Protecting human rights via investigative reporting
Chas. Lewis, exec. dir. Ctr for Public Integrity
4TH Ëstate

… Speaking truth to power is never easy, & it never has been throughout time.   According to Committee to Protect Journalists, 34 reporters were murdered last year around the world, with 10 killed in Sierra Leone. Another 87 journalists were imprisoned because of their work; China was the "leading jailer of journalists," with 19 in prison by year's end. Almost 2/3 (63%) of the world's countries today restrict print & electronic journalists per NY based research org Freedom House.
… For example, we are now ironically more susceptible to weapons of mass destruction than we were before the collapse of the Soviet Union. The nuclear, biological and chemical warfare technologies used in 20th century weapons of mass destruction were almost entirely military, developed in & paid for by govt laboratories.
But today's breathtaking 21st century technologies, robotics, genetically engineered organisms, biotechnology, have wildly unpredictable aspects to them. Because these new technologies are being developed almost entirely by corporate enterprises, for commercial purposes, there is no real political discourse, no collective discussion about shared values, ethics, morals. Unlike atomic & nuclear weapons, these powerful, unprecedented new technologies are obtainable & usable by individuals or small groups. They do not require large facilities or rare raw materials, and these technologies are not under the control of any nation-state. All that is required is knowledge & money.

Because of these new, disconcerting circumstances, the co-founder and chief scientist of Sun Microsystems, Bill Joy, recently wrote in Wired magazine that we have entered "the century of danger." He believes that "it is no exaggeration to say we are on the cusp of the further perfection of extreme evil, an evil whose possibility spreads well beyond that which weapons of mass destruction bequeathed to the nation-states, on to a surprising and terrible empowerment of extreme individuals."

What's Legal; What's Illegal? What exactly is the role of national and international govts in all of this? Who is protecting the public interest? How can journalists get information from multibillion dollar, transnational corporations that increasingly are under no legal obligation to disclose their activities to anyone? What is legal when there are technologies so new that the laws have yet to be written anywhere?
Is anything illegal? Is everything legal?
How do nations that sell off their natural resources, from water to diamonds, ensure that all of their citizens benefit from such financial dealings? To what extent are the wealthy, industrialized nations in the North acting sincerely and in good faith on such vital subjects as global warming with the poorer countries in the South? In the U.S. right now, companies are patenting human genes. From human genes to specific plant species and seeds, who owns the commercial rights? Is everything for sale?

There are thousands of these kinds of new questions, all of them requiring imagination and innovation and international insight by today's news organizations if they hope to remotely explore them with their readers, viewers, listeners, browsers. Almost all of these new questions affect the health, safety or financial well-being of everyone. Physical nation-state borders are substantially irrelevant.
Meanwhile, all of the tragically familiar inequities and injustices continue on a global scale, all notably underreported by the Western news media. The wealthiest fifth of the world's people consumes 86 percent of all goods and services, while the poorest fifth consumes 1 percent. Almost 800 million people - roughly one-sixth of the world's developing nation population - are malnourished, and 200 million of them are children. One in four adults in the developing world is illiterate. Approximately 1.3 billion people lack access to safe drinking water.

All of these complicated, vexing issues somehow must be understood and investigated by journalists around the world. Companies and govts, large and small, would like the public perceptions about these subjects to comport with their own specific financial and political agendas. While the role and the future of the nation-state today are unclear, in any country, the perceived threat posed by an independent truth teller rooting around, looking for the "real facts," is very clear. As Nobel Prize-winning author Nadine Gordimer recently wrote in Living in Hope and History, "The State wants from the Writer reinforcement of the type of consciousness it imposes on its citizens, not the discovery of the actual conditions of life beneath it, which may give the lie to it." …

Death, taxes, and Internet taxes
5.31.07   Robin Raskin Yahoo

A bill being championed by Michael Enzi, a Republican Senator from Wyoming, is calling for "sales tax fairness" so that online retailers and brick & mortar businesses would be more equal when it came to collecting and paying state taxes. As it stands now, if you buy an item from an online retailer in a different state, many states don't require you to pay any state sales tax. Hence online shopping becomes the preferred shopping, making life tough for retail stores.

Enzi predicts that if the Internet keeps growing, eroding the states' sales tax bases, then states will need to counter with higher income or property taxes. In other words, if you shop online expect to pay higher taxes elsewhere in your life.
At first blush, Enzi's plan might seem like a throwback to big govt and more taxes, but it's more complicated than that. The state sales tax laws are a Babel-like mess, with something like 7,500 tax agencies creating rules for what is taxed, where, and for how much. Enzi's plan would simplify all that.

Next, it's well documented (and visible to the naked eye) that local businesses have had a tougher go of it since Internet shopping came of age. For consumers there's something un-American about passing up the chance to save the sales tax (never mind the gas mileage) and shop online.
At the risk of being wildly unpopular, I think Enzi's plan is worthy of consideration. As a matter of fact, I'd go one step further. I'd earmark this newly collected tax money to educate consumers about the Internet, helping them to keep safer from scams & fraud.

Why not use an Internet sales tax to help build a better Internet?
  [ Because the states do not own the Net but do own sales taxes collected on their behalf. ]

Malaysian police raid website office
1.20.03   BBC

Malaysian police have raided the offices of the independent news website, Malaysiakini. Site editor Steven Gan told BBC News Online the police had taken away all of its headquarters' 19 computers & servers. The raid on Monday was in connection with a complaint issued by the youth wing of Malaysia's ruling party, Umno, over a letter carried by Malaysiakini which criticised govt preferential treatment of ethnic Malays.
The party complained that the letter carried false accusations, could instil hatred towards govt among non-Malays and contained seditious remarks "that could create chaos in the country". A police investigation is now under way based on the country's sedition act, Mr Gan said.

The police asked Malaysiakini to reveal the author of the offending letter, and when the journalists refused to break their source's anonymity, the police said they would take the office's computers, Mr Gan said. The police were told that only one of the computers was capable of downloading letters, but "they insisted on taking the whole lot", Mr Gan told BBC News Online. Malaysiakini is now reliant on a back-up server outside the office, and is still writing stories.
A crowd of at least 200 people has been staging a candle-lit vigil outside Malaysiakini's offices in support. Mr Gan said he was to make a police statement on Tuesday. "My opinion is that (the letter) is not seditious … I am convinced it is a factual comparison between what is happening in U.S. and what is happening here," Mr Gan said. "I think these guys (Umno) have been watching us," he added. The letter was not the real issue, but simply "allowed them the chance to come in here to shut us down", he said.

The letter was posted on the Malaysiakini site on Thursday, in response to a defence of the country's policy on ethnic Malays. The letter is strongly critical of govt preferential treatment of this ethnic group, occasionally using uncompromising language. "It is an obscenity to see well-fed Malays driving around in Mercedes Benzes and drawing fat salaries, yet availing themselves of 7.5% bumiputera (ethnic Malay) discount' for posh houses, plentiful govt scholarship forms to go overseas, entitlement to bumiputera unit trusts … when everyone else is in recession or going broke," the letter said.
"There has been a lot of unhappiness" about "rich Malays abusing such privileges", Mr Gan said.

Malays retain certain benefits under affirmative action programs introduced in 1971. Along with indigenous people, they make up nearly 60% of the population with ethnic Chinese accounting for around 26% and Indians for 7%. The special privileges established quotas allowing Malays to enter universities and gain employment even if less qualified than applicants from other races. They also allocated 30% of the equity in local companies to Malays.
The policy was brought in to help the progress of Malays who in the 1970s were seen as economically disadvantaged.

"We live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by govts, by big corporations. We are bombarded with pseudo-realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives. I distrust their power.
… As a writer, I'd like to see some of my ideas, not just the special effects of my ideas, used."
Phillip K. Dick, science fiction auth.

    Power Sources   On party, gender, race & class, TV news looks to most powerful groups
    Ina Howard, U.S. research dir., Media Tenor Intl
    May/June 2002   FAIR
On an average weeknight, ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News are tuned in by approximately one-quarter of tv viewing homes in U.S. (Nielsen Media Research, 2001), about two-thirds of the U.S. public that claims to follow current events. …
synopsis   92% of all U.S. sources interviewed were white, 85% were male and, where party affiliation was identifiable, 75% were Republican.
Study based on data compiled by non-partisan, German-based media analysis firm Media Tenor Ltd. w/ NYC office. Data analyzed for time period between 1.1.01 & 12.31.01, incl 14,632 sources in 18,765 indiv. rpts. One of the reasons that feudalism thrived during the Middle Ages is that it was expensive to be a knight. The cost of a horse and armor exceeded what most peasants made in several years. Add to that the extensive training required to fight from horseback, and the superior diet required to put on enough muscle to do so, and you had a style of warfare that could only be engaged in by a chosen (well, self-chosen) few, who themselves could afford it only because of the support, voluntary or otherwise, of many, many others.

