I had to read the headline twice. Then after reading the lede, I had to question whether I actually had read what I had just read. Was “the Paper of Record,” the purveyor of “All the News That’s Fit to Print,” really asking if its reporters should bother checking out the factual assertions made by the newsmakers it covers and report whether they are, in fact, true?
Let January 12, 2012, be marked as the date when the New York Times confessed, in an oblique but nonetheless conclusive way, that it theretofore had not been terribly concerned with discerning and reporting the truth. This much came into crisp focus when public editor Arthur Brisbane asked his readers, “Should The Times Be a Truth Vigilante?“
I quit working in mainstream news12 years ago, but I still consider myself a journalist, and still care very much about the profession and its crucial role in the functioning of a healthy democracy. In subsequent jobs as a journalism professor, deputy editorial director atMedia Matters for America and communications director for Free Press, I railed against the hollow mockery the news business makes of something so important. Not to bash the reporters for their failures and shortcomings, but to remind them and their audiences that there are better ways to do it.
Since I broke into the news business more than 20 years ago, the people at the top have been lamenting their decline in readers, listeners and viewers — and this predates the advent in online media to sap the already dwindling numbers. They always sought to produce more sizzle and pizzazz to draw more eyeballs, leaving substance as an afterthought if it was considered at all.
Petrified of being called biased, primarily by conservatives trotting out the “liberal media” smear to avoid criticism for their mistakes, they removed anything that might be controversial — like exposing falsehoods. Paul Krugman famously quipped that “if one party declared that the earth was flat, the headlines would read ‘Views Differ on Shape of Planet.’”
In that field of manufactured balance and false equivalence, where does the discerning news consumer go for actual news?
My research focus as an academic was on how satire takes on the valuable role of truth-teller in a society where the truth rarely sees the light of day. It was clear to me from the reams of research (since repeated and reaffirmed) being put out on how viewers of The Daily Show are better informed, generally, than the rest of the public. The reason for that is, Jon Stewart doesn’t have to kowtow to powerful people who will willfully lie to the media with full confidence they’ll never be called on it.
(In an article I wrote for a prominent journalism publication, I argued that real journalists could take lessons from Stewart and his research staff, which he once described as “an intern with a VCR”: when the president, a member of congress or a local politician says something that you know to be false, and you have the evidence to prove it, say so!Unfortunately, the article got spiked because, the editor said, “The people who need to know this don’t read [the magazine], and the people who read it already know this.” One could argue that Brisbane’s query suggests the editor might have been wrong.)
One should be careful not to place the target solely on Brisbane’s back for his tacit acknowledgement that the NYT is not in the truth business. For neither he nor the Timesare alone in believing so. In 2010, NBC News’ Meet the Press host David Gregory told media critic Howard Kurtz that he couldn’t be bothered to consider establishing a relationship like the one ABC News had at the time with Politifact.com, because he said, “People can fact-check Meet the Press every week on their own terms.”
Long before that, venerated PBS newsman and NewsHour host Jim Lehrer told theColumbia Journalism Review, by way of explaining that he would not challenge a statement he knew to be false, “I’m not in the judgment part of journalism. I’m in the reporting part of journalism.” As my former Media Matters colleague Jamison Foser pointed out, Lehrer’s approach “treats the two claims — that it rained, and that it didn’t rain — as equally valid, even though he knows ‘for a fact’ that one of them is false.”
(Interesting aside: When I used the Foser column linked above in a discussion of ethics in an advanced journalism class, one of my colleagues at the journalism school warned me against using such “political” materials because they might offend my conservative boss.)
I have argued since, and will continue to do — now armed with supporting opinions of literally hundreds of people who commented on Brisbane’s post, Facebook, The Huffington Post and elsewhere — that if a news outlet is not looking at contradictory assertions and using its resources to assess which is closer to the truth, what service does it provide beyond reprinting press releases?
With apologies to Jack Newfield, “stenographers with amnesia” would be an improvement. At least they’d have an excuse for not recognizing they’re reciting lies.
Wikipedia and Google blacked out? Redditers in an uproar? Thousands of geeks abandoning their cubicles to take to the streets?
What’s happening here?
Today’s nationwide protest of Internet blacklist legislation is part of a brewing movement to keep control over the Internet out of the hands of corporations and governments. It’s a struggle that puts Internet users before information gatekeepers. At stake is everyone’s democratic right to information. The movement owes its momentum to a recent sequence of events. In 2010 millions of Internet users became advocates in support of Net Neutrality protections. In 2011, the importance of digital freedom spilled out onto the streets as demonstrators with a mobile phones and a connection became a force in global protests.
