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Jimmy Margulies | Murdoch and phone hacking probe / media.caglecartoons.com

Tue, 09/04/2012 - 19:06 — Dave Culver



 

Section(s): 
Media

Mainstream media: Report the facts and call out candidates when they lie

Fri, 08/31/2012 - 19:37 — Dave Culver

Here is a list of five lies that Ryan told when he gave his speech at the Republican National Convention last night. Every single news outlet should report on these lies.

Brenda Witt, signon.org

Submitted by Evergreene Digest Contributing Editor Jim Fuller

If you like reading this article, consider contributing a cafe latte to all-reader supported Evergreene Digest--using the donation button in the above right-hand corner—so we can bring you more just like it.

(August 30, 2012) To be delivered to: Ben Sherwood, President, ABC News, Jeff Fager, Chairman, CBS News, Steve Capus, President, NBC News, Jim Walton, President, CNN Worldwide, Roger Ailes, President, Fox News Channel, and Phil Griffin, President, MSNBC

Mainstream media: Fact-check and call out candidates when they lie. You have an obligation as journalists to educate the public on the facts of the major campaign issues.

Last night, Paul Ryan lied to the American people. Some journalists and outlets covered Ryan's lies. But others failed to fact-check and didn't call Ryan out on his brazen lies. In this crucial election, news reporters have an obligation to educate the public about the facts regarding the major issues, and call out the candidates every time they lie. We urge the major news corporations—ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, FOX, and MSNBC—to live up to their obligations to report the truth. 

Here is a list of five lies that Ryan told when he gave his speech at the Republican National Convention last night. Every single news outlet should report on these lies.

Full story...

Section(s): 
Activism & Organizing
Media

AT&T Crippling FaceTime Video Calling

Sun, 08/26/2012 - 17:41 — Dave Culver

  • The telecom giant just announced it is crippling the FaceTime video calling app on its customers’ iPhones unless they subscribe to a more expensive text-and-voice plan.
  • AT&T's latest scam.
  • The FCC’s Open Internet Order explicitly prohibits AT&T from screwing over iPhone customers this way.

Craig Aaron, FreePress.net

From electricity to earmuffs, once you buy a product from a company, it shouldn’t be any of its business how you choose to use it.

Then there’s the upside-down world of AT&T.

The telecom giant just announced it is crippling the FaceTime video calling app on its customers’ iPhones unless they subscribe to a more expensive text-and-voice plan.(1) That’s right — AT&T will block one of the iPhone's best features unless users pay more money for less data and unlimited voice minutes, none of which they need to use FaceTime.

This is not just an insult to customers, it’s a violation of Net Neutrality. Tell the FCC to take action against AT&T's blocking.

If we had actual competition for mobile phone service in America, AT&T's latest scam would never fly. You’d simply take your business elsewhere.

But we don't have any competition. We have a market dominated by companies that force consumers into ridiculous service plans that make you pay more for less.(2)

Meanwhile, the FCC’s Open Internet Order explicitly prohibits AT&T from screwing over iPhone customers this way.

The rules state that mobile phone providers can’t "block applications that compete with the provider’s voice or video telephony services."(3) And yet, AT&T is doing precisely that — violating the letter and the spirit of Net Neutrality.

Tell the FCC to take action against AT&T's blocking.

Companies like AT&T and Verizon have shown they’ll consider all sorts of ridiculous things to prop up declining revenue streams like voice and text.

Today AT&T is blocking FaceTime unless you pay its toll. But tomorrow it could be Skype, Google Voice or Messages.

And that’s why users everywhere need to speak out against AT&T’s harrowing vision for our wireless Internet future.

http://movetoamend.org/sites/default/files/sign-btn.pngTake action now: Put a stop to AT&T’s attack on its customers and on Net Neutrality.<http://act.freepress.net/sign/facetime/?akid=3805.8906785.3LzIOJ&rd=1&t=7>

Thanks!

Craig Aaron
Free Press


1. Craig Aaron, “AT&T: Pay Me, Screw Net Neutrality,” Huffington Post, August 20, 2012.

2. Joel Kelsey, “FCC Ruling Will Save Verizon Wireless Customers Big Bucks,” Free Press, August 9, 2012.

3. See the FCC’s Open Internet rules.

Related:

AT&T is on the ropes. A day after we called it out for violating Net Neutrality by blocking FaceTime on the iPhone, the mobile giant defended its policy with outright untruths and outlandish arguments. (Read more about it here.)

No one is buying AT&T's spin. Meanwhile our push to stop its anti-consumer behavior is taking off.

