April, 21 2009, 12:59pm EDT
Free Press Calls for National Journalism Strategy at House Hearing
Free Press Policy Director Ben Scott will call for
a national journalism strategy to address the problems in the newspaper
industry and promote a vibrant news marketplace today at a hearing
before the House Subcommittee on Courts and Competition Policy.
A live webcast of the hearing will be available at https://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/caltoday.html
WASHINGTON
Free Press Policy Director Ben Scott will call for
a national journalism strategy to address the problems in the newspaper
industry and promote a vibrant news marketplace today at a hearing
before the House Subcommittee on Courts and Competition Policy.
A live webcast of the hearing will be available at https://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/caltoday.html
The 2 p.m. hearing, titled "A New Age for Newspapers: Diversity of
Voices, Competition and the Internet," will focus on policy solutions
for tackling the economic crisis in the newspaper business. This crisis
is rooted in the collapse and near-demise of some daily newspapers, the
shift of audiences to the Internet, and the decline in circulation and
advertising revenue.
Scott will argue that a comprehensive policy approach is needed to
save newsrooms -- a critical watchdog for democracy -- and advance new
business models for journalism.
Prepared testimony of Ben Scott, policy director of Free Press
As the largest public interest organization in the country working
on media policy issues, Free Press has a strong interest in the future
of journalism and the vibrancy of the news marketplace.
The crisis in the newspaper business is often portrayed as if it
were monolithic -- a common disease that is affecting all newspapers
alike. But this is not the case. There are several major problems
hitting different parts of the news industry in different ways.
One is the debt load carried by many large newspaper companies that
pushes them toward bankruptcy. A more general problem is a decline in
print circulation and advertising revenue as readers shift to the
Internet. That technological shift reflects a demographic change in
news readers as well as the availability of competing sources of
national and international news online.
Some newspaper companies have made things worse and accelerated
their own demise. Throughout the past 15 years, major newspaper
companies have pursued business models of consolidation. The short-term
benefit of mergers is an increase in revenue and market share. The
long-term consequence is a mounting debt load that now threatens to
sink the ship. Revenue declines and shareholder demands force budget
cuts. Budget cuts force layoffs. Layoffs mean fewer journalists and
fewer stories, and a lower quality product.
But that does not necessarily mean that the core business of news
production is not profitable. In many instances, papers that are
nearing bankruptcy actually have profitable newsrooms -- complete with
double-digit margins and executive bonuses.
The demand for text-based news is at an all-time high -- the readers
simply cannot be monetized at the same rate as in the past. That is the
most fundamental problem. The historical alignment of technology,
market demand, and public goods that made monopoly newspapers a revenue
engine for decades is coming to an end.
But the outlook is not all dark. There are new journalism
experiments cropping up all over the Internet. However, none has a
clear financial base to scale up to replace the quantity and scope of
news production that is disappearing around them -- even in
combination.
So we're left with a conundrum. As advertising revenues dry up as
news shifts online, will the remaining base of advertising dollars be
sufficient to cover the costs of producing and distributing the
journalism a democratic society needs to effectively self-govern? If it
won't, that is the problem policymakers must solve.
The decline of print newspapers doesn't mean the decline of
journalism. What we need to have for journalism is journalists -- and
lots of them. The risk we face today is that market failure will result
in the dissipation of tens of thousands of highly trained and
experienced reporters into other sectors of the economy.
Combining the best elements of traditional and new media forms, we
need to create and sustain models of news production in which it is
possible to earn a living writing the news. These new institutions of
journalism need to have the resources to cover expensive beats like
international affairs and investigative reporting as well as the
essential news about the workings of local government.
We also have to recognize that the Internet can't solve all of
journalism's problems because more than a third of the country is not
connected to high-speed Internet today. Solutions that rely on
technology will also have to deal with the digital divide.
Quite rightly, people are alarmed when they hear that the daily newspaper in their city is about to stop publishing.
