IPA Sources on Corporate Welfare

Here are today's sources from the Istitutue for Public Accuracy
IPA, 915 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045
(202) 347-0020 * http://www.accuracy.org * ipa@accuracy.org
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Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Fed Giving Wall Street a Nanny-State Bailout?

Interviews Available

Reuters reports: "A fire sale of Bear Stearns Cos Inc stunned Wall Street and pummeled global financial stocks on Monday on fears that few banks are safe from deepening market turmoil. ... The combination of Bear Stearns' bailout and the Fed's offer on Sunday to extend direct lending to securities firms for the first time since the Great Depression highlighted just how hard the credit crisis has hit Wall Street."

DEAN BAKER, baker@cepr.net, http://www.cepr.net, http://www.ConservativeNannyState.org
Baker wrote the book "The Conservative Nanny State How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer." He said today: "The banking system is experiencing enormous stress due to collapse of the $8 trillion housing bubble. This is an inevitable and entirely predictable result of the collapse. The fact that almost no one in government or Wall Street anticipated this set of events raises serious questions about the competency of people in positions of responsibility.
"Going forward, the public should insist on full openness and transparency in the actions of the Fed. We have an interest in keeping the financial system operating but there is no public interest in putting up tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to protect the managers who have brought on this disaster or the shareholders who had hoped to profit from their actions. The takeover of the Northern Rock Bank by the British government should be the model. The bank was kept operating, but the managers were sent packing and the stockholders will probably lose their investment."
Baker is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. In August of 2002, the group released a paper by Baker titled "The Run-Up in Home Prices: Is It Real or Is It Another Bubble?" In 2005, Baker co-wrote the paper "Will a Bursting Bubble Trouble Bernanke? The Evidence for a Housing Bubble."

DOUG HENWOOD, [in NYC] dhenwood@panix.com, http://www.LeftBusinessObserver.com
Henwood is author of the book "Wall Street" and editor of Left Business Observer. He said today: "The Federal Reserve's attempts in recent weeks to restore market confidence haven't worked, and the arranged marriage of Bear Stearns and JPMorgan Chase is proof of that: people simply stopped believing in Bear and it was dead in a matter of days. We're clearly in a new phase of managing this financial crisis, but before it's over I think we're going to see the expenditure of real taxpayer money and not just pledges of support by the Fed. The economic question is now how bad the recession we're already in will be. The political question is what the public will get in return for its largesse -- license for financiers to do this all over again a few years from now, or a more stable and equitable financial system? Oh, and let's not forget, in all this high-end melodrama, there are still several million people losing their houses."

Breaking News Story Sources This Week

The Institute for Public Accuracy puts out bulletins for journalists looking for national sources for stories. I want to post them here for the delectation of my community radio comrades. Don't go calling these folks willy-nilly -- check in with your news directors and set up a story idea, then set up an appointment.

Now get out there and file a story!

Institute for Public Accuracy
915 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045
(202) 347-0020 * http://www.accuracy.org * ipa@accuracy.org
___________________________________________________

PM Thursday, March 13, 2008

Five Years Later -- Oil Contracts: Success of War?

Interviews Available

BEN LANDO, blando@upi.com
President Bush has repeatedly called for the passage of the
proposed Iraqi oil law. Lando is energy editor for UPI. He has recently launched
the web page .

ANTONIA JUHASZ,
antoniajuhasz@gmail.com,
http://www.TheBushAgenda.net Juhasz is the author of the book "The Bush Agenda: Invading the
World, One Economy at a Time" and is with the group Oil Change International.
She said today: "Five years after the invasion, the very same oil companies
that owned and controlled Iraq's oil from the end of World War I until
nationalization in the early 1970s -- Exxon Mobil, Chevron, BP, Shell
and Total -- are now poised to make their grand return. Each has signed
technical service contracts with the Iraqi government for work on five
of Iraq's largest oil fields. These contracts offer a mere foot in the
door, however, as both the companies and the Bush administration pressure the