This gave the nobility a huge advantage over the peasantry - and not just a military advantage, but a social and moral advantage. Anyone so superior in such an important line of endeavor, after all, must be generally superior. Nobler, even.
The advantage started to break down, though, when the technology for killing people improved. Longbows made armored horsemen vulnerable, but though they were much cheaper than armor and horses, they still required many years of training to be effective. Firearms, when they came around, put paid to the traditional nobility and ushered in the age of the bourgeoisie. Guns were cheap, and one could become effective with one after only a few weeks' training.

Now, of course, the imbalance has become absurd. A dirt-cheap Chinese-made SKS rifle (which I've seen on sale for as little as $99 - a couple of days' pay at minimum wage) would enable anyone, with only a few hours of training, to put paid to the flower of medieval chivalry, at little risk to himself (or herself - another consequence of technological improvement). Feudalism is dead, as a result, and titled nobility is scarce, and politically unimportant.
The same kind of technological change is happening in the media world, of course. Not long ago, making a movie required a lot of very expensive and specialized equipment, extensive training, and - most significantly - a lot of money. So did making a record album. Now that's changing, too.

In the past couple of weeks I've mastered one record album, released another, and captured still images from digital videotape to be put on the website that will soon promote a documentary on teenaged killers that my wife is making. A project like hers would have cost upwards of a quarter of a million dollars not long ago (in fact, that's the actual price tag of one project much like hers from the early 1990s). Now, with video instead of film, and digital editing on a computer, you can make a documentary for a price measured in thousands, rather than hundreds of thousands, of dollars. I may be more of a media geek than most people, but I'm not alone. The teenage boys across the street from me are busily churning out their own CDs and putting their work on the Internet, as are a horde of other people of all ages and skill levels. Individually they're no threat to Big Media, but as a group, they're producing huge amounts of new content that competes, to some degree, with the latest offerings from Christina Aguilera or Avril Lavigne.
Some people think that old media folks just don't get this. In response to a speech at Comdexby Fox's CEO Peter Chernin, Jonathan Peterson writes:

    At a very fundamental level, the Big Content companies don't understand the revolution that is happening in the digital media realm. They still see us as consumers only capable of digesting their offerings and handing over money. They really don't seem to understand that the reason we are buying PCs, video cameras, digital cameras, broadband connections and the like is that we want to create and share our creations. The quality of "amateur" content is exploding at the same time that Big Media companies are going through one of their all-time lows in music and television creativity. No wonder we're spending more time with our PCs than we are with our TVs.
I wonder, though, if the Big Media people do understand it. Like the armored knights of the Middle Ages, their position has been a function not of their own inherent virtues, but of a particular economic & technological confluence that is now passing away. And I believe that much of what's being marketed as "digital rights management" to prevent "stealing" of big-media works is in fact intended to serve as "digital restrictions management" to protect big-media operations from competition by making life harder on potential competitors.
I think they're doomed, technologically. But if Big Media let their position go without a fight to keep it by fair means or foul, they'll be the first example of a privileged group that did so. So beware.

    S.Korea's web guerrillas   ²
    3.12.03   Caroline Gluck BBC
Seoul   Oh Yeon-ho, soft spoken bespectacled man, may not look like a guerrilla fighter, but that is how he sees himself and many others of his generation. They are called the 386 generation in South Korea, people in their 30s, educated in the 1980s and born in the 1960s.
"My generation, the 386 generation, were in the streets fighting in the 80s against the military dictatorship. Now, 20 years later, we are combat-ready with our internet," he said at his office in downtown Seoul. "We really want to be part of forming public opinion; all of us, all of the 386 generation are now deployed with the internet, ready to fight."

3 years ago, Mr Oh turned to the internet in his battle to create a new form of journalism in S.Korea. The country's media, once stifled under decades of military dictatorship, is still today predominantly conservative and owned by influential business & political figures. Today, his internet newspaper OhmyNews is one of the country's most powerful news services.
Its reports on the deaths of 2 South Korean schoolgirls, run down by an American armored military vehicle last June, prompted one reader to call for demonstrations. The idea snowballed, and led to some of the largest displays of anti-American sentiment in the country in recent years.

The paper also played a part in helping to swing public opinion behind Roh Moo-hyun during December's presidential election campaign. At that time, OhmyNews registered as many as 20 million hits a day, although it has now settled down to around 15 million hits. Oh sees the outcome of the election as a victory for the alternative media in South Korea.
"In the past, the conservative papers in Korea could & did lead public opinion. They had the monopoly. They were against Roh Moo-hyun's candidacy.
OhmyNews supported the Roh Moo-hyun phenomenon, with all the netizens participating. In our battle between the conservative media & netizens of Korea, the netizens won," he said.

The internet is where many S.Koreans, particularly the younger generation, get their news first, bypassing the traditional media. The country is one of the most wired in the world, with nearly 70% of households enjoying broadband connections. There are now several internet newspapers in South Korea, but OhmyNews is the most popular and one of the most radical.
It was launched by Mr Oh, who used to write for radical underground magazines 3 years ago. "I launched OhmyNews on 2.22.02 at 2.22pm. That was my farewell to the journalism of the 20th Century," he said, smiling. His goal was to change the news culture into one in which the public was involved in producing, as well as reading, the news. "It was a one-way street before", said Mr Oh. "The concept of our paper is that all citizens can participate," he said.

His goal succeeded. The paper has a professional staff of just 41, and 23,000 "citizen reporters" who send in news reports on just about anything, and determine OhmyNews' editorial policy. Articles are rigorously fact-checked by in-house staff; but only a handful are re-written or republished, and just 2 articles have ended up in legal action in the courts.
Pay for the "citizen reporters" varies from nothing to just under $20, but the top stories will be carried with the writer's by-line and the knowledge that millions of people could be reading their article. The paper's staff are not resting on their laurels, however. They want to broaden their audience, strengthen their network of citizens reporters and encourage more video & picture contributions. They are proud of their success and growing influence.

OhmyNews boasts a string of scoops, including recent revelations that the Hyundai group paid hundreds of millions of dollars secretly to North Korea just before the historic inter-Korean summit 3 years ago. It has also won battles in getting previously closed press rooms at govt ministries opened up to wider media outlets.
OhmyNews was a play on the phrase "Oh my God" which became a catchphrase of a popular comedian. "It wasn't connected to my surname," laughed Mr Oh. "I just wanted to show that the name underlined my belief that all citizens can be reporters; and the word Oh, like you are surprised when you see something that really has news value and you get excited about it," he said.

    Winston Smith   truth ministry
Secretive U.S. 'information' office returns
3.10.03   Connie Cass AP

Wash.D.C.   A Cold War-era office with a shadowy name and a colorful history of exposing Soviet deceptions is back in business, this time watching Iraq. The Counter-Disinformation/Misinformation Team's moniker is more impressive than its budget. It's a crew of 2 toiling in anonymity at the State Dept, writing reports they are prohibited by law from disseminating to the U.S. public.
The operation has challenged some fantastic claims over the years, a U.S. military lab invented AIDS, rich Americans kidnapped foreign babies for their organs, the CIA plotted to kill Pope John Paul II. Since the office reopened in October, it's been responding to Iraqi claims about America, which tend to be more plausible and sometimes remain in dispute.

In coordination with the CIA, FBI and others, the team helps U.S. embassies identify and rebutt other nations' disinformation, most often fabrications about U.S. planted in foreign newspapers or TV shows and, these days, on the Internet. It's part of a broader Bush administration project to shore up America's reputation when sentiment against a possible war with Iraq is running high overseas.
It's not the stuff of James Bond movies, but disinformation has long been a tool of the world's secret operatives, including America's. Reports that a new Office of Strategic Influence might dabble in disinformation caused such an uproar this year that DefSec Rumsfeld ordered it closed, insisting the Pentagon doesn't spread lies.

