Blame Carly

I learned about Animals Being Dicks blog from Carly, forwarded this one to my 14-year-old daughter, who responded: "Dad, you're so weird."

Isabel blogged about her idea for a documentary, which I think could become a Super Size Me-like hit.

I had this idea (that I considered brilliant) although once told to my roommates I got mixed reviews. My idea is to make a documentary following a woman around for a month who has to do everything that the women’s magazine Cosmopolitan tells you to do– from makeup and dating tips, to “how to please your man”.

Reporter tapes his own arrest at Occupy Nashville

At Occupy Nashville, a reporter for the long-established weekly Nashville Scene was arrested for violating a curfew imposed by Tennessee's governor (a night judge questioned whether that's legal), was threatened with a "resisting arrest" charge, and was later charged with "public intoxication." Here's a report on the arrest from Nashville's big daily.

Brittany G. notes that You Tube has resisted law enforcement efforts to remove videos which cast them in a bad light.

Washington Post under fire for Occupy coverage (h/t Maya).

Troubled by unfair coverage, some activists fear talking to journalists, as Gena M found out.

Web & Wireless Phone Censorship

The media reform group Free Press highlights media corporations caught censoring web or cellphone traffic.

Inner City Press, a monitor of Wall Street and the United Nations, temporarily is delisted from Google News. The de-listing happened soon after Matt Lee of Inner City Press challenged Google over its commitment to free expression.

In 2007, consumer rights groups mobilized to tell the Federal Communications Commission: "No More Media Consolidation." CommonCause was blocked from placing an anti-consolidation ad on My Space, which Rupert Murdoch had bought in 2005. The banned ad featured a photo of Murdoch and the caption: "This is the face of Big Media."

Was it "My Space" or "Murdoch's space"?

Will Pay Walls Around News Content Work?

No, says Arianna Huffington in May 2009 U.S. Senate testimony. And here's "Life After the Pay Wall" nightmare scenario from Advertising Age.

Two journalist uinons end boycott of Huffpost

Journalist unions say it's okay to write for HuffingtonPost.

Former student blogged...

...her complaint about Boston Globe's paywall around the Globe's editorial against Time/Warner jacking up postal rates on smaller magazines.

Does Internet "Kill Switch" Legislation...

...threaten political censorship of the Internet? Online activist groups like Demand Progress have mobilized against such legislation.

Pre-financing of indy media projects

Spot.Us involves the community in funding local watchdog journalism, as explained by its young founder, David Cohn

Kickstarter.com is "a funding platform for artists, designers, filmmakers, musicians, journalists, inventors, explorers..." A key aspect of Kickstarter and similar funding platforms is "All or Nothing funding."

On Kickstarter, a project must reach its funding goal before time runs out or no money changes hands. Why? It protects everyone involved. Creators aren’t expected to develop their project without necessary funds, and it allows anyone to test concepts without risk.

"The Internet is My Religion"

Powerful speech from Brave New Films' Jim Gilliam (who was raised a conservative Christian evangelical) discussing how the Internet offered him salvation -- and literally saved his life.

MTV trying to glom onto...

...Occupy Wall Street, reports Gothamist.

Occupy Maine...

...protesters attacked by some sort of chemical bomb.

New York Times....

...profiled Democracy Now! in today's paper.

Visa, MasterCard, PayPal blockade....

...helping to
strangle WikiLeaks.

Ramparts magazine

One of the most explosive indy magazines of the 1960s, Ramparts published photos of the impact of U.S. napalm (a chemical weapon that eats away human flesh) on Vietnamese civilians. Martin Luther King, Jr. credited those photos with being the spark that got him to break his silence and speak out loudly against the Vietnam War.

Besides investigative journalism and scoops, Ramparts was known for its cover art. Examples here and
here and here.

1960s alternative sex/drugs columnist Dr. HIPpocrates...

...paved the way for "Savage Love" column by Dan Savage in today's alternative weeklies.

Egypt's Security Forces...

...can't intimidate like in the old days,less than a year ago. Watch this video, in which an Al Jazeera journalist turns the tables on Security Service personnel.

