because the FCC's news distortion policy is not a "law, rule, or regulation" under section 448.102 of the Florida Statutes,^[8] Akre has failed to state a claim under the whistle-blower's statute."^[6] The appeal did not address any falsification claims, noting that "as a threshold matter ... Akre failed to state a claim under the whistle-blower's statute," but noted that the lower court ruled against all of Wilson's charges and all of Akre's claims with the exception of the whistleblower claim that was overturned.^[6]

The 2003 documentary, The Corporation, featured Wilson and Akre discussing their battle with WTVT, with Wilson claiming that the jury "determined that the story they pressured us to broadcast, the story we resisted telling, was in fact false, distorted, or slanted."^[4][9] Project Censored called their story one of the "Most Censored Stories" of 2003,^[4] claiming that the "Court Ruled That the Media Can Legally Lie."^[10] Robert F. Kennedy Jr. later quoted Wilson in his book, Crimes Against Nature, with Wilson asking "[W]hat reporter is going to challenge a network ... if the station can retaliate by suing the reporter to oblivion the way the courts are letting them do to us?"^[11] Wilson and Kennedy both failed to note that Wilson and Akre originally brought the suit.^[4] Following the story, Akre and Wilson won the Goldman Environmental Prize for the report,^[1] as well as an Ethics in Journalism Award from the Society of Professional Journalists.^[12] The two continue to challenge WTVT's license, the last such challenge coming in 2005.^[4]

References

^ ^a(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Akre#cite_ref-InjuryBoard.com_biography_0-0) ^b(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Akre#cite_ref-InjuryBoard.com_biography_0-1) InjuryBoard.com biography: Jane Akre. URL accessed 8 April 2010.
^ Reason: "The Strange Case of Steve Wilson," John Sugg, May 2006 issue.
^ Jane Akre biography, Injuryboard.com
^ ^a(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Akre#cite_ref-Reason.2C_May_2006_3-0) ^b(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Akre#cite_ref-Reason.2C_May_2006_3-1) ^c(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Akre#cite_ref-Reason.2C_May_2006_3-2) ^d(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Akre#cite_ref-Reason.2C_May_2006_3-3) ^e(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Akre#cite_ref-Reason.2C_May_2006_3-4) ^f(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Akre#cite_ref-Reason.2C_May_2006_3-5) Reason, May 2006.
^ New World Communs. of Tampa, Inc. v. Akre, 866 So. 2d 1231(2003)
^ ^a(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Akre#cite_ref-New_World_Communs_2003_5-0) ^b(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Akre#cite_ref-New_World_Communs_2003_5-1) ^c(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Akre#cite_ref-New_World_Communs_2003_5-2) New World Communs. of Tampa, Inc. v. Akre, 866 So. 2d 1231(2003)
^ Prepared Statement: Steve Wilson and Jane Akre, 2 April 1998. URL accessed 8 April 2010.
^ ^a(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Akre#cite_ref-law.onecle.com_7-0) ^b(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Akre#cite_ref-law.onecle.com_7-1) Florida Laws: FL Statutes – Title XXXI Labor Section 448.01 Legal day's work; extra pay
^ The Corporation.
^ Project Censored: The Media Can Legally Lie. 2003. URL accessed 8 April 2010.
^ Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Crimes Against Nature. 2004, Harper Collins Publishers, p182.
^ Society of Professional Journalists for Performing in an Outstanding Ethical Manner.

duhigg targetted by whelan?

----

ALEC n May 2012, PRWeek reported that ALEC had hired the notorious global PR firm Edelman. Edelman is the firm of choice for big tobacco, big oil, and big pharma, all key sponsors of ALEC. ALEC also held a special meeting asking right-wing bloggers, such as the Breitbart operation, for help in "a very aggressive campaign to really spread the word about what we actually do," as CMD has reported.

An "aggressive campaign" is clearly underway.

ALEC's note to legislators claims that CMD's "top investigative reporter" has a "lengthy criminal background."It links to a attack-piece published by a newly created entity called The Washington Free Beacon (WFB), the online publication of the self-proclaimed "conservative advocacy group" the Center for American Freedom.

In that piece, recent college grad CJ Ciaramellafocuses onBeau Hodai, a freelance reporter who has written for the Center for Media and Democracy,In These Times, Prison Legal News,Extra! (a publication of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), and the investigative news publication he founded, DBA Press.

Beau has been researching and reporting on ALEC since late 2009. His reporting has detailed the relationship between ALEC and private prison contractors in the dissemination of bills based on Arizona's SB 1070, and has identified ALEC as one of the key forces behind attempts to destroy public employee unions and privatize public services.

Notably, the WFB attack job does not find any material errors in any of Beau's extensively documented reports on ALEC, but focuses on misdemeanor court records. It dwells on the fact that his legal first name is Mohamad. Beau has been nicknamed "Beau" since birth. (It is worth noting that "CJ" is not Ciaramella's legal first name but the nickname he uses instead of "Carl.")

Beau recently stirred the pot with a special report detailing corruption in the Ohio General Assembly based on public records that raise questions as to whether the state's elected officials in ALEC are complying with Ohio's ethics laws regarding gifts.

Interestingly enough, Beau learned that exactly one week following the publication of the Ohio ALEC corruption story, a private investigation firm requested court records concerning a past arrest. Allegations from those same court records emerged as the centerpiece of the WFB attack article.

http://www.prwatch.org/node/11717

huh?

Note the irony here that Heartland Institute – one of the major mouthpieces behind the debunked ‘Climategate' email theft who harped about the suppression of denier voices in peer-reviewed literature – now defending its turf in the unscientific business magazine realm.

-Interesting mentions of Andrew Revkin as a potential ally worth "cultivating,” along with Judith Curry.[cf cointelpro atrazine flip attempts]

"Efforts might also include cultivating more neutral voices with big audiences (such as Revkin at DotEarth/NYTimes, who has a well-known antipathy for some of the more extreme AGW communicators such as Romm, Trenberth, and Hansen) or Curry (who has become popular with our supporters).”

Journalist arrests and press suppression have become so commonplace that the U.S. ranking in a prominent global press freedom index has plummeted 27 spots to number 47.

koch conf reporters blocked by pvt sec (plus offduty cops?)

The Kochs fight back By: Kenneth P. Vogel February 2, 2011 04:38 AM EDT
RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. – Faced with an avalanche of bad publicity after years of funding conservative causes in relative anonymity, the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers, Charles and David, are fighting back. They’ve hired a team of PR pros with experience working for top Republicans including Sarah Palin and Arnold Schwarzenegger to quietly engage reporters to try to shape their Koch coverage, and commissioned sophisticated polling to monitor any collateral damage to the image of their company, Koch Industries. At the same time, through their high-priced lawyers, private security detail and influential allies in conservative politics and media, the Kochs have played hard ball with critics and suspected foes. Young environmental activists who pranked them have been hit with a lawsuit seeking more than $100,000 in damages, and the leak of an internal document describing their political activities resulted in an investigation – complete with document analysis and interviews of suspects – that eventually identified the mole. SLAPP Both their new openness and their aggressive – and sometimes secretive – tactics were on display before and during the Kochs’ closed-door, invitation-only four-day annual winter meetingof conservative donors and leaders that concluded Tuesday with a breakfast at the pricey resort that hosted it here in the Palm Springs suburbs. On the one hand, the Kochs asked a handful of participants to talk to POLITICO about the conference, marking the first time the company has waived the strict confidentiality rules surrounding its donor meetings, which have been taking place twice a year since 2003, but had attracted almost no attention until this year’s. “You know why they’re being scrutinized, don’t you?” asked Herman Cain, a former pizza company CEO and long-shot 2012 GOP presidential candidate who has attended four Koch conferences, including the one that concluded today. “Because they’re not liberal. That’s all that’s about,” said Cain. And, in another shift, Koch’s PR representatives reached out to reporters, largely in response to a raucous rally outside the resort gates that vilified the Kochs as personifying a corrupt political system and that resulted in the arrestsof 25 protesters. On the other hand, the Kochs retained a heavy private security detail, which tracked resort guests deemed “suspicious,” erected a blockadeSaturday to block a documentary camera crew from filming arriving guests, and removed a POLITICO reporter from the resort café under threat of arrest. The pushback began in earnest last summer, when the brothers, longtime supporters of libertarian think tanks, started coming under intense scrutiny for their role in helping start and fund some of the deepest-pocketed groups involved in organizing the tea party movement, and for steering cash towards efforts to target President Barack Obama, his health care overhaul, and congressional Democrats in the run-up to the 2010 election. Democrats – led by Obama, his political adviser David Axelrod and Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) – singled out political spending by non-profit groups funded by the Koch brothers, namely Americans for Prosperity, as a campaign issue.

