Eideard

A conservative US news magazine has come under fire after one of its journalists boasted of being an agent provocateur at a clash between protesters and security guards in Washington.

The incident, in which guards used pepper spray on protesters trying to enter the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, was widely reported to be linked to the Occupy Wall Street protests.

Patrick Howley, an assistant editor at the American Spectator, wrote over the weekend that he had infiltrated the protest group in order to discredit it. He said: “As far as anyone knew I was part of this cause — a cause that I had infiltrated the day before in order to mock and undermine in the pages of the American Spectator — and I wasn’t giving up before I had my story.”

However, Howley’s breathless account of his role as provocateur – which goes on to condemn the protesters’ “lack of nerve to confront authority”, and his own determination to escalate the protest further as he rushed past security guards into the museum – has since been altered. The magazine appears to have taken down the story, although it has been reported in the Washington Post and on the Firedoglake and Daily Kos blogs.

Removed from the new story is any mention of Howley’s motive to “mock and undermine” the protesters, or his disdain for their “lack of nerve”. That segment has been replaced. Instead, he says his involvement was intended for journalistic purposes, and that he rushed inside the museum “to find a place to observe.”

Charlie Grapski, a citizen journalist and activist, accused the American Spectator and Howley of breaching journalistic integrity, and of criminal acts – and called for them to be investigated and charged.

Grapski said: “It is not journalism. This goes against every tenet of ethical journalism. Howley was doing it in order to ‘mock and undermine’. His actions shows that the protesters were not out to disrupt, but that chaos and disruption followed his actions. Not only has he distorted the story to discredit others, he has engaged in criminal acts.”

“They should be charged with criminal acts and inciting a riot.”

Grapski added: “The changes to the story are designed to eliminate the admission of guilt and to eliminate his role as provocateur.”

Nothing new; but, a right-wing tactic that Livingroom Liberals and TV talking heads joke about – as if it never happens. One of the oldies long-used by creeps ranging from the John Birch Society and corporate goons to the FBI.

Dimwit rightwingers – especially the young and ambitious – have sufficient ego problems that they often post articles and photos of their disruption of peaceful protests. They bring racist and bigoted slogans into events so mainstream reporters can comment on how “misled that peace demonstration was”. Howley is better funded than that. He can rely on the American Spectator to publish his crap.

At 4 a.m. last Thursday, at the end of an all-night session, Iceland’s Parliament, the Althing, voted unanimously in favor of a package of legislation aimed at making the country a haven for freedom of expression by offering legal protection to whistle-blower Web sites like WikiLeaks, which helped to craft the proposal…

…Iceland hoped to become “the inverse of a tax haven,” by offering journalists and publishers some of the most aggressive protections for free speech and investigative journalism in the world. “They are trying to make everything opaque,” she said. “We are trying to make it transparent…”

The plan to make Iceland a world leader in journalism protection took shape in December with the assistance of two leaders of the whistle-blower Web site WikiLeaks.org, Julian Assange and Daniel Schmitt, whose publish-nearly-anything ideology has given them personal experience with news media laws around the globe…

Monroe Price, who runs a program in comparative media law at the University of Oxford, told The Independent in London, “As an exercise in aspirations, it’s a bold and important endeavor.” But, he added, “if it’s a significant issue like a national security question, then the charging jurisdiction will figure out ways of asserting its power.”

Does he really mean that bastions of Free Speech and Liberty like the UK and US might be willing to break or band the law in pursuit of preserving their political will?

You betcha!

William S. Burroughs, 1960

Brian Duffy, whose photographs helped define the mood of the Swinging Sixties, has died aged 76.

Together with David Bailey and Terence Donovan, Duffy formed part of the trinity of photographers who became as famous as the models, musicians and film stars they worked with…

His work also spanned reportage and advertising, including two award-winning campaigns for Benson & Hedges and Smirnoff in the 1970s. He shot three David Bowie album covers, including Aladdin Sane.

Some of his work is particularly memorable. A little shiny.

Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

ProPublica, in an historic first for online journalism, won a coveted Pulitzer Prize…for investigative reporting about controversial deaths at a New Orleans medical center following Hurricane Katrina.

The chronicle of decisions by doctors caring for patients stranded by the flood, written by Sheri Fink of ProPublica in collaboration with The New York Times Magazine, marked the first time an online service won a top journalism award given annually by the Pulitzer Prize Board at Columbia University.

The nonprofit ProPublica is considered by some to be a new model for journalism as struggling for-profit outlets have fewer resources to put toward investigative reporting. The Times magazine published the Hurricane Katrina piece.

