Maybe it's just me but following the Committee to Protect Journalists

[EFerrari]

on Twitter, it looks like they have some kind of CANF funded Cuba bashing quota to fill every week.

Today:

@pressfreedom CPJ
Is there any room for free expression in #Cuba? Find out July 6 on cpj.org
5 Jul 11 via web

http://twitter.com/#!/pressfreedom/status/88356693481754625

I want to find out who funds the CPJ because something stinks here. With so much going on in this hemisphere, they post a question like this about Cuba every week. :wtf:

[EFerrari]

1. Hmm. Here, the same two who wrote the critical report on Cuba

in 2010 (that CANF uses in its literature) are named as contacts for an "alert" put out by CPJ on the decision not to renew RCTV's license. (It's at the bottom of P.2 of this pdf, Carlos Lauria and Maria Salazar.)

http://www.freerctv.com/articles/011207_IFEX.pdf

[EFerrari]

7. Turns out IPYS, the other media "watchdog" listed in this alert

get NED $$$

The Instituto De Prensa Y Sociedad (IPYS) – otherwise known as the Press and Society Institute – was founded in 1993 by Laura Puertas Meyer, and the Institute obtained their first NED grant in 1998 to help them “develop a national network to protect journalists” in Peru. Meyer’s involvement in founding IPYS is particularly noteworthy because he is presently the executive director of the Peruvian chapter of Transparency International, which perhaps not coincidentally is a key global ‘democracy promoting’ organization. IPYS’s linked to Transparency International do not end there, as in 2002 Transparency International’s Americas programme coordinator, Marta Erquicia, joined forces with IPYS to launch an annual award for investigative journalism. <16> Furthermore, it is significant to observe that George Soros’s <17> Open Society Institute sponsors the award, and two of the five members of the prizes jury have ‘democratic’ ties: these two judges are Gustavo Gorriti (who is a member of IYPS, has received the ‘democratically’ connected Committee to Protect Journalists International Press Freedom Award in 1998, <18> is listed as an individual endorser of the UN Democracy Caucus, and is a member of the Center for Public Integrity’s International Consortium for Investigative Journalism), <19> and Tina Rosenberg (who serves on The New York Times editorial board, and on the advisory board of the National Security Archive). <20> Considering all these ‘democratic’ ties it is ironic that the two winners of this Soros-sponsored award in 2006, Tamoa Calzadilla and Laura Weffer, won because of their reporting on the “irregularities in the investigation of the Anderson murder case” – Anderson being the Venezuelan state prosecutor “in charge of identifying those responsible of failed <2002> coup against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.” <21>

http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/2624

[Judi Lynn]

2. Oh, god! Does that stink, or what? We get that kind of crap here, too, don't we?

People walking in claim to be as unaware as the day they were born, asking, in wide-eyed wonder, recycled crappola, hoping to kick of another scuffle!

Yeah, I've wondered about these wrecks, too. I want to know more, myself. I'm on my way to start dinner preparation, so got no time to look, but I want to find out more about them, too.

This is just so sad. I have no doubt they're taking our own tax dollars, by way of some group handing out NED funding.

Why don't they just go there and find out for THEMSELVES? Maybe they could ask their employers to remove the travel ban!

[EFerrari]

4. I'm going to keep looking.

It may be that they're like Human Rights Watch, doing some good work but politicized in parts of their organization. Definitely worth sorting out though, imho.

[EFerrari]

3. Okay, I went into their Annual Report.

The financial disclosures are on P. 22 but the online pdf only goes to P. 14. Sent a request for the material. The thing is, if you only scan the table of contents of the pdf, it lists a financial report which turns out not to be there when you go look for it. That could be an oversight.

[Derechos]

10. Some funders are listed on page 12

and financial info on page 13 http://www.cpj.org/about/CPJ.Annual.Report.2010.pdf

[Judi Lynn]

11. Took a very brief scan, saw Dow Chemical, Forbes, Fox News! OMG.

I can only think of their gift to the world: Napalm.

Fox News! Yikes.

Thanks for the tip on page 12. Eye opening.

[EFerrari]

16. Thanks. Maybe their Table of Contents was just broken.

They did reply to my query today, haven't had a chance to look at it.

[EFerrari]

5. Here's their entry at SourceWatch

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Committee_to_Protect_Journalists#Funding

[EFerrari]

6. CPJ criticized in 2000 for politicizing

ZNet Commentary, 3 February 2000

REAL JOURNALISM VERSUS PROPAGANDA

By Edward S. Herman.

