Tag: journalism

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Lara Logan’s Plea From Baghdad

laralogan.jpgCBS News’ Baghdad Correspondent Lara Logan recently sent out an e-mail pleading for friends and colleagues to push CBS to air her “Battle of Haifa Street” report on any of their news programs. They have thus far agreed only to post the video on their Web site. Watch it here and you’ll see why they’re hesitant to broadcast it. The 2-minute clip closes with a soundbyte of an Iraqi citizens’ experience with American troops that may be just too balanced and accurate for today’s U.S. media: “They told us they would bring democracy, they promised life would be better than it was under Saddam. But they brought us nothing but death and killing. They brought mass destruction to Baghdad.” The text of Logan’s e-mail is below:

From: lara logan
Subject: help

The story below only appeared on our CBS website and was not aired on CBS. It is a story that is largely being ignored, even though this istakingplace verysingle day in central Baghdad, two blocks from where our office is located.

Our crew had to be pulled out because we got a call saying they were about to be killed, and on their way out, a civilian man was shot dead in front of them as they ran.

I would be very grateful if any of you have a chance to watch this story and pass the link on to as many people you know as possible. It should be seen. And people should know about this.

If anyone has time to send a comment to CBS – about the story – not about my request, then that would help highlight that people are interested and this is not too gruesome to air, but rather too important to ignore.

Many, many thanks.

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HuffPo Gets DIGGy With It

The Huffington Post opened its social bookmarking community site HuffIt today. Similar to Digg, HuffIt is a great concept that enables the (progressive-leaning) Huffington Post readership to aggregate and posts of interest from around the Web and recommend them to the community. Still VERY new — and potentially a little too 2.0 for most HuffPo readers to grasp at first — the most “Huffed” articles still have less than ten total “huffs.”

Very interesting to see such a prominent blog and news site take this approach. It will be interesting to see if any newspapers or other dominant webzines like Slate and Salon take a similar — or alternatively community-building — approach.

On the turning away suggests that we’re approaching the point where Journalism 2.0 emerges as perpetuated by the Long Tail:

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Nat’l Conference for Media Reform w/ Bill Moyers Video

More than 3,000 people came together for NCMR2007 in Memphis this weekend and though I wasn’t able to attend, I would like to channel the messages and motivation expressed at the conference. The Free Press Action Center, which organized the event, is hosting some video and audio of all sessions on its conference page. More on the conference blog

Additionally, they’ve released calls for action regarding stopping big media, saving the internet, and promoting media reform and justice.

Part two of the above video of Bill Moyers‘ opening plenary is available here.

More from Nieman Watchdog, BuzzMachine, Memphis Commercial Appeal, SavetheInternet. Photos here and here.

Mark at News Corpse provided a brief summary:

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Hussein-o-vision: Citizen Video Undermines State Rhetoric

saddam hussein is hangedIn a backhanded testament to the usefulness of citizen journalism as a voice of dissent, the Iraqi government announced the arrest of (up to three?) two guards and an official who supervised the hanging in connection with the unauthorized videorecording of Saddam Hussein’s execution. The video, apparently made by cellphone, was posted to the Internet on Saturday.

While it appears that a low level guard stands to be charged (name[s] of the arrested have yet to be released), Will Bunch and others find reason to believe the guilty party to be none other than Iraq Nat’l Security advisor Mowaffak Al-Rubaie, the virtual equivalent of the White House’s Stephen Hadley. Oh, the irony of an investigation of a sensitive and untimely leak — this time, not Bush needing to point his finger away from Hadley, but al-Maliki needing to find a scapegoat for his rebel with or without a cause.

While al-Rubaie was installed mostly at the discretion of the U.S. — al-Maliki’s insistence on interrogating and bringing justice to whomever posted the video is yet another example of his unwillingness to cooperate with U.S. interests and to foster his own independence from being the partner that the Bush Administration has so fervently tried to create. It’s now crystal clear that Maliki has little interest in appeasing the U.S. — after all, he has his own life and family to protect while posing as a crucial figure in a civil war and, as the BBC reports, he just wants his nightmare term as PM to end.

Josh Marshall is tracking all developments on this story at Talking Points Memo.