“An American journalist working for Iran’s English-language Press TV has been arrested by US authorities on unspecified charges, the state-run broadcaster said on Wednesday.” (Al Jazeera News 1/16/19) https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/01/arrests-journalist-working-iran-state-press-tv-190116074419139.html
“Marzieh Hashemi, 59, was arrested upon arrival at St Louis Lambert International Airport on Sunday and transferred by the FBI to a detention facility in Washington, DC, Press TV said.
“Her relatives were unable to contact her, and she was allowed to contact her daughter only two days after her arrest,” the Iranian broadcaster reported. “Hashemi […] has told her daughter that she was handcuffed and shackled and was being treated like a criminal.”
Several local jails around Washington that house federal inmates said they did not have her in custody. FBI officials were not immediately available for comment.”
Marzieh Hashemi (Persian: مرضیه هاشمی; born Melanie Franklin) is an American-born Iranian journalist and television presenter. She is a correspondent in Press TV and the editor-in-chief of Mahjubah magazine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marzieh_Hashemi
“Iranian Reporter Tells The Other Side Of The Story” (NPR 2009) https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106268425
A United States court has found Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government culpable in the death of American foreign correspondent Marie Colvin, ordering a $302.5m judgement for what it called an “unconscionable” attack that targeted journalists. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/02/court-orders-syria-pay-302m-marie-colvin-death-190201060144752.html
In a verdict unsealed late on Wednesday night, US District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson concluded the Syrian military had deliberately targeted the makeshift media centre in the city of Homs where Colvin and other journalists were working on February 22, 2012.
Sustained artillery barrages against the apartment building housing the media centre killed Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik. “She was specifically targeted because of her profession, for the purpose of silencing those reporting on the growing opposition movement in the country,” Jackson wrote.
“A Private War” (2018) Trailer (2018) – Marie Colvin Biopic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88w-xtEzibY Matthew Heineman, the film’s director, has described A Private War as a “love letter to journalism and an homage to Marie”.
A Private War is based on the Vanity Fair article “Marie Colvin’s Private War” by Marie Brenner, which was published just six months after the war correspondent’s death. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/politics/2012/08/marie-colvin-private-war
Amazon and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos accused the owner of the National Enquirer of trying to blackmail him with the threat of publishing intimate photos. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juzCL2pv5sU
AMI’s chairman and CEO, David Pecker has become a public name because of his association with President Donald Trump. Pecker was granted immunity in a federal investigation into former Trump attorney Michael Cohen. In exchange, Pecker agreed to provide federal prosecutors information on hush money deals.
Cohen admitted that he made payments to AMI, which in turn paid women who claim they had affairs with Trump. AMI purchased the rights to the women’s stories but never published them — a technique known as “catch and kill.” https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/07/media/jeff-bezos-ami-blackmail/index.html
Washington Post writer Manuel Roig-Franzia appeared on MSNBC late last night and revealed that Jeff Bezos and his investigative team now suspect that a “government entity” accessed the paper owner’s phone. Roig-Franzia also said “They have begun to believe, the Bezos camp, that this publication by the National Enquirer might have been politically motivated”. https://thehill.com/policy/technology/429085-reporter-bezos-investigator-believes-government-entity-may-have-obtained
Given the only legal way for the U.S. federal government to secretly surveil the phone of a private U.S. citizen is if a FISA warrant is granted because the person is legitimately suspected of plotting against the United States and Bezos doesn’t fit that description, a digital wiretap would be in clear violation of the law.
Presuming the ‘government entity’ wasn’t Russian, it makes no sense that someone in the NSA would steal private pictures off Jeff Bezos’ phone and then gave them to the National Enquirer for the purpose of trying to blackmail the owner of the Washington Post into withholding additional articles detrimental to the President of the United States, unless of course he is still close friends with the head of the National Enquirer.
“
“A journalist critical of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was arrested Wednesday and will spend the night in detention in what critics are calling the latest assault on the free press in the Philippines.” (Washington Post 2/13/19) https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/top-philippine-journalist-and-time-person-of-the-year-arrested-on-libel-charges/2019/02/13/f05baf54-2f86-11e9-8ad3-9a5b113ecd3c_story.html?utm_term=.2718f47e6a41
An arrest warrant for “cyber libel” was served on Maria Ressa, head of the Rappler news site, at her office by plainclothes officers of the National Bureau of Investigation just before 5 p.m., the cutoff time for courts to process bail payments.
Ressa was part of a group of journalists, including slain Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who were collectively named Time magazine’s 2018 “person of the year.” Before founding Rappler in 2012, Ressa was CNN’s bureau chief in Manila.