Now, millions are rallying against two bills in Congress that allegedly protect intellectual property but go way too far, threatening to hold our free speech rights captive and stifle the creativity and innovation that’s become a hallmark of the online community.
Over the weekend the White House succumbed to popular pressure and modified its position on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect-IP Act (PIPA) saying it would not support any legislation that “reduces freedom of expression” or “undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.”
Rupert’s Twitter Attack
The White House’s change of heart gave one media tycoon fits. News Corporation Chairman Rupert Murdoch, who has been a staunch supporter of the most draconian curbs to Internet freedom, sent out rapid-fire series of tweets accusing President Obama of throwing in his lot with thieves, pirates and terrorists.
That Murdoch doesn’t get the Internet shouldn’t surprise anyone watching his recent efforts to control it. It’s a campaign that goes well beyond Murdoch’s MySpace miscalculation to include tens of millions of dollars spent on Washington lobbyists who are intent on passing laws to undermine the Internet’s open architecture.
What’s happening is that millions of people are joining to protest Murdoch and his ilk and protect our fundamental freedom to connect, link to and share information without censor or filter.
This open Internet movement is the natural outgrowth of a network that was conceived upon a principle of non-discrimination — a network engineering ideal that had profound ramifications for democracy. According to one of its founders, Sir Tim Berners Lee, the Internet’s original architecture was guided by a powerful concept: “that any person could share information with anyone else, anywhere. In this spirit, the Web spread quickly from the grassroots up.”
The First Amendment Goes Digital
Indeed, the open web evolved to become an indispensable organizing tool of social movements worldwide. It’s no surprise then that the Internet would soon have a movement all its own.
Today’s Web blackouts are its latest face, but the movement dates far back to the earlier days of the popular Internet — about eight years ago — when powerful phone and cable companies began to talk up ways they could control network traffic. Those words gave birth to Net Neutrality advocacy and engaged millions in efforts to stop industry efforts to filter or block content.
It also has antecedents in the backlash to web censorship by China and other repressive regimes. The blocking of online content from Beijing to Cairo only served to highlight the Internet’s vital role in democracy movements and galvanize global efforts to pierce official firewalls and protect online activists.
And the movement has grown out of an open source community that believes decades of Luddite copyright legislation have stifled, not fostered, the online creativity and innovation that’s essential to growth and prosperity.
In truth, the principles behind the open Internet movement go back much further, to the First Amendment, which was written to protect the sort of popular exchange of ideas that is the lifeblood of any democracy.
While America’s founding fathers likely could not have imagined a technology that would put the power of the mass media into the hands of millions, they understood that, in the words of James Madison, a democracy must allow people to “arm themselves with the power knowledge gives.”
The open Internet is the means to this power. The movement to protect it has found a voice in the millions of people who are taking action today. And the implications should be clear to any person, government or corporation that thinks it can harm our networkwithout a fight.
| Many sites – including right-wing US blogs, alongside file-sharing sites – are blocked in India [Hashem Said/Al Jazeera] |
San Francisco, California - In the world’s largest democracy, something is brewing that could have grave implications for freedom of expression. On January 12, in response to a private lawsuit, a Delhi High Court judge, Justice Suresh Kait, told lawyers for the Indian offices of Facebook and Google that, unless they develop the capability to regulate “offensive and objectionable” material on their sites, the Indian government would block their websites, “like China [does]“.
The complaint, filed by Vinay Rai, a magazine editor, was filed under laws banning the sale of obscene books and objects, as well as one pertaining to criminal conspiracy. It demands that the companies – as well as companies providing similar services, such as Yahoo – screen content before it appears on their sites.
In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, Rai explained that the evidence he submitted to the court included content offensive to Hindus, Muslims and Christians. ”My intention is to ensure that the sentiments of any religion or community are not hurt,” he told the Journal.
In October, well before Rai’s lawsuit emerged, India’s acting telecommunications minister Kapil Sibal, met with top executives of Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Yahoo’s local offices to demand the same.
Executives from the companies told the New York Times that the minister expects them to set up a “proactive pre-screening system” that would have human staffers seeking out objectionable content and deleting it before it appears. According to the same report, the companies called the demand “impossible”.
| http://www.aljazeera.com/AJEPlayer/player-licensed-viral.swf |
| Are we entering an age of cyber-censorship? |
While the companies involved may refuse to pre-screen content, they already offer various channels for removing certain types of content. Users can report or “flag” content, which is then reviewed by staffers of the social networks. Furthermore, many companies remove certain content at the request of governments; according to Google’s transparency report, 358 requests for content removal were made by Indian government entities between January and June of 2011.
