Final Project

The media and the government of Venezuela have been at each other's throats for a long time. Ever since president Nicolas Maduro came to power in 2013, controversies have plagued the nation when it comes to freedom of the press.

These problems go back even further than Maduro though. As I have written about before, the president of Globovision was arrested and freed after a crisis in 2010. According to the Attorney General of Venezuela, the president of anti-government television station faced three to five months for publishing false information, but also three to five months for comments "offensive to the president."

BBC writes...

"According to Venezuela's Communication Ministry (Minci), some 70% of Venezuela's radio and TV stations are in private hands with just under 5% are state-owned. The rest are community media organisations, most pro-government.

The most popular TV channels are privately-owned Venevision and Televen. Both used to be vociferous opponents of the government, but have toned down their criticism in recent years."

Even in 2014, there were massive protests on the streets of venezuela that received barely any local coverage. Venezuela has a law called the Law on Social Responsibility on Radio and Television that is not entirely specific in nature, but generally has been criticized as serving as the government's excuse to censor media.

With the 2004 passage of the Law on Social Responsibility in Radio and Television, the government won wide latitude to censor media in order to "promote social justice and further the development of the citizenry, democracy, peace, human rights, education, culture, public health, and the nation’s social and economic development." The law was expanded to include the Internet and social media in 2011.

Lately, tensions have been coming to a head in the media blackout of 2017. Protesters have filled the streets, demanding regime change through general election and freedom for political prisoners. Not to mention the media is currently not reporting on anything.

"First, major broadcast media have made a calculated decision to just not cover news of nationwide protests...On top of that, journalists who do take the risks and go go out to try to cover the news face a bad and deteriorating situation.

Instituto Prensa y Sociedad (IPYS, a press freedom NGO) has tallied 25 separate incidents involving the obstruction of press coverage through Monday:

"19 physical aggressions, 11 intimidation attempts, 4 attacks against work tools, 3 arbitrary detentions, 3 robberies and one attack against a media outlet (in Coro)."

At the same time, another local digital media outlet apparently suffered a suspected DDoS attack: Contrapunto.com said access to its main web page was affected, that would make it the sixth one this year. A previous set of similar cyber-attacks came about one month ago. There were also rumours of possible raids against other digital media outlets like VivoPlay, which later turned out to be false...Then, the big protests on April 10th happened. The count went up to 32 incidents in just a matter of 24 hours."

The Inter-American commission on Human Rights condemns the situation in Venezuela, writing...

"Washington, D.C. - The IACHR condemns the repression of public demonstrations in Venezuela and urges the State to respect and guarantee the necessary conditions for the exercise of political rights, freedom of expression and the right of peaceful assembly of those protesting in the country...Of particular concern is the information received regarding alleged attacks and confiscation of equipment and materials of journalists and media workers by security officials and groups of armed civilians during the demonstrations. It was also reported that a cameraman was detained and not allowed to cover the protest held on April 6th. Attacks against journalists covering situations of this nature violate freedom of expression because they are prevented from exercising their right to seek and disseminate information, and a chilling effect is generated. It also deprives society of the right to know the information obtained by journalists. In this sense, the IACHR continues to reiterate the importance of the most robust protection of the right to freedom of expression of media in Venezuela, especially regarding the situation experienced in the country."

The good news is that social media is making it more possible than ever for journalists to be heard, even in oppressive regimes like those of Venezuela. As a closing thought for this paper, have some tweets from people in Venezuela.

The state of my country in one image.
The People vs The Dictatorship
Photo by: @miguelgutierrezphoto #Venezuela… https://t.co/ppT5MYpAbP pic.twitter.com/MZBKovmKnP

— Marcel Rasquin (@MarcelRasquin) May 4, 2017

Venezuela may the 4th be with you 💛💙❤ pic.twitter.com/HNi5UuoRGy

— Carlos Alberto (@CarlosSTEAGLE) May 4, 2017

Estos son los "violentos" q tanto critica el gobierno, ayudándome al momento de ser golpeado por las bombas lacrimógenas de la GNB... pic.twitter.com/MslXm7NQy1

— Roman Camacho (@RCamachoVzla) April 11, 2017

Brief 10 - Freedom of Information Act

The freedom of information act is a law that allows citizens to request information from their governments. And I don't know about you, but the first thing I would want to know about when this law came out is the CIA, and what they're getting up to over in Langley. And as it turns out that the CIA does have to comply with FOIA requests, at least to a certain extent.

