US media giants 'ignore' threat to free press

Key pillars of the US media have failed to stand up for the rights of a free press by ignoring the travails of Indymedia at the hands of the FBI, says John Hanrahan, reporter and former executive director of the Fund for Investigative Journalism.

Commenting on the seizure the news site's web servers on the Neimand Foundation website, Mr Hanrahan questions whether the major US news media would have ignored the story if federal agents had brought down the site of the New York Times or Wall Street Journal.

"I suspect that this may be because as far as big media are concerned, this is just an insignificant radical website and it is not really important what happens to it," he told dotJournalism.

"Big US media outlets generally do not stand up for smaller media, and I can only conclude that they just don't care unless their own ox is being gored."

Indymedia is an independent anti-capitalist news network that has been critical of the invasion of Iraq. On 7 October, Home Office ministers in the UK acted on a request from the FBI to confiscate Indymedia’s servers, bringing down 21 of the network's 140 sites.

The hard drives were returned after 6 days, but no reason was given for the seizure. It has been reported, however, that the investigation could be connected to Indymedia's coverage of the G8 summit in Genoa or an investigation into bomb threats made by the Informal Anarchists Federation.

The confiscation of Indymedia's servers has been reported around the world, and many news organisations, including the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and UK's National Union of Journalists (NUJ), have condemned the action as an attack on the freedom of the press.

The story has been widely aired in the UK, including coverage by the Guardian Guardian and the BBC - but US reporting has been limited to small, independent sites such as AntiWar.com, Axis of Logic and the Baltimore Chronicle.

"The big news media are terrible in standing up for the First Amendment and a free press, as the Indymedia affair once again demonstrates," said Mr Hanrahan.

He also referred to an incident in Washington DC where two reporters from a local weekly paper the Common Denominator were arrested for taking photographs near the Capitol, even though they were outside the security barriers.

"It is an outrage that they should have been stopped, harassed and asked a lot of questions," said Mr Hanrahan.

"The newspaper itself reported the issue, but the big news media largely ignored it."

More news from dotJournalism:
Indymedia petition grows
MPs lobby for Indymedia
Home Office under fire over Indymedia raid
Website marks a decade of independent news
Underground news goes deeper
Protesters target San Francisco's dot.com boomers

See also:
Indymedia: http://www.indymedia.org/en/static/fbi.shtml#why
Nieman Foundation for Journalism: http://niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm
IFJ: http://www.ifj.org
NUJ: http://www.nuj.org.uk

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