Fox News whistleblower begins anonymous tell-all series

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 00:50:04 +0000

Gawker has launched a new column written by an anonymous Fox News employee who posts under "The Fox Mole." S/he claims to have been with Fox for "years," and claims that s/he can't find work elsewhere because other news organizations view Fox alumni with suspicion. The Mole's first column describes a particularly nasty piece of work by Fox -- the notorious "Obama's Hip Hop BBQ Didn't Create Jobs" story -- as the breaking point that got her/him interested in exposing wrongdoing at the organization.

The post neatly summed up everything that had been troubling me about my employer: Non sequitur, ad hominem attacks on the president; gleeful race baiting; a willful disregard for facts; and so on. It came close on the heels of the Common controversy, which exhibited a lot of the same ugly traits. (See also: terrorist fist jabs; Fox & Friends madrassa accusations; etc.)
The worst thing about the Hip Hop BBQ incident is that we didn't back away from it. Bill Shine, who is a rather important guy—sort of Roger Ailes' main hatchet man, and the go-between for Ailes and most of the top talent—bafflingly doubled down and defended it. The story still exists on the Fox Nation site, headline and photo montage intact, to this very day.
That was it for me. It wasn't that the one incident was so bad, in and of itself. But it was so galvanizing, and on top of so many other little incidents, that I guess it just finally pushed me over the edge.

Announcing Our Newest Hire: A Current Fox News Channel Employee (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

Icelandic Modern Media Initiative passes: a new safe haven for journalists?

Xeni Jardin — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 05:20:17 +0000

Jake Appelbaum says,

The IMMI (Icelandic Modern Media Initiative) passed last night unanimously (tweet 1, tweet 2).
Read more about the IMMI here. Here's the WikiLeaks talk about IMMI from the last Chaos Communications Congress. Here's the time line.
This is a really big deal for journalists and free speech activists everywhere. This has been a major effort by hundreds of people from all over the globe, and most importantly the Icelandic people! I have an unending amount of respect for the people of Iceland. They've decided that history shouldn't be erased, that people should be free to discuss what is actually happening in the world around them, and most of all they've decided to help the entire planet with this in mind.

Below, a statement from Wikileaks founder Julian Assange about Wikileaks' involvement in this initiative.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [Announce] WikiLeaks inspired "New media haven" proposal
passes Parliament
Date: Wed, 16 Jun 2010 17:00:17 +0100 (BST)
From: Julian Assange
FYI:
Reykjavik, Iceland; 4:00 UTC, June 16th 2010.
The WikiLeaks advised proposal to build an international "new media haven" in Iceland, with the world's strongest press and whistleblower protection laws, and a "Nobel" prize for for Freedom of Expression, has unaminously passed the Icelandic Parliament.
50 votes were cast in favor, zero against, one abstained. Twelve members of parliament were not present. Vote results are available [here].
One of the inspirations for the proposal was the dramatic August 2009 gagging of of Iceland's national broadcaster, RUV by Iceland's then largest bank, Kaupthing.
Two changes were made to the proposal from its original form as per the opinion of the parliament's general affairs committee [Link]. The first of these altered slightly the wording of the first paragraph so as to widen the arena for research. The second of these added two new items to the list of tasks for the government:
- That the government should perform a detailed analysis, especially with respect to operational security, for the prospect of operating data centers in Iceland.
- That the government should organize an international conference in Iceland regarding the changes to the legal environment being caused by expansion of cloud computing, data havens, and the judicial state of the Internet.
Video footage from the proposal's vote will be available at:
Link 1
Link 2
For details of the proposal and press contacts, please see http://www.immi.is

Here's a related video report on Al Jazeera.

(image: The Geothermal Genie, a Creative Commons licensed photograph taken in Iceland, from the Flickr stream of "stuckincustoms," whose terrific HDR photoblog is here.)

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Fox News whistleblower begins anonymous tell-all series

Icelandic Modern Media Initiative passes: a new safe haven for journalists?