margonaut musician, librarian, writer, enigmatic weirdo, and lover of the one-ness

perogies YES prorogation NO

Two things I've learned in Canada are:

A perogy is a potato based food stuffed with cheese or other tasty fillings.

Proroguing Parliament is when a Prime Minister closes Parliamentary sessions for a period, often to avoid facing up to scandal or just to get a nice long vacation (which this time was met with giant waves of protest in rallies today all across the country!)

One estimate said over 7000 people attended in Toronto! I took photos, including these:

reach out to over half of America with fake news

Television stations are airing "news" segments that have been produced by corporate entities more than ever. It's tempting for stations to use these as they're already pre-produced, which is good for tight timelines and budgets.

However, this is essentially about an attempt to disguise advertising as journalism. Unfortunately, many people believe that what they see on the news is what's really happening.

Fake TV News: Widespread and Undisclosed
http://www.prwatch.org/fakenews/execsummary
Over a ten-month period, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) documented television newsrooms' use of 36 video news releases (VNRs)—a small sample of the thousands produced each year. CMD identified 77 television stations, from those in the largest to the smallest markets, that aired these VNRs or related satellite media tours (SMTs) in 98 separate instances, without disclosure to viewers. Collectively, these 77 stations reach more than half of the U.S. population. The VNRs and SMTs whose broadcast CMD documented were produced by three broadcast PR firms for 49 different clients, including General Motors, Intel, Pfizer and Capital One. In each case, these 77 television stations actively disguised the sponsored content to make it appear to be their own reporting. In almost all cases, stations failed to balance the clients' messages with independently-gathered footage or basic journalistic research. More than one-third of the time, stations aired the pre-packaged VNR in its entirety.

Medialink
http://content2.medialink.com/vnr.htm
Pioneered professionally by Medialink, the Video News Release (VNR), the television version of the printed press release, translates the printed word into the sound and pictures television newsrooms need. Produced in broadcast news style, VNRs relay the news of a product launch, medical discovery, corporate merger event, timely feature or breaking news to television news decision-makers. Every major television station in the world now uses VNRs regularly, and most are from Medialink. It’s a fact.

The most efficient notification and direct pathways ensure that your VNR advisory and full script reach news directors around the globe in the manner they prefer.

No Fake News
http://action.freepress.net/campaign/fakenews
Corporate propaganda has infiltrated local TV newscasts, with disguised product advertisements posing as genuine news reports. This represents a breach of the trust between broadcasters and their viewers.

Take action to stop fake news today. Demand that the Federal Communications Commission investigate, strengthen disclosure requirements and punish stations that air fake news.

citizen journalism

Here's a tidbit on the effect that the Internet is having on how people get their news!

Democratic Media: A Do-it-Yourself Starter Kit
http://www.prwatch.org/node/3782
Running counter to this trend, there is a growing citizen journalism movement that is broadening the ranks of reporters and bringing in new voices that are more diverse and harder to tame than companies like Viacom or Disney. One of the most successful examples, South Korea's OhMyNews, has played an important role in transforming the country's traditionally conservative, corrupt political system. It has also become a commercial success and has grown to include an English-language international edition.

As the archbishop observed in his sermon, internet-powered citizen journalism has the potential to undermine some of the "near-monopolistic practices" and "control of the product" now found in the traditional media, but it has some problems of its own: "Unwelcome truth and necessary and prompt rebuttal are characteristic of the web-based media. So are paranoid fantasy, self-indulgent nonsense and dangerous bigotry. The atmosphere is close to that of unpoliced conversation – which tends to suggest that the very idea of an appropriate professionalism for journalists begins to dissolve."

"freedom" TeeVee

The United States government is now producing a television station for the citizens of Iraq. I wonder how this will go over...

Your tax dollars at work!

Good Morning Iraq: US Sponsored Television in the Middle East is "Cheaper than an Invasion"
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,357110,00.html
Al-Hurra means "the free one" in Arabic. The station is intended to function as a counterweight to the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera network -- the voice of the Arab world -- which routinely portrays the United States as a hated and suspect global power. At least this is how America interprets the station -- and that's why the Bush administration has created Al-Hurra.

Al-Hurra's headquarters are located in a two-story brick building about 20 miles outside of Washington, DC. Most of the office buildings on Boston Boulevard in Springfield, Virginia, are occupied by companies involved in the US aviation and defense industry. Al-Hurra leases its offices from Boeing.