Free Republic

With a star-studded team of certified, dyed-in-the-wool progressive nutbars of every flavor, including Medea Benjamin, Tony Benn, Helen Caldicott, Linda Foley (yes!), Janeane Garofalo, Naomi Klein, Gore Vidal, and Howard Zinn, Independent World Television is poised to capture the enormous, heretofore-untapped global market for demented leftist raving. (Hat tip: Chrenkoff.) The network is raising a $7 million start-up budget from individual donors and foundations. The MacArthur, Ford and Phoebe Haas Trust foundations and the Canadian Auto Workers Union have contributed to a planning study. In its next phase, IWTnews will build the online community necessary for an international mass fundraising...

Linda Foley's Screed +fake apology Note to the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy (or whatever you’re calling yourselves these days): I was just re-elected president of The Newspaper Guild-CWA, and I’m not resigning. That said, let me address the rest of this column to the people who really matter: the members of The Newspaper Guild. In case you missed it, for about a month I have been subjected to what I would characterize as a right-wing screed over some comments I made at the National Media Reform Conference in St. Louis on May 13. The comments (which I won’t repeat here) were...

Note to the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy (or whatever you’re calling yourselves these days): I was just re-elected president of The Newspaper Guild-CWA, and I’m not resigning. That said, let me address the rest of this column to the people who really matter: the members of The Newspaper Guild. In case you missed it, for about a month I have been subjected to what I would characterize as a right-wing screed over some comments I made at the National Media Reform Conference in St. Louis on May 13. The comments (which I won’t repeat here) were about journalists getting killed in...

Below is a list of various Newspaper Guild local unions and appropriate contacts. To email the local union representatives and ask them if their silence should be interpreted as tacit support for Linda Foley's slanderous accusations of murder against the troops of the US Military, simply click and compose your message, from the website: http://www.radiobs.net/mediaslander/archives/2005/06/a_call_to_actio.php (Harry Holcomb excluded, as AOL reports that the account isn't active.) Available phone numbers have also been provided. Do these elected local Guild leaders appreciate a union leadership that directly accuses the troops of the US Military of murdering journalists as a matter of strategic...

As distrust of the press grows, news articles are relentlessly scrutinized for bias, but almost no one is focusing on stories that are simply ignored. For instance, a May 18 report in the Afghan newspaper Kabul Weekly said the riots that killed 17 people were not about disrespect for the Koran in American detainment camps--they were a show of force by the Taliban and another fundamentalist group, Hezb-e Eslami. "These demonstrations were organized by the Taliban and their supporters, and only some naive people joined the protesters," the newspaper said. The BBC picked up the story on May 22, but...

What would have been a quiet holiday weekend for the blogosphere, has instead been energized by a single post, on a brand new site. It's about courage, a newspaper reporter not afraid to make waves in a stuffy, elitist atmosphere. And it proves that nothing has changed in America's newsrooms since last year's Rathergate. How could Boston Globe technology reporter Hiawatha Bray be virtually alone in demanding Newspaper Guild President Linda Foley back up her absurd statement, that American troops were intentionally targeting journalists in Iraq?

"Journalists, by the way, are not just being targeted verbally or … ah, or … ah, politically. They are also being targeted for real, um … in places like Iraq. What outrages me as a representative of journalists is that there's not more outrage about the number, and the brutality, and the cavalier nature of the U.S. military toward the killing of journalists in Iraq."

I'm a reporter for a major newspaper in the northeastern US. I'm also a member of the Newspaper Guild. As a reporter at the Detroit Free Press in 1995, I participated in a strike against that newspaper, a strike which cost me my job, because I would not cross the picket line. .... I take my membership in the Guild very seriously. That's why I was dismayed to learn that you, the president of my union, made a speech on May 13 in which you asserted that the US military has deliberately killed journalists. The relevant portion of the speech...

The Dog That Didn't Bark The Press and Linda Foley: Why has there been so little mention in the mainstream media of the Newspaper Guild president's recent charge that journalists are "being targeted for real" in Iraq by the U.S. military? By Thomas Lipscomb (May 26, 2005) -- Newspaper Guild President Linda Foley made a public statement on May 13 that journalists are “being targeted for real in places like Iraq.” She has been trying to slide out of it ever since. Pressed by E&P’s Joe Strupp, Foley offered a clarification on who specifically was doing the targeting: “I was...