Even so, in Afghanistan last year, the U.S. military dropped leaflets with a doctored photograph showing Osama bin Laden beardless in a Western-style suit. Some of the administration's claims about links between Iraqi President Saddam Hussein & al-Qaida have been stretched.
In these days of war preparation, the pressure to peddle the U.S. version of events is enormous; civil libertarians question how far govt should go. "When you're fighting an enemy not constrained by social norms or morals, do you get down in the gutter or do you stick to certain rules of behavior?" asked libertarian Cato Institute foreign policy studies dir. Christopher Preble. "It's important to question where do we draw the line."

Tucker Eskew, White House global communications chief, says the administration can't concern itself with shooting down every lie about America. "Yet we do have to more aggressively promote the truth about our foreign policy and about our society in the face of distortion," he said. Eskew said the team helped write a report issued by the White House in January, "Apparatus of Lies: Saddam's Disinformation and Propaganda."
"The regime uses a combination of on-the-record lies, covert placements of false news accounts, self-inflicted damage and fake interviews," the report says. The report recalls that, during the Persian Gulf War, Iraqis showed reporters a bombed-out factory with a hand-lettered sign that read "Baby Milk Plant" in English & Arabic. The White House says the factory had been converted to a biological weapons laboratory. Disagreement lingers to this day.

Dennis Kux, who coordinated counterdisinformation for the Reagan administration, said ignoring false stories is risky. "It's like drops of water falling over a stone," Kux said. "In one year, five years, 10 years, you've worn a hole in the stone, in this case, the U.S. reputation."
A decade after the Soviet Union's collapse, the KGB is remembered as a disinformation virtuoso, especially creative in faking documents. "We saw forgeries signed Ronald Reagan, Jerry Ford, Jimmy Carter," said Herbert Romerstein, who ran the original counterdisinformation office during most of the 1980s. Once, a phony memo appeared under Romerstein's own letterhead.

The KGB even faked letters from the Ku Klux Klan, threatening to kill African & Asian athletes at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, Romerstein said. The Soviets were boycotting, in retaliation for America's boycott of the Moscow games, and hoped to scare other nations away. In 1992, former Russian spymaster Yevgeny Primakov admitted the KGB made up the AIDS story. The "baby parts" tale was an urban legend exploited and spread by the Soviets, Romerstein said.
"One of the more bizarre stories the Soviets developed was called the 'ethnic weapon,'" he recalled. "Supposedly the Americans were developing a bomb that would kill blacks and keep whites alive."
In 1996, State laid off the last man in the counterdisinformation office, Todd Leventhal. He was rehired Oct. 2002; now he has a researcher & a part-time writer.


Op.Mockingbird & Congress for Cultural Freedom
… Bradlee used the Rosenberg case to say, "No this isn't what you think it is. These people really did this bad thing and they really do deserve to die. It doesn't mean that U.S. is becoming fascist." So he had a very key role in creating European public opinion and it was very, very important. This was the key issue that was going to determine how the Europeans felt about U.S.. Some of the documents that I had showed him writing letters to the prosecutors of the Rosenbergs saying "I'm working for the head of the CIA in Paris and he wants me to come look at your files." So in the second edition, which came out in 1987, I reprinted those documents, the actual documents, the readers can see them and it's got his signature and it's very, very interesting. He subsequently has said nothing about it at all. He won't talk about it all. He won't answer any questions about it.

So I guess the point about Bradlee is that he went from this job to being European bureau chief for Newsweek magazine and to Post executive editorship. It's very clear line of succession. Philip Graham was Katharine Graham's husband, who ran the Post in the '5Os and he committed suicide in 1963. That's when Katharine Graham took over. Bradlee was close friends with Allen Dulles & Phil Graham.
The paper wasn't doing very well for a while and he was looking for a way to pay foreign correspondents. CIA head Allen Dulles was looking for a cover for some of his operatives so that they could get in & out of places without arousing suspicion. The 2 of them hit on a plan: Allen Dulles would pay for the reporters and they would give the CIA the information that they found as well as give it to the Post. This operation subsequently spread to other newspapers & magazines. It was called Operation Mockingbird. This operation, I believe, was revealed for the first time in my book. …

CIA secret activities, covert missions, and connections of control are all done under pretense & protection of national security with no accountability, at least in their minds. The public is held accountable for everything we think, say, and do. The CIA is the President's secret army who have been & continue to be conveniently above the law with unlimited power & authority, to conduct global terror reign.
… Assn for Responsible Dissent estimates 6 million people died by 1987 as a result of CIA covert operations, called an "American Holocaust" by former State Dept official William Blum. In 1948, the CIA recreated its covert action wing called the Office of Policy Coordination with Wall St lawyer Frank Wisner as its first director. Another early elitist who served as CIA dir. 1953 to 1961 was Wall St firm Sullivan & Cromwell sr partner Allen Dulles, which represented Rockefeller empire and other trusts, corporations & cartels.

In early days of the Cold War (late 40's), CIA began a secret project called Operation Mockingbird, with intent of buying influence behind the scenes at major media outlets and putting reporters on the CIA payroll, an ongoing success. CIA effort to recruit American news organizations & journalists to become spies & disseminators of propaganda, was headed up by Frank Wisner, Allen Dulles, Richard Helms, and Wash.Post publ. Philip Graham. Wisner had taken Graham under his wing to direct the program code-named Operation Mockingbird and both have presumably committed suicide.
Mockingbird was an immense financial undertaking with funds flowing from the CIA largely through the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) founded by Tom Braden with Pat Buchanan. The CIA infiltrated businesses, media, and universities with tens of thousands of on-call operatives by the 1950's. CIA dir. Dulles staffed CIA almost exclusively with Ivy League grads. Media assets will eventually incl ABC, NBC, CBS, Time, Newsweek, Associated Press, United Press Intl (UPI), Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps-Howard, Copley News Service, etc. and 400 journalists, who have secretly carried out assignments according to documents on file at CIA HQ, from intelligence-gathering to serving as go-betweens.

… Reporters are paid employees and serve media owners who usually cower when challenged by advertisers or major govt figures. Robert Parry reported the first breaking stories about Iran-Contra for Associated Press that were largely ignored by the press & congress, then moving to Newsweek he witnessed a retraction of a true story for political reasons. In 'Fooling America: a talk by Robt Parry' he said, "The people who succeeded & did well were those who didn't stand up, who didn't write the big stories, who looked the other way when history was happening in front of them, and went along either consciously or just by cowardice with the deception of the American people."

Major networks are primarily controlled by giant corporations obligated by law to put investor profits ahead of all other considerations, often in conflict with responsible journalism. There were around 50 corporations a couple of decades ago, which was considered monopolistic by many. Today, these companies are larger & fewer as the biggest absorb rivals. Concentration of ownership & power reduces diversity of voices; large conglomerates with holdings in many industries interfere in newsgathering because of conflicts of interest.

Media corp. share board members with other large corporations incl banks, investment co., oil co., health care, pharmaceutical, and technology co. Until the 1980's, media systems were generally domestically owned, regulated, and national in scope. However, pressure from IMF, World Bank, and US govt to deregulate & privatize media, communication, and new technology resulted in global commercial media system dominated by a few powerful transnational media corps, mostly US based, advancing global markets & CIA agenda.
First tier of 9 giant firms that dominate are Time Warner/AOL, Disney/ABC, Bertelsmann, Viacom/CBS, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp/Fox, General Electric/NBC, Sony, Universal/Seagram, Tele-Communications Inc. or TCI and AT&T. Second & third tier working together in unison or feigned division incl Wash.Post/Newsweek, NY Times/Weekly Standard, Tribune Co., US News, Gannett/USA Today, Dow Jones/Wall St Journal, Washington Times, Knight-Ridder, etc.

CNN aired "Valley of Death" June 1998; Time magazine (both owned by Time-Warner) ran a story about a secret mission called Operation Tailwind and activities of SOG, Studies & Observations Group secret elite commando unit of the Army's Special Forces that used lethal nerve gas (sarin), on a mission to Laos designed to kill American defectors. The broadcast was prepared after exhaustive research and rooted in considerable supportive data. To decide the truth for yourself, read Floyd Abrams' report on the CNN site at www.cnn.com/US/9807/02/tailwind.findings/index.html.
The network was awash in denials and the story was hushed up, as usual. Acknowledged use of this gas coming at a time when U.S. govt was trying to get Saddam to comply with weapons inspections was an embarrassment, hypocrisy of having used the weapons on our own troops, then complaining & accusing Saddam of potential use of stored similar weapons, some manufactured in & supplied by the U.S.

