Dinner with Amy Goodman

In the early 1900s, the socialist Appeal to Reason newspaper offered yachts, fruit farms and motorcycles as premiums to bring in subscriptions and revenue. Democracy Now! offers Dinner and Show with Amy Goodman. 

Where are today's Upton Sinclairs? Stephen Colbert?

Colbert accepted the challenge of experiencing difficult working conditions as a farm worker. Here he is doing farm labor (in upstate New York).

Or is it Barbara Ehrenreich, who worked at low wage jobs (waitress, maid, Wal-Mart employee) for her book Nickel and Dimed to see if she could make ends meet?

Students carry on Ida B. Wells tradition

Over the last 15 years, Northwestern University students (in journalism and law) and their professors  were instrumental in proving the innocence of many prisoners in Illinois, several of whom had been sentenced to death. Their investigative journalism was controversial and far from perfect, but it ultimately sparked the abolition of the death penalty in Illinois in 2011.

Lynching prompted the classic Billie Holiday song,"Strange Fruit," which she recorded independently in 1939 -- getting around the objections of Columbia, her record company: "Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze, strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees." It ultimately became her biggest selling record. Time magazine denounced the song as a "piece of musical propaganda." The song's lyrics were inspired by this photograph of a 1930 lynching in Indiana.

Re Legacy: No schools are named after newspaper editors because they ignored or apologized for racist lynchings. But Ida B. Wells has a high school named after her (school home page here) in San Francisco (just across the park from the famous "painted ladies" Victorian houses.)

"School of Rock" Bway musical. . .

. . . to open in November, spreading the word about "stickin' it to the man." (H/t to Haley D.)

Journalists Sometimes Have to Re-Fight Old Battles

Dissident publications throughout history exposed many social problems (like the labor weeklies in the 1830s spotlighting the problem of people being jailed simply for being in debt). Exposure led to reform; debtors prisons were abolished. But other journalists --  years or generations later -- may have to keep exposing the issue . . . as these investigative journalists for the big mainstream daily in Minneapolis did in 2011.

"It's not a crime to owe money, and debtors' prisons were abolished in the United States in the 19th century. But people are routinely being thrown in jail for failing to pay debts. In Minnesota, which has some of the most creditor-friendly laws in the country, the use of arrest warrants against debtors has jumped 60 percent over the past four years, with 845 cases in 2009, a Star Tribune analysis of state court data has found."

The Nation returned to the topic of debtors' prisons last year, and Izzy Award-winner John Carlos Frey reported on the same theme for public TV last December.

 I.F. Stone pointed out that some reforms don't happen except through the work of generations of journalists and democracy activists: 

“The only kinds of fights worth fighting are those you are going to lose, because somebody has to fight them and lose and lose and lose until someday, somebody who believes as you do wins. In order for somebody to win an important, major fight 100 years hence, a lot of other people have got to be willing - for the sheer fun and joy of it - to go right ahead and fight, knowing you're going to lose. You mustn't feel like a martyr. You've got to enjoy it.”

Early newspapers NOT reader-friendly

See crowded layout of William Lloyd Garrison's abolitionist publication, The Liberator, here. Not exactly HuffingtonPost. No half-naked models. Elizabeth Cady Stanton's/Susan B. Anthony's feminist publication, The Revolution, was almost as dense. Content was queen back then. Mainstream press not always ready-friendly either in that era.

Student profiles

Papers were written profiling Rookie;  the Louisville alt weekly LEO Weekly;  YES! Magazine;  PresidioSports.com;  Thought Catalog;  Salon;  Upworthy;  Ms. Magazine;  Democracy Now!

Ms. Magazine cofounder Gloria Steinem will be portrayed in an upcoming HBO miniseries on the founding of the magazine and the 1960s/70s feminist movement. Here's Steinem's 1990 expose -- 18 years after the founding of Ms. -- on the censorial impacts of advertising on Ms. and women's magazines generally: "Sex, Lies & Advertising." Ms. has for years published ads deemed offensive in "No Comment" section (with contact info to reach the advertisers).

Internet Hoaxes

Question: Are younger educated people who were raised on the Internet LESS likely to be taken in by hoax emails such as Obama as "radical Muslim" than Jon Stewart's 80-year-old aunt? Or clothing designer Tommy Hilfiger as racist?

Lately, viral video hoaxes seem more common than text hoaxes -- like "Golden Eagle Snatches Kid" hoax, which, unknown to ABC, was perpetrated by film/animation students using computer imaging in Montreal. And like "Worst Twerk Fail EVER - Girl Catchces Fire," which was a hoax perpetrated by the Jimmy Kimmel show as self-promotion. (NBC "Today" show interviewed me in 2013 about separating fact from fiction in media and Internet.)

Big-selling book, thanks to bloggers and Internet buzz

Is U.S. media system failing?

Typical of similar academic studies over the years, a 2008 study compared the level of public knowledge about current events in Denmark, Finland, United Kingdom and the United States. It found that the countries where TV/radio is dominated by public broadcasting -- Denmark and Finland -- were the best informed. Our country, dominated by corporate commercial media, was the least informed. The U.K.'s public, with its mix of Murdoch tabloids and BBC, was in the middle. The study's authors suggest that differing media systems play a role in those results.

