Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[martinuzz]

https://www.volkskrant.nl/media/dutch-agencies-provide-crucial-intel-about-russia-s-interference-in-us-elections~a4561913/

If Trump gets impeached don't forget to thank us

The last sentence in that article implies the website released this info without the Dutch government's blessing.

They don't need to, we have independent media. Snowden's leaks wouldn't even be a crime here, he'd probably have gotten a few yearly journalism prizes.
It's the US that's censorship crazy like that.

As in releasing state secrets can hurt intelligence agencies, and the author seemed to have high praise for the organization he was leaking from.

He does have high praise. He couldn't hurt the intelligence agency anymore with that article though. The damage had already been done by the US, if you read the article. Which is why Dutch intelligence services are kinda angry with the US, and have minimized sharing intel with them.

[wierd]

Of the non-Trump ones, I see two by Al-Jazeera, one by Russia Today, an opinion piece by Chelsea Manning, and an opinion piece from a British newspaper about the state of the press in Britain. Al-Jazeera is a state-run media outlet from a government that has had issues with the US, Russia Today is primarily a propaganda front for the Russian government, and the British report is - so far as I can tell - utterly irrelevant. That leaves a bunch of articles about Trump, which are valid but fail to prove your claim, as he's only been President for a year.



But I'm tired of arguing. You win. I admit that the US is a fascist hellhole where nothing not sanctioned by God-Emperor Trump can ever be published. Happy now?

If you think that is what I as going for, you are clearly fighting the wrong battle.

Rather, I was trying to get you to see that censorship in the press takes more forms than just government control, and that when these forces exist, it is not a free press. 

Also, the op ed you attribute to manning is not actually from manning. It is an op-ed about a statement made by manning, made by an editor of that paper. But thanks for playing. Nevermind, My apologies, it is actually from Manning, however, that does not distract from the validity of the article, as Manning is in a unique position to talk about censorship and government reprisal at length.

[Bralbaard]

If you had true free press, Snowden wouldn't be hiding in Russia, and Chelsea Manning wouldn't have had to do jail time, but get a war journalism prize instead.

But snowden and Manning were not journalists, theywere whisleblowers. The Dutch authorities are also not always very fond of those. Here's an article about the dutch secret service infiltrating a safe house for whistleblowers for example (sorry, in dutch)

https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2017/03/12/aivder-gedetacheerd-bij-huis-voor-klokkenluiders-7329458-a1550026

[martinuzz]

A bit double that. The whistleblower house was created by the government to protect whistleblowers from any form of reprisal, and guarantee their anonimity.
So saying that the Dutch government is not fond of whistleblowers isn't exactly true.
The AIVD guy infiltrating there was illegal, and he has been fired, and the minister had to answer questions about it, because the service is not allowed to gather intelligence about it.
Still, yea, it happened, so you have a point. No one had to flee to Russia though, or spend years in prison.

[hector13]

Snowden isn’t a member of the press, like EH says.

wierd and martinuzz appear to be arguing from the ideological position of the Free Press (any interference regardless of how small means no free press) and if the reality doesn’t match up to that lofty position, then the press ain’t free. Shonus was arguing that in spite of these interferences, articles are still published and journalists are generally unmolested, so the press can be said to be free

I mean, wierd said:

Rather, I was trying to get you to see that censorship in the press takes more forms than just government control, and that when these forces exist, it is not a free press. 

which, yes, but some of those censors even come from within the press itself. There are editors and owners with their own agendas, they can censor their own journalists from investigating or publishing certain things, or put a certain spin on it instead. That’s the free press limiting the free press.

