Iraq war 'sucks,' reporter says
Leader Post - Don Mills,ON,Canada
Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan were the topics of discussion when award-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh was in Regina on Wednesday. ...
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Friday, March 28, 2008
The Biz: New Canadian News Non-Profit
Countering the corporate consensus
The editors contend that this concentration has resulted in a decrease in responsible, critical and investigative journalism in Canada. In response, Dru Oja Jay says, “We are going to build a grassroots-based news organization that can ... Read the existing Dominion News here ...
The editors contend that this concentration has resulted in a decrease in responsible, critical and investigative journalism in Canada. In response, Dru Oja Jay says, “We are going to build a grassroots-based news organization that can ... Read the existing Dominion News here ...
Thursday, March 27, 2008
In the Courts: Sources Ruling Appealed to Supreme Court of Canada
National Post Seeks Leave to Appeal to Supreme Court of Canada in ...
Exchange Morning Post - Waterloo,Ontario,Canada
... intention to seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada in the case involving its editor-in-chief and investigative journalist Andrew McIntosh. ...
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Exchange Morning Post - Waterloo,Ontario,Canada
... intention to seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada in the case involving its editor-in-chief and investigative journalist Andrew McIntosh. ...
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Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Interesting: Behind the Scenes at the Military's "Blog Operations"
Ever wonder what kind of bizarre minds run some of the blogs out there (mine included)? Cryptome.org just published a fascinating June 2006 report from the U.S. Defense Department's Joint Special Operations University about the importance of "blog operations" for intelligence and "information operations" purposes. Here are some choice parts: "Information strategists can consider clandestinely recruiting or hiring prominent bloggers or other persons of prominence already within the target nation, group, or community to pass the U.S. message. In this way, the U.S. can overleap the entrenched inequalities and make use of preexisting intellectual and social capital. Sometimes numbers can be effective; hiring a block of bloggers to verbally attack a specific person or promote a specific message may be worth considering...
"There are certain to be cases where some blog, outside the control of the U.S. government, promotes a message that is antithetical to U.S. interests, or actively supports the informational, recruiting and logistical activities of our enemies. The initial reaction may be to take down the site, but this is problematic in that doing so does not guarantee that the site will remain down. As has been the case with many such sites, the offending site will likely move to a different host server, often in a third country. Moreover, such action will likely produce even more interest in the site and its contents. Also, taking down a site that is known to pass enemy EEIs (essential elements of information) and that gives us their key messages denies us a valuable information source.
"This is not to say that once the information passed becomes redundant or is superseded by a better source that the site should be taken down. At that point the enemy blog might be used covertly as a vehicle for friendly information operations. Hacking the site and subtly changing the messages and data—merely a few words or phrases—may be sufficient to begin destroying the blogger’s credibility with the audience. Better yet, if the blogger happens to be passing enemy communications and logistics data, the information content could be corrupted. If the messages are subtly tweaked and the data corrupted in the right way, the enemy may reason that the blogger in question has betrayed them and either take down the site (and the blogger) themselves, or by threatening such action, give the U.S. an opportunity to offer the individual amnesty in exchange for information.
"There will also be times when it is thought to be necessary, in the context of an integrated information campaign, to pass false or erroneous information through the media, on all three layers, in support of military deception activities. Given the watchdog functions that many in the blogging community have assumed—not just in the U.S., but also around the world—doing so jeopardizes the entire U.S. information effort. Credibility is the heart and soul of influence operations. In these cases, extra care must be taken to ensure plausible deniability and nonattribution, as well as employing a well-thought-out deception operation that minimizes the risks of exposure.
"Because of the potential blowback effect, information strategy should avoid planting false information as much as possible...
"In order to act and react efficiently in managing bloggers and blogs, the intelligence specialists and planners who have the knowledge should be the ones running the actual blog. Or, in cases where indigenous bloggers and their blogs have been identified and recruited, the blog operations cell should also house the case officer managing the asset, having done the work to cultivate and recruit him or her."
