Since 9/11, far too few journalists have questioned the avalanche of spin emerging from the White House and other official sources when it comes to so-called terror threats. This short story in the Guardian is necessary to challenge the narrative: While serious questions remain about the origins and source of the Yemeni “bomb plot”, a…
Showing all posts tagged New York Times
Lest we forget that journalists are threatened and must be protected
The latest report by Reporters Without Borders finds the ever-increasing numbers of journalists being murdered around the world. It is therefore the responsibility of reporters who work in challenging environments – and that includes me, who’s just returned from Pakistan and Afghanistan and needs to become more familiar with protecting sources who work in dangerous…
The militarisation of aid in “war on terror”
This is a growing issue since 9/11, where the US military and others are perfectly happy to corrupt the NGO process by delivering so-called aid and development themselves, therefore trying to convince people under occupation that the military will “save” them. The vitally important separation between the military and aid has largely disappeared. This story…
Hello NYT, associations with Zionist think-tanks should be revealed
Working for the New York Times in Israel seems to guarantee a disturbing lack of transparency. FAIR reports: After the news broke… that… New York Times… Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner had a son who enlisted in the Israeli army (Extra!,… 1/27/10),… Times… public editor Clark Hoyt noted (2/6/10) that it was problematic for Bronner to continue reporting on “one of…
American wars killing soldiers in the thousands
Shocking (via the New York Times): An American soldier dies every day and a half, on average, in Iraq or Afghanistan. Veterans kill themselves at… a rate of one every 80 minutes. More than 6,500 veteran suicides are logged every year — more than the total number of soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq combined since…
Hello, we’re America and we rather love torturing people
Strong New York Times editorial against the shameful “terror” trials held by the US in the “land of the free”: The Pentagon’s prosecutors formally charged Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other men last week with war crimes for planning and carrying out the murder of 2,976 people on Sept. 11, 2001, and referred their case…
What privatisation does to the prisoner’s soul
The rise of privatised detention centres and prisons globally is an issue that receives far too little scrutiny in the media (yesterday’s Al Jazeera’s The Stream was a notable exception). The profit motive inevitably skews priorities. Here’s a great piece from this week’s New York Times by Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen that asks the necessary questions: Immigration… control…
Perfect case study of NYT echoing Washington on Iran
The role of real journalists is to question every allegation made by officials of whatever stripe. If you work for the New York Times, however, you like to give anonymity to a motley collection of “American officials” to talk about allegedly malign Iranian influence on the world. Because of course Washington’s influence is so benign…
Big Brother isn’t in the future, it’s here today
Via the New York Times: Law enforcement tracking of cellphones, once the province mainly of federal agents, has become a powerful and widely used surveillance tool for local police officials, with hundreds of departments, large and small, often using it aggressively with little or no court oversight, documents show. The practice has become big business…
Challenging MSM approved imperial enforcers
Here’s a book review I wrote a while ago published here exclusively: The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work Belen Fernandez Verso, $22.95 Michael Ignatieff: The Lesser Evil? Derrick O’Keefe Verso, $22.95 Antony Loewenstein Back in May 2003, two months after the start of the American-led war in Iraq, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman…