Tag: journalists

US Targets Journalists Who Criticize Administration’s Foreign Policy

Scott Ritter was pulled off a NY-to-Istanbul flight yesterday by US officials and his passport confiscated in a startling new development in the government’s open drive to censor and silence critics of the Administration’s foreign policies at a time when the United States is supplying billions of dollars in arms to foment wider war in Russia, accelerate the attacks on Gazans and set the stage for war with China over Taiwan.

A Marine veteran and true American patriot, Mr. Ritter is also a noted former Chief UN weapons inspector, author and journalist.  He was enroute to Russia to attend an international conference in St. Petersburg.  

Mr. Ritter first came to my attention when he testified at a Capitol hearing I sponsored to inquire into the Bush Administration’s plans to attack Iraq. Ritter warned in August of 2002 that a case had not been made for attacking Iraq.  

Had Congress listened to Mr. Ritter, the US would have been spared the loss of thousands of our soldiers and the waste of trillions of tax dollars. Over one million Iraqis died as a result of the US attack on their country. America’s financial and moral debt will never be able to be repaid, but would not exist if we had simply looked at the evidence he presented.

Keep reading

Police are still arresting journalists. Why?

Journalists Carolyn Cole and Molly Hennessy-Fiske were reporting for the Los Angeles Times on the George Floyd protests in Minneapolis on May 30, 2020, when they were brutally attacked by the Minnesota State Patrol. Last week, they settled a lawsuit against the city for $1.2 million.

It’s a welcome sign of accountability for police who violate the rights of journalists covering protests. But nearly four years after the Floyd protests led to a spike in journalists arrested and assaulted, protests remain a dangerous place for reporters.

Just a few months into 2024, the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker has documented four arrests or detentions of journalists covering protests in New York, Tennessee, and California.

None of these arrests have received much attention or public outcry. That’s a shame. These arrests violate journalists’ rights, and they undermine the right of the public to learn about newsworthy events happening in their communities.

They also show the disturbing and stubborn persistence of a system of policing that either doesn’t know or doesn’t care about First Amendment rights. A closer look at each of the cases documented by the Tracker so far this year reveals that — even after large settlements or acknowledgments by the federal government that journalists must be allowed to cover protests — police around the country are still routinely arresting reporters who are simply doing their jobs.

Keep reading

House Judiciary Committee Opens Investigation into DOJ’s Arrest and Persecution of Journalist Steve Baker and J6 Political Prisoners

Independent journalist Breanna Morello announced on Tuesday that the House Judiciary Committee is launching an investigation into the DOJ’s selective prosecution of The Blaze journalist Steve Baker and other January 6 defendants.

In a letter sent by Chairman Jim Jordan to U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew Graves, Jordan is asking for internal documents and communications related to Baker and J6 defendants.

Chairman Jordan is also calling out the DOJ for targeting Baker while ignoring other journalists that were inside the US Capitol that day.

Breanna Morello reported this on X – via Emerald Robinson.

Keep reading

FBI orders Blaze Media reporter Steve Baker to self-surrender over alleged J6 ‘non-violent misdemeanors’: report

The FBI is planning to arrest a Blaze Media reporter on Friday over his coverage of the US Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

Steve Baker, an investigative reporter for Blaze Media, announced on Tuesday that his legal team had been notified by the FBI that there is a signed warrant for his arrest. Baker says he has been ordered to self-surrender to federal authorities for “alleged J6 crimes” on Friday in Dallas, Texas.

The Blaze Media reporter nor his attorneys have been properly informed about the charges Baker faces, other than that they are “non-violent misdemeanors” according to the reporter. Failure to inform about charges could be a Sixth Amendment violation, which grants individuals accused of a crime to “be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation.”

The Department of Justice first informed Baker about his looming arrest in December, but the FBI notified him that the self-surrender date would be postponed until after Christmas, according to Blaze Media. The outlet reported that “the powers that be won’t tell [Baker’s] attorney about the charges because they believe Baker will post them on social media.”

