The US supreme court today rejected appeals from two journalists who face jail for refusing to reveal their sources. Time magazine's Matthew Cooper and Judith Miller, of the New York Times, face up to 18 months in jail for refusing to testify about the leak of an undercover CIA officer's identity.

I watched Australian Story, on the nurse-whistleblowers who exposed the management-sanctioned career of Patel, the Butcher of Bundaberg.

Hedley Thomas is the Courier-Mail journalist who got onto Patel's trail of past infamies. Thomas choked up a bit when describing the moment he realised the nurses (and others) were right, much more than right, and they were going to pay a high price for their courage.  (It gave me a few moments of thoughtfulness, too.)  And I thought investigative journos were tough guys! It's good to know there are a few still around.

I recommend Juan Cole (Informed Comment) to keep up to date (by the hour with RSS) on the feverish actions by US media to throw a blanket over Iraq. We do not, cannot, will not, get anything like Cole's kind of coverage of the tipping point in our dailies, because, it's, well, you know, not good for the career path, to disturb the status of the consumers paradise.

After all, thousands of full-fee-paying students diverted away from US universities, after 2001, to avoid the marshals. Now, with the reputation of the Oz tertiary education business on the nose in Asia, it's all the more important to project the image of Oz as a place apart from the real world. Now, remind me, which media mogul has a finger in the tertiary education pie? I expect that Hedley Thomas will be fully employed, poking into the entrails of state Labor governments. If someone like him got loose on the quality of information provided to Australians, where would it end up?

The price is $1.20 for a full-page, glorious colour pic of Warne's bum.

TG writes about Hedley Thomas choking up about the Dr Death story. Remember TG, Hedley was on camera. Do you think he would have choked up if not on camera?

How can a top-line journalist write and be objective if he chokes up. To choke up means he is emotional and then that emotion takes over or colours the story. No way, that interference would be picked up by the editor when he was a cadet years ago. Journalists don't feel anything. They just tell you they do because they need to be seen as real people. They have to be credible so people will tell their story to them.

No TG to be a good journalist means you are unemotional and tell about the emotions of other people. How many times have we heard "How do you feel about..." beginning from journalists to the interviewed. Journalists don't feel anything. It is just a story. If they knew how people felt with passion and emotion and tears they would be able to write the story without interviewing anyone.
In a TV interview if the director does not think the interviewer has nodded his head enough in the interview to show agreement those 'nods' are put in later in editing when everyone has gone home.

No TG journalists are not tough guys It is not tough to be without feelings.

I know of many journalists who have changed the course of history. By their ardent belief in justice and outrage at what happens to people in trouble — being crushed by selfish interest of some privileged sections of our community — these journalists have exposed, more often than not at their expense, the hypocrisy of the greats and the foibles of the weak. Journalists are not all devoid of emotions, believe me. Some of them may be... but most try to do a honest and fair day in very difficult circumstances where their masters have them on a chain (golden chain mind you but tight control nonetheless) and have to plough through wads of information in which most of the origination of news is protected by porkies and secrecy... Some of them angst and pain over articles they know will expose uneasy truths, but in the meantime can destroy, or at least make it uncomfortable for, the lives of happy fools who do not understand the extent of the damage they have caused or the sick psychopaths who hide behind crook veils of morality to save their arse. In these instances, extreme care is needed in exposing truths as facts are never cut to be black and white and there are powerful interests on all sides. Some journalists have no clues of what’s what but those who do will cry...

Sorry Gus, that you are so sensitive that you have feelings that you are not a journalist. You don't know what you are talking about.

I was once a journalist who actually lived the issues. I left and did better work at the Salvation Army and in Crisis Care.

You are just one of the millions who have been fooled Gus. Journalists don't have feelings. Go back and read my story again as you did not comprehend it. I have been there done that and gave it up and became a carer for the disabled. All journalists do is write stories like Mother Goose.

Hi Len, it never ceases to amaze me how right you think you are and how wrong you think the rest of the world is.

I personally think that if you choose to work for the disabled you should do it from your heart, not so that you can throw it at peoples faces to try to make yourself appear better, more worthy and more special.

You are very angry and very bitter and I feel for you Len.