Journalists Carl Bernstein & Bob Woodward broke the stories on Watergate (late 70's) in the Washington Post, having gained access to what the CIA was trying to keep from congress about its program of using journalists at home and abroad, in deliberate propaganda campaigns. It was later revealed Woodward was a Naval intelligence briefer to the White House and knew many insiders incl Gen. Alexander Haig. A high-level source told Bernstein, "One journalist is worth twenty agents."
CFR/Trilateralist Katharine Graham, in a 1988 speech given to sr CIA employees at Agency HQ said, "We live in a dirty & dangerous world. There are some things the general public does not need to know & shouldn't. I believe democracy flourishes when the govt can take legitimate steps to keep its secrets and when the press can decide whether to print what it knows."

CIA vet Ralph McGehee, 25 years mainly in southeast Asia where he witnessed bombing & napalming of villages which caused him to examine closely what the CIA was really all about, wrote about Vietnam's Phoenix Pgm. After long battle with CIA censors, he published the book "Deadly Deceits" in 1983. Ralph has been harassed by the CIA & FBI, involving bodily injury, and his CIABASE website was shut down on spring 2000. He copied some reports. ¹ ² ³
He concluded CIA is not now nor has it ever been a central intelligence agency but rather the covert action arm of the President's foreign policy advisors, of which disinformation is a large part of its responsibility and the American people are the primary target of its lies.

4 things filled CIA with rage & sealed JFK's fate. He fired Allen Dulles, was in the process of founding a panel to investigate CIA's numerous crimes, put a damper on breadth & scope of the CIA, and limited their ability to act under National Security Memoranda 55. … mainstream American Press is a controlled multi-national corporate/govt megaphone. …
    corporations & resources
    Disney buys Fox Family for $3 billion
    7.23.01   AP
LOS ANGELES   Walt Disney Co. is buying the children's cable network Fox Family Worldwide Inc. for $3 billion in cash plus the assumption of $2.3 billion in debt. The deal announced Monday adds another major cable outlet to Disney's portfolio, which already includes ESPN, the Disney Channel and stakes in A&E and Lifetime. Fox Family Channel, which Disney plans to rename ABC Family, reaches about 81 million subscribers in the U.S.   Disney bought Fox Family from News Corp. & Saban Entertainment Inc., which each owned 49.5% of the co. The sale came about after Saban, major children's programmer which created the "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers,'' exercised its right to have News Corp. buy out its share.
"This is a perfect fit for our company,'' Disney CEO Michael Eisner said in a conference call. "We paid appropriately for a great asset, which drives us to the No. 1 position in basic cable subscribers and gives us a greater presence and growth opportunity intlly.'' For News Corp., the deal provides a welcome dose of cash just as the company is hoping to reach an agreement with General Motors Corp. over a purchase of the GM's Hughes Electronics div. DirecTV satellite broadcaster.

The deal expands Disney's programming reach worldwide with a 76% ownership in Fox Kids Europe, a children's programming channel that reaches 24 million homes, and a 10-million subscriber channel in Latin America called Fox Kids. Disney is also getting Saban's programming library, which contains more than 6,500 episodes of shows. It is the first major acquisition by Disney since it bought Capital Cities/ABC in 1996. The co. has been criticized by some analysts for not being more aggressive while other companies, such as Viacom Inc. & AOL Time Warner Inc., consolidated and tied up vital distribution outlets for Disney's content.
Disney officials said the deal should increase advertising revenue for its media networks division by 50% within 2 years from the 2001 level of approximately $200 million. ABC, ESPN and other networks have suffered from an advertising slump in recent months because of the slowing economy. The increase in revenue should come without a significant jump in programming costs, Disney said. A new lineup for the ABC Family channel will incl news pgms from ABC, such as "The View,'' sports programming from ESPN and comedies & dramas from ABC.

Disney has an agreement with its ABC affiliate stations that allows it to rebroadcast up to 25% of its prime- time lineup on other channels. The company said Monday it will negotiate with affiliates to broaden its rights to use programming. The deal will also give Disney a wider platform to promote its other broadcast networks, major studio films and theme parks. Disney expects that it can cut $50 million from the operating costs of the new channel immediately by consolidating back office operations and advertising sales staffs.
The deal also gives Disney the rights to air Major League Baseball games 2 nights a week during the regular season, plus between 8 & 11 first-round playoff games. Disney president Robert Iger said baseball came as a condition of sale from News Corp. & Saban. The games will be produced by ESPN, Iger said. The channel will also continue to show the 700 Club & other shows made by Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcast Network, which originally started the network. "I've talked to Pat Robertson and we happen to think he is an asset to the channel,'' Eisner said. "He's got a great following. He produces a quality program and we will build a schedule with a commitment to him.''
  [ Does this mean the devout Christians' campaign of the late 1990s to tar Disney as sanctuary to homosexual advocacy was, at heart, an extortion, so kai ya, to market advancement by merger ?]

French media giant Vivendi Universal has eased investors' fears about co. health by posting above-par results. The group has been dogged by rumours of imminent profit warnings and shareholder unrest for the past few months, but its second quarter results beat analysts' expectations. Vivendi said its core earnings, or earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, rose 57% to £840m, with turnover climbing 16% to £4bn. Analysts had expected EBITDA growth of around 40% from a company formed last year by the £50bn merger of French group Vivendi and Universal Studios owner Seagram.
The merger brought together mobile phone co. SFR, pay-TV group Canal Plus, Universal Music and mobile internet portal Vizzavi. Since the merger, Vivendi has added internet music service MP3.com (San Diego CA) and educational publ. Houghton Mifflin to the group, raising shareholder concerns about knitting together so many disparate elements. But Vivendi CEO Jean-Marie Messier said the group would continue to beat market expectations. "The results produced by Vivendi Universal in the second quarter are well ahead of market consensus," he said. "They confirm the robustness of our businesses, with limited exposure to advertising; the benefits of a truly global position; and the fast progress of the reorganisation and implementation of our recent merger."

The figures were led by strong results from Vivendi's telecom div., which reported a 70% jump in earnings to £430m, aided by the acquisition of Morocco's Maroc Telecom. The film and television division also performed well, with Universal Studio's The Mummy Returns movie pushing earnings up from £173m to £190m. Universal Music reported a surprising increase in core earnings, from £141m to £165m, thanks to big-selling albums from Shaggy & Bon Jovi.

Quiet FCC maverick raises his voice on media rules   Commissioner putting pressure on FCC chair Powell over his move to relax ownership limits.
12.16.02   Edmund Sanders L.A. Times

Michael J. Copps doesn't exactly cut the figure of a political heavyweight. He's an old-school Democrat on a Republican-controlled FCC. Former history prof. Copps is so soft-spoken that even admirers say he can come across as a little dull. FCC insiders sometimes roll their eyes as Copps, at age 62 is a generation older than the other commissioners, champions issues some view as out-dated, such as suggesting that recent broadcast of a Victoria's Secret fashion show met govt definition of indecency.

Beneath unassuming, grandfatherly exterior, Copps is emerging as one of the most outspoken & politically savvy commissioners at the agency, observers say. He launched ambitious challenge to FCC chair Powell on one of Powell's key initiatives, relaxation of decades-old rules that restrict who may own broadcasters and how large they can grow.
Though the biggest battles over media ownership won't occur until spring, Copps is winning some early skirmishes, at times out-maneuvering Powell and maintaining steady pressure to raise public awareness about the issue.

"This is No. 1 on my list," said Copps, who fears growing consolidation of broadcast & media companies will stifle viewpoints and give a few corporations vast power over what Americans watch, hear and read. "I'm determined to have a conversation with this country on these issues before we pass a vote, and I'm going to do everything I can to make that happen."
Copps' strategy so far has been to slow down the FCC's review of media-ownership regulations. Powell had promised to wrap up the proceeding by next spring. Today, that timetable is questionable.

Copps first pushed the agency to extend a public comment period by 30 days. Then he demanded that the FCC conduct a public hearing about the rules, even though Powell & aides dismissed that idea as a waste of time & money and an exercise in "foot-stomping."
The standoff was won after Copps announced if Powell refused to convene a formal hearing, he would organize a makeshift one of his own. Faced with the prospect of appearing to be uninterested in the public's views, Powell relented and called a hearing for February.

Such tactics have gained Copps notice inside & outside the agency. "He was very much an unknown," said Consumers Union co-dir. Gene Kimmelman, one of several advocacy groups that oppose relaxation of media ownership rules. "But he's flown in below the radar screen and shown himself to be very effective & adept."
Telecomm consultant & former Democratic FCC chair Reed Hundt said, "I don't remember any commissioner ever forcing me to call a hearing I didn't want to have." In anticipation of the Feb. hearing, Copps is trying to spur public support by linking his 2 pet issues: media consolidation and indecency on television & radio.

He has argued that media consolidation & corporate ownership of tv & radio stations accelerated the "race to the bottom" in offering sex & violence. Suddenly, his keen interest in maintaining decency doesn't look so old-fashioned, experts say.
If Copps can tap into community outrage over profanity & sex on tv and redirect anger at media consolidation, Powell may find more public resistance than he expected, analysts and industry officials say. "He's pretty crafty in the way he's going about this," one media lobbyist said. "He's a seasoned political operative and he's keeping the pressure on Powell."

Copps has hit the road, speaking about the issue to lawmakers, religious groups, unions and newspaper editorial boards, an unusually aggressive strategy for a commissioner. At the recent annual Kennedy Ctr Honors in Washington, Copps chatted up Walter Cronkite and urged the veteran anchorman to speak out against media consolidation.
Although critics accuse Copps of trying to delay or halt a vote, he denies this. "I'm saying we need to get the facts. I have a lot of questions."

Powell declined to comment. His media advisor Susan Eid said the chairman welcomes the chance to gather public opinion at a hearing, though she noted that the agency hears from the public on a daily basis. Interested parties can submit comments to the FCC until Feb. 3. In the eyes of Powell, broadcast restrictions, some of which are more than 30 years old, should be updated to reflect the growth of cable TV & the Internet.
Over the last 2 years, a federal appeals court has thrown out several of the rules, questioning whether they still serve the public interest. "We must focus on developing broadcast ownership rules that are sustainable in court," Eid said.

On Sunday, a coalition of consumer groups released a report warning that a relaxation of media ownership rules would spur a wave of harmful consolidation. The report, by the Consumer Federation of America, predicted that mergers between newspapers & TV stations would reduce each sector's independence, stifling diverse viewpoints.
Tribune Co., parent of L.A.Times & KTLA-TV Channel 5, has been a leading critic of the media ownership rules, particularly one that prohibits control of newspapers & tv stations in the same market. Also pushing for relaxation of the rules are Viacom Inc. & News Corp.

Though a relative newcomer to the FCC, Copps is a longtime Washington insider. Wisconsin native, he grew up as a Republican until the presidential campaign of JFK drew him to the Democratic Party. After getting a doctorate in history and teaching at Loyola Univ. (New Orleans), he persuaded his fiancee to move to Washington.
"I always had this little bug that said I should go to Washington at some point and get politics out of my system," he recalled. Copps figured he'd stay in the capital "for a couple of years." Instead, he never left.

In 1970, he joined the staff of Sen. Ernest F. Hollings D-SC and eventually became chief of staff for the powerful legislator, who helped Copps win his FCC appt last year. "He's smart as all get out," Hollings said. "He'll make Powell stop, look and listen."
In the mid-1980s, Copps left public service to work as a lobbyist for manufacturing co. Collins & Aikman Corp. & the American Meat Institute. With the election of President Clinton, he joined the Commerce Dept, where he remained for 7 years, advocating for U.S. businesses on trade issues abroad.

Devout Catholic, Copps & wife have 5 children, youngest age 14. He said his concerns about indecency on tv & radio stem partly from his role as a parent. Recent Republican takeover of the Senate represents a setback for Copps and his media-ownership campaign because the election will remove Hollings from his chairmanship of the Senate Commerce Committee.
Hollings, outspoken critic of media consolidation, planned his own hearings and would have been in a position to cut the FCC's budget if the agency, in his view, moved too aggressively in relaxing the rules. It's unclear how Sen. John McCain R-AZ, who is taking over the committee, will act on the issue.

Copps said he plans to reach out to McCain as well as to Republican FCC Commissioners Kathleen Q. Abernathy and Kevin J. Martin and a second Democrat, Jonathan Adelstein, who was recently confirmed and could give Copps a potential ally. Yet regardless of how many wind up in Copps' camp, lobbyists warn against underestimating him.
Only non-lawyer on the commission, Copps has more govt service under his belt than do all of the Republican commissioners combined. Copps calls it the "High Noon showdown." Though he downplays his own political skills, Copps admits he relishes the process. "I love politics," said Copps, whose office is decorated with old presidential campaign posters dating to Teddy Roosevelt.
"I've been around town for a while. I'd like to think that's an advantage. … But we'll see how many votes I can carry."

    HP to take over billing at DirecTV
    12.12.02   Terril Yue Jones L.A. Times
Hewlett-Packard Co. plans to announce a contract today with El Segundo-based DirecTV that HP hopes will help its managed services business grow at twice the rate of the industry as a whole. Under the deal, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, Palo Alto-based HP will supply & manage the satellite television provider's billing infrastructure for 5 years. Billing is a complex operation for DirecTV, which sees subscribers surge around televised events such as the Super Bowl, a boxing championship or a season of HBO's "The Sopranos."

Even after its acquisition of Compaq Computer Corp. in May, HP Services remains the smallest of HP's 4 main divisions as measured by revenue. But the division, which includes the managed services business, is one of the 2 that made money last quarter, bringing in operating profit of $381 million for 3 months ended 10.31.02.
"One of the key drivers in the merger was to place into the market a credible alternative to IBM" for providing computer services to customers, said HP vp of managed services Joe Hogan. HP is one of the largest providers in the fiercely competitive computer services industry, along with IBM Corp., Electronic Data Systems Corp. and Computer Sciences Corp.

Hogan would not give additional details about the contract with DirecTV, unit of General Motors Corp.'s Hughes Electronics Corp. with about 11 million subscribers. DirecTV spokesman Bob Marsocci said the co. does not comment on the financial terms of its deals. The DirecTV contract is smaller than one HP announced in Sept. with Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. That agreement, worth $1.5 billion, would provide the Toronto-based bank with an overarching information technology infrastructure.

HP also is announcing today an alliance with NEC Corp. of Tokyo to provide computer services to high-end customers in Japan, China and the U.S. The partnership could include joint ventures for the delivery of services from small-scale managed computer services to taking over a customer's information technology assets and staff.
"We're bringing our global reach and process & methodology, they're bringing their mission-critical support, and hopefully we're going to be able to create some very attractive value propositions for people, esp. in the Japanese market," Hogan said.

Murdoch looks for U.S. arm of satellite empire
12.15.02   James Flanigan L.A.Times   ¹ ² © ³

Media titan Rupert Murdoch was once asked by a German journalist whether he recognized himself when described by critics as an "ogre." "No," Murdoch replied. "But I can think of more important things than being loved by everybody."
What the News Corp. chair is thinking of these days is circling the Earth with broadcast satellites, distributing films and other programming to billions of people in a single shot. With the official collapse last week of EchoStar Communications Corp.'s proposal to buy General Motors Corp.'s DirecTV satellite service, the door has now been opened for Murdoch to make the purchase.

If he succeeds in buying DirecTV, Murdoch will add satellite broadcasting in the U.S. to his BSkyB satellite operations in Britain and Europe, his Star TV satellite group in Asia and his SkyGlobal satellite services in Latin America.
"DirecTV is the golden piece needed to fill in his global picture," says Sean Badding, senior analyst of Carmel Group, a California research firm that tracks satellite TV and other media.

Murdoch acquisition of DirecTV could affect millions of U.S. households by sparking a price war with cable operators. Carmel Group projects that satellite broadcasting will have 30 million U.S. subscribers within a few years, in part because the firm figures that Murdoch would expand the reach of DirecTV to 20 million households, up from its present 12 million.
To be sure, satellites would still trail far behind cable as a delivery system for television and other services; cable operators have 73 million customers today. And the merger of Comcast Corp. and AT&T Corp.'s systems, which received federal approval last month, creates a single company with 22 million cable subscribers.

Murdoch, in other words, would be the underdog in this battle. And that's just the position he relishes most. The 71- year-old prides himself on having forged the News Corp. empire out of the 2 newspapers he owned in Adelaide, Australia, nearly half a century ago. "I have fought against them all my life," Murdoch said of his more entrenched competitors in Australia back then, and of all of his competitors since, according to Australian journalist Neil Chenoweth's biography published last year.

