Wednesday, December 23, 2009

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines – Dozens of journalists held a prayer rally Wednesday in Zamboanga City to remember and seek justice for the brutal slayings of 57 people, among them at least 30 journalists massacred last month in Maguindanao province in the southern Philippines.

 A4E, the company making millions from miserable "New Deal for the unemployed" courses seems to be very worried about people drawing attention to their highly-profitable (to them, not taxpayers or the unemployed) activities.

US-centric but interesting article about the failures of mainstream news sources and the potential for the left to take advantage of their financial woes.

"I asked Bruce about proposed bailouts of the mainstream press: “Do you like these bailout ideas?” “No I don’t. I don’t even want them to rest in peace. I want them to twist and turn in their graves eternally. Why? They don’t do any local reporting and haven’t for about twenty-five years."

• CounterPunch

Follow-up to a 2007 story about the forging of evidence in a report claiming extremist literature in mosques including Edinburgh.The rightist "think tank" which produced the report, Policy Exchange have withdrawn the report from their website and been forced into an apology:

"In this report we state that Al-Manaar Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre is one of the Centres where extremist literature was found. Policy Exchange accepts the Centre’s assurances that none of the literature cited in the Report has ever been sold or distributed at the Centre with the knowledge or consent of the Centre’s trustees or staff, who condemn the extremist and intolerant views set out in such literature. We are happy to set the record straight."

• Liberal Conspiracy
• Lying sacks of shit

 Why the media attention to police brutality is meaningless

 When any Muslim, angered by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is arrested for constructing a bomb plot, there is a media frenzy. When a racist, BNP or National Front man plots a bombing with the aim of creating a "race war", the corporate media is almost silent.

A YouTube playlist of the speakers at the anarchist rally at the 28th March demonstration.

• Whitechapel anarchists @ YouTube

Submissions Deadline: 5th June 2009

We are pleased to announce Document 7, 21st-25th Oct 2009, CCA,
Glasgow, Scotland.

Issue 34 of the free, politically-engaged cultural journal Variant has been released. It features articles on the development of Glasgow's Merchant City, the recent Gaza conflict and social-realist filmaking in the UK.

We are delighted to announce that a new Media Lens book, ‘NEWSPEAK in the 21st Century,’ will be published by Pluto Press in the autumn.