Media

Once in a while the cultural fault lines in American journalism come into unexpectedly sharp relief. Jon Stewart’s now-legendary star turn on “Crossfire” was one of those moments; the uproar over NPR’s refusal (along with most major news outlets) to call waterboarding torture was another. The New York Times may have added another clash to this canon with public editor Arthur Brisbane’s blog post on fact-checking last week.

A global struggle for control of the Internet is now underway.  At stake are no less than civil liberties, privacy and even the character of democracy in the 21^st century.

The Open Technology Initiative at New America hosted an event yesterday "Civil Rights on the Airwaves: Building Community Radio in Communities of Color." A panel of experts in media access, community radio, and racial and social justice convened to discuss the opportunities for developing community-based radio in underserved and marginalized communities. The ensuing conversation provided a rich look at the intersections of media, racial justice, and ownership. The video of the event is available here.

In 2006, Mexico’s newly elected president, Felipe Calderón, declared war on his country’s drug cartels. He militarized and intensified a conflict that had been managed by his predecessors through an opaque strategy of accommodation, payoffs, assigned trafficking routes, and periodic takedowns of uncoöperative capos.

Has Google finally grown up? The care with which it has handled facial-recognition technology seems to support this thesis. Compare it with Facebook. When Zuckerberg's social network unveiled its facial-recognition technology in June, it found itself in the middle of a global privacy backlash.

One year ago, a Tunisian street vendor set himself on fire, igniting a storm of protest that toppled his country's oppressive government in less than a month. The anger swiftly spread, as activists and bloggers, organizing through social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, set off a season of revolution that is still shaking the Arab world. Yet as the first anniversary of that event approaches, a new threat to digital activism is looming -- in the United States.

The United States of America was forged in resistance to collective reprisals—the punishment of many for the acts of few. In 1774, following the Boston Tea Party, the British Parliament passed a series of laws—including the mandated closure of the port of Boston—meant to penalize the people of Massachusetts. These abuses of power, labeled the "Intolerable Acts," catalyzed the American Revolution by making plain the oppression of the British crown.

On July 28, 1932, at the command of President Herbert Hoover, police and soldiers led by Gen. Douglas MacArthur attacked and destroyed the camp of the Bonus Army, a group of thousands of World War I veterans and their families and allies who had spent the spring and summer protesting the unemployment created by the Great Depression. The violence, in which two veterans were killed and dozens of people were injured, shocked the American public and helped to ensure the victory of Franklin D. Roosevelt over Hoover in that fall’s presidential election.

China operates the world’s most elaborate and opaque system of Internet censorship. But Congress, under pressure to take action against the theft of intellectual property, is considering misguided legislation that would strengthen China’s Great Firewall and even bring major features of it to America.

Jay Rosen, in his 1999 book What Are Journalists For?, shares a