09.30.11
Posted in Site News at 12:43 pm by Guest Editorial Team
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Corporate hardliners in the Senate are rushing to push through a measure to give phone and cable companies absolute, unrestricted power over the Internet. Called a “resolution of disapproval,” this measure would destroy all existing Net Neutrality protections and strip the FCC of its authority to protect Internet users – letting companies block our right to speak freely, connect with one another and share information on the Internet. We need just 51 votes in the Senate to stop this free speech-killing measure in its tracks. Take action now to stand up for online freedom.
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Posted in Site News at 10:16 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: How to get particular types of news before this site does and a call for help from the readers/contributors community
TECHRIGHTS deals with some particular topics such as Comes vs Microsoft as time-insensitive tasks which need to be documented sooner or later. Cablegate, Gates Monitor, and several other such topics are among these. For those who wish to stay abreast, blogs like Seattle Education and Gates Keepers are ones we recommend. Recently, the Guest Editorial Team spent time indexing those, eventually coming up with the following short summaries:
Seattle Education Chronological
2011
- 01/31 – Firing teachers. Seattle Education warns about Washington state Senate Bill 5399, which proposes to fire teachers in mass layoffs based on unfair and poorly thought out performance metrics. They point to a Great Lakes Study which shows that the Gates Foundation evaluation methods are seriously flawed Wisconsin and Michigan schools have suffered serious state level power grabs and mass layoffs of teachers. From the Great Lakes report:
[the authors] found the Gates Foundation’s MET report to be based on flawed research and predetermined conclusions. … the [Gates Foundation] MET report draws conclusions that are not supported by its own facts, with some data in the report pointing “in the opposite direction” from what is indicated in its “poorly-supported conclusions.”
Another study is also cited.
- 01/31 – Gateskeeper praises New York Times and Financial Times articles mildly critical of Gates Foundation Polio efforts
“Bill Gates’s obsession with polio is distorting priorities in other critical BMGF areas. Global health does not depend on polio eradication.” (The initials are for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.)… The skeptics acknowledge that they are arguing for accepting more paralysis and death as the price of shifting that $1 billion to vaccines and other measures that prevent millions of deaths from pneumonia, diarrhoea, measles, meningitis and malaria.
While the article points out minor factual mistakes Gates makes, it is strange that Gates is given an equal voice and credibility as polio victims and successful epidemiologist who are called “cynical” “skeptics”.
- 02/01 – Seattle Education reports a five community organization vote of no confidence in Broad Academy graduate Brizzard, Superintendent of Rochester, NY schools. Bizzard was fired but went on to take over Chicago’s schools. The vote of no confidence complains of an oppressive environment for children, preference for charter schools and “top down” management style that removes parent and teacher control. The Gates Foundation and the Broad Foundation work together to bring these things on all schools.
- 02/02 – Shameless self promotion. Gateskeepers laments BBC medical correspondent’s uncritical promotion of Gates Foundation immunization efforts by “fawning” over Melinda Gates. Techrights has pointed out the conflicts between the foundations stated mission and investments in big oil and tobacco.
- 02/02 – Seattle Education documents a expensive proposed restructuring designed to eliminate Gates Foundation opposition leader Randy Dorn and promote a charter school champion, Ben Austin.
- 02/02 – Gatekeeper shows that Bill Gates has no respect for tenure but reads it wrong. Mr. Gates does not seriously suggest tenure for fast food employees, he wants to treat university professors like fast food employees, newspaper editors and other people he considers disposable.
- 02/03 – Ruining Science by Proxy. Gates Foundation funded Good smears leading epidemiologist, Richard Horton and Donald Henderson, as contentious, unethical bureaucrats because they disagreed with the Foundation’s emphasis on polio.
- 02/03 – Freakanomics reports a Stanford and other studies that show the charter schools set up by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, and the Walton Family Foundation mostly (83%) do worse than public schools and none do better. Merit pay and standardized test scores failed to promote learning in Chicago and New York. At least one school in New York has done better doing exactly the opposite, respecting teachers and students alike.
- 02/04 – Interviewed on Al Jazeera English, Bill Gates promotes himself as a “health expert” and Melinda Gates acts as if she has a large network of friends in African villages that both know of and like what Gates is doing.