Iraqis to pass the Iraq oil law and give the companies the Big Prize:
renewed ownership and control of Iraq's oil. Oil was the reason for
this war five years ago, it is the reason why we remain entrenched in this
war today."
On Friday, Juhasz will be testifying at the "Corporate Pillaging
and Military Contractors" civilian panel at Winter Soldier with journalist
Jeremy Scahill. Juhasz wrote the oped "Whose Oil Is It, Anyway?" which
appeared in the New York Times. Her forthcoming book is titled "The
Tyranny of Oil: The World's Most Powerful Industry and What We Must Do to Stop
It."
Oil Change International will be one of the groups participating in protests on the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the invasion of Iraq on March 19 in Washington. They will lead protests at the American
Petroleum Institute in Washington. See:
and .

Garbage In, Garbage Out: You Are What You Eat?

I am on the fly here, making dinner and lunch for my graveyard shift tomorrow and clearing out the living room and getting ready to wash the dog. But I wanted to post something for folx to do.

My daughter goes to Grant High School in the Portland Public Schools District. She says her school cafeteria uses the same food service company as the local jail -- or maybe it's the state penitentiary. She's not sure.

My son, who also goes to Grant, says Eric Schlosser, who wrote Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, reported the same thing in his book. Then I said, I think they use the same companies for hospital food at OHSU. When I was hospitalized in Minneapolis, Minn. three years ago for a kidney transplant, I only saw one piece of fresh fruit the whole time, and it was a creepy, droopy banana.

Here is homework assignment #2: Who can document whether or not Portland Public Schools and the Columbia Correctional Facility (or Coffee Creek Correctional Facility for women, or the Oregon State Penitentiary in the Salem area, or any others) use the same food service companies as ANY school dictrict in the state?

Here is a list of all Oregon prisons.

Bonus point goes to whomever can find out whether the same company provides food services to any hospital in the state.

Wierdly,

here is a complete listing, with links, of Oregon medical facilities put together by a 12-step group.

Right on!

Who can find out which are the top food service companies in the state? I know one is Aramark.

What would be the most timely news peg for such a story? I know that a report released last week showed Oregon spends more money per capital to incarcerate people than any other state. I also know that Oregon schools are chronicly underfunded and essentially FUBAR. Several years ago a report found that Oregon spends more $$ to incarcerate people than it does to fund higher education.

So ... what can we find out?

Story of the Week: The Torture Playlist

This is a headline on Democracy Now today:

Springsteen, Bee Gees, Eminem on US “Torture Playlist”
And the magazine Mother Jones has compiled a so-called “torture playlist”—a list of songs that the US military and CIA have used during interrogations to disorient detainees and to drown out screams. The list includes Neil Diamond’s “America,” “Born in the USA” by Bruce Springsteen, “White America” by Eminem, “Staying Alive” by the Bee Gees, the Sesame Street theme, the Barney theme song and a commercial for Meow Mix. At least one of the artists is happy their song was used during interrogations. Steve Asheim, the drummer of the group Deicide said, “It’s cool. If we’re up to military standards of audio abuse, it makes me feel like Deicide’s doing our part for the troops.”

Mother Jones has the music, you can read the report and listen to investigative reporter Justine Sherrock’s take on it all.

We're talking about Neil Diamond and the Barney theme song. Not exactly a surprise, huh?

Homework Exercise

Here's a fun homework assignment for investigative reporting learners. Using just the links on this blog, find out who in the state of Oregon are currently the biggest contributors to the top three presidential candidates.

Now, using these same links, try looking back to previous elections (say, the mid-term elections in 2006) to find out which out of state contributors dumped the most cash in Oregon races. Which races attracted the most $$? What long-term impact has that had on Oregon politics?

I'll try posting a few answers later this week.

Yes, Actual People Can Make a Difference

This came off the "Citizen Journalism" news ticker today. Naomi Klein is a juicy writer and analyst who appears on Democracy Now!, Alternative Radio and KBOO news and public affairs. Her newest book is "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism."

