Online Investigative Reporting gets a shot in the arm – the Knight Foundation to Support The Huffington Post Investigative Fund with $200,000.
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on December 22nd, 2009
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)
Knight Foundation to Support The Huffington Post Investigative Fund
Washington, DC – December 22, 2009. As part of its ongoing support for investigative journalism, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation today announces a grant of $200,000 to The Huffington Post Investigative Fund. In making the contribution, the Knight Foundation joins the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy, Atlantic Philanthropies, the Markle Foundation and The Huffington Post as key supporters of the venture.
“The Huffington Post Investigative Fund is experimenting with a new way of providing important journalism, functioning as a non-profit that draws audience from a popular for-profit,” said Eric Newton, vice president of Knight Foundation’s journalism program. “It’s a worthy test of a new idea, and since we really don’t know how investigative reporting is best supported in the future, an interesting experiment.”
Based in Washington, D.C., The Huffington Post Investigative Fund has a full-time staff of 11 and a budget of $2 million. It is headed by executive director Nick Penniman, formerly the publisher of the Washington Monthly, and executive editor Lawrence Roberts, formerly the investigations editor of the Washington Post. Arianna Huffington, co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post, chairs the nonprofit’s board. Collectively, its staff members have won more than four dozen major journalism awards, including multiple Pulitzer Prizes.
“We’re thrilled and honored to receive Knight’s backing,” said Penniman. “In these times of great upheaval for the news industry, Knight Foundation is helping us blaze a new trail for how you finance, create and distribute investigative journalism.
Said Arianna Huffington: “Knight’s grant is an important milestone in the young history of The Huffington Post Investigative Fund. We’re incredibly grateful to Alberto Ibargüen and Eric Newton of Knight Foundation for their passion for championing innovative solutions in the face of the crisis facing investigative journalism. Everyone who understands the vital role good journalism plays in our democracy is looking for ways to preserve and strengthen it during this time of great transition for the media, and Knight is playing a lead role in this effort.”
“The Huffington Post is an ideal partner for Knight Foundation. They are entrepreneurial and care passionately about meeting the information needs of communities,” said Alberto Ibargüen, president of Knight Foundation. “As a media leader, few are as innovative as Arianna Huffington. She believes in freedom and practices it. She believes in journalism and has hired outstanding investigative reporters and editors. And she believes in the power of technology to change the world for the better.”
“It’s also extremely important to us to partner with Atlantic Philanthropies in supporting The Huffington Post, as it was to partner with the Houston Endowment on the Texas Tribune or the San Diego Community Foundation in supporting the Voice of San Diego,” added Ibargoen. “These collaborations are essential as we look for the next sustainable model for the delivery of news people need.”
The Fund’s mission is to be an online innovator of investigative reporting by merging the classic watchdog function and traditional values of the press with the best tools of new media. Since its operations began in the early Fall, it has produced more than 50 stories, including 20 videos. Highlights include an investigation of a top subprime lender showing how fraud was at the heart of the housing boom and bust; a three-part expose of how the credit rating companies have fended off regulation from Congress and the SEC; and a project shedding light on inequities in denials of health insurance claims, reported with help from citizen journalists. The Fund has also completed multiple citizen journalism and “distributed research” projects and collaborated with other nonprofits on various stories, including the Center for Public Integrity, ProPublica and the Investigative Reporting Workshop.
Through open-source publishing, any content the Investigative Fund produces is free for anyone to publish at the same time that it’s made available to The Huffington Post. The relationship helps the nonprofit distribute its reporting to a larger audience than it is capable of attracting on its own. In addition to The Huffington Post, more than 40 other outlets have republished the Fund’s pieces.
“We’ve built a first-rate staff of veteran investigative reporters and up-and-coming journalists,” said Roberts. “Having Knight’s support is an exciting endorsement of our efforts so far and of our potential.”
