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Superman’s alter ego Clark Kent quits job over soft journalism – video
In the latest issue of the Superman comic book, which goes on sale on Wednesday, the caped hero’s alter ego, Clark Kent, quits his job as a journalist at the Daily Planet. A staff member at a comic book store in New York City’s Times Square says the superhero left the tabloid after voicing his disdain for the direction the newspaper is headed, lacking real journalism and real reporting (via | Culture | guardian.co.uk)
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Pupils at Eton - the ultra-posh boarding school attended by David Cameron, among many others - have attempted their own take on Gangnam Style.
Even as “comedy” virals go it’s rather cringe-inducing. Yet an indepth analysis of the new lyrics – for it deserves nothing less – reveals that these over-privileged little herberts are just as needy, insecure and rubbish with the ladies as the rest of us plebs.
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Fighting snark with snark: Bodyform viral video destroys commenter
When Bodyform, the feminine hygene company, received a snarky comment on its Facebook page which went viral, it only had one option: up the snark. (via New Statesman)
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Israeli police arrest ultra-Orthodox protestors — video
Israeli police arrested several ultra-Orthodox protesters after an officer was injured in demonstrations in Beit Shemesh. Disturbances erupted after a television channel aired footage of an eight-year-old Israeli girl complaining that black-robed Orthodox men had harassed her on her way to school over the way she was dressed. Israeli women have complained of black-robed men often forcing them to sit separately at the back of public buses, and demanding businesses avoid posting photographs of women or permitting them to work in establishments which they patronise. (via The Guardian)
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Video: Watch the US Navy’s First Official Lesbian Kiss
It’s too bad the world is going to end next year, because sometimes it seems like it might actually be kind of okay: this is a video of Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta, chosen by raffle to receive the ritual first homecoming kiss, greeting her fiancée Citlalic Snell on the pier—the first same-sex homecoming kiss in Navy history. The couple met in boot camp and kept their relationship secret until the September repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. “It’s nice to be able to be myself,” says Gaeta. (via Gawker)
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Chinese village evicts police, army, Party officials
The ongoing dispute between villagers in Wukan, Guangdong Province and the government of China has escalated. Villagers have evicted all Communist Party officials, all soldiers and all police. The government forces have blockaded the village, effectively laying siege to the rebels, cutting off their food and water. The dispute began as a conflict over land confiscation, but has grown to encompass other grievances, including the suspicious deaths of activists in police custody in which torture is alleged. (via Boing Boing)
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Kelvin MacKenzie: If I could revisit Hillsborough I would do it differently - video
Former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie clashed with MP Chris Bryant on BBC’s Daily Politics show and also expressed remorse for some the things he did as an editor.
Asked by Andrew Neil if he felt an regret or remorse, he said: “Probably, yes I do.”
And asked whether this included The Sun’s now infamous coverage of the 1989 Hillsborough football disaster, he said:
“If I could revisit Hillsborough, certainly, I would do it in a different way. I would do it in the way the other newspapers did it. They basically ran the story and said ‘big fury over…’ and I wish I had done that, yes.” (via Press Gazette)
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Slavery: A 21st Century Evil - debate
Why, hundreds of years after it was legally abolished, does slavery persist? The last episode of Slavery: A 21st Century Evil is a televised debate in which this question, among others, was posed to a panel of those who direct or seek to influence government policies on slavery across the world.
The debate was held at Decatur House on Washington’s Lafayette Square - the site of the only remaining physical evidence that African Americans were once held in bondage within sight of the White House - as an iconic venue for the debate on a trade that refuses to die.
Moderator Rageh Omaar was joined by: Luis C d’Baca from the US State Department Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons; Kevin Bales, the president of Free the Slaves; David Batstone, the president of Not for Sale; and Joy Ezeilo, the UN Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons. (via Al Jazeera)
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Don’t shoot the messenger – journalists’ safety under threat across the world
According to the International Press Institutes’s “death watch” figures, over 90 journalists have been killed so far this year. That’s one every few days. Since 2000, more than 900 journalists have died because of their work.
The killers of journalists are almost never brought to justice. This has created a climate of impunity in which - from the perspective of the killers - the murder of journalists is trivial, an act that can be repeated again and again with no fear of arrest or conviction.
Those who kill and physically assault journalists, or arbitrarily send them to prison, have one goal: to silence the messenger and intimidate other journalists.
They seek to ruthlessly censor and promote self-censorship. They constitute the world’s gravest threat to press freedom.
The safety of journalists is a fundamental pillar of the universal, inalienable right to press freedom, enshrined in the universal declaration of human rights, which stipulates the right of people everywhere to receive and transmit information.
When fear prompts journalists to self-censor, the free flow of information is impaired. Citizens are deprived of information. Accountability – in both the public and private sectors – is undermined. And democracy is threatened.
In the absence of critical, independent information, it is disinformation, propaganda and incitement which prevail. It is therefore the duty of everyone – not just journalists and civil society actors, but especially governments – to abide by international commitments, to respect the fundamental right to press freedom in action and not just in words, and to participate in a global effort to promote and ensure the safety of journalists. (via guardian.co.uk)
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Errol Morris: ‘I love tabloid stories’ - video interview
The latest documentary from film maker Errol Morris, Tabloid, tells the lurid tale of Joyce McKinney, a former US beauty queen who came to Britain to pursue a devout Mormon and became a Fleet Street obsession. Here he discusses McKinney’s celebrity; why he still turns to the tabloids; and the phone-hacking scandal engulfing the Murdoch empire (via The Guardian)
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Black Rhinos Lifted to Safety From Poachers
In an astonishing sight, 19 endangered black rhinos were lifted by their ankles over the South African landscape in an effort to save them from dangerous poachers.
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Meet the EDL
This footage was shot in collaboration with brighttyger.com at the September 3rd EDL demonstration on the edge of Tower Hamlets.
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Auto-disable syringes help halt spread of HIV - video
An internal valve prevents the K1 auto-disable syringe from being reused. This promotional film from the charity SafePoint highlights the campaign by its founder, the syringe’s British inventor, Marc Koska, for its adoption across the developing world (via guardian.co.uk)
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Occupy the London Stock Exchange protest - video
Protesters inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement descend on the London Stock Exchange as part of a worldwide protest against corporate greed (via The Guardian)
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Shappi Khorsandi ridicules Iran’s penal laws on stoning - Amnesty TV video
Iranian-born comedian Shappi Khorsandi mocks Iran’s laws on stoning as part of Amnesty International’s campaign against the death penalty. Iranian penal laws allow men and women to be stoned to death for ‘crimes’ such as adultery, but only if stones of the correct size are used in the execution (via The Guardian)
