-Caveat Lector- ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alberto M. Giordano" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
August 9, 2002 Call to Correspondents for Issue #23 UPCOMING: Journalist-of-the-Year for 2002; more attacks on Community Media by Venezuela coup plotters; news flashes from Bolivia, Perú and Colombia; and a February 2003 international gathering of drug-war opponents and authentic journalists in Mérida, Yucatán (mark your calendars!)... Dear Colleagues, Issue #23 of The Narco News Bulletin will begin on Monday, and this is a call to our correspondents throughout América for submissions. On Monday, we will also announce our choice for the First Annual Narco News Journalist-of-the-Year award. And we will file a report documenting how the simulating "press freedom" organization Reporters Without Borders in Paris has been caught in a new set of knowingly false statements, as well as the facts about a new wave of attacks against community media in Venezuela this week by rogue pro-coup police forces under the command of coupster Mayor Alfredo Peña of Greater Caracas. The Paris-based "Reporters" group, along with the NY-based Committee to Protect Journalists and the Miami-based Inter-American Press Association are directly responsible, through their complicit silence, on this new wave of attacks against press freedom. Meanwhile, our choice for Journalist-of-the-Year, to be announced on Monday, may surprise some people. In our view, the Authentic Journalist must accomplish three tasks: First, he or she must report accurately, in great detail, on important events and overlooked truths in society, no matter the personal risk to bring the story to the public. Second, he or she must communicate complex issues and connect with the public in a manner that everyone - not just the over-educated classes - can understand. Third - because journalism, as a craft, is in a state of emergency and suffers from widespread corporate and self-censorship of the most basic truths - the Authentic Journalist of today must open the door for the larger public, for Civil Society, to speak for itself. The Authentic Journalist of today has to reject the caste status imposed on him and her by the media industry, and works to spread his and her "free speech" rights to everyone. Our winner has excelled in each of these catagories. Stay tuned on Monday when we open the envelope. Meanwhile, Authentic América marches on: - In Bolivia, the new government has announced the withdrawl of troops from the coca-growing Chapare region and citizens there are literally chasing them out. The US-funded Expeditionary Forces (paramilitaries under the command of a foreign power) are leaving the country. - In Perú, coca-growers are organizing now, based on the success of the Bolivian model, and making alliances with other social movements. And the Peruvian government is wisely backing off of various US impositions regarding the drug war and coca eradication. - In Colombia, the narco-candidate Alvaro Uribe was sworn-in Wednesday as the narco-president, and we urge readers to view commercial press reports attributing the corresponding violence to rebel organizations skeptically. Remember that these rebel groups take public credit for their actions, and so far have not done so regarding the explosions that rocked the national palace this week. Be on the lookout for Otto Reich-style provocations aimed to justify deeper US military intervention in this country. - Embattled US Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's travels this week in Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay were met with protests everywhere he went. Behind the scenes, one of the US pressures on these countries with struggling economies (the result of having followed neoliberal economic models imposed by the US, the UN, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund) regards assistant secretary of state Otto Reich's plot to organize a "multi-national" army to enter Colombia's Civil War, but he needs at least a few Latin American countries to symbolically join in as a mask for direct US military intervention, and thus the presence of the US treasury secretary in these nations. - The attempt by Washington and Wall Street to internationalize the Colombian conflict is just one of the reasons why Narco News, together with other organizations, will be helping to organize and will participate in the first-ever América-wide gathering of drug-war opponents, slated for February 2003 in Mérida, Yucatán, in México. Leaders of Civil Society and Authentic Journalists from every country in América, and some European nations, will be converging in Mérida to internationalize the opposition. Please put February 2003 on your calendars, and stay tuned for more details on this major event, as well as our announcement of the Narco News Authentic Journalism internship-training program to be held also in February 2003 in Mérida. The commercial media and its simulating "press freedom" organizations have ceased to do the job of informing the public and of protecting your and our rights to do so. The time has come to construct an army of authentic journalists to wrestle the microphone away from the corrupted commercial press. As the correspondents of Narco News throughout the hemisphere and the planet, you are cordially invited to participate. More details to come during this Immedia Summer of 2002. from somewhere in a country called América, Al Giordano Publisher The Narco News Bulletin http://www.narconews.com/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Friends don't let friends go uninformed! Subscribe for free alerts of new reports: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/narconews Suscríbete gratis para alertas de reportajes nuevos en español: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/narconewsandes <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. 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