The Kochs fight back

By: Kenneth P. Vogel

February 2, 2011 04:38 AM EDT

RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. – Faced with an avalanche of bad publicity after years of funding conservative causes in relative anonymity, the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers, Charles and David, are fighting back.

They’ve hired a team of PR pros with experience working for top Republicans including Sarah Palin and Arnold Schwarzenegger to quietly engage reporters to try to shape their Koch coverage, and commissioned sophisticated polling to monitor any collateral damage to the image of their company, Koch Industries.

At the same time, through their high-priced lawyers, private security detail and influential allies in conservative politics and media, the Kochs have played hard ball with critics and suspected foes.

Young environmental activists who pranked them have been hit with a lawsuit seeking more than $100,000 in damages, and the leak of an internal document describing their political activities resulted in an investigation – complete with document analysis and interviews of suspects – that eventually identified the mole. SLAPP

Both their new openness and their aggressive – and sometimes secretive – tactics were on display before and during the Kochs’ closed-door, invitation-only four-day annual winter meetingof conservative donors and leaders that concluded Tuesday with a breakfast at the pricey resort that hosted it here in the Palm Springs suburbs.

On the one hand, the Kochs asked a handful of participants to talk to POLITICO about the conference, marking the first time the company has waived the strict confidentiality rules surrounding its donor meetings, which have been taking place twice a year since 2003, but had attracted almost no attention until this year’s.

“You know why they’re being scrutinized, don’t you?” asked Herman Cain, a former pizza company CEO and long-shot 2012 GOP presidential candidate who has attended four Koch conferences, including the one that concluded today.

“Because they’re not liberal. That’s all that’s about,” said Cain.

And, in another shift, Koch’s PR representatives reached out to reporters, largely in response to a raucous rally outside the resort gates that vilified the Kochs as personifying a corrupt political system and that resulted in t**he arrests**of 25 protesters.

On the other hand, the Kochs retained a heavy private security detail, which tracked resort guests deemed “suspicious,” **erected a blockade**Saturday to block a documentary camera crew from filming arriving guests, and removed a POLITICO reporter from the resort café under threat of arrest.

The pushback began in earnest last summer, when the brothers, longtime supporters of libertarian think tanks, started coming under intense scrutiny for their role in helping start and fund some of the deepest-pocketed groups involved in organizing the tea party movement, and for steering cash towards efforts to target President Barack Obama, his health care overhaul, and congressional Democrats in the run-up to the 2010 election.

Democrats – led by Obama, his political adviser David Axelrod and Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) – singled out political spending by non-profit groups funded by the Koch brothers, namely Americans for Prosperity, as a campaign issue.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_the_press

http://cpj.org/americas/usa/

occupy:

As police nationwide rounded up protesters demonstrating in allegedly unauthorized places, they also detained journalists covering the events. Press accreditation was at the center of several cases as police refused to acknowledge journalists who did not carry what they considered to be official accreditation. Assaults were also reported, including an attack in Oakland that left a cameraman with a concussion.

17: Arrests. Police arrested journalists in New York, Oakland, Nashville, Richmond, and Milwaukee.

1: Attack by police. In New York, a Fox 5 crew was hit by pepper spray and police batons as protesters broke past barriers and police sought to contain them.

Arrest of NYT photographer must be investigated

New York, August 6, 2012--The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned by the arrest and alleged beating of a New York Timesphotographer while he was on assignment Saturday evening in New York City.

"The report by The New York Times on the arrest of its photographer, Robert Stolarik, raises questions about police tactics of blocking reporters covering street unrest and protests," said CPJ Deputy Director Robert Mahoney. "The New York City Police Department must investigate this disturbing incident and ensure that officers allow all journalists to do their job freely."

Taibbi's lawyer who took him [jrnl] to robo ct got threat for contempt ?! email right after 292 [huh? realted to foreclosure robo-signing?]

aus:

Two years ago the Labor Party won a decisive election victory in part by riding a public mood demanding action on climate change after years of stonewalling.

The new Government promised to spearhead world efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Today it's on the run, retreating from a surge of militant anti-climate activism that believes climate science is a left-wing plot aimed at promoting elites, wrecking the economy and screwing the little man. What happened?

Part 1: Climate cyber-bullying

Australia's most distinguished climate scientists have become the target of a new form of cyber-bullying aimed at driving them out of the public debate.

In recent months, each time they enter the public debate through a newspaper article or radio interview these scientists are immediately subjected to a torrent of aggressive, abusive and, at times, threatening emails. Apart from the volume and viciousness of the emails, the campaign has two features - it is mostly anonymous and it appears to be orchestrated.

The messages are typically peppered with insults. One scientist was called a "Loudmouth, arrogant, conceited, ignorant wanker".

The emails frequently accuse the scientists of being frauds who manipulate their research in order to receive funding, such as this one to Ben McNeil at the UNSW:

"It's so obvious you are an activist going along with the climate change lie to protect your very lucrative employment contract."

They often blame the recipients of being guilty of crimes, as in this one received by Professor David Karoly at the University of Melbourne:

"It is probably not to (sic) extreme to suggest that your actions (deceitful) were so criminal to be compared with Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot. It is called treason and genocide.

"Oh, as a scientist, you have destroyed peoples trust in my profession. You are a criminal . Lest we forget."

Receiving emails like these is unsettling and at times disturbing, which of course is the point. They become worrying when they cross the line to personal threats, such as these sent to Professor Andy Pitmanat the UNSW:

"There will be a day of facing the music for the Pitman type frauds... Pitman you are a f**king fool!"

And this one:

"If we see you continue, we will get extremely organised and precise against you."

When Pitman politely replied to the last, the response was more aggressive:

"F**k off mate, stop the personal attacks. Just do your science or you will end up collateral damage in the war, GET IT."

All threats have to be taken seriously, and at times warrant calling in the police. The police are able to trace anonymous emails to their sources and take action against those who send them. The police are now advising those who received abusive and threatening emails to resist the immediate urge to delete them and keep them in a separate folder for future reference.

Climate campaigners have also noticed a surge in the frequency and virulence of this new form of cyber-bullying. The following was received by a young woman (who asked that her name not be used):

"Did you want to offer your children to be brutally gang-raped and then horribly tortured before being reminded of their parents socialist beliefs and actions?

"Burn in hell. Or in the main street, when the Australian public finally lynchs you."

Another campaigner opened her inbox to read this:

"F**k off!!!

"Or you will be chased down the street with burning stakes and hung from your f**king neck, until you are dead, dead, dead!

"F**k you little pieces of sh*t, show youselves in public!!!"

Greens Senator Christine Milne told me that senators' inboxes are bombarded every day by climate deniers and extremists, so that now they are running at least 10 to one against those who call for action on climate change.

She describes it as a "well-organised campaign of strident, offensive and insulting emails that go well beyond the bounds of the normal cut and thrust of politics".

It was widely reported that in the days before the Liberal Party leadership challenge last November, MPs were blitzed with emails from climate deniers. Some MPs were spooked into voting for Tony Abbott, the only one of the three contenders who had repudiated climate science. Australia's alternative government is now led by climate deniers.

