New website, new email, upcoming events, & more! May 21, 2008
Posted by mediamattersottawa in Challenging Mainstream Media, Events, Independent Media, Media News, Media Reform.add a comment
WE HAVE A NEW WEBSITE ADDRESS !!!
we also have a new email address:
mediamattersottawa@gmail.com
Please visit the site and let us know what you think!
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In today’s update:
- upcoming events (x5)
- coverage of media news (x2)
- appeal from Rabble.ca
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Upcoming Events
(3 in Ottawa, 2 out of town)
May 26, 7pm
The Story of Stuff screening & panel discussion
@ National Library & Archives, 395 Wellington St
- Media Matters will have a table at this event!
info at http://ottawa.indymedia.org/en/2008/05/7627.shtml
May 27, 1pm / 3pm
Rally to demand broadband access!
Parliament Hill
info at http://ottawa.indymedia.org/en/2008/05/7628.shtml
also see http://www.SaveTheNet.ca
May 29, 9pm
Solidarity / benefit show
The Mercury Lounge, 56 Byward Market Sq.
- in support of Common Cause Ottawa, Stop Canadian Complicity in Torture, ?and others?
- featuring LAL http://www.lalforest.com , qr5 http://www.qr5.com/ & DJ Trevor Walker, ?and others?
suggested $8-$10
May 30 – June 1st
Radio Without Boundaries conference
Toronto
http://www.naisa.ca/RWB
June 20 – 22
Allied Media Conference
Detroit, Michigan, USA
http://alliedmediaconference.org/
also see coverage from last year at http://nosnowhere.wordpress.com/2007/07/11/carnival-of-radical-action-iii-the-allied-media-conference/
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Articles on Media
Ralph Nader on Google:
http://counterpunch.org/nader05202008.html
Canwest, the media bully
http://workingtv.com/canwest.html
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Appeal from http://Rabble.ca
- see http://www.rabble.ca/about_us/about_us.shtml?x=70872
(forwarded message:)
Dear friends: Most of you, if not all of you, will be familiar with rabble.ca, a great on-line journal and promoter of social justice. rabble.ca is in the midst of a membership drive and if you are not a member (at $5 a month), frankly you should be.
Nothing is more damaging to democracy in this country than our restricted ability to speak to Canadians about the kind of Canada we want. That reality has been driven home here in BC with the increasing use of SLAPP suits (strategic lawsuits against public participation) by CanWest. One is against Mordecai Briemberg ( go to seriouslyfreespeech.ca to find out the details) a long-time supporter of Palestinian rights, and the other against theTyee.ca another fine on-line journal.
Independent media have never been more important in this country. With Stephen Harper as prime minister the very nature of our country and its social programs are at risk of being destroyed.
rabble.ca plays a key role in opposing the neo-liberal agenda of Harper and Company but they can’t do it without resources. Skip two café lattes a month an subscribe now.
Cheers,
Murray Dobbin
What do new members get?
Knowledge! Entertainment! And any member who joins for $5/month gets a “thank you” gift of a great independent print magazine subscription and is entered into a draw for a gift certificate from Eco Outdoor Sports on-line shop for $300. In other words it’s a great time to show the love and become a member. You can choose from: Briarpatch, Broken Pencil, Canadian Dimension, The Dominion, Geez, Geist, Herizons, Middle East Report, The New Internationalist, The Progressive, Maisonneuve Magazine, Mother Jones Magazine (digital pdf version), Our Times, Ricepaper, Shameless, Sub-Terrain, This, and Yes!. (While supplies last, but we are stocked up.)
Sign up at: https://secure.rabble.ca/membership/signup.php
Membership-a-thon….
If you are already a member of rabble you can join the membership-a-thon and sign up friends (and win a prize) at: http://www.rabble.ca/about_us/about_us.shtml?x=70872
You can download pledge forms right here! Take the form with you wherever you go and ask for support. Don’t forget to tell folks about the free stuff they’re going to get – show them the list of magazines! Also let them know about the grand prize gift certificate they could win if they become a member right now. They must sign up by July 1 to be eligible for the big draw and to be included in your count. On July 1: Mail us your completed membership forms, and the funds you’ve collected. We’ll tally up the totals here at rabble.ca and let folks know.
That’s it. It’s simple and a great way to support progressive Canadian voices in the media. You get our thanks, and a chance for great prizes; your friends get a magazine subscription and a chance for another prize. We all get a continuously improving independent Canadian media site.
