Abby Martin of Media Roots is featured in this RT article and video report.

RUSSIA TODAY– As the scandal over voicemail and phone-hacking by the Murdoch media empire rages, public and political fury has focused on ruthless tabloids out of control. But some say in this day and age, the whole concept of privacy is falling apart.

News International chairman James Murdoch has been accused of trying to mislead British MPs by saying he was unaware of the true extent of phone-hacking by reporters. His testimony was challenged by two former executives, Colin Myler and Tom Crone, who say Murdoch was informed three years ago that the illegal practice went beyond just one rogue journalist.

And as the scandal continues to grow, critics believe the issue is just the tip of the iceberg in a society that no longer values the privacy of the people.

“Everybody just clicks through, agreeing to the terms and conditions. Well those terms and conditions are very, very heavily weighted against you and your privacy interest,” says Dave Saldana, the communications director of Free Press.

“We see breaches of privacy by corporations happening all across America, all across the world really, in every sector. Surveillance is rampant. But really this is all a microcosm of the biggest surveillor of all – that is, the state,” journalist Abby Martin believes.

There is little Americans can do with the state having sweeping access to their private information – access that followed the 9/11 terrorist attacks, under a new law known as the Patriot Act.

The privacy of Hasan Elahi, who is an associate professor at the University of Maryland, was taken away from him in 2002, when he was detained by the FBI for absolutely no reason he says, and scrutinized for months, without charge.

His response? For nine years he has voluntarily documented nearly every waking hour of his life on the web. He has subsequently even turned it into an art-form.

“These are all the toilets that I’ve used. You know that on Sunday, November, 24, 2007 I used this toilet, for example,” he explained pointing at a wall of pictures on his website.

He posts copies of every debit card transaction, so you can see what he bought, where, and when. A GPS device in his pocket reports his real-time physical location on a map.

Hasan says his extraordinary abandonment of his own privacy stems from the ignorance of the authorities.

“In fear they decided: ‘well that guy looks like an Arab, so he must be an Arab. If he’s an Arab them he must have explosives, everyone knows that.’ That’s the logic where we’re operating. You realize how ridiculous that logic sounds. But when your own country takes that as the basis for national policy… Ignorance as the basis of your national policy is a pretty scary situation. And that’s how I got caught up in it,” he told RT.

For Hasan, privacy has become a relic of the past, and he says he’s not surprised that journalists or anyone else really, would use the same surveillance tactics as the state.

In that sense, it might be of no surprise that the chief architect of the Patriot act, the lawyer who put it together, happens to be one of Murdoch’s hand-picked News Corp board directors. Viet Dinh served as assistant attorney general in the Bush administration, and was described by some as the purveyor of the most sweeping curtailment of freedom in the US since the McCarthy era.

At a time when corporations and the government can easily hack into people’s private lives, it does not come as a surprise when social networks give your personal information to ad companies, or when other industries live off breaching people’s privacy.

In the US it is so widespread, and people have gotten so used to it, that Rupert Murdoch seems to be a perfect part of the system rather than some special villain, whose corporation has been undertaking some unique unlawful practices.

Because in America they are not so unique.

© 2011 RT

MEDIA ROOTS– “We are awash in electronic hallucinations. The worse it gets, the more we retreat into those hallucinations. Dying cultures always sever themselves from reality, because reality becomes so difficult to face, and we’re no exception to that.” –Chris Hedges, interview with Media Roots

Of Tiger Blood and Birthers

During the first four days of the corporate media’s fanatical coverage of actor Charlie Sheen’s drug-addled, tiger-blooded neurosis, four more US soldiers were killed in combat in Afghanistan. Yet, CNN only took notice after a Facebook campaign initiated by a fellow soldier went viral, which pitted the coverage of fallen soldiers against the celebrity addict. The campaign galvanized tens of thousands of people to write the following on their Facebook pages:

“Charlie Sheen is all over the news because he’s a celebrity drug addict, while Andrew Wilfahrt 31, Brian Tabada 21, Rudolph Hizon 22, Chauncy Mays 25, are soldiers who gave their lives this week with no media mention. Please honor them by posting this as your status update.”