There has long been a strong tendency on the part of Western non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to serve as did the Christian missionaries in the years of colonial expansion and occupation, who followed in the wake of the empire builders to convert the heathens to the true religion and to heal the sick and wounded--large numbers produced by imperialism itself. Even when the NGOs have functions that should bring them into sharp conflict with the dominant powers, like human rights agencies, they often struggle to look at the bright side of imperial action and inflate the evil of the indigenous resistance to imperialism. This results from a shared imperial ideology, their dependence on largesse from governments and elite members of the dominant powers, and from pressures exerted by officials and agents of the powerful states.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has long specialized in compiling lists of journalists abused and killed in various parts of the world, and it has generally done this without compromising political discrimination. It cannot be said, however, that its compilations have been given much publicity by the Western media, despite the fact that murdered journalists would seem to be a topic that should excite the media. Perhaps too many of those journalists were killed in Western-friendly states like El Salvador and Guatemala to make this subject highly newsworthy.

But the CPJ has broken new ground in 2000: despite the fact that on April 23, 1999, CPJ issued a statement condemning the NATO bombing of Radio and Television Serbia (RTS) as "a threat to all journalists covering the Yugoslav conflict," its list of 33 journalists killed worldwide in 1999, released on January 6, excluded the 16 workers killed in that bombing attack. The Times of India's veteran journalist Siddarth Varadarajan queried the CPJ on this exclusion, and got a reply from Judy Blank, the CPJ's director of communications. She stated that although the CPJ "has an extremely broad definition of who is a journalist" their analysis of RTS broadcasts, "particularly prior to the NATO bombing campaign, leads us to the conclusion that by any definition it would not be considered journalism." (CPJ is allegedly preparing a report on the research that led to this conclusion.)

In his reply to Judy Blank, Siddharth Varadarajan noted that hers was "precisely the logic of Mr. Jamie Shea and other apologists for Nato, who insisted that what they bombed was a legitimate military target because RTS was not purveying journalism but propaganda." This seems to have been the first time that the CPJ has declined to include journalists as legitimate based on an evaluation of their (or their organization's) work, and it is hardly a coincidence that this has occurred in the wake of a war in which the Western propaganda apparatus was working at a new and higher level of efficiency in demonization and self-righteous claims of virtue.

http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/srealj.htm

[joshcryer]

8. They're consistent.

[Judi Lynn]

9. Don't know how helpful it is, but this is interesting, mentions CPJ:

The Democracy Manipulators
By Michael Barker
Friday, April 25, 2008

Based in Colombia the New Journalism Foundation - known locally as the Fundación para un Nuevo Periodismo Iberoamericano (FNPI) - was set up in late 2004 as a nonprofit organization for training professional journalists. Since 1995, the Foundation has been headed by Jaime Abello Banfi, who observed (in 2003) that the original idea behind the Foundation "was to hold workshops for young journalists, to help them learn the tools of the trade, improve the quality of journalism, and motivate other journalists". <1> Motivating journalists to attend the workshops of this well-respected Foundation is no doubt aided by the fact that one of the organizations co-founders is the Nobel Literature Prize laureate, Gabriel García Márquez. The other founders of the group include Gabriel's brother Jaime García Márquez, and their executive director, Jaime Abello (who is a former manager of the Caribbean regional General Television Channel, and is also the president of the Gabriel Garcia Marquez Foundation). <2>

According to the New Journalism Foundation, their "core project" is their Iberian-American Journalism Workshop Program, which is "sponsored by the United Nations Organization for Education, Science and Culture (UNESCO), and other private and public foundations". So given that the Foundation was founded by the progressive literary luminary, Gabriel García Márquez, I was disturbed to say the least, when I discovered that the Foundation is well connected to many democracy manipulators, including not least, the notorious National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Thus this article will provide the first critical overview of the New Journalism Foundation's associations with the democracy manipulating establishment.

To begin with, the New Journalism Foundation boast that their first ever seminar was organized (in March 1995) with the aid of the dubious New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. This seminar was also used to help "launch Colombia's Foundation for Press Freedom" (Fundación para la libertad de prensa, FLIP) - an organization that ostensibly "promotes the protection of journalists". Unfortunately the New Journalism Foundation's ‘democratic' connections start at day one, as Colombia's Foundation for Press Freedom received a $86,367 grant from the NED in 2005 to "promote respect for freedom of the press in Colombia", while the Committee to Protect Journalists is backed by all manner of democracy manipulating liberal philanthropists like George Soros' Open Society Institute and the Ford Foundation, as well as leading corporate media outlets (e.g. CNN and Time Warner). Furthermore, as I will now demonstrate, it is particularly interesting that the Mexican journalist Alma Guillermoprieto was chosen to teach the first New Journalism Foundation writing workshop.

More:
http://www.zcommunications.org/the-democracy-manipulators-by-michael-barker

[Judi Lynn]

12. There are tons of NED suckers all over Cuba, like "smell on a skunk."

Simply amazing. They've been at the trough for so many years, too.

