Israel's War Is Our War, Editorial, National Post, April 8, 2002
[The National Post is one of the many news organizations owned by avid pro-Israel activist Izzy Asper]
"Israel's campaign to destroy terrorist cells and weapons labs in the West Bank has produced results: hundreds of wanted terror suspects have been seized, as have thousands of illegal weapons and truckloads of documents that prove the complicity of Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority in the terrorist campaign that precipitated Israel's invasion ... Notwithstanding the poisonous anti-Israeli bigotry of the European media -- bolstered as it always has been by naive faith in Mr. Arafat's good intentions -- most Israelis believe their military campaign is every bit as justified as the U.S.-led campaign in Afghanistan. And they are right ... Which brings us to the Q&A with all five federal political parties published in today's Post. Their responses to questions about Israel's right to self-defence, the forms such self-defence may legitimately take, and the moral distinction between terrorism and counterterrorism betray a double-standard. Party spokespersons offer vague answers, and take cover behind UN resolutions."

How Free Is Our So-Called Press?
Toronto Star, April 26, 2002
"There are facts, and then there is the truth. When we consider media convergence in Canada — and, in particular, our biggest media conglomerate, CanWest Global Communications — it is important to understand that facts and truth are not always the same. Here's a fact: Several columns that once appeared in CanWest Global newspapers, including one by Stephen Kimber in the Halifax Daily News, have been killed, either for unspecified inaccuracies, or because they challenged corporate policy. All decisions, according to head office, have been made by local editors. Here's the truth: In a remarkable act of integrity, Daily News editor Bill Turpin resigned this week, but not before saying that he killed Kimber's column after being advised by Murdoch Davis, his CanWest boss in Winnipeg. 'I and other editors had been urged repeatedly by Mr. Davis to get his advice on any prospective commentary that might run contrary to Southam Publications' rapidly changing editorial policies,' Turpin said in an unpublished letter. 'To my profound regret, I did so in Mr. Kimber's case. Mr. Davis told me in colourful terms that publishing the piece would be a career disaster.' Issues of editorial control raised by his letter, and the sheer size of CanWest Global's influence over news, have raised legitimate questions about how free our so-called free press is. CanWest Global owns 27 daily newspapers. That's a fact. They include the National Post and major newspapers in Ottawa and six of 10 provincial capitals. They distribute 11.4 million copies every week. This is dwarfed by Global's television network, which beams itself to 94 per cent of English-speaking Canada (Source: CanWest Global). The company's radio, film, Internet and entertainment holdings give it unprecedented control over the information Canadians use every day ... CanWest's corporate motto is: "If you can watch it, read it, hear it, or download it, we want to be the source." Fair enough, but its owners want Ottawa to help by giving them more tax money, and emasculating the CBC. These are important public policy issues, but can we count on CanWest to allow a full debate of the pros and cons in its newspapers? It already orders its 14 largest papers to print identical, weekly editorials on national issues, and forbids any dissent. We are therefore right to ask: Do we want our newspapers edited by people who are afraid to publish strong opinions until they are cleared with head office? Do we want what Doug Creighton, founder of the Toronto Sun, called Wizard of Oz journalism — with no brains, no heart and no courage? Concerns about the effects of convergence are growing. Something must be done."

The AOL Time Warner Black Hole,
FoxNews, April 29, 2002
" The verdict is finally in: The AOL Time Warner (AOL) merger should not have happened. That's the message from last week's latest balance sheet convulsion to shake what was once known reverentially in certain parts as the House Of Luce. Specifically, the balance sheet net worth of the largest media conglomerate on earth has now been slashed by more than one-third in a biblical-sized tidal wave of losses, even as the man who presided over the drowning - Mr. Gerald M. Levin - heads for the exit door, a $1 million per year 'consulting' contract stuffed in his briefcase. His new mission, after trading the crown jewel of the American media for $95 billion worth of dot-com hype? To reconnect with his feminine side and 'write poetry' as he eases into early retirement. What a colossal disgrace, topped only by the pathetic efforts of the company's brass to spin the fiasco - which amounts to the largest balance sheet evisceration in American corporate history - as nothing more than a kind of accounting hiccup that affects nothing. No, I don't think so ... Finally last week, after more than fifteen months of bloodletting that has knocked 60 percent off the price of the combined companies' stock, the company announced that it was writing off $54 billion of its net worth as being completely unsaleable and without any value whatsoever. In fact, there's more of this certainly to come because the slide in the company's stock price since the merger has wiped out more than $160 billion of the company's market value, whereas last week's write-off has only thrown $54 billion of it into the trash bin. In other words, perhaps as much as $100 billion more could disappear before the carnage is complete."

