Posts Tagged ‘journalism’

#DNCLeaks Fallout Shows Wikileaks = #Journalism

Posted: August 12, 2016 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional
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By @anarchyroll

What is journalism? What does it mean to be a journalist in 2016?

What is journalism in the era of media conglomeration? Has media conglomeration turned journalism as it was known in the 20th century into public relations for the 1%?

Is journalism;

  • What we see on local evening news? Sensationalized reporting of gun violence amongst those on the low-end of the economic ladder between sports, traffic, and weather.
  • What we read in newspapers and magazines between the advertisements, crossword
  • What we see on national news and cable news? Human interest pieces, celebrity gossip, and opinions given about politics, sports, and Hollywood all looped and edited to elicit emotion rather than thought or discourse.

Is journalism meant to report facts and information that affects large numbers of people based on the political, economic, and/or environmental the information will impact? Or is it just people writing/broadcasting what newspaper owners and trending topics dictate?

Journalism is about facts and information. It’s about exposing injustice to the public. It is about shining the light of truth into the dark corners of conspiracy and deceit.

Just because a small group of billionaires has bought all major news outlets (media conglomeration), doesn’t mean they have bought the facts and information that qualifies as news. Just because political parties receive large donations and cater to these media conglomerates, doesn’t mean they are immune from the facts and information they wish to keep secret from being reported to the public.

As was shown in the DNC Leaks, MSNBC was in direct contact with the Democratic National Committee about what to say and what not to say about Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. If MSNBC is a news station, and they are conspiring to turn the news into specifically crafted public relations, do they not deserve to have this conspiracy reported on? Is that not a news story?

When the news is owned by the people the news used to report on, so they don’t get reported on anymore, then the nature of gathering facts and information as well as reporting them must change. If the 1% would divest all holdings in all news reporting outlets, and all journalism was once again independently financed, what purpose would Wikileaks serve?

In a post print media conglomerate landscape, hactivism has evolved into journalism.

How much content have credible news outlets turned the DNC Leaks into? How many articles, pictures, videos, sound bites, polls, tweets, vines, snaps, and stories have been created because of what Wikileaks has done? The only ones who seem to think it’s wrong, are the people who have been exposed and their allies.

Mainstream media using the information provided by Wikileaks makes them complacent which makes what Wikileaks does with their hacking no longer any different from what a beat reporter did with their pen, paper, and access to newswires in the 20th century. Ten years ago Wikileaks may have been an underground, illegal, immoral, criminal, hacking networks of deviants, anarchists, and outsiders. In 2016, they are just another credible source alongside the Associated Press and Reuters. In 2016, Wikileaks is journalism.

#PanamaPapers Expose the Scarcity Paradigm of the 1%

Posted: May 28, 2016 in Excess and Algorithms
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By @anarchyroll

News as significant as the Panama Papers doesn’t come around that often, unless it’s a news about how bad global warming is getting. That is becoming a weekly occurrence.

The Panama Papers’ place in history places the document leak right up with Edward Snowden, Watergate, the Pentagon Papers, and Wikileaks in its prime.

What the Panama Papers does is removes the illusion that the wealthy care about the poor. It destroys the myth that money trickles down from the top to the bottom. The wealthy don’t give a shit about anything other than getting richer, keeping what they have, to ensure they remain the haves, and that the have nots stay that way.

Just like it has always been. The 99% vs the 1% was once known as the castle owners versus the serfs. All the poors will ever be to those with wealth are serfs. A bunch of ignorant mouth breathers who don’t deserve to live a life of privilege.

The Panama Papers proves that those with wealth will take extraordinary measures to opt out of the social contract. That even though they could not possibly acquire a fortune without society, that they do not under any circumstance want to give back.
How do the rich give back? Not with charity but with taxes. We as a society need taxes. We need taxes to build our infrastructure to ensure our bridges don’t collapse and that our water pipes aren’t poisoning us with lead.

We need taxes to create housing and counseling for the mentally ill, physically handicapped, and generationally underprivileged. That is what the public sector and more importantly, public service is for.