I have not been fooled... Len... I know one can be disillusioned to see the media so crass and mostly stupid... This morning on 2BL, I believe the hot topic was the longest railway kerbside or whatever in Australia... By the time that topic would have been exhausted, 3000 hectares of rainforest had disappeared from the surface of the earth and 10 zillion of cubic metres of global warming gases had been added into the atmosphere, as well as more than 143 sabres had been rattled by the US to secretly invade the rest of the world, including Australia through its subsidiary in Adelaide, KBR... No I am not fooled. Some of those journalists who fight the good oil have done it without fanfare and many results speak for themselves. There are others who like John Pilger, fight front on and are burned to the stake every day, There are many journalists in "Old Europe" (and in the US too) who fight fair and square for truth in reporting. and are listened to... There are many journos who have turned to the blog in disgust at the media machines... (some have turned to the grog because of frustration but that is another story) But I agree (and have posted many rants and cartoons to that effect) on the other side of the scale, the media as a whole is a whore prostituting itself to the power barons and governments with agendas that would make Genghis (or Ghengis) Khan proud... The media has become the propaganda arm of the Ruling Right (and it's a great shame that this word is used to described being correct and from now on we shall refer to it as the NeoCONists) in varying proportions of 55/45 on the ABC, of 65/35 in the SMH and 80/20 in most other media after averaging the Murdoch empire as 95/05... It's wonder there are still people opposing Johnnee's neoCONist government... It is always a matter of proportion and relativity... And there are some journalists (including some behind the camera), more than you think, who are sensitive to what they do and cry at what the world craps on. Some do cry in their 28 mm lenses when they film amputees from landmine explosions or people in pain dying from AIDS... Many cried on the battlefield of Viet Nam but they carried on to record and to show the world why they did cry... "Objectivity" in modern reporting has been the most insidious wing clipper for truth, as truth in full flight is never objective and that's what a lot of the lazy scribes have not understood... But "objective reporting suits the neoCONists because it let's their porkies take half stage at least no matter what... And with a bit of a push truth becomes mangled up by the advertising machine... So... not all journalists have no heart. But all have sub-editors and owners... It is difficult to be a journalist without a forum... except we have now the BLOG... Len you have already join the VOICE... Show those with no heart the way to rediscover how to find a pulse... All we have to do now is to make sure the entire world hears our voice... But the neoCONists and advertising lobby will work hard to make sure we don't.... Bloggers of the world unite! Note: And yes, I know about the noddy... That shot where the journo is seen shaking his/her head... It's just a technical process to provide edit points in the story, without having to use jump cuts or dip to black, other valid techiques used in story editing. I have "lived" journalism at the forefront too for more than 34 years and still live it daily...

... but hangs onto wallet and watch.

Bravest woman in the world

In the ... what! Daily Tele?? It couldn't be used as soiled linen to brandish at Sydney's Lebanese community, could it?
I predict more of this story from the Murdox, carefully massaged to avoid too much reflection on Howardowner's genuflection at Musharraf. Pakistan is a new-found, nuclear primed, emergently democratic, friend in the  GWoT, and has earned our undying gratitude for providing a safe haven for Usama.

This latest event in the story is all over the world.

Pakistan rape victim wins first appeal TVNZ, New Zealand.

"This is not a case of simple rape, it was an act of terrorism," he said outside the court. "It was meant to create terror and fear in the community."

Here's a firm prediction. If Miranda, or one of the shock-jockettes writes it up, there will not be a re-use of the "terrorism" label, because that would only diminish the sanctity of a prevailing Bushism, dilute our commitment to the cause and play into the hands of the Commies and Greens at the ABC. See 'T' is for 'freedom fighter' at the ABC.

Long Before Woodstein by William Fisher, www.dissidentvoice.org, June 28, 2005.

Paradoxically, the world is today better equipped technologically than ever before to find and disseminate thoughtful, probing news -- but far less motivated to do so. It may be that Internet bloggers -- citizen journalists -- will ultimately provide enough competition to drive a new era of investigative journalism.

New York Times Reporter Jailed for Keeping Source Secret By ADAM LIPTAK/MARIA NEWMAN Published: July 6, 2005 WASHINGTON, July 6 - A federal judge today ordered Judith Miller of The New York Times to be jailed immediately after she again refused to cooperate with a grand jury investigating the disclosure of the identity of a covert C.I.A. operative.

From Al Jazeera

US troops 'assault Kirkuk journalists'
By Phil Sands in Kirkuk
Tuesday 08 August 2006, 13:33 Makka Time, 10:33 GMT

Several journalists in Kirkuk have accused American and Iraqi security forces of assaulting them and their crews as they tried to report on the worsening security situation in the northern city.