The Courier International website links to an interview with Naomi...in French. Bon chance avec ca!

Naomi Klein supports citizen journalism
Interviewed by Jade Lindgaard, the journalist and altermondialist militant Naomi Klein explains that blogs are complementary to investigative journalism. "Blogs have become real alternative journalism, places where scandals can be denounced. To a certain extent they play the same role as the radio does, by repeating and sometimes hammering home information that comes from investigative journalism in the written press. ... . Stories protect you from the shock, soften impact. There is a certain way of telling a story, not just scattering facts. It is the loss of the story, of the collective story, that puts you in a state of shock. This is what makes blogs so exciting: they put information by definition anti-narrative, into context. What citizen journalism manages so well is to take facts and turn them into stories."

Check This Out....

I pulled this from the "Citizen Journalism" News Ticker this morning:



Innovations in Journalism - Orato.com
Posted on February 27, 2008 by Oliver Luft - Filed Under Innovations in Journalism, online communities, Citizen journalism, Online Journalism |
Each week we give technology developers the opportunity to tell us journalists why we should sit up and pay attention to the sites and devices they are are working on. This week it’s citizen journalism site Orato.


1) Who are you and what’s it all about?
I’m Paul Sullivan, editor-in-chief of Orato.
Orato is a citizen journalism site that features stories from 3525 (last count) citizen correspondents from around the world.
Anyone can post text, audio, video story or photo slide show and comment on the site after registering.
We encourage first-person accounts, partly for practical reasons - people are comfortable speaking in their own voice about what they encounter, what’s going on in their lives, and what they think and feel - but also because it communicates on a more intimate level.

2) Why would this be useful to a journalist?
Orato is useful to journalists as a source of fascinating stories that don’t stem from the usual sources or locales.
On the home page, as I write, there’s a piece by a guy who kills baby seals for a living on the ice of Newfoundland, who is unapologetically carrying on a family tradition; there’s a story from the jackman (he jacks up the wheels) for the Nascar Red Bull team…he watches the cars go by at 198 miles an hours, then has to be ready in a split second to change the tires on his driver’s car; there’s a story about a family in Turkey who walks on all fours - their standard means of locomotion, a piece from a guy who spent more than a decade high up in Scientology’s secret army, and a piece from an astronaut on what it’s like to walk in space.
Some of these pieces we’ve solicited; others have come unbidden.
Orato is a treasure chest for journos looking for stories. It is also a place where journalists can and do post pieces that are viewed as too controversial or unpublishable at their own workplace.
3) Is this it, or is there more to come?

We’re already formulating Orato 3.0 (2.0 introduced video and interactive features such as the activity tracker).
In 3.0 we’re going to focus even more on the social media dimensions of the site…allow correspondents to instant message each other, allow them to customize their own MyOrato home page to display the subjects they’re interested in, etc.
We’re constantly thinking about new ways to expand citizen journalism - live video, versions in other languages, syndication of our best pieces using widgets, etc.

4) Why are you doing this?

For these reasons:
Because it’s important. This site has become a platform for people who otherwise may have no public voice - the sex trade workers who covered the serial killer trial in Vancouver, the Scientology refugees who have come to the site to bear witness against an oppressive cult, people who have been abused by authority and people who just love to tell stories and are looking for a safe, reputable and credible place to do it. It’s a democratic phenomenon, one we’re proud to be a part of.
Because people want it: now that the bandwidth and interactive technology exist, people are eager to participate and we give them at least one outlet.
Because it’s exciting. It’s the marketplace for a magnificent variety of voices and experiences; it’s the court of public opinion.
The wonder of it all: Strange and exotic stories appear out of nowhere. One day, the former chief executioner for Kenya decides to tell his story.
It’s great fun.
5) What does it cost to use it?
Nothing. It’s all free.
6) How will you make it pay?

We’re in the process of negotiating with online ad agencies to feature ads on the site. As traffic increases so will our CPM rate and our revenue. We have a number of other ideas in the development phase, but they’re not quite ready for prime time.