Submitted by Bob Burton on
Jeffrey Addicott, Associate Professor of Law and the Director of the Center for Terrorism Law at St. Mary’s University School of Law in San Antonio, Texas, will head a $1 million project funded by the U.S. government to produce a "model statute" to restrict information disclosed under the 40-year-old Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
Submitted by Bob Burton on
Archived internal BBC documents from the 1980's, obtained by The Sunday Telegraph under Freedom of Information legislation, reveal that the British spy service, MI5, was used to vet existing and potential staff at the public broadcaster. The paper reported that the documents revealed that "at one stage it [MI5] was responsible for vetting 6300 BBC posts - almost a third of the total workforce." The BBC adopted "categorical denial" as its "defensive strategy" to deflect questions about the practice by unions.
Submitted by Bob Burton on
Lance Price, who worked as a media adviser to British Prime Minister Tony Blair between 1998 and 2001, writes that Rupert Murdoch "seemed like the 24th member of the cabinet. His voice was rarely heard ...
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
While "the latest target is the New York Times," for reports on a U.S. program tracking international financial records, journalists and media outlets around the world have been criticized -- and prosecuted -- for publishing stories related to the so-called Global War on Terror.
Submitted by Bob Burton on
Kate Corcoran, an account executive at the New York-based PR firm Articulate Communications, told PR Week that one of the benefits of audio news releases that run to a 60-second script is control. "This allows the message to be delivered in the exact way the company chooses," she said.
Citizen journalists on SourceWatch have been investigating and exposing the many Republican connections and the partisan pro-war political agenda behind Vets for Freedom, a new organization with mysterious funding and a flashy website designed by Campaign Solutions, part of the Donatelli Group.
Submitted by Bob Burton on
The Canadian government has until the end of June to respond to a legal action by CanWest MediaWorks, which wants to overturn the ban on direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs. CanWest MediaWorks, which owns a national television network in Canada, lodged the claim in December 2005.
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
In Afghanistan, "the Taliban now have three different press spokesmen covering three separate regions of the country. In Kandahar this summer, Taliban cassettes, DVDs and magazines are available in numbers never previously seen. ... The Taliban have also begun broadcasting a pirate station called the 'Voice of Sharia' from mobile transmitters in at least two southern provinces," reports The Independent.
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
STRATCOM, the U.S. military's Strategic Operations Command, has awarded its new contract for foreign media monitoring to SOS International. Perennial Pentagon favorite the Rendon Group formerly held the contract. SOS will track "foreign press in several languages across Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, Asia and Mexico with a focus on the so-called Global War on Terrorism," reports O'Dwyer's PR Daily.
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
"The tentacles of the transnational mediopolies reach deeper into racial and ethnic communities than ever before," warns media analyst and activist Makani Themba-Nixon. "For some, this is a triumph in diversity. Big corporations reaching consumers of color is something they say we should celebrate. However, this market penetration has gone hand in hand with decreasing media ownership by people of color. ... Diversity in staffing (especially at the top) is closely tied to diversity in ownership.
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