Fox News has refused to air an ad for the short documentary film “A Night at the Garden”, according to a new report from the Hollywood Reporter. https://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/fox-news-bans-ad-for-documentary-about-american-nazi-ra-1832616819
The 7-minute movie, which was recently nominated for an Academy Award, explores the terrifying day on February 20, 1939 when thousands of American Nazis held a rally at Madison Square Garden in New York. The CEO of Fox News reportedly claims that an ad for the anti-Nazi movie is “not appropriate for our air.”
The 30-second ad, titled “It Can Happen Here,” was supposed to run during the Sean Hannity Show earlier this week. The title of the ad is a reference to the 1935 novel It Can’t Happen Here, by Sinclair Lewis which predicted a rise of fascism in the United States during the 1930s. But Fox News apparently doesn’t want anti-Nazi content on its channel.
“The film shines a light on a time when thousands of Americans fell under the spell of a demagogue who attacked the press and scapegoated minorities using the symbols of American patriotism,” Night at the Garden director Marshall Curry said in a statement to The Hollywood Reprter. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/fox-news-rejects-national-ad-oscar-nominated-anti-nazi-documentary-1186379
The :30 TV ad that was banned by Fox is available at https://player.vimeo.com/video/316176375. The full 7-minute Oscar-nominated film is on Vimeo https://vimeo.com/237489146
President Trump on Wednesday labeled The New York Times “a true enemy of the people” one day after an extensive report detailing the ways in which he has sought to influence the investigations into his presidency and allies.
“The New York Times reporting is false,” Trump tweeted. “They are a true ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!” https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/430716-trump-declares-new-york-times-enemy-of-the-people
New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger issued a statement hours later condemning the president’s use of the term “enemy of the people” as “dangerous” and inaccurate.
“It is particularly reckless coming from someone whose office gives him broad powers to fight or imprison the nation’s enemies,” Sulzberger said. “As I have repeatedly told President Trump face to face, there are mounting signs that this incendiary rhetoric is encouraging threats and violence against journalists at home and abroad.” https://www.nytco.com/press/new-york-times-publisher-a-g-sulzberger-responded-to-president-trumps-continued-attacks-on-a-free-press/
Sulzberger, who has met with Trump on at least two separate occasions in the past year, noted that past presidents have complained about coverage of their administration, but “fiercely defended” the free press.
According to veteran journalist Lesley Stahl of the CBS program “60 Minutes” President Donald Trump told her that he bashes the press to “demean” and “discredit” reporters so that the public will not believe “negative stories” about him. (CNBC May 22, 2018) https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/22/trump-told-lesley-stahl-he-bashes-press-to-discredit-negative-stories.html
“The CBS reporter was speaking to the audience along with PBS NewsHour host Judy Woodruff.
Stahl said she and her boss met with Trump at his office in Trump Tower in Manhattan after the 2016 election in advance of a recorded sit-down interview for “60 Minutes.
“At one point, he started to attack the press,” Stahl said. “There were no cameras in there.”
“I said, ‘You know, this is getting tired. Why are you doing it over and over? It’s boring and it’s time to end that. You know, you’ve won … why do you keep hammering at this?'” Stahl recalled.
“And he said: ‘You know why I do it? I do it to discredit you all and demean you all so that when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you.'”
In a Friday chat with reporters, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders faced a question about a Coast Guard lieutenant arrested on gun charges who possessed a hit list — which included Democratic politicians and journalists from CNN and MSNBC. The query: Does Trump’s rhetoric contribute to such troubling behavior?
Sanders: “I certainly don’t think that the president at any point has done anything but condemn violence — against journalists or anyone else. In fact, every single time something like this happens, the president is typically one of the first people to condemn the violence and the media is the first people to blame the president.” https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/2/22/1837063/-Washington-Post-Confronts-Sarah-Huckabee-Sanders-On-Latest-Towering-Lie-About-Trump-and-Violence
→ President Trump praises a Republican Representative after he assaulted a reporter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwiaCUUScqc
→ Trump: “I would never kill reporters” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35EWlJMmO4s
→ All the Times Trump Has Called for Violence at His Rallies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIs2L2nUL-0
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) is calling on Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to end a reported watch list of journalists and attorneys involved with one of the migrant caravans at the southern border. (The Hill 3/8/19) https://thehill.com/latino/433295-dem-calls-on-sec-nielsen-to-end-cbp-list-of-reporters-lawyers-tied-to-migrant-caravan “This program undermines our constitutionally protected right to free speech and free press, and must end immediately,” Sen. Markley said in the letter. He also said that the program’s title, “San Diego Sector Foreign Operations Branch: Migrant Caravan FY-2019 Suspected Organizers, Coordinators, Instigators, and Media,” suggests that the government “is engaged in a secret investigation targeting at least 59 individuals because of their statements, reporting, and other expressions of dissent protected by the First Amendment.”
