World Other Press Newswire Archive

The headline of last Sunday’s Observer article on Venezuela set the tone for the slanted and opportunistic piece of political ‘reporting’ that followed:

‘Noam Chomsky denounces old friend Hugo Chávez for “assault” on democracy’.

In the following article Emily James, the director of Just Do It  http://just-do-it.org.uk/ explains how she made the film while avoiding endangering activists. See also the chat with her,  http://sheffield.indymedia.org.uk/2011/06/480536.html and the Q&A session following the films premier,  http://sheffield.indymedia.org.uk/2011/06/480620.html

Welcome to Palestine Today a service of the International Middle East Media Center, www.imemc.org for Wednesday July 6, 2011.

Mindless, violent thugs, hell-bent on sowing chaos.’ That’s the kind of press anarchists often get. Uri Gordon provides a more sympathetic take on a growing yet still little understood political movement.

There is nothing more sacred to the maintenance of democracy than a free press. Access to comprehensive, accurate and quality information is essential to the manifestation of Socratic citizenship - the society characterized by a civically engaged, well-informed and socially invested populace. Thus, to the degree that access to quality information is willfully or unintentionally obstructed, democracy itself is degraded.

Welcome to Palestine Today a service of the International Middle East Media Centre www.imemc.org, for Thursday June 30, 2011

Social services abusing terms of Mental Capacity Act, Mental Health Act and Deprivation of liberty orders to force elderly into care and then forcing them to pay for that care.

Welcome to Palestine Today a service of the International Middle East Media Centre www.imemc.org, for Tuesday June 28, 2011

letter sent to journalists by Israel's General Press office

Welcome to this Week in Palestine, a service of the International Middle East Media Center, www.imemc.org, for June 6 to the 24th, 2011.

Welcome to Palestine Today a service of the International Middle East Media Centre www.imemc.org, for Thursday June 23rd, 2011

Welcome to Palestine Today a service of the International Middle East Media Centre www.imemc.org, for Wednesday June 22, 2011

Welcome to Palestine Today a service of the International Middle East Media Centre www.imemc.org, for Tuesday June 21, 2011

New zine!

Welcome to Palestine Today a service of the International Middle East Media Centre www.imemc.org, for Monday June 20th , 2011

What is unfolding in Syria is an armed insurrection supported covertly by foreign powers including the US, Turkey and Israel.

The War in Libya: Race,"Humanitarianism" and the Media
 http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/forte200411.html

Excerpt:
Social Media Folklore:
Creating the Legend of "African Mercenaries"

One of the most fertile sites for the international production of myths of savage African mercenaries has been Twitter, among other social network sites, in ways that bring back to mind the manner in which Twitter was used to spread misinformation at the time of the June 2009 Iran election protests. The problem is not that the site is an outlet for creative imaginations, but that some of the mainstream media source Twitter for their reports, in the absence of correspondents on the ground. The Independent's Michael Mumisa observed that "foreign media outlets have had to rely mostly on unverified reports posted on social network websites and on phone calls from Libyans terrified of Gaddafi's 'savage African mercenaries who are going door-to-door raping our women and attacking our children'," and he speaks of "a Twitter user based in Saudi Arabia," who "wrote how Gaddafi is 'ordering african (sic) mercenaries to break into homes in Benghazi to RAPE (sic) Libyan women in order to detract (sic) men protesters!'" The New York Times' David Kirkpatrick, in one of the few sober pieces analyzing the Libyan opposition, noted that "like the chiefs of the Libyan state news media, the rebels feel no loyalty to the truth in shaping their propaganda, claiming nonexistent battlefield victories, asserting they were still fighting in a key city days after it fell to Qaddafi forces, and making vastly inflated claims of his barbaric behavior."

Twitter is useful, however, not as a source of incontestable information about Gaddafi's atrocities, but as a guide to how the opposition prepared the narrative cover for attacking Sub-Saharan Africans. The mass of passive repeaters (retweeters), comprising diverse individuals and some journalists, helped from early on to inseminate the fear of African terror: "Afro-mercs" landing at the nearest airport and fanning out to murder Libyans. The myth was useful to the opposition, possessing a structure that made it cohere and appeal on a very basic level: 1) all vs. one -- the Libyan people united against the dictator; 2) male vs. female -- African mercenaries specifically targeting Libyan women; and, 3) local vs. foreign -- proud nationals combating savage intruders. Some of the tweeted statements are classics of colonial racial propaganda, especially when they revolve around protecting local Libyan women, a useful trope also in both classic and contemporary imperial narratives linking the status of native women with progress and liberation.

Welcome to Palestine Today a service of the International Middle East Media Centre www.imemc.org, for Thursday June 16th, 2011

Dashboard cams in police cars are ubiquitous. Yet police are pushing back against Americans capturing them at work on cell phone cameras. Arresting people filming arrests. Is that right?

You see police arresting someone. Maybe it looks right and by the book. Maybe it doesn’t.

You pull out your cell phone and start to record. To make a video. And the next thing you know, you are arrested. The video-making bystander, in handcuffs. Facing charges.

It’s happening all around the country. Cell phones and their cameras are now everywhere. Police often don’t like to be recorded doing their work. It’s not always pretty.

But in the era of the citizen journalist, should making a video mean an arrest? Who’s the watchdog then?

This hour On Point: the battle over citizens videoing police.

- Tom Ashbrook

Welcome to Palestine Today a service of the International Middle East Media Centre www.imemc.org, for Wednesday June 15th, 2011