journalism

Trump joins ranks of Sexual Abusers-in-Chief like Gaddafi and Mussolini, but CNN thinks he Deserves a Townhall

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Donald John Trump was found liable by a jury on Tuesday for having sexually abused and then libeled writer E. Jean Carroll. The only reason he wasn’t also found liable for rape was that the victim said he inserted something else into her– fingers or some instrument — against her […]

Far Right

As Fox Dumps Tucker Carlson: Remembering how he Plagiarized the “Great Replacement” from Cringey French Nazism

Juan Cole

Revised. Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – David Folkenflik at NPR reports that Fox Cable News on Monday ousted inflammatory racist anchor Tucker Carlson. Carlson had revealed in court depositions for the Dominion libel suit that he did not believe virtually any of the bilge he squirted between his lips at millions for years at Fox. […]

censorship

20 Years After Deadly US Attack, Free Press Still Threatened in Iraq

Human Rights Watch

Sarah Sanbar Iraq Researcher, Middle East and North Africa Division @SarahSanbar ( Human Rights Watch ) – April 8 is a day that lives in infamy for media in Iraq. 20 years ago, two American missiles hit the Al Jazeera offices in Baghdad, killing a reporter and wounding a cameraman. Shortly afterwards, American forces […]

Iraq War

Lying about Lying: Why we must revisit the Definition of ‘Fake News’ from Iraq to Palestine

Ramzy Baroud

Dr Ramzy Baroud RamzyBaroud The phrase “fake news” continues to be deployed routinely in US politics. In a polarised political atmosphere, both Republicans and Democrats distrust media organisations affiliated with opposing parties. This means that most of what is uttered or written by CNN is “fake news” for Republicans, and much of what […]

censorship

Saudi Arabia must release Two of its Citizens Jailed for editing Wikipedia

Global Voices

By Advox | – ( Globalvoices.org) – Osama Khaled (L) and Ziyad Sufyani (R), two wikipedians who have been sentenced to 32 and 8 years in prison for their peaceful online activism in Saudi Arabia. Photo provided by GCHR. Used with permission Access Now, ALQST for Human Rights, ARTICLE 19, Global Voices (GV), the Gulf […]

journalism

The Making of the Modern Middle East: A Personal History (Review)

Marc Martorell Junyent

Review of Jeremy Bowen, The Making of the Modern Middle East: A Personal History (London: Picador, 2022). Greifswald, Germany (Special to Informed Comment) – Ali Abdullah Saleh, Bashar al-Assad, Hassan Nasrallah, and Muammar Gaddafi are just some of the prominent figures in contemporary Middle Eastern history that Jeremy Bowen has had the opportunity to interview […]

Authoritarianism

Iran: State-Backed Hacking of Activists, Journalists, Politicians (HRW)

Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch – (Beirut) – Hackers backed by the Iranian government have targeted two Human Rights Watch staff members and at least 18 other high-profile activists, journalists, researchers, academics, diplomats, and politicians working on Middle East issues in an ongoing social engineering and credential phishing campaign, Human Rights Watch said today. An investigation by […]

journalism

My War Never Ends

Tomdispatch

By Chris Hedges | – ( Tomdispatch.com ) – As this century began, I was writing War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, my reflections on two decades as a war correspondent, 15 of them with the New York Times, in Central America, the Middle East, Africa, Bosnia, and Kosovo. I worked in a […]

censorship

Ministry of Truth? Critics Warn Turkey’s new “Disinformation” Law is a Backdoor to Heavy-handed Censorship and outlawing Dissent

Global Voices

By Arzu Geybullayeva | – Turkish lawmakers approved a bill on October 13 purportedly meant to combat fake news and disinformation, but local civil society organizations describe the bill as an underhanded censorship or disinformation bill which will be used to squash dissent and criticism. Critics of the bill say the 40-article legislation passed by […]