[IMC-Editorial] Re: "honestreporting" correction

Tue Oct 29 01:27:16 PST 2002

To A Tarmon,  while you have a point re honest reporting taking more care in 
citing the exact source of communications that they alert the public to, I would suggest 
that you must also take responsibility for allowing un-vetted open publishing on your 
site. Letters in newsprint media are not published without editorial censor, allowing 
span/garbage as you rightly call it, to be distributed through your web site legitimises if not condoms it's 
airing. Free speech I believe is very different from blatant lies aimed to incite hatred.  
Greater care needs to be taken by all concerned to ensure honesty in reporting.  

Rosalie Fishman
Principal & Director 
Future Pace Learning, GRF Management Services Pty Ltd
57 Hopetoun Ave, Vaucluse 2030
M: 0400839648  F: 93372880 
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: A. Thomas 
  To: action at honestreporting.com 
  Cc: honestreporting at tifl.com ; levine at tifl.com ; imc-editorial at lists.indymedia.org ; imc-legal at lists.indymedia.org 
  Sent: Thursday, October 24, 2002 9:04 AM
  Subject: "honestreporting" correction

  How does it reflect on self-appointed "media monitors" when one of their reports misrepresents a posting on a message board as indicative of the service provider? This kind of misrepresentation borders on the libelous.

  ***
  In your October 15 "communique", you state that "one media org blames Israel for everything from the DC sniper to the Bali bombings.

  The report states :

  At the risk of giving publicity to a web-rag, here's something so wacko that we can't let it pass. Indymedia.org reports that the Israeli Mossad is a prime suspect behind the string of sniper killings in the Washington, D.C. area.
  http://indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=208531
  Another "report" on Indymedia.org claims that the bombing of the Bali nightclub was "a Mossad terror operation."

  Indymedia describes itself as "a network of collectively run media outlets for the creation of radical, objective, and passionate tellings of the truth." 

  Perhaps the consumer public could be a better judge of that.

  Comments to:
  imc-editorial at lists.indymedia.org
  IndyMedia400 at hotmail.com

  ***

  This is of course incorrect to anybody who bothered to pay a little bit of attention to the website.  The posting cited, #208531 was "published" on the site's "open publishing newswire", which is open for anybody on the internet to place something. This "open newswire" is essentially an open format message board that anybody can post to in the hopes of generating original news and commentary.  As with anything on the internet, this will result in a lot of spam/garbage - like the "article" you misrepresented. 

  Honestreporting.com stated that "Indymedia.org reports..." - Indymedia does not "report" anything.  There is no staff, no permanent organization, and no specific "Indymedia" content.  Saying that something put on an open message board is "reported" by that website (especially when it is not linked to in the center column of the site) is hardly *honest*, and severely calls into question Honestreporting.org's committment to factual representation.  Likewise, stating that "one media org blames..." is as every bit a misrepresentation.

  The only report regarding the Bali bombing that was worked on at all by Indymedia volunteers is the center column story ("feature") that is from the Melbourne Indymedia and was published on the global site on October 20. 

  That "feature" is available at 

  http://www.indymedia.org/archive/features/2002/10/2002-10.html#5557

  People have every right to be angry over the obviously false content in the posting regarding Mossad.  Your claims and representation of the posting, however, are as every bit as false. Even the slightest bit of critical scrutiny showed that the posting was ridiculous.  The "author" was posted as one Philip Agee.  There is an actual person with that name who is a former CIA agent (read the Playboy interview at http://www.connix.com/~harry/agee.htm) who is critical of U.S. foreign policy.  The name was a tip-off enough for anybody the least bit familiar with recent history that the posting was a sick joke.

  Moreover, you take advantage of your readers ignorance of the internet and the varying types of posted formats (e.g. "open publishing" message board format) through such misrepresentation, directing their understandable anger and energy in no direction.  You may as well send a "communique" on the latest crap people spew on the yahoo message boards - they are all the same in terms of hate spam. Then again, when some of the comments from your readers include such equivalent hate like "fuck you arab monkeys", it makes me fear for all of humanity.

  You also betray your readers trust in your promises that "HonestReporting will never share your e-mail address with anyone" though the email address you directed them to, imc-editorial at lists.indymedia.org, is a publicly archived email list available at http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/imc-editorial/2002-October/date.html which is acknowledged as public by the Indymedia organization at http://lists.indymedia.org/.

  More information is available below.

  Indymedia FAQ

  http://process.indymedia.org/faq.php3

  Description of open publishing:

  http://www.cat.org.au/maffew/cat/openpub.html

  Investigative report on "pro-Israel" hard-right PR foundations

  http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=13804

  I believe you owe an apology both to your readers and suscribers, and to the Indymedia network as well. There is also an Israel IMC (http://indymedia.org.il) for those who are interested.

  Thank you very much.

  A. Tarmon

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