Condescension in Arkansas

It's not exactly clear what transpired, but it seems a reporter who does freelance work for the Jacksonville (AR) Patriot was late for the city council meeting and while she was waiting to ask the Mayor questions, he asked her to "cover her ears" during a discussion he was having with the local NAACP reps and she left with the Chief of Police.

The Chief and the Mayor say that the reporter wasn't asked to leave city property, while those involved in the discussion and the reporter, Kate Knable, apparently had a different impression.

College Columnist Strives to be Provocateur

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Related: Alex Knepper's Original Column
Newspaper's Response to the Contreversy
Letters from readers
Washington Post article about the situation

How Will It Play in Galveston?

China has announced a new certification requirement for non-foreign journalists, which will require training in the Marxist and communist theory of news. According the Associated Press, the communist theory of journalism says that "media should serve the leadership and not undermine its initiatives".

The Chinese government used to keep a firm hand on media, but as the various state-run outlets have become more dependent on advertising, bribe-based news manipulations have become more commonplace and stories which the government didn't want publicized have been increasingly more accurately reported.

As for this post's title, it refers to an AM station in Galveston which was recently leased by a subsidiary of China's state-run radio.

I've been unable to determine though a quick web search, how many English-language affiliates of China Radio International are operating in the United States, beyond the one in Galveston and those mentioned by Wikipedia in Philadelphia and DC.

It's also unclear from the AP story, whether the CRI stations will become official cogs in the Chinese government's indoctrination reinforcement effort. Though, one would assume that any reporters who graduate from China's internal media would have the required certification.

Framing the News

The Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works sent an email to staffers warning against visiting the Drudge Report or whitepages.com because the Senate's non-partisan systems administrator, who is overseen by the Seargent-at-Arms said that pop-up ads from these sites may be a source of recent malware incursions.

On Monday, prior to the staff notice, CNET posted a screenshot of a trojan warning apparently linked to Drudge's site and in addition to noting that it had happened through Drudge before, CNET also recalled when the New York Times carried a similar infection.

Naturally, Matt Drudge defended his website by giving pageview statistics and reporting that he had received no email complaints, but he couched it in political terms by bringing the health care debate into the mix and by advising the Senate's sysop to stay on her medication.

While FoxNews only mentions the insurance reform debate as a periphery to the administration's former "war" on Fox and somehow they try to tie it to Rep. Joe Wilson's, "you lie". Though for good measure, they also throw the "Fairness Doctrine" and a bipartisan Senate effort to give the President the power to take over the internet in response to a cybersecurity threat into their online report, a plan which originated in the Bush administration.
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ETA: whitepages.com is the locator service licensed by the Post Office.

Don't Like the Headline - Steal All the Papers

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Update: Reporter No-Show

In December, I posted about Claire O'Brien of the Dodge City (KS) Globe, who had expressed her willingness to be jailed rather than identify a confidential source.

On Wednesday, she failed to show up in court, so the judge is fining her a $1000 a day and the hearing has been rescheduled for Friday.

As of this writing, no explanation is known.

Man Sues to Rewrite Web History

David Fairhurst of Carmel Valley (CA) was convicted of two counts of making threatening phone calls to Supervisor Dave Potter and was twice served with restraining orders over a period of years.

After the second restraining order, Fairhurst surrendered more than 200 guns, but he takes issue with a headline in the Carmel Pine Cone describing him as an "armed stalker" because he wasn't convicted of stalking and there's no evidence that he did it "armed".

Mr. Fairhurst says that because of the article, the term "armed stalker" is now linked to his name through internet searches, which could hurt his business, so he's suing for $100,000 and has indicated that he'd settle the case, if the newspaper changed their web archive.

The Carmel Pine Cone has already filed for a dismissal on First Amendment grounds and one would hope that somewhere in the process, Dave Fairhurst learns how the internet works.

Kansas Reporter Willing to be Jailed

Reporter Claire O'Brien of the Dodge City Globe is fashioning an appeal to a judge's ruling compelling her to reveal confidential sources and has said that she's willing to be jailed, if her appeal is not successful.

At issue is the judge's determination that information only "relevant" to a prosecution is subject to discovery and though the case is centered on a jailhouse interview with a murder suspect, the bones of contention are the members of the community, who told Ms. O'Brien that one of the shooting victims has a relationship with people prejudiced against Hispanics and who have access to automatic weapons.

Sam Bonilla, who stands charged with second-degree and attempted murder claims that he was acting in self-defense, when the two men tried to run him down, while he was jogging with his children.

Putting the Media in a Free-Speech Zone

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