Journalists hit

Journalists too have become the victims of cyber-bullying. I have spoken to several, off the record, who have told of torrents of abusive emails when they report on climate change, including some sufficiently threatening for them to consult their supervisors and consider police action.

One was particularly disturbed at references to his wife. Another received the following from someone who gave his name and identified himself as medical representative at major pharmaceutical's company:

"You sad sack of s**t. It's ok to trash climate change sceptics yet, when the shoe is on the other foot, you become a vindictive, nasty piece of s**t not able to face the fact that you're wrong about climate change and you're reputation is now trash."

Anonymous emails are usually more graphic.

"Your mother was a goat f**ker!!!!!! Your father was a turd!!!!!!! You will be one of the first taken out in the revolution!!!!!!!! Your head will be on a stake!! C**t!"

Few of those on the receiving end of this hatred doubt that the emails are being orchestrated. Scores of abusive emails over a few hours are unlikely to be the product of a large number of individuals spontaneously making the effort to track down an email address and pour forth their rage.

While some individuals act alone, increasingly the attacks are arranged by one or more denialist organisations. It's fair to assume operatives in these organisations constantly monitor the media and, when a story or interview they don't like appears, send messages out to lists of supporters, linking to the comments, providing the scientist's email address and urging them to let him or her know what they think.

One or two of the cyber-bullies have hinted at the level of organisation, with one following an abusive rant with the comment:"Copies of my e-mails to you are also being passed out to a huge network for future reference."

Net rage and free speech

The purpose of this new form of cyber-bullying seems clear; it is to upset and intimidate the targets, making them reluctant to participate further in the climate change debate or to change what they say. While the internet is often held up as the instrument of free speech, it is often used for the opposite purpose, to drive people out of the public debate.

Unlike the letters pages of newspapers, on the internet anonymity is accepted and the gate-keepers, where they exist, are more lax, so the normal constraints on social discourse do not apply. On the internet, the demons of the human psyche find a play-ground.

If a group attempts to have a considered discussion about climate science on an open forum it is very soon deluged with enraged attacks on climate science, sometimes linking for authority to well-known denialist websites. Most scientists long ago stopped attempting to correct the mish-mash of absurd misrepresentations and lies in web "discussions".

Is the new campaign of cyber-bullying working? Receiving a large number of offensive emails certainly wears most people down. Some scientists and journalists probably do change what they say or withdraw from debate. Others have strategies for dealing with the abuse-never replying, deleting without reading or swapping loony emails with colleagues, and cultivating a thick skin.

The effect of the cyber-bullying campaign on some scientists-including those I have mentioned-is quite opposite to the intended one. The attempts at intimidation have only made them more resolved to keep talking to the public about their research. Their courage under fire stands in contrast to the cowardice of the anonymous emailers.

Tomorrow: Who is behind the cyber-bullying campaign?

Reporter oppo research:

What to Do about a Persistent Reporter?

According to court records, Minehart then fired off a very interesting internal email, seeking guidance from others on Syngenta's team about how to further field Ivory's queries.

"Danielle is persistent: I just spoke with her. She said I did not respond to her questions!" the Minehart wrote.

The recipients of this email were Syngenta CP's director of communications, Sherry Ford, and three other Syngenta employees.

Also included on the email delivery chain were two public relations consultants: Josh Gilder, of White House Writers Group (WHWG), and Chris Robling, of Jayne Thompson and Associates (JTA), an Illinois public relations firm, hired as part of the company's PR strategy to deal with litigation in Illinois, among other things. WHWG had been part ofSyngenta's PR team for about six months, coming on board after the New York Times story and NRDC report came out. (The litigation has opened a window on some of communications among the Syngenta PR team.)

PR Hierarchy Chart

Before that day, March 5, Ivory had been on the radar screen of the Syngenta spin team, and someone decided to do more than just react to her stories.

The day before, on March 4, Bret Jacobson, the founder and president ofMaverick Strategies and Communications, a public relations/consulting firm specializing in "opposition research," submitted a dossier on Ivory to the firm "Quinn Thomas Public Affairs."[doug badger portland int'l trade lobby]

Quinn Thomas had been hired by Syngenta CP in October 2009, as part of an expanded PR operation led by WHWG, which the watchdog group Media Transparency has called "an umbrella firm of former ghostwriters for Republican presidents and bureaucrats now at the service of anyone willing to pay."

A "First-Strike" PR Team

Around the time of the New York Times investigation of atrazine levels and growing health concerns, according to e-mails discovered in the Holiday Shores suit, Syngenta CP had put out a request for proposals for a new PR effort.

According to the solicitation,Syngenta was seeking firms experienced with a "first strike" mentality and with managing "third party" spokespeople to carry Syngenta's message when it did not want those messages to be seen as coming from the corporation. It also listed (PDF) its top two primary audiences as "media" and "potential jurors." (The Holiday Shores case was pending in Illinois; the Jayne Thompson firm had been hired a few years earlier and would continue to be part of Syngenta's PR operation along with the new PR team being solicited.)

WHWG responded with a $498,000 base proposal that included funding for the "grassroots mobilization" firm DDC Advocacy, which has been described as a big player in the "astroturf" world of making corporate initiatives look like they are the result of wide and deep grassroots support.

A PR Team Known for Attacking Trial Lawyers

DDC reportedly has also co-chaired an astroturfing "roundtable" with the :{U.S. Chamber of Commerce:(style="background-color:#fff200"):}:, which is funded by the biggest global corporations in the world (WHWG has also spearheaded PR campaigns for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce). DDC has also worked onastroturf campaigns in the cyber-world against lawyers who represent injured Americans and in support of so-called "tort reform"that would limit the rights of Americans harmed or killed through corporate neglect or greed.

WHWG's proposal to Syngenta on atrazine also included Quinn Thomas Public Affairs, which was specifically touted for its success in "engaging" lawyers who represent American consumers and in fighting public interest groups through "aggressive third party activity." WHWG said Quinn Thomas' tactics had succesfully slowed or reversed "activist momentum."

"Third party activity" means using seemingly independent third parties that do not appear to be acting in concert with or at the behest of the corporation in a dispute. Aggressive, here, is undefined.

Quinn Thomas Public Affairs is a full service public affairs consulting firm helping businesses, associations, and individuals leverage public opinion, expand their influence, and ultimately engage people to advance their vision.^[1]

Leadership

Doug Q. Badger - Partner

Rick Thomas - Partner

Rebecca McAuliffe - Principal

Mike Burita - Principal

Contact

Quinn Thomas Public Affairs

5 Centerpointe Drive

Suite 400

Lake Oswego

Oregon 97035

tel: 503.639.0389

fax: 503.914.1588

email: info at quinnthomas.com

Reference

↑ Quin Thomas,[1], home page, accessed January 20, 2012.

In documents uncovered through the Illinois state suit against Syngenta, a dossier on:{ HuffPo reporter Danielle Ivory:(style="background-color:#fff200"):}: (PDF) has surfaced. Ivory had contacted Syngenta on March 2nd.

The March 4, 2010 dossier was prepared quickly by "Maverick Strategies" partner Bret Jacobsen as a memo to Quinn Thomas, who was working with WHWG, part of Syngenta CP's six-month old, expanded PR efforts.

From late 2009 through 2010, according to spreadsheets discovered in the litigation, WHWG's operations resulted in payments of over $1.2 million by Syngentafor "message management" and "campaign management." Its total to date is unknown.

Assessing a Reporter's "Motives"

As stated in the dossier, Quinn Thomas had sought an investigation into Ivory's history for "the purpose of assessing her motivations regarding her coverage of [a]trazine."

The dossier lists Ivory's work history as including a stint with Bill Moyers at the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy (which is distinct from the Madison-based Center for Media and Democracy), and a job at National Public Radio's award winning Weekend Edition. It also noted her writing for Democracy Now!, Alternet, Truthout, and HuffPo.