Here's a good article by Michael Barker:

Promoting Humanitarian Imperialism in Cuba and Beyond
By Michael Barker
Monday, October 15, 2007

~snip~
Exporting 'Democracy' to Cuba

"The Czech Republic is at the heart of the U.S. efforts to secure multilateral support for precipitating a transition for democracy in Cuba... They've stuck to their principles every step of the way. Thank the Lord for the Czech Republic." - Miami Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen cited in Bachelet (2006)

Like many 'democracy promoting' organizations the Center for a Free Cuba (CFC) - which was formed in November 1997 - sounds like an innocuous democracy-loving group, and it describes itself as an "independent, non-partisan institution dedicated to promoting human rights and a transition to democracy and the rule of law on the island ". However, the Center's choice of Frank Calzon as their executive director makes easy to understand the type of democracy they are interested in promoting, as for the ten years prior to starting work at the CFC Calzon had worked as the Washington representative for the neoconservative Freedom House. Calzon is also a former director of the infamous Cuban-American National Foundation CANF - another non-profit group that was formed in 1981 to advance "freedom and democracy in Cuba".

Here it is critical to note that CANF's ex-president, Jose S. Sorzano, previously served as a director of the Center for International Private Enterprise <5> - which is one of the NED's four core grantees - and he formerly acted as an aide to former CFC director, the late Ambassador Jeane J. Kirkpatrick. CANF is also directly linked to CFC through retired chief executive of Bacardi, Manuel J. Cutillas, who is a former chair of CANF's board of directors, and is currently a director of CFC.<6> (Cutillas is also presently a trustee of the Free Enterprise Foundation, where he sits next to 'democratic' notable Edwin Meese III.)

Other interesting 'democratic' CFC directors include Nestor T. Carbonell (who is also a director of the Council of the Americas, is a member of the board of overseers of the International Rescue Committee, and serves on the advisory board of the Cuba Archive - an organization that is supported by Freedom House), Jeronimo Esteve-Abril (who serves on the advisory board of the Cuba Archive, and is a former CANF director), and Susan Kaufman Purcell (who is the vice president of both the Council of the Americas and the Americas Society, serves on the advisory council of the International Executive Service Corps, serves on the advisory council of the Inter-American Foundation (in 2004 at least), is a former trustee of Freedom House, and a former member of the editorial board of the NED's Journal of Democracy).

More:
http://www.zcommunications.org/promoting-humanitarian-imperialism-in-cuba-and-beyond-by-michael-barker

[EFerrari]

15. Thanks, Judi Lynn. n/t

[bemildred]

13. I am not impressed.

The frequent use of polemical language ("black spring" and the like) is a real "tell". That is propaganda, not reportage.

But I imagine it's easy work and pays well.

[EFerrari]

14. I'm sorry I haven't spent more time on this but am investigating

a publisher for my "The Illustrated Let's Just Make Up Sh!t about Hugo Chavez" project. I'll keep an eye out and add to the thread as time permits.

[joshcryer]

17. How is "Black Spring" polemical?

It's a term to refer to a crackdown on democracy supporters and dissidents in the Spring of 2003, this crackdown is referred to as the "Black Spring" within Cuba itself. It is not controversial at all.

[bemildred]

29. Ah, you think it's peachy, and "objective" too, no doubt.

Well, I have no illusions about modifying your emotional attachments through the excellence of my prose.

[flamingdem]

18. Thanks for this work looking into CPJ, they push the anti-Cuba meme

every chance they get and spout out the Miami Mafia line.. I called their office a while ago to bitch about their description of Zapata, the one who died after his hungerstrike, as a journalist and spoke to a nasty guy with a Cuban accent who said I was incorrect.

[joshcryer]

19. Zapata was a journalist. The smear campaign against him to "turn him into a criminal" was just that.

A smear campaign.

The Cuban government went to great lengths to rewrite history and make him into a non-dissident criminal.

[flamingdem]

20. I would read a reliable link but what you have might be from the usual sources

otherwise please post a link.

He was described as a worker who had behavioral problems and I would like to see solid evidence that he was trained or acting as a journalist.

[joshcryer]

23. I'll have to dig it up for you from people who knew him.

The Cuban blogs aren't easy to google search for so let me get back to you.

It's not "the usual sources," as the bloggers in questions have no connection with the Miami mafia (and if they use that information it is purely for their own agenda).

[joshcryer]

27. I can't find it, I thought CPJ said he was a journalist but it appears they never did.

I found a lot of articles about his political dissent, however, and I wasn't aware that a plumber or a mason was incapable of being politically vocal.

You claimed that "CPJ said he was a journalist" so I took you at your word, shows how easily one can be misled by others' false characterization of things.

I just know the papers about him being a "common criminal" were bullshit.