If enough people voice their outrage, the FCC will have no choice but to force AT&T to stop its blocking. Take action now to put a stop AT&T's attack on its customers and on Net Neutrality.

Thanks — Craig
 

Section(s): 
Activism & Organizing
Media

How Helen Gurley Brown Sold (Out) Sex

Thu, 08/23/2012 - 17:22 — Dave Culver

  • In Gurley-Brown's book, accepting furs or jewelry from a wealthy man in exchange for sex was not selling out. It was a paycheck for a job well done.
  • The Cosmo mogul’s legacy wasn’t feminism; it was turning romance into a sales transaction.

Sady Doyle, In These Times

If you like reading this article, consider contributing a cafe latte to all reader supported Evergreene Digest--using the donation button above—so we can bring you more just like it.

Helen Gurley Brown made Cosmopolitan what it is today. (John Botega/Wikimedia Commons)

(August 21, 2012) In the wake of Helen Gurley Brown’s death last week, there have been endless evaluations of her feminism. Was she a bold predecessor of third-wave sex-positivity, whose 1962 book Sex and the Single Girl established the possibility of a sexually and financially emancipated lifestyle for women? Was she a throwback who told women that sexual harassment was fun and games, plastic surgery was a must-have, and “feminism” was just another word for being a drag? Both views have passionate adherents. But the fact is, Gurley Brown was neither. She was just one of the world’s great advertisers.

To get a sense of Gurley Brown’s legacy, it might help to take a look at her baby, Cosmopolitan magazine, which she took over and revamped in 1965 after 17 years as an advertising executive. The front page of Cosmopolitan’s website, for example, has a quiz—“Are You a Good Flirt?”—wherein one can earn a rating anywhere from “Ketchup” to “Tabasco: You leave every man’s tongue burning.” Which sounds like a medical condition, actually, but is apparently good. You can also learn to “Read His Beach Body Language,” learn how to “Wow Him Every Time” or discover “30 Things To Do To A Naked Man.” (Not to spoil this for you, but I’m going to bet that at least 29 of those things are “have sex with him.”) And if you “Want a Better Boyfriend”—though one hopes you already have a good one, considering the amount of time you apparently spend reading about him—you can get him a subscription to CFG: Cosmo For Guys, where he too can learn sex tips such as “get naked too.” (I’m serious.)

Full story...

Section(s): 
Gender & Sexuality
Media

Rob Tornoe | GOP Convention / media.caglecartoons.com

Thu, 08/23/2012 - 14:42 — Dave Culver

Section(s): 
Media

Glenn Greenwald | The bizarre, unhealthy, blinding media contempt for Julian Assange

Thu, 08/23/2012 - 14:36 — Dave Culver

  • It is possible to protect the rights of the complainants in Sweden and Assange's rights against political persecution, but a vindictive thirst for vengeance is preventing that.
  • Assange and Wikileaks: the basics

Glenn Greenwald, Guardian on Facebook UK

Jeanette Eastman, Evergreene Digest

Julian Assange: the British press's public enemy No1. Photograph: Chris Helgren/Reuters

(August 22,  2012) Earlier this week, British lawyer and legal correspondent for the New Statesman David Allen Green generated a fair amount of attention by announcing that he would use his objective legal expertise to bust what he called "legal myths about the Assange extradition." These myths, he said, are being irresponsibly spread by Assange defenders and "are like 'zombie facts' which stagger on even when shot down."

In addition to his other credentials, Green – like virtually the entire British press – is a long-time and deeply devoted Assange-basher, and his purported myth-busting was predictably regurgitated by those who reflexively grasp onto anything that reflects poorly on western establishmentarians' public enemy No1. It's really worth examining what Green argued to understand the behavior in which Assange detractors engage to advance this collective vendetta, and also to see how frequently blatant ideological agendas masquerade as high-minded, objective legal expertise.

Full story...

Related:

Assange and Wikileaks: the basics, Ian Welsh, Ian Welsh.net
Britain itself has given asylum to people accused of far, far worse crimes than Assange, and yet they are willing to trash the Asylum system over this?  This isn’t about sexual misconduct.  Anyone who is stupid enough to think that anyone not named Assange would have caused Britain to threaten to violate an embassy is too stupid to be allowed out in public.
 

Section(s): 
Critical Thinking
Media

Is the Web Making Journalists Crazy?

Sat, 08/18/2012 - 16:08 — Dave Culver

  • Much of the coverage makes claims “that are grand, outlandish, and ultimately unverifiable”
  • The media’s Internet infatuation
  • Syria | Shameful Performance of Western Media

Michael Massing, Columbia Journalism Review

At a time when corporations are buying up elections – not to mention the 24-hour-news cycle – help ensure that a source for truly independent journalism lives on. Support Evergreene Digest today by using the donation button in the above right-hand corner.