Knight Foundation’s $15 million Investigative Reporting Initiative was announced this year at the annual convention of the Investigative Reporters and Editors organization, the nation’s leading group of investigative journalists. Grantees under the initiative include News21, the Center for Investigative Reporting, ProPublica, the Center for Public Integrity and the Texas Tribune.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
WaPost Hires Another Torture-Writer
The Washington Post just hired Marc Thiessen, who now becomes the second former George W. Bush speechwriter-turned-columnist at the paper. Thiessen isn't just any right-wing shill: He's an unapologetic advocate for torture. And he isn't alone. Charles Krauthammer, Michael Scheuer, and Richard Cohen have all used the editorial pages of the Post to defend torture.
How much longer can the Post give writers its pages as a platform to promote torture before it starts to look like the paper's official position?
When the Post gives a platform to torture supporters, it shapes -- and distorts -- the national debate on security and human rights, especially if those advocates are making a misleading case. The paper must stop promoting torture -- and they need to hear that from you.
In his book and even on the pages of the Post, Thiessen has repeatedly made dishonest and dubious statements in support of torture. For example:
He falsely claimed in his most recent book that, since CIA interrogation of terror suspects began after 9-11, there were no attacks by Al Qaeda on U.S. interests at home or abroad. He also claimed, falsely, in a Post op-ed that Bush oversaw "2,688 days without a terrorist attack on [American] soil," ignoring the anthrax mail attacks, the El Al shooting in Los Angeles and other domestic terrorist attacks.
In a Post op-ed, he called President Obama's decision to release Bush administration torture memos "irresponsible" and claimed that "Americans may die as a result."
The Washington Post needs to be held accountable for the ethics of the writers it hires and features, especially on such a crucial issue. We need to let the Post know that giving a platform to dishonest advocates of torture is unacceptable. They must stop promoting torture.
Click on title above to tell The Washington Post: Stop promoting torture.
In the Post, columnist Richard Cohen claimed that torture works and criticized the refusal to waterboard terrorists as naive, while columnist Krauthammer used his column to attack opponents of torture and promote Bush administration talking points.
But hiring Thiessen as a weekly columnist is a new low. Thiessen is not a reliable voice on national security, and the Post's credibility will be hurt by Thiessen's advocacy of inhumane and unnecessary torture techniques.
The Washington Post and editorial page editor Fred Hiatt need to say no to torture apologists, and stop promoting torture.
Go here to sign petition; http://mediamatters.org/action/wapotorture/?source=wapotorture1
Thank you for your help in holding the Post accountable.
Eric Burns
President,
Media Matters for America
How much longer can the Post give writers its pages as a platform to promote torture before it starts to look like the paper's official position?
When the Post gives a platform to torture supporters, it shapes -- and distorts -- the national debate on security and human rights, especially if those advocates are making a misleading case. The paper must stop promoting torture -- and they need to hear that from you.
In his book and even on the pages of the Post, Thiessen has repeatedly made dishonest and dubious statements in support of torture. For example:
He falsely claimed in his most recent book that, since CIA interrogation of terror suspects began after 9-11, there were no attacks by Al Qaeda on U.S. interests at home or abroad. He also claimed, falsely, in a Post op-ed that Bush oversaw "2,688 days without a terrorist attack on [American] soil," ignoring the anthrax mail attacks, the El Al shooting in Los Angeles and other domestic terrorist attacks.
In a Post op-ed, he called President Obama's decision to release Bush administration torture memos "irresponsible" and claimed that "Americans may die as a result."
The Washington Post needs to be held accountable for the ethics of the writers it hires and features, especially on such a crucial issue. We need to let the Post know that giving a platform to dishonest advocates of torture is unacceptable. They must stop promoting torture.
Click on title above to tell The Washington Post: Stop promoting torture.
In the Post, columnist Richard Cohen claimed that torture works and criticized the refusal to waterboard terrorists as naive, while columnist Krauthammer used his column to attack opponents of torture and promote Bush administration talking points.
But hiring Thiessen as a weekly columnist is a new low. Thiessen is not a reliable voice on national security, and the Post's credibility will be hurt by Thiessen's advocacy of inhumane and unnecessary torture techniques.