A history of censorship
Though nowhere near the levels of China’s Great Firewall, India is no stranger to online censorship. Try to access the sites of religious extremists or even certain right-wing US blogs and you’ll be greeted by a “server not found” page, obscuring the censorship. According to the OpenNet Initiative’s latest book, Access Contested [PDF], internet service providers (ISPs) in India block a number of websites, including some containing information on free expression and human rights.
While lacking transparency for the end-user, India’s censorship is not without legal basis. The Information Technology Act of 2000 criminalised the online publication of obscene information, while a 2008 amendment to the act, section 69A, gave the central government broad power to block public access to content deemed to be against the interest of India’s sovereignty and integrity.
In charge of implementing the censorship is the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team, which receives complaints from police and government officials and issues blocking orders. Police commissioners can also order content that poses a “threat or nuisance” to society blocked under a separate code. The city of Mumbai created a special police team charged with identifying such information following the 2008 terrorist attacks.
In 2011, yet another regulation was added to the mix, requiring intermediaries (companies such as Google that host online content) to adopt terms of service that prohibit users from publishing or sharing a range of content, including that deemed to be obscene, infringing on copyright, “menacing”, “disparaging”, or threatening to national unity, integrity, or public order. The over-broad regulations were criticised by Indian NGOs and commentators – but nonetheless passed, going into effect in April, despite existing provisions protecting intermediaries from liability.
Striking a balance
| “Unlike books and paintings, online expression cannot easily be hidden from view.” |
That all of these regulations were not enough for the Indian government is telling: The world’s largest democracy has long grappled with striking a balance between freedom of expression and maintaining order. From the banning of Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses in the 1980s to the lawsuits against artist MF Husain, India’s modern history of censorship serves as a precursor to the various restrictions placed on internet use.
But unlike books and paintings, online expression cannot easily be hidden from view. Try as it might, the Indian government has not managed to succeed in limiting the speech it finds distasteful; the offending content, even when blocked, remains accessible to savvy internet users through use of simple proxies.
And if the government does succeed in blocking YouTube, Facebook and other social networks, it may have more to contend with than just speech. As researcher Ethan Zuckerman posits in his Cute Cat Theory of Internet Censorship, when the tools of our everyday lives become collateral damage in governmental efforts to block speech, citizens take notice. In Tunisia, where political speech had been censored for decades, citizens took to the streets when Facebook was blocked, prompting the government to free up the site after just a week. Turkey’s YouTube ban sparked awareness among a whole new generation of internet users.
So while many of India’s savvy internet users are already well aware of what their government is capable of in terms of censorship, a ban on social networks may be just what it takes to push others over the edge.
BY DILSHAD ALI, DECEMBER 29, 2011
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The revolution will be tweeted |
RICHMOND, VA |
Sometimes it seems Muslims can’t get a break, and 2011 was no exception. The “creeping sharia” paranoia in the US continued unabated (despite any evidence that there is any real threat of sharia law supplanting the Constitution) with the passage and/or introduction of anti-sharia legislation in over 20 states, and alleged threats posed by Muslim Americans were brought up at nearly every Republican debate this year. But step back a bit and you’ll see that Muslims in America as generally feeling more hopefulthan ever, and the wave of people power that washed over the Middle East has inspired Muslims all over the world to take control of their destiny, whether it be political, social, or cultural. So in that spirit, and continuing in our decade-long tradition, we present to you the top ten “good news” stories of 2011. (See altmuslim’s “Top Ten” lists for 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, and 2002.)
1. People power wins out in the Arab world
In the end, a simple slap in the face was enough to ignite a popular revolution that engulfed nearly the entire Arab world. The revolutions that followed in early 2011 – Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Syria, Bahrain, and likely more to come – proved that massive peaceful resistance was sufficient to topple the paper tigers that had ruled with an iron fist for decades. More significantly, the will of the people expressed in the streets was a direct challenge to al-Qaeda and other extremists who believe that violence and terrorism were the only way forward. While there is still much uncertainty regarding the eventual outcome – Tunisia has successfully seated a transitional government, Egypt’s democratic transition is sputtering, and blood is still being shed in Syria and Yemen – the masses are keeping the pressure on the powers-that-be to ensure that the world knows that the people are in charge, and will never again settle for anything less.