In addition to the nonstop updates about Charlie Sheen’s “winning” streak, ABC’s 20/20 and CNN’s Piers Morgan cleared hour long time slots for Sheen to rant about his wild escapades and delusions of grandeur. Good Morning America also dedicated an entire show to broadcast live from Sheen’s Hollywood home for a revelation not to be missed: his urine drug test results.

Showbiz mogul Charlie Sheen and his gaggle of euphemisms became quintessential brand name news, virally marketed by frothing media outlets worldwide. The public platform given to his breakdown resulted in him gaining a record breaking one million twitter followers in just one day, a feat which begat another onslaught of corporate news coverage.

Less than two weeks later, the devastating earthquake and nuclear disaster in Fukushima caused a brief switch in coverage to focus on the tragedy. However, once Donald Trump, billionaire real estate mogul and reality TV star, announced his presidential run and reignited the distracting “Birther” controversy surrounding questions about President Obama’s birth certificate, the corporate media unquestioningly followed suit, propping up the non-issue to the forefront of political discourse.

There were barely any more discussions about the global implications of Fukushima’s nuclear meltdown and the importance of pursuing sustainable energy alternatives. Instead of emphasizing the dangerous fact that there are 23 nuclear reactors in the US designed almost identically to those in Fukushima, the corporate media irresponsibly focused on Trump’s crazed news “Birther” claims. Although the Fukushima crisis still loomed heavy, the media’s focus shifted again- along with the American public’s attention span.

As Charlie Sheen’s downward spiral and Trump’s “Birther” issue reigned supreme in the corporate press, the US government continued its controversial bombing campaign against Libya unabated, potentially in violation of international law (something the nation’s media should likely address instead of the latest Sheen or Trump distractions). The obsession over such superficialities dilutes rational debate on aspects of American foreign policy, like the affordability of spending $40 million a month in Libya when our country is already racked with debt, or the sheer contradiction of bombing other countries for “humanitarian” reasons.

Palin Saturation Bomb

When the popular reality television show Dancing With the Stars approached its season finale, the airwaves became saturated with the devastating news that Bristol Palin’s winning streak on the show might have been *gasp* rigged by tea party enthusiasts. This meaningless topic wasn’t just hot on Entertainment Tonight or TMZ, but was extensively covered in Time, CNN, Washington Post, NPR and a slew of other corporate media outlets, which seemed far more engrossed in such potential fraud than in the far more serious national election irregularities of the past decade. The cultural fixation on the Palin family’s crazy antics- from Sarah Palin’s misquotes of important facets of American history to Bristol’s plastic surgery and pregnancy out of wedlock- props up the notion in the mainstream that the more insane one acts, the more fame is a reward.

Thanks to the corporate media’s crazed and yo-yo “news” coverage of everything Palin, she has turned into one of the most titillating household showbiz names in the US, despite her having made a mockery of the political process in quest for celebrity. Yet, her role in the establishment is an enigma- one day she’s a politician, the next she’s starring in her very own reality TV show about her “down home” Alaskan lifestyle.  The lines are blurred by the corporate news media, and the public becomes slack-jawed and Palinized as a result by this incessant matrix of Junk Food News and Abuse.

The week prior to the earth shattering revelation that Bristol Palin might not be worthy of the Dancing with the Stars trophy, two important stories cycled through the corporate media with very little discussion about their political and societal repercussions. Robert Mueller, Director of the FBI, met with Google and Facebook to coordinate an intensified push to expand online government wiretapping. These extensions of online surveillance could effectively create a “chilling effect” among Internet users, who might suppress or monitor their speech more carefully in fear of being penalized by the government.

Another story overshadowed by Palin melodrama was that of US Army Sergeant Chuck Luther. Sgt. Luther gave heart-wrenching Congressional testimony describing his experience of being tortured at the hands of fellow US Army officials. He was confined to a small closet and deprived of sleep for a month until he signed documents that made him ineligible to receive health benefits for wounds incurred during combat. This story could have exposed a systemic problem of abuse and censorship all the way up the military chain of command if it were properly covered and investigated.

