Try searching CNN for "Snowden Interview" and there is NO mention of it. Same with MSNBC's search - nothing about this interview in the results.
Also, scroll down to user "Nostromo's" counter (claiming the media did cover the story) w/links and then my reply.
This kind of blatant dereliction of duty in US journalism (IMHO) presages the governments' plans for controlling the (M)essage on websites. One can only assume they have a turnkey solution to suppress submissions and comments on HN, Reddit, etc.
Support projects that attempt to combat censorship at the technological level. This is coming from someone who is working on my own* anti-censorship project. (I care more about the mission than the glory.) retroshare.sourceforge.net promises a great deal and looks OK from a mile-high view (except for mythical documentation). *check profile if interested
Also I had a video that was copied several times and wasn't automatically detected (that's only for high level partners). When I reported the copies for copyright they would generally be taken down in about a half hour.
What makes it more despicable: MSNBC is aggressively marketed in the image of progressive reform television.
To be clear - the US politician wasn't talking about the interview -- but rather the independent review committee's assessment of the meta data collection program.
MSNBC has had some good Snowden coverage over the longer weekend shows which are higher quality.
Their hourly shows each day are getting to be more and more garbage.
Chris Hayes had a fantastic long-form weekend show on MSNBC. Then they moved him to the hour format on a daily basis and his show went to garbage too as they have him pushing whatever the hype of the day is. And Rachel Maddow now has maybe one good show a month and the rest are just petty garbage ("oh look someone said a word wrong or misspelled something - let's talk about that for ten minutes")
What's crazy is most of their anchors are really smart and knowledgeable when you see them work freeform like in an interview. But start scripting them and giving them "must reads" and they all turn into blathering corporate idiots.
Yes, when Chris Hayes hosted "Up" it was a must watch each weekend for me. I watched about two episodes of his nightly show and couldn't stand it. Maybe we should try watching the new guy who took it over?
I guess it isn't about the competency of the host/crew but rather the fact that pushing out a show every night means that you must degrade the quality of your analysis, guests, and general information that you are reporting on.
The Congresswoman is Jane Harman. Ironically, she was wiretapped by the NSA in the early 2000's for allegedly trading lobbying favors with an agent of Israel, and she pissed and moaned about the NSA "violating her privacy." The Bush DOJ abruptly cancelled the investigation and the event got memory-holed by the media, and now she's a vigorous defender of NSA spying.
For anyone that thinks there is actually a problem here, what could the motivation or mechanism behind this "blackout" possibly be? Significant parts of the US media have been reporting pretty well on Snowden for a long time now.
The media discussion so far has centered around personal issues. Is Snowden a traitor, did he give secrets away to China/Russia, should he be assassinated, how is his girlfriend feeling, what did his father say, does he have a new job, etc. This interview puts the focus back where it should be: have intelligence agencies broken the law, have they taken justice into their own hands, have they been deceiving the executive branch, what balance should be struck between security and privacy, and so on. It also puts a human face on this man, who has never been given a chance to explain his motives.
No, this simply isn't true. Watch the front page of any daily newspaper - a large percentage of the articles are about new revelations or stories on the politics of a reform bill, and I have not seen a single one (in the last 4 months or so, when my memory is fresh) talking about Snowden personally.
This is just so much nonsense. What can they do, deny your press-pass?
so what
If the whitehouse denies access like that - cutting off some of their own ability to disseminate propaganda - the journalist can simply write on the subject anyway.
Even better, while other journalists are busy copying down the usual stuff, the "cut off" journalist can run the "government interfering with the Free Press" story. Loudly.
Denying "access" merely changes what the story will be about.
You are wrong. It's not the press pass it is access to the "unnamed high ranking official" that "leaks" you stories that sell your paper. Not only do you not have breaking stories you don't even have sourced stories. Imagine if WaPo had to write things like "the NYT is reporting...". That's a death knell.
And what do you complain about? That the government is not leaking you information anymore? That anonymous sources aren't taking your calls?
Those "anonymous sources" are included. Such sources will be glad to have important things reported on. Any that would cut you off for reporting the truth or deviating from their "story" are not a source of reliable information anyway.
What will be reported on? In a case like this, the run with the information they have.... from Snowden. If the government decides it doesn't want to tell it's side of the story (officially or unofficially through "sources"), then they let the accusations stand without a challenge.
Oh, and you may remember a time when journalists got their own information ("investigation"), instead of relying on PR offices.
I am constantly amazed how the government (and many big businesses) get away with this obvious bluff. There is simply no way they would withdraw from the public debate.
For which part? That a sophisticated, powerful entity is opposed to circumstances that will disadvantage them or that they will act to prevent other parties from causing those circumstances from occurring?
And here is quote from Pilger describing a specific admission of media manipulation by a major government:
[A former British official] described how the Foreign Office manipulated a willing media. "We would control access to the foreign secretary as a form of reward to journalists. If they were critical, we would not give them the goodies of trips around the world. We would feed them factoids of sanitised intelligence, or we'd freeze them out."
I was surprised to hear there was a blackout. The reddit commentary shows that it was picked up, albeit with lackluster coverage.
One important thing is still missing, though: Where is a link to the video that has a chance of persisting for some time? After all, this is a document of a certain historical significance, so it should be accessible.
Maybe I'm to meta-cynical, but the reason for that link not existing might just as well have something to do with a copyright-fuckup instead of an intelligence agency conspiracy.
Thank you and thanks also to the good people at archive.org.
The whole situation makes more sense now, given those links. I also just remembered that the original video of the interview was region-locked for Germany (where I live) on youtube, so residents of non-Germany recieved a "blocked in your country" message. Smells like somebody badly misjudged and sold territorially limited broadcast rights for the interview.
Yeah, read it. Brief mentions, parts taken out of the context?
That's supposed to NOT be a blackout?
This is one of the most discussed persons in America, a "national hero" to some, a "threat" to others, and they don't care to show the full interview itself?
