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 Barbwire Archives |
Newspaper commits dogmatic suicide
Expanded from the 5-9-2010 Daily Sparks Tribune
Update 6-8-2010: Las Vegas Sun: Defendants 28 thru 34 sued by Las Vegas Moonhowlers
Barbwire wins second straight Nevada Press Association first-place award
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The shows appeared on both commercial and community stations. The non-corporate entity produced the events, commercial TV greatly expanded distribution.
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Be well. Raise hell.
Andrew
Barbwire column on the depredations of Charter Communications and the Reno City Council wins 2009 Nevada Press Association first-place award
Past 12 months
Use the search tool you will find at page right at the above link. It will return the 19 newest TV programs. You may also search by date — M-F for the past year save holidays.Click here for on-demand re-runs
from the 2009 legislative sessionBarbwire.TV:
15-year overnight success
Daily Sparks Tribune 2-10-2008The Barbwire's Greatest Hits
Highlights from radio days
mp3 fileFranz Kafka, call your office.
The social Darwinists at the Las Vegas Review-Journal have pulled a Nixon and are lashing out at their enemies list.Worse, they are using a vehicle they have always decried, lawsuits.
In case you haven't heard, the state's largest newspaper has been suing organizations they don't like for copyright infringement. The sin which has so sorely aggrieved them consists of (gasp!) posting links to RJ stories at their websites.
The latest outfit to get hit is the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada. (Disclosure time: I am the Reno-Sparks NAACP delegate to PLAN.)
On May 4, the RJ sued PLAN and its webmaster for copyright infringement.
The lawsuit will be available with the web edition of this column at NevadaLabor.com. I hope they don't sue me for copyright infringement, even though it's a protected public document.
First and foremost, this damnable legal action is a blatant violation of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and also of Nevada law against SLAPPs (strategic lawsuits against public participation).
Blogger Emily Green noted "what makes (the) lawsuit against PLAN remarkable is that among the exhibits in the complaint is one for posting a story on its website in which PLAN itself was a subject of the article."
So the RJ is suing its own news sources. That's a scary echo of an oft-stated criticism of the U.S. auto industry and other corporate dinosaurs which for the past 30 years have been firing their own customers – their employees – in a race to the bottom.
At last Thursday's PLAN meeting, founder Bob Fulkerson mused about refusing to talk to RJ reporters.
I advised against it. PLAN needs to talk to the press about its populist issues, including its current statewide petition drive to end the foreign-owned gold mining industry's corporate welfare tax breaks.
Here is a list of offensive defenses which PLAN should consider.
1. TURNABOUT IS FAIR PLAY. In every future interview, PLAN's representatives should tell RJ reporters upfront that PLAN considers its oral comments and any written documents as proprietary and authorizes use only with a disclaimer that such PLAN intellectual property is copyrighted.
2. TURNABOUT, PART DEUX. File counterclaims for abuse of legal process (using the courts as a pretext to obtain a result not otherwise attainable) and violation of the First Amendment.
3. THE MORE THE MERRIER. PLAN should file a motion asking the court to join other individuals and organizations, such as the uberconservative Nevada Policy Research Institute and the senate campaign of former UNLV basketball player Danny Tarkanian. Both have liberally linked RJ stories to their sites.
Fulkerson "said officials at the Review-Journal are being hypocritical by regularly complaining in editorials about unnecessary litigation in society – and then suing PLAN without first trying to resolve the problem out of court," the Las Vegas Sun reported.
"'If they would have picked up the phone and said, "we have a problem with you posting these stories," we would have obliged them,'" Fulkerson told the Sun.
"Fulkerson said it's doubtful mining industry Web sites would be sued since PLAN believes the R-J is cozy with the mining industry.
"'It appears they're suing groups that don't agree with their political agenda'," Fulkerson added.
Perhaps one case is the most instructive.
The RJ watchdog website lvjournalreview.com stated it well: "(The RJ) also sued Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. CREW is largely responsible for the current legal mess Sen. John Ensign is in. CREW filed the complaints against Ensign that led to the sweeping investigation into the Republican senator's alleged misuse of his office. CREW was never told to take down an RJ story. (Executive Director) Melanie Sloan said she was surprised the paper didn't notify her it had a problem with her use of their stories."
4. HOIST THEM ON THEIR OWN PETARD. Every RJ story encourages readers to e-mail stories to friends and post them on the myriad of social network websites. That alone should be enough to defeat the RJ's claims. They have given the world permission to link their stories in order to build website traffic which they can turn into advertising revenue and maybe (heaven forbid) some new print advertisers and subscribers.
The northern news media – the four Sparks-Reno-Carson newspapers and three network TV stations – have not published word one about this story and apparently no one has yet noticed the greatest danger signaled by suing not only PLAN but its webmaster.He is a neutral party, posting only what his client tells him. He's like the phone company, facilitating the medium but not the message. If he can be successfully sued for doing the typing, then no one is safe, including AT&T, Great Basin Internet here in northern Nevada, Yahoo, Google, you or me.
The RJ is run by a bunch of morally obtuse dogmatists who have taken leave of their ethical, moral, professional and business senses.
