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luke
Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Location: by the sea
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 Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 2:41 pm Post subject: Times threaten Media Lens with legal and police action |
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| Quote: | Times Newspapers threaten Media Lens with legal and police action
We have received repeated threats of legal and police action from Alastair Brett, legal manager of News International’s Times Newspapers on June 28 and July 2. Brett claims a Times Journalist, Bronwen Maddox, has been subject to threatening emails from Media Lens readers. Brett also claims that we have breached copyright by publishing an email from Maddox without permission. We have sought legal advice and, having essentially zero resources for fighting a court case, feel we have no choice but to delete Maddox’s email from our media alert, ‘Selling The Fireball’, as demanded. You can see the amended version here:
http://www.medialens.org/alerts/08/080625_selling_the_fireball.php
With more than 1 million people lying dead in Iraq, it pains us greatly to see our attempt to host an honest, rational discussion on the looming threat of war with Iran butchered in this way.
It is almost exactly seven years since we started Media Lens and this is the first time we have been threatened with legal action. We will have more to say about this in due course, as will others. As ever, we strongly urge readers to maintain a polite, non-aggressive and non-abusive tone in communicating with journalists.
Best wishes
The Editors |
heres the original media alert;
| Quote: | MEDIA ALERT: SELLING THE FIREBALL - GEORGE BUSH AND IRAN
When George Bush arrived in Britain last week as part of his “farewell tour”, the real reasons for the visit were buried well out of sight. The tour was not, as the Guardian suggested, a mere “continental au revoir”. The purpose was to coerce Gordon Brown into raising troop levels in Afghanistan and to support toughened sanctions on Iran. Bush said pressure on Iran was necessary to "solve this problem diplomatically", but warned: "Iranians must understand, however, that all options are on the table." (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7456081.stm)
The remarks raised fears in London that Bush is “determined to take action against Iran before he leaves office in January,” the Independent reported. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/bush-threatens-iran-with-military-action-848488.html)
Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), warned that any attack on Iran would transform the region into a "ball of fire." Even from the West’s point of view an attack would be disastrous:
"A military strike would spark the launch of an emergency programme to make atomic weapons, with the support of all Iranians, including those living abroad.” (http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hWSpmwY-Ckcf_V2Kf5RRNOgDh7Hg)
ElBaradei added that an attack would make it impossible for him to continue as head of the IAEA.
In support of Bush warmongering, French President Nicolas Sarkozy declared, on cue:
"Today, the most immediate threat is that of a terrorist attack. Thanks to the effectiveness of our security forces, France has not been attacked in recent years. But the threat is there, it is real and we know that it could tomorrow take on a new form, even more serious, by nuclear, chemical and biological means." (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7458650.stm)
Sarkozy’s propaganda contribution was splashed all over the BBC website as “Breaking News.” The previous weekend, the Times had hinted at machinations behind the scenes, noting that “the French President has quite deliberately donned the mantle once worn by Tony Blair, defiantly - even triumphantly - talking up his love for all things American”. (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4133574.ece)
Sarkozy had delighted Washington by saying the West must choose between "an Iranian bomb and the bombing of Iran". "The frost is over," according to one French government aide. "We want to show the warmth that now exists between the two countries after the frictions of the recent past." (Ibid)
The “warmth” translates as French obedience to US power - a policy change which will make France far more, not less, likely to be targeted for terrorist attack, particularly if Iran becomes the next victim of a US-led terrorist ‘coalition‘.
Madness In Search Of War
The BBC also found space to boost Bush-Brown propaganda:
"Iran has been accused of not co-operating with the UN over its nuclear programme, amid fears it is enriching uranium to use in weapons." (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7456081.stm)
No mention was made of last November’s US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), which summarised the work of the 16 American intelligence agencies. The report disclosed that Iran had not been pursuing a nuclear weapons development programme for the previous four years:
"We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003 Tehran halted its nuclear weapons programme."
