Disappeared News

And our prize goes to The Onion for its December 28 article, Thousands Of New Orleans Households Still Without Political Power (what makes us think this is parody?).

Indeed, the story could have been about the victims of the 2004 tsunami in Asia or the 2005 Pakistan earthquake. All are waiting for aid that has not been delivered.

Where have all the promises gone? In the final moments of 2005, we can reflect on what it is to be politically powerless in the face of disaster.

As Hawaii makes its own contingency plan for natural disasters, it might reflect on whether or not it can expect help from FEMA or any other agency in the event of a disaster.

The New York Times came under considerable critical pressure for months before it issued the first of a series of mea culpas on May 26, 2004 for its coverage of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The paper caved only after the fall of Judith Miller's favorite source, Ahmad Chalabi.

An example of the many critical articles is Engineering consent: The New York Times' role in promoting war on Iraq by Antony Loewenstein in the March 23, 2004 Sydney Morning Herald. The Times was a willing mouthpiece for articles which could be traced back to information paid for and fed to the press by the Bush administration:

Is there not a responsibility to acknowledge that one of your senior reporters got so many of her Iraq stories wrong? Apparently newspapers hope their readers have very short memories.

In a further indication of the corruption of the reporting on Iraq’s WMD, US based news service Knight Ridder reported in March 2004:

“The former Iraqi exile group that gave the Bush administration exaggerated and fabricated intelligence on Iraq also fed much of the same information to newspapers, news agencies and magazines in the United States, Britain and Australia ...

How many of those 108 stories were republished in Australian newspapers, and how many of them contained misleading or outright untrue information? How many were corrected when the truthful information finally became available? And how did these false news stories contribute to the general public’s feelings about our involvement in the invasion?

The Times cooperation with the White House has apparently not ended. We learned of course that editors deliberately delayed publication of the wiretapping story for a year. Also troubling is a meeting between Bush and the editors of the Time and Washington Post--the latter with regard to its withholding the locations of the secret CIA prisons in Europe (Columbia Journalism Daily, Dec. 27, 2005 -- What We Don’t Know: The Times and the Post Go Silent On Us, by Gal Beckerman).

But this time, it appears that the Times only printed the wiretap story because it would have come out anyway in a forthcoming book, and it would not only have lost the "scoop" but become the target of media criticism once again. Well, the criticism is unavoidable, of course.

The New York Observer: Why Times Ran Wiretap Story, Defying Bush or from: Google search

According to multiple Times sources, the decision to move forward with the story was accelerated by the forthcoming publication of Mr. Risen’s book, State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration.

It's important to take away from this not the hope that the Times will magically change its ways, but an understanding of what can be expected in the future based on its current performance, where the loyalties of its editors and publishers seem to lie, and how the times might view its responsibilities to its readers and the public.

More than 30 Iraq and Persian Gulf War veterans have entered congressional races across the country as Democrats, hoping to capitalize on their military experience to topple the incumbent Republican majority.

Readers may know that I have spoken out on the lack of a Democrat to run against Governor Linda Lingle in Hawaii. In two days it will be 2006 and no one has come forward to oppose her. Indeed, each potential candidate has taken a giant step backwards.

Although we live in a democracy, most people participate only through their vote, about once every four years. So the debate that comes with a contested election is particularly important. Without an opposition candidate, there's no debate, and the incumbent can do as she/he wants.

Probably it is Lingle's huge war chest that scares off potential candidates. There may be some who can go up against Lingle and her big-money Mainland contributors by taking the opposite tack--refusing to accept large donations. Harry Kim could be someone to carry out that kind of a campaign successfully, but regrettably he is not yet a candidate. Others come to mind as well.

In the meantime, across the country, veterans are stepping forward to fill the vacuum the Democrats have left. See this article in the Denver Post.

There is such a strong inculcation in modern society of one economic model--the one in which we are consumers, fulfilling our role to support the megabusinesses that own almost everything--that it's hard to imagine a different model. Both small business and small agriculture are squeezed out of this model, but while small business still hangs in there, small agriculture has been badly deprecated. We are not supposed to be buying locally, from farmers or at farmers markets--that would depress supermarket stocks.

