The Pentagon Vs. Journalists

Kevin Gosztola at Shadowproof:

Pentagon War Manual Gives Military License To Target & Attack Journalists

The Pentagon has adopted a “law of war manual” [PDF], which enables commanders to treat journalists as “unprivileged belligerents.” It suggests that correspondents who report some information about combat operations may be taking “direct part in hostilities,” a disturbing argument for justifying the killing of reporters in war zones. There also is a part of the manual that encourages journalists to submit to censorship of news reports that might aid enemies.

On July 31, the Committee to Protect Journalists published an analysis on the Pentagon’s weak justifications for treating journalists as spies. The New York Times Editorial Board also condemned the guidelines in an August 10 editorial.

...

Here we go again; the Obama administration, like the GeeDubya Bush administration before it, has repeatedly treated American journalists like the enemy. Now they merely assert the right to f^<king kill the enemy. What nation did I wake up in this morning? China? Nazi Germany circa W.W. II?

Please read Mr. Gosztola's piece and then the NYT condemnatory editorial, both linked above. Then take some comfort: this is a war game the military ultimately cannot win, although they can certainly leave a lot of journalists' bodies beside the road in the process of realizing that in a genuinely free and open society,

• the press is more powerful than even the overwhelmingly powerful military, and
• between the press and the military, the press is more essential to the survival of openness and of democratic government.

Yes, you read that right: the press tops the military. Think about it for a moment. If the course of action reflected in this manual is indeed pursued, the military can successfully physically protect a society which, thanks to that very military, is neither free nor open. Ya pays yer money 'n' takes yer choice... takes yer chances, too.

The US has been through literally dozens of wars, "police actions," etc. from W.W. II to the present, and not once has the military been granted a leash on the press, let alone a whip and a chair, in wartime. In turn, the press has been largely cooperative except on those occasions in which the military has deliberately squelched things the press had every right to publish. (Obama has been as bad as Bush in trying to shut down the press.) The NYT editorial gets that part just right: the new manual is not aimed at reinforcing the unavoidably uneasy relationship between the press and the military, but rather at giving the military the authority to silence the press when it finds them inconvenient. That is not how a free society is supposed to work. I have no desire to learn military secrets or to see them exposed in the popular media, but I see no justification in America for accomplishing that protection by nailing journalists' feet to the floor. That's not merely unnecessary: it's unacceptable.

The NYT editorial asserts that "[t]he White House should call on Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter to revise this section, which so clearly runs contrary to American law and principles." As I see it, that is the focus of the matter. Will the White House do that? I'm not holding my breath...

(courtesy freepress.net)

Bernie Sanders Deserves Better Fact-Checking, NPR Isn't What It Used To Be, And Diane Rehm Sucks Eggs

Brendan James at TPM:

Rehm

An interview with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) stopped in its tracks on Wednesday when NPR's Diane Rehm repeatedly pressed the Democratic presidential candidate whether he was a citizen of Israel.

"Senator, you have dual citizenship with Israel," Rehm said during the interview on her nationally broadcast show based on station WAMU.

Sanders

"Well, no I do not have dual citizenship with Israel," Sanders, who is Jewish, interjected. "I'm an American. I don't know where that question came from. I am an American citizen, and I have visited Israel on a couple of occasions. I'm an American citizen, period."

Rehm cited "a list we have gotten" at NPR that said Sanders was "on that list."

And again by Brendan James:

After an interview in which she incorrectly stated the presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) was a dual-Israeli-US citizen, NPR's Diane Rehm told TPM she made "a mistake" and got the information from Facebook.

The whole incident is already up on Wikipedia, but hey, can you really believe something on Wikipedia when it is contradicted by "a comment on Facebook," which is how Rehm described her source? [/sarcasm]

I am impressed that Sanders is taken seriously enough that NPR (or perhaps only Rehm) finds it necessary to run an unverified hit piece on him. And Diane Rehm should have her press pass revoked for not bothering to verify something that she read on Facebook. (Facebook? really?)

Tasteless Quiz: Rank The Evils In This Story

The story:

Carbon monoxide kills Kentucky couple having sex in car

Friday, May 22, 2015 04:46AM

GLENCOE, KY (KTRK) --

A man and woman died while having sex in a parked car, WCPO-TV reports.

Paramedics say Violet Iles, 25, and David Long, 32, died when carbon monoxide began leaking into the vehicle through a rusty exhaust pipe. The couple had turned the vehicle on because it was a chilly night.

Long's brother told WPCO-TV he found the bodies while walking his children to their school bus stop.

"I pulled him out and I tried to do CPR on him, and the paramedics tried to talk me through it over the phone," Kevin Long said.

Police are now waiting for a toxicology report to see if alcohol or drugs were in the couple's system. The Sheriff's Department says anyone who plans to spend a long period of time in a parked vehicle should roll down the windows or turn off the vehicle.

