Misinformation in the era of information

Ethnic and alternative media

Ethnic media is a part of the proliferation of alternative media in a wider social trend: the worldwide emergence of all kinds of community, alternative, oppositional, and collaborative media practices, in part amplified by the internet.

We need to define ethnic and alternative media.

For instance, are Univision and Telemundo considered in this category of ethnic media? These media conglomerates seem to walk a fine line between mainstream and alternative media.

In recent years, Univision has reached parity with the U.S.'s five major English-language television networks, and is often a strong fifth, with some fourth-place weekly placings, and as of 2012, even first place rankings for individual programs over all five English networks due to the network's consistent schedule of new telenovelas all 52 weeks of the year.

In major markets such as Los Angeles, New York, and Miami the local newscasts carried by the network's stations are equally competitive in ratings with their English-language counterparts.

For the first 20 years, the network was owned by Hispanic media people. In 1955, Raul Cortez founded Channel 41, in San Antonio, Texas.

Through a series of mergers and acquisitions of local TV and radio channels in different states, until 2006, when Univision announced that it accepted bid from a group of private equity investors.

Univisión was acquired on March 29, 2007 by a consortium of global investors for $13.7 billion plus $1.4 billion in acquired debt.The buyout left the company with a debt level of twelve times its annual cash flow,  twice the norm in buyouts over the previous two years.

For ethnic media to truly be considered “ethnic media,” it must be both produced/owned by and targeted at a particular ethnic community.

As for the alternative press, many weekly alternative media has little to do with what might be described as “alternative.” According to a study by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press , the term is mostly a catch-all phrase used by the mainstream media, but these publications are not a “dissident” press in America. A political mission is not their defining characteristic. They are just targeting a young, educated demographics with high income and buying power.

Real alternative media has found its common ground in the non-profit sector so that advertising does not blemish its content, which does not mean they are unbiased.

Is or can ethnic and alternative media be a counter power to mainstream media?

I believe there’s always hope in the laws of physics.

You can always be sure that when a force presses in one direction, there will be another counter force that will press against it. I believe ethnic and alternative media can have this role.

Ethnic and alternative media receive the information from the same agencies, we have the availability of the same images and we are “encouraged” to use the same information. There is no time or resources to get out and do research or field work –This point has been greatly satirized by “The Daily Show” and other comedy shows. The pressure to get information out is on a very small team that has practically to wear all hats.

However, the increasing presence of these media is a challenge to mainstream media. They can bring up issues and topics that mainstream media censors, such as discrimination, racism and bigotry, social unrest and social inequality. They also bring up cultural disparities and cultural differences, which brings the mainstream society to a new way of recognizing itself by differentiation. This is who we are, and we are not you.

For instance, new immigrant groups have established institutions to sustain their ethnicity, a different way of integration to the American society from previous immigration waves, who chose or, better yet, were forced into assimilation. This presence of new unassimilated ethnic groups has created a sense of permanently “unfinished American society.”

Ethnic mass media has a significant role in a society that tries to appear as seamless. The role of ethnic media is to constantly remind the rest of the society that there are differences, and how that manifests in their news content. It creates a perspective of constant “functional conflict.”

However migration is no longer the only factor that brings together producers and audiences of ethnic media. The long history of migration in this country has meant that there is more than one generation with multiple cultural identities.

But also, the wide access to information technologies has allowed cultural and informational exchanges between people across territories, which keep nurturing the ability of an ethnic media writer to be rooted to his base –namely, his original language, culture and audience.

I used to write for a digital platform in Spanish produced in the United States, and 50 percent of my audience was from Latin America. The other domestic 50 percent were not only first generation migrants but also readers with different cultural background such as immigrant descendants and those influenced by Latino culture.

Of course there are downsides to being in ethnic media, for one, you are not allowed nor are part not even should try to be part of mainstream media. You can be an anchor or a radio host if you look ethnic but God forbid you show the slightest accent –that, of course, except if you have a British accent, which is highly praised by mainstream media.

The big divider is also language. If ethnic media choose to go with its language of origin –Spanish, Chinese, Arab, etc.-, then the possibility of having a slight influence in the general public’s opinion is almost null given the widespread lack of language ability in the American public, a significant difference with European ethnic media.

Many ethnic outlets have now chosen to use English language still targeting a more acculturated audience that can relate to stories with ethnic focus while including general information. Of course that also talks to a wealthier audience with increasing buying and economic power to entice potential advertisers. However, advertising dollars from Fortune 500 corporations are still meager in the ethnic media arena.

Finally, I don’t believe ethnic or alternative media are unbiased, pure, or are not seeking profitability. As with many other forces in a democratic society, the idea of bringing up the differences in the pursue of an educated and more politically aware audience can resonate better than the cookie cutter machine that mainstream media have become.