If the rich, wealthy, private sector could be relied upon to help society better than the public sector, wouldn’t they have done it by now? The concentration of wealth is greater now than at any other point in modern history. So are the billionaires of the world repaving our roads, repairing our water pipes, building schools, shelters, asylums, and municipal Wi-Fi? No, they are putting the consumerism, capitalism ideology on steroids and crashing the economies’ of the world cyclically.

Private islands, mega yachts, vacation homes, third cars, personal jets, spa getaways, and tax havens. They go together like peas and carrots, peanut butter and jelly, caviar and foie gras, VIP bottle service and hookers.

After all they worked for that money, except for the trust fund crowd.

Remember, its not the local café owner, franchise retail manager, regional bank president, or serial entrepreneur whose economic terrorism has been exposed by the Panama Papers. Its not the rich, it’s the wealthy. Were talking Bill Gates money, not Oprah money.

Whether it is distrust of specific governments, municipalities or just the public sector in general is irrelevant. Infrastructures are crumbling, people are starving, coastal communities are eroding, species going extinct, and these greedy fuckers only care about having enough money to one up each other in the game of thee who dies with the most toys wins.

The #Ferguson Aftermath is Another Example of the War on #Journalism

Posted: August 31, 2014 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional
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by @anarchyroll
8/30/2014

There are many issues going on in Ferguson worth examining:

  • Race relations in America
  • The militarization of police
  • Urban inequality
  • The line between civil disobedience and riots
  • Arrests of journalists for doing their jobs

The war on journalism was on display early in Ferguson. It has taken a back seat in recent weeks due to repeated examples of the brutal force by the militarized police of Ferguson against unarmed citizens in the wake of the shooting of an unarmed teenager.

Reporters getting arrested isn’t as big a story as SWAT teams repeatedly threatening civilians on camera and using military like force against unarmed civilians on camera. Certainly the death of an unarmed civilian at the hands of police officer, followed up by days and weeks of not only unapologetic but antagonistic conduct by the police force against the rest of the town of Ferguson’s protesting population is a bigger story than journalists being arrested.

However journalists being arrested in America is a big deal. In the big picture, in the grand scheme, a precedent of journalists being arrested on American soil for doing nothing within the realm of anything against the law is a bigger deal than the death of a single civilian. That may sound highly insensitive to some. I understand and accept that. If it was a relative of mine, or someone in my area of residence, I would certainly be more outraged about the killing of an unarmed teen and tear gassing of peaceful protesters more than some male, Caucasian reporters who got arrested in a McDonald’s and released a few hours later.

But the freedom of the press, is in the First Amendment. Right up there with the right to free speech. Journalists may get arrested and/or beheaded in the Middle and Far East, but not in America. When the press is getting arrested for merely trying to grab a bite to eat and recharge smartphones, we have bigger problems in America than a few racist cops in the heartland.

The war on the press is not a cold war either. It has very much been a hot war under the Obama Administration. An administration that has been dubbed “the greatest threat to press freedom in a generation” by a New York Times writer who is being prosecuted by the Obama Administration for doing his job and not revealing a source for an article he wrote.

Barack Obama and his administration have prosecuted seven journalists or whistleblowers under the Espionage Act of 1917. That is more than all previous Presidents/administrations combined.

Ferguson has brought many issues that the public has wanted to ignore into the national spotlight. This is the light that comes after the darkness of a tragic event. All the issues listed at the beginning of the article are important issues that need to be not only talked about but addressed through local, state, and federal regulation. I would simply point out that without a free press, which is being attacked by local police in Ferguson, and the Executive Branch of the United States Government, none of us would know what is going on in Ferguson, Washington, or anywhere that isn’t our own backyard. And our free press is very much in real danger in real time.

United Nations Quits on #Syria

Posted: May 16, 2014 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional
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by @anarchyroll
5/16/2014

There has been another development in Syria this week and, as has become standard, it is not a positive one.