Kienholz: Back Seat Dodge '38 (1964)
or
Door Open - How You're S'posed To Do It

The quiz:

A. This is a story about the evils of...

1. carbon monoxide
2. Kentucky
3. couples
4. cars
5. sex
6. drugs
7. rock 'n' roll
8. toxicology
9. CPR
10. paramedics
11. sheriffs
12. all of the above
13. none of the above

B. As fluff news items go, this one is...

1. more entertaining than most
2. regrettably typical
3. bow-ring (aptly the name of the Gander, Newfoundland airport)

Thank you for your time. No matter what you answered, you may print your quiz and use it as toilet paper. You are now leaving...

THE TOILET ZONE!

The National Noose

Stephanopoulos

"Good mourning, 'murka; I'm George Stephanopoulos. We lead with DeflateGate, DeflateGate and Tom Brady, Tom Brady and DeflateGate. [Puff piece on Brady... can you say "puff piece" about a QB?] Next, after these interminable messages, we'll tell you about the commercial plane forced to land because of smoke in the cabin, the earthquakes in northern Texas absolutely positively caused by a tornado not by fracking, ISIS online recruitment of youth in 'murka, scary storms in California (complete with a huge red spot on our ABC map to make them even scarier), and we'll probably close with a cuuuute kitten or puppy or baby, or maybe a courageous disabled person or injured 'murkan soldier. Now a word from those who bring all of that into your living room..." [/satire]

OK, maybe it wasn't Stephanopoulos, maybe that isn't quite what the announcer said, and maybe DeflateGate wasn't the very first story, but the prioritizing of DeflateGate over air travel hazards, earthquakes in an unusual place, terrorists among us and dangerous weather in America's dryest state was as real as it ever gets on the national noose... hey, am I growing cynical in my old age?

CNN Anchor Don Lemon: Advances 'Black Hole' Theory Of Lost Maylasian Plane

BLACK HOLE Military Surplus

Here I use the word "theory" in the casual sense, meaning "crack-brained notion that no sane person would consider for even two seconds." But Catherine Thompson of TPM reports Lemon's conjecture, which he himself admits is "preposterous," as... well, as preposterous:

...

[Lemon] read out tweets that compared the mystery to "Lost" and "The Twilight Zone" before asking Mary Schiavo, a former U.S. Department of Transportation inspector general, to weigh in on the black hole theory.

"That's what people are saying," Lemon said. "I know it's preposterous — but is it preposterous you think, Mary?"

"Well, it is. A small black hole would suck in our entire universe so we know it's not that," Schiavo said. "The Bermuda Triangle is often weather. And 'Lost' is a TV show. So I think -- I always like things for which there's data history, crunch the numbers. So for me those aren't there."

"But I think it's wonderful that the whole world is trying to help with their theories and I absolutely love their theories," she added.

Australian officials said early Thursday that two large objects which may be debris from the plane were spotted a four-hour flight away from that country's southwestern coast, so perhaps Lemon and his panelists will have some more concrete evidence to pore over on Thursday night's show.

...

(More likely, they will pour concrete over any actual evidence...)

Both the appropriately-named Lemon and Ms. Schiavo are more evidence, if we need more, that journalists should refrain from speculation about scientific matters. I am soooo glad I don't watch much TV "news" ...

'The Intercept' Continues Publishing The Results Of Their Genuine Journalism

This time it's Dan Novack, writing about "DOJ Still Ducking Scrutiny After Misleading Supreme Court on Surveillance" — it's getting to the point that a poor persecuted DOJ hack can't hide anything from the new online journalists. Oh, for the old days of ABC and Fox, when they could do anything and depend on its not being reported... [/sarcasm]

Obama Admin War On Journalism Continues: Barrett Brown Faces Over 100 Years In Charges

Can you spell "overreach," children? Here's yellowsnapdragon at FDL:

In case you haven’t heard, journalist Barrett Brown is facing over 100 years in jail for alleged crimes relating to his investigation into the world of private intelligence contractors for the US government.

Forty-five years of that potential maximum jail sentence is for copying and pasting a link into a chat room. Along with valuable emails exposing the machinations inside the lair of private spies in the service of government, the link Barrett Brown posted also included private credit card information stored on contractor’s servers.

By contrast, LulzSec hacker Jeremy Hammond, accused of actually stealing the files from Stratfor (aided by government informer Sabu), faces only 10 years.

Government overreach on the charges against Brown apparently isn’t enough. In a motion filed August 7, the prosecution requested that the Judge order restrictions against parties contacting the media. The government is seeking a Gag Order to prevent Barrett Brown from speaking with reporters.

,,,

Please read the rest of ysd's post. It is sobering to contemplate what our government is doing to journalists to punish them for doing their jobs.