The dossier calls these respected organizations a "who's who of anti-employer employers."

Furthermore, wrote Jacobson, "[Ivory] has successfully used journalism to pressure an insurance company to reverse its decision not to cover a 12-year-old boy's prosthetic arm."

Aside from the purportedly unsavory nature of Ivory's past employers and her use of journalism to benefit a disabled child, he claimed the primary driver behind Ivory's atrazine reporting was egotism.

Noting that Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman had credited Ivory as the reporter who "broke the story on the EPA's [a]trazine cover-up," Jacobson concluded that Ivory's "professional reputation and ego are tied to the effectiveness of the attack on the chemical."

http://www.freepress.net/latest

This absence was highlighted this morning when Reporters Without Borders released its 2011-2012 global Press Freedom Index. After months of journalist arrests and press suppression at OccupyWall Street-inspired protests, the United States has dropped significantly in the rankings.

New Report Shows Big-Money Politics and Broadcast Media Are Undermining Democracy

'Citizens Inundated' documents how the media profits from elections, even as news coverage shrinks

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Date:January 26, 2012

Contact:Jenn Ettinger, 202-265-1490 x 35

WASHINGTON -- On Thursday, Free Press released Citizens Inundated, a report that follows the money trail from big-spending political donors to the bank accounts of the nation's largest broadcast companies.

The report sheds light on the ways in which the broadcast industry profits from elections while polluting political discourse and failing to cover important issues. Read Citizens Inundated here: http://www.freepress.net/citizens-inundated

"It's a corrupt process that enriches media execs while leaving voters awash in misinformation," says Timothy Karr, Free Press senior director of strategy and author of the report. "As a result of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, the wealthiest 1 percent now have unchecked power to pick and choose our nation's leaders. And they're spending the bulk of this money on the sort of political attack ads that misinform the viewing and voting public."

Companies like CBS Corp., News Corp. and Sinclair Broadcast Group are already dividing the spoils of an election year that will see unprecedented spending on political ads. They are expected to rake in more than $3 billion in political ad revenues.

Gasland director arrested at congress: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/01/house-republicans-order-j_n_1246971.html

NYPD: Elmo Safe, Journalists Not So Much

Journalism as a Service, Not a Product

I came to journalism through community organizing, so for me, news and information has always been important in the context of our communities. That’s perhaps why I was so struck by the way Melanie Sill, executive in residence at USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, puts community at the center of her new report “The Case for Open Journalism Now.”

Like many journalism reports released in the last five years, her report begins by asserting that journalism is a "public good.” However, where other authors have used that frame to explore business models or argue for new funding streams (including my own 2009 report), Sill is more interested in how the journalism itself needs to change

....

Intimidation factor?

morano: Morano was hired in Spring 2006 as the Director of Communications to US Senator James Inhofe(R-OK). Senator Inhofe is a member and the former Chair of the Senate Committee for the Environment and Public Works, and has compared :{**Tom Brokaw**:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:'s climate change documentary to the "Big Lie," a Third Reich propaganda technique. Inhofe also claimed that "if we were to embrace the Kyoto treaty [on climate change], it would shut down agriculture, military and oil production in Oklahoma..." ^[9]

Senate Environment Chair Inhofe and Aide

Take on AP/Borenstein, Brokaw, Revkin

By Bud Ward

The continuing political attacks on climate change science have taken a new and, some felt, menacing track in Washington with the Republican chair of the Senate's key environmental committee alleging bias on the part of three of the nation's leading news organizations and three specific reporters.

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman James Inhofe of Oklahoma was assisted in his criticism of prominent climate reporting by a new and assertive staff aide,

a former producer for conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh.

Inhofe, a staunch critic of what he calls the global warming "hoax," first put out a Committee majority press release blasting the Associated Pressand its well regarded science reporter Seth Borenstein for bias and faulty methodology. The Republican committee members' press release panned a June 27 AP piece reporting climate scientists' generally favorable reviews of the science as presented in former Vice President Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth." AP rejected the senators' criticisms outright, and several journalists and academics rallied to AP's and Borenstein's defense.

Inhofe's critics question the propriety of the efforts of the committee's chairman and communications director and wonder if it will have any effect on press coverage and public understanding of climate change. Some journalism professors say Inhofe's goal might be to intimidate reporters and editors, particularly in smaller markets that rely on the Associated Press for Washington coverage. This, they say, could damage the public's understanding of the issue at a time when scientific evidence of global warming is growing. "It strikes me that the public relations people for Senator Inhofe are trying to distract the media by attacking the media for fairly reporting what the vast majority of scientists are reporting," said Jim Detjen, director of the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism at Michigan State University. "It's a last ditch effort to now attack the journalists," Detjen added. "I really believe it's nonsense."

Dan Fagin, a former Newsday environmental reporter who now teaches journalism at New York University, said he did not think Inhofe's criticism would affect Brokaw or his reputation. But he said the attacks on the Associated Press might convince some small newspapers and radio and television stations against running the wire service's stories on climate issues rather than wrestle with a Senate committee chairman. Fagin also suggested Inhofe might be attacking the press to toss red meat to conservative activists before midterm elections. "It's about ginning up the base," he said. "That kind of character assassination goes a long way on both counts. It's reprehensive, but it's a very effective political strategy."

Detjen likened Inhofe's efforts to other historical events where politicians have taken aim at the media, from President Teddy Roosevelt dubbing investigative reporters "muckrakers" to former President Richard Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew's condemnation of the press in the wake of the Watergate break-in. Media criticism has escalated during President Bush's time in the Oval Office amid news reports of several controversial secret domestic surveillance programs.

The Discovery Channel did not return calls for comment on Brokaw's report. The Associated Press, in a prepared statement, said Inhofe wrongly characterized Borenstein's article. The AP contacted more than 100 climate researchers, including skeptics. But it only quoted the scientists who said they had seen the movie or read the book, which turned out to be a far smaller number than those it surveyed. Generally, the AP said scientists were "positive toward Gore's scientific presentation." "The AP story reported facts," said Linda Wagner, director of AP media relations. "It did not take a position in a debate, whether political or scientific, about global warming."

Inhofe endorsed his press office's work and shrugged off a question over whether he was trying to intimidate reporters. "What are you talking about?" Inhofe said. "The media is 100 percent on the other side."

also goes after revkin, mann etc demands names of 100 sci ref'd

http://www.environmentwriter.org/resources/articles/0706_inhofe.htm

PR Watch / By Eric Carlson

Journalists Kicked out of ALEC Conference, Threatened With Arrest

AlterNet

Journalists Kicked out of ALEC Conference, Threatened With Arrest

By Eric Carlson, PR Watch

Posted on August 5, 2011, Printed on February 5, 2012

http://www.alternet.org/story/151930/journalists_kicked_out_of_alec_conference%2C_threatened_with_arrest

Editor's note: In a separate incident, Lee Fang and Scott Keyes of ThinkProgress were also ejected -- forcibly -- from the lobby of the hotel where the ALEC conference is being held. Their report, including video of their interaction with security guards, is here.

In late July, shortly after the launch of ALECexposed.org, Lousiana State Rep. Noble Ellington, a Republicanfrom the state's 20th district and the national chairman of the American Legislative Exchange Council, spoke to NPR about the recent spate of criticism leveled at his organization. When discussing the behind-closed-doors process used to craft ALEC model legislation, Ellington dismissed concerns raised by NPR, assuring interviewer Terry Gross that the public "have an opportunity to talk to their legislators about the legislation -- so I don't see how you can get more transparent than that."

Similarly, Ohio State Senator Bill Seitz, a former "ALEC Legislator of the Year," laughed off the notion of ALEC's secrecy, telling a Cincinnati newspaper that the organization is just like any other professional association.

So it was with these assurances that I headed to New Orleans for ALEC's 38th Annual Conference. Surely as a member of the fourth estate, the good folks at ALEC would value my investigative efforts and grant me access to their back room dealings.