"The Mayor's Afraid of You Tube"

On Friday, hours after New York authorities made a last-minute decision NOT to clear #OccupyWallStreet protesters from Liberty Plaza, Michael Moore said this to MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell (begin 2:54 for context):

"One cop down there actually today. I asked...'Why don't you think the eviction happened?' And he said, 'Cause the Mayor's afraid of You Tube.'...The power of the new media, the media that's in the hands of the people -- that those in charge are afraid of what could possibly go out."

Harassment of indy journalists

Since the 1960s when the FBI and local police engaged in violence and harassment against "underground weeklies," repression against dissenting U.S. outlets has greatly deceased. But it has not fully ended, as in Minnesota during the 2008 Republican convention.

Or as in Alaska, during last year's election. An online reporter was handcuffed and detained for asking questions of the Alaska Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, Joe Miller. The reporter -- a well-known journalist in the area and founder of Alaska Dispatch -- was handcuffed by Miller's security personnel after a dispute over his questioning of the candidate about his role as a former part-time city attorney. Here's Alaska Dispatch's
version of the detention. The critical reporting on Miller's past -- and this heavy-handed incident -- contributed to Miller's stunning defeat in the November election.

Margaret Sanger proves that media heroes...

...are sometimes flawed. This critique accuses her of flirting with racist (eugenics-based) arguments in support of birth control.

Social upheaval breeds indy media

Lengthy New York Times piece on The Occupied Wall Street Journal newspaper, inspired by and distributed at the OccupyWallStreet camp. It reports that the founders of the paper hoped to raise $12,000 on Kickstarter.com, but have now surpassed $75,000. See the "liberated" newspaper online.

NY1 on OccupyWallStreet and indy media.

One of Steve Jobs "bibles" -- an indy magazine

The late Steve Jobs has cited an indy publication as being influential in starting him down his unique path -- The Whole Earth Catalog. From his 2005 Stanford commencement speech:

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960′s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions....

It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. H/t OpenCulture.com

Dinner with Amy

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

After meeting Amy at a dinner party, Regis and sidekick Kelly acknowledge their Regis and Kelly TV show is about "nothing." (Is that a parody of the Saturday Night Live skit, Morning Latte?)

Like Upton Sinclair in his era,

...Stephen Colbert in our era accepted the challenge of experiencing difficult working conditions -- in the fields doing farm work.

Anti-Lynching Legacy of Ida B. Wells

In last dozen years, Northwestern University journalism students and their professor have been instrumental in proving the innocence of many prisoners, several of whom had been sentenced to death.

Lynching prompted the classic Billie Holiday song,"Strange Fruit," which she recorded in the late 1930s over the objections of her record company: "Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze, Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees"

Sports blogosphere ruining sports journalism?

Loud, already-dated 2008 debate between traditional sports newspaper journalist Buzz Bissinger and editor Will Leitch of Deadspin.com, the sometimes raunchy sports blog/website. Debate aired on Bob Costas' HBO sports show.

Arrest Journalists and You Pay

There's been a settlement in the lawsuit filed on behalf of Amy Goodman and two Democracy Now! producers who were arrested while covering protests outside the 2008 Republican convention. According to the Democracy Now! statement:

"The settlement includes $100,000 in compensation paid by the St. Paul and Minneapolis police departments and the Secret Service. The settlement also includes an agreement by the St. Paul police department to implement a training program aimed at educating officers regarding the First Amendment rights of the press and public with respect to police operations, including proper procedures for dealing with the press covering demonstrations."

Journalists Re-fight Old Battles

Sometimes journalism can help expose a problem -- like the jailing of people for being in debt -- thereby leading to reform. 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 recently did.

"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."

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 Indy Newspapers -- NOT Reader-Friendly

See crowded layout of William Lloyd Garrison's abolitionist publication, The Liberator, here and here. Not exactly HuffingtonPost. No half-naked actors.

Cady Stanton's/Anthony's feminist publication, The Revolution, was a tiny bit less dense.

Content was king (or queen) back then.