Tag Archives: CNN

Press Freedom Group Slams Tom Cotton for Boosting ‘Malicious Disinformation’ About Gaza Journalists

The U.S. senator and top Israeli officials have “put journalists’ lives at risk” by seizing on a baseless report, the Freedom of the Press Foundation said.

By Jake Johnson. Published 11-11-2023 by Common Dreams

Senator Tom Cotton. Photo: Michael Vadon/flickr/CC

A U.S.-based press freedom group slammed Republican Sen. Tom Cotton and top Israeli officials on Friday for uncritically boosting a report that falsely suggested Gaza-based photojournalists who were on the scene during Hamas’ deadly attack on southern Israel last month were in some way complicit in the assault.

The report, published on November 8 by the Israeli media watchdog HonestReporting, stated that “judging from the pictures of lynching, kidnapping, and storming of an Israeli kibbutz, it seems like the border has been breached not only physically, but also journalistically.”

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US Corporate Media Outlets Allow IDF to Vet ‘All Materials’ From Embedded Reporters in Gaza

“Israel is killing the journalists that expose their crimes, then bribing the journalists that cover for them,” said one critic.

By Brett Wilkins Published 11-6-2023 by Common Dreams

CNN’s Jeremy Diamond points toward Israeli military hardware in a field near Israel’s border with Gaza.
 (Photo: CNN screen grab)

U.S. corporate media outlets have granted Israeli military commanders pre-publication review rights for “all materials and footage” recorded by their correspondents embedded with the Israel Defense Forces during the invasion of Gaza, a precondition condemned by press freedom advocates.

“Journalists embedded with the IDF in Gaza operate under the observation of Israeli commanders in the field, and are not permitted to move unaccompanied within the Gaza Strip,” Fareed Zakaria, host of CNN‘s “Fareed Zakaria GPS,” explained in a segment on Sunday.

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Media Networks Suspend Reporting in Russia Over Censorship Law

The Russian government also blocked access to Facebook, which RSF called the “Kremlin’s latest move to isolate the population from uncontrolled sources of information.”

By Jessica Corbett.  Published 3-4-2022 by Common Dreams

Photo:Anonymous Operations/Twitter

International media companies and journalists around the world on Friday sharply condemned a new Russian law that effectively criminalizes critical reporting of the war on Ukraine, with some outlets even suspending broadcasts or reporters’ work across Russia.

Amid global outrage over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin also blocked access to Facebook on Friday, which was met with intense criticism. The moves come ahead of anti-war protests planned on multiple continents this weekend. Continue reading

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Aurora Police Killed Without Consequence, Now Their Protestors Face 48 Years for “Kidnapping” Cops

The cops and the district attorneys want people to see what we are going through — the conditions of our arrests, our experiences in jail, and our legal battle — and to think that this is what you risk when you stand up against them. – Lillian House, Aurora Activist and Defendant

By Alan Macleod   Published 3-4-2021 by MintPress News

Lillian House, left, and Joel Northam. Courtesy | Lillian House

Elijah McClain would have turned 25 last week. However, in 2019, the introverted Black massage therapist was killed on the street by police in his native Aurora (a part of the Denver metropolitan area). None of the officers involved have faced charges for the incident. Yet the leaders of mass protests against the killing are now facing up to 48 years in prison on a host of charges they see as retaliation for standing up to police power.

Three activists — Lillian House, Joel Northam, and Eliza Lucero face a preliminary hearing on March 9. A fourth, Terrence Roberts, is also facing similar, though more minor charges. Continue reading

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US Votes Against UN Resolution Condemning Nazis, Labels It “Russian Disinformation”

This is far from the first time the US has voted against similar resolutions; it has done so every year since 2014, dismissing them as Russian attempts to delegitimize the Ukrainian government.

By Alan Macleod. Published 12-18-2020 by MintPress News

Supporters of the ultra far-right Azov Battalion march in Kyiv on August 24, 2019. Photo: Goo3/Wikimedia Commons/CC

The United States and Ukraine were the only two nations to vote against a United Nations resolution Wednesday on, “Combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.” The resolution passed 130-2.