Boy, was I wrong.

Denied Access, Kicked out, and then Kicked out Again

After filling out my registration form to receive press credentials, I was told by an alarmed ALEC intern to wait while she fetched her boss. While I did not think she had ever heard my name, the look on her face made me think that perhaps she had heard of our new project ALEC Exposed.org. A very stern looking gentleman --Ted Wagnon of Vox Global Communications-- arrived and told me my application would be denied on the grounds that the Center for Media and Democracy was an "advocacy organization." I asked Wagnon for a written explanation, and he handed me ALEC's Media Policy, which bears no mention of "advocacy organizations." Instead, news outlets funded by a "think-tank, political party, lobbying organization, trade association, or corporation" are forbidden from registering. CMD complies with this criteria even though most media outlets (owned by major corporations) do not.

Discouraged by by dismissal from the registration table, but not defeated, I headed to the Marriott hotel lobby to do some writing and ALEC sightseeing. I was greeted by there by a contracted security guard with no hotel affiliation, and told to leave. I asked if I was being kicked out of the hotel, to which replied that I would be removed if I didn't depart immediately. I left, a bit miffed. A quick phone call later in the day to Marriott management confirmed that I by sitting in the lobby filing a story I had not violated any of the hotel's rules, and would be welcome back in the lobby the next day.

Thursday morning I sat down once again in the Marriottlobby, where I decided to start tweeting the names of some of the ALEC corporate lobbyists. Apparently tweets like, "South Carolina Rep. Liston Barfield #spotted at #ALEC Annual Meeting. He's wearing a name tag that says 'Legacy Member'" and "Some legislators have 'New Member' ribbons attached to their name tags. Makes it easier for the corporations to track them down" drew the attention of ALEC's communications team. A senior staffer raced towards me, asked if I was Eric Carlson, and then screamed "that's him!”(See the offensive tweets here).

Marriott security guards swarmed to where I was standing, demanding again that I leave the hotel or "face arrest." I escaped before they could follow through on their other promise of taking my picture for their permanent records. My only comfort? Al Jazeera English was also denied credentials on the grounds that ALEC was not an “international” conference-- even though it has an International Relations Task Force whose priority results in the offshoring of U.S. jobs and even though international politicians were addressing the conference.

On the Trail of Public Policy on Bourbon Street

The hypocrisy of ALEC's media policy is astonishing. Not only are vast majority of news organizations owned by major media corporations (perhaps with the exception of Al Jazeera), but the majority of ALEC's conference events and even speaker are sponsored by Fortune 500 firms and trade associations. Governor Bobby Jindal was sponsored by big PhRMA. Dick Armey by Visa. I am not kidding.

While ALEC might not like independent media outlets like ours, they do love big media conglomerates and avidly promote Big Media’s agenda. ALEC members like Comcast, seem worried about feisty municipalities that think broadband should be offered as a public service, so ALEC's Municipal Telecommunications Private Industry Safeguards Act quashes the authority of municipalities to launch their own broadband services. ALEC members ATT, Verizon and now Time Warner seem worried that the FCC might stand up for consumers; ALEC's resolution on broadband regulation takes a "brave" stand against the FCC's authority to enforce Net Neutrality rules and for the destruction of the Internet as a platform for innovation, growth and the free exchange of ideas as we know it.

It is no wonder that Time Warner invited ALEC legislators and corporate lobbyists to a swank dinner at Emeril's Delmonico Thursday night. As I file this report, I am headed over there right now to get turned away from another great ALEC event by the people who say they have nothing to hide. Then I am going to explore rumors of a smoke-filled back room on Bourbon Street sponsored by ALEC board member RJ Reynolds. I just wish I were kidding.

Eric Carlson is a reporter and researcher/writer at PR Watch. He is studying journalism and political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is also a University Writing Fellow and writes for the Badger Herald.

Inside ALEC: Naked Contempt for the Press and Public in Scottsdale

by Beau Hodai [1] — January 11, 2012 - 8:23am

Topics: Corporations [2], Ethics [3], Secrecy [4]

Projects: ALEC Exposed [5]

Share this [6]

"Mr. Hodai had a history at the conference--not very pleasant history. He was considered to be a persona non grata..."

-- Westin Kierland General Manager Bruce Lange to Olivia Ward of the Toronto Star [7].

Evicting the Press, Part 1: Meet Mr. Black

Scottsdale, Arizona--A suburb awash in money and golf courses, set against the backdrop of the jagged mountains surrounding Phoenix.

I was sitting in a sports bar of the Westin Kierland Resort and Spa, swapping journalism stories with Olivia Ward of the Toronto Star on one of the bar's overstuffed leather couches. Over the course of an hour, the bar filled with conventioneers from the American Legislative Exchange Council [8]'s 2011 States and Nation Policy Summit (SNPS). (A new story on Westin's connections to other ALEC corporations is available here [9].)

My assignment was to cover the 2011 SNPS, taking place at the resort from November 29 through December 2. ALEC had refused to grant me media credentials. Nevertheless, I was a paid guest at the resort.

Most of the ALEC members trickling into the bar were fresh from the ALEC "Holiday Gala." As drinks were consumed and new rounds were ordered by guys with ALEC badges, the place began to take on a distinct "Animal House" vibe.

Ward and I were just about to head to our rooms for the night when I saw Phil Black, director of Kierland's security team, approachtwo uniformed police officersjust outside the entrance to the bar. The cops had arrived an hour earlier, glanced at Ward and me, then stationed themselves by the door.

Black entered the bar and headed straight towards me. "Would you mind coming with me, sir?"

Once outside the bar, we were joined by the cops and I was shuffled up the stairs.

"What's this all about?" I asked with Black facing me; a cop to either side, just behind me.

"We understand that you've attempted to enter ALEC events and been asked to leave numerous times," said Black.

This was not true. I had been on my best behavior. And, I had known, since my first meeting with Black the night before, that I was being watched.

Police with a Photo Array of Personas Non Grata

The previous night, I had passed by some cops. When I glanced back I caught one of the cops staring, a look of intense and painful concentration on his face, at a sheet of paper. The paper displayed an array of photos. As was later explained to me by a cop working the resort, it was a photo array of personas non grata provided to the cops via ALEC.

Moments later, after passing the cluster of cops, I was flagged down by a man who asked me who I was, why I was in Scottsdale, where I was from, what line of business I was in.

I gave vague answers and asked who he was.

"Oh, I'm with the hotel," said Black. "Have a nice stay."

Uniformed Police as Bouncers

The next night, I had wandered back into the ballroom where a swirling galaxy of well-dressed lawmakers and lobbyists were hobnobbing, some with neat single malts in hand. There was no indication posted anywhere that this party was limited to ALEC members. Nevertheless, I had been tailed through the ballroom by a cop. As I stepped outside for a smoke, I heard a voice behind me.

"Sir, are you part of the delegation?" It was a uniformed police officer later identified as Phoenix Police Department(PPD) Sergeant Lowe. I explained that I was not a member of ALEC, but that I was a guest at the resort. Lowe explained that the party was private and asked me to return to resort common areas.

Making my way to the door, Lowe in tow, I was approached by two women with resort security.

"Hi ... you're the one on the motorcycle, right? You're with ALEC? You're a guest at the resort? Just so you know, this is a private function, so we just ask that all our regular guests stay in the main area... Okay?"

No problem. I left.

"The ALEC People Don't Want You Here ..."

So, when Black accosted me at the bar the following night and claimed I had been asked to leave numerous ALEC events at the hotel, I explained that this was the extent of my one and only 'incident' and nodded to Sgt. Lowe over my left shoulder. "Ask him," I said.

"Nevertheless," said Black. "The ALEC people don't want you here ... and we understand that your reservations were made under false pretenses."