“This is something we’re going to see more of in the years ahead as there’s more and more collaboration of news entities when it comes to enterprise journalism,” Sig Gissler, administrator of the prizes, said in announcing the winners.

In another online first, www.sfgate.com, the website of the San Francisco Chronicle, won for editorial cartooning. The award for the animated cartoons by Mark Fiore marked the first time an Internet-based entry won in that category.

Overdue.

Though the standards for the Pulitzer are high enough, the time it has taken for online journalism to be considered is mostly legit. Even if geeks don’t think so.

Here’s today’s “investigative journalism” from CNN:

I won’t waste your time linking to this crap…

Auto manufacturer Toyota warned dealerships in 2002 that Camry owners were complaining about throttles surging and recommended adjustments in an electronic control unit to fix the problem, according to a document obtained by CNN.

The technical service bulletin went to every U.S. Toyota dealership in late August 2002 after some customers reported their vehicles were speeding up unexpectedly.

“Some 2002 model year Camry vehicles may exhibit a surging during light throttle input at speeds between 38-42 mph,” the bulletin states. “The Engine Control Module (ECM) calibration has been revised to correct this condition…”

The internal Toyota document was given to CNN by a group of attorneys now seeking a nationwide class-action lawsuit against the company. Clarence Ditlow said the document — not previously made public — indicates Toyota knew much earlier about an electronic connection to sudden acceleration problems. He also said the bulletin was apparently ignored or hidden from the public not only by Toyota, but also by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. – emphasis added.

“The government is really hiding this information from the consumer,” Ditlow told CNN. “They’re in a conspiracy with the auto industry to keep these out of the public’s sight…”

Read the rest of this entry »

The Guardian editor-in-chief, Alan Rusbridger, has delivered a riposte to Rupert Murdoch’s campaign to introduce paywalls to newspaper websites, claiming that it could lead the industry to a “sleepwalk into oblivion”…

Last year Murdoch revealed that he would introduce charges for access to all his news websites, including the Times, Sunday Times and the News of the World by this summer. Last week the New York Times confirmed that it too would introduce a paywall to its website by 2011.

Rusbridger pointed out that News Corp has frequently used the price of news to attack rivals. “Murdoch, who has in his time flirted with free models and who has ruthlessly cut the price of his papers to below cost in order to win audiences or drive out competition (‘reach before revenue’, as it wasn’t called back when he slashed the price of the Times to as low as 10p), this same Rupert Murdoch is being very vocal in asserting that the reader must pay a proper sum for content – whether in print or digitally,” he said.

“Fleet Street is the birthplace of the tradition of a free press that spread around the world. There is an irreversible trend in society today which rather wonderfully continues what we as an industry started – here, in newspapers, in the UK.

“It’s not a ‘digital trend’. It’s a trend about how people are expressing themselves, about how societies will choose to organise themselves, about a new democracy of ideas and information, about changing notions of authority, about the releasing of individual creativity, about resisting the people who want to close down free speech.

“If we turn our back on all this and at the same time conclude that there is nothing to learn from it then, never mind business models, we could be sleepwalking into oblivion…

The Guardian editor told an audience of academics and journalists in London that it is more important than ever to focus on journalism: “If you think about journalism, not business models, you can become rather excited about the future. If you only think about business models you can scare yourself into total paralysis.”

RTFA. Please. If you care to learn about where a major stream of journalism is going on the Web.

Murdoch will relegate his empire to decline and dusty signs along disused secondary roads. Just like a great deal of Route 66 alongside Interstate 40.

The Kaiser Family Foundation is starting a news service to produce in-depth coverage of the policy and politics of health care, both for an independent Web site and in collaborations with mainstream news organizations.

With a budget that is expected to reach $3 million to $4 million in two years, the project is one of the most ambitious in a wave of nonprofit online ventures that have emerged as mainstream newspapers and magazines cut jobs and budgets.

Though it will be the largest and best-financed project of its kind, the Kaiser start-up service is only one of several by foundations and entrepreneurs aimed at providing serious coverage of health issues…

“In terms of these new journalism ventures, there’s more activity in health than in any other area, and they’re all slightly different,” said Louis Freedberg, director of the California Media Collaborative, which sponsored a conference on health journalism in Los Angeles last week. “It may be because there are so many foundations focused on health. And perhaps it reflects the fact that this is such a critically important issue.”

Though the models vary, they are united by a conviction that health policy is vastly undercovered by most news organizations at a time when polls show high levels of public concern about the cost, availability and quality of health care.

This is a story I’ll track – and not just for this blog. Interesting, useful and overdue.