WayneMadsenReport.com reports:

”NSA spied on its own employees, other U.S. intelligence personnel, and their journalist and congressional contacts. WMR has learned that the National Security Agency (NSA), on the orders of the Bush administration, eavesdropped on the private conversations and e-mail of its own employees, employees of other U.S. intelligence agencies — including the CIA and DIA — and their contacts in the media, Congress, and oversight agencies and offices.

NSA also stands for National Security Archive as Doug Ireland reports in a profile of this important organization now marking its twentieth anniversary in the truth business. This was written earlier this month but I missed it.

http://direland.typepad.com/direland/2005/12/happy_20th_birt.html

China removes editor of feisty tabloid
http://c.moreover.com/click/here.pl?e445685206&e=6421

ISRAELI JOURNALISTS QUESTION SHARON”S HEALTH

Bethlehem - Clouds of doubts on Israeli premier Ariel Sharon’s ability to run the Hebrew state was stirred by Israeli journalist Amir Oren, who wrote in the Hebrew daily Ha’aretz newspaper saying, “Physicians of Sharon hid the truth on his health, and aren’t expected to uncover such information in the near future”. “Truth on Sharon’s health isn’t exclusively his own, but rather of the Israeli public as well, especially that the man didn’t reveal all his future plans that affect the whole Israeli community if he won the elections, and due to his repeated calls on the Israeli electorates to renew confidence in his leadership ability”, he added.

Pakistan: Dawn reports: Journalists protest ‘press intimidation’

ISLAMABAD, Dec 27: The journalists covering the Senate proceedings on Tuesday staged a token walk out from the press gallery in protest against the burning of a Sindhi newspaper in Sukkur and demanded protection to the press against harassment. Minister of State for Information Anisa Zeb Tahirkheli visited the journalists on the directive of Senate Chairman Muhammedmian Soomro and assured them of measures to protect the press against acts of intimidation. Later, speaking on floor of the upper house, the state minister said that she had discussed the issue with the interior minister whose ministry would ensure that such incidents did not occur in future.

American journalists might take some lessons from their Parkistani colleagues in terms of protesting when they are under attack. Writing in the NY Observer this week, Nick Von Hoffman sees many of his colleagues as complicitous in the war:

” Where is American journalism in this? The answer is that we were misled, too. Journalists misled? Isn’t their job to make their way through the miasma of misdirection and put their collective finger on what’s going on?

“Instead, journalists and journalism are sounding like politicians who voted for the war then and are sorry now. They are giving off the identical-sounding boo-hoos that politicians make, and little is more unbecoming to a journalist than complaining that the government lied. That is what governments do.

“If journalism is behaving like a complicitous politician, it has reason to do so. Without the newspapers and the television shows beating the war drums, the United States would not have invaded Iraq. With unquestioning jingoism, the mass media drummed up support for the war, propagating every untruth and every evil fairy tale to come out of the White House and Pentagon until the country was seething in frothy fear.”

MEDIA LITERACY RADIO

Writing in the San Francisco Chronicle, Ben Fong-Torres recently spoke about an interesting Podcast experiment in media literacy:

” NO ONE’S LISTENING: Irene McGee’s main claim to fame is that, as part of MTV’s “The Real World” (Seattle edition, 1998), she walked off the set and, boarding a cab on her way to the airport, was slapped by a “Real World” housemate. As McGee notes on her Web site, “The scene is replayed repeatedly … and was ranked the ninth most shocking reality TV moment ever by VH1.”

“Nowadays, she’s got sort of a radio show called “No One’s Listening,” aimed at young people like herself (she’s 29) and exploring the highfalutin-sounding subject of “media literacy.” Which, McGee says, simply means “giving younger people information and education about the media.”

“I say “sort of a radio show” because it’s done at the tres funky studios of San Francisco State University’s station, KSFS, whose signal barely reaches the outer room. But the program (11 a.m.-1 p.m. Fridays) is also converted (by her producer, Chris Cornell) into a podcast, available at www.nooneslistening.org. Also, KSFS streams at ksfs.sfsu.edu and is on Comcast cable radio at 100.7 FM.

However you receive it, it’s worth a listen.”

Humor: Internet Journalist On the Road

Stuart Nusbaumer reports for Intervention:
http://interventionmag.com/Primary/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=84

RESOURCE: ORWELL’S DISCOVERED PREFACE

”The essay (url below)(was written as a preface to the first edition of Animal Farm but was not included in the published book and only discovered in the author’s original typescript some years later. It is now a favorite citation for critics of our supposedly free press, as an illustration of how the media can work to suppress uncomfortable truths without this necessitating some vast conspiracy.’

http://home.iprimus.com.au/korob/Orwell.html

ADS NOW MAR SCHOOL BUSES

Gary Ruskin of Commerical Alert writes: (yesterday) morning, I was interviewed on the CBS News program “The Early Show” about how schools are putting ads on their school buses.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/12/28/earlyshow/living/ConsumerWatch/main1167398.shtml