It's also virtually impossible to get news on local ag. While the Hang Seng Index is in the papers and often announced on radio or TV, try to find out what's happening with, say, "tilapia futures."

We do have a new source of ag news in Hawaii. Gail Jennings knows how to get the ag news, and she includes in regularly in her weekly podcast.

For this and many other reasons, you may want to tune in to the Hawaii Diner Podcast at the hawaiidiner.com website.

I missed an important claim in the Howard Kurtz article mentioned in my post, "How news gets disappeared" just below.

Kurtz writes:

President Bush has been summoning newspaper editors lately in an effort to prevent publication of stories he considers damaging to national security.

The efforts have failed, but the rare White House sessions with the executive editors of The Washington Post and New York Times are an indication of how seriously the president takes the recent reporting that has raised questions about the administration's anti-terror tactics.

Helen & Harry Highwater, writing this article today at the Unknown News website caught it, and my kudos to them. They write:

Note the author's obviously untrue assertion that "the efforts [at censorship] have failed." Of course, he is referring only to the two known recent times where newspaper editors were asked to withhold news. In one of those cases, the editor of THE NEW YORK TIMES held a big story for a year. And there's no way to know how many editors have agreed to the Bush administration requests, and now, like THE NEW YORK TIMES, let the White House determine what's news and what's not. =H&HH=

If the article was held, then the censorship worked.

Danny Schechter comments in today's News Dissector:

Is this bizarre or what? Newspapers will not confirm meetings to their own reporters.

He is referring to newspapers refusing to confim that they have been called in to the White House for "secret" meetings with President Bush.

While "ethics" may not be taught in Journalism 101, it should be covered by Journalism 300 or thereabouts. There is also the Poynter Ethics Journal for those editors (and publishers) who have forgotten the basics. For example, in an article there by Kelly McBride: On the Dangers of Holding Back, the author advises in bold face type:

Cutting deals to withhold information is dangerous. It should be done with great caution, much forethought and only in rare circumstances.

Presidents would very much like to control the news, of course, and this president has perfected the art. But getting editors' cooperation to kill or hold a story is not just a Bush gambit. McBride mentions as an example the New York Times withholding of information on the Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba in 1961, a decision that may have cost lives. There are more examples in this Columbia Journalism Review article: The Cost of not publishing.

Sure, holding back the news is pretty common, and there are often good reasons. But when newspapers let the government run their newsrooms, we have a huge ethical issue. Secret meetings at the White House to determine what shall be printed or when betray the public trust in its news media. And if they then refuse to confirm that the meetings took place, can there be anything left unshredded of that trust at all?

Was it also at a secret meeting that the New York Times editors decided to delay publishing the story about secret wiretaps conducted on US citizens without warrents? It seems likely that the story finally broke loose since a book is about to be released by Times reporter James Risen that includes information on the National Security Agency's spying program.

Schechter quotes an article by By Howard Kurtz, a Washington Post staff writer about the secret meetings. Go to Danny's article and have a peek at this, or to Kurtz's article which is here.

If this weren't serious it would be funny:
Most outrageous statements of 2005

How so? I find it strange that these people are tolerated on the air or in public office in our "enlightened" age...

Two of the three military occupations in the mid-East are well-known: Israel's occupation of Paletinian territory, and the US occupation of Iraq. These get all the press. But there is another, described by Stephen Zunes, a professor of politics at the University of San Franciso in an article in the current issue of Tikkun magazine:

Imagine an Arab Muslim nation, most of whose people have lived in the squalor of refugee camps for decades in exile from their homeland. Most of the remaining population suffers under foreign military occupation, with a smaller number living as a minority within the legally-recognized territory of the occupier. The occupying power is in violation of a series of UN Security Council resolutions, has illegally brought in tens of thousands of settlers into the occupied territory, routinely violates international standards of human rights, has built a heavily-fortified separation barrier deep inside the occupied territory, and continues to defy a landmark decision of the International Court of justice. Furthermore, and despite all this, the occupying power is considered to be a close ally of the United States and receives substantial American military, economic, and diplomatic support to maintain its occupation and colonization of the territory.

So where is this nation?

It is the Western Sahara, occupied by the Kingdom of Morroco with the support of the USA.

