Watchdog targets mayors: Stop harassing journalists covering Occupy protests

As has been widely reported, police crackdowns on the Occupy movement in cities across the country have extended beyond the protesters to include attacks on journalists as a way to stanch news of police action. Ten reporters were arrested in New York when police cleared Zuccotti Park on Tuesday, including reporters for the AP, NPR, and the New York Daily News, according to watchdog organization Free Press. The organization announced today it has launched a campaign “targeted at mayors around the country to demand they honor the 1st Amendment and drop all charges against journalists.”

Udall joins Senate group seeking to guard net neutrality from budget attack

No one loved the internet rules written by the Federal Communications Commission last year that sought to safeguard the free-flowing egalitarian quality of the internet, where communication-industry giants don’t get to decide which information streams to users and at what speed. One side thought the rules were overreaching socialism and the other thought they were riven with the kind of loopholes corporate interests could wiggle through when it came time to assert control. In the spring, Republicans in the House opposed to the rules voted to strip the FCC of the cash it would need to enforce the rules. On Wednesday, a small band of senators, including Colorado’s Mark Udall, sent a letter to Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) and Ranking Member Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) objecting to the House action and asking the committee to strip out the budget amendment that would hold back the FCC funds.

Decrying ‘photocopy journalism’, news watchdog spotlights Denver TV station merger

The sprawling greater-Denver metro region is in news-media crisis. In the information age, when there seems to be more and more to know, there is less and less being reported by the diminishing number of local mainstream news outlets here. So it comes as little surprise that media watchdog organization FreePress this week is highlighting the Denver news market as a negative example for the nation. The organization reports that, on top of shrinking newspaper reporting, the local TV news market is host to a “severe” form of the kind of sly consolidation that media corporations have been effecting across the country for nearly a decade. FreePress says this “covert consolidation,” where direct ownership is never transferred, is gaining momentum and that it skirts federal ownership laws and erodes market variety and competition.

Killing Big Bird: GOP budget would end PBS / NPR funding

The Republican House majority put out a shocker of a budget Thursday that would slash spending by $32 billion in the next seven months. Among the glaringly ideological Republican targets are environmental protection programs and public broadcasting. The “war on Big Bird,” as some fans of PBS have called it, has a strong backer in Colorado Congressman Doug Lamborn, who this session has introduced two bills to zero out funds for public TV and radio.

AP on how to be a paid journalist: Send us your bleeding ledes

Now that digital social networks are coming to provide the bulk of actionable information on important stories– as has been the case with Boulder’s Fourmile fire– news media will continue to offer deeply unsatisfying sensational stories that skew reality…

Sarah Palin’s insta-book and the future of journalism

Sarah Palin finished her memoir four months after reaching a book deal. That’s fast. Maybe too fast. Or maybe too slow!

Roughly two weeks ago, FreePress, a nonprofit group that seeks to…

Federal agencies move to restrict press access

As one of the most secretive presidential administrations in history gets ready to close up shop, it’s closing a few more things — records. Over the past few months, some federal agencies have issued rules that would eliminate public disclosure of information — or, in some cases, make it more difficult for requesters to get information.

Net neutrality signals larger fight for freedom and democracy

It’s not health care or the economy. It’s not even the war in Iraq. The most crucial issue facing the nation is the ability to get unimpeded information from the sources people choose over the Internet, according to some online journalists and activists.