MEDIA CRITICISM

PETER KOENIG—The tradition of gladiator games lasted for almost a thousand years, until the 6th Century AD. Their origins appear like ceremonial, but later, when the Roman Republic became the Roman Empire – they served as brutal entertainments for the masses to deviate their attention from what the empire was doing at home, or “cooking” abroad, in foreign lands, with resources – “taxes” – taken from the people. Resources of the people being diverted to causes that served only a small elite.

MATT TAIBBI—Orfalea is no stranger to issues with YouTube. Five years ago, PBS selectively edited an interview Judy Woodruff conducted with Green Party candidate Jill Stein before it uploaded what viewers thought was the “full” version to YouTube. In fact, the PBS/YouTube upload had edited out a long section of a Stein answer railing against Hillary Clinton’s advocacy for the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Orfalea made a video comparing the two versions that you can see here.

FRANCESCO SISCI—On the eve of China’s October 1 National Day celebrations, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) 1 expelled former vice-minister for public security Sun Lijun – not for corruption but serious political crimes almost tantamount to something like an attempted coup.

Specifically, he was accused of “serious violations of discipline” and building cliques and cabals to take over a key government department.

Sun, apprehended about a year ago, is guilty of “overweening political ambitions” and “arbitrarily disagreeing with central policy guidelines,” the mighty party disciplinary committee CCDI wrote in a statement on its official website.

The ex-vice minister had “created and spread political rumors, taken actions against others, wove a web of deceit to obtain political capital and … used unscrupulous means … to form gangs, cliques, and interest groups within the party and build his personal power,” the statement said, thus implying he had gravely violated party centralism and allegiance to the top leadership.

A manera de introduccion de Inna Afinogenova, nueva presentadora con RT.com, quien ,mezcla humor con analisis serio de noticias. Aunque Inna también realizó prácticas en la radio argentina, ha desarrollado el grueso de su carrera en RT, donde se ha desempeñado en multitud de puestos hasta llegar a la subdirección de la página web de RT en español. Desde allí, siempre con el apoyo del equipo de RT, desarrolló el proyecto ‘Ahí les va’, uno de los más exitosos del canal. Además de su interés por todos los países hispanohablantes, también es una gran amante de la cultura y la lengua portuguesas. Desde que nació, mirando al sur.

JONATHAN COOK—If Rupert Murdoch and company can force the BBC into alienating and antagonising many of its own viewers with endless homilies to a royal little loved by large sections of the population, how else is the BBC’s coverage being skewed for fear of the potential backlash from corporate media tycoons? Is the fear of such repercussions also responsible for the BBC’s complicity in the recent, evidence-free smearing of a socialist Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, or the BBC’s consistent failures in reporting honestly on countries like Syria, Libya, Iraq and Venezuela – all of them in the oil-rich regions of the Middle East and Latin America that the United States and the west demand control over?