The report added:
"Tehran's decision to halt its nuclear weapons programme suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005.” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/dec/04/politics.topstories3)
It is ‘balanced’ BBC reporting to mention alleged “fears” about Iran as genuine, but not to mention an intelligence report that undermines the credibility of those fears. This, recall, even as the catastrophe in Iraq - based on identical US-UK propaganda and identical BBC servility - is ongoing.
We asked Bronwen Maddox, chief foreign commentator at the Times, why she had failed to mention the NIE report in her June 17 article on Iran. She replied on June 17:
Good morning. You don't introduce yourself, beyond your name, so I have no sense of whether you are professionally involved in the subject, or are simply interested. I'll answer assuming the latter.
I have written extensively on the NIE. But things move on, and the comments since November by the NIE authors that they should have phrased it differently have helped change the mood. The phrasing gave too much attention to a perceived abandonment of an attempt to design actual weapons, and too little (the authors acknowledged) to two more serious points: the fact that there had been a weapons design programme, the first time that the US had said it had evidence of this; and the rapid progress of uranium enrichment, a much more difficult technical barrier to overcome than the design of a warhead.
The NIE report unfortunately gave Iran a propaganda coup, but did not, in the opinion of IAEA inspectors, portray a lower threat than was already discerned.
Really, though, it is the IAEA's report a few weeks ago which has injected the new urgency. So in blunt answer to your question, as I write a daily, short running commentary on current news, I didn't mention the NIE directly as it is too out of date for the purposes of yesterday's piece.
Very best and thanks for taking the trouble to write.
Bronwen Maddox
Chief Foreign Commentator
The Times
We replied on June 23:
Dear Bronwen
Many thanks for such a speedy response; it’s very much appreciated. I’m co-editor of Media Lens, a website that monitors media issues.
You write that the NIE report authors commented “that they should have phrased it differently”. Have you got a reference for their comments, please?
You also write that the IAEA report in May “has injected the new urgency.”
The report noted that “substantial explanations” were still lacking for documents suggesting that Iran had worked on atomic bomb-related explosives and a missile warhead design. But these are documents introduced into the process at the very last minute by Washington in early February. Given the US record of inventing evidence on Iraqi WMD, isn’t it reasonable to assume that these may prove to be baseless allegations designed to prevent the IAEA from resolving all "outstanding issues" with Iran as part of US warmongering?
You write “I didn't mention the NIE directly as it is too out of date for the purposes of yesterday's piece.”
But why, then, did you not mention a June 15 Reuters report that noted:
“Analysts believe that offering Iran security guarantees, an idea floated by Russia, could help end the deadlock, seeing such guarantees as Iran's fundamental goal given the Bush administration's ‘regime change’ policy toward it.” (Parisa Hafezi, Reuters, June 15, 2008)?
The US has refused to withdraw its threats. This is technically a criminal act (the UN Charter forbids the issuing of threats) and a sure way to prevent diplomacy. Indeed, in May 2007, Zbigniew Brzezinski, the hawkish National Security Adviser during Jimmy Carter’s presidency, called the US approach on Iran “clumsy” and “stupid“. He noted that the US had insisted that the Iranians give up their right to enrich uranium as a precondition for a serious dialogue on the subject. Brzezinski commented:
“I frankly don’t understand how anyone in his right mind would make that condition if he were serious about negotiations, unless the objective is to prevent negotiations.” (http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=a_conversation_with_zbigniew__brzezinski)
Again, you appear never to have mentioned Brzezinski’s view. Why is that?
And why did you not mention the view of the Saudi press earlier this year in response to Washington’s efforts to line them up in an anti-Iranian crusade? Arab News commented:
“In his confrontational remarks about Iran, he offers no carrot, no inducement, no compromise—only the big U.S. stick. This is not diplomacy in search of peace. It is madness in search of war.” (http://www.cfr.org/publication/15352/bush_fails_to_convince_arab_states_about_iran.html)
That observation is also not out of date, and has also not been mentioned by the Times.