The resolution featured 70 fairly bland statements condemning the crimes of Adolf Hitler, while also expressing concern at the rise of contemporary Neo-Nazi groups. Continue reading

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Corporate Media Turns to Warhawks, Including Former Bush Officials, to Beat Drums of War on Iran

“Nothing’s been learned from 2003. Nothing.”

By Julia Conley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 1-3-2020

Karl Rove and Ari Fleischer, senior adviser and White House press secretary under the George W. Bush administration, appeared on Fox News Thursday night in the hours after the Trump administration assassinated top Iranian military official Qasem Soleimani. (Photo: Fox News/screenshot)

Trump critics and peace advocates watched in horror Thursday night and Friday morning as some of the top architects of the Iraq War took to the corporate media to spin a narrative aimed at retroactively convincing Americans that the killing of Iranian military official Qasem Soleimani was essential to the safety of the U.S.—a replica of the run-up to the Iraq War nearly two decades ago.

Following reports that President Donald Trump ordered the airstrike that killed Soleimani, the major general of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, former George W. Bush administration officials were among those who media outlets called on to make a case for the act. Continue reading

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There’s evidence that climate activism could be swaying public opinion in the US

 

#ClimateStrike protest, Sydney, Australia. Photo: Marcus Coblyn/CC

Nathaniel Geiger, Indiana University

Climate activists walked out of classrooms and workplaces in more than 150 countries on Friday, Sept. 20 to demand stronger action on climate change. Mass mobilizations like this have become increasingly common in recent years. Continue reading

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Investigating the investigative reporters: Bad news from Down Under

Australian federal police entering the Australian Broadcast Company headquarters on June 5, 2019. A.B.C. screenshot from videotape

Michael J. Socolow, University of Maine

Sometimes the best journalism tells us the worst news.

The United States has a tradition of learning troubling news through extraordinary reporting efforts from combat zones. During the Vietnam War, award-winning journalism revealed the slaughter of Vietnamese civilians by American soldiers at My Lai. More recently, reports describing the torture and abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq embarrassed the U.S. government.

Such investigative reporting ultimately helped American citizens hold accountable those charged with acting in their name. But that didn’t mean the news was welcome, or even appreciated, at the time. Continue reading

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‘Wanting to Kiss and Hold Her Son One Last Time,’ Public Pressure Wins Yemeni Mother Waiver to Trump’s Cruel Muslim Ban


“Now we see the Muslim ban’s effect in the most dehumanizing way.”

By Jenna McGuire. Published 12-18-2018 by Common Dreams


“Our hearts are breaking for this family.” (Photo: CBS Screenshot)

Shaima Swileh, a Yemeni mother who the United States government had denied entry on the basis of the Trump administration’s controversial Muslim ban, has finally won a temporary visa to visit her dying two-year-old son, Abdullah Hassan, who has been on life support for over a month in an Oakland, California hospital with his father.

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‘Shameful and Cowardly’: CNN Fires Marc Lamont Hill for Daring to Denounce Oppression of Palestinians

The firing of the cable news contributing analyst called “a major defeat for the right to advocate for Palestinian rights, to freely critique the Israeli government, and for the ability of journalism and public discourse in the U.S. generally to accommodate dissent.”

By Jake Johnson, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 11-30-2018

“I support Palestinian freedom. I support Palestinian self-determination. I am deeply critical of Israeli policy and practice,” Hill wrote in a series of tweets after he was fired by CNN. (Photo: CNN/Screengrab)

In a move decried by critics as blatant suppression of dissent and an attack on all who advocate for the rights and dignity of the Palestinian people, CNN on Thursday fired contributor Marc Lamont Hill for daring to denounce the oppression of Palestinians and endorse “a single secular democratic state for everyone” over the failed two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

CNN terminated Hill just 24 hours after he delivered a speech at a meeting of the U.N.’s Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People in New York, in which he expressed support for Palestinians’ resistance against brutal Israeli occupation, denounced Israel for actively depriving Palestinians of basic human rights, and called for a “free Palestine from the river to the sea.” Continue reading

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