They sure know how to milk other topics 24/7, with repeat showing, panels discussing them, etc...
Probably because these are mainstream news station and most people still don't know who Snowden is. And here's the kicker: they don't care who Snowden is or what he has to say. They just don't. It's a big deal for us, but it's an issue that has yet to surpass the unemployment rate and the declining economy as the chief concern for most Americans.
The result is the same -- information not getting to the people. It doesn't have to be a total lack of any news coverage for it to be a blackout.
If the intent is suppresing some news story (because lackluster coverage can also have other causes), then reduced coverage is a pretty effective way of creating a media blackout short of issuing direct censorship orders and preventing everybody from publishing anything at all.
The strategy is to control what the public discussion issues are --ie. what everybody on mass media is talking about--, not to stump every inner page single-column article or 30-second mention.
"
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Request forbidden by administrative rules.
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Found the comment by truncating the URL back to the main thread, though. Not sure why the direct URL to /cf1801o is being denied.
[back on topic]
Yah, the video, while not the usual "lets all copy/paste the AP or Reuters story as many places as possible", there HAVE been a bit of coverage.
If we're taking about suppressed stories, I'm still amazed at the utter lack of coverage of Binney/Drake's [1] amazing open letter to the president[2] that was published on Jan 7. Part of me wants to blame it on short attention spans and the usual celebrity worship; it only involves the OTHER whistleblowers, pre-Snowden, so I guess nobody cares.
I was able to find a very minor mention on Huffington Post in the week after it was published, and a few video interviews by Reason of Binney trying to promote the letter, and... that's it. (not counting the handful of "personal blog"-style articles that covered the story, of course)
1: signatures also include Loomis, Wiebe, McGovern, Ellsberg, ...
2: http://consortiumnews.com/2014/01/07/nsa-insiders-reveal-what-went-wrong/
errr - how much of that linked open letter is true. It states that NSA insiders had evidence that 9/11 attackers were monitored by NSA, calling AlQueda safe houses from the US to Yemen and shared nothing about it. and this was buried / covered up.
I hadn't heard of this letter before the parent comment's mention of it, but the names mentioned are NSA whistleblowers who might have had the knowledge and access to substantiate whatever claims they make.
The EFF has been supporting these former NSA agents' whistleblowing efforts for a while now. Also, Ellsberg - author of the Pentagon Papers - has signed it in support.
While it's not a character reference, it is worth observing that the rather dramatic efforts the NSA has gone though to threaten and prosecute these whistleblowers. You may be interested in watching this talk from 29c3 where Drake and Binney told their stories in their own words:
It's also the one that finally made this NSA mess make sense, with their description of THINTHREAD being dropped because it was too inexpensive. It's all about moving money to their contractor friends.
Given this, the title is super link-baity. Could a moderator update the title to "30 minute Snowden interview in Germany"? I still would have clicked through.
I worked in the media for umpteen years in the past. Anyone who thinks the US press colluded with the government to black out anything is flat out crazy.
They don't have to be in cahoots to black it out. The truth is far simpler: the advertisers and the majority of the staff don't like pro-snowden stories.
That worked out well for them didn't it? Ever hear of Watergate? And, in this day and age, when media scours the 'net for stories to tell, you honestly think not one news organization anywhere picked up on the video? Everyone ignored it? (As already shown, this story about a coverup is false.)
And you think I'm the one that doesn't know what he's talking about?
The media and the government collude to conceal important truths from the public, in the same sense that Coke and Pepsi collude to reduce consumption of tap water; which is to say, not at all, yet extremely effectively.
And see this link (German) for the explanation as to why this interview was not available in most non-German countries (including the UK) due to copyright licensing demands by the German interviewer: http://m.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/medien/edward-snowden-un....
Well that is interesting. I typically jump to Google News in response to such accusations to show a thread of stories on the subject 'being blacked out.' In this case..
Here is a screenshot for the blank results when the sources link is clicked: http://imgur.com/63dWPlw
I don't know what is a tailored result and what is not on sites, specially Google lately. Add in other quirks and you have an unreliable system of communication.
I also immediately searched the Times and found this as well :)
The reality is that MSNBC and CNN don't really cover "news", they cover things that interest the average person. The average person is interested in Justin Bieber gossip, not about spycraft and governmental overreaching. In that case, I wouldn't expect MSNBC and CNN to cover this.
If the Times didn't mention it at all, then I was going to be worried. The truly cynical would point out that this is a blog post rather than an actual article, but the quality of their blogs are generally very good, so I'm not going to complain. If you subscribe to the Times and don't read any of the blogs, you are missing out.
These links: a.) lip-service reporting that Snowden was-to-have an interview or b.) reduced the lengthy talk to an inconsequential soundbite.
The NYT Blog - 3 days late, is it that hard for such a "renowned" journalistic enterprise?
Wow! Props to the Associated Press for writing about something globally noteworthy [sarc.] in an article that few cared to carry or - God-forbid - elaborate upon. (ABC merely picked up the AP story.)
That's the very definition of a pathetic free press.
None of these links constitute actual coverage or equate to Cable air-time, where millions of baby boomers develop/refine their world-views.
Media reporting, on "backwater channels" (ie. Not in the 24/7 news cycle like Beiber's latest hooker or Cyrus' latest thing twerked upon) as far as the majority of the public is concerned, is now moving the goalposts?
"Yes probable citizen of an affected country, you may or may not have a right to support Snowden views on the public being informed, but it is too much to for you to complain when we don't use the powers we have to try to inform, like how we inform the public of the most mundane of things, instead of trying to influence public opinion."
"Only US _televised_ news sources either did not report with enough depth on the interview, did not report on it entirely, or gave a delayed report; the content of which is not terribly new or substantiated with evidence [1]"
One of these headlines is a short, snappier version that is considered click bait. All this coming from a source that promotes, among other things, the alleged (and widely debunked) link between autism/vaccines.