The Washington Post and editorial page editor Fred Hiatt need to say no to torture apologists, and stop promoting torture.
Go here to sign petition; http://mediamatters.org/action/wapotorture/?source=wapotorture1
Thank you for your help in holding the Post accountable.
Eric Burns
President,
Media Matters for America
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Marley Son Memoir...Publisher Woes
Click on title above for original article
http://www.bvnewswire.com/2010/02/16/ky-mani-marley-memoir-dear-dad
Friday, February 5, 2010
Media Company Tries to Muffle Free Speech, Goes After Public Citizen Attorney
Jan. 28, 2010
Boca Raton Media Company Tries to Muffle Free Speech, Goes After Public Citizen Attorney
Vision Media Attacks Online Message Board Provider, Then Its Lawyer
WASHINGTON, D.C. – A media company trying to stifle its online critics is now going one step further – it is trying to muzzle a Public Citizen attorney involved in the case.
Vision Media is a Boca Raton, Fla.,-based company that makes TV spots for nonprofit groups and gets new business by cold-calling prospective customers. Not only is it going after 800notes.com, an Internet message board that allows consumers to critique telemarketers, for allegedly defamatory comments posted about Vision Media, but it is now pursuing Public Citizen attorney Paul Alan Levy, one of the lawyers representing Web site operator Julia Forte. Local counsel Judith M. Mercier of Holland & Knight in Orlando is also representing 800notes.com.
In its request for a gag order, filed this week in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Vision Media said that Levy “seeks to embarrass, defame and disparage the plaintiffs through trying their case through the Internet media outlet and without affording the plaintiffs with an opportunity to address substantive arguments.”
A gag order is impermissible prior restraint, Levy said. Plus, it flies in the face of basic First Amendment principles.
“Vision Media continues to ignore the principle of Internet free speech as it again tries to muzzle anyone who speaks out against the company,” Levy said. “If the plaintiffs learned their lesson, they could instead respond to the postings on the message boards and blogs, and voice their same First Amendment right, rather than trying to squelch that of others.”
To read more about this case, visit http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=3032.
To read Levy’s blog post that Vision Media objects to, visit http://pubcit.typepad.com/clpblog/2010/01/vision-media-tv-tries-to-evade-section-230-immunity-to-squelch-criticism.html.
To read Public Citizen’s briefs, go to http://www.citizen.org/litigation/forms/cases/CaseDetails.cfm?cID=591.
###
Public Citizen is a national, nonprofit public interest organization based in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.citizen.org.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=3035
Boca Raton Media Company Tries to Muffle Free Speech, Goes After Public Citizen Attorney
Vision Media Attacks Online Message Board Provider, Then Its Lawyer
WASHINGTON, D.C. – A media company trying to stifle its online critics is now going one step further – it is trying to muzzle a Public Citizen attorney involved in the case.
Vision Media is a Boca Raton, Fla.,-based company that makes TV spots for nonprofit groups and gets new business by cold-calling prospective customers. Not only is it going after 800notes.com, an Internet message board that allows consumers to critique telemarketers, for allegedly defamatory comments posted about Vision Media, but it is now pursuing Public Citizen attorney Paul Alan Levy, one of the lawyers representing Web site operator Julia Forte. Local counsel Judith M. Mercier of Holland & Knight in Orlando is also representing 800notes.com.
In its request for a gag order, filed this week in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Vision Media said that Levy “seeks to embarrass, defame and disparage the plaintiffs through trying their case through the Internet media outlet and without affording the plaintiffs with an opportunity to address substantive arguments.”
A gag order is impermissible prior restraint, Levy said. Plus, it flies in the face of basic First Amendment principles.
“Vision Media continues to ignore the principle of Internet free speech as it again tries to muzzle anyone who speaks out against the company,” Levy said. “If the plaintiffs learned their lesson, they could instead respond to the postings on the message boards and blogs, and voice their same First Amendment right, rather than trying to squelch that of others.”
To read more about this case, visit http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=3032.
