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« Seymour Hersh on Obama, NSA and the ’pathetic’ American media »
Pulitzer Prize winner, Seymour Hersh, explains how to fix journalism, saying press should "fire 90% of editors and promote ones you can’t control (...) The republic’s in trouble, we lie about everything, lying has become the staple."
►http://www.theguardian.com/media/media-blog/2013/sep/27/seymour-hersh-obama-nsa-american-media
He says investigative journalism in the US is being killed by the crisis of confidence, lack of resources and a misguided notion of what the job entails.
“Too much of it seems to me is looking for prizes. It’s journalism looking for the Pulitzer Prize,” he adds. "It’s a packaged journalism, so you pick a target like – I don’t mean to diminish because anyone who does it works hard – but are railway crossings safe and stuff like that, that’s a serious issue but there are other issues too.
"Like killing people, how does [Obama] get away with the drone programme, why aren’t we doing more? How does he justify it? What’s the intelligence? Why don’t we find out how good or bad this policy is? Why do newspapers constantly cite the two or three groups that monitor drone killings. Why don’t we do our own work?
“Our job is to find out ourselves, our job is not just to say – here’s a debate’ our job is to go beyond the debate and find out who’s right and who’s wrong about issues. That doesn’t happen enough. It costs money, it costs time, it jeopardises, it raises risks. There are some people – the New York Times still has investigative journalists but they do much more of carrying water for the president than I ever thought they would … it’s like you don’t dare be an outsider any more.”
He says in some ways President George Bush’s administration was easier to write about. “The Bush era, I felt it was much easier to be critical than it is [of] Obama. Much more difficult in the Obama era,” he said.
Asked what the solution is Hersh warms to his theme that most editors are pusillanimous and should be fired.
“I’ll tell you the solution, get rid of 90% of the editors that now exist and start promoting editors that you can’t control,” he says. I saw it in the New York Times, I see people who get promoted are the ones on the desk who are more amenable to the publisher and what the senior editors want and the trouble makers don’t get promoted. Start promoting better people who look you in the eye and say ’I don’t care what you say’.
Nor does he understand why the Washington Post held back on the Snowden files until it learned the Guardian was about to publish.
If Hersh was in charge of US Media Inc, his scorched earth policy wouldn’t stop with newspapers.
“I would close down the news bureaus of the networks and let’s start all over, tabula rasa. The majors, NBCs, ABCs, they won’t like this – just do something different, do something that gets people mad at you, that’s what we’re supposed to be doing,” he says.
Hersh is currently on a break from reporting, working on a book which undoubtedly will make for uncomfortable reading for both Bush and Obama.
“The republic’s in trouble, we lie about everything, lying has become the staple.” And he implores journalists to do something about it.
#US #Seymour_Hersh #presse #information #désinformation #médias
#US and #Russia come to agreement on #syria chemical weapons
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/us-and-russia-start-third-day-talks-syria-chemical-weapons
http://english.al-akhbar.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/4cols/leading_images/204439-01-08.jpg
Syrians hold banners and flags during a sit-in protest against a foreign military action on Syria on 13 September 2013 in Damascus. (Photo: AFP - Anwar Amro)
Updated at 2:40pm: The United States and Russia have agreed on a proposal to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal, Secretary of State John Kerry said on Saturday after nearly three days of talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Kerry said that, under the pact, Syria must submit a (...)
Le « quotidien vespéral des marchés » (QVM, appelé aussi "Le Monde"), des cadres et des décideurs souligne, dans son éditorial d’aujourd’hui, que selon une étude du German Marshall Fund, les opinions publiques occidentales sont très majoritairement contre une intervention militaire en Syrie — 72 % y sont opposés en Europe, 62 % la rejettent aux Etats-Unis —, mais continue de soutenir l’option des frappes et des bombardements. On a connu ce journal plus équilibré dans son positionnement. La conclusion de l’édito (cf. ci-dessous), est tout à fait éloquente.
« L’indécision en Syrie : le prix politique du fiasco irakien »
▻http://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2013/09/07/l-indecision-en-syrie-le-prix-politique-du-fiasco-irakien_3472856_3232.html
S’ils veulent réussir, les exécutifs favorables à des frappes militaires doivent donc redoubler d’efforts pour convaincre leur représentation nationale, mais aussi leurs concitoyens.
Mapping Silicon Valley’s Gentrification Problem Through Corporate Shuttle Routes | Wired Opinion | Wired.com
▻http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/09/mapping-silicon-valleys-corporate-shuttle-problem/?mbid=social11636024
Une introduction à l’« Orient compliqué » :
A Short Guide to the Middle East : letter to the editor published in the Financial Times
http://now.msn.com/a-short-guide-to-the-middle-east-letter-to-the-editor-published-in-the-fina
http://blu.stb.s-msn.com/i/57/21B2AE4496C34D44267F5C67C12_h316_w628_m5_cERtqKrMn.jpg
That whole Middle East deal sure can be confusing. Thankfully, in this concise and clearly articulated letter to the editor published in the Financial Times, Mr KN Al-Sabah, of London, lays it all out in a way anyone can understand. In full, his letter, entitled “A Short Guide to the Middle East,” read:
Sir, Iran is backing Assad. Gulf states are against Assad!
