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Journalists

Rodolfo Walsh Would Demand We Write In His Place

March 28, 2025 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. , , , ,
On an evening in September 2024, Argentina’s President Javier Milei stood before a large crowd in Parque Lezama in Buenos Aires. He wore his signature dark leather jacket and barked out his speech, the crowd devouring every word. ‘Here you have the trolls’, he said, ‘corrupt journalists, shady characters. These are the trolls’. Then, he pointed at the people in the crowd and said that they were invisible because the journalists had ‘the monopoly on microphones’. It was harsh language, a replica of Donald Trump’s statement that journalists are the ‘enemy of the people’ (which is itself an echo of US President Richard Nixon’s statement to his advisor Henry Kissinger in 1972: ‘The press is the enemy. The press is the enemy. The establishment is the enemy. The professors are the enemy. Professors are the enemy. Write that on the blackboard 100 times and never forget it’). These statements do not come without cost. Since Milei came to office in December 2023, attacks on journalists have increased.

The ‘Disappearing’ War Chat

March 27, 2025 Joe Lauria, Consortium News. , , , , , , , , ,
In his article about being invited by U.S. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz to a Signal chat with the U.S. secretaries of state, defense and treasury, the U.S. vice president and the directors of national intelligence and the C.I.A., Atlantic magazine editor Jeffrey Goldberg writes that Waltz set at least some of the text messages in the chat to disappear. Goldberg wrote: Waltz set some of the messages in the Signal group to disappear after one week, and some after four. That raises questions about whether the officials may have violated federal records law: Text messages about official acts are considered records that should be preserved.

Max Blumenthal: Why Did The Feds Question Me?

February 27, 2025 Max Blumenthal, Consortium News. , , ,
As I approached the customs line at Dulles International Airport early on the morning of Feb. 24, a man called out to me, “Mr. Blumenthal?” He identified himself as an officer with Customs and Border Protection, and led me into a cavernous secondary screening room, where he treated me to a strange and disconcerting questioning session. I had just returned from a leisurely trip to Nicaragua with my family during which I participated in no political activities. But the agent’s line of questioning suggested federal authorities had little interest in my visit to Nicaragua, a country that happens to be controlled by a socialist-oriented government on Washington’s hit list.

Swiss Official Who Jailed Journalist Ali Abunimah Is Pro-Israel Fanatic

February 13, 2025 Wyatt Reed, The Grayzone. , , , , , , ,
The Swiss official who ordered the arrest of renowned Palestinian-American journalist Ali Abunimah justified doing so on the false and defamatory basis that Abunimah is “an Islamist Jew-hater.” Mario Fehr, the head of Zurich’s Department of Security, made the bogus accusation in a recent comment to the Swiss publication NZZ, which also falsely characterized Abunimah as an “Islamist” and an “extremist.” Swiss authorities detained Abunimah on Jan. 25, after they initially allowed him entry into Switzerland following an hour-long interrogation.

Austrian Police Detain Richard Medhurst; Accuse Him Of Being Hamas

February 8, 2025 Joe Lauria, Consortium News. , , , , ,
British independent journalist Richard Medhurst said Thursday he was detained this week by Austrian police and intelligence agents and accused of being a member of Hamas. Medhurst, who lives in Austria and is a fierce critic of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, said police raided his home on Monday, took his devices and interrogated him. “They essentially lured me into a trap,” he said on a video posted on X. The journalist said immigration authorities called him to a meeting where they threatened to revoke his residency because of his reporting on Palestine and Lebanon.

United Nations Censures United Kingdom’s Abuse Of Terrorism Act

February 7, 2025 Craig Murray, Consortium News. , , , , ,
Four U.N. special rapporteurs have written jointly to the U.K. government demanding explanation of its inappropriate persecution of journalists and political activists under the Terrorism Act. They state that those persecuted: appear to have no credible connection to ‘terrorist’ or ‘hostile’ activity. The cases taken up by the United Nations are those of Johanna Ross (Ganyukova), John Laughland, Kit Klarenberg, Craig Murray (yes, me), Richard Barnard and Richard Medhurst. Under this U.N. special procedure, the letter is sent to the government in question which has 60 days to respond. This letter was sent by the U.N. to Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government on Dec. 4. No reply having been received, it has now been published.

Switzerland Deports Electronic Intifada’s Ali Abunimah

January 29, 2025 The Electronic Intifada. , , , , , ,
The Electronic Intifada’s executive director Ali Abunimah was deported by Switzerland on Monday after spending two nights in jail. Abunimah described his experience in a statement he made upon arrival to Istanbul airport late Monday. He said that he was “cut off from communication with the outside world” and “not even permitted to contact my family.” He said that police accused him of “offending against Swiss law” but was not presented with any charges. Abunimah added that he was questioned “by Swiss defense ministry intelligence agents without the presence of my lawyer, and they again refused to allow me to contact her or my family.”