See also NBC channel 7 News, San Diego CA (3/6/19): “Leaked Documents Show the U.S. Government Tracking Journalists and Immigration Advocates Through a Secret Database” https://www.nbcsandiego.com/investigations/Source-Leaked-Documents-Show-the-US-Government-Tracking-Journalists-and-Advocates-Through-a-Secret-Database-506783231.html
Eideard 
“An American journalist working for Iran’s English-language Press TV has been arrested by US authorities on unspecified charges, the state-run broadcaster said on Wednesday.” (Al Jazeera News 1/16/19) https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/01/arrests-journalist-working-iran-state-press-tv-190116074419139.html
“Marzieh Hashemi, 59, was arrested upon arrival at St Louis Lambert International Airport on Sunday and transferred by the FBI to a detention facility in Washington, DC, Press TV said.
“Her relatives were unable to contact her, and she was allowed to contact her daughter only two days after her arrest,” the Iranian broadcaster reported. “Hashemi […] has told her daughter that she was handcuffed and shackled and was being treated like a criminal.”
Several local jails around Washington that house federal inmates said they did not have her in custody. FBI officials were not immediately available for comment.”
Marzieh Hashemi (Persian: مرضیه هاشمی; born Melanie Franklin) is an American-born Iranian journalist and television presenter. She is a correspondent in Press TV and the editor-in-chief of Mahjubah magazine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marzieh_Hashemi
“Iranian Reporter Tells The Other Side Of The Story” (NPR 2009) https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106268425
“Robert Mercer: the big data billionaire waging war on mainstream media” (Guardian UK Feb 2017) https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/26/robert-mercer-breitbart-war-on-media-steve-bannon-donald-trump-nigel-farage “With links to Donald Trump, Steve Bannon and Nigel Farage, the rightwing US computer scientist is at the heart of a multimillion-dollar propaganda network.”
“What Does the Billionaire Family Backing Donald Trump Really Want?” (The Atlantic Jan 2017) https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/no-one-knows-what-the-powerful-mercers-really-want/514529/
A United States court has found Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government culpable in the death of American foreign correspondent Marie Colvin, ordering a $302.5m judgement for what it called an “unconscionable” attack that targeted journalists. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/02/court-orders-syria-pay-302m-marie-colvin-death-190201060144752.html
In a verdict unsealed late on Wednesday night, US District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson concluded the Syrian military had deliberately targeted the makeshift media centre in the city of Homs where Colvin and other journalists were working on February 22, 2012.
Sustained artillery barrages against the apartment building housing the media centre killed Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik. “She was specifically targeted because of her profession, for the purpose of silencing those reporting on the growing opposition movement in the country,” Jackson wrote.
“A Private War” (2018) Trailer (2018) – Marie Colvin Biopic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88w-xtEzibY Matthew Heineman, the film’s director, has described A Private War as a “love letter to journalism and an homage to Marie”.
A Private War is based on the Vanity Fair article “Marie Colvin’s Private War” by Marie Brenner, which was published just six months after the war correspondent’s death. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/politics/2012/08/marie-colvin-private-war
Amazon and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos accused the owner of the National Enquirer of trying to blackmail him with the threat of publishing intimate photos. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juzCL2pv5sU
AMI’s chairman and CEO, David Pecker has become a public name because of his association with President Donald Trump. Pecker was granted immunity in a federal investigation into former Trump attorney Michael Cohen. In exchange, Pecker agreed to provide federal prosecutors information on hush money deals.
Cohen admitted that he made payments to AMI, which in turn paid women who claim they had affairs with Trump. AMI purchased the rights to the women’s stories but never published them — a technique known as “catch and kill.” https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/07/media/jeff-bezos-ami-blackmail/index.html
If AMI’s Jeff Bezos Shakedown Was Criminal, They Can Kiss Their Non-Prosecution Agreement Goodbye https://lawandcrime.com/legal-analysis/if-amis-jeff-bezos-shakedown-was-criminal-they-can-kiss-their-non-prosecution-agreement-goodbye/
Washington Post writer Manuel Roig-Franzia appeared on MSNBC late last night and revealed that Jeff Bezos and his investigative team now suspect that a “government entity” accessed the paper owner’s phone. Roig-Franzia also said “They have begun to believe, the Bezos camp, that this publication by the National Enquirer might have been politically motivated”. https://thehill.com/policy/technology/429085-reporter-bezos-investigator-believes-government-entity-may-have-obtained
Given the only legal way for the U.S. federal government to secretly surveil the phone of a private U.S. citizen is if a FISA warrant is granted because the person is legitimately suspected of plotting against the United States and Bezos doesn’t fit that description, a digital wiretap would be in clear violation of the law.
