Lisa Simeone, the host of cultural radio programs broadcast by
NPR, has come under criticism after becoming the official spokesperson for a group involved in
Occupy Washington.
A good summary of events can be found in
Poynter.
The story, previously reported by the
Baltimore Sun, runs like this. Lisa Simeone, who has hosted the nationally syndicated radio program, "The
World of Opera" has become a spokesperson for
October 2011, a group currently occupying Freedom Plaza as part of the Occupy Washington movement. Simeone also hosts the programs "Spoleto Chamber Music 2010" and the documentary series "Soundprint", aired on public radio.
Her double role, as spokeswoman for a partisan political group and host on a program distributed by NPR, drew criticism from Matthew Boyle, a journalist for the conservative publication the Daily Caller.
Tracy
Wilkinson of the Los Angeles Times has explained the new word in the Mexican news industry: narco-censorship. "It's when reporters and editors, out
of fear or caution, are forced to write what the traffickers want them to
write, or to simply refrain from publishing the whole truth."
"We don't like the silence. But it's survival." News events are either omitted, or heavy euphemisms used. For example, newspapers reported a heavy battle between the army and some henchmen in Ciudad Juarez as "soldiers" engaging "armed civilians."The casualty rate of reporters increased in 2006 when President Felipe Calderon declared a war against the drug cartels, but the situation recently escalated. "A ferocious increase in violence, including the July 26 kidnapping of four reporters, has pushed the profession into a crisis never before seen, drawn renewed international attention and spurred fresh activism on the part of Mexican newsmen and women."
WikiLeaks has struck again, with the biggest intelligence leak in history. Several weeks ago, WikiLeaks received about 91,000 reports concerning raw information of the war in Afghanistan. In an unprecedented decision WikiLeaks decided not to immediately release the highly classified reports, but instead shared its findings first with the
New York Times,
The Guardian, and the
Der Spiegel.
It can be speculated that these three newspapers where chosen as a prestigious validity check on the reports, as they are top media outlets in the US, the UK, and Germany respectively. Conversely
The Telegraph criticizes WikiLeaks for its supposed stance on being politically neutral while only releasing the reports to left-wing newspapers.
The Institute for War & Peace Reporting (IWPR) launched on January 19, 2004 the « Iraqi Press Monitor ». The bulletin will feature the top 7 stories of the day, along with a political cartoon, and include details of the newspapers they appeared in. The IWPR Iraqi Press Monitor is published five days a week. Monday through to Thursday, the service will focus on key news stories, while on Friday it will review in detail the leading opinion pieces of the week.