Gun violence and gun industry in the United States

The American firearms industry is not only solid but growing, supported by organizations and corporations that have a strong saying in the national arena

By Susana G. Baumann

Last Friday, the National Rifle Association (NRA) shut down its Facebook page, after the tragic events at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. They had recently celebrated a milestone of 1.7M fans. Why?  Is it fear? Is it shame? Is it avoidance of the public rage?

Other than merely representing gun-owners rights and the defense of the Second Amendment, the NRA and the firearms industry are linked in ways that have profoundly impacted the culture of guns and the culture of violence in the United States.

Firearms industry in the United States

According to the Professional Gun Retailers Association, guns retail sales in the United States averages about $3.5 billion while individual retailers size the industry at $4 billion a year.  A healthy industry that has not decreased in major recessions or economic crisis, the firearms industry increased jobs by more than 30 percent and improved its economic impact by more than 66 percent between 2008 and 2011.

The United States not only produces for domestic consumption but it also exports misery. The United States is the world’s leading exporter by far.  In 2010, America exported $674 million worth of firearms, $270 million more than Italy, the next leading exporter, according to customs data compiled by the Norwegian Initiative on Small Arms Transfers, (NISAT). Worldwide weapons sales by the United States tripled in 2011, according to a new report by the Congressional Research Service.

America’s arms sales to both developed and developing nations reached $66.3 billion last year, up from $21.4 billion in 2010. Russia sold $4.8 billion, the second highest exporter in the world. The total worldwide weapon sales nearly doubled to $85.3 billion last year. The United States sold three-quarters of the total sales worldwide.

In a list of 100 countries with stricter gun control legislation, the United States ranks No. 1 in gun ownership. There are approximately 888 firearms for every 1000 Americans.  In 2006, 10,225 people were killed by the use of a gun in the United States. Suicides with firearms are also high. In 2005, 17,002 suicides were committed using a firearm.

On the other end of the spectrum, only 6 firearms are owned every 1000 people in Japan, which has the lowest rate in the world of violence murders with guns.  While in 2008, the United States had over 12.000  firearm-related homicides, Japan reported only 11, down from 2007 when the number raised to 22, becoming a national concern for all citizens.

To get a gun in Japan, not only you have to attend a class, pass a written exam and a range shooting class; in addition, a mental test and drug test is filed with the police before a thorough criminal background check. However, the search does not end there. Your family, friends, neighbors, even your co-workers are consulted.

NRA and the firearms industry

The NRA describes itself as an organization that represents the “uncompromising voice of the American gun owner” in support of a wide range of firearms-related public interest activities –such as firearms and hunting safety, marksmanship skills for sports shooters, and educating the public about firearms. The organization receives top dollars from the US firearms industry.

The history of the organization started in 1871 launched by Union veterans Col. William C. Church and Gen. George Wingate with a primary goal to "promote and encourage rifle shooting on a scientific basis.” The culture of guns was born in the United States.

Along his history, the NRA always had a clear goal in mind: to increase and promote the use of weapons in young and adult Americans. In 1903, NRA Secretary Albert S. Jones pushed for youth programs in all major colleges, universities and military academies. These programs are still an NRA’s core activity with over a million participants a year nationwide.

In civilian training, the NRA continues to be the leader in firearms education. Over 50,000 certified instructors now train about 750,000 gun owners a year. They feed the firearms industry in the country but they are not alone.

Since 2005, the NRA has received millions of dollars from donors and grants as reported on the NRA Foundation website. But who are their donors?

The organization claims to receive industry grants for education programs, funds from individual donors, and donations through programs that round up gun store customers’ purchases to the nearest dollar with the difference going to the NRA.

Corporate contributions come from manufacturers of firearms and ammunitions, industry magazines, gun distributors and dealers, and vendors of ammunition and other shooting-related products.

But the NRA’s influence in the national arena comes from its power through the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an organization that behind closed doors decide changes to national legislation. The organization’s membership includes national and global corporations and US legislators.  It has been called the “state legislature without the people’s mandate.”

Through ALEC and its corporate funders, the NRA has pushed end of the ban on assault weapons, a legislation allowing people to bring guns to work in 17 states, and the “Stand your Grown” laws in more than 20 states.

In 2008, as noted by the Center for Media and Democracy, in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech massacre, ALEC adopted a model bill to remove Virginia’s state prohibitions of guns on college campuses and to allow students to bring guns to class. The NRA reports that crime has decreased in the state of Virginia by 27 percent. 

In 2005, corporate lobbyists and politicians at an ALEC task force meeting voted to approve the NRA's request that the “Stand Your Ground” or “Shoot First” or “Kill at Will” law the organization lead in Florida would be modeled by other states. Surely, it was passed later in 20 additional states.   