The Tikkun article is not on line, so you may have to Google your own research. I think you'll find out why this thirty-year occupation has been under the radar all this time:

The Sahrawis have fought for their national rights primarily by legal and diplomatic means, not through violence. Unlike the Palestinians and a number of other peoples engaged in national liberation struggles, the Sahrawis have never committed acts of terrorism. Even during their armed struggle against the occupation, a conflict that ended fifteen years ago, Polisario forces restricted their attacks exclusively to the Moroccan armed forces, never towards civilians.

In other words, if you want press attention, better to have suicide bombers or blow up trains or some-such. Fight a clean war of resistance and no one pays attention to your plight.

Western Sahara is the only land—outside of the remaining territories still held by Israel since the June 1967 war—that is recognized by the United Nations as being illegitimately under the rule of a foreign power against the will of the subjected population.

This story is covered in Europe, but not in the United States.

It should be. After all, aren't we intervening in the mid-East on the side of freedom and democracy? Here's a chance to make a difference. Aside from anything you may personally decide to do about this horrible situation, ask your local paper to end their silence on this "other" occupation.

Ronald Bailey of Ewa Beach asks, in a letter to the editor in the Star-Bulletin today:

Well, Mayor, how will we pay our own bills?
"How do we meet these future obligations that we have, as well as fixed costs that keep going higher and higher and higher?" Mayor Hannemann said ("Council members urge property-tax cuts," Star-Bulletin, Dec. 21).

Well, Mufi, that's the same question we have every day....

This is the question that the press must ask as well. Who knows, maybe people will have to choose between food, medicine, and having the paper delivered...
[see also: A Dream Come False - poverty despite the surplus]

You work hard all your life and now it's time to settle down in that apartment, house or condo and relax. But wait...

Even as Governor Lingle and the legislature begin to spar over how to spend the anticipated budget surplus, seniors, those living with disabilities and others on fixed incomes are wondering where the money will come from for food or for medicine. There's no surplus for them--indeed, hard times are ahead for many.

Costs for everything are rising:

* property assessments are up 26% and the mayor wants to keep the windfall

* energy costs have skyrocketed

* the cost of medical care has risen steadily and federal assistance is being cut back

* rent is totally outa sight -- many people cannot find anything at all they can afford and are living with friends or family

* even the cost of plate lunches is up

* and just wait for that new excise tax which is supposed to pay for a transportation system that will benefit very few of us

Most seniors who participated in the 2005 Senior Legislature preferred that the surplus be used for needed social services instead of a refund (see SB1, Urging the governor and the legislature to use the state’s surplus to meet the unmet critical social, educational, health, long-term care, transportation, and other needs in the best interest of our State, rather than issuing a tax refund). [See more on the Silver Legislature on the Kokua Council website.]

A small refund seems like a political move, given all the needs the state has in the area of education, health care and infrastructure.

What no one has done to my knowledge is run the numbers for people in a variety of situations. When someone has to choose between buying food or paying for medicine, will a $300 refund be of much use? What kind of relief will work best?

C'mon, folks at the legislature, you can do the math or find someone who can. Decisions should be made not for political reasons or for gut feelings. People's lives literally depend on finding a way out of the deepening economic bind. It's a noose tightening around their necks.

And yes, what of those plans for a secure retirement? They are now dreams come false.

educationbeathawaii.org, a website written by parent and advocate Laura Brown, reveals this shocking story about children being duct taped, abused and threatened by drivers of contractor Kailua Local.

The story was covered on TV and in an Advertiser article (see: Google), but none of the reporters followed up with a visit to the bus company site or a search of criminal records, as Laura did, nor has there been any further coverage after the initial reports.

If the media had sent a photographer to the bus company location, here is what they might have seen, as Laura reports:

But a visit to the site shows the office is in a dilapidated building with many abandoned rusted bus parts in the parking lot. The buses on site are in noticeably dilapidated condition with ripped seats and windows without glass covered in gray canvas. There is no listing for a Kailua Local Bus Company on the exterior of the building . . .

Also read the article to find out about what a criminal record search turned up.