Finally, why did you not mention the call for a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East? Polls suggest that such an initiative is supported by 75% of the American people, Iran would almost certainly accept it, and the US-UK are specifically committed to it.
After all, Bush, Blair and Brown have all attempted to offer a legal cover for the Iraq invasion by appealing to UN Resolution 687, which calls on Iraq to end its production of weapons of mass destruction (which Bush and Blair of course claimed it had failed to do). Article 14 calls on parties to establish a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the region. This is an embarrassment to the United States and particularly to Israel, which has 150-200 nuclear warheads it is not about to give up.
Best wishes
David
We have received no further reply.
Bush - The Damage To America’s “Image”
The deep-seated tendency of the elite media to bury the crimes of the powerful will be well to the fore as Bush prepares to leave office. Thus, a Guardian editorial, ’Goodbye to all that,’ observed of the president: "the damage Mr Bush has inflicted on America's image is impressive, especially with close allies like Turkey." (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/16/georgebush.eu)
With Iraq and Afghanistan in ruins, with action on the rising catastrophe of climate change effectively stymied, the Guardian editors chose to focus on damage to America's “image”. The editorial concluded:
"Rebuilding global trust will be the major task of the next US president."
This single sentence speaks volumes about the Guardian's conformity, about its refusal to expose the brutal priorities of power. The major task of the next US president will be the same as it has always been. If you are weak and defenceless, or in the way - watch out! |
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faceless
admin
Joined: 25 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 3:58 pm Post subject: |
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| I'd have told them to feck off - any jury would laugh the Times out of court. It's not as it they edited or profitted from what she wrote is it? |
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luke
Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Location: by the sea
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| Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 1:23 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | NEWS INTERNATIONAL THREATENS MEDIA LENS WITH LEGAL AND POLICE ACTION
On June 28 and July 3, Media Lens received repeated threats of both legal and police action from Alastair Brett, legal manager of News International’s Times Newspapers.
Noam Chomsky described the threat, pithily, as “pretty sick.” (Email, June 28, 2008) David Miller, professor of sociology at the University of Strathclyde and founder member of Spinwatch (www.spinwatch.org), commented:
“The response from the Times is an absolutely outrageous attempt to bully and censor you. It is not - unfortunately - surprising though, as the Murdoch empire is determined to attempt to snuff out those voices which try to bear witness to the truths of our age. Those that unmask naked power will be targeted by the Murdoch empire and its hench people. Maddox is the latest in a long line and is evidently a well networked member of the political elite - being a governor of the shadowy Ditchley Foundation. It is simply laughable that sending emails to complain about her distorted coverage constitutes harassment. Frankly, the drumbeat for war with Iran, to which she adds her voice, is much more like harassment, but of a whole nation. Its consequences are already more deadly serious for the people of Iran than any amount of emails from Medialens readers.” (Email, July 8, 2008)
Brett claimed Times journalist Bronwen Maddox had been subject to “vexatious and threatening” emails from Media Lens readers, which constituted “harassment”. If this did not stop, Brett told us, he would notify the police who might wish to investigate the matter with a view to bringing a criminal prosecution. As former New Statesman editor, Peter Wilby, noted in his Guardian article on the Times threat, this was no joke - prosecution for criminal harassment “can lead to six months' imprisonment or, if a court order is breached, up to five years”.(http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jul/07/pressandpublishing.advertising1)
Maddox claimed to have received "dozens of emails, many abusive or threatening". (Ibid)
Beginning with our very first media alert, published seven years ago yesterday, we have always advised our readers to treat journalists with respect ( http://www.medialens.org/alerts/01/010709_US_UK_politicians_crimes.html ):
“The goal of Media Lens is to promote rationality, compassion and respect for others. If you do write to journalists, we strongly urge you to maintain a polite, non-aggressive and non-abusive tone.”