The CIA has a page on their website called The Reading Room. This is a searchable catalog where you can read all the declassified documents from the CIA made possible through FOIA. They seem to have an appearance of being very open to FOIA requests, even having a link that explains how to file your very own FOIA request, and with a list of recently declassified documents near the bottom of the page.

Amusingly, they suggest you read their reports on UFOs first. I clicked on over to that, where you find many documents, but most of them are unsubstantiated reports made by random people that the CIA made record of. Of course this raises the question of why they would need to record this. The report I read even said that this report was based off of a second interrogation of the same individual.

Pictured: A diagram of the sighting of a "ball of fire" that the eyewitness claimed to have seen.

If you look through their other reports though, you start to see some of the classic CIA ideas come to the light. I personally read a document  that is writing to the Attorney General to get permission to use what could be considered "Aggressive interrogation techniques"

"Dear Mr. Attorney General:

[Here there is about a page censored]

"Nonetheless, the interrogation team now has concluded, and I agree, that the use of more aggressive methods is required to persuade Abu Zubaydah to provide the critical information we need to safeguard the lives on innumerable innocent men, women, and children within the United States and abroad. These [interrogation methods] include certain activities that normally would appear to be prohibited under the provisions of 18 U.S.C. 2340-2340B (apart from potential reliance upon the doctrines of necessity or of self-defense)" (emphasis not added.) 

[Here there is a few more paragraphs censored out.]

"I respectfully request that you grant a formal declination of prosecution, in advance, for any employees of hte United States, as well as any other personnel acting on behalf of the United States, who may employ methods in the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah that otherwise might subject those individuals to prosecution under Section 2340A of Title 18, United States Code, as well as under any other applicable U.S. law."

Abu Zubaydah is an alleged terrorist currently being held in Guantanomo Bay for connections to Al-

Qaeda. BBC writes...

"The Americans describe [Zubaydah] as "one of al-Qaeda's senior travel facilitators" and credit him with helping to smuggle the former al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and some 70 fighters out of Afghanistan into Iran."

This memo was written in the early 2000s during the time where water-boarding was being looked at as a controversial technique, so it doesn't seem unreasonable to assume this is the "aggressive interrogation technique" the document refers to. The CIA can let us know that they're only breaking the rules to protect the innocent children, but they won't tell us what they actually did.

So even though the FOIA does require the agency to cooperate with public requests, they still hold back much information, while pushing less-dangerous historical documents to the forefront, like UFO sightings or Bay of Pigs SNAFU reports. But even though I complain and moan about not knowing the full truth, the FOIA made it possible to get more information than ever before from our government. And that is worth reporting on.

Brief 9 - College Media

As a person who has worked with The Bray, I have firsthand experience with college media. I worked as a Videographer, who made videos to be shared on social media for The Bray. I also submitted some photographs.

My role at The Bray focused mainly on "fluff" pieces, rather than hard news Most of what I did was a series called "Meet the Students." I interviewed students (and in one case an alumni, but I had to make an exception for my sister of course.) about their 'college careers' as it were.

Meet SAU's Talia Burton

I also created and published trailers for SAU's theatre productions. I also created what I like to call a "Weather mood" video. This video is basically nature shots that show how the weather feels like on SAU at any given day. I also submitted photographs to The Bray as I took them on other news-worthy projects I was involved in, which was nice.

As a videographer, I had to be careful about what I put in my work. The majority of my music was under the creative commons liscense. If I was going to do a story about a piece of music I could use that under fair use. But the one story I did, which was an interview with Aaron Philip about his music, I just asked him for permission and he was happy to give it to me.

Meet SAU's Aaron Philip

A big factor in my role as a college media personnel--if that's not to pretentious to call myself that--was the casual atmosphere coupled with professionalism. Most of my interactions with my boss, Kayla Baugus, were done through the groupme application on our phones, and often times during what you wouldn't consider normal business hours. I have no frame of reference on whether this is normal in regular media as well, but I feel the flexible nature suited me well during my stay with The Bray.

I would say the second biggest notable factor in college media is that I was given a lot of levity when it came to harsh deadlines. I tried to give Kayla an Accurate time frame for my work, but as the semester dragged on, and I struggled more with sustaining my workload, I would sometimes not make the deadlines when I said I would be able to. And I know in the professional world this does not cut it at all, but because we're all also full time students she cut me a lot of slack, which I greatly appreciate.