"There are certain to be cases where some blog, outside the control of the U.S. government, promotes a message that is antithetical to U.S. interests, or actively supports the informational, recruiting and logistical activities of our enemies. The initial reaction may be to take down the site, but this is problematic in that doing so does not guarantee that the site will remain down. As has been the case with many such sites, the offending site will likely move to a different host server, often in a third country. Moreover, such action will likely produce even more interest in the site and its contents. Also, taking down a site that is known to pass enemy EEIs (essential elements of information) and that gives us their key messages denies us a valuable information source.
"This is not to say that once the information passed becomes redundant or is superseded by a better source that the site should be taken down. At that point the enemy blog might be used covertly as a vehicle for friendly information operations. Hacking the site and subtly changing the messages and data—merely a few words or phrases—may be sufficient to begin destroying the blogger’s credibility with the audience. Better yet, if the blogger happens to be passing enemy communications and logistics data, the information content could be corrupted. If the messages are subtly tweaked and the data corrupted in the right way, the enemy may reason that the blogger in question has betrayed them and either take down the site (and the blogger) themselves, or by threatening such action, give the U.S. an opportunity to offer the individual amnesty in exchange for information.
"There will also be times when it is thought to be necessary, in the context of an integrated information campaign, to pass false or erroneous information through the media, on all three layers, in support of military deception activities. Given the watchdog functions that many in the blogging community have assumed—not just in the U.S., but also around the world—doing so jeopardizes the entire U.S. information effort. Credibility is the heart and soul of influence operations. In these cases, extra care must be taken to ensure plausible deniability and nonattribution, as well as employing a well-thought-out deception operation that minimizes the risks of exposure.
"Because of the potential blowback effect, information strategy should avoid planting false information as much as possible...
"In order to act and react efficiently in managing bloggers and blogs, the intelligence specialists and planners who have the knowledge should be the ones running the actual blog. Or, in cases where indigenous bloggers and their blogs have been identified and recruited, the blog operations cell should also house the case officer managing the asset, having done the work to cultivate and recruit him or her."
The Biz: How Clicks Drive Opinion Over News
Time Magazine blogger Michael Scherer writes an interesting item on March 24 titled "The Internet Effect on News."
Awards: IRE Prizes
Chauncey Bailey Project wins IRE award
By maryfricker
“IRE has never awarded this many medals in one year, and it is a testament to the amount of groundbreaking investigative journalism accomplished last year during extraordinarily difficult economic times for the media industry,” said ...
Chauncey Bailey Project - http://www.chaunceybaileyproject.org
By maryfricker
“IRE has never awarded this many medals in one year, and it is a testament to the amount of groundbreaking investigative journalism accomplished last year during extraordinarily difficult economic times for the media industry,” said ...
Chauncey Bailey Project - http://www.chaunceybaileyproject.org
Awards: Goldsmith Prizes, Behind the Scenes
What it Takes: Behind the Scenes with Goldsmith Winners
Poynter.org - St. Petersburg,FL,USA
... increasingly fragile financial health, top reporters and a prominent editor offered ways to do probing investigative journalism whatever the budget. ...
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Poynter.org - St. Petersburg,FL,USA
... increasingly fragile financial health, top reporters and a prominent editor offered ways to do probing investigative journalism whatever the budget. ...
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Awards: Goldsmith Prizes, Thoughts on Investigative Journalism
The Survival of Investigative Journalism
Media Channel - New York,NY,USA
Health and medicine appear particularly ripe for investigative journalism, with four of the six finalists exposing health-related scandals-two on abominable ...
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Media Channel - New York,NY,USA
Health and medicine appear particularly ripe for investigative journalism, with four of the six finalists exposing health-related scandals-two on abominable ...
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Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Interesting: Hersh to Speak at U of Regina Wednesday
Hersh to speak at University of Regina
By Saskboy
Seymour Myron Hersh is an American Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist and author based in Washington, DC. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker magazine on military and security matters. ...
Abandoned Stuff by Saskboy - http://www.abandonedstuff.com
By Saskboy
Seymour Myron Hersh is an American Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist and author based in Washington, DC. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker magazine on military and security matters. ...