[wierd]

The issue becomes less "oh, that's just Fox News having their own bias, it's fine.", and more "US Press just wont cover certain topics", when the owners of the press agencies themselves are owned by 2 or 3 people who have such agendas. (Cough-- MURDOCH-- Cough)

It does not matter that it is not the government who is manipulating the public via the press-- the press is not free to cover certain topics, due to downward pressure. The end outcome is the same, people are systematically misled. (this can get even more dirty, should there be active collusion between a governing group, and a wealthy press agency owner, where there is some degree of quid pro quo going on. I mean, shit-- here's a REALLY OLD newsweek staff article on that very subject, again everyone's favorite media empire owner, Murdoch, is involved. http://www.newsweek.com/quid-pro-quo-181866  While not explicitly related to US press being captured and manipulated, we have more reports of Murdoch being involved in quid pro quo from Britain. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/at-news-corp-inquiry-a-window-into-murdochs-political-power/  Really, at some point you just have to accept that money talks, a small number of rich fucks own the press, and they dictate the narratives for profit, getting paid for by quid pro quo with government, and accept that it is more than just a theory.)

When that kind of situation exists, the press is not free.  It does not matter who it is captured BY-- it is still captured.

[Dorsidwarf]

I'd have put the US press somewhere less than truly "free" but I certainly wouldnt call it a "controlled" press just because the government/owners occasionally try to hush up articles that make them look bad.

But I'm tired of arguing. You win. I admit that the US is a fascist hellhole where nothing not sanctioned by God-Emperor Trump can ever be published. Happy now?

this is just moronic though, and you know full well that isnt even remotely the position he was taking

[Zangi]

I'd have put the US press somewhere less than truly "free" but I certainly wouldnt call it a "controlled" press just because the government/owners occasionally try to hush up articles that make them look bad.

But I'm tired of arguing. You win. I admit that the US is a fascist hellhole where nothing not sanctioned by God-Emperor Trump can ever be published. Happy now?

this is just moronic though, and you know full well that isnt even remotely the position he was taking

^
I agree

US Press is pseudo-free press.  The press can post a lot of shit.  But, there are cases where you don't see shady shit Murrica is up to in the foreign world, but foreign press is covering it. 
Plus the Occupy movement being stomped on part was effectively non-existent in big media.  While highlighting the 'riots'.

[martinuzz]

Dmitri Peskov, spokesperson of Putin, has stated that Dutch media like the Volkskrant and Nieuwsuur (which broadcasted a special about the hacks the same day the Volkskrant put it in the paper) are unreliable fake news, and only trying to put oil on the fire of hysteria in the US.

Heh, guess they really feel threatened that the truth about their meddling is getting out in the open.

[misko27]

The media have the right to report or not report as they see fit, even if those positions are deeply biased. They're entirely free to do that, and the government doesn't stop them, nor could it. Yellow Journalism is as much a free press as any other, and indeed, is one of the downsides of a free press. Enforcing neutrality and unbias is a sign of an unfree press, and indeed is one of the justifications dictatorships use when moving to censor the press (and in some circumstances, the dictator might even have a point; whether that justifies the media crackdown is another matter, though).

Perhaps the distinction you guys might prefer is an ethical press or a clean press. But there is a bit of an obsession with using the language of the constitution when arguing about institutions in the US: there is this idea that you need to somehow argue that the US isn't a democracy, or isn't following one of the amendments, or something along those lines. There are certainly issues where discussion of the constitution in that way is warranted (Civil forfeiture, for example), but too often you see it invoked as sort of an "America is betraying it's ideals" argument which really should be focused on something other than the constitution.

On a potentially related note: The New York Times is reporting that Trump attempted to fire Mueller last year, but relented when a White House lawyer threatened to resign. Trump has denied this as Fake News.

[martinuzz]

Heh, Volkskrant reported that yesterday, I didn't put it here because I thought it was already common knowledge and widely covered in the US media.
https://www.volkskrant.nl/buitenland/trump-probeerde-speciaal-aanklager-mueller-te-ontslaan-advocaat-witte-huis-greep-in~a4561960/

It was reported by NY Times, and confirmed by Washington Post.

So yeah, obstructing justice yadda yadda, prepare for impeachment, finally.

