This Day. The death of Serena Shim, journalist

Serena Shim, an American citizen of Lebanese origin, remembered six years after her suspicious death near Turkey. Much of the monopoly media and Chrystia Freeland’s self-styled Media Freedom Coalition consisting of 21 NATO countries have forgotten that crime, but Press TV still wages an unrelenting campaign on behalf of its former journalist. This can also be compared to the cause célèbre of the gruesome murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post columnist and former Saudi intelligence agent, also in Turkey. While this “media freedom” coalition and the Washington Post do not seem bothered by the Saudi regime’s crimes against people in Syria or Yemen or even inside Saudi Arabia, they were offended that Saudi crown prince Mohammad bin Salman dared to kill a person employed by an American newspaper. All other journalists killed in conflict from Ukraine to Palestine are deemed propagandists and disposable, according to the official rationale set by NATO in 1999 to justify the bombing of Serbian TV stations during the war on Yugoslavia.

By Press TV 

(October 18) – Six years after her suspicious death, Press TV reporter Serena Shim is remembered as one of the first journalists to have exposed the involvement of the US-led Western countries and their regional allies in igniting the foreign-sponsored terrorism in Syria, a daring act of investigative journalism for which she paid with her life.

Press corruption

Every country’s history has been marred by scandals of covert newspaper-buying by economic magnates. This is happening today at the European and U.S. level.

For example, in 2019 the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation made the following donations:

Journalists around the world call for Julian Assange

INITIATED ON DECEMBER 6, 2019, BY TWO SWISS JOURNALISTS SERENA TINARI AND CATHERINE RIVA, THE JOURNALISTS’ CALL FOR JULIAN ASSANGE HAS ALREADY GARNERED PRESTIGIOUS SIGNATURES. WE JOIN IN AND INVITE ALL PROFESSIONALS IN THE TRADE TO DO THE SAME. THE CALL IS RESERVED FOR JOURNALISTS AND RELATED PROFESSIONS, EDITORS, CRITICS, OBSERVERS.

Journalists: Your colleagues in Palestine are under daily Israeli attacks!

May 4th was World Press Freedom Day. So far in 2015, 44 journalists have died in the line of work. Israel alone killed 17 Palestinian media workers its 51-day military aggression against the Gaza Strip.

Un-Explained – A Hamas senior official along with a Palestinian media organization demanded on Sunday the prosecution of Israel for killing, injuring and arresting Palestinian pressmen.

Freedom of expression: The ‘only democracy in the Middle East’ even arrests Jewish journalists

Israeli state leaders who SUPPRESS freedom of expression by armed force rallied with other state leaders who SUPPRESS freedom of expression yesterday in France in SUPPORT of free expression.

Netanyahu (cheerily waving to the crowd), Mali’s President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, France’s President Francois Hollande, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, EU President Donald Tusk, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas march during a rally in Paris. Jan. 11, 2015 | AP

Israeli forces killed 17 Palestinian journalists in 2014. They also arrest Jewish journalists for “insulting soldiers”:

“False arrests won’t stop us covering Israel’s occupation

“If we were suspected of having spat at soldiers, it is easy to imagine the intolerable ease with which the soldiers could say, falsely, that a Palestinian had pulled a knife at a checkpoint or threatened them a moment before they shot him dead.”

“The allegations against us: violating an emergency order and insulting a soldier. The law books contain no statutes about insulting a journalist.” – GIDEON LEVY in Haaretz

The slain Palestinian journalists you don’t hear about

Some were killed in their homes, others were “deliberately targeted”

Ma’an News Agency (August 26) – A Palestinian media watchdog said that July was the bloodiest month on record in the history of the Palestinian press, as nine journalists were killed and eight media outlets shelled during the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza.

The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms said in a statement that the targeting of Palestinian media had continued into August, with at least six more journalists killed in the last three weeks as well.

Obama’s attack on journalism

Progressive  (May 8) – James Risen, a Pulitzer Prize-winner at the New York Times, may face jail time on a federal contempt of court charge if he doesn’t release the identity of one of his confidential sources.

The Bush Administration’s Justice Department tried to pry the information out of him, but ultimately relented.

Now President Obama, who vowed to restore our civil liberties when he ran for the White House in 2000, is letting his Justice Department pursue Risen even more aggressively than Bush did.