- – Bill Gates embarrasses himself by misinterpreting a murky IQ study based on a poor interpretation by the Economist. Mr. Gates simplifies it as, “national worm burden causes national stupidity.” An interesting correlation seems to be demonstrated between infectious disease burden and IQ, “when temperature, distance from Africa, gross domestic product per capita and several measures of education are controlled for,” but the entire concept of IQ has been questioned and it is hard to take a paper seriously which notes, “average IQ correlated significantly with average skin darkness.”
- 02/04 Sue p. of Parents Across America summarizes the damage done to educators and schools by Gates, Walton and Broad [GWB] as they seek return on investment in charter schools around the US.
- 06/16 – Washington state immunization rates are the worst in the US, with 6.2% not immunized. Bill Gates promoted a law to force “full immunization” for kindergarten. This is OK as long as Gates is not self dealing to make a profit selling needless immunizations. Supposed outbreaks of Whooping cough and measles are alarming. Gateskeepers finds irony in the low rate of immunization in Washington after Gates has spent billions on controversial polio and malaria programs.
Those who are willing to help Techrights keep on top of the news, please do get in touch. █
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Posted in Apple, Bill Gates, Microsoft at 9:49 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Original photo by Matthew Yohe, modified by Boycott Novell
Summary: Recent articles of interest about corporations and plutocrats seeking to take the education system away from ordinary people, including teachers
THE EDUCATION system teaches the next generation rights and wrongs, indoctrinating kids by shaping their perceptions and thus their behaviour. It is an obligatory tax-funded system because it is essential for a uniform society that thinks alike and obeys orders. Whose orders? Those in power of course. It has always been the case that the rich and powerful passed their own ideology not only to their children but also to other people’s children, to the extent that they can afford.
We are appreciative of the Seattle Education blog, which is run by teachers to counter the attack on schools — the attack by the rich who want to turn teachers into their slaves. In one recent blog post we learned a little about Bill Gates’ role in this:
* What is your opinion of wealthy individuals and foundations backed by those individuals offering money to a school district and thus altering the focus of that school district? For example, the Gates funded Seattle Foundation provided money to pay for the expense to have TFA, Inc. in our district for the first year even though the majority of teachers and parents did not want to have TFA, Inc. in Seattle. Where would you draw the line between an individual determining the fate of our school system and a more democratic process?
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The Ed Reform movement that is being furthered by Gates, TFA, Broad and other non-profits is a takeover of public education that has led us in the wrong direction. We need a new school board that will restructure control of the district so that it is exclusively shared by the stakeholders, not powerful special interests acting through proxies.
Another blog post from the same site says:
And “values”? What does that mean? Whether we value public education or not? Whether we value the democratic process or would rather have mayoral control and a lack of transparency that charter schools enjoy while making large profits? That we value our teachers who are part of our school communities rather than a TFA recruit who might be with us for two years and has no teaching experience? That we refer to teachers as teachers and not as “human capital” as NCTQ, LEV and others have referred to the human beings who show up every day doing their best to educate our children while at the same time becoming hemmed in more and more with less and less in terms of support and resources? What are your values Ms. Munn? Receiving a nice pay check by way of Bill Gates, et al? Are you truly with our community or just for the betterment of your own career up the ladder of privatization?
The authorship loves Weil’s term “philanthropirates”, which relates to this other post that says:”Formed in think tanks, by the likes of philanthropirates like Bill Gates, ‘double speak’ is a form of mental discipline whose goal, desirable and necessary to all of those in power, is to be able to believe in two contradictory truths at the same time. Also known as ‘cognitive dissonance’ double speak lies behind the ability of those in power to formulate and thus manage perceptions through the use of language. The ‘Injustice System’ in America is the ‘Justice System’; ‘inheritance tax (for the lucky 1%) is called the ‘death tax’; the Secretary of Defense is really the Secretary of War; the War on Drugs is actually the distribution of drugs; torture is enhanced interrogation while permanent war is is clothed in the language of permanent peace.”
Going back to the Seattle Education blog, a more recent and very long blog post asks: “What is your opinion of wealthy individuals and foundations backed by those individuals offering money to a school district and thus altering the focus of that school district? For example, the Gates funded Seattle Foundation provided money to pay for the expense to have TFA, Inc. in our district for the first year even though the majority of teachers and parents did not want to have TFA, Inc. in Seattle. Where would you draw the line between an individual determining the fate of our school system and a more democratic process? [...] We commit to this freeze for a year and use that time to take stock of what we have and where we need to go. “We” are the people of Seattle, without the League of Education Voters, The Alliance for Education, Stand For Children, Seattle Foundation, Broad’s Brood, The Gates Foundation, and all the other outside voices that have been drowning us out. They can all go…away. [...] Besides that, we need a Superintendent who is unfettered by any association with the Corporatists. We don’t need anyone who sits on the Board of NWEA, or has ties to the Broad Academy, or used to work for the Gates Foundation.”
Later comes up a resemblance between major polluters and Bill Gates (who invests his money in several major polluters):
The Koch Brothers and Bill Gates, See Any Similarities?
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You could just about replace the words “Koch brothers” with “Bill Gates” in this 11 minute film Why Do the Koch Brothers Want to End Public Education? in terms of what’s been happening in Seattle, a school board in lock-step with the former Broad-trained superintendent and a Student Assignment Plan that brought us back to neighborhood schools and therefore the re-segregation of our schools. The lack of choice for minority students now nicely dovetails into then providing the minority communities with what they think might be their only salvation, charter schools.
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Check out this video and see if you see parallels between what has been happening in Seattle if you just replace the words “Koch Brothers” with “Bill Gates”.
From Tennessee comes this analysis of a “corporate education reform”. It says that “Tennessee could not be better positioned to become the poster state for embracing Duncan’s federalized extortion racket aimed to bend every community to the corporatized visions of Bill Gates and Eli Broad. Bend or break, take your pick. After all, Tennessee has its own homegrown oligarch as governor, the soft spoken Bill “Pilot Oil” Haslam, who has allowed Gates and Broad to put in charge of Tennessee schools a major cult leader from Teach for America, Kevin Huffman (former spouse of Eduwitch Michelle Rhee). Even though one in four Tennesseeans remain illiterate, the state is and has been a fav of the corporatistas judging Race to the Top and other tax-supported ventures of the U. S. Chamber of Horrors’ Business Roundtable.”
Gates’ minions, those whom he buys with money, are finding a new ‘host’ to leech, this time in Florida:
Broad-Trained Superintendent Dr. Maria Goodloe-Johnson Reappears in Broward County, Florida
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The following article should be a red flag to you about hiring anyone who has anything to do with Bill Gates or the Broad Foundation.
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3. According to e-mail exchanges between NWEA members, Dr. Goodloe-Johnson and Michael Casserly of the Council of the Great City Schools (CGCS), there was a sizable grant of $3.7 million from the Gates Foundation that NWEA wanted to get their hands on.
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11. The Native American grant program scandal including the time that a grant proposal did not get submitted on time by SPS and the program was not awarded necessary dollars. It would have been a slam dunk to receive the funds but the supe’s own appointee who was to be in charge of grants, missed the deadline. I guess she was too busy trying to keep up with all the money that Gates and Broad were funneling into SPS by way of the Alliance for Education.
This whole ‘reform’ is further chastised by one who used to be very influential in the US eduction system. One blog post states that the “ed reform movement, titled Race to the Top, that now flourishes thanks to billionaires like Bill Gates, Eli Broad and millionaire hedge fund managers who know nothing about how to educate a child, along with Arne Duncan, the Secretary of Education who has no experience in education, and President Obama, who has his children in private school, is based on this policy.”
Steve Jobs is joining this bandwagon, leading to protests at Apple stores based on this post which says:
Steve Jobs with Apple has gotten on the ed reform bandwagon and is offering free iPads to Teach for America recruits but of course none to real teachers who have teaching experience, degrees in education and have devoted their lives to their school communities. Nope, this is for the TFA, Inc. recruits with five weeks of training to teach to the test and nothing more. I guess they need some sort of way to track all of those test scores.
Increasingly, Apple has been trying to abduct the curriculum and this subject will be properly addressed here in the future. The above is merely an example among several we’ve learn about in IRC recently.
Here is one last noteworthy blog post from the Seattle Education blog, which is recommended reading. As we explained earlier, blogs are generally closer to the truth than corporate press. █
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Posted in Apple, Asia, Google, Patents at 9:32 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Original photo by Matt Buchanan; edited by Techrights
Summary: Apple’s strategy against competition that is headquartered in Asia (and Linux based) results in more blowback than Apple must have foreseen
Apple chose to cheat rather than compete. It sought to embargo competition which is based on Android and now comes the blowback because Linux has many friends in Asia (a relationship of convenience).
Several days ago we saw Verizon batting against Apple and now we see T-Mobile. Reportedly, “T-Mobile has joined US comms giant Verizon in backing Samsung’s fight against Apple, which has requested a preliminary injunction against the Korean manufacturer’s products.
“T-Mobile’s argument is essentially the same as that made by Verizon last week, in that the mobile operator does not want a ban on 4G devices in the US during the busy Christmas shopping season.”
It’s actually made worse for Apple because VIA too entered the ring, which complicates matters for Apple and makes the case against Samsung rather multi-dimensional. The Samsung case gets a lot of coverage because two dozen actions have been invoked so far and the ITC starts putting Apple at risk of having its own products embargoed. Quoting IDG: “The U.S. International Trade Commissions said Tuesday that it will open an investigation of Apple based on an earlier complaint it received from handset maker HTC.
“Apple now collaborates with other Linux foes.”“The investigation will cover “certain electronic devices with communication capabilities, components thereof, and related software. The products at issue in this investigation are computers, tablet computers, and smartphones,” with Apple named as the respondent.”
Apple must feel like an unlucky punk as more and more such cases pile up. Meanwhile it loses sight of technical progress and Android keeps gaining. All this litigation sure can be distracting. Apple is not going to win, not overall. The triumph of Linux in mobile seems inevitable. Apple now collaborates with other Linux foes. █
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Posted in Patents at 9:21 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: The judging of companies based on immaterial things and some examples from the news
The West does not produce like it once did. It therefore cannot export much, either (it is hardly even self-contained, self-sufficient, or self-sustaining). So it made up this weird system which says that paper-pushers and so-called ‘knowledge workers’ deserve a piece of the pie as long as they use terms like “R&D” or “intellectual property” (falsely implying that they create something tangible). Responsible for perpetuating this system and spreading it to all countries we have institutions like WIPO and WTO. Gradually, as Cablegate cables help show, all nations are being shamed or blackmailed into assimilation. The world is gradually being hijacked by paper-pushers so what’s theirs remains theirs and what’s ours becomes theirs too (their ‘intellectual’ monopolies). We need to fight back against this. News from this year helps show how regions like Africa and even India are pressured to give away resources in exchange for access to knowledge. What kind of an absurd transaction is that?
In other news, there is new litigation in India (where patent trolls were recently named) and Amazon’s 1-click shopping rears that ugly head again: “Amazon’s controversial 1-Click shopping technology does not infringe on patents owned by software developer Cordance Corp., a federal appeals court ruled on Friday.”
“News from this year helps show how regions like Africa and even India are pressured to give away resources in exchange for access to knowledge.”Why should such patents be allowed in the first place? There is nothing physical to actually patent, it is just a concept. If patent lawyers run this system, everything on Earth would be patentable. Without scope, the patent system becomes totally obsolete and it’s stories like this one that help remind us of the ‘phantom’ industry which trades patents rather than products. “Patents included in the Truenames portfolio have already been licensed to numerous companies including Iron Mountain, Skype, Audible Magic and Limewire, and are co-owned in a defined field by Level 3 Communications,” says the article. But what about products? Patents are not products, they are a monopoly certificate of sorts. How about this news about the ‘purchase’ of knowledge [1, 2] or this new ‘licensing’ deal? Again, nothing physical there. Since when can knowledge be traded like it’s an object? This whole morbid system has brought us to the point where Groklaw covers patent issues rather than copyright questions like the SCO case. Here are two of the latest items there:
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There have been a significant number of orders issued by the court in Oracle v. Google in the last few days, and the parties continue to do battle over several issues, including the Lindholm emails and the Cockburn Damages Report.
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Several of the defendants in the Lodsys v. adidas action have now filed their answers and counterclaims, including Sam’s West, Inc, Vitamin Shoppe, Inc., and CVS Pharmacy Inc. Normally this would not be something in which we would be particularly interested – if you have seen one set of answers and counterclaims to an infringement action, the rest are fairly predictable. But that is not the case in this instance. Some of the affirmative defenses asserted by these parties caught our eye because of what they suggest.
Attempts to impede Linux/GPL through copyrights have repeatedly failed (Psystar failed too, as Groklaw shows in its latest post), so patents are the main problem to watch out for. Phantom enemy is not what they are because they are the true enemy, but they sure thrive in a phantom ‘industry’ comprising mostly parasites. This ought to change. █
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Posted in America, Patents at 9:04 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Online petitions down at the moment
Summary: With well over 12 thousand signatures, the petition to eliminate software patents is now a top 10 plea
ON a couple of occasions so far we have promoted the petition against software patents in the United States. This site’s current top goal is to remove software patents; the rest of the goals will follow and be fulfilled as a result, including the assured triumph of software freedom in more and more areas (of operation) and economies, including the US where GNU/Linux adoption is relatively low.
Software patents have been an artificial elevator of software monopolies, so it is not surprising that firms like Oracle, Apple, and Microsoft use these for leverage, expelling/blocking/suing new entrants and creating deterrence to those who dare enter. More and more people seem to have caught up and realised how this plot goes. According to this report, “Anti-software-patent petition makes White House’s top 10″.
Good, but this part of the site is down at the moment (see screenshot above).
Also playing an important role in the push for reform are some of Bessen’s studies [1, 2, 3] , which crop up in all sorts of places and provide ammunition against today’s patent system. In separate recent studies, Bessen showed the drawbacks of patent trolls (NPEs) and software patents. Here is a new article about the recent ‘reform’ which did not actually reform anything that needed reforming:
Most Silicon Valley companies were opposed to the patent reform law that President Obama signed last week. Some argue that the America Invents Act favors large megacorps over smaller companies, and could dampen innovation in the tech sector.
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Patent Trolls. The new law does almost nothing to fight the “patent troll” problem, according to the attorneys we talked to. The good news is, companies are no longer able to patent incremental improvements in technology or processes as easily as they used to, thanks to a 2007 Supreme Court ruling in KSR International Vs. Teleflex, which basically put the kibosh on patents that are too “obvious.” (Also, Conley says that people used to think “business method patents” would “end Western Civilization as we know it,” but “courts usually refuse to enforce them on the grounds of obviousness.”
Temporary maintenance issues aside, the petition to President Obama is still open and those looking for an opportunity to give people a voice are also being informed by The Hill, which gets read by a lot of US citizens. It says that this petition exists, which is good enough a start. We need to eliminate software patents in the US before they go global. █
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Posted in Deception, Marketing, Microsoft at 8:47 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Microsoft is found to have manipulated the mainstream press, just like Bill Gates is doing every single day (at the expense of a million dollars, daily)
YESTERDAY we criticised elements of the press that are Microsoft PR disguised as journalism. They also help spread Linux FUD, so it’s worse than just positive publicity/promotion. It is very malicious and should be subjected to scrutiny from above, not just from below (e.g. deceived readers/viewers).
Over the years we have shown how Microsoft’s co-founder was deliberately shaping the media to match his financial interests. To him, the media is something which needs to be bought and coverage of his message is something which should be demanded, not earned. Similarly, Microsoft has been trying to infiltrate the FOSS community using PR offensives and front groups, the latest of which is known as Outercurve [1, 2], funded by Microsoft to emit press releases and promote FOSS which sells proprietary software (such as Windows, SQL Server, and so on).
““Technological Evangelism” Still Lives” at Microsoft, tells us Mr. Pogson regarding an article we found at LXer. “There is a scandal of global proportions,” he writes, and it’s about Microsoft “paying to have coverage in news programming on CNBC and BBC.”
“They are essentially just buying the stories that they want and ‘plant’ them in trusted publications.”Is anybody surprised by this? This is the same type of thing Bill Gates has been doing. He even paid the BBC tens of millions of dollars to promote his agenda (as a reminder, the BBC is intended to be funded by taxpayers to truly inform taxpayers). According to a recent report, Gates hired a “media relations” person from the BBC. To quote: “The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation wants the media (and, it should be noted, pays some media) to emphasize “success stories” in global health and development.
“That’s fine, but sometimes the story has to be about failure. Here is a video of Jeremy Hillman, a BBC journalist who will soon join the Gates Foundation media team.”
They are essentially just buying the stories that they want and ‘plant’ them in trusted publications. This journalist knows the deal. And later he notes: “The Gates Foundation is also paying a significant number of media to cover matters of global health and development. I’ve written about this trend a few times, as have others, and have mixed feelings about it.”
All those publicists for Gates’ brand (it is a brand, one that helps push controversial corporate agenda in a “charity” gown) are doing something very dangerous because they sell agenda under the disguise of “information”. Watch what else Gates did recently: “John Sage has joined the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as its director of stakeholder communications, with the task of heading the foundation’s civic engagement and grantee and public communications efforts, among others.”
Communications is a euphemism for “PR”. We saw this term used when IBM tried to 'game' Techrights.