No less than republican democracy is threatened by their damnable actions.UPDATE: As of this posting, the Review-Journal itself has failed to report this story.
HELP WANTED. Regular readers know that I have been raising money to help Sierra Nevada Community Access Television fully benefit from a matching foundation grant of $40,000. If you can help with a tax-deductible donation, give me a holler at (775) 882-TALK or drop me a line.
HELP WANTED, PART DEUX. The Reno-Sparks NAACP will hold its annual Freedom Fund Banquet on May 22 at the Peppermill in Reno. For ticket and sponsorship information, go to RenoSparksNAACP.org or contact me. This is important.Be well. Raise hell.
______
Andrew Barbano is a 41-year Nevadan, chair of the Nevada César Chávez Committee, producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration, second vice-president and political action chair of the Reno-Sparks NAACP, labor/consumer/civil rights advocate, member of Communications Workers of America Local 9413/AFL-CIO and editor of NevadaLabor.com. As always, his opinions are strictly his own. Check local listings for other Nevada cable systems. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Daily Sparks Tribune since 1988.
Smoking Guns...
Nevada Press Assn. annual award winners announced
And they wonder why the newspaper business is dying?
The Dean's List
The Dean of Reno Bloggers could very well be Andrew Barbano, self-described "fighter of public demons," who started putting his "Barbwire" columns online in 1996 and now runs 10 sites.
RENO NEWS & REVIEW, 11-9-2006
The 2009 first-place Nevada Press Association award winners
Tony the Tiger & the flaky NFL
Barbwire / 11-30-2008
Deregulation is never having to say you're sorry
Barbwire / 8-3-2008
Nevada: A good place to visit, but do you want to live here?
Barbwire / 6-15-2008
The price of a piece / 6-17-2007
Boxing Pandora /9-23-2007
The Lady in the Red Dress
10-28-2007
BARBWIRE Nevada Corporate Welfare Archive
Propaganda fuels gasoline price fixing
Barbwire 8-14-2005Donate to the cable ratepayer legal defense fund at our PayPal-enabled ReSurge.TV Consumer War Room
Phillips, Kevin; Numbers Racket: Why the economy is worse than we know
Harper's Magazine; May 2008; page 43
Phillips has authored numerous books on history and politics over the past 40 years. His most recent, Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism, was published by Viking on April 15, 2008.NAOMI WOLF: Fascist America in 10 Easy Steps
There are some things common to every state that's made the transition to fascism. Author Naomi Wolf argues that all of them are present in America today.
Alternet 5-20-2007Johnson, Chalmers; REPUBLIC OR EMPIRE? A National Intelligence Estimate on the United States; Harper's magazine; January, 2007. I love it when heavy hitters validate what I've been saying for years in the tiny Sparks Tribune.
Barlett, Donald L. and Steele, James B.; America: What Went Wrong? (1992); America: Who Really Pays the Taxes? (1994); America: Who Stole the Dream? (1996) ; Andrews & McMeel/Universal Press Syndicate.
Review of Alex Carey's Taking the Risk Out of Democracy:
Propaganda in the US and AustraliaThe Orwell Diversion by Alex Carey
Excerpted from the book available below
ORDER Taking the Risk Out of Democracy
Corporate Propaganda versus Freedom and Liberty
By Alex Carey
Edited by Andrew Lohrey
Foreword by Noam Chomsky
University of Illinois Press
SEE ALSO: Lapham, Lewis H.; Tentacles of Rage: The Republican Propaganda Mill, A Brief History; Harper's Magazine cover article; September, 2004, page 32.
By one conservative estimate, the corporate right has spent about $3 billion over the past three decades manufacturing public opinion to suit big business goals. Lapham's number covered the early 1970's to the present day. Alex Carey noted that by 1948, anti- New Deal corporate propaganda expenditures had already reached $100 million per year, not adjusted for inflation, for advertising alone. (Carey, ibid; page 79)
Adjusted for inflation, that 1948 $100 million becomes $801,659,751.04 in 2005 dollars.
Conservatives Help Wal-Mart, and Vice Versa
As Wal-Mart struggles to rebut growing criticism, it has discovered a reliable ally: conservative research groups.
New York Times 9-8-2006; Free registration may be required.BARBWIRE: Labor Day '94: People vs. corporate con job, 9-4-94
Chilling forecasts from Alex CareyBARBWIRE: The Nevada Republican Party Becomes Communist, 3-30-97
A prescient Plato on the dangers of oligarchyThe sands of time do not cloud the long memories of the sheiks of Araby
Barbwire 9-10-2006
Rinfret, Pierre A.; Peace is Bullish; Look magazine, 5-31-1966
Copyright © 1982-2010
Andrew Barbano
Andrew Barbano is a 41-year Nevadan, editor of NevadaLabor.com and JoeNeal.org; and former chair of the City of Reno's Citizens Cable Compliance Committee, He is producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration and serves as second vice-president, political action chair and webmaster of the Reno-Sparks NAACP. As always, his opinions are strictly his own. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us.
Barbwire by Barbano premiered in the Daily Sparks (Nev.) Tribune on Aug. 12, 1988, and has originated in those parts ever since. Tempus fugit.
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