“We do not yet know the specific charges,” Baker wrote on X. “Technically … they are still ‘under seal’ until the warrant is served. All else is as yet unknown. By this weekend, I will officially be a misdemeanor domestic journo-terrorist. (Something like that.)”

Baker explained in a thread on X that he has been ordered to turn himself in to the FBI at 7:00 am where he will then be transported to the Dallas courthouse before a 10 am scheduled hearing before the magistrate

Keep reading

Biden DOJ Indicts Journalist for Tucker Carlson Leaks

A Florida journalist who accessed and made public unaired video footage of an interview that former Fox News host Tucker Carlson conducted with the rapper Ye was arrested this week and hit with more than a dozen federal charges stemming in part from the disclosure, raising immediate concerns from press freedom advocates.

Timothy Burke, a Tampa-based media consultant and former Daily Beast staffer, obtained and disseminated clips of the 2022 Ye interview — during which the rapper formerly known as Kanye West made antisemitic remarks that were edited out of the final version — as well as behind-the-scenes footage of Carlson, who left Fox last year.

The 26-page indictment against Burke, revealed on Thursday, accuses him of “utilizing compromised credentials to gain unauthorized access to protected computers” and “scouring those protected computers for electronic items and information,” among other alleged crimes.

Though the indictment doesn’t explicitly mention Fox or Carlson, the Tampa Bay Times reported that it says Burke “accessed a video stream of an interview featuring a show host for a ‘multinational media company based in New York City’ on Oct. 6, 2022 — the same day Carlson’s interview with West aired.”

Burke and his legal team have denied any wrongdoing and rejected claims that Fox was “hacked,” maintaining that he accessed the video footage using information “publicly posted to the internet.”

Keep reading

Russian journalist promising to release details of ‘gigantic corruption’ found dead on side of the road

A journalist who took aim at Russian officials and promised to release details of “gigantic corruption” was found dead near a roadside over the weekend, but the circumstances of his death remain shrouded in mystery.

“It will be almost impossible to determine whether foul play was involved Rybin’s death or whether he died of heart disease as some Russian media outlets claim,” Rebekah Koffler, a strategic military intelligence analyst and the author of “Putin’s Playbook,” told Fox News Digital.

Alexander Rybin, 39, was found near a highway some 130 miles outside the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, where he had spent time reporting on the Russian invasion.

The official cause of death was that he died from “cardiomyopathy” after an autopsy, The Sun reported, citing Russian state media.

Some outlets have described Rybin as a pro-Kremlin journalist, but in the last few weeks of his life he had grown highly critical of officials in the region.

He blamed rampant corruption for the slow rebuilding of the city and Donetsk region. 

In one of his last reports, Rybin reported that Mariupol had “gigantic money” and “gigantic opportunities for corruption.”

Keep reading

Just 3.4 Percent Of American Journalists Identify As Republican

The percentage of full-time U.S. journalists who identify as Republicans has dropped significantly over the last decade, while journalists who said they are Democrats and Independents have increased, a study finds.

According to a survey by Syracuse University titled “The American Journalist Under Attack,” only 3.4 percent of journalists in 2022 identified as Republicans, compared with 36.4 percent of Democrats and 51.7 percent of Independents in the profession.

At the time the survey was concluded in April last year, 28 percent of Americans considered themselves Republicans, 28 percent identified themselves as Democrats, and 42 percent viewed themselves as Independents, according to a Gallup poll.

The survey found that the percentage of Republicans in the journalism industry has declined substantially over the decades.

In its first survey in 1971, 25.7 percent of journalists said they were Republicans. In 1982, the number dropped to 18.8 percent and further declined to 16.4 percent in 1992. It showed a slight increase in 2002 with 18 percent but plummeted to 7.1 percent in 2013 and to 3.4 percent last year.

The trend for journalists identifying as Democrats has remained relatively steady at around 35 percent over the decades. Last year’s figure of 36.4 percent marked the third-highest percentage of journalists identifying as Democrat since 1971, the survey noted.

Notably, the survey showed that 60.1 percent of journalists said journalism in the United States was headed in the wrong direction. In comparison, only 22 percent said it was going in the right direction.