Other bills were drafted by the NRA and adopted by ALEC corporations and legislators as models for the rest of the country impeding laws that would help protect Americans from gun violence in the name of the Second Amendment defense.

The close fist of the NRA

The NRA is the umbrella organization for other legal entities including the NRA Foundation, the Civil Rights Defense Fund, the Institute of Legislative Action, the Political Victory Fund, (NRA-PVF) and the Business Alliance.

Fueled by the power of the Super PACs, some of these organizations run undisclosed attack ads in political campaigns; or lobby and fundraise tens of millions in undisclosed, tax-deductible donations. Others push legislation to profit from unregulated firearms sales or offer free legal representation in cases involving “significant legal issues relating to the right to keep and bear arms.”

According to the NRA-PVA, in 2008 the organization was involved in 271 campaigns for the U.S. House and Senate. It won in 230 of those races (85%) and endorsed thousands of state legislative candidates that same year with an 84 percent success rate in those elections. The NRA is feared by both Democrat and Republican legislators alike.

Does the American public have a saying?

Most NRA activities and policies are concealed from the public eye. Many still believe that the NRA represent gun-owners and,  according to polling conducted by the Mayors Against Illegal Guns in 2011, between 85 and 90 percent of both gun owners and people living in gun households surveyed agree that tougher restrictions on gun ownership is required in the United States. 

President Obama’s reelection, a gift we must protect

A great campaign and a great victory for President Barack Obama only give us a breather in these tough times.   

                                              

When I woke up this morning, I thought, “I could have been waking up   to a different world of concerns and despair, but today is business as      usual.” I felt huge comfort from my own thoughts.   

                                

These months of campaigning and volunteering were filled with            moments of doubts and fear, as well as increasing faith that democracy was going to prevail. I saw it on the streets where we registered hundreds of young Black and Latino women to vote for the first time.

I saw it in the persistence of canvassers going door to door to in our state and in neighboring Pennsylvania. I saw it in the initiative of women to  go out and express their support for a President that was not only representing them but also their daughters, their  granddaughters and future generations of women taking control of their destiny.

Even when the campaign started at a low pace, it got momentum due to the reproachable behavior of the opponents. I believe Democrats got energized in indignation and in response to a campaign that was run on either buying or suppressing voters. 

This is the time of evaluating our actions, for Democrats and Republicans alike, and learn from our mistakes. The battle was fierce and the victory is sweet, not only because it feels good to be on the right side of history but because, as President Obama said, “It was the right thing to do.”

Now, after this breather of relief and celebration, we need to be more vigilant than ever of this democracy that has been so hard to maintain, and more protective and supportive than ever of our President, who will continue to find opposition and disdain. I believe the forces of evil don’t stop machination just because the People has expressed its will. 

Congratulations to all for a job well done!

Enjoy the victory but do not lower your guard!

First Presidential Debate: The clear image of each party

Last night, 40 million people saw the Presidential Debate. The anticipation was overwhelming and the media speculation of the candidates’ strategies was, to say the least, ridiculous. 

But despite all the allegations of who won and who lost, if there was a lack of passion or a lack of truth, a clear image of each party came out so pristine that is it almost painful. 

The big absence was the people, not the 47 percent or the 99 percent or the one percent, the American people.

The contenders, a business man and a university professor, debated in their own style. It was a debate of personalities and big egos, not a debate for the middle man concerns. The big vacuum, again, was ordinary Joe. 

Gov. Romney, a powerful business man, applied his own words to his debate strategy: “I’ve got five boys; I’m used to people saying something that’s not always true but just keep repeating it and ultimately hoping I’ll believe it.” 

As a business man, he is used to numbers and lies, trying to position himself by claiming his competition’s wrongdoings. 

Simple marketing strategy.

All along his speech and rebates, his main goal was to attack and cover in a forceful way and with an apparent mathematical precision –he mentioned a lot of numbers, possibly a counter effect of Clinton’s speech at the DNC–, what in true is his plan, the continuation of Bush/Cheney economic strategies enhanced by the ruthlessness of the Tea Party and his running mate Paul Ryan’s plan. 

Only, he tried to convey an image of care and inclusion, something a lot of moderate Republicans insist he truly believes in–his wife, Anne, has repeatedly talked about Mitt’s good heart. 

The media, on the other hand, keep insisting on Mitt’s need to “connect” to the public. Well, he connected last night with his base in the only way his base knows and is used to, forcefully and aggressively lying, hiding.

A strategy we saw during the whole Republican primary, and that above all defines the approach the Republican Party has turned to, because they cannot reveal the truth of their intentions. 

Freedom, and the pursue of happiness, the American Dream, only possible in you sit with them. 