In at least six separate incidents since June, Iraqi reporters said they had been [http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/8D1986F6-7C22-40EC-AA05-64D8472C1A73.htm|physically beaten], had their equipment confiscated and been falsely accused of "terrorism".

Senior US and Iraqi military officials admit such attacks have occurred and a series of investigations are underway.
Saman Fakhri of the Iranian-owned Al-Alam satellite television station said the assaults were intended to stop journalists reporting properly on rising levels of violence in Kirkuk.
"Things are getting worse and in response the security forces are directing an increasing amount of their energy and anger against the press," he told Aljazeera.net.
"We're under attack from all sides: the Iraqi Police, the Iraqi Army, the Emergency Services, Coalition Forces and the political parties are subjecting us to physical and verbal abuse.”

----------------
see cartoon and other blogs of this line of blogs... nothing different...

From Mark Herold

The Foxification of U.S. - and global – corporate media has a corollary: the Pentagon considers independent (un-embedded) journalism an act of subversion. An investigation by the Paris-based Reporters without Borders has reached the same conclusions. Most covering the war on Iraq remember how the Pentagon intentionally targeted the media-saturated Palestine Hotel in Baghdad on April 8, 2003, killing a Ukrainian and a Spanish journalist. Four months later, the US Army absolved itself from any possible mistake. In November 2001, U.S. warplanes bombed the Al Jazeera office in Kabul. No apologies ever offered. Both Pakistani and U.S. journalists doing independent reporting outside the Bagram propaganda center were roughed-up by U.S. troops during the Afghan campaign: no apologies ever offered. Laura Logan (CBS) is the type of journalist the Pentagon loves (see photos data base).

“Naturally the common people don’t want war. But after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and for exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country”
       - Hitler’s Reich Marschall Herman Goering on April 18, 1946

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see toon at top and read ALL the comments below it.

More journalists have been killed this year while on assignment than at any time in the past 15 years, according to the International Press Institute, a Vienna-based media watchdog.

A total 119 journalists have died so far, IPI's Death Watch survey found, exceeding the number of deaths in any year since it started keeping track in 1997.

The previous highest figure had been 110 deaths in 2009. Last year, 102 journalists were killed.

Syria was the deadliest country for media to operate in this year, with 36 journalists killed there.

This confirmed "the alarming trend, which IPI has witnessed in most conflicts of the past 15 years, in which journalists are targeted to prevent distribution of information," the watchdog said in a statement.

A further 16 were killed in Somalia, while Mexico, Pakistan and the Philippines remained the next most dangerous countries for journalists.

IPI's figures differ from that of other media watchdogs such as Reporters without Borders (RSF), as it includes not just targeted killings but all journalist deaths on the job.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-11-23/journalist-deaths-hit-15-year-high/4387474

 

And of course we've got to include the recent deaths of Palestinian journalists deliberately targeted by Israel...

 

If Mark Regev is an Australian I think there are grounds for his arrest for encouraging terrorism.

In an interview with Al Jazeera last night, he said Palestinian journalists were not journalists, they were ‘targets’, and because they worked for a Hamas journal they had no right to expect to be immune from assassination like ‘foreign journalists’ are. He said their paper was like Pravda and they were using real journalists as ‘human shields’, which he then called a ‘war crime’.

This war crime was turning up for work at their office after it was bombed, mistakenly, a day ago.

His interrogator said it seemed he believed in ‘killing the messenger’.

Regev, as I understand it, hails from Melbourne.

If he is indeed an Australian he should I think be extradited and charged under our terrorist laws with encouraging murder.

Or does he have no case to answer?

http://www.independentaustralia.net/2012/business/media-2/aussie-mark-regev-and-the-israeli-war-on-journalists/

Khader al-Zahhar, 20, a cameraman for al-Quds TV, was taking a nap in the channel’s office on the 11th floor early on Sunday morning when an Israeli missile smashed through the roof and blew his leg off.
 
Khaled al-Nono, a producer for the same channel, felt the explosion and rushed up several flights of stairs to find his friend and colleague bleeding profusely.
 
As he arrived, another missile hit the same office, entering through one of the windows. At least six other journalists were also wounded.
 
"I didn't stop to think about my own security, my only thought was to help them," he said, adding that a third rocket followed soon after, as he and others carried the wounded down the flights of stairs. A reported total of six missiles were said to have hit this particular office.
 
