Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights

April 19, 2012

Lazy Journalists: The best friend of corrupt politicians and corporations

Plagiarizers, aggregators and deceivers

Art by Censored News
By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

It is too bad that the national staff reporters getting paychecks don't do real investigative journalism anymore. The corporations are loving it. From government contracts and uranium mining to Indian "settlements" and the promotion of dirty coal fired power plants, lazy journalists are the best friends of corrupt politicians and corporations.
"Journalism" in Indian country these days usually falls into these categories: Plagiarizers, aggregators and deceivers.
Aggregators are publishers who post others hard work with advertising, in order to make money for themselves.
Corporate manipulators are publishers who post selected work of others to manipulate public opinion, or advance their own agenda.
As for reporters, there's also the deceiver. The deceivers disguise their plagiarism. They rewrite others hard work that they find online, and top it off with a phone call or two, in order to disguise it as their own story. They want you, the reader, to believe it is an original and they were actually out covering a news story. They use a borrowed or stolen photo to complete the hoax.
The most notorious of these deceivers have been armchair "reporters" in Indian country, engaged in deceit and getting paid for it, for decades.
There's also the criminally insane publishers and reporters, who without any shame, just collect others work, copy and paste it together, and put their own name on it.
Then, there's the waste-of-space reporters. These writers, who are either lazy, inexperienced or flexing their egos, waste your time with non-news. From the incompetent jumble of words to the useless distraction and repetitive soapbox, their articles are a waste of reader brain cells.
News publishers are also out to convince their freelancers that they are too poor to pay.
However, any publisher who has advertising on their website, is corporate owned, or has raised $10,000 or more in recent fundraising, should be paying reporters and photographers first and second print rights. This means, even if an article or photo has been published before, and you have been paid for it, you still deserve your name on it, and to get paid for it when it is published again.
Write or call the reporters, editors and publishers and demand justice for yourself and others. Demand that the ethics of journalism be upheld.

The following comment, received by Censored News, vanished from the blogger, so it is being added here:
The Dream  has left a new comment on your post "Lazy Journalists: The best friend of corrupt polit...":
I wanted to bring something to your attention. The possibility exists that there are indeed a few investigative journalists who are doing their jobs. But someone is going through a lot of effort to keep us from seeing what they are reporting.
I imagine that someone like you is aware of who John Pilger is. He made a film called "THE WAR YOU DON'T SEE" Its got to be one of the most incriminating documents ever made against the USA and its overseas policies. As far as I can tell it has been banned in the USA. Do a search for it. You will get many results. Most of them will be a preview. Many of them will also say  look here to see the film online for free. Try visiting any one of the sites that makes that claim. You will find that you can't see it.
Just to make things easy for you look here. axisoflogic.com  is a site that is run by independent journalists who give their time freely. They accept no advertising and have the film posted twice on this page.
http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_63748.shtml
You will notice that one of them says deleted by Vimeo. The other says film does not exist. I know for a fact that the one that says deleted by Vimeo used to say copyright violation on it. You would think that if you can't see a film for free in the USA, then surely you can buy it. Try buying it. You will find that you can't. If by some chance you do find someone who will sell it, you will find that the DVD won't work in your player because it was made on the European video system.
It should be the responsibility of every single American to see this film. But Americans are the only ones who won't see it. Just ask yourself how many people will go through the hassle to get what amounts to a documentary film, to actually go and find the software that will let them see it on their DVD player should they have been able to find someone to sell them the Euro copy?
By now I think you should be able to see what I'm talking about. There is more. This is not the only film this is happening to. There were once many vids posted by independent journalist Lizzie Phelan. While most of the corporate media was in bed on US aircraft carriers, she is the one who was bringing the reports from downtown Tripoli while they were being bombed by NATO,. Her website disappeared first, and with the passage of time many of her vids that were posted in a number of places on the net have also disappeared. Some of them said copyright violation, and there was a name on there that I can't remember now that was given the credit for holding the copyright. Lizzie Phelan has no idea who that person is. These are the ones that a jamock like me knows about. There have got to be more. Do you see what I am saying? The last time "THE WAR YOU DON'T SEE" was posted in its entirety on youtube was last October maybe. I was posting it everywhere and anywhere I could for about 3 days. It disappeared at the same time a vid that I had made was deleted from youtube and they disabled my account for something like 6 months because of it. Their note to me said it violated their upload policy.
http://vimeo.com/25785130
Something weird about this one. About a month ago or more, it had been deleted from Vimeo. I was back there looking for something else and noticed it was not deleted anymore. However when I played it, it now has these weird bumps at the end where the info I give is being played. I have no explanation for this that's rational.  I think my point is clear now. I think its also safe to say that these can't be the only instances of this.

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