Tony Lewis passes on

Via Jesselyn Radack, tireless civil liberties lawyer (who exposed the wrongdoing in the treatment of so-called “American Taliban” John Walker Lindh) and director of National Security & Human Rights at the Government Accountability Project, at DK.

Adam Liptak, NYT:

Anthony Lewis, a former New York Times reporter and columnist whose work won two Pulitzer Prizes and transformed American legal journalism, died on Monday at his home in Cambridge, Mass. He was 85.

The cause was complications of renal and heart failure…
…
he was hired by The Washington Daily News, a lively afternoon tabloid, and won his first Pulitzer there, in 1955, when he was 28.

The prize was for a series of articles on Abraham Chasanow, a Navy employee unjustly accused of being a security risk.

It’s a mediocre obituary, I think (see WaPo for better), which downplays the extent to which Tony Lewis put himself forward to defend core constitutional principles at times when the mob was howling to overthrow them. He wasn’t just a neutral reporter, but a knowledgeable man with a clear view of the issues, and a passion for doing the right thing. He was one of the earlier voices against the Vietnam War. I was saddened to learn that he slackened off on his defense of “dangerous speech” in his latter days, but I understand. It’s very difficult to watch the right-wing demonize, dehumanize, and indirectly advocate violence against people (consider Dr. George Tiller, cold-bloodedly assassinated in Wichita) and not think, There has to be some way that the law can stop this.

US media, pay attention

This is an interview of London Mayor Boris Johnson that shows how an interviewer can be polite, but clear and firm in follow-through. For example:

[The BBC's Eddie Mair] With this admission trousered, Mair continued: “Let me ask you about a barefaced lie. When you were in Michael Howard’s team, you denied to him you were having an affair. It turned out you were and he sacked you for that. Why did you lie to your party leader?”

Johnson squirmed. “Well, I mean again, I’m … with great respect … on that, I never had any conversation with Michael Howard about that matter and, you know, I don’t propose …”

Mair interrupted: “You did lie to him.”

Johnson: “Well, you know, I don’t propose to go into all that again.”

Mair: “I don’t blame you.”

It’s not that Boris Johnson is worse than most politicians–I doubt that he is– but all politicians need to be reminded that they are not above scrutiny, that people see what they do, and remember.

And, by the way, in the perverse way these things go, it may have generated public sympathy for Boris Johnson.

Everyone was doing it, but the boss didn’t know about it: Murdochgate continues

Josh Halliday, Lisa O’Carroll, Sandra Laville, and Mark Sweney, The Guardian:

The Sunday People editor, James Scott, has become the first serving newspaper editor arrested over alleged phone hacking, relating to his time at the Sunday Mirror a decade ago.

Scott was one of four former Sunday Mirror senior journalists arrested in dawn raids on Thursday on suspicion of conspiracy to intercept voicemail messages. Tina Weaver, the ex-Sunday Mirror editor who is seven months pregnant, was also arrested on Thursday morning.

The other two were Nick Buckley, the deputy Sunday People editor, and Mark Thomas, the former People editor, who also both formerly worked for the Sunday Mirror.

Good news for those who aren’t particularly UP

David Taintor, TPM:

MSNBC announced Thursday that Chris Hayes will take over the network’s 8 p.m. ET primetime slot.
…
Hayes will take over the time slot currently occupied by Ed Schultz, who will move his program to weekend evenings. Hayes takes over the 8 p.m. hour starting Monday, April 1, MSNBC said.

Hayes is an extraordinarily knowledgeable host who will probably do better in interviews against right-wing mouthpieces than good-hearted, but slow-…footed Ed Schultz did. It’s a plus for MSNBC to move him out of the Saturday 6AM Pacific Time ghetto that they put him in and into a slot that’s watched coast-to-coast.

Ed says he volunteered for the switch, because it will give him more time to develop in-depth stories. Certainly he did an amazing, excellent interview with Scott Prouty, who explained with great dignity why he released the 47% film that knocked the Romney campaign off-balance. It will probably also give Ed a little more time with his wife, who has just been through cancer hell.

More like this, please.

Any Goodman gets a splash

Featured on Makers, a website about documentary makers, she tells the story of the genocide in East Timor. Notice that there are a series of clips, which one can access below the screen.

Amazingly, this is a PBS-AOL initiative.

Maddow Rising. The Eclipse of FOX

Via Ritholtz, this cheering news from David Wagner, The Atlantic Wire:

After prophesying a landslide win for Mitt Romney, Fox News has seen its ratings decline a lot more than usual since the election — and Sean Hannity’s viewers in particular keep disappearing, while Rachel Maddow’s continue to tune in over at rival MSNBC.