A 2003 study of public knowledge of facts related to the Iraq War found that misperceptions among U.S. residents (that evidence linked Iraq and al Qaeda; that weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq; and that world public opinion favored the US invasion) were greatest among those whose primary info source was Fox News -- and least among those whose primary info source was public broadcasting. (A Pew poll taken in Aug. 2010 found that almost 1 in 5 Americans believed President Obama to be a Muslim; only 34% knew he is a Christian. 43% chose "don't know.")

Night(mare) in Tunisia . . . for Longtime Dictator

Tunisia is a small, Mediterranean country in North Africa.  Back in 2007, Tunisian citizen-journalists had documented the tourism/shopping sprees of the dictator's wife aboard the presidential plane to Europe and global fashion capitals. (H/t Global Voices)

In 2010, the TuniLeaks website was set up to post (WikiLeaks-released) internal U.S. Embassy documents candidly exposing the corruption of Tunisia's dictatorship.

Fascinating photo (released by Ben Ali's office) of dictator Ben Ali visiting the hospital bed of the desperate young man who set himself on fire in protest in Dec. 2010 -- the young man didn't live long enough to learn that his act led to the overthrow of Ben Ali after sustained,Internet-fueled nonviolent protests. 

Amid the protests, Tunisian rapper El General put out this widely-circulated music video against Ben Ali that urged people to join protest. It led to his arrest for a few days. Soon after, the dictator fled. The song went on to become an anthem in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere.

U.S. jazz legend Dizzy Gillespie performs his classic jazz tune "Night in Tunisia," first recorded in 1944.

OhMyNews TV reporter . . .

. . . tries to get answers in Dec 2013 from a former South Korean president who appointed a discredited director of the National Intelligence Service. Spy chief Won Sei-hoon faced legal charges that he'd meddled in the 2012 presidential election on behalf of the winning conservative candidate through a covert Internet effort to smear opposition candidates. The reporter asked the former president: Do you feel responsible as a person who appointed Won to this post? Soon after this TV report, the spy chief was convicted of graft.  

President Caught on Video: "Get Lost, You A*#hole"

In 2008, then-President of France Nicolas Sarkozy was caught on video calling a disgruntled citizen an "idiot" or "dumbass" or "a**hole" (depending on translation). French politicians were having difficulty tolerating the scrutiny of online coverage (including online video) -- especially compared to deferential coverage they're accustomed to from traditional media.

A former U.S. president (then governor of Texas) caught on video

Mexico's "Yo Soy 132" Youth Movement Erupted in 2012

This Internet-driven movement didn't alter the outcome of Mexico's July 2012 presidential election -- since the candidate being "imposed" by the two major TV networks ended up winning.  But the student activists of Yo Soy 132 had impact; they set up an historic presidential debate that was carried online (the TV-promoted frontrunner, Enrique Pena Nieto, was the only candidate who didn't up).  It was this YouTube video that launched the movement, after a campus protest had embarrassed Pena Nieto.

Global Voices Online

Global Voices is a community of hundreds of writers, bloggers, experts and translators around the world who post reports from blogs and citizen media, emphasizing "voices that are not ordinarily heard in international mainstream media." For example, this 2014 Vlog post on Latin American subway musicians & performers. Or, a win for activists in Brazil.  

This 2011 post features short videos from a competition on gender equality in the Ukraine.

This 2010 post features a public protest by a brave professor and blogger in China, offering himself as a slave.

Video cameras and blogging for human rights

Launched in 1992 with the help of musician Peter Gabriel, the nonprofit Witness.org began distributing video cameras in hopes of minimizing human rights abuses. Now they help and train people in the safe use of cell phones and cameras to record abuses. Their slogan: "See it. Film it. Change it."

The Israeli human rights group, B'Tzelem, provides cameras to Palestinians so they can record Israeli settlers who harass Palestinians, including incidents of intimidation in and around the Palestinian city of Hebron, which rightwing Israeli religious settlers believe God has bequeathed to Jews.

Vancouver Film School students created an inspiring video, "Iran, A Nation of Bloggers," and put it online months before the tech-fueled protests over Iran's disputed 2009 election.

Egyptian bloggers and facebookers paved the way for 2011 democracy uprising

With the Mubarak dictatorship in control of all major media in Egypt, brave Egyptian "citizen journalists" risked imprisonment and torture to blog or tweet about human rights abuses. Here's renowned Egyptian blogger Wael Abbas interviewed on BBC in January 2010. Over the years, Abbas was harassed, censored and assaulted by authorities -- and was briefly detained in Feb 2011 during the uprising.

Sharif Abdel Kouddous covered the 18-day uprising in 2011 for Democracy Now!, and he was the central character in an HBO documentary about the Egyptian revolution. For his work in Egypt, he was awarded (on I.C. campus in April 2012) the Izzy Award for outstanding achievement in independent media.  (Here's a paperback "Tweets from Tahrir.")