The Department of Education has an obligation to transport children safely. In the case of special needs children, there is training that must be provided to drivers and aides. IDEA Part B regulations seem to require training: "As with other provisions related to qualified personnel, all personnel who provide required services, including bus drivers, must be appropriately trained. (Source: Attachment 1 of the final regulations, Analysis of Comments and Changes, p. 12551)".

This is something one would think should be on the front burner for an investigative reporter. If it is kept quiet, it is unlikely that a DOE that does not take enough interest to be sure children are transported safely with appropriately screened and trained drivers will change its wayward ways. More children may become victims.

This is news that public broadcasters would rather you didn't have. Until recently, there has been no viable alternative to a local public radio outlet, but now there is. Podcasting has become mature enough to siphon off part of the audience.

It's hard to shill for funds twice a year, but Hawaii Public Radio has to do it. They have studios and transmitters to pay for. Suppose, for a moment, though, that listeners could get quality alternative programming free or for very little cost? That time is now, and many public radio stations are beginning to feel a financial squeeze for the first time as audiences begin to defect to a new paradigm in listening: freedom in time and place, and no more annoying bi-annual pledge drives.

Commercial radio has been in a sorry state for some time, but at least we have still have public radio. While NPR is accused of bias by both the left and the right, it has a huge following among those who are interested in listening to quality programming or hearing the "real" news instead of propaganda, pap, fixed playlists, and endless commercials. Yet some of the loyal audience is now tuning in elsewhere.

The featured article October 31, 2005 issue of Current,"The newspaper about public television and radio", warns that:

This year, for the first time, the decline in listening to public radio exceeded the decline in radio listening overall.

“It’s the first time we’re not growing,” says Carl Nelson, manager of client services for the Radio Research Consortium, which buys and processes Arbitron ratings for the public radio system.

The glum news echoes similarly lackluster performance in fundraising. Most of the 51 stations surveyed by Target Analysis Group lost members for the first time in a decade from fiscal year 2003 to fiscal year 2004, and their member and revenue growth tapered off for the second straight year.

It seems that the author and editor had not yet figured out what might be causing the decline:

Researchers are unable to explain what causes the audience declines, but they hope further analysis in coming weeks will clarify the picture.

But just one paragraph up, the answer may be found:

New technologies such as podcasting and digital radio may be distracting managers and programmers from their core broadcast services, . . .

With the release of Apple's iTunes version 4.9 earlier this year, iPod owners (and those owning other MP3 players) suddenly had access to the growing number of podcasts that are being produced, including podcasts made available by public broadcast stations.

Podcast reception, that is, selecting the programs and having them automatically delivered to the player, is so automatic now that not only kids but their parents and maybe some grandparents are loading up on podcasts and listening whenever and wherever they like.

The magic of this time-shifting is irresistable, and radio station managers now have to confront the impact that this newly invented (only since about August 2004) technology is going to have on their audiences.

An undated article by Tod Maffin observes:

Podcasting's distribution model is transparent: The shows you want get dropped into your mobile audio device as they air, and you can listen to them, pause them, resume listening, whenever.

Indeed, it's just that easy. The comparison with the freedom that TIVO has brought to television is obvious. I plug my MP3 player into my computer in the morning and it fills up with programs that I've selected. I listen to them while preparing breakfast, later while doing the dishes, and on the weekend while folding the laundry. In my car I might listen to NPR, or more often, I listen to podcasts sent from my player into the car radio. New high-end cars have iPod jacks built right in.

Several of the programs I listen to are also broadcast on HPR. I hear them earlier in the week when they are freshest, and I listen on my own schedule, I don't have to be sitting in front of a radio at a prescribed time. If the phone should ring, I hit the "pause" button. I can back up to re-hear something. I can pause to discuss something and then resume. It's got every advantage.

Readers of Disappeared News might enjoy these media-related programs as a starting selection (they can also be heard directly from the computer if you have no iPod or MP3 player):

  Democracy Now! (go to the "listen page")

  On the Media from WNYC (podcast icon upper right)

  Counterspin (look for the podcast icon at the bottom)

The last two are also broadcast, conventionally, on Hawaii Public Radio. But you can listen to them sooner, whenever and whereever you like, as a podcast.

The handwriting is on the wall.

