C.P.B.’S ‘Rosa Parks’ Treatment

This one took a little time for me around to due to the fact there was so much news coming out about terrorists, captures, illegal aliens, etc. I am finally getting around to posting it. It was sent to me by Bryan Hill, and it was written by Frank Gaffney. The rest of this article was written by Frank. Have a great day.

Last Wednesday, the Oregon Public Broadcasting Service announced that it had reached an agreement with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) that seemed, at first blush, to represent a breakthrough: The national Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) would no longer prevent the airing of a film CPB commissioned as part of its “America at a Crossroads” series called “Islam vs. Islamists: Voices from the Muslim Center.” Instead, PBS’s Oregon stations would make it available to the more than 350 other affiliates across the country.

As one of the Co-Executive Producers of this film, I began to receive a number of congratulatory messages from all over the country. Most were from people who had followed the saga of this documentary about moderate Muslims who have courageously challenged co-religionists known as Islamists – adherents to a totalitarian political ideology seeking to dominate the Muslim faith and, in turn, the world. Like innumerable editorialists, bloggers and ordinary citizens around the country, the authors of these messages had been frustrated and outraged when PBS and its Washington flagship, WETA, culminated months of efforts to alter and then censor “Islam vs. Islamists” by refusing to broadcast it, as planned, as part of the “Crossroads” series rolled out last month. They assumed that the Oregon announcement meant national distribution was imminent.

Unfortunately, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s arrangement with the Oregon PBS means no such thing. Far from the treatment accorded other “Crossroads” series programs – nationwide broadcast by the Public Broadcasting Service, in prime-time with a substantial promotional budget – “Islam vs. Islamists” would simply be “made available” to PBS stations. Maybe some would decide to run it over the next few months. Maybe they would do so at 3:00 a.m. or Sunday afternoons when practically no one is watching. There are no guarantees of pick-up in any, let alone all, major markets.

Worse yet, the Oregon distributors have announced that they will accompany the film with the equivalent of a consumer warning label – a “discussion” that will provide “context” for viewers. Presumably, this means the sort of “context” our film’s critics at PBS and WETA kept trying to impose on us: Changes that they believed would make it, in their words, less “one-sided” (read, more fair to the Islamists) and less “alarmist.”

If past practice is any guide, those recruited to provide such “balance” will likely be representatives of organizations like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Muslim Students Association (MSA). Despite the fact that these groups are well-known Saudi-funded, pro-Islamist fronts, their views were exclusively and highly sympathetically featured in a documentary called “The Muslim Americans.” PBS seemed to have no reservations about airing this wholly one-sided film during the “Crossroads” series roll-out in April.

In short, now that widespread criticism has made it impossible to sustain PBS’ suppression of “Islam vs. Islamists,” the anti-Islamist Muslims who are its subjects are to be remanded to decidedly second-class coverage. Call it CPB’s version of the “Rosa Parks treatment.”

Recall that Rosa Parks could have gotten to her job via public transportation – as long as she “knew her place” and agreed to ride in the back of the bus. So, too, moderate Muslims can have their stories, as recorded in a film produced with some $675,000 in public monies, shown on the public airwaves – in at least a few locations at some point in time.

But these heroic figures must know their place, too. And their place is not in prime time, nor national distribution. Only Islamists and their apologists are entitled to front-of-the-bus treatment from those like Robert MacNeil (the host of the “Crossroads” series and producer – thanks to a sweetheart deal – of “The Muslim Americans” show), Sharon Percy Rockefeller (wife of one Senator and daughter of another, Jay Rockefeller and Charles Percy, respectively, and president of WETA) and the handful of others responsible for PBS’ rejection of “Islam vs. Islamists.”

If ever there were a time when the American people are entitled to the most comprehensive presentation possible of information concerning the struggle for the soul and future of Islam, this should be it. After all, last week a Pew Research poll found that roughly a quarter of the Muslim-American population thinks suicide bombing is legitimate in at least some circumstances. An even larger percentage claimed not to believe that Arabs perpetrated the attacks of 9/11.

The particular irony is that the whole idea behind “ America at a Crossroads” was that it was intended to offer the American people twenty programs featuring differing viewpoints and a variety of stories that would, taken together, help inform the public about the post-9/11 world. This creative vision demands that the experiences and warnings of authentically moderate, pro-democratic and tolerant Muslims be treated at least as favorably as the portrayal of those in the Muslim community determined to stifle their voices. Certainly, public broadcasting should not be party to such suppression.

A bipartisan group of legislators have called for prompt, national distribution of “Islam vs. Islamists.” They have been as impressed by the quality of the film PBS doesn’t want you to see as they are outraged by the way people entrusted with responsibility for the public airwaves have handled it and those involved in its production. The “Rosa Parks” treatment is not what they have in mind, what the courageous anti-Islamist Muslims deserve, nor what will be acceptable to the national audience that expects to be able to view this documentary without further delay.

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is a partner in ABG Films, Inc. which produced “Islam vs. Islamists: Voices from the Muslim Center .” He is also a columnist for the Washington.

China Neutralizes Cutting-Edge Magazine

Source: RFA.

HONG KONG, May 3, 2007—China’s powerful propaganda czars have pronounced the death knell for a magazine that ran hard-hitting exposes of official corruption, turning it into a cultural and lifestyle digest of mainly previously published materials, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reports.

Baixing, whose title translates roughly as “ordinary people” but is known in English as Commoners, was a popular monthly magazine under the aegis of the agricultural department, which made a name for itself exposing corruption among local officials in the countryside.

