April 2001
Issue No. 333
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Empires of the senseless
Katharine Ainger unravels the tentacles of the global media machine – and explains why we need to subvert it.
Filtering the news
Why you only get to hear half the story.
The crusaders
Western media propaganda has a hidden history. John Pilger uncovers it.
Cultural homicide, ayoh!
Ziauddin Sardar watches television in Singapore.
Ultra Concentrated Media - Facts
Of monopoly and monoculture: the top six global media firms, with their cosy family of brands.
Multimedia dreaming
Aboriginal Australian writer Christine Morris on boring home videos and why culture is not a commodity.
The Dragon and the Phoenix
Liberalized is not quite the same as liberated. Yun Ding takes a close look at what’s happening to the media in China.
The unconnected
Chris Moss finds a system
error in Argentina’s internet
connection.
Jamming the global media
From hip hop in Nairobi to Indymedia in Chiapas, the grassroots get a voice.
Rid yourself of media toxins
Weapons for intellectual self-defence.
News, views, and & voices
Message of War
Reem Haddad uncovers Ariel Sharon’s brutal past in Letter from Lebanon.
Julio Etchart
Julio Etchart documents a world of toys and games from the factory to the playground, from rich kids to humble shanty town and rural children.
And all the jokes are cruel
Ama Ata Aidoo on God, Ghana and the cruellest of jokes.
Currents
Burmese daze
Despite a woeful human rights record and an international boycott, foreign investment in Burma continues to surge.
Death for penalty
A growing number of municipalities and organizations in the US have passed resolutions calling for a national death-penalty moratorium.
Every breath they take
A toxic legacy of industrial pollution is the reason why Sumgait in Azerbaijan has the highest infant mortality rate in the world.
Mine of inspiration
The NI issue on Landmines (NI 294) inspired a couple of Canadian students to produce an award-winning multimedia project on the subject.
Pain without gain
Some US medical researchers have been engaging in some unethical practices in Africa.
Primitive Rebels or Revolutionary Modernizers?
Pristine pipeline
A consortium of transnational companies is proposing to build an oil pipeline through pristine cloud forests in Ecuador.
Rogue States: The Rule of Force in World Affairs
Shallow river
China's famous Yellow River may soon dry up entirely scientists warn.
Summit in sight
The ‘Summit of the Americas’ is drawing all sorts to Quebec City.
The tyranny of numbers: Why counting can’t make us happy
The wrong cloth
Once an iconic symbol of the Indian struggle against colonialism, the Gandhi-inspired homespun cotton movement is on the wane as Western values take hold on the sub-continent.
World’s Worst
This year's winners of the annual Multinational Monitor 'Worst Corporation' awards.
Dick Cheney
Dick Cheney: the dirty history
of the new US Vice-President.
This House has Fallen: Nigeria in Crisis
This House has Fallen: Nigeria in Crisis by Karl Maier
René, what have you wrought?
The ghost of Descartes appears to John Gough during the trial of British Greenpeace activists.
Jamaica
There was a time not so long ago when outsiders just didn’t go to Trench Town. Until recently, this inner-city Kingston ghetto had such a reputation for violence that even armed police gave it a wide berth.
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from
THIS MONTH'S EDITOR
They say people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
Not so long ago I was the viewer sitting at home throwing sofa cushions at the television; the journalist pitching stories about the World Trade Organization to a harassed and indifferent editor.
In a few short months I have become that editor. And now I realize why there are so few media outlets willing to criticize the media. It’s just a little too close to home.
My transformation from an idealistic young journalist furious at the omissions of the mainstream media has been swift. Now I find myself battling with formats and thinking, ‘I understand all the pressures these poor editors are under’, and ‘hey, it’s not a conspiracy; I just can’t fit in everything I really want to say’.
But even if I wanted to turn into Citizen Kane, it wouldn’t be that easy at the NI. The more I learnt about how the corporate media worked, the more I realized how rare an animal this is in the media world – a radical magazine with a large subscription base, run by a co-operative, not dependent on advertisers, and without vested interests.
But then, I would say that, wouldn’t I?
Katharine Ainger
for the New Internationalist Co-operative
kat@newint.org
Voices from the margins:
Multimedia: video, podcasts, and more.
- Poetry Slam in Zimbabwe
- The House of Hunger poetry slam held in Zimbabwe in 2006, and organised by the Pamberi Trust, showcased young artists performing inspirational work on issues from corporate power to child soldiers. The video features four of the poets.
Published by Pambazuka News.
- Iranian women speak out
- 3 March 2007, London. Women's rights activists marched through the English capital last week to celebrate International Women's Day with a protest against the misogyny of the Islamic regime in Iran and the threat of invasion by the US. Hear the voices of Iranian feminists Azar and Leila Parnian and the sounds of the demonstration as it passed through the heart of the city. Click here to learn more about the campaign.
Produced by Heidi Bachram.
- Raised Voices audio:
- Benny from West Papua on Corporate Power
- Vinayan from India on agriculture