But we should avoid the temptation to turn to policies that resemble
bailouts. We should not relax the antitrust standards to permit further
consolidation. The most consolidated newspaper companies are among
those in the worst financial shape today.
Permitting further mergers won't solve the problem. Indeed, uniting
two failing business models will not produce a success any more than
tying together two rocks will suddenly make them float.
While expanding scale might pay short-term dividends, in the long
run it will deepen debt, shed jobs, and reduce the amount of original
reporting in our communities.
This is exactly the opposite of what we should be doing.
There are no easy answers to any of these problems. The right
approach is measured and inclusive deliberation on as rapid a timeline
as practical. Just as we have created national strategies to address
crises in health care, energy independence, and education -- it is time
to craft a national journalism strategy to get out ahead of this
problem and take advantage of the opportunities it creates.
It will begin by documenting how and why permitting institutional
journalism to fade away and journalists to change professions is the
wrong path for democracy. It will begin by showing why the Internet is
a powerful force for positive change but not a substitute for
everything of value that has come before. And it will begin when we
recognize that the future of journalism is a policy issue.
Policymakers should seek to join the discussion already happening in
the academy, among foundations, and in the media. The answer is
certainly not to relax antitrust standards and double-down on the bad
decisions of the past. The most likely answer -- based on the evidence
available today -- is that there will be many, many answers. And that's
good news.
The full written testimony is available at https://www.freepress.net/files/Ben_Scott_Testimony_4_21_09.pdf
Free Press was created to give people a voice in the crucial decisions that shape our media. We believe that positive social change, racial justice and meaningful engagement in public life require equitable access to technology, diverse and independent ownership of media platforms, and journalism that holds leaders accountable and tells people what's actually happening in their communities.
(202) 265-1490LATEST NEWS
State Department Spokesman Urged to Resign Over 'Despicable' Attack on UN Expert
One critic described Matthew Miller's attack on United Nations special rapporteur Francesca Albanese as a "Trumpian smearing of a principled human rights expert."
Mar 28, 2024
U.S. State Department Matthew Miller faced calls to resign Thursday after he accused a United Nations special rapporteur of engaging in antisemitism—an attack that came days after the human rights expert presented a report concluding that Israel's assault on Gaza has met the threshold of genocide.
Asked about the report during a press briefing on Wednesday, Miller said the U.S. has "for a longstanding period of time opposed the mandate of this special rapporteur, which we believe is not productive."
"And when it comes to the individual who holds that position, I can't help but note a history of antisemitic comments that she has made that have been reported," Miller added, pointing to comments that Francesca Albanese—the U.N. special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories—"made in December that appeared to justify the attacks of October 7."
A new low by the Biden team.
In response to UN Special Rapporteur @FranceskAlbs new report - Anatomy of a Genocide - concluding that the threshold of genocide has reasonably been met, the State Dep chooses to attack her persona and accuse her of antisemitism :( :( pic.twitter.com/iNpVT3BWQy
— Trita Parsi (@tparsi) March 27, 2024
It's not entirely clear which comments Miller was referencing.
In an interview with Jewish News Syndicate in December, Albanese was asked whether Palestinian militants' killing of Israeli soldiers on October 7 was a violation of international law. Albanese, an Italian attorney and academic, said that "killing a soldier is a tragedy under international law, but when there is an armed conflict, like in this case, killing a soldier is not illegal."
But Albanese stressed in the interview that the Hamas-led attacks on Israeli civilians—including the taking of hostages—were "not legitimate resistance."
"These are crimes and cannot be justified," she added.
Miller's attack on Albanese Wednesday—which echoed earlier attacks on the special rapporteur by U.S. officials and lawmakers—sparked immediate backlash and calls for his resignation.
"Matthew Miller should be forced to resign for trying to endanger the life of a U.N. official with falsehoods," Ashish Prashar, a spokesperson for Gaza Voices, said in a statement. Albanese said earlier this week that she has faced threats following the publication of her report accusing Israel of committing genocide in the Gaza Strip.