Despite being considered a target for the Israeli military, Nono refuses to quit his job, saying "I am committed to Palestinian cause, to this message, and this is why I am here. I feel through our work in media we can get the message about the cause out to the rest of the world."
 
Imad al-Franji, head of al-Quds TV, told Al Jazeera the journalists who work for the network are forced to become war journalists "because of the abnormal situation we face in Gaza".
 
Yet unlike other war correspondents, his team of journalists are forced to make their own security arrangements, as they are prevented from bringing in any equipment from outside. "We have to make home-made bullet proof vests, home-made protection for our cars, and ensuring we always have the necessary back up of gasoline to keep running on air," he said, adding that between 50 employees, there are only two flak jackets available.
 
"I imagine the facts and pictures we broadcast do not please the Israelis," he said. "But this is how I fight; my weapon is my pen, my words, and my camera."

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/11/201211212322418802.html

 

From Tess Lawrence at IA:

TODAY (Monday, 4 February 2013), in the County Court of Victoria, a legal gun will be held to the head of journalists.

Forced before the Court to reveal the identity of a source will be Australia’s hottest and most prolific two man investigative team, Walkley Award winners Nick McKenzie and Richard Baker of The Age. They are journalistic gamechangers.

They do what ASIS can’t or won’t do.

They do what ASIO can’t or won’t do.

They do what the Australian Federal Police can’t or won’t do.

They do what State police can’t or won’t do.

They do what Customs Police can’t or won’t do.

They do what ASIC and other regulatory bodies can’t or won’t do.

They do what politicians can’t or won’t do.

They do what anti-corruption bodies can’t or won’t do.

They write what other media can’t or won’t write or publish or even acknowledge.

And, among other things, they write what the Reserve Bank of Australia doesn’t want us to know about. Corruption. Dirty money.

I have great respect for McKenzie and Baker, and not just because Richard Baker was my student when I taught Ethics and News Reporting at Deakin University. I make no claim whatsoever on his formidable talents.

My students invariably teach me more than I teach them.

I believe journalism is a vocation and it is the nearest thing to religion that I know.

One of the more sacred Commandments of Journalism, is that of protecting our sources.

http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/business/media-2/courageous-journalists-being-forced-to-reveal-sources/

The comments to this article by Tess at IA are worth looking at:

From TerraAustralis:

 

As I have described in several other posts on IA, I used to export Australian developed security * encryption software. That software was developed by a company owned by a consortium of Australian banks, a state government, and a bunch of Nazis — not modern neo-Nazis, but genuine relics of the Hitler Youth, “true believers” in the cause, still loyal to ‘the cause’, and still in business in the 1990′s.

One of my major reference customers was the RBA — the RBA had had close links with the software developers since the late 1970′s. Similarly, the Nazi part of the ownership had had close links with the Canadian government since at least the 1970′s, and with US intelligence since at least the early 80′s, and probably earlier than that – as far back as the time of the JFK assassination.

There were huge amounts of money involved — the software was developed for inclusion as part of Microsoft Windows, The briefings I listened to, claimed Microsoft was heavily involved in the development – but was doing so through silent partnerships in Australia, so as the US Dept of Justice Antitrust probe (ie the anti-monopoly probe) into Microsoft) would not know that Microsoft was trying to dominate the market in computer security software, and the anti-virus software market.

And, as I described in some of those earlier posts, I soon learned we were dealing with people whose agenda was fraud and treason.

Read more at: http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/business/media-2/courageous-journalists-being-forced-to-reveal-sources/

 

 

See toon at top...

 

My name is Juris, I’m from Brisbane. 50 days ago my son was thrown into solitary confinement in an Egyptian jail for spreading “false news.” It’s a nightmare. His mother & I don't know when we’ll see him again. International pressure has already helped speed up Peter’s case, but we need your help to get him free. 

In days Peter will be brought in front of a judge and could be locked up for years. He’s done nothing wrong, but in Egypt this might not be enough. He was simply working for a TV channel the government dislikes - Al Jazeera. Our best chance of seeing him again soon is if thousands of Aussies join us and ask the powerful head of Egypt’s army to show compassion and set Peter free. 

There is hope for Peter - if we act fast. We’re hearing that the Egyptian government is feeling the international pressure as a result of their handling of the situation.Please help us and sign this urgent petition supporting our request to have Peter released as soon as possible.

http://www.avaaz.org/en/free_peter_greste_loc/?kONzicb

 

Sign petition and see toon at top...