Journalism

By Niesha Lofing
Sacramento Valley Union Labor Bulletin

Oakland Mayor Jean Quan vowed to help improve the relationship between city police and journalists during a recent meeting with news gatherers and professional organizations.

The meeting, held in late February at Oakland City Hall, was called in an effort to discuss incidents of working reporters and photographers being detained and in some cases arrested by Oakland Police Department officers during several Occupy Oakland protests in recent months.

By David Dayen

After the death of PIPA this morning comes the news that Lamar Smith, the Republican chair of the House Judiciary Committee who planned on resuming the markup of SOPA, the House version of anti-piracy legislation, in February, has put the bill into cold storage. The work of the grassroots coalition did the trick: SOPA and PIPA are dead for now.

U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) announced today that the House Judiciary Committee, which he heads, “will postpone consideration of the legislation until there is wider agreement on a solution.” Smith added that he has taken critics’ concerns “seriously.”

“It is clear that we need to revisit the approach on how best to address the problem of foreign thieves that steal and sell American inventions and products,” Smith said in today’s statement [...]

By Evan Mascagni

In the early 1990s, the California Anti-SLAPP Project (CASP) led a statewide coalition to win enactment of the California anti-SLAPP law, Code of Civil Procedure section 425.16. This law protects against Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP). These damaging suits chill free speech and healthy debate by targeting those who communicate with their government or speak out on issues of public interest.

SLAPPs are used to silence and harass critics by forcing them to spend money to defend these baseless suits. SLAPP filers don’t go to court to seek justice.  Rather, SLAPPS are intended to intimidate those who disagree with them or their activities by draining the target’s financial resources. SLAPPs are effective because even a meritless lawsuit can take years and many thousands of dollars to defend. To end or prevent a SLAPP, those who speak out on issues of public interest frequently agree to muzzle themselves, apologize, or “correct” statements.

By Melinda Burns
Teamsters Graphic Communications Conference

In a sweeping decision, the National Labor Relations Board last week ordered the Santa Barbara News-Press to reinstate me and seven other reporters who were illegally fired nearly five years ago, after our newsroom voted to unionize. I was the first to be escorted out of the building in October, 2006, one month after we voted overwhelmingly to join the union. I was a senior writer, I had been at the paper for 21 years, and I had won local, state, regional and national awards for the paper with my reporting.

By Dave Johnson

I am in the UK this week. You can barely turn on the TV here without hearing about the “phone-hacking” scandal from outraged voices across the spectrum. It is a full-blown, 24/7 scandal. The thing that might be most astonishing to Americans, though, is that people are hearing about it at all. In fact, news shows here in the UK are featuring people questioning the power and influence of Murdoch’s news operations and its relationships with politicians, and authorities are investigating criminal activities by the media. Can you imagine any of that happening here?

England is in the middle of a full-blown, nation-engrossing scandal over the criminal behavior of Rupert Murdoch's media companies. There is a full-on media frenzy. There are police investigations. The Parliament is looking into things. The Prime Minister is appointing an investigative commission. People will be arrested and will go to jail if found guilty. Things are different in the UK from how they are in the US.

By Randy Shaw
Beyond Chron

As new financial data released June 3 revealed rising joblessness, the national media instead focused on Sarah Palin’s re-creation of Paul Revere’s ride and John Edward’s indictment for alleged violations related to his 2008 campaign. As these stories wound down, the media got a new gift: New York Congressmember Anthony Weiner admitted sending sexual photos via social media after previously denying doing so. This led to an all-out media blitz that allowed repeated showings of the offending photos, and hours of analysis confirming the hardly new perspective that men are dogs.

By Paul Hogarth

In last Sunday’s New York Times, Adam Nagourney wrote how Republican Governors across the country are overreaching their 2010 mandate – much like, he argues, President Obama and the Democrats “overreached” their mandate after 2008.

Really? A federal stimulus that was one-third tax cuts to appease a few Republicans was “overreaching” a liberal mandate? Health care reform that failed to have a public option (even though polls showed it was popular), because we had to cave to Joe Lieberman’s extortion? Failing to pass comprehensive immigration reform, no climate change reform and not even a vote on the Employee Free Choice Act was more “change” than the voters wanted?

By David Greenwald
California Progress Report

Tuesday as the California Progress Report ushered in its new site, I am moving on.  It was just a year ago in December that I took over as Editor of the California Progress Report as Frank Russo the founder, took a position as Chief of Staff to Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner. 

This has been an interesting but tough year for California.  We have had multiple budget crises that have seen our school, our social services, and other critical funding cut to the bone.  We have seen furloughs and other cuts impact our state workers.  And we have been crippled the shortcomings of our legislative process that has on more than one occasion seen the process ground to a halt and real reform fleeting.

By Bill Cavala
A veteran of over 30 years in Sacramento

Mayor Gavin Newsom’s decision to drop out of the race for the Democratic nomination for Governor of California has forced the state’s pundits to face the uncomfortable fact that they are stuck with a field of Poizner, Whitman, Campbell and Jerry Brown.

“Stuck with” because most observers find these people uninteresting as a group.

By Clint Reilly

My friend Joe Scott writes a popular blog on politics called “The Body Politic.” In some ways, it is a natural outgrowth of his renowned newsletter from an earlier era, “The Political Animal.”

A former political writer for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Scott cites a famous quote from Aristotle as his inspiration:

“Man is a political animal in a greater measure than any bee or any gregarious animal. For nature does nothing without purpose, and man alone of the animals possesses speech.”

Rereading the quote on Joe’s blog, I was reminded that political animals are a breed apart. They eat, drink and breathe politics 24/7. Some are junkyard dogs but others are lions who make the human race proud.