Sunday, July 20, 2008

Confronting the Corporate Media: WW Editorial Mentions the Pan-African News Wire

Message to readers

Confronting the corporate media

Published Jul 18, 2008 12:02 AM
From the editors of Workers World

Last month we published an article detailing how Workers World articles are being read, translated if necessary and reproduced all around the world by dozens of publications, Web site managers and bloggers hungry for news from U.S.-based revolutionary media that combats the lies churned out by the corporate monopoly media machine. This article will report some reactions and update that report.

We are not disinterested reporters. That so many people in so many places want to read, translate and publish what we have written tells us we are succeeding—up to a point. If we can encourage others to help promote these articles and analyses, we can get beyond that point.

We know ours is a minority opinion within the United States. Now. We are equally sure we speak to the needs and interests of the vast majority of workers and oppressed people.

The most-read and -discussed recent article has likely been Larry Holmes’ analysis of the Barack Obama candidacy. Holmes explains, without flinching, both sides of the contradictory Obama phenomenon. His writings have been reproduced on U.S.-based blogs and have opened online discussions. They have also been translated for the prestigious Portuguese magazine, Seara Nova. The newspaper of the Workers Party of Belgium (ptb.be) interviewed Holmes for a major in-depth article on Obama, along with Mick Kelly from the Freedom Road Socialist Organization.

Abayomi Azikiwe’s articles analyzing the U.S.-British attacks against Zimbabwe’s government have confronted ruling class opinion head-on. The monopoly corporate media have been so overwhelming in their lies that even progressive and/or social-democratic media have wavered or succumbed to the pressure by insulting Zimbabwe’s government and President Robert Mugabe.

Azikiwe’s articles provide relief from this drivel, and have been emailed widely from the workers.org site. Because of Azikiwe’s reputation as editor of the Pan African Newswire (panafricannews.blogspot.com), many sites have reproduced his articles, including edstrong.blog-city.com, indymedia.org.uk, blackstarnews.com and assatashakur.org.

Some WW analyses lead to action. For example, Sara Flounders’ article, “U.S. behind Israel’s war threats on Iran,” has helped impel the mobilization for protests next Aug. 2 called by the stopwaroniran.org site. This article has not only been published on many U.S. sites, but was translated into Portuguese for the resistir.info site and into French for michelcollon.info and ptb.be.

Our last report got a response from the editors of the Workers Action newspaper in the Ukraine, letting us know they had translated six of our articles in June into Russian for publication on their site, proletar.org.ua. The articles included two by Jaimeson Champion on economic questions, part one of David Hoskins’ series on health care, Caleb Maupin on Che Guevara and managing editor LeiLani Dowell’s article on Midwest flooding. All four authors are members of FIST, a youth organization. The sixth article was G. Dunkel’s on inter-imperialist rivalry in Africa.

Walter Lippmann, who sends out articles related to revolutionary Cuba to an extensive mailing list, distributed and praised Dolores Cox’s open letter to Barack Obama—after the candidate’s appearance before the Miami counterrevolutionaries—for its approach in reaching a broad audience. He also lauded a podcast talk by Deirdre Griswold on the earthquake in China for its attention to factual detail.

Another open letter, the one that Larry Hales wrote to Branford Marsalis urging him not to perform in Israel, was emailed extensively and picked up by www.odsg.org. Berta Joubert-Ceci’s article on Colombia and the so-called rescue of Ingrid Betancourt appeared on the workers.org site July 14 and reappeared later that day on plurmentalchaket.blogspot.com, a Mexican site.

It helps to be on time and on target. Tobias Grace, editor of Out in Jersey magazine—“New Jersey’s largest queer publication”—emailed us that it was only by picking up a WW at the New York Pride Parade that the magazine staff learned of the court victory of two of the Jersey 4 lesbian political prisoners. Out in Jersey quoted LeiLani Dowell’s article extensively in their next edition (outinjersey.net), with WW’s permission and solidarity.

A Google search found that other WW news articles have shown up on sites with specific interests, such as a particular political prisoner or a labor organization. Sites we found are Amerikanka.net, palestinethinktank.com, bintjbeil.com, warresisters.blogspot.com, queerswithoutborders.com, newstrust.net, opednews.com, nwo101.com, Itsabouttime.com, the-peoples-forum.com, soldiersofsolidarity.com, abpnoticias.com, and tongilkorea.net. The San Francisco Bay View also picked up a WW article.

We also acknowledge axisoflogic.com, The New Worker in Britain and the Pan African News Wire, which regularly republish WW articles, and Michel Mounayer in Damascus, who for years has translated many WW articles on the Middle East for republication in The Ba’ath and other Syrian newspapers.

A future report to readers will discuss Mundo Obrero, our Spanish-language edition. If you can report on other sites that use WW articles or have ideas on how to reach out, write to jcat@workers.org.
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