Ethics

The Press & The Myths of War

Veteran military correspondent Chris Hedges writes that "when the nation goes to war, the press goes to
war with it. The blather on CNN or Fox or MSNBC is part of a long and
sad tradition. The narrative we are fed about war by the state, the entertainment
industry and the press is a myth. ... The coverage of war by the press has one consistent and pernicious
theme--the worship of our weapons and our military might. Retired
officers, breathless reporters, somber news anchors, can barely hold

No

The Honest Thief's Dishonest Publicity Stunt

An executive who claimed to have developed an online file-trading service that intentionally violated copyright protection laws now says that he made up the whole thing to sell his book. Pieter Plass, author of The Honest Thief, calls it an "April Fool's joke," but his PR firm, the Alliant Group, isn't laughing. They fell for the hoax and helped spread it, as did the Wall Street Journal, Business Wire, CNET, and Wired News.

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Only One Way To Fight A War

"There is only one way to fight a war now," MIT professor Noam Chomsky told VK Ramachandran on Frontline India. "First of all, pick a much weaker enemy, one that is defenseless. Then build it up in the propaganda system as either about to commit aggression or as an imminent threat. Next, you need a lightning victory. An important leaked document of the first Bush Administration in 1989 described how the U.S. would have to fight war. It said that the U.S. had to fight much weaker enemies, and that victory must be rapid and decisive, as public support will quickly erode.

No

NYC Peace Activists Risk Arrest Protesting Media Bias

"Hundreds of chanting demonstrators lined
Manhattan's Fifth Avenue on Thursday, and dozens lay down
in the street in a 'die-in' to protest the war. ... Anti-war groups also called for other civil disobedience in
the city to protest media and corporate 'profiteering from
the war.' ... Some protest signs were directed at the media. One
protester held a sign showing a picture of parrots and the

No

Hackers Shut Down al-Jazeera Websites

"The English-language and Arabic websites of Qatar-based broadcaster al-Jazeera were forced down this morning after a spate of suspected hacker attacks last night. Neither aljazeera.net, which gets the most hits of any Arabic website in the world, nor english.aljazeera.net, which launched on Monday, were available this morning after suspected attacks crashed both sites. [C]ommunications manager Jihad Ali Ballout told MediaGuardian.co.uk the company was doing everything possible to get the sites up and running.. ...

No

'Embedded' Reporters Key To White House PR Plan

"The eruption of war in Iraq last week set in motion a massive global PR network, cultivated by the Bush administration during the months-long buildup of forces. The network is intended not only to disseminate, but also to dominate news of the conflict around the world," PR Week writes.

No

Who Lied to Whom About Iraq's Nuclear Program?

Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh asks, "Why did the Administration endorse a forgery about Iraq's nuclear program?" How did the misinformation end up in the President's State of the Union address, and who has been fooling whom to make sure the US attacked Iraq?

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Anti-War Reporting Banned in UK Papers

"Sir Ray Tindle, the editor in chief of over 100 weekly newspapers across
Britain has informed all his editors that they can no longer report any
anti-war stories in their newspapers," reports Andy Rowell. Jeremy Dear of the UK's National Union of Journalists, condemned the move: " So much for the right to know, free speech and all those other rights which our forefathers fought to establish and which Sir Ray Tindle seeks to demolish at the stroke of a pen," Dear stated.

No

Media Allowed Bush to Mislead the Public Into War

"Critics of the war ... blame the
news media, asserting that they failed to challenge the
administration aggressively enough as it made a shaky case
for war. In an interview, Eric Alterman ... argued,
'Support for this war is in part a reflection that the
media has allowed the Bush administration to get away with
misleading the American people.' ... The strongest indictment of the press, many of these
critics argue, are recent polls that suggest many Americans

No

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