Lakhdar Brahimi; the man tasked with trying to broker a peace treaty or at least a long-standing ceasefire in Syria has resigned. He resigned due to the current Syrian regime not giving an inch, as well as the international community basically not giving a damn about what is going on in Syria as long as chemical weapons aren’t involved. What has been happening and continues to happen in Syria represents everything wrong with the human race.

150,000 dead and counting, with no end in sight, no hope in sight, for the people of Syria. The situation between Russia and Ukraine has shifted all focus away from Syria. The fatigue of the international community has felt from the constant flow of horrifying news coming out of Syria is palpable. No one is even putting up a front of enthusiasm towards of humanitarian solution in that country. When politicians can’t even put on a veil of political correctness on an issue, you know the shit is hitting the fan.

Unfortunately in Syria, it is not shit hitting the fan, it is the blood of women and children by the thousand. Civilians are killed every day and everyone looks away. I had the pleasure of meeting someone who volunteered in the region, at one of the refugee camps. I gave them my respect and attempted to stay in contact with them as they were in the process of trying to go back. That area needs all the help they can get. It is such a vast war zone, one wonders if there is anything that can actually, tangibly, help.

Frequenters of this site know I keep an eye and an ear one what is going on in Syria and have written about it often. I will continue to do so. It is important to know about what is going on there. Remember, the whole situation started with the government opening fire on protesters. Consider what is also happening in Egypt, Ukraine, Greece, and Spain. It seems opening fire on protesters is becoming the norm. It is important to be aware of things like this so a disease of government versus civilian violence do not spread to our side of the ocean.

 

Inspiration via Devastation: Part 4: Glenn Greenwald & Edward Snowden

Posted: March 30, 2014 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional
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by @anarchyroll
10/4/2013

(I recently found this in my drafts section. I guess I never hit the publish button last year.)

As I consumed more and more audio books on personal development, philosophy, self help, spirituality, and self actualization I believed less and less in conspiracy theories. As I aged I met more and more people who, as fictional character Don Draper said in the first season on Mad Men, are so desperate to be led, that they’ll follow anybody. The desperate need some people have, to believe that somebody is in control of everything. People cloak themselves in cynicism and sarcasm to mask their fear of mortality and of being too big a coward to even attempt to make a difference in the world. They justify their inaction to themselves by looking for and finding circumstantial evidence that there is a higher power, new world order, shadow government, etc pulling all the strings, in control of all things important. Therefore, why try? why protest? why write letters? why call congressmen? why not do anything other than work a job they hate so they can numb themselves with personal entertainment when “not on the clock”.

As I studied history however, I couldn’t shake the thought that there was a ruling class of wealthy land and resource owners that have continuously taken action in secret to maintain control of money, land, and resources. Learning about someone like Edward Bernays and the invention of the American middle class consumer by the economic ruling class at the turn of the 20th century, did not dissipate my said thought. Old money with a scarcity mentality fueled by paranoia and greed is one thing, the Military Industrial Complex along with the World Bank/IMF working in the shadows to rule the world Pinky and the Brain style just seemed too derived from a bunch of immature, overweight, uneducated men who don’t get laid enough if at all.

Edward Snowden was the Rosetta Stone for legitimacy to those who are paranoid of governmental overreach and privacy invasion. Glenn Greenwald, reporter for The Guardian newspaper has been Snowden‘s contact to the outside world. Information has continued to trickle out for over two months, each leak, has been an ocean of concern of shock, awe, concern, and outrage for anyone who values privacy, freedom (personal and/or of information), governmental transparency, and power. If you are reading this and unaware of who either Snowden or Greenwald are, please click the hyperlinks in this blog to educate yourself on who they are. Simply knowing their names is not enough. Knowledge itself is not power, it is merely the material to create power, or the vehicle to get you to power. You must use the material to formulate the power you wish to have, you must operate the vehicle to arrive at the power destination.

Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald’s bravery and journalistic heroism gets my blood pumping in a way that up until this point in my life, only professional wrestling could. That may read as lame as shit, but professional wrestling has been my biggest personal passion in life, for my entire life. When friends, family, teachers, lovers, and strangers would tell me to be realistic about what I wanted to do in my life, I turned to writing, I turned to journalism, I turned to media communications as a secondary career option. Snowden and Greenwald have given me as great a gift as I could possibly ask for. The consistent flow of positive emotions that lets me know that writing and journalism can give me a lifetime of fulfillment. That if I could never be a professional wrestler or more importantly, a successful one, that I could spend the rest of my life in journalistic pursuits, shining light on information kept from the public in the dark, and die a happy man.

I have spent so many years stagnant. Afraid to take action not only out of fear of failure, but out of the fear of taking the wrong path. Glenn Greenwald and Edward Snowden removed that fear from me. Ironically, by releasing some of the scariest nonfiction information I have ever seen, read, or heard of in my entire life. What the Obama administration is doing to whistleblowers is disgusting. What the NSA is doing is despicable. The surveillance state that the Patriot Act has allowed to formulate is un American. I have found my second passion in life. I have never cared about being rich, I have cared about being happy. I have read enough books from enough credible figures to know that happiness and wealth are not correlated. Beyond having food, shelter, cleanliness, and safety I don’t care for my destiny to be that of a mindless consumer.

I now know that I can be happy being a writer for the rest of my life. I know I can be happy being a journalist, a broadcaster, a radio dj, a talk show host, a producer, a managing editor, a columnist, an author, a staff writer, and any other position my college degree and my natural abilities make me qualified for because I now have the passion and desire to go with my BA and abilities. Edward Snowden’s leaks may have scared the hell out of me, but sometimes we need to be scared to wake the fuck up. I have been woken up. Glenn Greenwald‘s unapologetic journalistic integrity inspires me to the point of goose bumps literally every time I think of his interviews since the Snowden story broke. That is what it takes to get me moving in the direction of my dreams. Thanks to Glenn Greenwald and Edward Snowden not only am I moving, I want to, and feel obligated to keep moving.

I #StandwithSyria

Posted: March 15, 2014 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional
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by @anarchyroll
3/15/2014

The Syrian conflict recently turned three years old. The anniversary has been marked around the world with #StandwithSyria gatherings and candlelight vigils. The anniversary has been marked in Syria with continued genocide against the civilian population by the military of Bashar Al-Asaad. The conflict in Syria is one in which the numbers speak for themselves.

When did the conflict begin? March 6th, 2011.

How did this situation start? The government/military opened fire on peaceful protestors. It is as if Obama/Bloomberg sent the army into Occupy Wall Street with shoot to kill orders.

What caused the protests in the first place? A gathering protesting the release of political prisoners in Deraa, Syria. Military/security personnel opened fire and killed 15 people. Both the protesting and the executing of civilian, peaceful protesters continued to escalate.

Where is the conflict at now? Civil war with each sides allies propping up each side with military and economic aide. Asaad’s allies are Iran and Russia. The resistance’s allies would be the US and EU.

Why hasn’t the US, EU, or UN intervened directly? That is the big question. There is no answer that doesn’t involve bias, cynicism, skepticism, or posturing. With those numbers it is hard to fathom the some western power getting in there. The closest any western power has gotten is the US threatening to go in if Asaad didn’t turn over all of his chemical weapons. He presently is, so the US has stayed on the sidelines. Reasons commonly cited are a lack of oil, direct US interests, threat of a proxy war with Russia and/or Iran, and the vast size of the country making a ground war even more of a rabbit hole than Iraq or Afghanistan.

I am for a military intervention for the first time in my life. I really do believe that with those numbers the US should send in troops. Just my opinion, I wouldn’t argue it. I just know that we have gone in other places for far less. I read a news story about Syria usually every day. Because every day there is something just gut wrenching to report. There have been multiple chemical weapon attacks against civilians, though the US will only acknowledge one. Those numbers at the very least grab anyone’s attention more often than not followed by sympathy for those in the trenches.

Save the Children is a good charity to give to if you are able to. Islamic Relief USA is a good charity for a variety of reasons.