To read Levy’s blog post that Vision Media objects to, visit http://pubcit.typepad.com/clpblog/2010/01/vision-media-tv-tries-to-evade-section-230-immunity-to-squelch-criticism.html.
To read Public Citizen’s briefs, go to http://www.citizen.org/litigation/forms/cases/CaseDetails.cfm?cID=591.
###
Public Citizen is a national, nonprofit public interest organization based in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.citizen.org.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=3035
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Beyond GBS2 to a New Rule of Copyright Law
James Grimmelmann has published his supplemental comments on behalf of the Institute for Information Law and Policy at New York Law School. His thoughts about the whole GBS1 - GBS2 process are very interesting:
This filing reflects the continuing evolution of my thinking on the settlement. I have gone from “Approve the settlement.” to explaining “How to Fix the Google Book Search Settlement” to being deeply concerned about the means it uses.” In September, our filing recommended further consultation and improvements to the class action process, in the hopes that sufficient oversight could keep it accountable and operating in the public interest. The letter filed today concludes that the way the settlement uses a class action is not salvageable.
I had been looking for a limiting principle: something that could justify a modified version of the settlement while also setting a clear boundary beyond which future cases could not go. But I have become convinced that no such limiting principle is likely to be apparent any time soon. Without one, there is no way to make the settlement consistent with the rule of law, and it should not be approved.
Published in the New Republic, HLS prof Larry Lessig's recent essay, For the Love of Culture: Google, copyright, and our future, argues the case that a new rule of copyright law is needed sooner rather than later. "We have all wasted too much time waging the copyright wars to know enough what a sensible peace would look like," writes Lessig. Between the "copyright abolitionists" and the licensing advocates, the "content industry--that seeks to license every single use of culture, in whatever context" as reflected, for example, in GBS2 which "constructs a world in which control can be exercised at the level of a page, and maybe even a quote," a new balance must be established to protect and limit markets by legislative reform.
We need a renewed effort to strike this balance through interests that recognize the good in both sides. It would be a mistake to destroy new markets by eliminating copyright protection where it would do good. It would also be a mistake to assume that all access to culture should be governed by markets, regardless of the effect it has on access to our past. In the most abstract sense, we need to decide what kinds of access should be free. And we need to craft the law to assure that freedom.
Lessig is less than optimistic:
The idea of balanced public policy in this area will strike many as oxymoronic. It is thus no wonder, perhaps, that the likes of Google sought progress not through better legislation, but through a clever kludge, enabled by genius technologists. But this is too important a matter to be left to private enterprises and private deals. Private deals and outdated law are what got us into this mess. Whether or not a sensible public policy is possible, it is urgently needed.
For starters, the Open Book Alliance might want to ratchet down the level of its polemics below "11." In its recently filed amicus brief opposing GBS2, OBA "highlights" five reasons why the GBS2 is a “paltry proposal:”
Control of the Search Market is Google’s True Goal
Secret Side Deals Among the Parties Actually Control The Settlement Terms
Google’s Anticompetitive Bundling Undermines Competition in Digital Book Distribution
The Amendments Fail to Resolve Antitrust Objections
The Settlement Fails Even a Rule of Reason Evaluation
[JH]
http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/law_librarian_blog/2010/02/beyond-gbs2-to-a-new-rule-of-copyright-law.html?utm_source=feedburner
This filing reflects the continuing evolution of my thinking on the settlement. I have gone from “Approve the settlement.” to explaining “How to Fix the Google Book Search Settlement” to being deeply concerned about the means it uses.” In September, our filing recommended further consultation and improvements to the class action process, in the hopes that sufficient oversight could keep it accountable and operating in the public interest. The letter filed today concludes that the way the settlement uses a class action is not salvageable.
I had been looking for a limiting principle: something that could justify a modified version of the settlement while also setting a clear boundary beyond which future cases could not go. But I have become convinced that no such limiting principle is likely to be apparent any time soon. Without one, there is no way to make the settlement consistent with the rule of law, and it should not be approved.
