CNN CHIEF CHARGES US MILITARY KILLED JOURNALISTS

In my film WMD, I have a segment raising questions about the targeting of journalists in Iraq. Last week at the World Economic Forum in Davis. CNN’s Eason Jordan told a media discussion at the conference that many journalists were targeted by the US military.” The room went wild,” someone who as there told me, reporting that most people there didn’t have a clue that that had even happened. Its another sign of the media not doing its job–even about its own losses.

REPORTING IN AMERICA 2005

“Don’t Mind Me. I’m Just Doing My Job”

Paul Farhi of the Washington Post wrote Sunday about the environment that our “free press” faces in covering the Bush Admin:

“Reporters who cover the White House are accustomed to being spun by administration officials. The modern presidential toolbox includes carefully rationed press conferences, say-nothing spokesmen, dead-of-night releases of unfavorable news, and phony “town hall” meetings composed solely of sycophantic supporters. More recently, government agencies have issued fake-news videos and secretly contracted with two pundits to promote the administration’s policies on education and marriage.

“It’s not an entirely new phenomenon — the Clinton administration baby-sat reporters from time to time — but the president’s inaugural committee took it to new levels of silliness during the various presidential balls. Several reporters covering the balls were surprised to find themselves being monitored by young “escorts,” who followed them from hors d’oeuvres table to dance floor and even to the bathroom.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A46409-2005Jan29?language=printer

THE STATE OF INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING

IFEX reports: “The Center for Public Integrity, a US organization that supports cross-border investigative journalism, is publishing a series of articles by leading reporters who examine the deteriorating state of press freedom in Russia, Peru, Zimbabwe and the United States, and the risks they face in trying to uncover the truth.

http://www.publicintegrity.org/ga/report.aspx?aid=600

FALUN GONG FURIOUS WITH AP

Falun Gong has been picketing the offices of the Associated Press asking for a meeting to challenge what they say is an inaccurate and discredited story about immolations by practitioners in China. They say the people cited were not practitioners and that the story that was printed in 1800 outlets worldwide slanted and Chinese government propaganda. AP has so far been unwilling to even meet with them. The former President of AP Lou Boccardi sat on that CBS investigation that called for more transparency in journalism.