Murdoch, already a press lord in Britain, became a force in U.S. media circles in the mid-1980s. In a single year, the then-much-smaller News Corp. spent $2.6 billion to acquire the 20th Century Fox film studios, a chain of magazines and 6 television stations. The TV outlets became the nucleus of the Fox Entertainment Group, which now has 35 stations.
In all, News Corp. stands as a giant with more than $30 billion in stock market value and $16 billion in annual revenue from television, newspapers, satellite and filmed entertainment on 6 continents.

Murdoch has insisted repeatedly that he follows no grand plan. "News Corp. is what it is today because I never pretended to know in advance which course development would take," he said in an interview more than a decade ago. "I am a businessman and the chief executive of a media company, but not a media guru with the vision of a new age coming."
In fact, he says the only reason that he got into satellites is because he "missed the boat" on cable. "I was wrong about its profit potential," he conceded.

The alternative course Murdoch picked hasn't been easy. In the late 1980s, News Corp. started BSkyB in Britain and promptly lost hundreds of millions of dollars with it over several years. Still, Murdoch persevered.
"Rupert is a very determined competitor," says John Tinker, managing director of Blaylock & Partners, a NY investment firm, who has followed Murdoch's businesses for decades. "BSkyB is a very strong property now."

In 1991, News Corp. almost went under, just as the Gulf War and a worldwide recession hit. Murdoch agreed to sell some assets, largely magazines and print operations, and was allowed to refinance News Corp.'s burdensome $7.6-billion debt load.
But even then, he didn't slow the company's global expansion. In 1993, Murdoch bought the Star satellite operations from its owners in Hong Kong. News Corp. has had many setbacks with Star, among them a ban for many years on broadcasting to China.

But Star beamed into India, set up business in Japan and is now back in China. In the late '90s, Murdoch tried to establish a satellite presence in the U.S. by setting up a company called ASkyB. But he ran into a hostile opposition.
The cable companies feared competition with Murdoch, anxious over the leverage that his global satellite operation could use to make deals with producers of programming. The cable industry campaigned vigorously against Murdoch, lobbying Congress and freezing out News Corp.'s Fox channels in retaliation.

Ultimately, Murdoch retreated from the ASkyB attempt, but he came back last year, negotiating for months with General Motors to buy DirecTV. GM instead tried to sell the satellite service to EchoStar, a proposed deal that was nixed by federal antitrust regulators.
The very day the EchoStar-DirecTV merger collapsed, News Corp. phoned GM executives, asking for a meeting.

Media experts such as Jack Myers, who publishes an online newsletter on the advertising and media industries, predict a robust future for satellites, which can be put into operation with much lower capital investments than cable systems demand.
Murdoch is saying nothing publicly about his desires for DirecTV. "It's way too early to talk," says News Corp. spokesman Andrew Butcher. "We have to see if they want to sell it to us and whether we want to buy it at the price they may want."

"There is no such thing as a 'global village,' " Murdoch has said. "Most media are rooted in their local & national cultures. "Nevertheless, when you ask me whether global communications networks are a reality, my answer unequivocally is 'Yes!' "

Murdoch adds to empire with control of DirecTV
4.10.03   Andrew Ross Sorkin NY Times

… "I've always felt for years that if you're in the content creation business, you must be somewhere in the distribution business to make sure you're not wasting your efforts & your money," Murdoch said on Fox News. In 2001, Murdoch lost a bidding contest for control of Hughes to EchoStar Communications , the nation's second- largest sat operator. That deal was rejected by regulators late last year after Murdoch waged a behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign, circulating a 123-page volume opposing the deal called "The Essential Guide to the EchoStar/DirecTV Deal" around Washington to block the agreement, giving him a second chance.

… The News Corp's offer for Hughes is significantly lower than the amount it offered in the 2001 bidding war, a deal worth about $22.5 billion, calling into question the decision by General Motors, which controlled Hughes, to accept EchoStar's offer when it knew the chances of that deal's being blocked were high. This time around, there was only one bidder.
GM CEO Rick Wagoner Jr. contended in a conference call yesterday that "the economic value is roughly the same" from this deal with the News Corp, compared with its offer in 2001, but he declined to explain his math. A banker who worked on the transaction laughed when he heard of Wagoner's comments.
Under the terms of the deal, which must be approved by Hughes shareholders, the News Corp would buy G.M.'s 19.9% stake in Hughes for $14 a share, or $3.8 billion. Of that amount, at least $3.1 billion would be paid in cash, with the rest in News Corp publicly traded securities. The company would then make a tender offer for 14.1% of the publicly traded Hughes shares for $14 a share in cash or News Corp securities. The price represents a 22% premium over Hughes's stock price, which closed yesterday at $11.48, down 2¢, before the deal was formally announced. The shares, which trade as a GM tracking stock, edged up to $11.60 after hours. The News Corp's American depository receipts ended regular trading down 66¢, at $27.22. G.M. closed down 25¢, at $34.48.

GM is planning to use the cash it receives from the deal to reduce its debt and strengthen its balance sheet. News Corp would end up controlling 34% of Hughes, while the General Motors Pension Trust, separate from GM, would continue to own 21% and the public would own the remaining 45%. Hughes will eventually be folded into the Fox Entertainment Group.
It is unclear what the effect of the deal will be on consumers, but some are crying foul. "Hold on to your wallet," said Consumers Union co-dir. Gene Kimmelman, consumer advocacy group that supported the EchoStar-Hughes deal. "Prices will go through the roof." Kimmelman said he was worried that the News Corp would raise programming fees for cable operators by threatening to pull his networks off their systems, pushing cable prices for subscribers even higher. "He has no incentive to price-compete against cable as long they pay a hefty fee for his programming," Kimmelman said.
The News Corp disputes that contention and says that any price increases will have to be passed on to DirecTV as well, making higher programming prices less attractive. "We have every intention of being a fair player," Murdoch said.

… Murdoch is hoping to repeat the success he has had with British Sky Broadcasting with DirecTV. He has turned BSkyB into the largest pay TV operator in Britain by offering exclusive programming, like soccer matches, and has led the field in offering interactive services, like different camera angles for sporting events. It also offers programmable video recorders like the popular TiVo service.
GM said Murdoch would become Hughes chair and News Corp's former co-COO Chase Carey would be president & CEO. Hughes sr exec. vp Eddy Hartenstein will be Hughes vice chair.

An army of investment bankers & lawyers worked on the deal, many for more than 3 years. Indeed, half a dozen investment banks have worked on the transaction for little or no money because they are paid only after a deal is completed. Citigroup & J. P. Morgan Securities Inc. acted as financial advisers to the News Corp, while Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom; Hogan & Hartson and Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis provided legal advice. Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns acted as financial advisers to G.M., and Jenner & Block; Kirkland & Ellis; and Richards, Layton & Finger provided legal advice. Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse First Boston acted as financial advisers to Hughes Electronics and Weil, Gotshal & Manges; Latham & Watkins; Wiley, Rein & Fielding; and Jones Day provided legal advice.

Outspoken U.S. media tycoon Ted Turner turned up the heat in his acrimonious & long-standing feud with Rupert Murdoch last night, calling the News Corp chairman a "warmonger" for his support of the war in Iraq. Just weeks after Turner challenged Murdoch to a fist fight, he waded into his old adversary for his unrelenting support of the war. "He's a warmonger," Turner said in a speech in San Francisco. "He promoted it."

Murdoch openly backed the war on Iraq but the unquestioning support of his Fox News channel has caused controversy and astounded UK broadcasters, which are bound by law to maintain impartial & balanced news services. Fox News, controlled by News Corp, was one of the staunchest pro-war news organisations in the U.S. and its pro-Bush stance helped it overtake CNN, founded by Mr Turner, as the the most popular news network during the conflict.
Asked by a member of the audience for his thoughts on Fox's larger ratings share than CNN, Mr Turner said: "Just because your ratings are bigger doesn't mean you're better. It's not how big you are, it's how good you are that really counts."