Rohan Talbot, director of advocacy and campaigns at Medical Aid for Palestinians, called the State Department spokesman's remarks a "truly despicable, Trumpian smearing of a principled human rights expert."
"Note the lack of substantive rebuttals of her careful analysis, and the resort to ad hominem attacks," Talbot wrote on social media. "Not the sign of a confident administration."
"Israel has a long history of weaponizing false charges of antisemitism to attack and undermine those fighting for human rights for Palestinians."
The Israeli government has similarly attempted to cast Albanese as an antisemite, drawing pushback from human rights organizations and academics who say the claim is a baseless attempt to discredit her work.
"Israel has a long history of weaponizing false charges of antisemitism to attack and undermine those fighting for human rights for Palestinians—and U.N. officials and experts have been among the most consistent victims of those attacks," Phyllis Bennis, director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, told Common Dreams.
"Almost 15 years ago Richard Falk," Bennis added, "an internationally respected Princeton professor of international law who had just been appointed special rapporteur, was not only denied access to the occupied Palestinian territory to carry out the terms of his U.N. mandate, but was also arrested and jailed by Israeli authorities."
"Since then every special rapporteur has been similarly excluded, their mandate and their work undermined, and their commitment to international law and human rights attacked as antisemitic," she said. "Francesca Albanese has been among the bravest of these SRs, maintaining her commitment to calling out all violations of international law relevant to her mandate—including when Israel has violated international covenants against apartheid and now, against genocide."
Albanese's 25-page report, which she delivered to the U.N. Human Rights Council on Tuesday, argues that "the overwhelming nature and scale of Israel's assault on Gaza and the destructive conditions of life it has inflicted reveal an intent to physically destroy Palestinians as a group."
"There are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of the following acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza has been met: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to groups' members; and deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part," the report states. "Genocidal acts were approved and given effect following statements of genocidal intent issued by senior military and government officials."
Amnesty International praised the report as "a crucial body of work that must serve as a vital call to action."
The Biden State Department has publicly rejected genocide accusations against Israel as "meritless" and said it has not found Israel's military to be in violation of international law during its monthslong war on Gaza—an assessment that conflicts with the findings of leading human rights organizations and U.N. experts.
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'Horrifying' Footage Shows IDF Killing Two Gazans, Burying Their Bodies With a Bulldozer
"When the Israeli army can do these things and get away with it, it can only then do more of it knowing that it will not meet any punishment," said one analyst.
Mar 28, 2024
Video footage broadcast Wednesday by Al Jazeera shows Israeli soldiers gunning down two Palestinians on the coast of northern Gaza, even as one of them waves what appears to be a piece of white fabric.
The footage shows one of the men walking in the direction of an Israeli military vehicle with both hands raised. Despite the absence of any clear evidence that the man posed a threat, Israeli forces shot him from a short distance away. Another man is seen on the ground not far behind.
Al Jazeera's Tareq Abu Azzoum said the killings took place near where World Central Kitchen recently dropped off food aid.
The video then shows Israeli soldiers burying the bodies with a bulldozer.
"Probably certain words should be invented for this sort of thing," Marwan Bishara, AI Jazeera's chief political analyst, said in response to the footage. "I am not sure we have the sufficient vocabulary to describe this sort of twilight zone of Israel's fantasy of being the world's most moral army."
"It's a fantasy that meets the reality of a genocide," Bishara added. "An attempt to kill or destroy much of Palestine and Palestinians and hide the evidence and lie about it. When the Israeli army can do these things and get away with it, it can only then do more of it knowing that it will not meet any punishment."
Watch:
مشاهد حصرية للجزيرة لإعدام جنود إسرائيليين مدنيين فلسطينيين أثناء محاولتهم العودة لشمال قطاع غزة#الأخبار #حرب_غزة pic.twitter.com/QER98mv2n6
— قناة الجزيرة (@AJArabic) March 27, 2024
Richard Falk, former United Nations special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, toldAl Jazeera that the footage provides "vivid confirmation of continuing Israeli atrocities" and spotlights the "unambiguous character of Israeli atrocities that are being carried out on a daily basis."
