Remember That Freedom is Toast & Fries — Even in The Media!
British Media Freedom Conference bans two widely-viewed Russian news entities — North Korea, Syria and Venezuelan media also banned
Conferences in General
Conferences are wonderful opportunities for hallmarking intellectuality, introducing groundbreaking ideas, heralding accomplishments, critiquing or improving upon old ideas or even a place to experiment with something new. If you have something to offer nobody else has, a conference becomes an ideal forum to highlight what you’ve got.
Renown for sharing expertise, criticism and valuing noteworthy contribution, conferences feature keynote speakers as the brightest minds on any given subject. Conference workshops are among the very best opportunities learning experiences and sharing point/counterpoint considerations.
A conference is where you showcase the best and it’s where notchmarks are proven in developmental history. They also represent an especially valuable source for festive celebration, attribution and pride of accomplishment.
Two Examples of Conferences
Below are two examples of conferences I do not understand.
The first would be an Anarchists Conference.
How could such a conference become organized to accomplish anything? Who would ever think to show up at an assigned hour and act in unison? What assurance would there be that conference attendees would even stick around? Could any kind of speech be delivered to its conclusion without a serious interruption or challenge? What could possibly get accomplished except more examples of anarchy?
The second conference I do not understand more of a serious and critical nature.
It is scheduled for July 10–11, 2019 in London, England and is called The Global Conference for Media Freedom, co-hosted by Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chrystia Freeland; and Jeremy Hunt, the UK Foreign Secretary. It’s purported a thousand reporters, journalists, dignitaries and around 60 government ministers will attend.
At an anarchist conference, whether successful or not, at least you know it’ll be honestly portrayed and you’ll know what to expect. However, the UK government-sponsored conference on Media Freedom is nothing like that. In fact, it is on a path to become outright devious and misleading. This particular conference represents no media freedom at all. I view it more as an attempt to control news, rather than to freely expand on ideas to widely cover and distribute the news. In fact, it reeks of censorship!
I’m reminded of a meme I recently created which highlights the US media’s refusal to interview or even report on former UK ambassador Craig Murray’s very public assertions he flew to Washington DC to retrieve DNC-Podesta documents showing transparency on how the Clinton Campaign — with strong main media connective elements — helped to rig the 2016 Democratic Primary. Murray attests he delivered these documents to Wikileaks which published them. This has never been reported in America’s media! Moreover, special prosecutor Robert Mueller’s near-three year investigation never interviewed Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange or Murray.
So why is the London Global Media Freedom Conference not about media freedom?
Because widely popular Russian news networks RT and Sputnik International have been banned from attending the London conference. They will not receive accreditation to formally attend what’s billed as a worldwide media event.
Ladies and gentlemen, censoring voices of journalism is by no means media freedom! In fact, there’s a true reason why Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Seymour Hersh is no longer published in american media. There’s a true reason why the grandson of the inventor of American football, Lee Camp, can not get a comedy job on an American network. In fact, there’s a true reason why Edward R. Murrow, I.F. Stone, Helen Thomas and Walter Cronkite and others are, respectively, uncomfortably rolling in their graves!
Russian studies professor Stephen F. Cohen, in 2012, shortly after RT’s inception, noted that RT does a lot of stories that “reflect badly” on the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and much of Western Europe and that they are “particularly aggrieved by American sermonizing abroad.” (see Wikipedia RT tv network)
From my personal viewpoint of freedom, what Cohen stated is even more reason to invite RT to the conference on media freedom. Consider, for example, what RT offers to the public. The network features relevant programming and presents many award-winning journalists:
RT-America Programming
Current Shows:
- On Contact (Chris Hedges)
- Renegade Inc. (Ross Ashcroft)
- Keiser Report (Max Keiser with Stacy Herbert) from RT UK
- America’s Lawyer (Mike Papantonio)
- Interview (various presenters)
- Going Underground (Afshin Rattansi) from RT UK
- News Thing (Sam Delaney)
- Redacted Tonight (Lee Camp) from RT America
- Watching the Hawks (Tyrel Ventura, Sean Stone, and Tabetha Wallace)
- SophieCo (Sophie Shevardnadze)
- CrossTalk (Peter Lavelle)
- Larry King Now (Larry King)
- Sputnik (George Galloway) from RT UK
- Politicking (Larry King)
- News Views Hughes
- How to Watch the News with Slavoj Žižek
- On the Touchline with José Mourinho
- News with Rick Sanchez
- The Alex Salmond Show
- Politicking with Larry King
- In Question
- Raw Take
Former:
- Off the grid (Jesse Ventura)
- Capital Account (Lauren Lyster) from RT America
- Why you should care! (Tim Kirby)
- Breaking the Set (Abby Martin)
- In Context (Peter Lavelle)
- Spotlight (Aleksandr Gurnov)
- On the Money (Peter Lavelle)
- World Tomorrow (Julian Assange)
- Moscow Out (Martyn Andrews)
- Adam vs. the Man (Adam Kokesh)
- The Alyona Show (Alyona Minkovski)
- The Big Picture (Thom Hartmann) from RT America
- The News with Ed Schultz (Ed Schultz)
Sputnik International
Sputnik premiered in 2014. It is a modern news agency whose brand includes newsfeeds, websites, social networks, mobile apps, radio broadcasts and multimedia press centers. It has an editorial staff that works in more than 30 languages, including English, Spanish, French, German, Arabic, Chinese, etc. Headquartered in Moscow, it has regional offices located in: Washington, DC, Beijing, Paris, Berlin, Cairo and in the UK at London and Edinburgh. Like RT, Sputnik also features award-winning journalists.
AFP news report published on Yahoo News relative to banning RT and Sputnik International:
