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29th May 2012 0 Comments

By Nadra Kareem Nittle Contributing Writer

(Special to the NNPA News Service from the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education)Social wedge issues such as abortion, birth control and sex education in public schools have taken center stage and sometimes dominated the political debate this year, but progressive experts on reproductive rights are concerned that women of color are rarely represented in the mainstream medias coverage.

If elected president, presumptive Republican candidate Mitt Romney has vowed to defund Planned Parenthood, a move that the state of Texas is attempting. Moreover, Tennessee has passed legislation to severely limit what educators can teach in sex education classes, and states such as Arizona, Mississippi and Virginia have passed legislation that significantly restricts abortion access.

Conservative attacks on reproductive rights repeatedly make headlines. But women of color and low-income women who disproportionately depend on the services of Planned Parenthood and face challenges accessing reproductive care have not figured prominently in mainstream news coverage of the reproductive rights debate.

Experts on the topic say that because underprivileged women have the most to lose as lawmakers curb such rights, the media should focus on them in the discussion.

Women who are poor and also women of color have disproportionately high rates of unwanted pregnancy, says Heather Boonstra, a senior public policy associate of the Guttmacher Institute, a Washington, D.C., organization that advocates for sexual and reproductive health and rights.

Some of that has to do with the basics in terms of obtaining health care and the kinds of social conditions in the womens lives that make it hard for them to use contraception and use it consistently, she says. Poorer women their lives have a lot of disruptions. Using and obtaining contraception, let alone affording it and getting it on a routine basis is harder.

According to the institute, Black women are three times as likely as white women to have an unplanned pregnancy, and Hispanic women are two times as likely. Among poor women, Hispanics have the highest rate of unplanned pregnancy. In addition, financial pressures related to the sluggish economy are likely leading more poor women to terminate pregnancies. The institute found that the number of abortion recipients who were poor jumped from 27 percent in 2000 to 42 percent in 2008, the first full year of the economic downturn.

Media outlets tend to ignore these findings and the financial pressures driving them, and simply report on abortion rates and laws without factoring in race and class. Including more women of color and their advocates in mainstream media stories would produce more comprehensive articles.

Original post:
Discussion of reproductive rights should include women of color

28-05-2012 16:25 Journalist control politician control jouranlist control politican control .... Dub Soundtrack

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MediaWhiteWash.wmv - Video

* Former PM say media so powerful he could not confront it

* Blair says offending media was dangerous for politicians

* Blair heckled over Iraq war at Leveson inquiry (Recasts with Murdoch, adds heckler)

LONDON, May 28 (Reuters) - British leaders are forced to court powerful press barons such as Rupert Murdoch or risk savage media attacks which render them unable to govern effectively, former Prime Minister Tony Blair told an inquiry on Monday.

Interrupted by a heckler who accused him of being a war criminal for supporting the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Blair paused briefly before continuing to justify his ties to Murdoch with whom he said he developed a close friendship.

Blair cast himself as a politician facing the choice between being torn apart by what he once described as the media's "feral beasts" and getting his policies implemented.

But Blair, whose reputation for obsessive media management brought him so close to Murdoch that the tycoon could joke about flirting, said he became increasingly concerned about the unhealthy relationship between the media and politicians.

"With any of these big media groups, you fall out with them and you watch out, because it is literally relentless and unremitting once that happens," Blair, looking tanned and smart in a navy suit and white shirt, told the Leveson inquiry.

"My view is that that is what creates this situation in which these media people get a power in the system that is unhealthy and which I felt, throughout my time, uncomfortable with. I took the strategic decision to manage this and not confront it but the power of it is indisputable."

Blair is the most senior politician to date to appear before Leveson, an inquiry that has tarnished the British elite by showing the collusion between senior politicians, media tycoons and police.

Original post:
UPDATE 2-Blair says feared fight with Britain's media barons

Government plans for a press council are actually plans to restrict press freedom

Malaysian government plans for a media council to enforce by law journalists compliance with a code of ethics are expected to move ahead with a second round of discussions between editors and journalists and the Attorney-General and his team.

The governments moves are described as part of reforms in the name of press freedom, following on from the prime ministers announcement in September to end annual newspaper licenses. In April, amendments to the Printing Press and Publications Act replaced annual licenses with one-off licences good until cancelled, and slightly curbed the home ministers powers over the press, opening his decisions to challenge in court.

However, these reforms do not move Malaysia forward towards greater press freedom but merely return to the regime of control that existed before 1988, and before Operation Lallang, when the Mahathir government locked up dissidents and critics and closed The Star, Watan and Sin Chew Jit Poh. They were allowed to re-open six months later, under stringent conditions.)

The April amendments to the press and publication act merely restored the status quo ante. The difference is that editors agreed to submit to self-regulation in return for withdrawal of annual publishing licenses and the government has expanded the scope of self-regulation to include broadcasters and online media.

A new regime of media control is thus taking shape and journalists are being co-opted into this process by being part of the governments consultations. Todays discussions will probably be about the mechanisms of the new regime: how to control, who to control, and how to punish.

Although the government views this favorably as self-regulation, control of the media lies at the heart of the governments as yet unseen proposals by which editors and journalists will be drawn into the process.

It is common knowledge that:

*Newspaper editors in September agreed to set up a press council based on the voluntary UK Press Complaints Council (now disbanded);

See the original post here:
Opinion: Malaysian Press Council an Ominous Move

By Kate Holton and Matt Falloon

LONDON (Reuters) - British leaders are forced to court powerful press barons such as Rupert Murdoch or risk savage media attacks which render them unable to govern effectively, former Prime Minister Tony Blair told an inquiry on Monday.

Interrupted by a heckler who accused him of being a war criminal for supporting the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Blair paused briefly before continuing to justify his ties to Murdoch with whom he said he developed a close friendship.

Blair cast himself as a politician facing the choice between being torn apart by what he once described as the media's "feral beasts" and getting his policies implemented.

But Blair, whose reputation for obsessive media management brought him so close to Murdoch that the tycoon could joke about flirting, said he became increasingly concerned about the unhealthy relationship between the media and politicians.

"With any of these big media groups, you fall out with them and you watch out, because it is literally relentless and unremitting once that happens," Blair, looking tanned and smart in a navy suit and white shirt, told the Leveson inquiry.

"My view is that that is what creates this situation in which these media people get a power in the system that is unhealthy and which I felt, throughout my time, uncomfortable with. I took the strategic decision to manage this and not confront it but the power of it is indisputable."

Blair is the most senior politician to date to appear before Leveson, an inquiry that has tarnished the British elite by showing the collusion between senior politicians, media tycoons and police.

"If you fall out with the controlling element of the Daily Mail, you are then going to be subject to a huge and sustained attack," said Blair, who governed Britain from 1997 to 2007 after rebranding the Labour Party.

"Managing these forces was a major part of what you had to do and was difficult," said Blair.

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Blair says feared fight with Britain's media barons