"The eyes and ears of the world have been assaulted in real-time by this form of genocidal behavior," said Falk. "It is a shocking reality that there has been no adverse reaction from the liberal democracies in the West. It is a shameful moment."
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, whose board Falk chairs, has documented numerous examples of Israeli soldiers conducting close-range field executions in Gaza since October 7, when Israel launched its latest assault following a Hamas-led attack.
In less than six months, Israeli forces have killed more than 32,500 people in Gaza and sparked one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes in modern history.
The video footage emerged just days after the United Nations Security Council approved a resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire in Gaza. The U.S., Israel's leading arms supplier, abstained from the vote and falsely claimed the measure was "nonbinding."
The Israeli government, for its part, immediately signaled that it would disregard the resolution, just as it has ignored orders from the International Court of Justice.
Sophie McNeill, a human rights campaigner, called the footage released Wednesday "horrifying" and demanded that the International Criminal Court "urgently prioritize investigating and charging all those carrying out war crimes in Gaza."
"There just so happened to be a camera here in this moment. What are we not seeing?" McNeill asked. "This impunity must end."
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Joe Lieberman, Iraq War Cheerleader and Killer of Public Option, Dead at 82
"Joe Lieberman's legacy will live on as your medical debt."
Mar 27, 2024
While current and former officials across the U.S. political spectrum shared praise for and fond memories of former Sen. Joe Lieberman in response to news of his death on Wednesday, critics highlighted how some of his key positions led to the deaths of many others.
Lieberman's family said the 82-year-old died at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital after a fall at his home in the Bronx. He served in the Connecticut Senate, as the state's attorney general, and in the U.S. Senate—initially as a Democrat and eventually as an Independent. He was also Democratic former Vice President Al Gore's running mate in the 2000 presidential election.
"Up until the very end, Joe Lieberman enjoyed the high-quality, government-financed healthcare that he worked diligently to deny the rest of us. That's his legacy," said Melanie D'Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, which advocates for universal, single-payer healthcare.
As Warren Gunnels, majority staff director for Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.),
explained, "Joe Lieberman led the effort to ensure the Affordable Care Act did not include a public option or a reduction in the Medicare eligibility age to 55."
Noting that Lieberman also lied about the presence of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq—which was used to justify the 2003 U.S. invasion—Gunnels asked, "How many people unnecessarily died as a result?"
He was far from alone in highlighting the two defining positions.
The Lever's David Sirota declared, "RIP Joe Lieberman, Iraq War cheerleader who led the fight to make sure Medicare was not extended to millions of Americans who desperately needed the kind of healthcare coverage he enjoyed in the Senate."
The Debt Collective said on social media that "Joe Lieberman killed so many people when he killed the public option. Not to mention all the people he killed by cheerleading every war and every lie that led to war. A truly horrible person with a shameful legacy."
Journalist Jon Schwarz pointed out that Lieberman continued to lie about the WMDs long after the claims were debunked.
FormerMSNBC host Mehdi Hasan noted that Lieberman declined an opportunity to apologize for the disastrous war, sharing a clip from his on-camera interview with the ex-senator in 2021.
And please don\u2019t give me this \u2018don\u2019t speak ill of the dead\u2019 stuff - 1) I\u2019m not speaking ill, I\u2019m stating facts, and 2) public figures are public figures, and their obits reflect their legacies and so we should be honest in our accounts of their legacies. Not offensive but honest— (@)
"We lost a giant today. I often disagreed with Joe Lieberman but he was always honorable in the way he called for American troops to murder people abroad so he could get his jollies," said Matt Stoller of the American Economic Liberties Project in a series of sarcastic social media posts.
"Joe Lieberman balanced his love of other people fighting in immoral wars with a commitment to preventing Americans from getting healthcare," Stoller added. "Even after his Senate career, he showed his strong democratic values by lobbying for Chinese telecom firms. We will miss this man."
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