IFJ condemns shooting of photojournalist in Ramallah

[Press Release, 5 March 2013] – A PALESTINIAN PHOTOJOURNALIST was shot and severely injured by an Israeli soldier near the Ofer prison in Ramallah last Friday evening, according to the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate (PJS), affiliated to the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ).

The IFJ has today condemned the shooting, calling for an investigation to identify and punish the shooter.

Palestinian journalists in Israeli detention

27 Palestinian journalists detained in the last two years by Zionist “democracy”

(23 February 2013) – The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) today backed the call by its affiliate in Palestine, the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate (PJS), which organised a protest in Ramallah to demand the release of their colleagues held by Israel.

The PJS organised the sit-in protest outside the Ofer detention center in east of Ramallah  while an Israeli court held a hearing in the case of detained Palestinian journalist Amir Abu Arafah and cartoonist Muhammad Sabanah.

Press freedom and Press TV

By DAVE THOMAS

TWO DAYS AGO Press TV was removed from Galaxy 19 This satellite carries mostly unscrambled signals so they can be seen just with a dish and receiver box and no fees, “Free-to-Air” as they say. Galaxy 19 is at 97 degrees west. Last month the same thing happened on Hispasat 1 at 30 degrees west.

Salman Rushdie – An intellectual in the service of imperialist war

BIG POWERS intent on invading and waging war on a sovereign country or countries, in order to gain hegemony over a region of the world, must first create public opinion for so doing, including denigrating and demonising a whole people. Such was the role played by the writer Salman Rushdie with his book The Satanic Verses published in 1988, which insulted Islam and gravely disturbed and provoked its followers. What followed is justified and grotesquely glamorised in Rushdie’s latest book, Joseph Anton, an autobiographical work focussing on his decade under police protection, the title being his assumed name during that period. This new book is currently being massively promoted.

Contracts reveal Miami journalists on U.S. government payroll

A MULTI-YEAR effort by the U.S. National Committee to Free the Cuban Five, the U.S. Partnership for Civil Justice Fund and Liberation newspaper has uncovered thousands of pages of previously unreleased materials that reveal that the U.S. government was paying Miami-based journalists who saturated the Miami media with reports that were highly inflammatory and prejudicial to the five Cuban anti-terrorism fighters during their trial in that U.S. city.

The Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 prohibits the U.S. government from funding activities to influence and propagandize domestic public opinion.

More than 2,200 pages of contracts between Miami journalists and Radio and TV Martí have been released thus far to Liberation newspaper through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) petition.

The Broadcasting Board of Governors – an official U.S. government agency – and its Office of Cuba Broadcasting have operated Radio Martí since 1985 and TV Martí since 1990.

The U.S. government has funneled nearly half a billion dollars into the Office of Cuba Broadcasting in Miami. With an annual budget nearing $35 million, the Office of Cuba Broadcasting and the Broadcasting Board of Governors put on their payroll domestic journalists to broadcast the same message inside and outside the United States on Cuba-related issues, effectively violating the law against domestic dissemination of U.S. propaganda.

These contracts evidence the U.S. government’s payments to journalists in Miami whose reports constituted a sustained effort to create an atmosphere of hysteria and bias against Cuba and the Cuban Five.

Radio Havana Cuba, May 9, 2011

Case of the Cuban Five and the media

Extract of a speech delivered by Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada, President of the Cuban National Assembly of People’s Power, on May 3, at an event held jointly by the Latin American Federation of Journalists (FELAP) and the Cuban Association of Journalists (UPEC) for Press Freedom Day.

When its OK to kill a hack

NATO’s bombed the RTS (Radio-Television Serbia) studios in Belgrade on April 23, 1999 killing 16 journalists and support staff.

By CHARLES GLASS, The Spectator

(February 5) – It’s official. Thirty-three journalists died violently in war zones last year. The figure — nine up on the year before — has just been released by the New York based Committee to Protect Journalists. Sierra Leone was the most dangerous destination in 1999: ten reporters were killed there last year. Next on the list was Serbia, where six reporters lost their lives; then came Colombia, with four deaths. The CPJ concludes, ‘We see a clear policy, particularly in Sierra Leone, Colombia and East Timor, of armed factions seeking to banish journalists in order to hide the truth.’