As usual, many emails were copied or forwarded to us. We saw precisely one that could conceivably be described as “vexatious and threatening”. The email read:
"You have know [sic] idea who you are dealing with here. But I do like to help. I suggest that you read this [an inaccessible Facebook website entry] very, very carefully and fully. You have until 4pm Monday to respond to my original email or I will deem you to be fired."
This was also the only email offered up as evidence to Wilby for his Guardian piece. Unprompted by us, the offending emailer had earlier written to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, informing one executive:
“If you take more than 1 working day to reply to this email without a reason that I consider acceptable you can consider yourself fired.”
He also wrote to around 40 senior UK editors and journalists in June describing Media Lens as “a pack of absolute tossers”.
Ironically, we have been subject to far worse abuse than Maddox and Brett, and at the hands of mainstream journalists. Before becoming editor of the Independent, the former Observer editor, Roger Alton, asked one of our readers:
“Have you just been told to write in by those c*nts at medialens?” (Email forwarded, June 1, 2006 - original uncensored. Changed here to avoid triggering spam filters)
An online Observer article by Peter Beaumont described Media Lens as “a curious willy-waving exercise... Think a train spotters' club run by Uncle Joe Stalin.” (Beaumont, ‘Microscope on Medialens,’ June 18, 2006; http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1800328,00.html )
We have always found these insults more chucklesome than vexatious. Chomsky was once asked for his reaction to the abuse he receives:
"Man: ‘Noam... You've been called a neo-Nazi, your books have been burned, you've been called anti-Israeli - don't you get a bit upset by the way that your views are always distorted by the media and by intellectuals?’
“Noam: ‘No why should I? I get called anything, I'm accused of everything you can think of: being a Communist propagandist, a Nazi propagandist, a pawn of freedom of speech, an anti-Semite, liar, whatever you want. Actually, I think that's all a good sign. I mean, if you are a dissident, typically you are ignored. If you can't be ignored, and you can't be answered, you're vilified - that's obvious: no institution is going to help people undermine it. So I would only regard the kind of things you're talking about as signs of progress.’" (Noam Chomsky, Understanding Power, The New Press, 2002, pp.204-5)
Questions Of Copyright
Brett also claimed that we would be acting unlawfully by publishing an email from Maddox without permission. We sought advice and one legal expert told us:
“The Times has no case over the confidentiality of email correspondence. Email correspondence, in itself, is not considered confidential - unless the precise contents of an email are confidential.”
Another suggested that the law is less clear and that the Times might carry out its threat. Another reminded us:
"Added weight to your cause is that the statements expressed and reproduced on your site represent important ‘political commentary’ (as opposed to artistic or commercial commentary). Political commentary is the most heavily protected type of expression under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (via the Human Rights Act 1998 in the UK)."
Another lawyer cited a barrister friend who nutshelled his view of the credibility of the Times’s case: "Tell them to f*ck off.”
Douwe Korff, Professor of International Law at London Metropolitan University and an expert on the European Convention on Human Rights, commented:
"I find the stance of the Times appalling in moral terms and flimsy at best in law. Their legal position, if endorsed by the courts, would severely limit freedom of the press over issues of major public concern. Is that what they want? I have little doubt their arguments would be kicked out by the UK courts if they pursued them here; they would certainly not be upheld by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. This is simply an attempt by a heavy-weight corporation to brow-beat a small freelance news operation that dares to be critical of its editorial line. It is quite scandalous. The Times should be ashamed of itself." (Email to Media Lens, July 8, 2008)
Having minimal resources for fighting a court case, either in terms of time or money, we decided to delete Maddox’s email from our media alert, ‘Selling The Fireball’, as demanded. You can see the amended version here:
http://www.medialens.org/alerts/08/080625_selling_the_fireball.php
We also published a message on our website emphasising the need for respectful communication with journalists. Coincidentally, we had previously discussed the issue at length in ’Compassionate Media Activism,’ an interview with former Buddhist monk, Matthew Bain, published this week on the new Elephant Skin website: http://www.elephantskin.org/2008/07/06/compassionate-media-activism-by-media-lens/
The happy result of this episode is that a number of high-powered legal minds have offered us their services free of charge should the need arise in future.