[smjjames]

On a potentially related note: The New York Times is reporting that Trump attempted to fire Mueller last year, but relented when a White House lawyer threatened to resign. Trump has denied this as Fake News.

Heh, Volkskrant reported that yesterday, I didn't put it here because I thought it was already common knowledge and widely covered in the US media.
https://www.volkskrant.nl/buitenland/trump-probeerde-speciaal-aanklager-mueller-te-ontslaan-advocaat-witte-huis-greep-in~a4561960/

It was reported by NY Times, and confirmed by Washington Post.

So yeah, obstructing justice yadda yadda, prepare for impeachment, finally.

Yeah, it is pretty damning, and the thing is that Mueller might have already known this.

Also, Trump needs to go overseas more, it seems like every time he goes overseas there breaks some major news on the Russia investigation/scandal. Then again, something new comes out almost every week.

[SalmonGod]

If we didn't have a free press nobody would even know about Snowden.

If the press didn't report on Snowden and Manning, people would know about them.  But the message wouldn't be controlled.

Remember when the news of Manning's leaks first broke?  When Wikileaks published that video of the U.S. military gunned down a bunch of journalists in Iraq from a helicopter (irony level #1)?  That got everyone's attention, and then Wikileaks made public announcements to the effect of "Ok, we have a huge trove of government records that was handed to us by this anonymous source.  We want to handle this information responsibly, and there's no way we can process all of this in a responsible fashion by ourselves.  So we're going to share it with a bunch of other reputable news organizations, and we'll all be releasing information as we're able to read it all, redact, and make sure we understand what we're publishing to ensure no unintended consequences."  And all the major media outlets corroborated this.  Then government officials started talking about wanting to assassinate Assange (irony level #2).  So in order to protect himself, he put a highly encrypted file out to the public containing the leak, promising the keys to it would be released if anything happened to him.  The major media outlets got all kinds of juicy content out of the deal, but as the government got more and more shrill about it and Manning became a public name, their narrative about the nature of the leak shifted to "THIS MANNING GUY JUST RECKLESSLY DUMPED A WHOLE BUNCH OF INFORMATION ON THE INTERNET - HE SHOULD BE LyNCHED, RIGHT?".

You can call that free press if you want, but I challenge anyone to say that there's not some serious fucking issues there.

And as a more general comment, I don't give a shit about what's technically legal if it doesn't work in practice, and I don't take examples of people having to put their lives on the line just to create specific examples of rights being enforced as a reliable indicator that those laws are properly functioning.  To me, it's a sign that many more people have probably backed down instead, and whatever's guaranteed by law didn't do shit for them.

Also, can we talk about how law enforcement consistently gets away with specifically targeting journalists to prevent documentation of their illegal abuses at protest events and the like?  If we have a free press, there should be legal consequences to that behavior.

[Draignean]

I have to say, I think I finally get where some people are coming from regarding not wanting to post their opinions on the forums. You see, I personally disagree with this discussion regarding the US's press not being "free," albeit on different grounds (whether current press is beholden to government interests does not implicitly make it impossible for press to exist in this country that is not beholden to government interests, etc.), but I was actually hesitant about posting my thoughts on the matter knowing that I would have to defend myself for hours against a few individuals (not a "general" thing as in it's the same individuals across every discussion where this is the case, but that generally whenever there's a rather lopsided discussion on these forums, one side ends up with a few members being a bit more vitriolic) trying to dissuade me or shoehorn my opinion into something that I'm entirely not saying.

I mean, I want to voice my disagreement, but I don't want to deal with hours of having to do random research and deal with posts laden with capslock and screaming. Usually I just end up just not bothering to post as a result, and I imagine I'm not alone.

Same. Mine was more of the candor of that no press is 'free'. By nature it is bound by the need to sell itself, and in an age where there's increasingly a dynamic that makes people desire to consume media that is already tailored to their political pole, that binds the press more than anything else.

By the definition of the free press, we have a free press.

[Karnewarrior]

Bay12 is better about not strawmanning than most other forums, but it still happens.