Tag: journalists

Criticizing Public Figures, Including Influential Journalists, is Not Harassment or Abuse

During Hillary Clinton’s ill-fated 2016 presidential campaign, one of the most common tactics used by her political and media supporters was to cast criticisms of her (largely from supporters of Bernie Sanders) not as ideological or political but as misogynistic, thus converting one of the world’s richest and most powerful political figures into some kind of a victim, exactly when she was seeking to obtain for herself the planet’s most powerful political office. There was no way to criticize Hillary Clinton — there still is not — without being branded a misogynist.

A very similar tactic was used four years later to vilify anyone criticizing Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) — also one of the world’s richest and most powerful figures — as she sought the power of the Oval Office. A major media theme was that she was being brutally assaulted by Sanders supporters who were using snake emojis to express dissatisfaction with what they believed was her less-than-scrupulous campaign, such as relying on millions of dollars in dark money from an anonymous Silicon Valley billionaire to stay in the race long after the immense failure of her campaign was manifest, and attempting to depict Sanders as a woman-hating cretin. When Warren finally withdrew from the race after having placed no better than third in any state including her own, Rachel Maddow devoted a good chunk of her interview with the Senator and best-selling author to exploring the deep trauma she experienced from the snake emojis.

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Leftist Journalist Regrets Calling For Silicon Valley Censorship After It Happens to Him

A leftist journalist expressed regret about calling for Silicon Valley to censor content after it happened to him.

Progressive reporter Jordan Chariton had the change of heart after YouTube took down one of his videos.

Chariton’s original advocacy for censorship occurred when he called for Big Tech giants to target anyone who questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election.

“EVERY media outlet that pushed this INSANE election fraud conspiracy for clicks should be taken off the air. They’ve incited a Civil War,” Chariton tweeted on January 6, the date of the Capitol breach.

However, after YouTube pulled video from his own channel featuring footage of the January 6 riot for violating the platform’s policies against “spam and deceptive practices,” the Chariton reversed his position.

“With time to reflect, & seeing Silicon Valley’s censorship onslaught, I regret this tweet made in [the] heat of moment,” the progressive journalist wrote. “Whether certain cable/YouTube outlets mislead audiences w/ dishonest claims lacking real evidence, they shouldn’t be targeted.”

Chariton noted that with the precedent having been set for blanket censorship, progressive content was also now being unfairly targeted, while pointing out that big left-wing networks with friendly YouTube ties like the Young Turks were not calling it out.

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Project Mockingbird / Operation Mockingbird

There have been a lot of rumors and allegations against what “Mockingbird” actually was, but it appears that quite possibly, there were two project names. One has been confirmed while the other remains elusive (if real at all).

Project Mockingbird

PROJECT Mockingbird was a wiretapping operation initiated by President John F. Kennedy to identify the sources of government leaks by eavesdropping on the communications of journalists.

This is the program mentioned in the CIA records below, and The Black Vault also added records from the Gerald Ford Presidential Library on the same.

Operation Mockingbird

OPERATION Mockingbird was a alleged secret campaign by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to influence media. Begun in the 1950s, it was said to be initially organized by Cord Meyer and Allen W. Dulles, it was later led by Frank Wisner after Dulles became the head of the CIA.

The organization recruited leading American journalists into a network to help present the CIA’s views, and funded some student and cultural organizations, and magazines as fronts. As it developed, it also worked to influence foreign media and political campaigns, in addition to activities by other operating units of the CIA.

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Why Are Political Journalists More Scared of Revealing Their Votes Than Baseball Writers?

Look, we know newspapers are going to overwhelmingly endorse Joe Biden. When political donations originating from employees of media organizations are eventually tallied up, we know they will tilt massively Democrat. Most people who are cognizant of the profession’s recent turn toward “moral clarity” over unattainable objectivity understand that that means those with non-lefty politics will be subjected to harsher adjectives.

And yet the very same media commentators who have long decried the so-called “view from nowhere” are absent in this battle for more journalistic transparency.

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Ukrainian journalist forced to flee following threats from far-right

An independent journalist writing about alleged links between Facebook, a local fact-checking organisation, and far-right groups has been forced to flee Kiev after receiving death threats.

Ekaterina Sergatskova, 32, a Russian-born, Ukrainian nationalised citizen, is editor of the well-regarded Zaborona publication, which focuses on matters often ignored by Ukrainian media, including nationalism and the far right.

On 3 July, Ms Sergatskova co-authored an investigation alleging links between neo-nazi groups and StopFake, a Ukrainian NGO working as a Facebook fact-checking partner.

The report detailed several instances of one of the NGO’s public faces appearing alongside musicians from Holocaust-denying, white power bands. It suggested the alleged links could have served as a reason for Facebook removing an earlier Zaborona article about far-right activist Denis Nikitin.

StopFake responded to the allegations with a statement saying it was never authorised to block materials, and rejected the associations as a pro-Russian conspiracy.

The article also brought an immediate reaction from the hard right – both publicly on social media and privately, in messages sent to the journalist.

On Saturday, Roman Skrypin, a popular, nationalist-leaning journalist, dramatically upped stakes by publishing pictures of Ms Sergatskova and her five-year-old son, together with photographs of what he believed to be her home. He accused the journalist of being an agent of the Kremlin, a description friends of the journalist dismiss as absurd.

In comments responding to Mr Skrypin’s Facebook post, users threatened all kinds of retribution, and published details of her supposed address.

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