Syria is one of the few news events in my lifetime that always makes me stop and think whenever I see something about it. Something like that going on in the world I live in at the same time as social media and Starbucks. Bosnia, Iraq, 9/11, Obama becoming president…none of those grabbed my attention as much as the first time I heard about it three years later. Syria does, I’m not sure why. I’ll still pay attention and try to help in the little way(s) I can, and I hope you will too.

What the Hell is Going on in #Venezuela?

Posted: March 14, 2014 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional
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by @anarchyroll
3/13/2014

The situation in the Ukraine has been getting a lot of press, and justifiably so. A potential hot war involving Russia has implications as far reaching as it gets in the political and violence realm. While the situation in the Ukraine has been deteriorating since December, another situation involving civil unrest and government instability has been brewing in Venezuela. In February, the unrest boiled over.

Political unrest in Venezuela has been going on for some time. The unrest that has been boiling over in the streets of Caracus has been brewing for over a decade while now Hugo Chàvez was still alive. Chàvez’s successor, current President Nicholàs Madura won a very close, very disputed election in the spring of last year. He came into office during an economic depression in which food, milk, and other essentials such as toilet paper are in short supply across the entire country.

The situation has boiled over in the last several months. According to Al Jazeera a female student claimed was sexually assaulted, causing a wave of protests to begin. Why? Rape is bad, but protests of sexual assault don’t usually lead to violent protests that put a government on the brink of collapse. According to The New Republic, the university had been asking the government for better security for over a year to combat rampant crime in the area.

In the eyes of the majority of the people of Venezuela, the government is unable to provide them with food, water, shelter, employment, or safety. The sexual assault at ULA’s Táchira in San Cristóbal sent the boiling water frothing over the edge.

February 4th is when the protests started. February 13th is when they turned violent. How? Why? By whom? Has been disputed in so many conflicting reports I honestly can’t say. From what I’ve gathered by the data I’ve read, it would seem that the protesters pushed a little too hard, and the police/military used deadly force to push back. The human condition always wins out no matter how civil we think we are.

Since the protests turned violent a month ago 50 people have died. Madura has ordered all US diplomats out of the country claiming the US is involved in a conspiracy against his Socialist Party along with the far right party members of Venezuela. The leader of the protest movement Leopoldo Lopez turned himself into police. The charges against him have been reduced from terrorism to arson but President Madura continues to call the college aged protestors terrorists. Bashir Al-Assad of Syria says the same thing of the protesting civilians of his country where his military has killed 100,000 civilians in the past three years.

In Venezuela; the economic depression continues, the political unrest continues, the protests continue, the violence continues. There is no end in sight, there are no simple answers. Surprised? Well, welcome to Post 2008 1st World Earth.

#NSA #Whistleblower Journalists Get Their Due

Posted: February 17, 2014 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional
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by @anarchyroll
2/17/2014

Journalism made front page news today across the world as opposed to celebrity gossip and the weather. The three reporters/journalists whom Edward Snowden leaked the NSA documents to received a prestigious award today. Glenn Greenwald, Ewen MacAskill, and Laura Poitras who met with Snowden in Hong Kong in June of 2013 will all receive the George Polk Award in Journalism.

As an aspiring journalist, it is great to see great reporters get their due. They will receive this award in the heart of Manhattan, the media and financial capital of America. These three are role models for me. Greenwald is as much of a living hero for me as is possible. I hope to meet and work with them all in the future.

Being awarded and rewarded for their work rather than shunned or arrested as some in the US and UK government would like shows that what these journalists did in blowing the lid off the NSA mass surveillance program was the right thing to do. Barack Obama has been forced to take action due to the public uproar that has followed Snowden’s whistleblowing. There are measures to cut off water supply to NSA operation centers in Utah and Maryland.  The tide has shifted, much like same-sex marriage, and marijuana legalization, a cultural shift has occurred. We are witnessing history being made before our very eyes every day in America. There is a 1960s feel to the cultural upheaval going on.