Radicals For "Media Reform" by L. Brent Bozell III May 25, 2005 The radical left is not enjoying the 21st century, yearning instead for a perpetual rerun of the 1970s, with America whipped by Vietnam, and the planet in thrall to Third World "liberation" ideologies and theologies. Ah, the ‘70s, where the greatest enemy of all mankind was not the Soviet empire, but the Multinational Corporation. Instead, the world is now embracing Western-style democratic capitalism. Worse yet, the national media conversation isn’t the completely one-sided left-wing nightly harangue that it was in that bygone era. Even PBS and NPR seem...

A public statement by Newspaper Guild President Linda Foley is reviving questions about the intentional targeting of journalists in Iraq by the U.S. armed forces. At a May 13 meeting in St. Louis, Foley said: "Journalists, by the way, are not just being targeted verbally or politically. They are also being targeted for real in places like Iraq. What outrages me as a representative of journalists is that there's not more outrage about the number, and the brutality, and the cavalier nature of the U.S. military toward the killing of journalists in Iraq." The Newspaper Guild that Foley heads represents...

Note to the mainstream media: When one of your own finds itself in a deep ethics hole due to slinging accusations without truth, don’t grab the shovel and start digging one for yourself. Apparently, Newspaper Guild - Communications Workers of America President Linda Foley picked up the torch from former CNN news chief Eason Jordan to again accuse U.S. troops of deliberately targeting journalists in Iraq, but Jordan’s unsubstantiated claims created a firestorm resulting in his resignation. But unlike Jordan’s comments February at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the recording of Foley’s comments Friday in St. Louis is...

A Word from Major E. Major Eric E. serves with the Iraq Explosive Device Task Force at Camp Victory in Baghdad. He understandably takes Linda Foley's remarks regarding the American military targeting journalists rather personally. He has sent us a copy of his letter to the union over which she presides: Dear Newspaper Guild: As an American serving here in Iraq, and having previously served in Afganistan, I am deeply offended by Ms. Linda Foley's crystal clear allegation, made in a public forum to audience applause, that the U.S. military conducts targeted killings of foreign journalists in Iraq. Of course,...

The president of The Newspaper Guild has drawn intense flak from conservative news groups after it was disclosed that she had accused the U.S. military of targeting journalists in Iraq. In remarks made during a panel discussion at the National Conference for Media Reform in St. Louis on May 13, Linda Foley said that not only U.S. journalists were being targeted. "They target and kill journalists from other countries, particularly Arab countries, at news services like Al Jazeera, for example. They actually target them and blow up their studios, with impunity." The conservative website NewsMax.com charged that Foley had accused...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MEDIA MATTERS Union rep: U.S. troops killing journalists President of Newspaper Guild echoes claim of ex-CNN exec -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: May 19, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com Echoing a claim that led to CNN executive Eason Jordan's resignation, the president of the 35,000-member Newspaper Guild asserted U.S. troops deliberately are killing journalists in Iraq. Linda Foley, speaking Friday in St. Louis, said the American attacks are focused particularly on Arab journalists, according to a tape aired by Sinclair Broadcasting's "The Point," a commentary segment by Mark Hyman. The remarks came as Newsweek magazine continued to manage fallout...

The president of a group representing reporters worldwide is accusing U.S. soldiers of committing atrocities without offering any evidence to back the charge up. Appearing in St. Louis on Friday, Newspaper Guild President Linda Foley complained: "What outrages me as a representative of journalists is that there’s not more outrage about the number, and the brutality, and the cavalier nature of the U.S. military toward the killing of journalists in Iraq.” In case anyone missed the point, Foley restated her allegation: "They target and kill journalists…uh, from other countries, particularly Arab countries like Al -, like Arab news services like...

Guild Chief Under Fire for Comments About Attacks on Journalists in Iraq By Joe Strupp Published: May 19, 2005 4:40 PM ET NEW YORK Linda Foley, national president of The Newspaper Guild, drew strong criticism today from some conservative groups for comments she made last Friday about the killing of journalists in Iraq. Foley said, among other things, that she was angry that there was "not more outrage about the number and the brutality, and the cavalier nature of the U.S. military toward the killing of journalists in Iraq. I think it's just a scandal." The backlash became so severe...