You Will Anyway: Taking Down Independent Press

Friday, September 9, 2016

Taking Down Independent Press

Since major corporate press has become little more than a government megaphone, this new development of billionaires suing independent online journalists/news sources to the point of destroying them is more than a little concerning.

If you thought the bankruptcy of Gawker by billionaire Peter Thiel was a fluke, or that Gawker just got what it deserved, maybe you should think again. Other rich and powerful public figures already seem to be taking their cues from Thiel’s blueprint for destroying a news organization, and the entire media world could wind up paying the price.

[...]

The Financial Times reported that Ailes is looking into a possible lawsuit against New York magazine and its investigative reporter Gabriel Sherman, who has received widespread acclaim for his thorough reporting on the myriad sexual harassment allegations against Ailes and Fox News. Melania Trump, meanwhile, has already sued the Daily Mail and an obscure blogger for $150 million over stories suggesting she once worked as a call girl.

[...]

While it’s certainly too early to tell if there will be a dramatic rise in lawsuits—especially by extremely wealthy plaintiffs—that prospect has the potential to significantly raise the cost of insurance in the future. And if things get too ugly, there’s no requirement for insurance companies to offer policies to media organizations.

[...]

Yes, news organizations have faced libel suits for decades (and luckily, our country has the world’s most robust protections against them). But past libel plaintiffs have traditionally been looking for a settlement and/or a retraction.

[...]

Hogan structured his lawsuit to do maximum damage to Gawker, rejecting settlement offers with the sole purpose of forcing the company to spend as much money as possible.

[...]

Less wealthy news organizations may be forced into the same corner Gawker was without ever losing, and that’s not to speak of the damage such cases could do to nonprofit news organizations or independent freelance journalists.

[...]

How many media organizations will spike stories involving controversial figures just to avoid years of legal hassle and skyrocketing legal bills? How many journalists will just not pursue those stories in the first place, knowing the extra layers of bureaucracy they’ll have to fight through to get their stories published. And if there is a chance individual reporters are also on the hook, why would they risk their livelihood for a story to begin with?

Columbia Journalism Review

Their livelihood? How about their life? Gary Webb.

Welcome to life under oligarchy and the CIA.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

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"It takes only a bit of knowledge of history to realize how dangerous it is to think that the people who run the country know what they are doing." -- Howard Zinn

"It’s not about not having something to hide; it’s about having something to lose. What we lose when we’re under observation is our humanity...Rights are inherent to our nature, they’re not granted by governments, they’re guaranteed by governments. They’re protected by governments." -- Edward Snowden

"Terrorism is the willingness to kill large numbers of people for some presumably good cause.” -- Howard Zinn

"What we have is a foreign policy which is essentially a marketing strategy for selling weapons." -- Jill Stein

"We should always remember that the danger to societies from security services is not that they will spontaneously decide to embrace [Stasi style] mustache twirling and jackboots to bear us bodily into dark places, but that the slowly shifting foundation of policy will make it such that mustaches and jackboots are discovered to prove an operational advantage toward a necessary purpose.” ~ Edward Snowden

"America: just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable." ~ Hunter S. Thompson

"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws." ~ Mayer Rothschild

"News is what somebody does not want you to print. All the rest is advertising." ~ LACUNA

"What matters in journalism isn't politics, which are as universal and inescapable as breathing. What matters -- along with a fundamentally adversarial attitude toward government, without which "journalism" is simply public relations -- is integrity, transparency, evidence, coherence, and principle. These are the principles on which we should evaluate the quality of journalism, and their absence is why some journalists are so desperate to get you to focus on something else." ~ Barry Eisler

"There is no inverse relationship between freedom and security. Less of one does not lead to more of the other. People with no rights are not safe from terrorist attack." ~ Molly Ivins

"The brain of our species is, as we know, made up largely of potassium, phosphorus, propaganda, and politics, with the result that how not to understand what should be clearer is becoming easier and easier for all of us." ~ James Thurber

"The highest patriotism is not a blind acceptance of official policy, but a love of one's country deep enough to call her to a higher plane....When you hold up your arm and swear to uphold the Constitution, you don’t say, 'Except in wartime.'" -- George McGovern

"I’ll believe that corporations are people when Texas executes one." ~ Bill Moyers

"When did hope become a political dynamic? Hope is right below wishful thinking and right above performing a rain dance on the scale of activity." ~ Rich Hall

Life, as Explained in "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead"

GUILDENSTERN: What a fine persecution---to be kept intrigued without ever quite being enlightened.

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ROSENCRANTZ : The only thing that makes it bearable is the irrational belief that somebody interesting will come on in a minute.

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GUILDENSTERN: But for God's sake what are we supposed to do?!

PLAYER: Relax. Respond. That's what people do. You can't go through life questioning your situation at every turn.

GUILDENSTERN: But we don't know what's going on, or what to do with ourselves. We don't know how to act.

PLAYER: Act natural. You know why you're here at least.

GUILDENSTERN: We only know what we're told, and that's little enough. And for all we know it isn't even true.

PLAYER: For all anyone knows, nothing is. Everything has to be taken on trust; truth is only that which is taken to be true. It's the currency of living. There may be nothing behind it, but it doesn't make any difference so long as it is honoured. One acts on assumptions.

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GUILDENSTERN : We act on scraps of information... sifting half-remembered directions that we can hardly separate from instinct.

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PLAYER: Life is a gamble, at terrible odds-if it was a bet you wouldn't take it.