I asked Black why--given the fact that I had not been accused of any crime--I was surrounded by armed, uniformed cops. Were Phoenix police usually engaged in evicting hotel guests who were suspected of having made hotel reservations under supposedly "false pretenses?" Must be a slow night....

And, how could a person even make a hotel reservation under false pretenses, I asked. I had given the front desk my valid photo driver's license and my credit card for incidental expenses. I was planning to stay in the resort for two days and those two days had been paid for by the Center for Media and Democracy(CMD).... "False pretenses?"

Black would not elaborate further, limiting his conversation only to statements emphasizing the resort's urgent need for me to vacate the premises immediately.

Black said that he would--with the help of these nice police officers--escort me up to my room and help me pack.

I was, as Sgt. Lowe explained, being "trespassed"--which meant that I was being formally advised that I was not welcome on Kierland property. If I returned, or refused to leave following this advisory, I would be arrested and charged with criminal trespassing.

ALEC's Corporate Connections

ALEC bills itself as being the nation's largest bipartisan legislative membership organization, dedicated to the advancement of "federalism" and "Jeffersonian ideals."

The simple reality of ALEC is that the organization serves as an intermediary [10], a conduit through which roughly 2,000 state legislators (the vast majority of which are Republicans) are connected with legions of lobbyists representing more than 300 global and national corporations.

Corporations pony up enough cash to help pay the travel, room, and dining expenses of hundreds of state lawmakers at luxury resorts through "scholarships [11]" facilitated by ALEC. After closed-door meetings between lobbyists and politicians voting as equals on "model legislation," politicians often return to their home state to introduce those bills covering almost every area of law.

For ALEC’s winter meeting in sunny Arizona, corporate sponsors included dozens of global corporations, such as**AT&T** [12],**Time Warner** [13]Cable,**State Farm** [14]Insurance,**Johnson and Johnson** [15], the**American Bail Coalition** [16],**Diageo** [17],**UPS** [18],**Exxon Mobil** [19],**American Petroleum Institute** [20],**Wal-Mart** [21]Stores, Inc. and**AstraZeneca** [22]-- to name a few. ALEC’s operations are also underwritten by billionaires**Charles** [23]and**David Koch** [24](who control Koch Industries, including "Koch Companies Public Sector").

ALEC has come under increased scrutiny in recent years in the media due to its tremendous influence over dramatic changes to the law being pushed in states across the country. Public awareness of ALEC jumped dramatically this past summer after the In These Times investigation of ALEC’s "Publicopoly" and the Center for Media and Democracy [25]'s detailed exposé of ALEC [26] model bills, legislators [27], and lobbyists [28] through http://alecexposed.org [29], after a whistleblower came forward.

And, as a result of growing public malcontent with lawmaker malleability in the face of corporate greed, lawmakers attending ALEC events have been met ever more frequently by members of the public voicing their displeasure with the organization’s role in facilitating the cozy relationship between politicians and corporations.

The 2011 States and Nation Policy Summit was no exception to this trend.

Outside: Public Dissent Met with Pepper Spray

Pepper-sprayed at ALEC protest (photo by Jack Kurtz)

On November 30, the first full-fledged day of the conference, rows of police in full riot gear stood along along Kierland's eastern gate, providing a living buffer between the public and the guests at the posh hotel. Helicopters swarmed above the resort. Flanking both entrances were assembled a couple hundred protesters decrying undue corporate influence over elected lawmakers. These protesters were from several activist groups loosely united under the banner of "Occupy ALEC"--in most part an offshoot of "Occupy Phoenix" and a group known as "AZ-Resist."

Inside the resort ALEC conventioneers gathered for lunch and a speech by ALEC alum and Arizona Governor, Jan Brewer [30].

Brewer welcomed the conventioneers to Arizona, “the state too strong for any union sponsored boycotts to bring down! And their presence is so eloquently so in demonstrating. They're out there ... they're out there," said Brewer scornfully. "Anyway, thank you all for coming today. And thank you to all you from the business community, I certainly thank you for your private sector sponsorship."

Recently retiredLouisiana State Representative and outgoing ALEC national chairman,**Noble Ellington** [31], claimed the protests showed ALEC was doing something right:

"It is just so exiting and I hope you feel the same way that ALEC is on the move," drawled Ellington. "We've got things goin' our way and we're bound to be doing something right, or we wouldn't have the helicopters flying around and the demonstrators..."

Uproarious applause.

"Would you join with me in thanking Novartis [32] for this luncheon today? They have been some really good friends to ALEC and we thank them so much..." said Ellington.

ALEC Director of Communications Kaitlyn Buss [33] then sang the national anthem.

By the time Buss hit her high note, "For the land of the Freeeeeeeeee...," Phoenix police officers were treating protesters outside to the second round of pepper spray of the day.

Betsy Schuler, a former school teacher, was pepper sprayed as officers were moving barricades into the crowd. Schuler said an officer reached over the barricade and started pepper spraying the non-violent protesters. Schuler got a face full of the stuff. The officer, recalled Schuler, stood behind police barricades, smiling smugly.

Schuler was a part of a delegation of Unitarian Universalists who had joined the protests as peacekeepers.

According to Phoenix Police Department spokesman Sgt. Trent Crump, the first of a series of confrontations between the police and the protesters had occurred a few hours earlier that morning.

According to Bret "Buddha" Cary, a small business owner and an organizer with Occupy Phoenix, a group of anarchists had brought a large black canvas banner ("Shut Down ALEC") supported by a framework.

The anarchist moved toward the front of the protests and put the banner between the police and the protesters.

At first, police tried to push the banner back with their own barricade. Eventually, an officer reached over the police barricade and grabbed hold of the banner, tearing it apart. The cop then began throwing pieces of the banner back at the protesters.

A protester screamed, "No! No! No!" as pepper spray was sent out in bright orange streams to the crowd.

Cary and others tried to obtain the name of the officer who had reached over the barricade and grabbed the banner but the officer would not divulge his nameand retreated to Westin grounds, smiling smugly at the protesters from a distance. Following the incident, Cary filed a complaint with PPD internal affairs. He has received no response to his complaint.

Inside: Public Dissent Met with Laughter

By the time Arizona House Majority Whip and ALEC Public Sector Chair, Rep. Debbie Lesko [34], kicked off her remarks on the Novartis stage, several protesters had been placed under arrest and loaded into paddy wagons.

"We have some critics--we saw a few of them outside--because a group recently wrote a large report criticizing ALEC," said Lesko ("ALEC in Arizona [35]: The Voice of Corporate Special Interests in the Halls of Arizona’s Legislature," by Common Cause and People for the American Way). "And so, what better way is there to explain Arizona's involvement in ALEC by reading right from that very report?! So, here we go..."

"'Arizona has one of the highest concentrations of ALEC legislators of any state in the United States.'"

Uproarious applause.

"'At least 50 of the 90 legislators now serving in the legislature are ALEC members....'"

More uproarious applause.

"Yay Arizona," said Lesko. "Two-thirds of the Republican leadership in the Arizona House and Senate are ALEC members and the last three Arizona Senate presidents--including the current one--all served in ALEC roles."

Lesko did not mention that Senate President Russell Pearce [36] had just been thrown out of office in a special recall election. Pearce had been criticized for pushing through the controversial SB 1070 immigration bill, for sitting on the ALEC Public Safety and Elections Task Force [37] alongside Corrections Corporation of America [38] (CCA), the nation's foremost operator of private immigrant detention and prison facilities, the scandal surrounding the Fiesta Bowl and his ties to special interest lobbyists, among other things.

"Way to go Arizona!" shouted Lesko.

Uproarious applause.

Earlier that morning, Ezra Kaplan, a college student and Arizona resident, was one of those arrested and charged with criminal trespass.

Kaplan was working as part of the media chain for the Occupy ALECprotest.

Arrested while Trying to Film, Taunted by Infiltrator

“There were several gentlemen sitting on the ground, kind of locking arms in peaceful protest. At one point, two officers decided to pick up a metal barricade and slant it down on top of [the seated protesters], pushing them to the ground, trying to get them to move," said Kaplan.