I hope to cover and contribute to it beyond just this blog in the future. I thank Glenn Greenwald, Ewen MacAskill, and Laura Poitras for their fearlessness, patriotism, and journalistic integrity in taking the shadow government of the United States and United Kingdom head on. Exposing their shadow to the sanitizing light of public transparency. I am grateful to them. Keep up the good work, and take a deep breath in the knowledge you are fulfilling your purpose on this planet. You have all earned it.

No Simple Solutions in #Syria

Posted: February 17, 2014 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional
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by @anarchyroll
2/16/2014

Peace talks were held in Switzerland to try and bring an end to the conflict in Syria that has claimed the lives of 130,000 people and counting since March of 2011. The talks that took place in Geneva, reached an impasse when representatives of Bashar Al-Assad refused to entertain the idea, let alone negotiate, the concept of a transition to a new regime/government.

The victory was in the fact that peace talks took place at all. Even if they were a facade, with a body count like the one in Syria, anything that could possibly trigger a placebo effect to end the violence is welcomed at this point. With 6.5 million people turned into refugees by the conflict, any signs of light will do, even if it’s a cheap florescent.

I find the situation in Syria fascinating and disturbing. I have been following the story via The Guardian website since the body count three digits. The reason I care about the situation, read, and write about it is that it just amazes me that a conflict like this can exist in the world I live in. So many dead women, children, and civilians; executed by gunfire, bombs, and chemical weapon attacks. The first Gulf War was started for far less, not to mention the second one, and the US involvement in Libya.

I don’t think I’m better than people who don’t follow the Syria story. I don’t think people that don’t pay attention to Syria are bad people or ignorant. Syria is so far away. They don’t have nuclear weapons and we don’t trade with them, so why should we care? That’s not a sarcastic or rhetorical question. It’s something about the numbers of people.  Six figures dead, seven figures worth turned into refugees. That just…..grabs me…

So I’m going to keep reading about Syria and blogging about it. Because I care. Because I think other people should at least be aware of what is happening there. What does the fact that this is allowed to happen mean about we as humans? I don’t know, I’m not asking sarcastically like I have a superior answer or opinion. That is a question I keep coming back to. In the same world of hotel suites underwater, nightclubs carved out of ice, iPhones, and the Super Bowl a government has been killing hundreds of thousands of its civilians and turning millions more into refugees.

Something about Syria makes me stop and think. I hope it makes you think too.

#Verizon Donates 8 Hours of Revenue

Posted: February 9, 2014 in Excess and Algorithms
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eanda logoby @anarchyroll
2/9/2014

$100 million dollars is a lot of money. A big round number that looks especially good in a press release touting charitable contributions. When a company makes $4.6 billion each financial quarter however, that $100 million sounds a little less charitable. When the people receive the charity are saying they don’t need the money, they need better infrastructure and a cheaper bill, well, welcome to America.

In an excellent piece written for the  Washington Post, Brian Fung very politely writes why the nine figure monetary donation is bullshit. Again, he puts it much more politely than I. After all, what good are a bunch of iPads if the school either doesn’t have broadband or can’t afford it? Which is plenty of schools, not just the ones in the ghettos are facing.

Have you noticed your internet bill going down in the last decade? Exactly, imagine what a municipal internet bill is. No such thing as a free lunch. If we charge people to not die of cancer, what hope do kids who want to save their homework to the cloud have?

Good thing we have a socialist, liberal, communist, democratic president in office whose going to stick it to the billion dollar corporations to help the schools out right? Spoiler alert, Obama has is a moderate conservative. Nothing has been asked or demanded of the telcomm companies to provide free or even discounted rates on new infrastructure or service to schools in rural areas of America or in impoverished urban areas either (both of which still run on dial up in some cases).

$100 million is a lot of money, but when that is how much money is made in 8 out of 8,765 hours of operation, it’s a token gesture meant to distract and distort. Nothing more, nothing less. Not to mention we haven’t talked about the students who go to school starving for food, not for playing Candy Crush during home room.

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