The establishment press’ version of political news exploits the personal lives of political players like Trump and Palin, instead of dissecting their stances on domestic or foreign policy. By sensationalizing inane trivialities and under reporting the real news, Junk Food News coverage grossly distorts the context and relevance of important issues in the political discourse. Whatever topics the corporate press deem worthy enough to cover at length will invariably skew the public’s perception away from the issues that should be most relevant to their lives: food, water, shelter, jobs, and education in relation to so-called defense spending- not sex scandals, drug abuse or “reality” television.

Written by Abby Martin as an intro for the chapter Junk Food News in Project Censored’s 2012 book.

Photo by flickr user ssoosay

RUSSIA TODAY– Barack Obama and the US Congress joined forces to successfully extend the Patriot Act until 2015, meaning broader domestic surveillance will pioneer through America for another four years. The variety of far-reaching surveillance measures being used to collect information from most law-abiding citizens are being criticized as tools to perpetrate fear for political purposes.

Abby Martin, founder of Media Roots is featured in this Russia Today segment.

MEDIA ROOTS- The root system of a tree is five times more extensive than the tree itself, reaching far underground to form a solid base for growth and nourishment. Just as this root system is integral to the survival of a tree, media is integral to the foundation and survival of a democracy.

However, the corporate consolidation and top down control of America’s current media system undermines democracy by stifling and diluting the discourse crucial to maintaining a critical and informed public.

The mainstream media establishment has conceded its journalistic integrity time and time again by catering to corporate and political interests. The people can no longer wait on Congress and the FCC to eke out miniscule reforms to the dysfunctional system in which they are embedded. Instead, the people must create alternative methods to freely communicate and exchange information.

In the bay area, such an organization has been formed. Media Roots is a grassroots, independent citizen journalism project that reports the news from outside of party lines, while providing a collaborative space of open dialogue for conscious citizens, artists and activists.

The website aggregates a variety of critical and fascinating underreported news on various subjects: local and world news; political and corporate corruption; food and health; and science and philosophy.

In conjunction with providing an ever-expanding archival base of crucial information, Media Roots also conducts original reporting on an array of important local, national and global issues. The organization produces a regular radio talk show, original video content and extensive interviews with artists, activists, journalists and inspiring Bay area locals.

The merit of citizen reporting is increasingly recognized as corporate journalism continues to fail in its intended role as the watchdogs against corruption. Many people find that their voice isn’t represented in the political dialogue and are seeking alternative media sources reporting raw, unfiltered and truthful information.

Media Roots is a valuable tool for people to begin revolutionizing the media dialogue. The organization’s aim is to build community through collaboration and participation, and its openness to feature submissions of all kinds encourages others to take an active role in the field of media.  Everyone has the ability to be a citizen journalist, and Media Roots, while maintaining strong principles of integrity that require all content to be based in sound research, provides an important outlet for others to explore their ideas and share their skills.

Since the inception of the project, Media Roots has motivated multiple people worldwide to directly engage with their communities, whether by interviewing inspirational figures or by conducting investigatory research on a range of issues. Furthermore, the organization has provided a voice for multiple active duty soldiers to speak out anonymously about their political beliefs.

Many people who get their news from the corporate media have a highly skewed perspective on what issues should be of concern to their health, family and communities. The mainstream political discourse truncates issues into oversimplified talking points that pit one political party against another, causing a deep divide in the American citizenry. Media Roots holds no party bias, and reports from the bigger picture by analyzing issues through a broad historical lens.  

As a completely independent organization, Media Roots will never cater toward corporate sponsors or censor credible information. Because it exists outside of the rigid corporate model that capitalistic societies are accustomed to, it has a unique and unrestricted ability to spontaneously grow and flourish. Instead of competing monetarily with other independent media outlets with similar goals, Media Roots simply seeks to co-exist as an organic beacon of information in the emerging renaissance of grassroots journalism happening worldwide.

Like a tree’s widespread root system, grassroots networks of communication in all fields of media must extend far beyond the top down institutional structures created for us. The Media Roots model is not mechanized, and will continue to naturally evolve as more people participate and contribute in the project.

People must create the alternative they wish to see from the bottom up. Media Roots is paving an important path that is driven by a shared passion for media justice and the core belief that unfettered access to information is a human right.

To get involved in the project, please e-mail [email protected].

This piece was written for Project Censored’s 2012 book.

Written by Abby Martin

MR Logo by Shawn Cordeiro