New Media the Mid-Wife of 2nd American Revolution

Topher Morrison

PurpleSerf.com

Image Source: Third World Traveler

Unbiased news and objective reporting are nothing more than modern chimeras.  What is omitted is often the most important part of context.  As in the pursuit of any ideal all journalists can honestly profess is to labor on the path of infinite progress.  Claims to have accomplished an unbiased representation or a truly objective report should be viewed as dubious.  In other words:

"Truth and news are not the same thing." 

– Katharine Graham, owner of The Washington Post 

          The complexity of any event is always best understood much later after all the facts are understood.  Hindsight after all is 20/20.  All any one individual or organization can do is report the constellation of available facts as succinctly and accurately as possible.  

          Despite the groundbreaking advances in technology journalism remains a human production.  The real achievement therefore has not been increased accuracy as much as it has been an amelioration of inequality between establishment media, grassroots journalism and the social media which tie them together.

          The world of journalism is now all, but flat.  Our access to tools and information is unprecedented even when compared with that available five years ago.  The cost of that access has similarly been reduced.  Citizen journalism is on the rise, is providing a valuable supplement to traditional news organs and is unearthing a middle ground between the traditional left and right.

   

"During times of universal deceit.  Telling the truth is revolutionary."

- George Orwell

Video Reporting Possible CIA/Saudi Snipers in Syria

Land Destroyer Report
Tony  Cartalucci
April 23rd, 2011


NOTE: This post is developing as readers send in information and will be updated and expanded as new information comes in. We need some translations and info on this video, and second opinions from Arab speakers familiar with this network's credibility. 

Last Updated April 25, 2011 - No sooner was "Color Revolution's Mystery Gunmen" posted covering the use of provocateurs to escalate foreign-funded color revolutons, when a reader sent in a news clip from Iran's Al-Alam News Network reportedly indicating Saudi/CIA snipers are in Syria taking out protesters. Al-Alam broadcasts throughout the region, in Arabic.

The clip features English text along the bottom stating that Saudi/CIA snipers are operating in Syria, purposefully gunning down protesters in order to expand unrest. It describes a motorcycle driver delivering a sniper to a building before speeding off. Once in position, the sniper fires on protesters. Syrian security forces surround the building and a shootout allegedly takes place. The text concludes stating that the sniper is injured and taken to a hospital.

Another video sent in by a reader shows further evidence that snipers are intentionally shooting protesters, one man caught appears not to be even Arabic at all let alone Syrian. The corporate owned media, meanwhile, continues relying on activist "witness reports."

This report and footage would corroborate both government and eye-witness accounts cited by international media stating that "snipers on rooftops" were shooting at protesters. While "rights activists" assume the snipers are security forces, the government maintains that gunmen have opened fire on protesters and security forces alike. A CNN report from April 5, 2011 cited a Syrian official who stated that "an unknown "armed group" on rooftops shot at protesters and security forces." Activists said they believe the people on the rooftops were snipers from security forces but have put forth no evidence beyond "witness accounts."


Read more of this amazing article at Land Destroyer Report.

Memo suggests FBI had mole inside ABC News in the 1990s

John Solomon and Aaron Mehta

The Center for Public Integrity 

April 5, 2011

A once-classified FBI memo reveals that the bureau treated a senior ABC News journalist as a potential confidential informant in the 1990s, pumping the reporter to ascertain the source of a sensational but uncorroborated tip that the network had obtained during its early coverage of the Oklahoma City bombing.

The journalist, whose name is not disclosed in the document labeled “secret,” not only cooperated but provided the identity of a confidential source, according to the FBI memo — a possible breach of journalistic ethics if he or she did not have the source’s permission.

The ABC employee was even assigned a number in the FBI’s informant database, indicating he or she was still being vetted for suitability as a snitch after providing “highly accurate and reliable information in the past” and then revealing information the network had obtained in the hours just after the 1995 terrorist attack by Timothy McVeigh.

The journalist “advised that a source within the Saudi Arabian Intelligence Service advised that the Oklahoma City bombing was sponsored by the Iraqi Special Services who contracted seven (7) former Afghani Freedom Fighters out of Pakistan,” an April 17, 1996 FBI memo states, recounting the then-ABC journalist’s interview with FBI agents a year earlier on the evening of the April 19, 1995 bombing. (The Iraqi connection, of course, never materialized.)

The memo recounts multiple contacts between the FBI and the journalist over a one-year period in 1995-96 but does not name the network insider, instead using the informant number NY290000-SI-DT and a simple description as “a senior official employed by ABC News for over 15 years.”

ABC News told the Center for Public Integrity that it is not certain about the identity of the journalist involved in the 1995-96 episode, but does not believe he or she still works for the network. Spokesman Jeffrey Schneider said the FBI description of its interactions with the reporter raises serious concerns about intrusions on the First Amendment.

“If true, it would certainly be of grave concern to us that the FBI would have created an informant file based on information gleaned from a reporter,” Schneider said. “It certainly would be very troubling for the FBI to recruit a news employee as a confidential source.”

“It can create a perception of collusion between the government and the news organization. It would put journalists everywhere at risk if people believed that journalists are acting as government agents. And it could raise the specter of the government trying to spy on a news organization,” he added.

Read entire article at The Center for Public Integrity...