Presuming the ‘government entity’ wasn’t Russian, it makes no sense that someone in the NSA would steal private pictures off Jeff Bezos’ phone and then gave them to the National Enquirer for the purpose of trying to blackmail the owner of the Washington Post into withholding additional articles detrimental to the President of the United States, unless of course he is still close friends with the head of the National Enquirer.
“
“A top Saudi Arabian official on Friday denied the kingdom was involved in the leak of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ private text messages and photos to the National Enquirer tabloid.” https://www.politico.com/story/2019/02/08/saudi-arabia-jeff-bezos-national-enquirer-1160701
Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi was a Saudi Arabian dissident, author, columnist for The Washington Post, and a general manager and editor-in-chief of Al-Arab News Channel who was assassinated at the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul on 2 October 2018 by agents of the Saudi government. President Donald Trump and his administration have insisted on maintaining ties to Saudi Arabia after Khashoggi’s death. On Friday, Trump missed a deadline imposed by a bipartisan group of senators to identify Khashoggi’s killers and determine if the U.S. should impose sanctions on them.
“National Enquirer’s reporting on Jeff Bezos under scrutiny by federal prosecutors” https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/08/media/national-enquirer-jeff-bezos/index.html
“Private Eyes Detail Inner Workings of National Enquirer ‘Blackmail’ Machine”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/private-eyes-detail-inner-workings-of-national-enquirer-blackmail-machine “Jared Kushner was a key player in Trump’s National Enquirer blackmail scheme against Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski” (Dec 2018) https://www.rawstory.com/2018/12/revealed-jared-kushner-key-player-trumps-national-enquirer-blackmail-scheme-joe-scarborough-mika-brzezinski/ “Bodyslams, bombs and shootings: Anti-media violence in Trump’s America” (Nov 2018) https://www.axios.com/violence-against-media-bombs-shootings-trump-a59584cb-ac2c-4813-bfef-7b3a4233690d.html
A trio of scholars who study the media’s influence on voters finds that the loss of local news leads to political polarization, making governing more difficult both locally and nationally. https://theconversation.com/when-newspapers-close-voters-become-more-partisan-108416
Trump Already Endorsed Political Violence. In El Paso, a Red Hat Showed He Was Listening.
The president’s authoritarian movement lurches down a darker and more dangerous road than ever. (Esquire 2/12/19) https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a26303263/trump-supporter-attack-bbc-journalist-maga-hat/
“Why the attack on our cameraman was no surprise.” By Jon Sopel, BBC News North America editor (2/12/19) https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47219957
“A journalist critical of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was arrested Wednesday and will spend the night in detention in what critics are calling the latest assault on the free press in the Philippines.” (Washington Post 2/13/19) https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/top-philippine-journalist-and-time-person-of-the-year-arrested-on-libel-charges/2019/02/13/f05baf54-2f86-11e9-8ad3-9a5b113ecd3c_story.html?utm_term=.2718f47e6a41
An arrest warrant for “cyber libel” was served on Maria Ressa, head of the Rappler news site, at her office by plainclothes officers of the National Bureau of Investigation just before 5 p.m., the cutoff time for courts to process bail payments.
Ressa was part of a group of journalists, including slain Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who were collectively named Time magazine’s 2018 “person of the year.” Before founding Rappler in 2012, Ressa was CNN’s bureau chief in Manila.
Fox News has refused to air an ad for the short documentary film “A Night at the Garden”, according to a new report from the Hollywood Reporter. https://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/fox-news-bans-ad-for-documentary-about-american-nazi-ra-1832616819
The 7-minute movie, which was recently nominated for an Academy Award, explores the terrifying day on February 20, 1939 when thousands of American Nazis held a rally at Madison Square Garden in New York. The CEO of Fox News reportedly claims that an ad for the anti-Nazi movie is “not appropriate for our air.”
The 30-second ad, titled “It Can Happen Here,” was supposed to run during the Sean Hannity Show earlier this week. The title of the ad is a reference to the 1935 novel It Can’t Happen Here, by Sinclair Lewis which predicted a rise of fascism in the United States during the 1930s. But Fox News apparently doesn’t want anti-Nazi content on its channel.
