Reporting From Iran, While Banned

That reminds me. What's Bilal Hussein up to these days?

So if all these forms of communication are blocked, what is there to report? The vast news organizations we rely on give us press releases from campaign camps when the greatest danger to them is a stale bagel and non-dairy creamer. What possible information could a journalist be getting that gives the world an accurate picture besides sticking their camera phone out the hotel window and snapping people demonstrating? What are those in the halls of power doing? What is the opposition planning? What do Iranian press releases say and where is the half & half?

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Reporting from Charles Krauthammer's brain
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Any questions?
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Iran can learn a few tricks from USA.
The USA is known to throw live bombs at reticent foreign journalists in Afghanistan in 2003.
Somehow the pesky things never need another warning.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera_bombing_memo

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How seriously do we embrace the media and the free dissemination of information? [Depends on whether the info and exposure benefits us.]

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051212/scahill

There's a good discussion, here, too:
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http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/06/22/1347228/Mass-Arrests-of-Journalists-Follow-Iran-Elections?art_pos=7
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Especially the "500,000 children" post. Sad...

Here's another one on how some major technology companies have been involved in the efforts to repress communication:

http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/06/22/1245205/Siemens-Nokia-Helped-Provide-Irans-Censoring-Tech?art_pos=10

Thanks so much for posting this, Michael Scherer.

Excellent, excellent links, Mr. Nice Guy.

Off topic, but this is not my idea of a come back.
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New poll numbers really seem to bear out the fears of some Republicans: The GOP's quasi-opposition to Sotomayor seems to be hurting the party among Latinos in a big way.
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The latest numbers from the nonpartisan Research 2000 for Daily Kos find that only eight percent of Latinos view the party favorably, while an astonishing 86 percent view it unfavorably.
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That's a real shift from what were already pretty bad numbers from before the Sotomayor nominatino, when 11% of Latinos viewed the GOP favorably, and 79% viewed it unfavorably.
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One of the big stories today is that Republicans are realizing that there's no political percentage in fighting the Sotomayor nomination. It's striking that Latino opinion about the GOP is dropping so fast, even at a moment when GOP opposition to Sotomayor appears to be flagging, as opposed to intensifying.
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This continuing drop among Latinos, coming at a time when many party strategists recognize the party's desperate need to broaden its appeal, only reminds us that not only are there few apparent upsides in opposing Sotomayor, there are potentially serious costs, too.
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http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/stimulus-package/sotomayor-fight-eroding-whats-left-of-latino-support-for-gop/

So if they oppose her because of ideological reasons, they should cast that aside in the name of political reasons?

Cartoon very much to the point. Also cfukara at 4. Interestingly the Iranians seem to have instantly grasped that it's up to them to be the reporters, while we're in a state of flux here, not sure what sources to trust. But we also don't have any idea how much the information from Iran is ideologically driven, either - or whether that is something that will evolve over the next few weeks, which is more what I would guess.

gunny: they should go for broke and double down on the hate to rally the base. At 8%, they have almost nothing to lose.

So if they oppose her because of ideological reasons
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They don't oppose her for ideological reasons. They're opposing her for political reasons and deliberately misrepresenting her ideology to provide cover.

Kathy, I said as much during the election and the discussion over the Iraqi War and torture. We, evidently, can't trust our "liberal" mass media to give us the whole story, unadulterated. Instead, what we get are Pentagon "message force multipliers" and canned right wing ideology. Can't forget Halperin's Hypocritical Histrionics. I don't think that's news we can trust. I suggested, before, that we start our own crowd-sourced news agency: a blog-like site where people can upload the day's information. Or do we have to wait until the swat teams are busting down our doors, or cracking heads in city streets before we respond? By then, it will be too late.

Friedman mockery alert!
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http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2009/06/thomas-friedman-clogged-my-toilet-1.html