Media

Indonesian authorities are pushing for two French journalists arrested in West Papua to face trial and up to 20 years jail. Valentine Bourrat and Thomas Dandois, journalists working for French media company Arte TV, were in West Papua filming a documentary about human rights. They were arrested in Wamena on August 6. Indigenous leader Areki Wanimbo, who was interviewed by them, was also arrested.
“There is a taboo,” said the visionary Edward Said, “on telling the truth about Palestine and the great destructive force behind Israel. Only when this truth is out can any of us be free.” For many people, the truth is out now. At last, they know. Those once intimidated into silence can't look away now. Staring at them from their TV, laptop and phone is proof of the barbarism of the Israeli state and the great destructive force of its mentor and provider, the US, the cowardice of European governments, and the collusion of others, such as Canada and Australia, in this epic crime.
Jan Woolf is the cultural coordinator of the No Glory in War campaign, a group that seeks to counter the celebratory narrative of the British government’s commemorations of World War I. She spoke to online radical cultural Red Wedge Magaize about the campaign’s use of art and media — both past and present — to communicate its message. It is abridged from Red Wedge Magazine. *** Why was No Glory started?
Latin American television TeleSUR has launched an English-language website to provide a global, English-speaking audience with a “Latin American perspective” on world events, IBT.com reported on July 29. Based in Caracas, TeleSUR is sponsored by the governments of Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Cuba, Nicaragua, Argentina and Uruguay.
Palestine solidarity protesters burned their TV licences in front of BBC Bristol’s HQ on July 28 in protest at the broadcaster’s biased coverage of Israel’s onslaught on Gaza. Peace activists began their occupation of BBC Bristol’s grounds on July 23. The act of civil disobedience came after campaigners handed a dossier to BBC bosses providing examples of biased reporting of Israel’s war on the Palestinians. It came after the BBC issued “notice to quit” letters in past couple opf days threatening court action if the protesters don’t end their “illegal occupation.”
An Egyptian court sentenced three Al Jazeera journalists to seven years in prison on terrorism-related charges on June 23. Baher Mohammed, the team’s producer, received an extra three years for possession of ammunition, a charge concerning a souvenir spent shell found in his possession, Morning Star said that day. The verdicts against Australian Peter Greste, Canadian-Egyptian Mohammed Fahmy and Egyptian Baher Mohammed came after a five-month trial that Amnesty International described as a “sham”, calling the rulings “a dark day for media freedom in Egypt”.
In 2012, Quebec’s student movement carried out a months-long strike, managing to push back and hold off a neoliberal government’s bid to raise tuition fees. Repeatedly mobilising upwards of 200,000 people at monthly “mega-manifs”, the “Maple Spring” was an all-too rare win against the forces of austerity, and so it captured imaginations around the world.
3CR released this statement on May 2. *** As many thousands of people across the country mobilise against the Tony Abbott government, 3CR community radio is asking its listeners and supporters of independent media to join the resistance by donating money to the station during our annual Radiothon.
I am a Year 11 high school student, and when I heard they were trying to transfer more refugees from Villawood, I couldn’t stand by. Standing outside the detention centre in the early morning of April 5 while waiting for the buses to move, I saw a Facebook status from one of the protest's spokespeople, Clo Schofield, who had just been interviewed on right-wing radio station 2GB. Schofield encouraged us to ring to air our grievances about Australia's cruel and heartless asylum seeker policy.
A new documentary film Radical Wollongong, produced by Green Left TV, will premiere in Wollongong in early May, followed by screenings in other cities and regional centres. The film features activist participants from Wollongong's radical history of strikes and community rallies, from miners’ struggles to Aboriginal justice and environmental protection. Co-producer John Rainford gives some background to how the Communist Party of Australia grew quickly during the depression. ***
As they are prone to do, the private media have invented a new thing. In both English and Spanish, they are calling it the colectivos. They are meant to be irrational, cruel, grotesque armed motorbike riders who “enforce” the revolution in Venezuela and are responsible for most of the violence afflicting the South American nation, which has left more than 30 people dead since February. The opposition barricaders are presented as the innocent victims of these collectivos, who apparently work with the National Guard and have the support of President Nicolas Maduro's government.
The Venezuelan opposition and much of the media use the term “peaceful protests” to distinguish gatherings of protesting students and other young people from the more violent actions by opponents of President Nicolas Maduro's government -- including vandalism and shootings carried out by those outside of the university community. “Peaceful protests”, however, is a loaded term that serves to plant doubts about the intentions of the Maduro-led Chavista government.