Published in the New Republic, HLS prof Larry Lessig's recent essay, For the Love of Culture: Google, copyright, and our future, argues the case that a new rule of copyright law is needed sooner rather than later. "We have all wasted too much time waging the copyright wars to know enough what a sensible peace would look like," writes Lessig. Between the "copyright abolitionists" and the licensing advocates, the "content industry--that seeks to license every single use of culture, in whatever context" as reflected, for example, in GBS2 which "constructs a world in which control can be exercised at the level of a page, and maybe even a quote," a new balance must be established to protect and limit markets by legislative reform.
We need a renewed effort to strike this balance through interests that recognize the good in both sides. It would be a mistake to destroy new markets by eliminating copyright protection where it would do good. It would also be a mistake to assume that all access to culture should be governed by markets, regardless of the effect it has on access to our past. In the most abstract sense, we need to decide what kinds of access should be free. And we need to craft the law to assure that freedom.
Lessig is less than optimistic:
The idea of balanced public policy in this area will strike many as oxymoronic. It is thus no wonder, perhaps, that the likes of Google sought progress not through better legislation, but through a clever kludge, enabled by genius technologists. But this is too important a matter to be left to private enterprises and private deals. Private deals and outdated law are what got us into this mess. Whether or not a sensible public policy is possible, it is urgently needed.
For starters, the Open Book Alliance might want to ratchet down the level of its polemics below "11." In its recently filed amicus brief opposing GBS2, OBA "highlights" five reasons why the GBS2 is a “paltry proposal:”
Control of the Search Market is Google’s True Goal
Secret Side Deals Among the Parties Actually Control The Settlement Terms
Google’s Anticompetitive Bundling Undermines Competition in Digital Book Distribution
The Amendments Fail to Resolve Antitrust Objections
The Settlement Fails Even a Rule of Reason Evaluation
[JH]
http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/law_librarian_blog/2010/02/beyond-gbs2-to-a-new-rule-of-copyright-law.html?utm_source=feedburner
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Journalists Arrive Back in U.S. after Being Being Freed from N. Korea Jail
-- Journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee arrive back in the U.S. after being freed from detention in North Korea.
Watch live coverage now on http://CNN.com/Live
(Click on title above to go there)
Watch live coverage now on http://CNN.com/Live
(Click on title above to go there)
Saturday, August 1, 2009
(Update 1) FBI Forces Alex Jones Off Of The Air Today During Radio Broadcast
July 31st 2009
Ernest Hancock
Website: www.ernesthancock.com
Date: 07-31-2009
Subject: Media: Radio
Developing Story - From I can learn. There was a blog post on Alex Jones' web site by a blogger threatening Law Enforcement. So the FBI come to Alex's studio and pulled him off the air to... not sure why specifically. But they cerrtainly wanted the post taken down. And I'm sure they wanted any additional information about the individual that Alex Jones was able to provide.
I'll post more as I know it but Alex was forced to run pre-recordings while dealing with the demands of the FBI for the actions of another using his site to express himself in an illegal manner as alleged by the FBI.
More to come.....
My good friend Dale Williams is a great talk show host in Salt Lake City and has provided me with the background informatiuon that I am certain that you are interested in....
Alex Jones Interrupted by FBI
Today the Alex Jones Show (prisonplanet.tv) was interrupted by a visit from agents of the FBI. They took Alex from his broadcast booth for a 30 minute “interview.”
When Alex came back on the air, he stated that the “interview” was related to postings, by an unaffiliated third party, on one of his websites, and that the FBI delivered a subpoena related to those postings which will require Jones’ presence at a trial in Virginia.
A call to the Jones studio confirmed that Alex is fine. Highlights from previous shows were played during the initial period of today’s rebroadcast, followed by the show interval which immediately followed the FBI’s intrusion on today’s show.
Please go to Alex’s website and tell him you support his efforts and pray for him and his family’s welfare daily.
-D.W.
http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Article/054517-2009-07-31-update-1-fbi-forces-alex-jones-off-of-the-air.htm
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