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Posts Tagged ‘Gannette/USA Today’

Journalists Attack the Powerless, Then Self-Victimize to Bar Criticisms of Themselves – Glenn Greenwald

Posted by M. C. on March 29, 2021

The same Gannett/USA Today where people in Philadelphia, York and other places that couldn’t find Erie on a map, dictate what gets printed in “Your” Erie paper.

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/journalists-attack-the-powerless

Glenn Greenwald

The daily newspaper USA Today is the second-most circulated print newspaper in the United States — more than The New York Times and more than double The Washington Post. Only The Wall Street Journal has higher circulation numbers.

On Sunday, the paper published and heavily promoted a repellent article complaining that “defendants accused in the Capitol riot Jan. 6 crowdfund their legal fees online, using popular payment processors and an expanding network of fundraising platforms, despite a crackdown by tech companies.” It provided a road map for snitching on how these private citizens — who are charged with serious felonies by the U.S. Justice Department but as of yet convicted of nothing — are engaged in “a game of cat-and-mouse as they spring from one fundraising tool to another” in order to avoid bans on their ability to raise desperately needed funds to pay their criminal lawyers to mount a vigorous defense.

In other words, the only purpose of the article — headlined: “Insurrection fundraiser: Capitol riot extremists, Trump supporters raise money for lawyer bills online” — was to pressure and shame tech companies to do more to block these criminal defendants from being able to raise funds for their legal fees, and to tattle to tech companies by showing them what techniques these indigent defendants are using to raise money online.

The USA Today reporters went far beyond merely reporting how this fundraising was being conducted. They went so far as to tattle to PayPal and other funding sites on two of those defendants, Joe Biggs and Dominic Pezzola, and then boasted of their success in having their accounts terminated:

As of Wednesday afternoon, the Biggs fundraiser was listed as having received $52,201. Pezzola had received $730. Biggs’ campaign disappeared from the site shortly after USA TODAY inquired about it….

Friday, a USA TODAY reporter donated to Pezzola’s fundraiser using Stripe. Stripe told USA TODAY it does not comment on individual users. A USA TODAY reporter was able to make a $1 donation to Pezzola’s fundraiser using Venmo, a payment app owned by PayPal. After being alerted by USA TODAY, Venmo removed the account. 

Soon a PayPal account took its place. PayPal caught that and removed it, too. 

Wow, what brave and intrepid journalistic work: speaking truth to power and standing up to major power centers by . . . working as little police officers for tech giants to prevent private citizens from being able to afford criminal lawyers. Clear the shelves for the imminent Pulitzer. Whatever you think about the Capitol riot, everyone has the right to a legal defense and to do what they can to ensure they have the best legal defense possible — especially when the full weight of the Justice Department is crashing down on your head even for non-violent offenses, which is what many of these defendants are charged with due to the politically charged nature of the investigation.

The right to a vigorous defense has always been a central cause of mine as a lawyer and a journalist (it also used to be a central cause of left-wing groups like the ACLU, years ago; it was that same principle that caused then-candidate Kamala Harris to solicit donations last summer that went to protesters charged with violent rioting). A federal prosecutor was recently referred for disciplinary procedures for publicly threatening to charge some of these Capitol protesters with sedition, one of the gravest crimes in the U.S. Code. That is how grave the legal jeopardy is faced by these people trying to raise money for lawyers.

What makes all of this extra grotesque is that, as The Washington Post reported, most of those charged with various crimes in connection with the January 6 Capitol riot, including many whose charges stem just from their presence inside the Capitol, not the use of any violence, are people with serious financial difficulties: not surprising for a country in the middle of a major economic and joblessness crisis, where neoliberalism and global trade deals have destroyed entire industries and communities for decades:

Nearly 60 percent of the people facing charges related to the Capitol riot showed signs of prior money troubles, including bankruptcies, notices of eviction or foreclosure, bad debts, or unpaid taxes over the past two decades, according to a Washington Post analysis of public records for 125 defendants with sufficient information to detail their financial histories. . . . The group’s bankruptcy rate — 18 percent — was nearly twice as high as that of the American public, The Post found. A quarter of them had been sued for money owed to a creditor. And 1 in 5 of them faced losing their home at one point, according to court filings.

