[Seattle-editorial] Fwd: SF Indymedia Banned from Google News Over Israel/Palestine Controversy

[Sheri Herndon]

hi,

i think it's great if we encourage people to publish their stuff.  i always do this.  we don't have time to also do that cutting and pasting.  i just asked john fox to publish the piece about compton and to send the link.  that might be a good "policy" for us to encourage in our community.  if they want to see a story featured, send us the link as part of the proposal.

just an idea :)

sheri

>I tend to lean toward having them publish to the newswire because it is 
>less work for the editorial collective.  I really don't want to have to 
>cut and paste; and can't really volunteer to do that anytime soon as 
>have numerous tasks to do as I'm sure is the case for others.  If the 
>writer wants a public viewing, get it on the newswire, at least it will 
>be there for when others have a chance to focus on it.
>
>There really are times when we need to contact people-- to reduce their 
>photos on the newswire for one thing.
>
>Judy
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Sheri Herndon [mailto:sheri at speakeasy.org]
>> Sent: Wednesday, September 3, 2003 04:20 PM
>> To: typist at speakeasy.net
>> Cc: 'Seattle Editorial', gekked at blackflag.net
>> Subject: Re: [Seattle-editorial]  Fwd: SF Indymedia Banned from Google     
>News Over Israel/Palestine Controversy
>>
>> hi judy and editorial team,
>>
>> i've checked the sf newswire and i can't find the story.   gekked is 
>from the imc-sf collective and this has been a story that has been 
>percolating for months.  many of us have been 'following' it from the 
>sidelines.  so this is now finally "news".
>>
>> i like the policy of having features linked to actual stories because 
>it allows the comment feature to come into play and that is critical.  
>so i have no problem with that.
>>
>> personally, i don't think we need a policy for contacting "authors" 
>directly when it is clear they have made their statements public and are 
>asking for greater distribution of the story.  if we started doing that, 
>we might run into strange complications like waiting for people to get 
>back to us in order for us to "publish" what is already out in the 
>public domaine.
>>
>> so yes post to the newswire (not sure about asking authors to do that 
>as well) but i have a problem with developing a policy for contacting 
>people and asking them to post their materials and/or ask permission to 
>do so..  i don't think that's necessary.
>>
>> peace,
>> sheri
>>
>>
>>
>> >Yes, I think it is a possible feature idea.  But we now have a policy 
>> >that stories should be posted to the Seattle newswire so that we can
>> >write up or pull a couple of paragraphs to link to them.  I am a 
>little
>> >hesitant to take someone's writing and post it to the newswire 
>without
>> >them knowing about it, so am cc'ing the author to do that and let us
>> >know when it is posted.
>> >
>> >Thanks!
>> >Judy
>> >> -----Original Message-----
>> >> From: Sheri Herndon [mailto:sheri at speakeasy.org]
>> >> Sent: Wednesday, September 3, 2003 03:33 PM
>> >> To: 'Seattle Editorial'
>> >> Subject: [Seattle-editorial] 	Fwd: SF Indymedia Banned from Google
>> >News Over Israel/Palestine	Controversy
>> >>
>> >> possible story?
>> >>
>> >> ====== Forwarded Message ======
>> >> Date: 9/3/03 12:43 AM
>> >> Received: 9/3/03 7:43 AM
>> >> From: gekked at blackflag.net
>> >> To: cuibono at rcip.com
>> >>
>> >> Please e-mail Google News (contact info below) and let them know 
>what
>> >> you think about this!
>> >>
>> >> GOOGLE NEWS BANS SAN FRANCISCO INDYMEDIA OVER ISRAEL/PALESTINE
>> >> CONTROVERSY, ANTI-ARAB SLURS LIKE "RAGHEAD" ARE ALLOWED
>> >>
>> >> Around March 13 of this year, I discovered that San Francisco IMC
>> >> was no longer being indexed by Google News. I wrote to them asking
>> >> why, and a week later they replied that they only index sites which
>> >> have editorial review. I explained to them that, while we accept 
>all
>> >> article submissions, we have an active editorial team that reviews
>> >> articles for our Local/Global section. Volunteer programmers coded
>> >> a new SF-IMC webpage exclusively for Google which allowed them to
>> >> index only our reviewed articles.
>> >>
>> >> On May 13, Google News again removed us from the index. According 
>to
>> >> Marissa Mayer, product manager for Google News, this action was
>> >> taken because a few articles indexed included the term "zionazi,"
>> >> which they consider a "degrading hateful slur."
>> >>
>> >> SF-IMC replied to Google News through email and even had a 
>conference
>> >> call with them, explaining that we have an editorial policy that
>> >> specifically excludes hate speech, and that we agree "zionazi"
>> >> could be considered hate speech.
>> >>
>> >> In addition, we asked for details on how their search engine
>> >> spidered this article at all, since our editorial team had not
>> >> reviewed it and it shouldn't have been spidered by them. Around
>> >> the same time, SF-IMC received anonymous emails from people
>> >> claiming that they will "make sure" we are kicked out of Google
>> >> News.
>> >>
>> >> It was at this point that we stopped hearing back from Google
>> >> News at all. We emailed and called them for weeks but got
>> >> absolutely no reply.
>> >>
>> >> Worse still, Google News seems to be a lot less vigilant when it
>> >> comes to racist hate speech directed at Arabs and Muslims. For
>> >> instance, at any time you can search for "islamofascist" at Google
>> >> News and get a handful of results.
>> >>
>> >> Even more disturbing, on September 2, I searched for "green beret
>> >> iraq" which returned an article written by a soldier in Iraq that
>> >> refers to "ragheads" throughout:
>> >>
>> >> "Instead of being sitting ducks for the ragheads we now are going
>> >> after the worthless pieces of fecal matter."
>> >> (http://bigjweb.com/artman/publish/article_696.shtml)
>> >>
>> >> "Ragheads" and "islamofascists" is journalism according to Google
>> >> News?
>> >>
>> >> I believe that Google News needs to take responsibility for their
>> >> seemingly one-sided tolerance of what is and is not "hate speech,"
>> >> acknowledge that Indymedia sites have active editorial teams who
>> >> provide hours of volunteer labor to ensure that quality information
>> >> is getting out, and work with IMCs around the world to get this
>> >> information into Google News.
>> >>
>> >> If Google News is nothing more than right-wing and corporate
>> >> media, they aren't providing a worthwhile service. Indymedia
>> >> is a global phenomenon with active groups in the US, Middle
>> >> East, South America, Europe, Canada, Africa and Asia, all working 
>to
>> >> produce journalism that is otherwise censored or untouched by
>> >> multinational corporate media.
>> >>
>> >> I invite Google News to again contact SF-IMC at sf at indymedia.org so
>> >> that we can work out this difference.
>> >>
>> >> If you feel the same way, please contact Google News:
>> >> news-feedback at google.com (general contact)
>> >>
>> >> Please cc: your letters to sf at indymedia.org
>> >>
>> >> Written by gek, sf-imc, gekked at blackflag.net
>> >>
>> >> --- please forward widely ---
>> >>
>> >> ====== End Forwarded Message ======
>> >> _______________________________________________
>> >> Seattle-editorial mailing list
>> >> Seattle-editorial at lists.indymedia.org
>> >> http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/seattle-editorial
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>> >
>>
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