Color me skeptical, but when a news source bends the truth in order to grab attention, I tend to scrutinize it all the more.
Look, I support Snowden but this isn't journalism. This is hyperbole. Going to such extremes to "fight the system", to be the counter-weight to whatever scheming superpower there is, corrupts. So yes, I stand behind my original accusation that this is "moving the goal-posts". The headline claims US media blocked out the interview, but I find it rather easy to find US reports on this bit of news online. So, to re-examine the accusation, it's not true. US Media did _not_ black out the interview. So what now?
[1] He makes claims that the US spy agencies have been spying on corporations, but he does not elaborate on it. This is unusual for Snowden as he usually provides ample evidence to support his assertions. Don't you think that this would be a bigger deal if he had supplied the evidence to go along with that interview?
I feel our differences in opinion are arising from what has actually taken place (I would agree with your assessment), and the spirit of what has taken place (which is just as much bending the truth as what you says has taken place by Swann, but the it does not bend in favor for interests of the general public). So yes anyone adept can access the information online (the minority as far as population percentage is concerned, since one has to be more proactive and seek such information, which is naturally a subset of people who will take such actions and those who will not combined), but even the least adept of us (i.e. not actively seeking out such information in this context) will hear/be aware about nearly everything broadcasted on replay through traditional channels.
To address [1], in the Snowden interview, he explicitly states that he would rather leave it up to journalistic indiscretion to see what information about the topic is to be shared (I don't share that sentiment, so it makes me wonder too…, but I'm not a factor at all since I do not hold such information, so it doesn't matter here). Whether the information, of which about 1% has been released (and has thus far has made some public statements by various officials, which preceded the press reporting on the various topics in this subject, voided after reporting [Snowden singles out Obama and Clapper]), is shared with the public in a timely manor is another question it itself.
>Color me skeptical, but when a news source bends the truth in order to grab attention, I tend to scrutinize it all the more.
I do not think that any news source has a definitive hold on truth, so I think they all must be scrutinized, not just those that happen to espouse information upsetting to the status quo and their entrenched interests.
Right, I agree to an extent with that assessment. It would, in my mind, be more agreeable to say that the 24 hr news cycle was negligent and in dereliction of their duties as members of the free press to not report the story simply in the scope that it wouldn't generate enough viewers as, say, the Bieber thing. I don't believe there's complicity between the press and the US Govt which was (I believe) implied in the article.
But I still hold to the opinion that the coverage by mainstream press did garner enough attention from most people outside of the Internet. The Boston Globe, NYT, and the AP, covered the story.
Of course, those sources have a limited audience and I can't prove how many news outlets bought AP's story because I don't know how.
Edit: News media doesn't hold a monopoly on truth, but this was an exaggeration that can be easily refuted.
Forgive me for my initial sarcasm. You prove a good point but I don't fully agree.
That's fair. At least in our discussion we have shown that the situation is more nuanced than it appears at first glance because of many of the underlying facets involved.
In the end, it comes down to actions by individuals or groups of individuals to make things as they are and how they will be.
Myself, being aware of what more or less has been going on prior the Snowden leaks from previous wistleblowers and from previous events in history that set a precedent of the actions individuals/corporations/governments are willing to take with whatever capabilities available under such perceived or actual circumstances, I have decided on what role I want to take (and get hate mail for every day because I guess it's easier to send feedback to a company on what they're doing as opposed to criticizing one's government for doing the same thing in the shadows).
In addition, the video has been taken down almost immediately every time it’s posted on YouTube.
AFAIK, the German company that produced the interview didn't sell the international rights to the German broadcaster, which is also why the original video is geolocked to Germany. So I'd guess it's this company that's behind the YouTube takedowns.
It's even more absurd the international rights to the Interview are owned by CineCentrum a 100% subsidiary of Studio Hamburg which is completely owned by the NDR, a Member of the german ARD public broadcasting network.
The NDR says it only got the national rights to the video, while the international rights are still at CineCentrum. Originally the NDR didn't even see it necessary to publish the video undubbed to german.
Only after some heavy online protests they put the original version online, yet still geofenced to Germany.
I must say I'm becoming increasingly disappointed about archive.orgs lax copyright policies. Becoming a treasure trove of pirated material really eats its legitimacy in my eyes.
If Snowden didn't want limitations on distribution of his interview then he should have mandated the release to public domain as a condition for the interview. Instead he chose to give the interview to a entity willing to retain and reserve all rights, resulting limited exposure. You are free to disagree with that choice, but that does not give you right to overrule it.
edit: I might add that we already have The Piratebay as a place to rebel against the copyright system. I just feel that The Internet Archive is too valuable (as an archive of public-domain material) to be dragged down to that fight. I don't feel like it is too much to ask to keep the two segregated.
I think Snowden is probably being advised by lawyers to limit his communications to "official" journalist outlets, for his own protection. It's unfortunate, but in many countries journalists have more protections than regular citizens.
I guess they follow the usual DMCA dance, the data is uploaded by users after all.
The only thing I wonder is if they actually delete such files or hide them with a "first published on 2014-01-26, author John Doe" marker to unlock once copyright expired.
It might be easier to get hold of certain artefacts now than in 135 years (or whenever recently obtained copyrights actually will expire).
This is historically important material produced by a wholly owned subsidiary of a license-funded public broadcaster for a license-funded public broadcasting group. Of anything to complain about "lax copyright policies" and "becoming a treasure trove of pirated material" over, this would seem a particularly bad choice.
I sadly realize that this is a bad place to complain. But honestly I've encountered a significant amount of works of dubious copyright status (or clearly blatant copyright infringement) in the past months (and years), and this case kinda broke the proverbial camels back.
I probably should pick up blogging so that I could discuss these kinds of issues in a more neutral context, but so far HN feels more natural outlet for me.
I'm having trouble if the ARD (or parts of it) starts dicking around with copyright restrictions. They receive a huge amount of funding from mandatory payments of all German households (you can try to avoid that if you're a poor student or poor, period, but usually you're (supposed to be) paying - by law).
It's really close to a tax to pay for their content, their infrastructure. Which makes sense in a way for me, I do want broadcasters that don't need to rely on 'what the masses want' alone to pick their content, ending with Big Brother and brainless idiotic stuff everywhere.
But there's power and there's responsibility. If you take money from ~every~ citizen/household, then you better release that stuff with a decent license.
- not providing the original version without a lot of prodding
As for the rest of the comment: I don't know. The content's created. Why not set it free? I expect that for me/for locals, but I fail to see why you'd want to use geolocation to exclude others. Ever. The only cost at this point is bandwidth and by offering the content with a liberal license you could expect decent mirrors.
This is why it's time for a post-Google internet. No matter what you say about copyright, crucial videos like these are of high public interest and must be available to all individuals. Sadly the state of our current internet allows powerful interests to arbitrarily censor content, justifying their actions with copyright, or worse - 'protecting' children.
I don't understand your point. It says "The uploader has not made this video available in your country" for me, so it looks like ARD did that on purpose. They could have hosted that on any server and blocked you by IP address.
We have Fair Use in the US, which is the protection you seem to be grasping for, and while the concept is weaker in the EU, even with stronger protections it makes no logical sense to depend on the person who wants to (over) enforce their copyright to distribute their works freely under fair use. Even without any copyright at all, you still wouldn't be able to force them to distribute to everyone. You might as well mail them and ask for a copy, and, when they turn you down, call for a post-Postal-Service world.
You can, however, look to others to distribute the work, and as others have said below, the interview is available online[1]. If you think fair use in this case is important and someone tries to get the interview taken down from the Internet Archive, I suggest donating to hopefully get some good precedent behind them.
It seems clear that the virtual blackout of this insightful interview is yet another deliberate attempt to obfuscate the truth from the view of the American public. The media has continually attempted to shill the official government lies about mass domestic surveillance programs, justifying them as necessary to fight the “War on Terror”, while attempting to painting Mr. Snowden as a traitor.
Say what you want about the other claims of this article, this is pretty spot-on and should be the concern of all U.S. citizens (by virtue of, y'know, citizenship). This person worked for our government, and facilitated the release of huge amounts of classified information. This is Of Interest to everyone, whether you love him or hate him.
We need to keep our paranoia in check. That article is B.S. — wrong on all the verifiable points. And the rest is just random guesses.
I went and checked the German news (I'm American but lived in Germany 5 years, and am still fluent) and it turns out that ARD screwed the pooch on this one: the two most respected media outlets in Germany are pissed off and have written about ARD's shoddy editing and refusal to provide easy access to the full interview. Here are my translations for the titles:
And then this article all about how ARD at first would only put the interview out with the German dubbing. Then, under pressure, ARD released it with the original sound. But, wouldn't make it accessible overseas...
The US media doesn't get a pass -- especially print media or long-form web articles on nytimes.com, etc, which shouldn't have concerned themselves with rights to video (see my response to 'nostromo'), but I was unaware of the copyright/licensing issues surrounding the interview until you brought them to light. I am more enraged by the explicit avoidance of the topic by the US media. Thanks for your comment
Because people want to see them. People (as in the general public) really don't care about yet-another Snowden interview, so news outlets aren't going to shell out the big bucks.
Thank you for taking the time to scope this out. Out of all the posts on this thread, very few people have taken the time to do the research, could be the language barrier of course.
I believe this is due to stupid copyright issues, not anything particular sinister by the US media. I have approximately zero problem pirating it, so http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f93_1390833151
I highly recommend watching this interview, in which Snowden clearly explains his motives for doing what he did and describes the scope of the data collection carried out by the NSA and its allied foreign intelligence agencies. While I've followed this story quite extensively, this is first time I've actually watched an interview with Snowden, and I was very impressed with his intelligence, thoughtfulness, depth of knowledge and eloquence. (The interview is 30 minutes long.)
Nah, the time has passed for stuff like that. It's time to wait for a reset. The intelligent people tried to warn the rest of us long ago, no one cared then, fuck the rest of you now that it's too late. I'll only do anything to speed up the reset... and I doubt the rest of 'you' will be ready for that until things have once again gotten so bad that something else will needed for success.
#edit hellban request denied then, I guess. Thanks idiots, it's your site afterall.
God, someone can post 'Seriously?' and get a hellban and I cannot? Look in the mirror you sad fucks. I still have 312 "points" from you idiots. Try harder.
Better to just make them feel 'naturally' unwelcome in this sick ecosphere of over-socialized nerds? Systems of re-enforcement like this are akin to the worst kind of intellectual inter-breeding.
The article was fantastic and the depth of his history to serve the USA and to help the country just shows that he truly believes that what he did was for the best of the public interest.
I also liked the bit about Obama challenging him to come back to court, and his smart rebuttal.
I was really disappointed at the interview. I feel like the interviewer really just spent their time throwing softballs for Snowden, instead of asking him at least some real questions (why leak things that were obviously within the domain of par-for-the-course intelligence collection? Comments on the faux outrage by Brazil, Germany, and company? Why not hit harder at intelligence services of other countries, despite the fact that he's shown that he has the knowledge?).
At the very least it would give him a platform to defend himself from the criticisms he receives (instead of preaching to the choir) and if he were to flub on a question TV stations could at least replay that all the time (no more complaining about a "blackout" due to lack of anything interesting).
I'm sorry but an interview that is basically rehashing everything said before, without even attempting to take a critical view, is not interesting
It's quite clear from the interview that he doesn't want to put himself into the position of revealing information himself, rather to funnel it all through journalistic sources.
Furthermore it would compromise his position that his main motivation was to inform his own citizenry if he starts commenting explicitly on foreign intelligence agencies.
I might be wrong, but didn't he say that he did do filtering of some of the info before handing it to journalists? In that case the information revealed is already partly a statement on his part, because he chose not to filter it. He can't have his cake and eat it on this one.
> I might be wrong, but didn't he say that he did do filtering of some of the info before handing it to journalists?
He did say that.
He even went further and compared his actions to Manning's, making clear that he [Snowden] had been careful to be very selective in what he copied out of NSA.
Whether stuff is being filtered further by journalists is irrelevant, if we're seeing it on the news it's because Snowden claimed that it is important enough for the American public to see as to outweigh his oath and the possibility of damage to the U.S.
Was this the interview where Snowden said that "not all spying is bad" and that "intelligence agencies do have a role to play"? That targeted spying programs should suffice for the needs of national intel agencies while mass surveillance is bad?
Because somehow that story didn't seem to gain as much traction. Of course, nor did it stop Snowden from leaking details on targeted spying programs too.
For all living in the US, proof the story-teller wrong by linking to this video on liveleak on their social media and suggesting their friends and family look at the full 30 minutes interview.
Getting to the truth is about hearing both sides of a story, so anyone not willing to listen or let others listen to Snowdens story is part of the problem.
Complete made up speculation. I'm in the UK, read & watch the news everyday, and didn't know this interview was happening. It's also the first time I've seen it mentioned online. It wasn't promoted properly. Re: YouTube takedowns - wouldn't it be the producer of the programme taking those videos down? You make it sound like the USG is removing videos from YouTube.
I'm in the UK, read & watch the news everyday, and didn't know this interview was happening. It's also the first time I've seen it mentioned online. It wasn't promoted properly.
It's news, not a brand of cereal. In theory journalists are supposed to occaisionally go and get stuff, otherwise they may as well fire them all and just get a photocopier and put marketing press releases through it. (In some papers I suspect this has already happened.)
It's not news because no one cares. You guys all live in a bubble where you think this is the most important issue in the world right now. Maybe it is. But, honestly, no one cares.
Then why has it been all over the news? Why has the President of the United States discussed it publicly on multiple occasions? People obviously do care.
And the media has been reporting on that, because that's what matters. It's out of Snowden's hands now, which is why front-page news stories tend to focus less on him and more on actual policy details, and the politics of a reform bill.
The media won't report on a Snowden interview, because as bad a state as U.S journalism is in, they haven't yet stooped so low to confuse celebrity-stalking with actual journalism, and they know to keep them separate.
Other HNers 'dogwatcher', '_stephan', 'rdl' - have brought to light related copyright issues -- which might explain (in part) the lack of coverage on Cable media stations and have discredited the link. That said, the content of the interview was substantial and of eminent importance (newsworthy) for all US citizens.
Print media or long-form web articles on nytimes.com, etc, shouldn't have concerned themselves with rights to video (see my response to 'nostromo').
I was unaware of the copyright/licensing issues when I made the submission.
If you click through the Newshour link provided... it's a re-tread (a three sentences long mention) of the same AP story provided.
The links provided thus far in this thread (of which there are very few): either a.) are reporting that Snowden was-to-have an interview (not discussing the content therein) or b.) reduced a substantial interview to an inconsequential soundbite.
The NYT Blog - a blog post 3 days late.
Major super-duper props to the AP for writing about something globally noteworthy [sarc., as it's their mission to write about everything] in an article that few mainstream sources even carried.
There has been little (if any) meaningful discourse of Snowden's interview in mainstream US media, and, despite the video copyright entanglements - the coverage has amounted to what I'd call a "black out." (The article linked to is shit - as 'rdl' and 'dogcatcher' brought to light - but the point remains clear.)
All of this, despite the fact that the topic matter of the interview concerns the future of the internet -- arguably the greatest invention in the history of man.
The AP feed is carried by every major and minor newspaper in the country. The point of the feed is that smaller articles can be written once and disseminated throughout the country.
Snowden doing yet another interview isn't very newsworthy. He's done interviews before, and he'll do them again. Based on the transcripts of the interview (see other posts), there isn't anything new in this interview. All in all...it's not news and the only reason it even got written about was because its Snowden.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 219 ms ] threadAlso, scroll down to user "Nostromo's" counter (claiming the media did cover the story) w/links and then my reply.
This kind of blatant dereliction of duty in US journalism (IMHO) presages the governments' plans for controlling the (M)essage on websites. One can only assume they have a turnkey solution to suppress submissions and comments on HN, Reddit, etc.
Support projects that attempt to combat censorship at the technological level. This is coming from someone who is working on my own* anti-censorship project. (I care more about the mission than the glory.) retroshare.sourceforge.net promises a great deal and looks OK from a mile-high view (except for mythical documentation). *check profile if interested
Also any reason why it wasn't bought and uploaded to other major american media outlets?
If it was an "acceptable" political story, it would be all over, not merely on archive.org.
Also I had a video that was copied several times and wasn't automatically detected (that's only for high level partners). When I reported the copies for copyright they would generally be taken down in about a half hour.
They interrupted that interview for some important breaking news.
Justin Bieber had been arrested for drag racing his car.
http://youtu.be/GH68bSJXGE8
To be clear - the US politician wasn't talking about the interview -- but rather the independent review committee's assessment of the meta data collection program.
Their hourly shows each day are getting to be more and more garbage.
Chris Hayes had a fantastic long-form weekend show on MSNBC. Then they moved him to the hour format on a daily basis and his show went to garbage too as they have him pushing whatever the hype of the day is. And Rachel Maddow now has maybe one good show a month and the rest are just petty garbage ("oh look someone said a word wrong or misspelled something - let's talk about that for ten minutes")
What's crazy is most of their anchors are really smart and knowledgeable when you see them work freeform like in an interview. But start scripting them and giving them "must reads" and they all turn into blathering corporate idiots.
I guess it isn't about the competency of the host/crew but rather the fact that pushing out a show every night means that you must degrade the quality of your analysis, guests, and general information that you are reporting on.
Also, it's worth noting how much more popular FOX News is.
For anyone that thinks there is actually a problem here, what could the motivation or mechanism behind this "blackout" possibly be? Significant parts of the US media have been reporting pretty well on Snowden for a long time now.
Journalists depend upon access to government officials to report news on government actions..
No Access to those officials virtually decimates both the Media firm income and the journalists income
so what
If the whitehouse denies access like that - cutting off some of their own ability to disseminate propaganda - the journalist can simply write on the subject anyway.
Even better, while other journalists are busy copying down the usual stuff, the "cut off" journalist can run the "government interfering with the Free Press" story. Loudly.
Denying "access" merely changes what the story will be about.
And what do you complain about? That the government is not leaking you information anymore? That anonymous sources aren't taking your calls?
One is deliberately leaking the story line that the administration wants published, but for whatever reason doesn't want to be directly quoted on.
The other is the conscientious leaker, who wants to get the truth out but fears for job/safety if he went "on the record."
The former can be directed to "leak" only to favored media outlets. The latter cannot.
What will be reported on? In a case like this, the run with the information they have.... from Snowden. If the government decides it doesn't want to tell it's side of the story (officially or unofficially through "sources"), then they let the accusations stand without a challenge.
Oh, and you may remember a time when journalists got their own information ("investigation"), instead of relying on PR offices.
I am constantly amazed how the government (and many big businesses) get away with this obvious bluff. There is simply no way they would withdraw from the public debate.
The government uses implicit threats of retaliation as deterrence.
You made an assertion. Back it up.
That the government doesn't like Snowden being cast in a favorable light or that it uses mechanisms to deter people from doing so?
A good place to start for the latter is chapter 1.3 of "Manufacturing Consent"
http://www.scribd.com/doc/190262164/Manufacturing-consent
[A former British official] described how the Foreign Office manipulated a willing media. "We would control access to the foreign secretary as a form of reward to journalists. If they were critical, we would not give them the goodies of trips around the world. We would feed them factoids of sanitised intelligence, or we'd freeze them out."
One important thing is still missing, though: Where is a link to the video that has a chance of persisting for some time? After all, this is a document of a certain historical significance, so it should be accessible.
Maybe I'm to meta-cynical, but the reason for that link not existing might just as well have something to do with a copyright-fuckup instead of an intelligence agency conspiracy.
> the full interview is here: https://archive.org/details/snowden_interview_en
Very good quality and on archive.org.
The whole situation makes more sense now, given those links. I also just remembered that the original video of the interview was region-locked for Germany (where I live) on youtube, so residents of non-Germany recieved a "blocked in your country" message. Smells like somebody badly misjudged and sold territorially limited broadcast rights for the interview.
That's supposed to NOT be a blackout?
This is one of the most discussed persons in America, a "national hero" to some, a "threat" to others, and they don't care to show the full interview itself?
They sure know how to milk other topics 24/7, with repeat showing, panels discussing them, etc...
It's not like what's important makes the news -- or that media are free to play whatever they like.
If the intent is suppresing some news story (because lackluster coverage can also have other causes), then reduced coverage is a pretty effective way of creating a media blackout short of issuing direct censorship orders and preventing everybody from publishing anything at all.
The strategy is to control what the public discussion issues are --ie. what everybody on mass media is talking about--, not to stump every inner page single-column article or 30-second mention.
Found the comment by truncating the URL back to the main thread, though. Not sure why the direct URL to /cf1801o is being denied.
[back on topic]
Yah, the video, while not the usual "lets all copy/paste the AP or Reuters story as many places as possible", there HAVE been a bit of coverage.
If we're taking about suppressed stories, I'm still amazed at the utter lack of coverage of Binney/Drake's [1] amazing open letter to the president[2] that was published on Jan 7. Part of me wants to blame it on short attention spans and the usual celebrity worship; it only involves the OTHER whistleblowers, pre-Snowden, so I guess nobody cares.
I was able to find a very minor mention on Huffington Post in the week after it was published, and a few video interviews by Reason of Binney trying to promote the letter, and... that's it. (not counting the handful of "personal blog"-style articles that covered the story, of course)
that's a hell of an accusation
The EFF has been supporting these former NSA agents' whistleblowing efforts for a while now. Also, Ellsberg - author of the Pentagon Papers - has signed it in support.
While it's not a character reference, it is worth observing that the rather dramatic efforts the NSA has gone though to threaten and prosecute these whistleblowers. You may be interested in watching this talk from 29c3 where Drake and Binney told their stories in their own words:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDM3MqHln8U
And yes, it's a hell of an accusation.
It's also the one that finally made this NSA mess make sense, with their description of THINTHREAD being dropped because it was too inexpensive. It's all about moving money to their contractor friends.
The truth is far simpler: the German interviewer wants more money for foreign rights to the interview than U.S. stations are willing to pay.
btw, what is your source for "the majority of the staff don't like pro-snowden stories."?
And you think I'm the one that doesn't know what he's talking about?
CNN covered the story here: http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/24/world/europe/russia-snowden/.
ABC News: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/german-tv-snowden...
CBS: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/snowden-nsa-conducts-industrial-...
Fox News (AP): http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/01/26/german-tv-snowden-sa....
And see this link (German) for the explanation as to why this interview was not available in most non-German countries (including the UK) due to copyright licensing demands by the German interviewer: http://m.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/medien/edward-snowden-un....
That said I don't the interview in its entirety conforms with the style of content shown on US networks.
Shows some search results: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&authuser=0...
Clicking on the '73 news sources' link results in blank thread: https://news.google.com/news?ncl=dePJixL6H8f9VzMIt-2rs1GZLI9...
I don't know what is a tailored result and what is not on sites, specially Google lately. Add in other quirks and you have an unreliable system of communication.
It is so heavily censored, sorry, "personalized" and "localized" that you will get entirely different results depending on who and where you are.
josh_fyi and I seem to have had the same search result simultaneously.
The reality is that MSNBC and CNN don't really cover "news", they cover things that interest the average person. The average person is interested in Justin Bieber gossip, not about spycraft and governmental overreaching. In that case, I wouldn't expect MSNBC and CNN to cover this.
If the Times didn't mention it at all, then I was going to be worried. The truly cynical would point out that this is a blog post rather than an actual article, but the quality of their blogs are generally very good, so I'm not going to complain. If you subscribe to the Times and don't read any of the blogs, you are missing out.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/snowden-nsa-conducts-industrial-...
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/german-tv-snow...
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/29/video-from-snowd...
Just search "ARD snowden" on Google News. Not front page, but not hidden either.
Giving the interview right around the State of the Union probably didn't help it get any attention in the US.
The NYT Blog - 3 days late, is it that hard for such a "renowned" journalistic enterprise?
Wow! Props to the Associated Press for writing about something globally noteworthy [sarc.] in an article that few cared to carry or - God-forbid - elaborate upon. (ABC merely picked up the AP story.)
That's the very definition of a pathetic free press.
None of these links constitute actual coverage or equate to Cable air-time, where millions of baby boomers develop/refine their world-views.
"Yes probable citizen of an affected country, you may or may not have a right to support Snowden views on the public being informed, but it is too much to for you to complain when we don't use the powers we have to try to inform, like how we inform the public of the most mundane of things, instead of trying to influence public opinion."
"US Media blacks out snowden interview"
as
"Only US _televised_ news sources either did not report with enough depth on the interview, did not report on it entirely, or gave a delayed report; the content of which is not terribly new or substantiated with evidence [1]"
One of these headlines is a short, snappier version that is considered click bait. All this coming from a source that promotes, among other things, the alleged (and widely debunked) link between autism/vaccines.
Color me skeptical, but when a news source bends the truth in order to grab attention, I tend to scrutinize it all the more.
Look, I support Snowden but this isn't journalism. This is hyperbole. Going to such extremes to "fight the system", to be the counter-weight to whatever scheming superpower there is, corrupts. So yes, I stand behind my original accusation that this is "moving the goal-posts". The headline claims US media blocked out the interview, but I find it rather easy to find US reports on this bit of news online. So, to re-examine the accusation, it's not true. US Media did _not_ black out the interview. So what now?
[1] He makes claims that the US spy agencies have been spying on corporations, but he does not elaborate on it. This is unusual for Snowden as he usually provides ample evidence to support his assertions. Don't you think that this would be a bigger deal if he had supplied the evidence to go along with that interview?
To address [1], in the Snowden interview, he explicitly states that he would rather leave it up to journalistic indiscretion to see what information about the topic is to be shared (I don't share that sentiment, so it makes me wonder too…, but I'm not a factor at all since I do not hold such information, so it doesn't matter here). Whether the information, of which about 1% has been released (and has thus far has made some public statements by various officials, which preceded the press reporting on the various topics in this subject, voided after reporting [Snowden singles out Obama and Clapper]), is shared with the public in a timely manor is another question it itself.
>Color me skeptical, but when a news source bends the truth in order to grab attention, I tend to scrutinize it all the more.
I do not think that any news source has a definitive hold on truth, so I think they all must be scrutinized, not just those that happen to espouse information upsetting to the status quo and their entrenched interests.
But I still hold to the opinion that the coverage by mainstream press did garner enough attention from most people outside of the Internet. The Boston Globe, NYT, and the AP, covered the story.
Of course, those sources have a limited audience and I can't prove how many news outlets bought AP's story because I don't know how.
Edit: News media doesn't hold a monopoly on truth, but this was an exaggeration that can be easily refuted.
Forgive me for my initial sarcasm. You prove a good point but I don't fully agree.
In the end, it comes down to actions by individuals or groups of individuals to make things as they are and how they will be.
Myself, being aware of what more or less has been going on prior the Snowden leaks from previous wistleblowers and from previous events in history that set a precedent of the actions individuals/corporations/governments are willing to take with whatever capabilities available under such perceived or actual circumstances, I have decided on what role I want to take (and get hate mail for every day because I guess it's easier to send feedback to a company on what they're doing as opposed to criticizing one's government for doing the same thing in the shadows).
AFAIK, the German company that produced the interview didn't sell the international rights to the German broadcaster, which is also why the original video is geolocked to Germany. So I'd guess it's this company that's behind the YouTube takedowns.
The NDR says it only got the national rights to the video, while the international rights are still at CineCentrum. Originally the NDR didn't even see it necessary to publish the video undubbed to german. Only after some heavy online protests they put the original version online, yet still geofenced to Germany.
http://www.dwdl.de/nachrichten/44424/nach_kritik_ndr_veroeff...
The transcript is offically available here: http://www.ndr.de/ratgeber/netzwelt/snowden277_page-1.html
1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GlYh58cxKY (Interview with German translation)
2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x38jkFlPeg (Interview in English)
Do they work for anybody else?
Can you download it and torrent it?
To each their own, I suppose.
edit: I might add that we already have The Piratebay as a place to rebel against the copyright system. I just feel that The Internet Archive is too valuable (as an archive of public-domain material) to be dragged down to that fight. I don't feel like it is too much to ask to keep the two segregated.
The only thing I wonder is if they actually delete such files or hide them with a "first published on 2014-01-26, author John Doe" marker to unlock once copyright expired.
It might be easier to get hold of certain artefacts now than in 135 years (or whenever recently obtained copyrights actually will expire).
I love the irony in this flawed line of thinking here.
For one, few historians run torture camps and assassination units.
I probably should pick up blogging so that I could discuss these kinds of issues in a more neutral context, but so far HN feels more natural outlet for me.
It's really close to a tax to pay for their content, their infrastructure. Which makes sense in a way for me, I do want broadcasters that don't need to rely on 'what the masses want' alone to pick their content, ending with Big Brother and brainless idiotic stuff everywhere.
But there's power and there's responsibility. If you take money from ~every~ citizen/household, then you better release that stuff with a decent license.
Most things disappear from their websites after 7 days, which is a "compromise" they worked out with the private media corporations.
- not showing this prominently enough
- not providing the original version without a lot of prodding
As for the rest of the comment: I don't know. The content's created. Why not set it free? I expect that for me/for locals, but I fail to see why you'd want to use geolocation to exclude others. Ever. The only cost at this point is bandwidth and by offering the content with a liberal license you could expect decent mirrors.
From: http://www.liveleak.com/ll_embed?f=e2ce8368acfc
Length: 85151797 (81M) [video/mp4]
Right-Click & Save As... http://edge.liveleak.com/80281E/ll_a_s/2014/Jan/27/LiveLeak-...
Thanks, though, got it downloaded.
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:da801929f47900e5d64d20601c5f00001f26bd57&dn=Snowden%5FInterview.mp4
We have Fair Use in the US, which is the protection you seem to be grasping for, and while the concept is weaker in the EU, even with stronger protections it makes no logical sense to depend on the person who wants to (over) enforce their copyright to distribute their works freely under fair use. Even without any copyright at all, you still wouldn't be able to force them to distribute to everyone. You might as well mail them and ask for a copy, and, when they turn you down, call for a post-Postal-Service world.
You can, however, look to others to distribute the work, and as others have said below, the interview is available online[1]. If you think fair use in this case is important and someone tries to get the interview taken down from the Internet Archive, I suggest donating to hopefully get some good precedent behind them.
[1] https://archive.org/details/snowden_interview_en
Say what you want about the other claims of this article, this is pretty spot-on and should be the concern of all U.S. citizens (by virtue of, y'know, citizenship). This person worked for our government, and facilitated the release of huge amounts of classified information. This is Of Interest to everyone, whether you love him or hate him.
I went and checked the German news (I'm American but lived in Germany 5 years, and am still fluent) and it turns out that ARD screwed the pooch on this one: the two most respected media outlets in Germany are pissed off and have written about ARD's shoddy editing and refusal to provide easy access to the full interview. Here are my translations for the titles:
Der Spiegel "ARD relegates Snowden interview to the middle of the night" http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/ard-versendet-sno...
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung ("FAZ") "The Snowden interview is going around the world ... or not? http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/medien/edward-snowden-...
Now, the Spiegel linked to ARD's mini-site for Snowden stuff, which claims to have the full video and full transcript in English: http://www.ndr.de/ratgeber/netzwelt/snowdeninterview101.html
And then this article all about how ARD at first would only put the interview out with the German dubbing. Then, under pressure, ARD released it with the original sound. But, wouldn't make it accessible overseas...
Der Spiegel http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/tv/ndr-veroeffentlicht-snowden-...
They usually pay millions for some pictures with an ape and some prominent person, or for photos of an enhanced ass married to some other guy.
#edit hellban request denied then, I guess. Thanks idiots, it's your site afterall.
I also liked the bit about Obama challenging him to come back to court, and his smart rebuttal.
At the very least it would give him a platform to defend himself from the criticisms he receives (instead of preaching to the choir) and if he were to flub on a question TV stations could at least replay that all the time (no more complaining about a "blackout" due to lack of anything interesting).
I'm sorry but an interview that is basically rehashing everything said before, without even attempting to take a critical view, is not interesting
Furthermore it would compromise his position that his main motivation was to inform his own citizenry if he starts commenting explicitly on foreign intelligence agencies.
He did say that.
He even went further and compared his actions to Manning's, making clear that he [Snowden] had been careful to be very selective in what he copied out of NSA.
Whether stuff is being filtered further by journalists is irrelevant, if we're seeing it on the news it's because Snowden claimed that it is important enough for the American public to see as to outweigh his oath and the possibility of damage to the U.S.
How?
Edit: I found a transcript. http://www.ndr.de/ratgeber/netzwelt/snowden277_page-1.html
Because somehow that story didn't seem to gain as much traction. Of course, nor did it stop Snowden from leaking details on targeted spying programs too.
Getting to the truth is about hearing both sides of a story, so anyone not willing to listen or let others listen to Snowdens story is part of the problem.
https://archive.org/details/snowden_interview_en
It's news, not a brand of cereal. In theory journalists are supposed to occaisionally go and get stuff, otherwise they may as well fire them all and just get a photocopier and put marketing press releases through it. (In some papers I suspect this has already happened.)
The media won't report on a Snowden interview, because as bad a state as U.S journalism is in, they haven't yet stooped so low to confuse celebrity-stalking with actual journalism, and they know to keep them separate.
Print media or long-form web articles on nytimes.com, etc, shouldn't have concerned themselves with rights to video (see my response to 'nostromo').
I was unaware of the copyright/licensing issues when I made the submission.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/what-were-watching-sunda...
but obviously cannot rebroadcast the interview unless ARD gave permission.
AP also mentions it http://bigstory.ap.org/article/german-tv-snowden-says-nsa-al...
The links provided thus far in this thread (of which there are very few): either a.) are reporting that Snowden was-to-have an interview (not discussing the content therein) or b.) reduced a substantial interview to an inconsequential soundbite.
The NYT Blog - a blog post 3 days late.
Major super-duper props to the AP for writing about something globally noteworthy [sarc., as it's their mission to write about everything] in an article that few mainstream sources even carried.
There has been little (if any) meaningful discourse of Snowden's interview in mainstream US media, and, despite the video copyright entanglements - the coverage has amounted to what I'd call a "black out." (The article linked to is shit - as 'rdl' and 'dogcatcher' brought to light - but the point remains clear.)
All of this, despite the fact that the topic matter of the interview concerns the future of the internet -- arguably the greatest invention in the history of man.
Snowden doing yet another interview isn't very newsworthy. He's done interviews before, and he'll do them again. Based on the transcripts of the interview (see other posts), there isn't anything new in this interview. All in all...it's not news and the only reason it even got written about was because its Snowden.