Assad is against Muslim Brotherhood. Muslim Brotherhood and Obama are against General Sisi.
But Gulf states are pro Sisi! Which means they are against Muslim Brotherhood!
Iran is pro Hamas, but Hamas is backing Muslim Brotherhood!
Obama is backing Muslim Brotherhood, yet Hamas is against the US!
Gulf states are pro US. But Turkey is with Gulf states against Assad; yet Turkey is pro Muslim Brotherhood against General Sisi. And General Sisi is being backed by the Gulf states!
Welcome to the Middle East and have a nice day.
« Offensive pictures : Sense and censorship »
Why prisons in Missouri censor The Economist
If you are reading this in a prison in Missouri, you probably didn’t see the June 29th issue of The Economist (pictured). We recently received a letter from the Missouri Department of Corrections informing us that it had been censored.
The problem was not the cover, although it does show a semi-naked woman. Rather, the prison authorities objected to a photo accompanying an article about the Supreme Court’s recent rulings on race. The picture showed a Klansman with a noose, to remind readers what race relations were like before the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
In this sectionThe censors thought it might instil “violence or hatred among the offender population”. This is not absurd: you could imagine some of the nuance of the article being lost if, say, a white inmate were to shove the picture of the Klansman in the face of a black prisoner. Under the state’s all-or-nothing rules, the entire issue was thrown out.
A SUIVRE Egypte : Sissi appelle Washington à faire pression sur les Frères musulmans
« L’administration américaine a de grands moyens de pression et une influence sur les Frères musulmans et j’aimerais beaucoup qu’elle les utilise pour mettre un terme au conflit », déclare le général Abdel Fattah Al-Sissi dans un entretien publié par le Washington Post sur son site internet.
La révolution égyptienne avait aussi pour objectif de dire stop à l’ingérence des puissances étrangères, surtout US. On l’a clairement vu lors de la première visite d’Hillary Clinton après l’élection de Mohamed Morsi, accueillie avec le slogan « Dégage », chahutée, empêchée d’accéder à certains lieux (bibliothèque d’Alexandrie par ex - où elle avait programmé une visite), snobée par des personnes qu’elle voulait rencontrer, dont des dirigeants coptes. L’administration US était notamment accusée d’avoir laissé les Frères, ces « terroristes », accéder au pouvoir.
L’armée à quant à elle une relation très étroite avec les USA qui la financent. Les récents événements n’ont pas remis en cause ce financement : ►http://blog.mondediplo.net/2013-07-10-Des-amis-de-trente-ans
La face cachée des jeans vieillis par sablage manuel :
« Your ‘Distressed’ Jeans Are Wearing Out Workers’ Lungs »
Those ’abused denim’ jeans don’t just look silly, they’re threatening workers’ respiratory health.
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/15324/your_distressed_jeans_are_wearing_out_workers_lungs
http://inthesetimes.com/images/made/images/working/Sandblasting_Denim_615_460.jpg
#jeans_vintage #US #Chine #santé
« Two Faux Democracies That Threaten the World » - Paul Craig Roberts [CounterPunch]
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/07/26/two-faux-democracies-that-threaten-the-world
For the past 68 years, most military aggression can be sourced to the US and Israel.
Yet, these two originators of wars pretend to be the victims of aggression. It is Israel that has a nuclear arsenal that is illegal, unacknowledged, and unaccountable. It is Washington that has drafted a war plan based on nuclear first strike. The rest of the world is correct to view these two rogue unaccountable governments as direct threats to life on earth.
#US #Israël #géopolitique #conflits
Après Stevie Wonder, qui a décidé de ne plus se produire en Floride, le boxeur Terrell Gausha refuse de représenter les Etats-Unis aux JO pour protester contre l’acquittement de George Zimmerman :
« Trayvon Martin Verdict — I’m Ashamed to Wear U.S. Flag ... Says Olympic Boxer »
http://www.tmz.com/2013/07/16/trayvon-martin-verdict-olympic-boxer-ashamed
http://ll-media.tmz.com/2013/07/15/0715-trayvon-martin-george-zimmerman-boxer-article-1.jpg
U.S. Olympic boxer Terrell Gausha is so disgusted over the George Zimmerman verdict ... he’s vowing to never sport the red, white and blue again.
Gausha — who boxed in the 2012 London Summer Games — started wearing the American flag on his boxing trunks after his Olympic run ... but tells TMZ he’s done with that now in the wake of Zimmerman’s acquittal in the killing of Trayvon Martin.
0715_Gaushavs_Caplinger_Article
Terrell adds, “How can I wear my stars and stripes proudly in a country where they make a big deal out of Mike Vick fighting dogs; but not a young innocent black male’s life.”Gausha added, “When I represented my country in the Olympics I was proud to wear my flag. I even wore it on my head on the way to the ring. What happened this weekend was a slap in the face.”
#US #George_Zimmerman #Trayvor_Martin #boxe #Terrell_Gausha #justice #racisme #boycott
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