This USA Today article is thus yet another example of journalists at major media outlets abusing their platforms to attack and expose anything other than the real power centers which compose the ruling class and govern the U.S.: the CIA, the FBI, security state agencies, Wall Street, Silicon Valley oligarchs. To the extent these journalists pay attention to those entities at all — and they barely ever do — it is to venerate them and mindlessly disseminate their messaging like stenographers, not investigate them. Investigating people who actually wield real power is hard.

See the rest here

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Erie Times E-Edition Article-Will you be required to get a virus vaccine? Here’s what to know

Posted by M. C. on December 6, 2020

I had strange feeling when Lisa Thompson left the Erie Times-News. Among other duties she was saddled with editing reader letters. All of a sudden the now nameless letter editor has an email address referencing Philadelphia.

The premier local editorial writer, regular guy Pat Howard, was made an offer he couldn’t refuse. The local guy everyone looked forward to reading is, today at least, replaced by I want the government to control your life/race-baiter extraordinaire Eugene Robinson.

The Erie Times-News is now the Gannette/USA Today Times-News. Their articles make the AP stuff we are used to seeing look like gold. “Submitted for your approval” is the article below. Setting us up for mandatory vaccination. Won’t happen? Next time you are reading the bulletin board in the doctor’s examination room look at the horrendous list of mandatory vaccines that must be pumped into babies.

https://erietimes-pa-app.newsmemory.com/?publink=1d9de8c79

With two coronavirus vaccines under emergency review by the Food and Drug Administration, the nation’s attention is turning to who will get the vaccine first and when.

A big question remains: Will Americans be required to get vaccinated?

For some, the short answer is yes, public health and legal experts say. But a mandate is not likely anytime soon, and likely not to come from the federal government. Instead, employers and states may condition return or access to workplaces, schools and colleges upon getting the vaccine and mandate it once the FDA issues full approval, potentially months later.

“It’s much more likely that a private organization or company will require you to be vaccinated to get certain access to places,” said Arthur Caplan, a professor of bioethics at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine. “People worry about the president, governor, or county executive telling them what to do. I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

At an August town hall hosted by Healthline, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the vaccine won’t be mandatory in the U.S. “I don’t think you’ll ever see a mandating of vaccine, particularly for the general public,” Fauci said. “If someone refuses the vaccine in the general public, then there’s nothing you can do about that. You cannot force someone to take a vaccine.”

And on Friday, Presidentelect Joe Biden told reporters that he would not make vaccinations mandatory. “But I would do everything in my power – just like I don’t think masks have to be made mandatory nationwide – I’ll do everything in my power as president of the United States to encourage people to do the right thing,” Biden said.

Historically, states have had the power to mandate vaccinations. In 1905, as smallpox was spreading through Massachusetts, the Supreme Court upheld the authority of states to enforce compulsory vaccination laws in the case of Jacobson v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

“There’s a long history in our constitution that permits the state to act for public health and safety, and that has always included vaccination,” said Lawrence Gostin, director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University.

“But although they have the power, I think it will be very unlikely that they will exercise that power,” he said. “They would be fearful of causing a backlash and politicizing the vaccine.”

It’s more likely that vaccination requirementswill play out as they have in the past. Once fully approved by the FDA, a vaccine may eventually be required for children in public and private schools and daycare settings, for college and university students, and for some health care workers and patients, Gostin said.

All 50 states and Washington, D.C., have laws requiring certain vaccines for students, and exemptions vary by state. All states grant exemptions to children for medical reasons, 45 states grant religious exemptions, and 15 allow philosophical exemptions for those who object to immunizations because of personal, moral or other beliefs, according to the National Conference of Legislatures.

Health care facilities across the country are increasingly requiring health care workers to be vaccinated against various diseases, and some facilities are adding these requirements due to mandates in state statutes and regulations, according to the CDC.

When it comes to the flu, 24states have flu vaccination requirements for long-term care facility health care workers, and 32 have them for long-term care facility patients, according to the CDC. As of 2016, 18 states had flu vaccination requirements for hospital health care workers.

Other employers also require certain vaccinations.

“Will the general public be required to get it? That’s highly unlikely. That’s not the American tradition or culture,” said Peter Meyers, professor emeritus at the George Washington University law school and former director of the school’s vaccine injury litigation clinic. “We recommend it. We make it as easy as possible to get it. We make it free. If enough people take it, we’ll have herd immunity.”

Nurse Practitioner Gabriela Huyke prepares for medical examination of a volunteer for the COVID-19 vaccine study at the Research Centers of America on Aug. 13 in Hollywood, Fla.

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