Telling a journalist not to talk to people is like telling a truck driver not to use the highway system. And charging anyone with a 45-year offense for copy-pasting a single link... "copy-pasting" presumably means the link was already on the web somewhere... sounds like something that would have happened in the various countries whose government we were privileged to call totalitarian, back before the "world's greatest democracy" (heh) started doing the same shit.

A word to Obama and company: jailing, intimidating, assaulting, "disappearing," and killing journalists are things only dictators do. Is that what you are now? How soon before you start jailing bloggers... including Democrats critical of your administration's suppression of the mainstream press and media?

RNC: We Decide What News Networks Shall Program; CNN: Like Hell You Do

Reince Priebus has made another baldfaced royal proclamation on behalf of The Party That Runs The Show:

Try Ex-Lax, Reince!

Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus on Monday called on both NBC and CNN to drop their planned film productions of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or face losing their partnerships with the RNC for 2016 presidential primary debates.

CNN, at least, had something to say about that:

Madame Secretary

Puzzled over what they say would be a "premature" decision to pull several 2016 presidential primary debates should a documentary on Hillary Clinton go forward, CNN on Monday called on the RNC to "reserve judgment" before committing what they call the "ultimate disservice to voters."

A party whose national committee chair has a name reminiscent of European royalty really should think twice before behaving toward one or more of the major television networks as if the party were, in fact, royalty who could dictate to the networks what they could or could not broadcast. I mean, really: in the 2000 presidential selection, it was the CEO of ABC who called the election for GeeDubya Bush. I think the power of the networks to run the show on election night is well-established, whatever Republican royalty (or ordinary citizens) may think of that.

Fire The Motherfucking Mother

I realize that CNBC might as well be Fox News as far as its blatant political bias is concerned, but this is outside the pale. Here's Evan McMorris-Santoro at TPM:

Fortune-Teller
Caruso-Cabrera

At around 3:30 PM Eastern Tuesday, CNBC anchor Michelle Caruso-Cabrera noted a sell-off in the stock market, an entirely unremarkable occurrence in the course of the financial network’s daily coverage. But what separated this particular sell-off from others, according to Caruso-Cabrera, was that it could be traced directly to the appearance of one of the House’s top progressives on her show.

Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) tanked the market, she said, by refusing to budge on his contention that Medicare cuts should be off the table in negotiations surrounding the so-called fiscal cliff. Democrats accused the anchor of trying to “shame” them into cutting entitlement cuts by directly blaming Grijalva’s words for the market’s decline.

Grijalva, co-chair of the House Progressive Caucus, appeared on CNBC to talk about the debt talks and his view that it was unfair to talk about Medicare and other entitlement programs when Republicans remain publicly unwilling to significantly increase government revenues.

Caruso-Cabrera said Grijalva’s words were literally hurting the economy in real time. It’s something that’s happened before when members of Congress appear on the air, she added.

...

If she is capable of explaining the deep cause of a sudden market movement in real-time, Caruso-Cabrera's talents are sorely wasted as a mere news anchor. She should be an obscenely highly paid market analyst. Or maybe she should be provided with a crystal ball and a Gypsy scarf...

Seriously: a remark like that is completely unprofessional for a news anchor. Fire her fucking ass.

Blitzer: 'Obama Up By 4' Equals 'Tie'

Sam Wang of the Princeton Election Consortium:

... A few days ago, Wolf Blitzer at CNN cited a single Ohio poll, done by his own organization, showing Obama up by 4%. He then proceeded to call this a "tie," revealing an amazing inability to interpret a simple number. Compounding this is the fact that dozens of polls have been conducted in Ohio. The odds of an Obama lead are extremely high. So why does he persist?

Wang has an hypothesis:

The news media have an incentive to fuzz up the picture: ratings and profit. A message that the cake is fully baked does not automatically bring back the viewers. Without the artificial suspense, Cillizza and Blitzer are put in a position of having to say something substantive or interesting that gets beyond a horserace number. Think how much work that would be.

The same problem extends to the aggregation of polling data, which many sites do (FiveThirtyEight, Oct. 31). But think of all the headlines you have seen about "Romney ahead nationally," "Obama pulls ahead in Wisconsin," "it's a dead heat," and other permutations. Each of these headlines was based on a single poll. But aggregation would lead to fewer news stories - and less of the breathless horserace coverage we are used to.

Reason #857142 why I don't get my news from the MSM...

I might add another reason. I don't have figures, but no doubt Blitzer and Cillizza and all those guys 'n' gals in front of the camera are themselves rich. They're rock stars. Everybody knows their name, and this ain't Cheers. If they're not in a very high tax bracket, I'll eat my hat. (I don't wear a hat.) So if the Democratic presidential candidate, based on the full spread of available polling evidence, is leading, they have to put their thumb on the scales by calling it a "tie." After all, the network owners are surely wealthy as well, so it's just good business...