[flamingdem]

30. CPJ implied he was an important dissident, he wasn't, the Cuban govt. told the truth about Zapata nt

[joshcryer]

33. CPJ repeatedly reports on bloggers and other dissidents, because they're just a notch...

...away from independent journalists. I think this is really sad, bashing CPJ, while citing CPJ in other countries.

[joshcryer]

28. Here's one of many blogger postings that talk of his dissent:

http://cruzarlasalambradas.wordpress.com/2010/11/24/abel-recuerda-ultimos-dias-de-zapata-en-prision-camagueyana/

[flamingdem]

21. timesonline.co.uk says he was a bricklayer and plumber, no word about journalist

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7038864.ece

[EFerrari]

26. Great catch. n/t

[flamingdem]

22. Note the attempt in this CPJ article to make Zapata something he was not by vague writing

http://www.cpj.org/2010/03/cpj-holds-cuba-responsible-for-the-welfare-of-jail.php

[EFerrari]

25. This guy, Carlos Lauria

“We urge President Castro to ensure the proper care of all journalists currently incarcerated,” said Carlos Lauría, CPJ Americas program senior coordinator. “We hold the Cuban government responsible for the health and welfare of those imprisoned.”

is one of the two that championed RCTV during that flap. That says a lot about him.

[flamingdem]

31. They work via inuendo obviously, they work via unethical journalism, funny that! ! nt

[EFerrari]

24. I asked them straight up if they had to fill a CANF funded quota every week.

bemildred is right, the language they use is not the language of reporting but of propaganda. I'm going to keep looking into it as I can.

[flamingdem]

32. Good idea, their bias can be proven but most of the media is lazy

and they'll just run with FIDEL BAD as their story..

[Judi Lynn]

34. The Cuban exile who published the Miami Herald before the current one served as a CPJ director.

At one time the Miami Herald was just a newspaper. Then the politically powerful monster radical reactionary Cuban "exile" Jorge Mas Canosa declared war on the publisher David Lawrence for not pleasing him enough politically, and started buying advertising on city buses saying "I don't believe the Herald" and all over town the newspapers vending machines started getting jammed with gum, and smeared with feces, then they started getting death threats to the staff continually to the point David Lawrence and his wife hired men to check their cars daily before starting them each time. Eventually he gave up and left.

The Knight Ridder company hired a Cuban "exile," Alberto Ibargüen as their publisher, and he started their practise of having extremely abbreviated articles (why bother people with the facts), etc. Great idea, wasn't it? Knight Ridder sold the company and McClatchy ended up owning the Herald and other papers after that.

He also is the one who created the 2nd, Spanish newspaper, El Nuevo Herald, which has been called frequently on its very extreme spin, and frequent misrepresentation of the facts altogether, sometimes to the point they seem to have very little to do with the truth at all. They've been caught photoshopping images to represent absolutely stinking lies, and have been caught at it. A local progressive radio station has its own publication, El Progreso, which has devoted intense scrutiny pointing out the mistruths gushing from that paper, pandering directly to Cuban readers.

Here's a small profile of Ibargüen. I think it illustrates how all these groups and their personel seem to swim in exactly the same waters. Love the term employed, "democracy manipulating":

The next Pro Publica board member, Alberto Ibargüen, is the former publisher of The Miami Herald and of El Nuevo Herald, and has been the president and CEO of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation since 2005. Ironically, Ibargüen’s Pro Publica biography openly highlights his democracy manipulating connections – in much the same way as the NED publicizes most of its own work online – and one can only assume that the people running Pro Publica thought that no one would bother to investigate the backgrounds of the savory sounding groups that Ibargüen is linked to. Thus according to Ibargüen’s biograpy he is “chairman of the board of the Newseum in Washington, D.C., a museum dedicated to free speech and free press”, but of course the biography fails to mention that the Newseum is a project of The Freedom Forum. His biography goes on to point out that he has also served on the board of the Committee to Protect Journalists, and that he has “work to protect journalists in Latin America as part of the Inter American Press Association”, and is the “board chair of PBS” (Public Broadcasting System) a television network whose pro-corporate bias is regularly challenged by the progressive media watchdog Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Finally, Ibargüen’s biography mentions that he is a director of the elite planning group, the Council on Foreign Relations, and is a “member of the board of PepsiCo” – a corporation whose chair and CEO, Indra K. Nooyi, is a director of the International Rescue Committee, and a trustee of the Asia Society. Similarly, PepsiCo’s vice president for international public affairs, Nestor T. Carbonell, is a director of the NED-funded Center for a Free Cuba, and serves on the board of overseerers of the International Rescue Committee. Last but not least, although not mentioned on the Pro Publica website, Ibargüen is also a member of the important ‘democracy promoting’ organization the Inter-American Dialogue.

http://www.spinwatch.org/-articles-by-category-mainmenu-8/42-media-spin/4732-investigating-the-investigators