television

America wants to be known in Mideast as Champion of Free Speech, so Why is it Censoring Iranian Websites?

Oxford (Special to Informed Comment) – The Bureau of Industry and Security, an agency of the United States Department of Justice, in a statement on Tuesday 22 June announced that it had seized 33 websites and news outlets used by the Iranian Islamic Radio and Television Union (IRTVU), and another three run by the “Iran-backed” […]

Donald Trump

In Siccing Justice Dept. on Jimmy Kimmel and SNL, Trump Channeled worst Mideast Dictators

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Bassem Youssef was Egypt’s most famous comedian in the 2000s and until 2014. His weekly half-hour satire, “The Program,” skewered the government of president-for-life Hosni Mubarak in the run-up to the 2011 youth revolt. Mubarak was thin-skinned but did allow some comedians and pundits to blow off steam. He did, […]

Corruption

Could Dominion and Smartmatic take down Fox News for Libel and Reckless Disregard for the Truth?

The Conversation

By Nancy Costello | – Free speech advocates have long believed that suing a news organization threatens free speech. Democracy needs a press to be free to report, without fear or favor, the facts as it sees them. But recent legal actions against news organizations indicate that the First Amendment provides sufficient free speech protection, […]

journalism

‘Rightly’ as a New Soft Power Tool: The Motivation behind Al Jazeera’s American Right-Wing Platform

Hamdullah Baycar

Exeter (Special to Informed Comment) – Al Jazeera announcement to launch a right-wing media platform, Rightly, in the US surprised many people, including its employees. Over 100 hundred employees from Al Jazeera penned an open letter to the Al Jazeera administration asking the halt of the platform based on not fitting their ‘values.’ Michael Weaver, […]

Far Right

We’re Stalked by the 4 Horsemen of Apocalyptic Media: Rush, Roger, Rupert, and The Donald May Ride Forever

Tomdispatch

By Robert Lipsyte | – ( Tomdispatch.com) – The Four Horsemen of our media apocalypse — Rush Limbaugh, Roger Ailes, Rupert Murdoch, and Donald Trump — have ridden roughshod over us this past half-century leaving their hoofprints on our politics, our culture, and our lives. Two of them are gone now, but their legacies, including […]

censorship

Exiled Turkish journalist Can Dündar sentenced to 27.5 years in prison for Reporting on Ankara’s aid to Syrian Fundamentalist Rebels

Committee to Protect Journalists

( Committee to Protect Journalists) | – The Committee to Protect Journalists condemned a Turkish court’s conviction and sentencing of exiled journalist Can Dündar. On December 23, the 14th Istanbul Court of Serious Crimes announced that Dündar, who lives in Germany, had been sentenced to 18 years and nine months in prison for an espionage […]

Donald Trump

Call for Fox Media News Monopoly to be Broken up: Rupert Murdoch an “arrogant cancer on … democracy” – Rudd

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd has called for the break up of his country’s media monopolies (almost all major media are owned by just two corporations). One of the two media monopolies he was slamming is Rupert Murdoch’s Newscorp. In its incarnation as Fox News, the same company has […]

Donald Trump

How our TV News is letting Trump get away with Claiming the Pandemic is Behind Us when we have a 9/11 every 3 Days

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Republican National Convention wants the pandemic to be in the past. It isn’t. Cases are up almost 1 percent this week. We still have over 40,000 new cases daily, down from a peak of 70,000 in mid-July. Some of the decline is a result of less testing, connived at […]

Authoritarianism

Strange Attractors: Why is Trump’s Covid-19 Train Wreck so Mesmerizing to Corporate Media and the rest of Us?

Rebecca Gordon

(Tomdispatch.com) – My partner and I have been fighting about politics since we met in 1965. I was 13. She was 18 and my summer camp counselor. (It was another 14 years before we became a couple.) We spent that first summer arguing about the Vietnam War. I was convinced that the U.S. never should […]