The New York Times finds the Internet, and the business and culture surrounding it, endlessly fascinating. When Marissa Mayer was named CEO of Yahoo last month, the paper devoted more than a dozen pieces to the event, pondering everything from the ramifications of her pregnancy to the depth of the challenges she faces. “Does Facebook Turn People Into Narcissists?” Tara Parker-Pope asked in a Sunday Magazine piece. (No, she reported—narcissists prefer Twitter.) In “Being Addicted to Longing for Something,” Carina Chocano (also in the mag) reported on how everyone she knows goes to digital “mood boards” on Pinterest or Tumblr to escape, perk up, calm down, feel something, distract themselves, and “modulate pleasure and arousal.” Last month, the Times gave front-page treatment to a new reality series about Silicon Valley and the pained reaction of local residents.

But the Times is hardly alone in its Internet fixation. In publications both online and off, business reporters obsessively parse the business strategies and personnel moves of Google and Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Lifestyle reporters breathlessly chronicle the fortunes, mansions, and attire of the digerati. And, perhaps most troubling, the burgeoning corps of human-behavior reporters eagerly weigh the impact of the online world on every aspect of our psyches, making claims that are grand, outlandish, and ultimately unverifiable.

Full story...

Related:

Syria | Shameful Performance of Western Media, As’ad AbuKhalil, Al Akhbar English <http://english.al-akhbar.com>

  • There is no accountability and it is unlikely that someone is going to write a book on the shortcomings and failures of Western media. Western media also marketed the Libya story and they were never made accountable for the lies they peddled there.
  • These media have failed their readers on many levels. Their shortcomings can be summarized as follows:
  • How the Media Doesn't Give Peace a Chance
  • Nygaard Notes #511 | "The New American Way of War" in the Media
  • "Progressive" Journalism's Legacy of Deceit
     
Section(s): 
Books & Liturature
Media

Fantasy Economies

Fri, 08/17/2012 - 19:01 — Dave Culver
  • Enforcing neoliberalism through myth
  • Libor Blackout: Major Networks are Ignoring the Bank Scandal

Steve Rendall, Fairnesss and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR)

This article is made possible with the generous contributions of Evergreene Digest readers like you. Thank you!

When reality fails to confirm the “truths” held by the international financial establishment, the corporate media can be relied on to concoct more cooperative scenarios.

In the real world, Argentina’s economy has been one of the most robust in the world for the past decade. But in the world of corporate journalism, Argentina is an economic rogue on the road to ruin. When its economy is discussed in U.S. corporate media, it’s largely to portray it as an example of national leaders making bad economic choices, a model of what not to do. This is what happened when Argentina recently bucked neoliberal nostrums and renationalized its major oil company, YPF, which had been acquired by the Spanish firm Repsol in a 1999 privatization.

Full story...

Related:

Libor Blackout: Major Networks are Ignoring the Bank Scandal, Theresa Riley, Moyers & Company

  • These same news outlets spent significantly more time on trivialities like shark sightings and the Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes divorce than on the banking scandal.
  • Titanic Banks Hit LIBOR Iceberg: Will Lawsuits Sink the Ship?
  • Why The LIBOR Scandal Matters For American Consumers
     
Section(s): 
Critical Thinking
Media

Arcadio Esquivel | Julian Assange / media.caglecartoons.com

Sat, 08/11/2012 - 15:34 — Dave Culver

Section(s): 
Media

WikiLeaks shut down by American hackers

Sat, 08/11/2012 - 15:25 — Dave Culver

  • An administrator behind the official WikiLeaks account responded to the attacks on Thursday, writing, “No one is directly frightened of WikiLeaks. What they're frightened of is you seeing a successful example of independence.”
  • Wikileaks Founder Seeking Asylum

RT

The logo of the Wikileaks website is pictured on a smartphone.(Reuters  / Toru Hanai)

(August 9, 2012) WikiLeaks remains offline after days of distributed denial-of-service attacks rendered the website inaccessible. Now a group calling themselves AntiLeaks is taking credit and says their actions are in protest to the whistleblower site's founder.

Through Twitter on Wednesday, the self-proclaimed leader of a group going by the name AntiLeaks says that their organization is responsible for a barrage of DDoS attacks on WikiLeaks.org and other affiliated sites that has temporarily wiped one of the most controversial outlets for whistleblowing off the Web.

Full story...

Related:

Wikileaks Founder Seeking Asylum, China Radio International
Ecuador said it would wait until the end of the London Olympic Games to announce a decision on Assange's asylum request.
 

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