Kaplan entered the area between the banner and the police line and to capture this brutality on film.

Kaplan was taking pictures as police suddenly moved their barrier toward protester banners. Kaplan was caught between the two lines.

"I was basically standing there, with my hands above my head, peacefully and calmly talking to the officers, telling them 'I'm trying to get out,'" said Kaplan.

Kaplan says he was pushed to the ground by police "with a knee on my head and a knee on my neck," and cuffed by no less than three officers. As he was laying on the ground with officers on his back nonsensically shouting, "Stop resisting!" he looked up and saw a man in plain clothes. "Yeah, stop resisting, Ezra," the man taunted.

Kaplan was at a loss as to how this man knew his name. His name had not yet been taken by police, and he had not yet been booked for any alleged crime. (According to Kaplan, the police took his camera and continue to hold his camera as "evidence.")

Police spokesman Crump later said police action had been directly informed by real-time intelligence obtained from plainclothes PPD personnel interspersed through the crowd. Crump claims these plainclothes officers reported that protesters were engaging in “illegal activity” behind the banner:

"They were doing things like shaking paint cans, and they were using poles to stick them under the pedestrian walkway gate that we put up. And they were trying to do that hiding behind those banners. And so those banners were pulled down when they tried to [push police barriers]. And that is when pepper spray was deployed at those who were the ones engaging in aggressive behavior."

Protesters have uniformly stated that the crowd had no poles or sticks until after police reduced their banners to a mass of rubble (consisting mainly of poles and sticks).

According to Crump, the Phoenix Police Department has made over 100 arrests and expended nearly $250,000 in overtime pay to officers since the outset of Occupy Phoenix and related protests in mid October.

Native Americans and Others Protest ALEC State Co-Chair Salt River Project

Navaho Louise Benally Speaks Out at Salt River Project

On December 2, an additional 12 protesters were arrested by Tempe police on trespassing charges during a related protest at Salt River Project [39] (SRP) offices in Tempe, Arizona.

SRP Manager of State Government Relations Russell Smoldon [40] serves on ALEC’s corporate board and is the ALEC Arizona private sector chair, tasked with extracting donations from lobbyists and their clients to pay for “scholarships” for ALEC legislators.

From the Novartis stage at the ALEC luncheon, Smoldon lobbied his fellow lobbyists:

"[Gov. Brewer is] the author of a new book. And every time I speak, I am required to put in this plug," said Smoldon. "Her new book is entitled, 'Scorpions for Breakfast.' If you go to JanPAC.com--J-A-N-P-A-C-dot-com--you can contribute to the governor's PAC, which will do great things for America. And, for a $100 contribution, you will get an autographed copy of the book from the governor."

Evicting the Press, Part 2: Rejoining Mr. Black's Inquisition

Hodai: "Surely you can see this is an odd time to be kicking someone out..."

Black: "That's one person's opinion. This is a 24-hour business."

Hodai: "That's a hell of a statement."

I was, by no means, the only reporter in attendance at the ALEC conference to face near arrest or harassment by police.

Almost Arresting a Reporter After He Interviewed Protesters?

Arizona Republic reporter almost arrested outside ALEC conference

Bob Ortega, of the Arizona Republic, stepped outside the Westin's eastern gate on the morning of November 30 to scope out the ALEC occupation. Ortega was one of the few reporters to be credentialedby ALEC for coverage of the conference.

Following the incident where the police tore down the protesters’ banner, Ortega attempted to return to the conference. He was stopped by police in riot gear, pepper spray in hand, at the Westin gate.

The cops told Ortega that he could not enter the grounds. Ortega showed them his ALEC-issued press credentials, identified himself and identified the paper he represented.

"I don't care who you are, turn around and leave or you're going to be arrested," retorted one of the officers.

Ortega persisted in arguing his point, explaining that he had permission from both ALEC and Kierland security to attend the conference-- at which point a cop grabbed him by the arm from behind.

"Okay, you've been warned," said the cop, who commenced to march Ortega off to a waiting paddy wagon.

Orteganarrowly escaped arrest by convincing one of the cops to check with hotel security before sending him off to Maricopa County Jail.

Renting a Real Cop?

This brings us to the interesting arrangement between PPD, Kierland and ALEC.

A few days before the conference, ALEC Senior Director of Membership and Meetings Chas Cirame sent out an advisory to conference attendees stating that, due to planned protests at the event, ALEC would be hiring additional security personnel to protect conference attendees. Cirame advised attendees to wear their ALEC identification badges at all times at the resort.

I had been on the lookout for additional security to see what firm of private spooks ALEC would employ. I had no idea ALEC had actually rented themselves real cops.

As was explained by Black during my eviction: all of these PPD officers on the Westin’s grounds--uniformed and armed--were actually off-duty and being paid, as one cop put it, "really well," to help ALEC and Westin keep undesirables out of the hair of conference attendees.

These were true 'rent-a-cops'-- the best money could buy.

Badgering a Reporter about a Talk over Drinks?

While Sgt. Lowe, another cop and Black supervised me packing in my room, two other officers harangued Wardoutside the bar, wearing PPD uniforms but not disclosing that their services were rented for the night.

"Do you know this man? Do you know this man," a rented cop demanded of Ward, referring to me.

"Do you know this man? Do you know this man???" he continued.

Channeling the persona of her British mother, Ward let loose a fusillade of indignation:

"What do you mean? How dare you ask me such a question?! Are you putting me up on some sort of morality charge?! I am a Canadian citizen. Are you telling me that in the Westin hotel, I am not allowed to sit with a man to whom I am not married?!? I have continually attended meetings [at the conference] where I have been told that this is the land of the free and that Arizona is one of the free-est states in the union. So, what is going on here? Why are you asking me these questions?!"

"So, you know this man?" said the cop.

The officers eventually abandoned this cutting-edge line of interrogation and told Ward was told she was "free to go."

Claiming a Reporter "Presented a Threat?"

Ward later received somewhat more cogent answers to her questions from the resort’s General Manager Bruce Lange:

"Mr. Hodai was considered to be a persona non grata from the conference," Lange told Ward ("America's Secret Political Power [7]," Toronto Star, December 17, 2011). "Not by the hotel, not by the police. ... He clearly presented a threat to the conference, based on his history."

Lange did not elaborate as to what "history" he was referring to.

Lange could not be reached for comment.

When asked why Ward had been interrogated by police under contract with the Westin during my eviction, Kierland Director of Communications Stephanie Dowling parried with this spin:

"Our main objective, our goal with anything--and we certainly understand everyone's concerns in this situation--is to protect our property and our guests, regardless of what organization they represent. That includes our friends from the media and everyone else. The safety and security of our guests is our number one priority--so, if there was any reason, or any situation that might have affected that--that would drive [hotel security's] reasoning behind asking someone to leave."

When asked what threat to the "safety and security" of conference attendees a reporter like me posed, Dowling declined to discuss the matter further, stating that the hotel would never compromise the privacy of a guest by discussing that guest's eviction with the press.

Hodai: "Well, I tell you what: I am that guest and I give you permission to speak to me, as a member of the press, about what happened."

Dowling: "Well, I do really appreciate you calling..."

It should be noted that Black later flatly denied he had ever said ALEC did not want me on the premises.

Evicting a Paying Hotel Guest Whom ALEC Did Not Want Nearby

According to Dowling, the argument that my reservation had been made under "false pretenses" stemmed from the fact that my reservation had initially been made under a different name. The Center for Media and Democracy had openly reserved a room at the Westin for its Executive Director, Lisa Graves, reserved with a CMD credit card. This reservation was later openly changed (by Westin personnel, at the request of CMD) to my name and pre-paid by CMD. There was nothing false or misleading about this process.

According to Dowling, the reservation was also problematic because it had been made as part of the "ALEC block."