Turner, well-known philanthropist who in 1997 pledged to give $1bn to the UN, echoed criticisms levelled yesterday at the US media by the BBC dir. general Greg Dyke, who said America's concentration of media ownership was "unhealthy". Turner said control exercised by a few corporations over vast swathes of American TV, radio and print media was detrimental. "The media is too concentrated, too few people own too much," he said.
Asked whether he would again try to launch a new TV network, the AOL Time Warner vice chair said: "No. I think the space is filled with the people already there." Turner's long-running feud with Murdoch goes back to 1983 when a Murdoch-sponsored yacht ran into Mr Turner's boat during the Sydney-to-Hobart race, causing it to sink 10km from the finish line. At the post-race dinner Turner savaged Murdoch, later challenging him to a televised fist-fight in Las Vegas.

When Murdoch launched Fox News in 1996 as a direct competitor to CNN, Turner said he was "looking forward to squishing Rupert like a bug". He also compared his rival to Adolf Hitler. "How do you make peace with a mega- maniac?" Turner once said of Murdoch. "Chamberlain tried to make peace. When you've got somebody like that, I don't think there's a spark of human decency in him, except he likes his family."
Throughout the war of words Murdoch has hit back through his newspapers, with NY Post claiming Turner was "veering dangerously towards insanity" and asking readers, "Is Ted nuts? You decide."

    Murdoch revisits Turner spat
    8.17.01   Daniel Rogers Guardian UK
News Corp boss Rupert Murdoch is set to re-open his rift with rival media mogul Ted Turner in an interview to be broadcast on U.S. TV station CNBC next week. In the program, to be shown on Monday, Murdoch accuses the CNN founder of saying "terrible things" about him and claims he now "feels sorry" for Mr Turner. The Murdoch- Turner spat last peaked in 1996 when News Corp launched the Fox News channel in direct competition to CNN, which was set up in 1980.
"When we announced Fox News, he said some terrible things about me and I remember laughing about it to a mutual friend. This friend said, 'No, no, he really does hate you; he means it'," says Murdoch. He adds: "When you read interviews with him and you can see his frustrations, you can't help but feel rather sorry for him."

Turner has had a difficult few years. In May, he divorced Jane Fonda, his wife of 10 years. Last year, AOL Time Warner boss Gerald Levin informed Turner that Turner Broadcasting would no longer report to him. Turner, who is still the biggest landowner in the U.S., once compared Murdoch to Hitler.
In the same interview, Murdoch dismisses speculation he wants to buy Yahoo! and puts the chances of securing the takeover of U.S. satellite company DirecTV at no better than 50/50.

News Corp seals $6.6 billion DirecTV deal
4.10.03   Reuters

NYC/Sydney   Media mogul Rupert Murdoch's News Corp Ltd clinched a deal to take control of U.S. satellite TV company DirecTV, but co. shares slid 9% Thursday on concern over the hefty $6.6 billion price tag. The cash & stock deal, which fulfils Murdoch's long-held dream to break into the U.S. satellite TV market, will result in a bigger-than-expected share issue to raise money. News Corp's forecast that DirecTV will only start adding to profits in 2006 added to investor worries. But most analysts called the sell-off overdone, saying DirecTV will strengthen the company's position in the key U.S. market.
"The deal itself in the long term is an excellent one for News Corp,'' said fund manager Ausbil Dexia equities dir. Paul Xiradis. "The issue of scrip was a little bit more than expected, but these are side issues.''

The acquisition comes almost 2 decades after Murdoch first tried to enter the U.S. sat TV business and rounds out his effort to build a diversified U.S. entertainment conglomerate. DirecTV's 11.3 million U.S. subscribers, the most in the country, complement News Corp's European, Asian and Latin American sat services.
The deal, which is expected to pass anti-trust regulators, brings to a close General Motors Corp's 2 year effort to sell DirecTV parent co. Hughes Electronics Corp. It also provides the automaker with a welcome chunk of cash for its underfunded pension plan.
News Corp's Australian-listed shares fell 8.8% to close at A$10.70 in late morning Australian trade on the deal. Its preferred stock fell 10.5% to A$8.68. The overall market closed down 0.2%. "Where the market is probably somewhat disappointed is they are buying an additional 14% of the stock and paying slightly more than people would have expected,'' said fund manager BT Financial Group in Sydney media analyst Scott Maddock.

News Corp will pay $14 per share, mostly in cash, for GM's 19.9% stake in Hughes, a 22% premium over Hughes' $11.48 closing price on Wednesday. News Corp also will offer to buy a 14.1% stake from the co. public shareholders for $14 a share for a mixture of cash & stock. News Corp may issue 626 million preferred shares at US$5.60 per share to partly fund the deal.
GM will receive about $3.1 billion in cash for its stake, and the remainder would be paid in News Corp preferred American Depositary Receipts (ADRs). The automaker also will receive a special $275 million "value creation'' dividend for converting the Hughes tracking stock to an asset-based stock upon the deal's completion.
"We had an idea of what was fair value for Hughes and we have a transaction here that we think achieved that,'' said GM's CEO Rick Wagoner, who saw a previous deal to sell Hughes to EchoStar scuttled by regulatory opposition.

Immediately after the transaction, News Corp will transfer ownership of Hughes to Fox Entertainment Group Inc, its majority-owned entertainment conglomerate that holds its U.S.-based entertainment assets like the Fox TV network Murdoch, who will serve as Hughes' chairman after the transaction is closed, said the transfer of Hughes to Fox was designed to "maintain the logical structure of News Corp.''
"For Fox, a direct-to-home platform capable of delivering our content to American sat viewers represents an invaluable outlet for our TV products,'' Murdoch said on a conference call. News Corp adviser Chase Carey will serve as Hughes president & CEO following the merger. Carey ran Murdoch's global sat assets until he left the co. after Murdoch's failed bid in 2001. News Corp executives will also control 4 of the company's 11 board seats.

Rival sat owner EchoStar Communications Corp edged out Murdoch in 2001 when it reached a $30 billion deal with Hughes. But regulatory opposition quashed the deal a year later, leaving GM to auction the unit again. Antitrust attorneys don't expect News Corp to run into anti-trust problems. Unlike EchoStar, News Corp is not currently in the U.S. pay-TV business, so the acquisition would not lead to further concentration in the industry, experts said.
However, the FCC & Justice Dept may have questions about whether the acquisition of DirecTV would allow Murdoch to use TV programming as a club against cable companies & EchoStar. Housing DirecTV within Fox may cause regulators to seek assurances from News Corp. that it would not withhold key programming EchoStar needs to compete, experts said.
Murdoch stressed News Corp would comply with all U.S. regulations. "Both News Corp. & DirecTV are committed to be bound by the FCC program access regulations under which we will make our content readily available to all sat TV providers as well as cable & other competing platforms,'' he said.

By acquiring DirecTV, Murdoch gets upper hand
4.1.03   David D. Kirkpatrick NY Times

6 years ago, when Mr. Murdoch was starting the Fox News Channel, he was reduced to pleading with Time Warner Cable to carry it in NY, reportedly offering more than $100 million to the co. and eventually enlisting Mayor Rudolph Giuliani & Gov. George Pataki in a political battle to get Fox on the air. But with the agreement yesterday to acquire the sat broadcaster DirecTV, News Corp chair Murdoch can transmit his own channels into homes across the country, redoubling co. bargaining power with cable operators, TV networks & Hollywood studios.
The merger may bode well for consumers because Mr. Murdoch, who spent much of his career waging cutthroat price wars as a newspaper publisher, is expected to escalate DirecTV's competition with cable companies for pay TV subscribers by adding services and possibly holding down rates. But almost everyone else in the entertainment industry stands to lose from News Corporation's new might.

In a conference call yesterday, Murdoch spoke enthusiastically of new satellite set-top boxes that can reschedule programs & skip commercials, threatening havoc on networks' advertising & schedules. In negotiations with Disney, Viacom AOL Time Warner and other cable network owners over carrying their channels on DirecTV, Murdoch will be able to bring extra leverage to bear because News Corp. may own or start similar networks. In negotiating with film studios or sports companies over pay TV rights, News Corp is now the only global customer, with sat systems spanning Europe, Asia and Latin America as well as U.S.
The deal's most immediate effect, however, will be on the cable TV business. News Corp will own both a large pay- TV distribution system in DirecTV and valuable programming businesses like Fox News Channel, Fox regional sports networks and new sports network Fuel, as well as many local stations & the 20th Century Fox film studios. At the same time that News Corp's DirecTV unit competes with cable companies for subscribers, it can raise their costs by bargaining more aggressively for access to its programming or pressure cable companies for better placement for its channels.