2. Brutal dictators fall like dominoes after decades in power
Time Magazine declared 2011 to be the Year of the Protestor, but an equally powerful, results-based assessment might be that 2011 was the Year that Dictators Fell. The revolutions that swept through most of the Arab and Muslim World were a testament to the power of the people to bring down dictators who had ruled kingdoms of power, corruption and oppression for decades. In Tunisia, vegetable vendor Mohamed Bouazizi, fed up with being pushed around by the government, lit himself on fire in protest on Dec. 17, 2010, leading to a dramatic upsurge of social and political unrest as Tunisia awoke to its brutal reality under President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. A mere 28 days later, on January 14, 2011, Ben Ali officially resigned after fleeing to Saudi Arabia. Arab countries took note of their Tunisian brothers and sisters, and the Egyptian revolution was soon underway, with Tahrir Square at the heart of the protest. Eventually, longtime president Hosni Mubarak also resigned under pressure. Protests erupted into a full-scale bloody civil war in Libya, leading to the ousting of dictator Muammar Gaddafi, after 42 years of power. Leaders in other Arab countries are also teetering on the edge, as Syria, Yemen, Bahrain – among others – continue to be engulfed by people-driven protests brought on by years of high unemployment, corruption, a lack of basic freedoms and poor living conditions.
3. The bin Laden albatross comes off our necks
For much of the decade after the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden personified the fear that many had of the Muslims around them. The longer he and his associates managed to avoid being brought to justice, the longer the wounds of that fateful day remained unhealed. To everyone’s relief – especially those Muslims who bore the brunt of the outcry against his actions – the man who dragged a billion and a half people down with him was killed in a daring raid on his Abbottabad, Pakistan hideout, announced by President Obama in the hours after its successful completion, and Muslims joined others in the impromptu celebrations in New York and Washington. While the fight against extremism is far from over, the killing of bin Laden shifts it into a new phase, one in which more of the world hopefully sees it as a fight between good and evil rather than between Muslims and others.
4. The world is introduced to some “All-American Muslims”
A year ago, Katie Couric famously opined that there needed to be a Muslim version of the Cosby show. Nearly a year later in November 2011, the reality show All-American Muslim debuted on TLC, bringing the lives of five interconnected Lebanese-American families in Dearborn, Michigan into living rooms across America. While the show generated some controversy – first from some Muslims who complained that the show was not representative of the diversity of Muslim-Americans, and then more publicly when the one-man Florida Family Association succeeded in getting retailer Lowe’s to pull ads from the show – it did manage to get a detailed look at Muslim life in America into the homes of millions who may have never had the opportunity to know their Muslim neighbors.
5. Sunlight hits the Islamophobia industry
For a decade or more, various organizations with a vested interest in marginalizing Muslims have operated in near-secrecy, mobilizing unwitting Internet users, politicians looking for a way to animate the electorate, andgenerating content that paint a picture of a “fifth column” of Muslim “stealth jihadists” that seek to take over America. While there may once have been a time where this could be laughed off as fringe, in recent years this loose network has made a devastating impact on the public square. Enter the Center for American Progress’ “Fear, Inc.” report, which was co-authored by playwright/lawyer Wajahat Ali (an associate editor here at altmuslim) along with CAP mainstays Matt Duss, Faiz Shakir, and Eli Clifton. This comprehensive report finally cast sunshine on a profitable industry of hate (drawing a hostile response from those named in it) and has started conversations about the foundations of the industry, the intent of those working to support it, and the need to protect the Constitutional rights of Muslims in the wake of it.
6. An Arab Muslim woman wins the Nobel peace prize
As protests in Yemen erupted in early 2011 after Tunisia saw the fall of President Ben Ali, journalist Tawakul Karman saw a major opportunity for the Yemini people and began to use her work and her voice to call upon the people of Yemen to support the “Jasmine Revolution,” a term she used to refer to the Arab Spring. During the protests, Karman organized student rallies, calling for the resignation of Yemen’s president Ali Abdullah Saleh. On Jan 22, she was stopped and taken to prison by three men without police identification, which became a turning point in the protests, as demonstrations erupted in reaction to her detainment. She called for a “Day of Rage” on February 3, similar to the January 25 “Day of Rage” in Egypt’s Tahrir Square. Karman continued to organize protests and rallies, sometimes clashing with fellow protestors. And throughout her on-the-ground work in Yemen, she reported on the revolution, giving interviews and writing a piece for the New York Times, calling out Saudi Arabia and the United States for their support of Saleh. For her work, Karman, along with Liberia’s Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work,” proving that women “with stuff on their heads” can move mountains.