But the biggest takeaway from my time in The Bray is that even though the atmosphere can be casual, and the bosses lenient, is that we are still a legitimate news organization. I discussed a concept with Kayla called "SAU news" where I would write and create a fictional comedy sketch poking fun at the college. Kayla made sure to let me know that even if I did step on a few toes at the administration (not that I ever would, of course.) that The Bray would have my back, because we cannot be censored by the school. There was a case in the past where The Bray wanted to publish something that made the school look bad, but the president actually tried to stop the story. If I remember correctly, The Bray actually took it to court and won, so the precedent has been set for reporters at The Bray. So even though we are a school organization, and a bunch of rag-tag students with cell phone cameras, we still get the benefits of free speech and freedom from influence.

Brief 8 - Investigative Reporting

Investigative Journalism is the backbone of freedom in the United States. With the prevalence of censorship technology in a post-911 world, the freedom of the press is paramount to uncovering truth in a time where truth is hard to find. One of the most infamous examples of undercover reporting that comes to mind is the Veritas Project's role in the recent 2016 presidential election.

The journalists at Project Veritas went undercover in order to expose corruption in the Florida Democratic Party, with implications reaching to the Clinton campaign in general. Journalists secretly recorded conversations with people from the party in incriminating conversations.

Democratic employee Mao on campaign ethics:
“I think the bar of acceptable conduct in this campaign is pretty low, to be fired I would have to grab Emma’s [Female Co-Worker] ass twice and she would have to complain about it, I would have to sexually harass someone...I think if I ripped up completed VR [Voter Registration] forms — like 20 of them — I think I would get reprimanded. I don’t think I would get fired,”

Scott Foval on provoking violence at Trump rallies:
"There's a script, sometimes the 'crazies' bite ... sometimes they don't bite...It is not hard to get some of these a******* to pop off, it's a matter of showing up to want to get into the rally in a Planned Parenthood T-shirt, or 'Trump is a Nazi,' you know. You can message to draw them out, and draw them to punch you."

On a technical level, these videos are all just hypothetical conversations and claims by individuals, and do not provide a basis for legal action against the Florida Democratic Party or the Clinton campaign. However there were repercussions. Two of the individuals recorded, Scott Foval and Robert Creamer left within 36 hours of the video's release. Creamer was recorded appearing to brainstorm ideas on how to commit voter fraud, without committing to anything. The Democratic party then renounced the values communicated by Creamer and Foval, while also condemning the Veritas Project.

"Our firm has recently been the victim of a well-funded, systematic spy operation that is the modern day equivalent of the Watergate burglars,” the firm said. “The plot involved the use of trained operatives using false identifications, disguises and elaborate false covers to infiltrate our firm and others, to steal campaign plans, and goad unsuspecting individuals into making careless statements on hidden cameras. One of those individuals was a temporary regional subcontractor who was goaded into statements that do not reflect our values.”"

According to Max Steele, a spokesman for the state Democratic Party, Mao or anyone else would lose their jobs for destroying voter-registration forms.

"Sexual assault and harassment, and destruction of voter registration forms, are serious offenses,” Steele said in a written statement. “There is no question that a staff member who engaged in this kind of behavior would be immediately terminated, and we are investigating the claims. Remarks like these do not represent the Florida Democratic Party and are completely inappropriate."

In my humble opinion, comparing Watergate burglars destroying evidence to a reporter exposing truth is a bit of a stretch. But it's not just bitter Democratic representatives that are against this type of investigative journalism; according to politico.com it's also the law. Florida law requires citizens to consent before being video taped. It is unclear whether reporters have special protection in this case, but in any case no lawsuit has been brought forward. And even if the Democratic party chose to pursue legal action, the reporters themselves remain anonymous, which would make it problematic.

So even though the "victims" of investigative journalism have postured on the subject of the legal nature, the practice seems safe for now. In any case, the more people talk about the findings of Project Veritas, the more damage is done to the Democratic Party, so even if the law did allow them to prosecute the journalists, their game plan is to denounce the journalists, sacrifice some scapegoats, and then deny any wrongdoing.

Brief 7 - Exploiting a News Story

A recent object of media attention is the White Helmets organization in Syria. Officially known as the Syrian Civil Defense, they get the name White Helmets from, well their white helmets that they wear into combat. Their official stance is neutral in the ongoing conflict involving the Syrian government, ISIS, Syrian rebels, The United States, and Russia. However, they do receive funding from western countries. Specifically, the U.K. Foreign and Commonwealth office is one of their single biggest backers.

Now, there are controversies surrounding the organization. While many Anti-Assad publications support their efforts as unilaterally humanitarian, others are more critical of them.