Pres. Obama, on his part, appeared in his essence, an intellectual that is strong in words but weak in numbers, a true Democrat. 

His whole strategy was based on staying cool and avoiding a direct confrontation, while trying to go through this first debate and getting over it, almost as if he knew this was not his cup of tea. 

A “laissez faire” attitude, not calling his opponent lies, making impassive remarks about his administration’s achievements, Obama came about in an explanatory style that was totally inappropriate with the occasion.

It almost conveyed the belief that “if I do the right thing, no matter how hard or unpopular, then people will follow” type of statement. 

The unbiased Democratic conviction, everybody is entitled to their own belief and opinion. 

Moreover, it almost seems Pres. Obama really believes he has not done enough –knowing his competitive nature –, that he really expected to turn the economy and the country around in four years. 

A true American superhero. 

Forty million viewers did not pay attention to the lies or the numbers or the policies. Like in the Roman Circus, people expected blood, a confrontation between two gladiators, bringing in wild animals and unexpected weapons, and fighting for their lives until the end. 

What they saw was a giveaway, a parent’s admonishment to an aloof teenager that made the audience believe his son has been properly put in place and deserves punishment. 

What they probably didn’t see was the battle of two egotistic men, one lost in his own world of lies, the other in his world of fantasy. 

 

The Benghazi attack, a conspiracy theory

The American public is used to conspiracy theories, and as fast as they arise, they are dismissed by most. The term “conspiracy theory” is used to deem a story as ridiculous, paranoid or unfounded. For most Americans, “the Nile is a river in Egypt.”

John F. Kennedy’s assassination was the center of several conspiracy theories that even resulted in books, documentaries and the Oliver Stone movie. The versions involved parties such as the CIA, the American Mafia, VP Lyndon B. Jonson, Fidel Castro and many more. The likelihood that Oswald acted alone was extremely low, as proven by many, but the Warren Commission refused to release all the information. 

Coincidentally, his brother Robert Kennedy was also murdered, but of course, the American public again dismissed the possibility of a “conspiracy.” And then Martin Luther King was also a write off for many –but not all- Americans.  

When a conspiracy theory becomes true and can be proven, such as President Nixon’s Watergate break-in and cover-up, then it becomes investigative journalism or a historical fact.

In September 2001, the country was attacked by al-Qaida, in the largest operation ever known in the United States soil. 

Although the US armed forces launched the Afghanistan invasion shortly after, people around the world speculated about the Republican administration’s involvement in the attack, given the slow reaction of the then President George W. Bush, the excellent justification for the war on Iraq that followed, and the lack of “enthusiasm” in looking for Osama Bin Laden. 

Those theories have not faded away, says the BBC. Around 15 percent Americans, especially young people, believe in the possibility that VP Cheney was somehow involved in the attack. 

Over a decade later, with only less than two months to the Presidential elections 2012, the Benghazi attack occurs, damaging –or at least trying to damage–the successful Foreign Affairs performance of President Barack Obama in finding bin Laden and ending the war in Iraq. 

I just highlighted some quotes from the New York Times report on 10/1/2012:

“The Sept. 11 attack culminated several weeks of growing violence against Western and other diplomatic posts in Benghazi. State Department officials said they were aware of the worsening climate and took precautions. One American official who worked in the mission said the Americans there were able to get around with ‘appropriate prudence’.” 

“Apparently, due to the increasing violence reported, the US Embassy in Tripoli had sent Special Operations personnel, including Navy SEALs and bomb-squad specialists to reinforce the Benghazi Embassy.”

The Attack “began about 9:30 p.m., roughly 15 minutes after Mr. Stevens had finished an evening meeting with the Turkish ambassador, bid him farewell and chatted briefly with a handful of Libyan guards at the gate of the compound.”

“Mustafa el-Sagizli, an officer in the February 17 Brigade and a senior official in the transitional government, said that he repeatedly called the mission’s official translator who for most of the night was unable to reach the ambassador’s security guards.”

“Security at the mission has become a major issue as the Obama administration struggles to explain what happened during the attack, who was responsible and how the ambassador ended up alone.”

“Mr. Stevens’s own bodyguard was so far away that he needed to sprint across the compound under gunfire to reach the building where the ambassador was working at the time.”

“‘There are three villas inside and the walls are high, and the only house that got hit was the house we were in,’ said Fathi el-Obeidi, a Libyan militia commander who came to help evacuate the Americans.”

Was there any "insider information" about the situation of the Embassy and its surroundings? 

The situation surely called for chaos and confusion but I believe additional information will come out from the incident because President Obama has shown to be relentless in finding terrorists, however, … would he share the findings with the American public?

But, of course, this is just a “conspiracy theory.”