In June, 2010, Khaled Said was beaten to death by police in public for the crime of Internet use and, apparently, exposing police corruption. His martyrdom inspired protests and Internet organizing that led to the uprising six months later that ended the Mubarak dictatorship. Middle East-based Google exec and activist Wael Ghonim set up the galvanizing "We Are All Khaled Said" Facebook page in Arabic.  (Here's an English FB version of "We Are All Khaled Said.")

Tavi Gevinson, fashion blogger at 11, editor-in-chief at 15

This interview was recorded when fashion blogger Tavi was 15, and had founded Rookie. At age 16, she appeared on Colbert Report. By age 17, she was costarring in a Hollywood movie ("Enough Said"). Last year, at age 18, she became a Broadway actress, starring opposite Michael Cera.

Everytime I visit this place I lose valuable minutes from my life

Upworthy.com promotes social/political issues virally through clever headlines, some text, and often visuals or video like this animation on advertising/media impact on girls.

Changes have come to Upworthy

More original stories this year since Amy O'Leary left NY Times to become Upworthy editorial director.

The Battle over WikiLeaks

In Dec. 2010, blogger Glenn Greenwald (a WikiLeaks supporter) explained independent journalism to a CNN correspondent. WikiLeaks website is here. This leaked video (with more than 15 million YouTube views) shows the killing of employees of the Reuters news agency and wounding of children by US attack helicopters in Iraq.

Photo above was taken in August 2012 when I visited the Ecuadoran embassy in London (WikiLeaks' founder had taken refuge inside); I was there days after the British government threatened to invade the embassy, a serious breach of international law.

Following in WikiLeaks footsteps is a new U.S.-based group founded by Norman Solomon, ExposeFacts.org.  (Full disclosure: I am an advisor).

On the 2015 World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders, the United States has fallen to 49th out of 180 countries -- partly because of the federal government's harassment of investigative journalists & whistleblowers, as well as arrests of journalists covering demonstrations. 

Local online watchdog nonprofits are filling journalistic gaps

As dailies have shrunk, local online nonprofit news sites have sprouted, such as the well-funded VoiceofSanDiego.org and the professionally-staffed MinnPost.com ("a thoughtful approach to news"). Nationwide, local watchdog outlets are trying to figure out how to survive, reported Jodi Enda in a 2012 piece for American Journalism Review.

The man who inspired Edward Snowden to take documents OUTSIDE the NSA . . . to journalists

NSA official Thomas Drake tried to get changes at NSA (regarding surveillance on millions of innocent citizens) by working within the proper governmental authorities -- and he was the victim of retaliation and prosecution. Edward Snowden recently told Al Jazeera: "If there hadn't been a Thomas Drake, there couldn't have been an Edward Snowden."

Winners of First Izzy Award: Amy Goodman & Glenn Greenwald

Soon after accepting their Izzy Awards in Ithaca in March 2009, Greenwald and Goodman spoke about independent media on public TV's Bill Moyers' Journal.

Some journalists too cozy with their official sources?

In 2003, a CNN executive actually boasted about having given the Pentagon an advisory role on who his on-air experts would be during the Iraq war. . . At 2007 Radio-Television Correspondents Association Dinner, top journalists (including then-NBC White House correspondent David Gregory) were literally dancing with a top source, controversial Bush aide Karl Rove. These are social/charitable events where journalists and newsmakers are expected to have some fun, but is it symbolic of too much coziness? . . . Whether dealing with political leaders or celebrity athletes, the quest to gain access to famous newsmakers can undermine independent journalism, according to indy TV host Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks, one of the most successful independent web TV shows.

"Independent Media in a Time of War" featuring Amy Goodman

A group of volunteer citizen-journalists (Hudson Mohawk Independent Media Center) produced a short documentary based on an April 2003 speech by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!  At the time, many in mainstream media were cheering what they believed was a successful, nearly-completed invasion of Iraq; President Bush's approval rating was sky high.

Bold question from indy blogger launches big controversy

A former student in the Spring 2009 indy media class, Chris Lisee, blogged about the impact that a single off-key journalist can have.

Does indy Journalism have the same mission as Rock 'n' Roll? Let's consult Jack Black.

In the movie School of Rock, a substitute teacher (played by Jack Black) explains the purpose of rock 'n' roll to his 5th grade students: stickin' it to the man. Do independent media share a similar purpose?  (The School of Rock kids in the original cast had a 10-year reunion with Jack Black.)

Drudge -- still has clout

Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report, conservative with tabloid sensibilities exerts major Internet influence as a newswire and referral service.

Short Video Impacts 2008 Presidential Election

This 2008 video short "McCain's Mansions" from Robert Greenwald's Brave New Films (with more than 600,000 views) percolated up through the media food chain into the mainstream, where it exploded.  It impacted the campaign, as shown by this self-promotional video, "The Making of McCain's Mansions."

Four years earlier, Greenwald's "Outfoxed" -- a low-budget documentary -- was reviewed by the New York Times movie critic at a "house party" held at a Brooklyn bar.