I ran into Al Jazeera English Fault Lines correspondent Josh Rushing in the Dallas Fort-Worth airport a few hours ago. He lives in Austin now, apparently. The U.S. military spokesman-turned-journalist said he’s been touring the country speaking to journalism students, telling them to choose a place or subject area upon graduation and dive into it as a reporter. He said too many of them are following the beaten path of traveling to New York City or some other media hub, hoping to work their way up the ladder in a (probably dying) news company.

So he was glad to hear that I’m on my way to Haiti, not the Big Apple. Later today I arrive in Haiti’s capital city, Port-Au-Prince. I’ve been studying Haitian Creole all summer, but haven’t had a chance to practice speaking it. If I can pick up the language, I’ll be in Haiti working as a freelance multimedia journalist for a number of the coming months.

Why Haiti?

The American people are woefully misinformed on the historical and ongoing impact of U.S. foreign policy on Haiti. That’s partly because there is little to no in-depth feature reporting by U.S. journalists working in Haiti. When Haiti does receive attention on occasion, it is too often with sensational stories of extreme poverty (or success). In that sense, I’m “going to where the silence is.” Read More…

Dear Democracy Now!,

I’ve been a regular viewer of DN! for about four years, starting when I was 17. I saw Amy when she spoke in Austin earlier this year and interviewed Juan Gonzalez for a community radio program when he was in town. Thank you for all your hard-work, your program is fantastic, I salute the whole team. It is vital independent media.

Still, I believe DN! could be better. Please consider the following as constructive criticism. I will keep this as short as possible; I know you’re busy. Read More…

Journalism disseminated by big media in this country generally falls into three categories: the good, the bad, and the ugly. This dynamic played out in three different reports in the U.S. media on Sunday and Monday about Haiti. It’s unusual for Haiti to receive this much attention all at once, so let’s take a closer look. Read More…

Photo from eshare’s photostream

2000: A tight presidential election is decided by the Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision, cutting short a ballot recount process in Florida. The winner of the popular vote and probable winner in Florida, Al Gore, promptly concedes.

2004: In Ohio the Secretary of State chairs the state campaign of the incumbent President Bush. Lower-income communities and people of color complain of long lines in polling stations. Kerry quickly concedes. Karl Rove denied having anything to do with the death by plane crash of Michael Connell, a Republican “tech guru,” before his scheduled testimony about alleged manipulation of electronic voting machines in Ohio. His family wants the truth..

But hey, no election is perfect. The United States is the greatest democracy in the world, after all. No big deal.

Unlike, say, that country over there we didn’t invade. That fundamentalist theocracy run by that crazy guy who wants to ‘wipe Israel off the map’ (actually a mistranslation) with nukes, Iran (say ‘eee-ron’ not ‘I-ran’). When an American journalist was recently jailed by the Iranian regime on bogus charges for weeks, big media were all over the story.

Now the incumbent Ahmadinejad has claimed victory in Iran’s presidential election, but supporters of the opposition candidate have alleged electoral fraud.

See, in a mature democracy like ours, we’d agree to put an end to the bitter election season. The opposition concedes, and America moves on.

But Iran is so backward and authoritarian. The opposition candidate is still contesting the results! Even the U.S. government is concerned with the integrity of the election.

Oh, and Iranians – women, men, young and old – are taking to the streets in huge numbers in mostly non-violent protest. As you can see in this video, Iran is severely lacking in modern democracy.

Thankfully, the corporate media isn’t showing much of this trivial news. There’s nothing for us to learn from or about Iran. Even as a close follower of the press, I didn’t grasp the scope of these protests until today. Darn those blogs and alternative news outlets.

Previously on Mediahacker: Media oblivious to police attack on Iraq vets. Because veterans come home to be honored with rhetoric, not to protest and be heard.

Update: Cartoonist Matt Bors nails it below. Read More…

This could and should be done with newspapers around the country! Raucous pro-Gaza demonstrators in Washington D.C. expressed their outrage with media coverage of the conflict by shredding up the Washington Post’s “defective merchandise” – newspapers with an overwhelming pro-Israel bias and shoddy coverage of local protests – and dumping wheelbarrow-fuls of the confetti and paper scrap right on the Post’s doorstep. Video and audio reports at DC Indymedia.

Today is the two-year anniversary of the killing of Haitian journalist Abidas Jean. Jean is just one of several grassroots Hatian journalists murdered by authorities associated with the US-backed interim regime that took power following the 2004 presidential coup. Brian Concannon, a lawyer who heads the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, is quoted at the end of the piece:

Abdias Jean’s killing is yet one more example of the double standard, where the lives of poor black men in Haiti matter least. Had he been a journalist with a prominent Haitian or foreign outlet visiting Cite de Dieu, he would have been eulogized for his courage in going into that neighborhood. But he was a poor journalist covering his neighbors, so he has been forgotten.

Full article at Haitianalysis.com.

Previously: Dan Beeton on the corporate media’s mis- and under-reporting of Haiti.

Don’t miss the Heathlander’s examination of all those “Hamas targets” the Israeli military is hitting in Gaza. Also, I discovered a fantastic program called Livestation yesterday. Al Jazeera English, which still has several correspondents in Gaza reporting directly on the impact of the war, is one of a number of international news channels that can be watched in a high-quality streaming format.