Canadian musician Matthew Good recently wrote, “rabble is part of a shrinking democratic necessity. A fourth estate that exists to challenge rather than placate.” If you agree, and think your friends and colleagues will too, please join our membership-a-thon and keep rabble thriving. Thank you for your support!
Don’t delay! You can sign yourself up as a member for $5/month right here, right now!
May Day update – new Media Matters website, and more! May 1, 2008
Posted by mediamattersottawa in Challenging Mainstream Media, Independent Media, Media Matters Projects, Media News.add a comment
Happy May Day!
We feel it’s important to keep our collective history of struggle and activism alive, so we’d like to share with you an article from the upcoming Linchpin paper, entitled “History of May Day”: http://ottawa.indymedia.ca/en/2008/04/7479.shtml
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In this update:
- Media Matters website/blog
- next meeting: May 6
- media news
- media analysis
- message on gov’t monitoring communications
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We’d also like to alert you to Media Matters’ not-yet-fully-launched website & blog:
http://mediamattersottawa.wordpress.com
So far, we have pages on:
- “About Us”: who Media Matters is, what we do, and what we’ve done
- “Media Activism”: links to groups working for better media, plus other resources and background
- “Independent Media”: links to local, Canadian, and international news media
- “Events”: upcoming media events, other local events listings, and past local media events
We will also have pages on ‘Guidelines for Creators’ on making media, and ‘En Francais’ with some french links and information. The blog aspect will soon have all our past sendouts uploaded, and we will be posting future sendouts there as well.
Please send us any feedback you have on the site!
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Next meeting – Tues May 6
We are having our next Media Matters meeting on Tuesday, May 6, at 6:30 pm at the OPIRG-Ottawa offices at 631 King Edward Ave (3rd floor). Please feel free to come if you’d like to get involved, or email us if you can’t make it – mediamatters@canada.com
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MEDIA NEWS
Two community radio reporters murdered in Oaxaco
http://boston.indymedia.org/feature/display/204239/index.php
Major survey on media leading up to International Press Freedom Day (May 3rd)
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42199
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MEDIA ANALYSIS
‘Crisis in journalism’:
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/22/8463/
‘Major US media disseminating propaganda’:
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/21/8438/
‘The BBC: imperial tool’
http://mostlywater.org/bbc_imperial_tool
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FORWARDED MESSAGE – GOV’T MONITORING OF COMMUNICATIONS
1. If your social movement has nothing to hide…
http://help.riseup.net/security/measures/#use_secure_email_providers
In the waning days of Babylon and empire, what will the US government think up next? According to numerous leaks from the intelligence bureaucracy to the New York Times, the New Yorker, and the Wall Street Journal, the government’s new fun toy is the ability to monitor our social networks by tracking, in real time, the patterns of email, phone calls, text messages, and financial transactions. This program is top secret, so you can’t take legal action because you can’t prove the program exists (according to the catch-22 logic of a February 19th US Supreme Court decision).
The Clinton and Bush administrations have said the program is entirely constitutional because it does not involve eavesdropping on the content of our communication. Instead, it focuses on the pattern of our relationships. In this way, individuals are not under surveillance, all of society is. If your social movement has nothing to hide, then what are you worried about? Plenty. This kind of map of our social networks creates a ready made blueprint for disrupting any social movement deemed to be a threat. In many ways, the government knows more about how we organize than we do. This issue is important to all organizers, because much of the world’s email is routed through the US.
So, what can we do about it? For starters, get everyone you know to start using an email provider that uses StartTLS. For email, this is the only thing that can protect against the surveillance of our social networks. For a list of StartTLS providers besides riseup see: http://help.riseup.net/security/measures/#use_secure_email_providers
What about phone calls, internet chat, and social networking sites? Riseup birds don’t have all the answers, but we are working on it. One thing we know, privacy and security are not solved by personal solutions. If we want security, it will take a collective response and a collective commitment to building alternative communication infrastructure.
For more information, see:
http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB120511973377523845.html
“NSA’s Domestic Spying Grows As Agency Sweeps Up Data” by Siobhan Gorman.
The Wall Street Journal, March 10, 2008.
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/05/29/060529ta_talk_hersh
“Listening In” by Seymour Hersh.
The New Yorker, May 29, 2006.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm
“NSA has massive database of Americans’ phone calls” by Leslie Cauley.
USA Today, May 10, 2006.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jyusZ2V1ACKGV2iJuGVmuPUERi_QD8UTICG00
“Court Rejects ACLU Challenge to Wiretaps.”
Associated Press, February 19, 2008.
