Real journalism? Great idea!

There's an important article today at theguardian. It's by Glenn Greenwald. There is a new way for people to support government transparency and true journalism. If you've been following the Wikileaks story, you know the US government hounded the organization into the ground in retaliation for revealing the wrongdoing of the United States. US companies supported these extra-legal activities by literally cutting Wikileaks out of the banking system. Presently, it's impossible for anyone to donate to the organization.

Or rather, that was the case yesterday. But things are looking up. Read Greenwald's article. Now you have a great place to direct donations. Given our secretive, power-mad times, this is a big, big event.

Wikileaks and journalism

As I said here the other day, the American prosecution of Wikileaks is unsound and poses a threat to all journalism, not just to Wikileaks. Today, faculty members and officers of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism sent an open letter to President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder. Here is an excerpt:

"[W]e all believe that in publishing diplomatic cables Wikileaks is engaging in journalistic activity protected by the First Amendment. Any prosecution of Wikileaks' staff for receiving, possessing or publishing classified materials will set a dangerous precedent for reporters in any publication or medium, potentially chilling investigative journalism and other First Amendment-protected activity."

This ill-considered pursuit of Assange and Wikileaks could pave the way for the end of journalism as we know it. The Justice Department could prosecute the NY Times with the same argument it is using against Wikileaks. This is wildly dangerous for our democracy. And is anyone noticing? Hardly.

We need to pay close attention when our freedom and our country are threatened -- by our country. Obama is a disaster. The man doesn't seem to know right from wrong.

Hat tip to Todd Gitlin at TPM Cafe for the quote.

Get that danged word outa there!

Tonight I remembered something that I hadn't thought about in years: my first "published" work. It was an article I wrote for my college newspaper. I went to a Catholic college at the time. Don't ask. Anyway, they actually blocked out the word "sex" in my article and replaced it with "s - -". Can you imagine? As if the word itself was unfit, unclean.

Censorship is such an ugly thing. Of course, in this country there is no dictator who prohibits newspapers from printing the truth. Here we do it another way: the news is quelled through self-censorship. It's an insidious disease that has decimated American journalism and come close to destroying the institution. It's not just that no one wants to read physical papers anymore. It's that there's little benefit to reading them.

American "journalists" literally oppress themselves, believing they must not offer certain viewpoints because they will displease the overlords -- at the paper, in government and in powerful corporations. They've also got an editor who will put a stop to any accurate story that tries to shoot past him, but it never gets that far. Since the journalists never attempt to write true stories there's no need for Big Brother. He's built into the writers now. Journalists bow to the overlords and cuff their own wrists before they approach their keyboards. It's quite amazing.

We live in a society where we can say anything we want to. In the end, that's the most precious freedom. Nothing good can happen without it. But if journalism won't stand against the powerful we will lose our freedom in the long run. It all breaks down once the Fourth Estate fails to do its job. It's happening now. No one is standing up to power and freedom is disappearing by the day. If you're not following the Wikileaks affair, you should be. The course the US is pursuing could end not only the era of Wikileaks, but the era of real journalism.

If information isn't free then freedom has no meaning. We are living in precarious times.