While claiming to be neutral, the White Helmet's PR group publishes anti-Assad images such as this.

Never mind that violent regime change is what led to the creation of ISIS in the first place, these images clearly violate their stance that they "just want peace."




Among other accusations are that the White Helmets are directly linked to Al-Queda, and serve primarily as their medics on the battlefield. Others say they fake their rescues for propaganda purposes with actors.




"The true source and real purpose of the White Helmets were exposed almost two years ago by investigative journalists. Max Blumenthal has written a two-part detailed examination of the “shadowy PR firm” behind the White Helmets. And Jan Oberg has written an overview survey of the “pro” and “con” examinations in his work “Just How Gray are the White Helmets”."




Now if these accusations are true, then the group is certainly exploiting the news for their own political advantages. But we also have to consider the other hand. Are the accusations of the White Helmets exploitative propaganda in and of themselves? Snopes seems to think so.

"While the article accuses the White Helmets of having terrorist ties in the headline (“EXCLUSIVE: The REAL Syria Civil Defence Exposes Fake ‘White Helmets’ as Terrorist-Linked Imposters”), it does not provide any proof in the body of the story. It instead heavily implies that the White Helmets are terrorists because they operate in areas held by the opposition, and because unnamed crew members of what the article calls the “REAL Syria Civil Defense in Aleppo” told the reporter that was the case. The article also contains an interview with a man she identifies as Dr. Bassem Hayak, who claims civilians in east Aleppo have never heard of the White Helmets organization."

So let's consider if the claims are entirely untrue, and entirely propaganda efforts by the Syrian and Russian governments. If this is true, then we can still find exploitation in this story. Technically it would be the Syrian and Russian governments trying to twist every news story to make their cause seem just.

Now the real question we have to ask is, which side is telling the truth? And for that, I don't think there's an easy answer. There certainly is no definitive proof that the White Helmets are working with terrorists, but there is circumstantial evidence. They only operate in the areas that the rebels operate in, and are funded by the states that also fund the rebels. But we can't easily prove them guilty by association. Is there any hard evidence that Russia is only making these claims for propaganda purposes? Again, there isn't. But what is for sure is that both sides have motives to bend the truth, and both sides have something to gain from exploiting this news story. Honestly, no one who reads this will be living in Syria, and we have no idea as to the complete objective truth of the matter. So I feel the only real solution to the problem of exploitative news stories is to read both sides of the issue and keep in mind that everyone has something to exploit, and a stone to grind.

Brief 6 - Copyright and Fair Use

Youtube.com is one of the largest distributors of digital content, but they don't exactly respect the idea of fair use. According to Arstechnica.com, video content can be taken down due to alleged "copyright usage violations" that should be legally left alone, including NASA public domain videos. In the past, Youtube took down a political satire video of Obama, then put it back up without explanation. When asked why they took it down in the first place, they refused to comment on why it was taken down, who requested the takedown, and how it was requested.
Many copyright holders choose to instead profit off of the videos by placing ads on them. A quick search for Michael Jackson's "Thriller" will show 'lyric videos,' parodies, fan-videos, and of course, minecraft videos. And if we take a look at this song's Music Policy on youtube we see that whoever now holds the rights to this song is choosing to put ads on these videos and profit off of them. But not everyone is content to simply profit off of videos made under Fair Use.

One company overseas is taking advantage of youtube's apparent weakness to lawsuit: Nintendo. A common video genre on Youtube is a "Let's Play." A fan of a video game plays while recording the playthrough, while offering humorous and usually explicit commentary. This is defended under fair use through the commentary clause, which Fair Use protects. However, fair use is an America-specific law, and Japan has no such law. So when Nintendo noticed gamers on Youtube were making these videos, they decided to take action.

"A prolific LPer named Zack Scott took to Facebook yesterday to complain that several LPers had experienced takedowns of the videos including Nintendo games. A company fan like himself wasn't the right target for automated takedowns, Scott complained, and he said he'd stop playing Nintendo games until the situation was straightened out. "It jeopardizes my channel's copyright standing and the livelihood of all LPers," he wrote."

According to the EFF, youtube only allows three "Copyright strikes" on your account before it takes down your account and removes all your videos completely.