Biden’s Legacy: The World Is More Unsafe For Journalists

January 20, 2025 Kevin Gosztola, The Dissenter. , , , ,
President Joe Biden’s administration proclaimed numerous times that “journalism is not a crime” and that the United States government supports “free and independent media around the world.” Biden said the “free press is crumbling” in his farewell address. But the reality is that Biden and his administration helped make the state of the free press more fragile. Over 200 journalists in Gaza were killed by Israeli military forces armed by the Biden administration. Other client states, like India and Saudi Arabia, trampled on the human rights of reporters without fearing much criticism.

Journalists Thrown Out Of Antony Blinken’s Final Briefing

January 17, 2025 Eloise Goldsmith, Common Dreams. , , ,
Two journalists were removed from Secretary of State Antony Blinken's final news conference on Thursday after interrupting Blinken's remarks to heckle him about the United States' policy toward Gaza, a day after a cease-fire deal between Hamas and Israel was announced. One of the reporters, independent journalist Sam Husseini, was physically carried out of the briefing room by security. Less than two minutes into Blinken's remarks, as he was thanking the reporters in the attendance for "asking tough questions," Max Blumenthal, the editor in chief of The Grayzone—an independent news—addressed Blinken, saying loudly in reference to the cease-fire deal:"300 reporters in Gaza were on the receiving end of your bombs.

Why More And More Journalists Are Launching Worker-Owned Outlets

January 9, 2025 Angela Fu, Poynter. , , , , ,
When staff at the Long Beach Post and Long Beach Business Journal decided to unionize in March, they were almost immediately hit with layoffs. The paper’s parent company, a nonprofit called the Long Beach Journalism Initiative, laid off nine of the 14 staff involved with the union drive just four days after their unionization attempt. Undeterred, those nine workers — along with three others who had gone on strike in protest — decided to start their own publication: a worker-owned cooperative called the Long Beach Watchdog. “We wanted to build this as a place that respected workers, respected the labor that they do, and allowed everyone a seat at the table and a voice in how the business is run,” said Dennis Dean

Asheville Blade Journalists Sue Over Illegal Arrests

January 7, 2025 Kevin Gosztola, The Dissenter. , , ,
A news co-op in North Carolina and two journalists convicted of trespassing offenses filed a federal lawsuit alleging that their constitutional rights were violated by Asheville Police Department officers. In December 2021, residents in the Asheville community gathered at Aston Park for five evenings to urge the City of Asheville to leave people without any shelter alone in the park after it closed at 10 p.m. They took a stand on Christmas, refusing to disperse. Police responded by sweeping the encampment and arresting six people. Two of the people arrested were reporters for the Asheville Blade—Matilda Bliss and Veronica Coit.

20 Years After His Death, Gary Webb’s Truth Is Still Dangerous

December 31, 2024 Belén Fernández, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. , , , , ,
Twenty years ago this month, on December 10, 2004, former San Jose Mercury News investigative reporter Gary Webb died by apparent suicide, following a stretch of depression. The subject of the 2014 film Kill the Messenger, Webb had left the newspaper in 1997 after his career was systematically destroyed because he had done what journalists are supposed to do: speak truth to power. In August 1996, Webb penned a three-part series for the Mercury News (8/18–20/96) that documented how profits from the sale of crack cocaine in Los Angeles in the 1980s had been funneled to the Contras, the right-wing, CIA-backed mercenary army responsible for helping to perpetrate, to borrow Noam Chomsky’s words, “large-scale terrorist war” against Nicaragua.

Why Did The FBI Show Up At Alison Weir’s Door?

November 22, 2024 Robert Inlakesh, MintPress News. , , , , ,
Journalist and author Alison Weir has raised concerns over what she describes as an unsettling visit from the FBI, alleging that agents showed up at her home unannounced to question her. In a public statement on November 18, Weir revealed that she was approached by agents who informed her the visit was connected to a matter involving Press TV, the Iranian state-owned news outlet. She said she asked agents to allow a family member to be present before continuing the discussion, during which she learned the agents had been directed by one of their offices to “check in with certain people.”

Keeping Your Data Safe When Reporting From The Field

November 5, 2024 Davis Erin Anderson, Freedom of the Press. , , , , ,
It’s not uncommon for police to seize cellphones and other equipment from journalists who are covering protests. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker has documented at least 49 cases of equipment searches and seizures targeting journalists covering protests, and many of those have happened in the last year. One case that I want to highlight is the case of Dilan Gohill. He is a student journalist at Stanford for The Stanford Daily, and he was arrested last June while he was covering a student protest on campus. It was a pro-Palestinian protest in which protesters broke into a campus building and barricaded themselves inside, and Dilan, in his capacity as a reporter, was with them to report on what was happening.

101 BBC Journalists Say It Is Biased Against Palestine

November 3, 2024 Jewish Voices for Labour, Scheer Post. , , , ,
The BBC has been accused of bias against Israel but here over 230 people, including 101 BBC journalists have argued that there is a strong bias towards Israel and certainly the Israeli narrative. The letter was sent to the Independent arguing that Broadcaster bias is failing to hold Israel to account. It is noteworthy that only 72 of the 230 signatories felt able to sign openly and this included none of the BBC journalists. Distrust of mainstream media is growing but there is a real need for unbiased reporting. The BBC has previously claimed that the fact it receives complaints from those in support of Israel as well as those in support of Palestine shows its impartiality.
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