“The film shines a light on a time when thousands of Americans fell under the spell of a demagogue who attacked the press and scapegoated minorities using the symbols of American patriotism,” Night at the Garden director Marshall Curry said in a statement to The Hollywood Reprter. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/fox-news-rejects-national-ad-oscar-nominated-anti-nazi-documentary-1186379
The :30 TV ad that was banned by Fox is available at https://player.vimeo.com/video/316176375. The full 7-minute Oscar-nominated film is on Vimeo https://vimeo.com/237489146
President Trump on Wednesday labeled The New York Times “a true enemy of the people” one day after an extensive report detailing the ways in which he has sought to influence the investigations into his presidency and allies.
“The New York Times reporting is false,” Trump tweeted. “They are a true ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!” https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/430716-trump-declares-new-york-times-enemy-of-the-people
New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger issued a statement hours later condemning the president’s use of the term “enemy of the people” as “dangerous” and inaccurate.
“It is particularly reckless coming from someone whose office gives him broad powers to fight or imprison the nation’s enemies,” Sulzberger said. “As I have repeatedly told President Trump face to face, there are mounting signs that this incendiary rhetoric is encouraging threats and violence against journalists at home and abroad.” https://www.nytco.com/press/new-york-times-publisher-a-g-sulzberger-responded-to-president-trumps-continued-attacks-on-a-free-press/
Sulzberger, who has met with Trump on at least two separate occasions in the past year, noted that past presidents have complained about coverage of their administration, but “fiercely defended” the free press.
According to veteran journalist Lesley Stahl of the CBS program “60 Minutes” President Donald Trump told her that he bashes the press to “demean” and “discredit” reporters so that the public will not believe “negative stories” about him. (CNBC May 22, 2018) https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/22/trump-told-lesley-stahl-he-bashes-press-to-discredit-negative-stories.html
“The CBS reporter was speaking to the audience along with PBS NewsHour host Judy Woodruff.
Stahl said she and her boss met with Trump at his office in Trump Tower in Manhattan after the 2016 election in advance of a recorded sit-down interview for “60 Minutes.
“At one point, he started to attack the press,” Stahl said. “There were no cameras in there.”
“I said, ‘You know, this is getting tired. Why are you doing it over and over? It’s boring and it’s time to end that. You know, you’ve won … why do you keep hammering at this?'” Stahl recalled.
“And he said: ‘You know why I do it? I do it to discredit you all and demean you all so that when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you.'”
In a Friday chat with reporters, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders faced a question about a Coast Guard lieutenant arrested on gun charges who possessed a hit list — which included Democratic politicians and journalists from CNN and MSNBC. The query: Does Trump’s rhetoric contribute to such troubling behavior?
Sanders: “I certainly don’t think that the president at any point has done anything but condemn violence — against journalists or anyone else. In fact, every single time something like this happens, the president is typically one of the first people to condemn the violence and the media is the first people to blame the president.” https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/2/22/1837063/-Washington-Post-Confronts-Sarah-Huckabee-Sanders-On-Latest-Towering-Lie-About-Trump-and-Violence
→ President Trump praises a Republican Representative after he assaulted a reporter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwiaCUUScqc
→ Trump: “I would never kill reporters” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35EWlJMmO4s
→ All the Times Trump Has Called for Violence at His Rallies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIs2L2nUL-0
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) is calling on Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to end a reported watch list of journalists and attorneys involved with one of the migrant caravans at the southern border. (The Hill 3/8/19) https://thehill.com/latino/433295-dem-calls-on-sec-nielsen-to-end-cbp-list-of-reporters-lawyers-tied-to-migrant-caravan “This program undermines our constitutionally protected right to free speech and free press, and must end immediately,” Sen. Markley said in the letter. He also said that the program’s title, “San Diego Sector Foreign Operations Branch: Migrant Caravan FY-2019 Suspected Organizers, Coordinators, Instigators, and Media,” suggests that the government “is engaged in a secret investigation targeting at least 59 individuals because of their statements, reporting, and other expressions of dissent protected by the First Amendment.”
See also NBC channel 7 News, San Diego CA (3/6/19): “Leaked Documents Show the U.S. Government Tracking Journalists and Immigration Advocates Through a Secret Database” https://www.nbcsandiego.com/investigations/Source-Leaked-Documents-Show-the-US-Government-Tracking-Journalists-and-Advocates-Through-a-Secret-Database-506783231.html