As India’s richest man correctly puts it, this is just about ego:
India’s Richest Man Blasts Western-Style Philanthropy
Mukesh Ambani, the wealthiest person in India, this week criticized Western corporate philanthropy as a “disempowering tool” that does less good for the needy than his country’s traditions of voluntary service and anonymous giving, writes Agence France-Presse.
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But, he added, “Whatever we give should be for our own satisfaction, it should never be for publicity. That is where we are different from the Western world.”
How true. And speaking of India, watch who’s leaving the Gates Foundation and why:
But things are getting better, he said, clearer, in terms of how the Gates Foundation sees itself helping to conceive of new strategies and assisting with the implementation as partners — rather than simply writing checks.
Gates Keepers asks, “Did he jump or was he pushed? Did his spouse have a lead on a film project? One does not just pick up two children and move them to Delhi without a financial cushion and a job or two lined up. What is the job?”
Going back to Microsoft, Mr. Pogson has suffered from some crooks who bully him in his blog. Upon closer inspection iy often turns out that some of them are so-called “Technological Evangelists", who are full-time Microsoft employees responsible for bullying Microsoft critics and essentially AstroTurfing all day long. Some of these are hired in countries where there are poor regulations so Microsoft cannot be fined.
Microsoft is habitually injecting FUD using its boosters and PR people, as we showed here (with concrete evidence) many times before. Just as Bill Gates is buying the press and injecting self-congratulatory messages, Microsoft hijacks publications and there is now fact-checked evidence to show that. Quoting the new report from the Independent:
Microsoft has been sucked into the row surrounding a London-based media company currently under investigation by broadcasters for making editorial programmes without declaring it had a commercial relationship with some of those it featured.
Both the BBC and the US-owned broadcaster CNBC are investigating FBC Media following an investigation by The Independent which showed it had made numerous factual programmes about Malaysia after being allocated millions of pounds by the country’s government to promote it.
This newspaper has evidence that Microsoft was “guaranteed” coverage on a flagship programme which FBC was commissioned to make for CNBC – which is screened in Britain – for a major launch that the global technology company was planning in Europe. CNBC recently suspended the show, World Business, pending the outcome of its investigation.
The Independent has seen a nine-page letter written to Microsoft’s senior communications managers, in which FBC promised coverage of its opening of the European Microsoft Innovation Center in Aachen, Germany, and a second project in St Petersburg, Russia.
The document referred to World Business under the heading “FBC Guaranteed Distribution Placement”. It told Microsoft: “Our flagship programme, World Business, is a weekly half-hour business news magazine, which covers the trends shaping business, particularly from a European perspective.
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It offered Microsoft “guaranteed” coverage of the St Petersburg event on Tech Watch, a monthly technology programme it produced for airlines to show as part of their in-flight entertainment.
It is unclear whether UNHCR or Red Cross knew of the Microsoft/FBC PR campaign associated with this initiative. In a statement, Microsoft said it had had a commercial relationship with FBC Media from 2003 until March this year. “Where FBC guaranteed that news items would appear in their World Business programme, we understood this was based on the content meeting FBC editorial selection criteria in line with their agreements with CNBC and other broadcasters and subject to final editing before transmission,” it said.
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Microsoft began its commercial relationship with media firm FBC in 2003. A nine-page strategy document written in 2004 obtained by The Independent contains excerpts which show that when the technology giant launched its European Microsoft Innovation Centre in Germany in 2004, FBC drew up a plan for Microsoft to target broadcasters with its “corporate messaging” and gave a guarantee to Microsoft that it would “place” coverage of the launch event on World Business, the weekly programme it made for the CNBC network. CNBC has suspended the show and is investigating FBC.
Corruption in the media is not unusual. It’s why some people read particular newspapers. The Guardian, for instance, pretends to speak for the people because there is a large market for ultra-liberal audience around the UK; in reality, as Wikileaks helped show, this paper is a total sham and not so long ago it even took money from Bill Gates to promote his egocentric agenda. Richard Stallman’s tip is that people should read blogs that they trust, ones that haven’t a financial agenda. It’s sad, but it is true. This is why we generally cite a lot of blogs in our daily links. The likelihood that they do mere PR is a lot lower. While their grammar might be poorer and depth of coverage in need of improvement, they at least don’t try to sell anything (ads, bias). Reading blogs as opposed to corporate press typically leads one closer to the truth, if done using a pool of different sources that balance one another. █
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