Abandoned Stuff by Saskboy - http://www.abandonedstuff.com
Journalists Attacked: Russia Resumes Probe of Mysterious Death
Russia resumes probe into 2003 death of investigative journalist
RIA Novosti - Moscow,Russia
... said on Tuesday they had reopened a probe into the July 2003 death of Yury Shchekochikhin, a Russian investigative journalist and liberal lawmaker. ...
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RIA Novosti - Moscow,Russia
... said on Tuesday they had reopened a probe into the July 2003 death of Yury Shchekochikhin, a Russian investigative journalist and liberal lawmaker. ...
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Monday, March 24, 2008
Journalists Attacked: Russian TV Reporter Killed
Russian TV reporter murdered in Moscow
Rarely have charges been filed, including in the 2006 slaying in Moscow of Anna Politkovskaya, an investigative journalist who won acclaim for her reporting ...
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Rarely have charges been filed, including in the 2006 slaying in Moscow of Anna Politkovskaya, an investigative journalist who won acclaim for her reporting ...
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Interesting: Emblems of Black World Reveal "Surprising" Info
From today's Secrecy News list of the Federation of American Scientists: A whimsical collection of patches, emblems and insignia associated with classified Department of Defense programs has recently been published in a book by experimental geographer Trevor Paglen. "Readers of this book will find a collection of images that are fragmentary, torn out of context, inconclusive, enigmatic, unreliable, quixotic, and deceptive," the author warns. "Readers will find, in other words, a glimpse into the black world itself."
See "I Could Tell You But Then You Would Have to Be Destroyed by Me: Emblems from the Pentagon's Black World" by Trevor Paglen, Melville House Publishing, March 2008. "Military patches and logos--simply the latest examples of heraldry dating back thousands of years--are by definition symbolic, so it is no surprise that they contain symbols. What is surprising is that these symbols often reveal information about... missions that are otherwise classified," wrote space historians Dwayne A. Day and Roger Guillemette in an impressive analysis of several such images. See their "Secrets and Signs" in The Space Review, January 7, 2008.
Wired's Danger Room blog recently featured some of the "Most Awesomely
Bad Military Patches."
See "I Could Tell You But Then You Would Have to Be Destroyed by Me: Emblems from the Pentagon's Black World" by Trevor Paglen, Melville House Publishing, March 2008. "Military patches and logos--simply the latest examples of heraldry dating back thousands of years--are by definition symbolic, so it is no surprise that they contain symbols. What is surprising is that these symbols often reveal information about... missions that are otherwise classified," wrote space historians Dwayne A. Day and Roger Guillemette in an impressive analysis of several such images. See their "Secrets and Signs" in The Space Review, January 7, 2008.
Wired's Danger Room blog recently featured some of the "Most Awesomely
Bad Military Patches."
Awards: Ridenhour Prizes
Ridenhour award to Matthew Diaz
By The Law Office of H. Candace Gorman(The Law Office of H. Candace Gorman)
The prizes memorialize the spirit of fearless truth-telling that one-time whistleblower and lifetime investigative journalist Ron Ridenhour reflected throughout his extraordinary life and career. Each award carries a $10000 stipend.
The Guantánamo Blog - http://gtmoblog.blogspot.com/
By The Law Office of H. Candace Gorman(The Law Office of H. Candace Gorman)
The prizes memorialize the spirit of fearless truth-telling that one-time whistleblower and lifetime investigative journalist Ron Ridenhour reflected throughout his extraordinary life and career. Each award carries a $10000 stipend.
The Guantánamo Blog - http://gtmoblog.blogspot.com/
Interesting: Chechnya's Angel of Grozny
Grozny's lost boys
Sydney Morning Herald - Sydney,New South Wales,Australia
He laughed at suggestions he had anything to do with the murder of the Russian investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya. "We don't kill women, ...
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Sydney Morning Herald - Sydney,New South Wales,Australia
He laughed at suggestions he had anything to do with the murder of the Russian investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya. "We don't kill women, ...
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