7. A new window opens into Muslim heritage
It was a tricky proposition for the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art to build one of the world’s largest and most comprehensive collections of art from Muslim history. It was even more challenging to accomplish this in New York a short distance from Ground Zero. It complicates matters even further to complete the work and open the new wing shortly after the 10th anniversary of 9/11. But the reopening of the Met’s Islamic wing – whose formal name is the “Galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia and Later South Asia” – was an unparallelled success that drew rave reviews and none of the protests that some expected. Like the protests against the Park51 community center in lower Manhattan that fizzled once the bridge-and-tunnel crowd left, it once again shows that New Yorkers know how to separate reaction to terror attacks from the inclusion of a Muslim New Yorker population that nears 10%.
8. Saudi women take the wheel
It’s a seemingly innocuous concept – the existence of women drivers. But in Saudi Arabia, the fight to allow women the right to drive took center stage in 2011, garnering a driving protest by Saudi women, detainment for some Saudi female drivers, a blog dedicated to the fight, and even a report from a “well-known [Saudi] conservative academic” who warned female drivers would mean the “end of virginity.” The protest started when Manal al-Sharif posted a video of herself driving on YouTube, causing her and her brother to be detained, since she was in violation of a Saudi ban on women drivers. This led to an organized campaign by Saudi women to gain their right to drive, starting with a Facebook protest calling for women to drive on June 17th. The fight continues, as Saudi women take to the wheel and continue to protest for their right to drive. As al-Sharif said in an interview, “I’m doing [this] because I’m frustrated, angry and mad. It’s 2011, and we’re still discussing this insignificant right for women.” The ban has yet to be lifted, and Saudi women continue to fight, though they face mixed signals of support from The Kingdom. King Abdullah pledged to give Saudi women more political power in the coming years, but new Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdel-Aziz Al Saud, according to an NPR article, is known for his opposition to women’s rights.
9. Bringing imams into the fight against domestic violence
She had heard about its success in Muslim Mindanao province in the Philippines, when a speaker presented a case study at the 2009 Women’s Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equality (WISE) conference on the success of training gender-sensitive imams and religious leaders. This was what Afghanistan needed, thought Jamila Afghani. And so she went back to her country, contacted WISE (a program of the American Society for Muslim Advancement), and asked for help to start an imam gender-sensitive training programat the Noor Educational Center (NEC) in Kabul, where she had dedicated her life to empowering women in Afghanistan. She helped set a program to educate imams on women’s rights through Friday khutbahs and media appearances. The program has been in effect for a few years, with appointed monitors who sit in and listen to the sermons to make sure the training has been effective. According to Afghani, the program has reached 9.5 million people in Afghanistan. Although this story wasn’t exclusive to 2011 nor widely covered by the world media, the presentation of this program at the 2011 WISE conference in Istanbul was a turning point for the women leaders, activists, humanitarians, and journalists who had gathered to learn from each other’s work. Imam Mawlana Ehsan Saiqal, who had traveled with Afghani to the conference to talk about the program, told a story of one of his congregants who came to him after a Friday khutbah in tears, saying that he never knew Islam actually advocated for women’s inheritance, marital and property rights, adding that he regretted the decisions he had made for his daughters.
10. Muslims remember 10 years after 9/11 in a variety of ways
The 9/11 attacks took everyone, including Muslims, by surprise, but by the time the 10th anniversary of the devastating attacks came around, Muslim communities across America were ready. Thousands of Muslim-ledservice projects were planned for the day of 9/11 in response to President Obama’s call for public service, including blood drives, interfaith commemorations, and volunteering for local charities. Muslims paused to remember 9/11 heroes such as Mohammad Salman Hamdani, an EMT raised in New York who selflessly rushed into the towers to save lives, and ended up giving his own. Even the Park51 community center in lower Manhattan, which was the focus of so much protest in 2010, opened its doors with a photo exhibit featuring New York children (and thankfully no protests). 9/11 defined a whole generation of Muslims in America who are now determined to make public service and integration into American society one of the hallmarks of their identity. With the US winding down in Iraq (and soon Afghanistan) as well as the demise of bin Laden, Muslim Americans look forward to being remembered more for what they do for society rather than what a small group of terrorists did so long ago.
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