The news you haven't heard yet is that Hawaii is a leader in podcasting. Visit The Hawaii Association of Podcasters website to learn about locally-produced shows that might interest you as much or more than programs on your radio dial. Some of these have nationwide listenership and are near the top of all podcasts in popularity.

What kind of an audience do they have? It's hard to say. Arbitron isn't calling people to ask what podcast they're listening to, so the best measure may be the number of downloads of each show. Even with this uncertain measure the numbers are impressive. Some Hawaii podcasters can claim probably 8,000 to 20,000 listeners or more per show. That's right -- one show with 20,000 listeners. Not bad for something that can be produced in a living room with an inexpensive microphone and a laptop computer.

The first book to appear on podcasting, and still probably the best, is by Hawaii resident and podcaster Todd Cochran. Podcasting: Do It Yourself Guide is still the "bible" for those interested in producing a show themselves.

Just as bloggers can react swiftly to changing events, podcasters can react speedily with programming that is in demand. They have no need of transmitters, volunteer staff, or fundraising marathons to support all that infrastructure. Podcaster Ryan Ozawa, a founder of the Hawaii Association of Podcasters, put together a special podcast of Hawaiian music including cuts from musicians located outside of Hawaii. Try and find that on the radio anywhere. His podcast page with notes on the CDs is here and to listen to his program #35 Slack Key Special, click or download here.

Many public radio stations have embraced this new technology. The Pacifica stations, in particular, now podcast almost everything they broadcast.

Podcasting includes both fine general interest programming and specialized programing that would never be broadcast on the public airwaves. The software to receive the programs is free. There are still few if any commercials, and the home-spun nature of many of the programs has proven to have mass appeal. There are many shows that rival in quality anything to be found on the commercial or public airwaves. It's not surprising that people are making the switch.

Is radio becoming obsolete? Not yet. But although there have been a few programs on NPR about podcasting, by and large, Hawaii Public Radio would rather not talk much about it.

It's easy to cover the NYC Mayor Bloomberg's outrageous accusation that transit strikers are "thugs" (Really? That sweet lady I remembered in the token booth who was always glad to give me directions? A thug?). What's harder would be to avoid the popular and very deliberate targeting in the press of unions as the sole cause of the inconvenience caused by the dispute (usually referred to, of course, as a "labor" dispute).

Coverage of the NYC transit strike seems to be no exception. The acts of the MTA that brought about the walkout are omitted entirely or played down. What chicken journalism this is.

When news media cover a strike, or even a threat of a strike, they often seem to play into and reinforce the common belief that strikes are the fault of labor, that union workers are causing us the trouble. Bad unions! Bad!

The immediate cause of inconvenience is that the workers have left their posts and so the trains won't run. But they are not there because they want to have a day off, or because they are thoughtless of the trouble and even monetary loss that the action causes others. As workers, they are more sensitive to these losses than the management side, which raises the issue only for leverage against the union, not because they care about anyone's well-being. And the press gobbles it up. (Turkey journalism?)

It takes two to sign a contract. It can be said that the trains are not running because of MTA's unwillingness to do what it has to do to keep them running. Or that they put the pension issue on the table illegally and too late for the union to deal with it through negotiation. Why, then, is not the press blaming the MTA for the gridlock in the streets? The MTA has failed to act responsibly in dealing with their own workers. When they do that, and precipitate a strike, there are consequences to the public. Consequences of the MTA's acts.

Yet we never hear, never never in my experience, that the inconvenience is caused by management.

This is a PR strategy that is ages old, and one that consistently paints labor as the root cause of trouble to the point that it has become the common assumption.

The strategy goes deeper. Here in Honolulu it has become impossible to discipline or dismiss guards in the childrens' prison because of provisions in their contract. Certainly, any guard who abuses a child should be held accountable. That they cannot be dismissed is a result of a very poor contract. It takes two to sign a contract, and the State of Hawaii has done a particularly poor job of it, and so bears responsibility for its inability to provide a safe environment for its juvenile charges.

However, the media blame only the union.

The stage has been set decades ago for the attitude that strikes are the work of unions and they are bad and disruptive. It's probably too much to expect the consolidated and right-controlled media to reverse this view of labor and to produce a fair description of events. Bloggers outnumber pundits right now, let's see what we can do.