The last batch of Nielsen data available before year’s end shows Hannity’s viewership getting chopped in half after November 6, according to the New York Daily News’s Don Kaplan. Politico’s Dylan Byers argues this decline simply brings Hannity back to pre-election norms. Or perhaps these vanishing viewers are just disgruntled voters who can’t stomach the news cycle anymore. Kaplan, however, attributes this decline to Hannity’s implied predictions

Something to really celebrate

Richard Engel, NBC correspondent, and his crew were freed. Brian Stelter and Sebnem Arsu, NYT:

Richard Engel, the chief foreign correspondent for NBC News, and three of his crew members were freed on Monday after five days in captivity in Syria, the news organization said on Tuesday.
…
The identities of the kidnappers and their motives were unknown. But an article on the NBC News Web site quotes Mr. Engel as saying their captors “were talking openly about their loyalty to the government” of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
…
About 15 men, Mr. Engel said on the “Today” show, “just literally jumped out of the trees and bushes” and “dragged us out of the car.” The kidnappers killed one of the rebels whom the crew had been traveling with, he said. [They subjected Engel and his crew to mock executions]
…
the crew members were freed when the captors “ran into a checkpoint manned by members of the Ahrar al-Sham brigade, a Syrian rebel group,” NBC’s Web site reported. “There was a confrontation and a firefight ensued. Two of the captors were killed, while an unknown number of others escaped.”

Engel is one of the last real correspondents on TV. As this incident shows, he goes in at great personal risk to places no one wants to go. He’s modest and well-informed. He may be the only person on network TV that I actually enjoy listening to and trust.

So, thanks, God, for getting him out safely.

Sauce for the gander: USAID expelled from Russia

Miriam Elder, The Guardian:

The Russian government has given the US agency for international development (USAid) until 1 October to cease all operations in the country. The agency helps fund a number of pro-democracy and human rights groups that have provoked the Kremlin’s wrath amid an unprecedented opposition movement against the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.

In an uncharacteristically blunt statement, the Russian foreign ministry said that the decision to shut USAid was taken primarily because the agency’s work “does not always correspond to [its] stated goals”.

“This means attempts to exert influence, via the distribution of grants, upon political processes, including elections of various levels and institutions of civil society,” it said.

This is one of those stories that gets framed in the Western press as western democracies helping oppressed people around the world. I think we all sympathize with protestors like Pussy Riot, the band recently jailed for protesting against Putin in the cathedral, and there’s not much question that Putin is an authoritarian.

But is what US AID is doing, however benevolent, right?

US AID is involved in influencing elections all around the world, including in places that do not have dictators, just leaders that we don’t like. That puts us in the position of manipulating elections. Would we accept that from foreign governments? Certainly on this blog I’ve raised the concern that the Chinese government–or even the Chinese criminal syndicates– could be using Sheldon Adelson as a conduit for contributions to manipulate our system.

US AID is widely believed to be a CIA front. For example, La Jornada, a center-left newspaper in Mexico, published this article calling USAID a front for the CIA and saying that “from Iraq to Venezuela, USAID is one of the most active mechanisms for intelligence and destabilization in the world.”

We would regard the manipulation of our media by an outside power as a hostile act. We should be careful not to be seen as doing the same.

R.I.P. Alexander Cockburn

Never read Counterpunch much, but Cockburn was an actual journalist, as opposed to most of the people calling themselves that nowadays. His niece, Laura Flanders, has been one of the best voices in new media. The Guardian. Jeffrey St. Clair at Counterpunch. Cockburn at the Voice by Sylvia Plachy.

Assange on RT

His first show is up here. For some reason, RT isn’t listing him on the schedule yet. He’s a better interviewer than a lot of the cable news heads, and he doesn’t let the guy off the hook. He could give better context and considering that Hezbollah is a paramilitary/political group deeply enmeshed in the cycle of violence in the Middle East, the questions could be sharper. But it’s a voice you are unlikely to hear anywhere else. Not even al Jazeerah, and probably not Mosaic. (al Jazeera’s tone toward Nasrallah is represented by this opinion piece)

As I keep saying, if we had a competitive media, someone, somewhere would have been broadcasting this guy all along. The whole point of the First Amendment is to ensure that people are making up their minds based on full access to information, not on one-sided presentations. It’s pretty easy to see why Nasrallah is popular. He’s a far more genuine person than, say, Mitt Romney. When Americans greenlight wars hither and yon, do they understand that the people in those countries may like their leaders more than we like ours, and are therefore willing to sacrifice more to resist us than we are to coerce them?