In an interview, former editor-in-chief Huang Lingtian told RFA’s Mandarin service that from the May 2007 edition, Baixing would take a digest format. “They want to turn it into a sort of digest publication, a cultural magazine aimed at young people in the countryside,” Huang, who has been moved to edit another publication under the agricultural department, told reporter Shen Hua.

“They will try their best not to produce any original material at all. Our treatment will be the same as for LifeWeek,” he said. This radical transformation into a lifestyle publication that cherry-picks the best writing from the Web effectively means Baixing will no longer employ in-house staff to originate its own articles.

LifeWeek is a magazine that suffered a similar fate, following the publication of articles on the politically sensitive topics of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) and the Tangshan earthquake (1976). It was then ordered to stay off current affairs topics by the Communist Party’s central propaganda department, which runs tight monitoring and controls of China’s media.

Police probes

Under Huang, Baixing had already received a lot of heat from the authorities because it dared to report on real situations. The magazine’s online edition had been repeatedly closed, and Huang himself was relieved of his position there at the beginning of the year.

According to a source familiar with the situation, Huang has remained the target of several police investigations since leaving the magazine.

Huang said: “First, there is absolutely nothing to be done about it. Second, we have to be firm about what we believe in.”

Staff reassigned

Huang said nearly all his former team at Baixing, from deputy editor, to reporters, to circulation and advertising staff, had almost all left the magazine after he did.

A journalist with Baixing who called himself “Mr. Wu” said he too was in the process of leaving the magazine.

“We are being posted away, too. We are following editor-in-chief Huang Liangtian. I am in the process of doing the paperwork. I’m going to work for him on the Agricultural Products Weekly. It’s also a Department of Agriculture publication.”

Both Huang and “Wu” said the order to change the content of Baixing hadn’t come from the department of agriculture, but from the propaganda department at a high level. “Wu” said most of the new staff of had been posted there from another publication run by the department.

“They all come from within the system. From Chinese Countryside. Our magazine is one of a stable of five or six publications. The leaders and the staff all rotate between them. Some people are hired from outside.”

Long process

Sources said the decision to change Baixing’s format and content had been taken long ago, but Huang, who still cared about the magazine, had tried even after being moved elsewhere to convince those in charge not to go ahead.

He had also been instrumental in ensuring that his staff were all placed in good jobs after he left Baixing: “I did it to preserve the deep ecology of Chinese culture, and also my own sense of justice, fairness, and conscience,” Huang said.

Asked if he thought that qualities of justice, fairness, and conscience were common among journalists in China today, Huang said: “These qualities are being severely challenged. But as intellectuals in public service, we should try to stand by them. It’s really not easy, not easy at all, to be an intellectual in China.”

Critical story

Last August’s edition of the magazine printed an article titled “Ground-level investigation into evictions and demolitions in Jiangyin city,” an expose of how Jiangyin municipal government officials had grabbed land from local rural families and evicted them, imprisoning their representatives with manacles.

Just before the issue went to press, the editors came under pressure from the city government and officials higher up in its chain of command, in the agricultural department, to spike the article.

But then editor-in-chief Huang stuck to his guns and printed the article, providing a major boost to the civil rights movement in Jiangyin and causing major shocks in official circles in the city, with some officials losing their jobs. That was the last of such articles to appear in Baixing.

Internet surveillance

As well as issuing regular edicts and daily guidelines limiting news coverage in traditional media, Beijing has invested billions of yuan in a nationwide Internet surveillance system and manages to block Web sites it considers sensitive.

Many prominent Chinese academics and journalists have spoken out against the Propaganda Department, saying it has become more restrictive since the change of leadership from Jiang Zemin to Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao.

Critics also say such heavy-handed oppression of the media will harm the country’s overall development because so few channels exist to monitor the actions of officials.

Original reporting in Mandarin by Shen Hua. RFA Mandarin service director: Jennifer Chou. Translated and written for the Web in English by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.

Malaysian political bloggers form alliance

Source: MSNBC.

Group formed after personalities were demonized 'again and again'
By En-Lai Yeoh.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Malaysian online political commentators have formed a group to protect bloggers' interests after two of them were sued by a newspaper with close government ties.

The National Alliance of Bloggers' main goal is to "protect bloggers," and to try to get the government to see their point of view and why they have made certain postings, the new group's president, Ahirudin Attan, wrote on his popular blog "Rocky's Bru."

The alliance was formed late Thursday [April 5, 2007], Ahirudin wrote.

About 50 of Malaysia's popular online personalities held a meeting and decided to start the organization because a few bloggers were being "demonized again and again" by the government, Ahirudin said.

"When certain quarters in government become hostile towards bloggers, I believe they mean to aim their hostility at a small group of bloggers or online writers whose views and takes of current affairs they fear," Ahirudin wrote.

Ahirudin and Jeff Ooi, his deputy in the alliance, are being sued by the government-linked New Straits Times newspaper, which alleges that the two men made defamatory postings about the paper on their sites.

The government has also said it may consider registering bloggers to control anonymous posts with "malicious content." Authorities often use such terms for criticism of the government, or for discussions on race or religion — sensitive matters in the multiethnic, Muslim-majority country.

"If the politicians do not want to take the effort to learn about blogging and to understand bloggers, I believe the bloggers will have to take that initiative," Ahirudin said, without elaborating.

On Thursday, Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak said bloggers have made the "business of government more challenging."

"Some merely inform, others argue a point of view, and a few simply distort and sensationalize," Najib said. "There is now more competition for readership, viewership, eyeballs, revenues, profits and, yes, even infamy."