CMD had clicked through to the hotel through an open reservation portal from the ALEC website. The portal did not require ALEC membership or ALEC approval and was open to anyone.

According to Dowling, during the conference ALEC personnel reviewed the hotel reservation roster and identified me as being "not part of the conference.” Dowling asserted that according to ALEC, CMD had falsely claimed to be a member of ALEC at the time the reservation made. CMD unequivocally denies this assertion and notes that it made no such statements to any Westin personnel.

A Mere "Miscommunication?"

"I don't know where the miscommunication came from. I do know that that was the information that we were given by ALEC," said Dowling.

When asked if it is standard Westin practice to throw paid guests out on the street in the middle of the night due to "miscommunications," Dowling asserted that Westin would never do such a thing without good cause and without alternative accommodations offered.

No such accommodations were offered in my case--unless those other accommodations were at the Maricopa County Jail.

And, just as the Westin has been unable to elaborate on what "safety" threat I posed to the ALEC conference, at least some of the cops involved in the eviction seemed to know that the situation was absurd. They knew I had committed no crime. These were just guys working on their off time, looking to take home a little more pay.

This was not true of Sgt. Lowe. He was committed to the notion I posed an imminent threat to the safety of the conference, not that I was being booted and threatened with arrest because I was a journalist who had caused some discomfort to the powers of the hour due to my past reporting on ALEC.

You've Been "Trespassed"

As I was being escorted from my room to the curb, Lowe asked for my ID--purportedly to file a report detailing how I had been "trespassed."

(Lowe never filed any such report with PPD. The only report detailing the activities of off-duty law enforcement in relation to this incident are maintained by Westin. Westin declined to disclose any portion of these reports.)

Lowe said it struck him as odd that I would carry an audio recorder. He said individuals in law enforcement carried recorders, "such as I am recording this entire conversation with you," showing me a little silver recorder tucked into his utility belt.

Lowe went on to assert that the only non-law enforcement people he knew of who carried audio recorders were those who were expecting trouble.

I explained that reporters routinely carry recorders--that this was not a violation of law.

"Do you, by any chance have journalistic credentials," asked Lowe.

ALEC had refused to credential me, despite my long-standing work as a reporter.

"Most folks who claim to be journalists, if they stumble on a story are actually able to say 'hey, I have media credentials,'" explained Lowe. "If they are carrying a recorder, they are carrying credentials at the same time. You see my dilemma?"

I did not see his dilemma.

"My dilemma is believing your story," Lowe retorted. "You understand that?!"

He was getting red.

Outside, I waited for Graves to pick me up at the curb, where she too would be threatened while attempting to take photos of the evicting officers. Waiting with me were Lowe, three other rented cops, along with Black and two members of his resort security team. Seven Westin Kierland security personnel in all--at least four of them with guns--all working at the behest of ALEC, all for one reporter. I was flattered.

This article is the result of a joint effort by In These Times [41] and the Center for Media and Democracy [25].

Center for Media and Democracy • 520 University Avenue, Suite 260 • Madison, Wisconsin 53703

Phone: 608-260-9713 • Fax: 608-260-9714

Source URL: http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/01/11230/inside-alec-naked-contempt-press-and-public-scottsdale

Links:

[1] http://www.prwatch.org/users/35302/beau-hodai

[2] http://www.prwatch.org/topics/corporations

[3] http://www.prwatch.org/topics/ethics

[4] http://www.prwatch.org/topics/secrecy

[5] http://www.prwatch.org/projects/alec-exposed

[6] http://www.addtoany.com/share_save?linkurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.prwatch.org%2Fnews%2F2012%2F01%2F11230%2Finside-alec-naked-contempt-press-and-public-scottsdale&linkname=Inside%20ALEC%3A%20Naked%20Contempt%20for%20the%20Press%20and%20Public%20in%20Scottsdale

[7] http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1102489--america-s-secret-political-power

[8] http://www.ALECexposed.org

[9] http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/01/11231/alec-and-westinstarwood-who-your-hotel-bed-while-youre-bed-your-hotel

[10] http://progressive.org/inside_alec.html

[11] http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/07/10887/cmd-special-report-alecs-funding-and-spending

[12] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/AT&T

[13] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Time_Warner

[14] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/State_Farm

[15] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Johnson_&_Johnson

[16] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Bail_Coalition

[17] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Diageo

[18] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/UPS

[19] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Exxon_Mobil

[20] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Petroleum_Institute

[21] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wal-Mart

[22] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/AstraZeneca

[23] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Charles_G._Koch

[24] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/David_H._Koch

[25] http://www.prwatch.org

[26] http://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/About_ALEC_Exposed

[27] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=ALEC_Politicians

[28] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=ALEC_Boards_and_Task_Forces

[29] http://alecexposed.org

[30] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Jan_Brewer

[31] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Noble_Ellington

[32] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Novartis

[33] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Kaitlyn_Buss

[34] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Debbie_Lesko

[35] http://www.commoncause.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=810365&ct=11520953

[36] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Russell_Pearce

[37] http://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/Guns,_Prisons,_Crime,_and_Immigration

[38] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Corrections_Corporation_of_America

[39] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Salt_River_Project

[40] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Russell_Smoldon

[41] http://www.inthesetimes.com

Press Suppression

Smear Appears

Smear Disappears

94 Professional & Citizen Journalists Killed in 2015

'Witch Hunt': Fired MSNBC Contributor Speaks Out on Suppression of Israel-Palestine Debate

‘A Culture Of Secrecy’

The ‘Extremist Threat’ Of Environmentalists

Forbes Journalist Fired After Reporting the Truth About Cliven Bundy

Vanishing U.S. Science Reporters

Journalists and Activists Risking Imprisonment or Death For Investigating Environmental Issues

ALEC Assembles "Most Wanted" List, and Oklahomans Say "ALEC Is Not OK"

"We Know Who You Are"

Washington A16

04:45 PM - November 9, 2011

The Kochs and Keystone XL

Daniel McGowan Released After Lawyers Confirm He Was Jailed For HuffPost Blog

Our pusillanimous press barons

Monsanto and Fox: Partners in Censorship

The Dairy Coalition

The Deal that Soured

Sudden Death

The Perfect Case

Published inPR Watch, Second Quarter 1998, Volume 5, No. 2

Jane Akre

Professional life

Whistleblower lawsuit

References

Arrest of *NYT* photographer must be investigated

What to Do about a Persistent Reporter?

A "First-Strike" PR Team

A PR Team Known for Attacking Trial Lawyers

Leadership

Contact

Reference

Assessing a Reporter's "Motives"

New Report Shows Big-Money Politics and Broadcast Media Are Undermining Democracy

'Citizens Inundated' documents how the media profits from elections, even as news coverage shrinks

NYPD: Elmo Safe, Journalists Not So Much

Journalism as a Service, Not a Product

Journalists Kicked out of ALEC Conference, Threatened With Arrest

Inside ALEC: Naked Contempt for the Press and Public in Scottsdale

Evicting the Press, Part 1: Meet Mr. Black

Police with a Photo Array of Personas Non Grata

Uniformed Police as Bouncers

"The ALEC People Don't Want You Here ..."

ALEC's Corporate Connections

Outside: Public Dissent Met with Pepper Spray

Inside: Public Dissent Met with Laughter

Arrested while Trying to Film, Taunted by Infiltrator

Native Americans and Others Protest ALEC State Co-Chair Salt River Project

Evicting the Press, Part 2: Rejoining Mr. Black's Inquisition

Almost Arresting a Reporter After He Interviewed Protesters?

Renting a Real Cop?

Badgering a Reporter about a Talk over Drinks?

Claiming a Reporter "Presented a Threat?"

Evicting a Paying Hotel Guest Whom ALEC Did Not Want Nearby

A Mere "Miscommunication?"

You've Been "Trespassed"

Published in PR Watch, Second Quarter 1998, Volume 5, No. 2

Arrest of NYT photographer must be investigated