“When asked about the ’most important problem facing journalism today,’ the journalists mentioned these issues most often: Declining public trust in the news media (20.8 percent); shrinking local and community news coverage (12.8 percent); perceived bias and opinion journalism (12.7 percent); fake news (9.9 percent); disrupted business model (9.3 percent).”

Keep reading

Over 100 Journalists Killed in Less Than Three Months

Nearly 100 journalists have been killed in less than three months in Palestine. And that’s not by accident. They aren’t collateral damage. They weren’t human shields. Most were targeted deliberately. Their offense: exposing the deceit behind the propaganda flushed out by the Israeli government, and our own government, our president, and the mainstream media, many of whom don’t function as journalists. Instead, they act like stenographers for the state, for the military-industrial complex. Which is profiting massively off of this slaughter, banking on people being uninformed and indifferent to it.

Well, real journalists are preventing that, because the real journalists are standing in defiance of power, standing in the face of the war machine, and are bravely documenting its crimes. Documenting the daily horror raining down on millions of civilians trapped on a small slice of land.

So the powerful want these journalists silenced, by any means necessary, because they are proving to be very powerful themselves. I’ve gone to many rallies for Palestine over the years, and I’ve never seen the groundswell like we are witnessing now.

Keep reading

Blaze journalist who covered Jan 6 to be charged by Biden DOJ

Journalist for The Blaze Steve Baker has been notified by the FBI that he is going to be charged by Biden’s Department of Justice for his work covering the protest and riot at the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021. He was told to surrender to authorities on Tuesday and has not yet been made aware of the charges.

He said that he entered the Capitol on that day, “like about 60 other journalists, but “Did no damage or parading or violence.”

Info Wars journalist Owen Shroyer just served a nearly 2 month sentence for having been on the Capitol grounds on that day. Other journalists have also been arrested and tried. 

Far-left journalist John Sullivan, who sold his footage of J6 to mainstream media outlets, was also charged after covering the event. He was charged with Obstruction of an Official Proceeding; Civil Disorder; Entering and Remaining in a Restricted Building or Grounds; Disorderly and Disruptive Conduct in a Restricted Building or Grounds; Disorderly Conduct in a Capitol Building; Parading, Demonstrating, or Picketing in a Capitol Building; and Aiding and Abetting, per the Department of Justice.

Keep reading

Journalist Files “Cease and Desist” Letter with the CIA

A journalist has sent a “Cease and Desist” letter to the Central Intelligence Agency, citing violations of her 4th, 5th and 14th Amendment rights.

Janet Phelan, who has authored an intelligence exposé, “EXILE,” as well as a book on the pandemic, “At the Breaking Point of History,” levels accusations that agents and assets of the CIA have repeatedly attacked her with unconventional chemical weapons, resulting in a health crisis and hospitalization.

Phelan states that she chose to send this letter to the CIA as this is the agency that is involved in overseas surveillance and operations. Phelan fled the U.S. in 2008 and currently resides in Mexico. She states that the Cease and Desist letter was sent prior to filing a formal legal request for an injunction against the Agency. She has also filed a Form 95, preparatory to suing under the Federal Tort Claims Act.

Phelan is best known for her investigations into U.S. biological weapons violations and her research into mortgages as a vehicle for judicial bribes and payoffs. Her articles appeared in the Moscow-based publication, New Eastern Outlook, for a number of years. She currently writes for Activist Post.

Upon learning of her intent to file for a formal injunction, a lawyer who is conversant with her work on judicial corruption, sputtered, “But this will have to go in front of a judge!”

Indeed, recent legal efforts in a similar vein were all dismissed by a judge, including CAIR’s lawsuit challenging targeting of Muslim-Americans and a lawsuit by a former CNN journalist covering Syria, which alleged that the US tried to blow him up in a number of drone strikes.  Federal judge Rosemary Collyer dismissed this lawsuit on reasons of “state secrets” thereby striking a blow against legal protections for both First Amendment violations as well as any constitutional protections against government abuse.

Keep reading