Peter Wilby wrote about the Times’ threat in the Guardian:
“We journalists are accustomed to dishing it out, but have the thinnest of skins. At the merest hint of criticism, we are apt to turn to our lawyers. One reason for this professional sensitivity, I suppose, is that journalists are insecure egotists who like to occupy the high moral ground. Criticism assaults their sense of self-worth and, since their colleagues and potential employers are assiduous consumers of print, it may damage their future prospects.” ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jul/07/pressandpublishing.advertising1 )
Wilby quoted from the banned email, perhaps thereby indicating his own feelings on the matter. But his piece was ’balanced’. He criticised us for not providing a link to Maddox’s original article, for not urging readers to always read journalists’ work before writing, and for not making clear to Maddox who we were when we wrote to her. He contrasted these “failings” with the Times’s “professional sensitivities”, which he suggested were over-developed.
There was something missing from Wilby’s article, however: the human catastrophe that provides the moral backdrop to the entire debate. George Monbiot alluded to it in 2004 when he wrote: "the falsehoods reproduced by the media before the invasion of Iraq were massive and consequential: it is hard to see how Britain could have gone to war if the press had done its job.” ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2004/jul/20/media.pressandpublishing )
Like the rest of the British media, the Times played a vital role in selling the public a pack of outrageous government lies that presented a totally non-existent and obviously risible ‘threat’ as somehow serious, plausible, and even (god help us!) urgent.
Many of the most sophisticated philosophies of human culture contend that rational understanding is the result, not just of wisdom, but also of compassion. This is certainly true of the current discussion. Brett’s complaints that our actions caused distress to one of his journalists, and Wilby’s ’balanced’ response, can seem almost reasonable, until we focus our minds and hearts (if we are able) on a single overwhelming fact. In significant part as a result of the actions of the British media, more than one million human beings are now lying dead in Iraq. In fact, the entire country has been subject to unrelenting destruction and slaughter by two decades of Western policy rooted in selfish greed. All of this has been buried in official propaganda, media silence and compromised ’balance’ - it barely exists for the public.
And of course there is more and worse. Almost unbelievably, the media’s Iran focus 2008 is near-identical to the media’s Iraq focus 2002-2003. It is entirely possible that hundreds of thousands of people will soon be lying dead in Iran as a result of sanctions and war, just across the border from Iraq.
The point is that we are unable to perceive the obscenity of the media silence surrounding this mass slaughter if we are unable to perceive the truth of those one million Iraqi deaths. And we cannot experience the truth of those deaths unless we have some compassion for our victims.
To understand what we have done to the Iraqi people, to feel something of their torment, casts the media silence in a very different light. It transforms, utterly, the actions of people like us trying to break that silence, as it does the actions of those who seek to stop us on the grounds that emailing journalists is “not proper behaviour” and makes “a mess of their inboxes”. (Brett)
In truth, the steps we have suggested are pitiful in their timidity. We have always seen media activism as a small, energising contribution intended to inspire much wider, much more profound, political organisation and activism.
What we have done to Iraq is not a video game; it is not a Hollywood invention. We really have destroyed an entire nation and brought misery to millions. About that, this whole country should not be writing a few emails; it should be in uproar. |
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faceless
admin
Joined: 25 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 1:39 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Another lawyer cited a barrister friend who nutshelled his view of the credibility of the Times’s case: "Tell them to f*ck off.” |
Great minds eh? haha
It's interesting to read of all the stuff that's been said about medialens by these hacks though. |
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