In an interview on the Fox News Channel a few minutes after the deal was announced yesterday, Murdoch, 72, said, "We plan to bring a lot of competition for the viewers & better viewing experience and better opportunities for Fox, too."
Some analysts said the structure of the deal suggested Murdoch hoped to use DirecTV mainly to punish other pay TV companies and benefit his programming businesses. Fox Entertainment Group , 80%-owned subsidiary of News Corp, will own a 34% stake in DirecTV's parent, creating the potential for programming deals that favor Fox over DirecTV.
"My sense is that the major purpose for News Corp controlling DirecTV is to use it as a tactical weapon against the cable companies to get them to pay up for its proprietary programming," said investment fund Bull Path Capital Management CEO Robert Kaimowitz.

News Corp is not the only company with both major programming & distribution businesses. AOL Time Warner also owns film studios & cable networks. But AOL Time Warner's businesses often negotiate at arm's length from one another. As controlling shareholder who built News Corp, Murdoch retains an unusually strong command over its operations.
"He can say, `You do this; it may be to the detriment of one piece of News Corp but you do it because it is a greater good for the other piece of News Corp,' " said Sanford Bernstein analyst Tom Wolzien. But a spokesman for News Corp said the co. saw a great opportunity to expand DirecTV and benefit its shareholders, in addition to the advantages of providing distribution for Fox's programming.

Some analysts said that Murdoch's acquisition of DirecTV might spur new interest in EchoStar , other major sat TV co. and former DirecTV suitor until antitrust authorities blocked their merger. Bull Path Capital Management' Kaimowitz , who owns shares of EchoStar, said he was betting that another entertainment co. might seek to match News Corp's leverage by buying EchoStar. Shares of EchoStar fell slightly yesterday after rising 70% over the last 6 months as News Corp's acquisition of DirecTV grew increasingly likely.
Comcast, Disney, AOL Time Warner and EchoStar declined to comment. Industry trade group National Cable & Telecommunications Assn spokesman Rob Stoddard , said, "Due to the very fact that the acquisition represents a powerful combination of programming & distribution interests, we anticipate that it will be reviewed carefully by federal authorities to assure fair competition and protection of consumer interests." But he said that the organization itself was unlikely to become party to the regulatory review because of the conflicting interests of some members.

Even media consolidation opponents, however, do not expect significant obstacles, in part because the merger does not reduce the number of sat or pay TV companies. In announcing the merger, News Corp also volunteered to comply with open-access rules governing the cable TV industry, pledging to offer any of its programming to other pay TV providers at the same price.
In his interview on Fox News, Murdoch repeated the promise, although he noted that the co. might still buy the exclusive rights to some programming like DirecTV's current offering of Sunday football games around the country. Blaylock & Partners analyst John Tinker said Murdoch's history in Britain suggested a stiff challenge to cable companies.
Cable industry executives, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they have to negotiate with News Corp, said yesterday that the industry was ready for the new competition. Industry executives often note that since 1996 cable companies have spent $70 billion upgrading their systems to provide more channels, interactive features like films & programming on demand, and high-speed Internet connections. Industry executives often note that sat services have, so far, been unable to match interactive features like video-on-demand because satellites broadcast signals only one way while digital cable wires can transmit both ways.

Still, Kagan Media World analyst John Mansell noted many local cable systems had not yet been upgraded, incl much of the territory recently acquired by Comcast, putting new pressure on Comcast & others to step up their investments. He noted that sat transmission technology might soon improve enough to match cable's ability to deliver video-on-demand & high-speed Internet services. DirecTV's reach, unlike that of cable operators, extends throughout the country, beyond limited territory of any cable system. DirecTV reaches 11 million subscribers, as many as Time Warner Cable and half as many as Comcast.
Mansell also said that the deal might not provide unadulterated benefits to consumers, depending on how much Murdoch opens access to the company's programming. Although Murdoch has pledged to offer News Corp's programming to other pay TV operators on the same terms as they are offered to DirecTV, he may still raise the price of some events or channels, since one company he controls, DirecTV, will be paying another, Fox Entertainment, owned by News Corp.
A spokesman for News Corp, however, said the company would not charge excessive prices for its programming.

journalist research links
article search
News Art illustr. for headlines

alternative
IMC D.C.   email 202.452.5936
  Announcements & discussions
  subscribe & archives.
Endgame Research (PIN)
Friday 12.15.00 anti-LPFM language contained in the Grams legislation passed both House & Senate as part of the omnibus budget bills. Full summary   Prometheus Radio.
California
L.A. Times, Orange County edition
  1121 L St Sacramento CA 95814
LA Daily News 916.446.6723 925
  L St Sacramento CA 95814
OrangeCty Register Capitol Bureau
  Sacramento CA 95814 916.449.6685
OrangeCty Weekly   L.A. Weekly   New Times
Long Beach Press Telegram
Orange, SanDiego & Ventura Cty media list pdf
more OC/LA media links
OC Now ~ Orange Cty per Cox Cable
L.A. Times Orange County commentary
California Capitol Alert - Sacramento Bee
post yourself on largest online collection of community events in the Inland Empire
La Opinión 411 W.5th St LA CA 90013
  213.896.2313 fax 213. 896.3291
Orange County newspaper email list
California papers by campaign district
New California Media
San Diego Union Tribune, Reader weekly
morlock media links
London Times
Washington Post
New York Times
Dallas Morning News
Chicago Tribune
Miami Herald
Denver Post
Boston Globe 		English version Japan's largest daily  
corporate
Oprah Winfrey
KNBC via MSNBC
Slate
    periodicals elsewhere
    area activist pubs
change Links
Common Dreams "breaking progressive news"
Cop vs CIA - "From the Wilderness" newsletter.
"Covert operations are driven by economics (money), not politics (spin)"
NGO Pulsar (news agency and radio network) NGO website: in Spanish "Coordination of latin-american scientists, researchers & marginalized groups for democratic alternative" 		network news execs 3.03   †switchboard (ask for newsroom)
ABC News pres. David Westin
  212.456.6200 fax 212.456.4292
77 W. 6th St NY NY 10023
  212.456.6813 fax 212.456.2795 †

NBC News pres. Neil Shapiro
30 Rockefeller Plaza NY NY 10112
  212.664.4444 fax 201.583.5453 †

MSNBC vp, live news Mark Effron
One MSNBC Plaza Secaucus NJ 07094
  201.583.5000 fax: 201.583.5590

CBS News pres. Andrew Hayward
524 W. 57th St NY NY 10019
  212.975.4321 fax 212.975.1893 †

CNN News pres. Walter Isaacson
1 CNN Ctr Atlanta GA 30303
  404.827.1500 †

FOX News Ch. sr vp news John Moody
1211 Ave of Americas NY NY 10036
  212.575.4670. fax 212.301.8274 †
Also Eric Spinato at booking dept.

PBS factual pgm chief Sandy Heberer
  703.739.5036
1320 Braddock Place Alexandria VA 22314
news chief Sandy Sowers
  703-998-2150; 703.998.2600 †

Public Affairs programs
station
day & time PST
contact
Di & Nance KUCI 88.9fm M 8-10am Di Chapman/Nance Rosen
Marla & Cherri (Arts) " M 4-5pm Marla Miller/Cherri Farah
The News Gap " M 5-6pm John Earl/Gerald Larue
Health & Science Report " Tu 8-10am Annette Blanchard
Look at it this way " Tu 4-5pm Steve Mason
All About Work " W 5-5:30pm Dr. Carol Geffner
The Question " Th 8-9am Roland Holmes
Visionaries " Th 5-6:30pm Ava Park
Subversity
949 824-5824		 " F 5-6pm Dan Tsang 949 597-9766
PO 4362, Irvine CA 9261
Radio Free Hemp " Su 7-8pm Dan Freehemp
cyberpubs, listservs, etc. From Our Amigos - weekly e-pub from Carlos Rodriguez & LatinoLA.com
. 548 S. Spring St., Ste. 548, LA, CA 90013. 213 688-7695,
RegenerationTV
BRAT "because your school paper sucks", "youth & young adult activist zine & organization in Louisville, KY. Goal to promote social awareness about & among youth, encourage community-based activism, & support independent, progressive cultures. BRAT is not funded by any school or organization other than the sponsors you see in the pages of our zine."
Just Peace Technologies targeted at repressed NGOs   from Tides Center, SF& Alliance for Justice DC
Organize now

PicoSearch
§ite map
courtesy of FreeFind 		presented by §
OCIAL
JUSTICE  
Home Search Site Portal E-mail