News From The Real World: You Think Our Press Has Police Problems, Look At Greece

From FDL's GREYDOG:

On the evening of October 27, the Greek journalist Kostas Vaxevanis was awakened by police who arrested him and hauled him off to jail. The charge? Hot Doc, the magazine he writes for and edits, published portions of the "Lagarde List” containing the names of 2,059 Greeks who allegedly spirited money out of the country and into the warm embrace of UK-based HSBC’s Swiss offices.

Vaxevanis was charged with the publication of private data, although only names, and not account numbers or amounts, were listed. Vaxevanis did not allege that anyone on the list was guilty of a crime, merely that an investigation into the matter was in order. The List has been the talk of Greece, although not its newspapers, for months.

Interestingly, a website run by Makis Triantafillopoulos (zougla.gr), published the same list just hours before Hot Doc. No arrests have been made in that case. Triantafillopoulos is widely regarded as having close ties to Greece’s ruling class.

...

Private data, indeed... private only from the eyes of those asking unpleasant questions. It is a mystery to me why anyone should expect international transfers of large amounts of money to be a private matter. But what do I know of large amounts of money!

Sunshine is the only disinfectant, and the wealthy bastards know it. From journalists incarcerated by NYPD for covering Occupy events to Vaxevanis's publication of material he felt required investigation, today's journalists face a breadth of repression not seen in my lifetime since the 1960s. It's a tough time to be a truth-teller.

Apparent Undercover Charlotte Cops Threaten, Search FDL, TruthOut Journalists

It is with genuine sadness that I report this. FDL reporter Kevin Gosztola and TruthOut's Steve Horn, both credentialed journalists at the Convention, were photographing "four burly middle-aged white males" in the street during a protest march. The four males, dressed as protesters but later identifying themselves as cops, were themselves photographing undocumented immigrants in the march. The undocumenteds were urging President Obama to make good on his 2008 campaign promise to facilitate some sort of solution to the ongoing problem faced by farmworkers without papers, other than the brutal approach in effect now for many decades, which is getting worse in border states. The cops threatened the journalists, one saying he would punch Gosztola in the teeth, another dragging Horn away from his story to a street corner. Gosztola deleted all his photos rather than turn them over to a cop.

Oh, hell. Just go read it. I'm weary and tired of this shit. It is an old, old story with echoes of Chicago 1968, and it is no more acceptable at a Democratic convention than a Republican one. As Jane Hamsher said,

“There’s nothing illegal about photographing people on the street” says Jane Hamsher, publisher of Firedoglake. “There was absolutely no provocation that could have possibly justified the thuggery and bullying by law enforcement agents of journalists who were legitimately covering a public event. It was an outrageous abridgement not only of freedom of the press, but of individual civil liberties.”

But that is where we are in 2012. Civil liberties, especially for journalists and news photographers, are infringed daily, and cops take sides in matters that are not rightfully theirs to resolve, absent violence. Things are different now, but not in a good way. Freedom of the press is in grave danger in America today.

Journalism Outsourced, Pseudonymized

This story is all over the place. Well, no, it's not in "hyperlocal" sections of local newspapers, and it isn't under fake bylines; that would be telling on itself. The practice is the outsourcing of local news by local publications; the company, Journatic, is used by some major large-city dailies including Chicago Tribune and yes, to my regret, the Houston Chronicle. Here's Mark Coddington of Harvard's Nieman Journalism Center:, to pick one of hundreds of articles, mostly because it has good links:

...

The Chicago Tribune just outsourced its hyperlocal TribLocal sections to Journatic, and it began investigating Journatic’s work for fake bylines. The Chicago Sun-Times, Houston Chronicle, and San Francisco Chronicle also reported fake bylines on Journatic stories in their papers, and the Sun-Times and the newspaper chain GateHouse ended their contracts with Journatic, though GigaOM’s Mathew Ingram reported that those contracts expired before the fake-byline story came out. Journatic’s CEO sent a memo rallying the troops and declaring that its aliases would be discontinued.

The revelations pointed toward a larger discussion over how to do the tough work of making local journalism sustainable, summarized well by NPR’s David Folkenflik. Northeastern journalism professor Dan Kennedy said operations like Journatic’s “pink slime journalism” are a function of the fact that local journalism is difficult and expensive to do well, though the solution will ultimately come from the bottom up, not from cookie-cutter approaches. Free Press, meanwhile, urged us to demand better out of local news.

...

Coddington goes on to quote people who actually think this is a good thing, or inevitable given the economics of the news business, or some other claptrap. Personally, I think it's just plain dishonest. If they're going to outsource local news to nonlocal writers, and pseudonymize the purported journalists' bylines, how are they any better than a thorough and careful blogger, that "evil" [/snark] individual whom mainstream journalists are always condemning?