"As part of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA), Congress granted online service providers (like YouTube) certain protections from copyright infringement liability, so long as they meet certain requirements. One requirement of this "DMCA safe harbor" is that online service providers must implement a "notice-and-takedown" system. Another requirement is that YouTube must cancel the accounts of "repeat infringers."
     That's why, when YouTube receives a formal DMCA takedown notice from a rightsholder, it removes the video. It also puts a "strike" on your account, and requires you to complete a mandatory session in its online "Copyright School." Once you accumulate 3 "strikes" on your account, YouTube will cancel all of your YouTube accounts, taking down all of your videos and refusing to allow you back as a YouTube account holder."
--Eff.org

The DMCA itself does not seem to conflict with Fair Use in the first place. According to Fair Use, people are free to make intellectual property using other people's ip material as long as they're using it for some sort of commentary, parody, or education. Naturally the exact legal boundaries are disputed, but this is legal content that is being created in the cases of Lets Plays and covers of Thriller. So the rights-holders of Michael Jackson's songs and Nintendo should have no legal standing to take down or profit off of this content, but they do.

So where does the DMCA come in? Well, basically, if Nintendo is correct in their claim that some guy playing video games in front of a camera is violating their rights, then youtube itself can be liable. And if youtube does go to court over the sanctity of their users' rights, and prove that Nintendo "knowingly materially misrepresents" their claim, the DMCA makes provisions for their legal fees to be paid. However, if they are wrong, they are liable for the video's violation. (Source: sfwa.org)

So youtube, in an effort to avoid costly lawsuits, seems to be taking down videos that get DMCA-requested. Nintendo may not be legally right, but if it costs too much to prove the Nintendos, Michael Jacksons, and every other company with a chip on their shoulder wrong, then creators that utilize fair use will be under fire even though they didn't do anything wrong.

Brief 5 - Reporter's Privilege

Journalists have a responsibility to tell the truth to society. And in this responsibility are certain protections: Shield Laws are laws that protect a Journalist from revealing their sources when ordered by a court. America values free speech so much that it has protections for those who want the truth to get out without being accountable to a judge. Most states have Shield Laws in order to protect their journalists. Now in 2015, the house of representatives passed legislation blocking federal prosecutors from forcing journalists to testify. However, usnews.com writes that it could have negative effects.

How could shielding anonymous sources be bad? Well, one of the main issues lawmakers have is that it doesn't give any process to defining who is a journalist and who is not. It could be argued that whoever identifies themselves as a journalist can give themselves immunity from testifying. Certainly, nowadays we do see a more decentralized form of journalism, with the advent of cell phone cameras and glorified bloggers, it's hard to tell who is a "real" journalist.

This definition between which journalists are "real" and which are "fake" is a growing topic. There has been a recent hubbub about "fake news." Now, depending on who you ask, fake news can be anything from breitbart, to fox news, to cnn. Everyone with a political opinion is calling opposition-leaning news sites fake, with President Trump actually calling a CNN reporter "Fake news" to his face, live on tv (later, the President redacted this statement, later calling CNN "Very Fake News.") So the question is, does a reporter accused of being "fake news" have the same reporter's privilege?

To answer this question, we only need to look at Wikileaks. When the term "Fake News" blew up shortly after the election, Wikileaks was one of the news sites accused of being "Fake News" in that they allegedly echoed Russian propaganda. The Washington Post writes 

"The tactics [of "fake news" acting as Russian Propoganda] included penetrating the computers of election officials in several states and releasing troves of hacked emails that embarrassed Clinton in the final months of her campaign."

While Julian Assange, editor in chief of Wikileaks, does not have to reveal his source when it comes to the leaked emails between Hillary and her campaign manager, John Podesta. In his case, I doubt it matters whether or not he is ordered to, as he is currently awaiting extradition to Sweden and the U.S. for other matters. But he did specifically say that it was not Russia that leaked the emails to Wikileaks.

But reporter's privilege is not just Wikileaks' shield in the fight for legitimacy. It is used by organizations that are attacking Wikileaks. Propornot.com lists Wikileaks on their "list" of publications that echo Russian propganda. Propornot was used as a primary source for other news sites accusin

g President Trump of benefiting from Russian Propaganda, and indeed they use Reporter's Privilege to protect themselves.

"We are anonymous for now, because we are civilian Davids taking on a state-backed adversary Goliath, and we take things like the international Russian intimidation of journalists, “Pizzagate”-style mob harassment, and the assassination of Jo Cox very seriously, but we can in some cases provide background information about ourselves on a confidential basis to professional journalists. We do not publicly describe all of our sources and methods, although we describe most of them, and again, we can in some cases provide much more detail to journalists and other researchers in order to contextualize their reporting."

No matter how dirty the journalistic mudslinging gets, in the war for public opinion, reporters will continue to use Shield Laws and online anonymity to protect themselves.