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China winning cyber war, Congress warned
Ed Pilkington, Guardian
China is aggressively developing its power to wage cyber warfare and is now in a position to delay or disrupt the deployment of America’s military forces around the world, potentially giving it the upper hand in any conflict, a panel of the US Congress has warned.
The panel’s report discloses an alarming increase in incidents of Chinese computer attacks on the US government, defence companies and businesses. It notes that China now has both the intent and capability to launch cyber attacks “anywhere in the world at any time”.
(20 November 2008)
Who killed the blogosphere?
Nicholas Carr, Rough Type
Blogging seems to have entered its midlife crisis, with much existential gnashing-of-teeth about the state and fate of a literary form that once seemed new and fresh and now seems familiar and tired. And there’s good reason for the teeth-gnashing. While there continue to be many blogs, including a lot of very good ones, it seems to me that one would be hard pressed to make the case that there’s still a “blogosphere.” That vast, free-wheeling, and surprisingly intimate forum where individual writers shared their observations, thoughts, and arguments outside the bounds of the traditional media is gone. Almost all of the popular blogs today are commercial ventures with teams of writers, aggressive ad-sales operations, bloated sites, and strategies of self-linking. Some are good, some are boring, but to argue that they’re part of a “blogosphere” that is distinguishable from the “mainstream media” seems more and more like an act of nostalgia, if not self-delusion.
And that’s why there’s so much angst today among the blogging set. As The Economist observes in its new issue, “Blogging has entered the mainstream, which – as with every new medium in history – looks to its pioneers suspiciously like death.”
… I was a latecomer to blogging, launching Rough Type in the spring of 2005. But even then, the feel of blogging was completely different than it is today. The top blogs were still largely written by individuals. They were quirky and informal. Such blogs still exist (and long may they thrive!), but as Boutin suggests, they’ve been pushed to the periphery.
(7 November 2008)
US Journalism: What Must Be Done Now
Robert Parry, Consortium News
Having spent more than three decades in Washington, I’ve seen enough mistakes made – and opportunities missed – for a lifetime. So, at this turning point in American history, I’m venturing beyond my normal role as reporter to offer a few ideas about what must be done now.
For one, the progressive side of American politics must invest much more in media and do so immediately.
Looking back over the past three decades, the cost of the Left’s complacency on media – i.e. its failure to create a reliable way to get important facts to the public and to counter the Right’s propaganda machine – has been almost beyond calculation.
… It is a pattern I have seen often since 1977 when I arrived in Washington as a reporter for the Associated Press.
During that time, while the American Left has been largely absent from the national media landscape, wealthy right-wingers (from foundations like Olin and Scaife to media moguls like Sun Myung Moon and Rupert Murdoch) have poured tens of billions of dollars into media.
Over those years, the Right built a towering – and vertically integrated – media structure reaching from newspapers, magazines and books to talk radio, cable TV and the Internet, an apparatus concentrated in the power centers of New York and Washington.
The Right also invested money in attack groups to go after mainstream journalists who dared dig up information that put right-wing policies or politicians in a negative light. Offending journalists were accused of “liberal bias” and often found themselves hounded from the national press corps.
Over time, this imbalance had a spillover effect. Many right-wing and neoconservative pundits landed prime spots on mainstream TV news shows and the Op-Ed pages of leading newspapers, such as the New York Times and the Washington Post.
… If America’s media imbalance is to be corrected, progressives – both individuals and liberal foundations – must invest heavily in a media infrastructure that is national but focused on the news centers of Washington and New York.
This investment should have both micro and macro components.
Financial support is needed for the gutsy Web sites that stood up to Bush – like our own Consortiumnews.com – but money also should go to larger media institutions, which can then help publicize stories that are generated by the smaller outlets.
For instance, a properly capitalized and well managed Air America could not only improve the radio network’s programming but could place ads at Web sites with links back to Air America so listeners can click on Webcasts and get information about local Air America affiliates.
That way Air America could grow; its affiliates would be strengthened; and ad money could help keep Internet news sites afloat. They, in turn, could provide the radio network with original content for shows, rather than having Air America hosts rely on warmed-over conventional wisdom from mainstream outlets like Newsweek.
There are plenty of other examples of how cooperation could work within this loose confederation of independent journalism. At Consortiumnews.com, for instance, we produce our own original articles, but we also serve as a portal to the independent video news site, TheRealNews.com.
(20 November 2008)
Although this article is obviously from the Left, the same analysis applies to news reported from a peak-oil/sustainability viewpoint. -BA
‘To be a journalist in Russia is suicide’
Luke Harding, The Guardian
The Russian journalist Mikhail Beketov knew the risks he was taking. In a series of articles, Beketov had campaigned against the local administration in the Moscow suburb of Khimki. He had received numerous threats. His car had been set on fire. This summer he returned home to discover his dog lying dead on his doorstep.
Beketov continued to publish his newspaper, Khimkinskaya Pravda, which regularly lambasted local officials for corruption and abuse. Finally, it seems, the administration had had enough. On November 11 a gang lay in wait outside his home. When he returned, they savagely attacked him with clubs, breaking his fingers and skull, and leaving him for dead…
…”There are a number of taboo topics for journalists in Russia,” says Nina Ognianova, the CPJ’s programme coordinator in Europe and Central Asia. These include writing about corruption inside the Kremlin and Russia’s secretive spy agency, the Federal Security Service (FSB), she says. Also off-limits is Russia’s North Caucasus – a subject Poltikovskaya addressed repeatedly with her criticism of human rights abuses in Chechnya…
…Beketov, meanwhile, infuriated his local administration by criticising its plans to sell off Khimki’s forest to developers. He also wrote scathingly after officials secretly dug up the bodies of second world war pilots to make way for a supermarket. His last editorial – mockingly titled “patriots” – revealed officials had taken a large bank loan with no tender…
(24 November 2008)