Top Executive at ABC Television Leaves After One Year in the Job,
New York Times, May 1, 2002
"After what numerous executives described as a long period of uncertainty and even dysfunction at the highest management level of ABC, the network announced yesterday that Steven M. Bornstein was stepping down as president of ABC Television, the top executive position at the company. The move is the second change in senior management in the last several months at ABC, which is suffering through one of the worst television seasons in the company's history. Stu Bloomberg, a longtime creative executive who had been the co-chairman of ABC Entertainment, was ousted in January."

US, European Press Stand Divided Over Israel, Palestine,
Boston Globe, May 1, 2002
"The refugee camp in the West Bank town of Jenin, which was the site of furious fighting between Israelis and Palestinians, is now the focus of an equally intense battle for world opinion. It is also a classic example of the profound differences between US and European media coverage of the conflict in the Middle East. Much of the press in this country, while taking note of the physical destruction after the combat, was cautious in its treatment of Palestinian claims of a massacre. The Washington Post reported that interviews turned up ''no evidence' of 'large-scale massacres or executions by Israeli troops.' The New York Times said a visit to the refugee camp showed 'more destruction than death.' And Monday, the Globe reported that allegations of a massacre appeared to be 'crumbling under the weight of eyewitness accounts.' Across the Atlantic, the tone has been decidedly different. The Economist, a British magazine, said 'evidence of the Israeli army's absolute negligence in trying to protect civilian life is everywhere.' London's Independent made reference to 'grisly evidence of a war crime' and led one story by noting that 'the world finally got to see what Israel has done in the Jenin refugee camp yesterday.' The Guardian, also based in London, produced an April 17 story asserting that 'the outcry in the European press over the killings of civilians in Jenin has not been echoed in US newspapers.' These variations in style and substance reflect divergent views not only between the European and American press but between the two populations. A recent Pew Research Center poll indicates that by a 3-to-1 margin, Americans have more sympathy for Israel than for the Palestinians. But the Palestinians enjoy significantly more support than Israel in Italy, France, and Britain, the Pew researchers found, and marginally more in Germany, a nation still riddled with guilt over the Holocaust. It is a reality that partisans on both sides acknowledge."

Bill: TV or Not TV?
New York Daily News, May 3, 2002
"Former President Bill Clinton has rejected a pitch from NBC to front his own daytime talk show — but he isn't hitting the mute button on Bubba TV just yet. He sat through a presentation by top executives from the peacock network in California this week, and a spokeswoman said he'll listen to other television gabfest proposals ... NBC had no comment. But sources said NBC President Andrew Lack and NBC Entertainment President Jeff Zucker [both Jewish] were in the meeting. Ed Wilson, head of NBC's program syndication arm, is said to have also been involved in the discussions. One source at the network described the meeting as informal. 'If this was to happen, it would be happening out of syndication,' an executive said. 'It wouldn't be out of NBC News.'"

[Pridevision: Canada's Gay TV Network]
pridevision.com
"John Levy - Chairman & CEO. Armed with an LL.B. degree from the University of Toronto (and a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada since 1978), John Levy has been a player on the Canadian broadcasting scene for years. Until September, 1999, he was the President and CEO of Cableworks, one of the first cable systems in Canada to launch high-speed internet access over cable and considered a leader in the deployment of digital technology. Mr. Levy successfully spearheaded new CRTC license applications for both The Score, headline sports network, and PrideVision TV. He is the majority shareholder in Headline Media Group Inc., the company that owns PrideVision TV."

Citizen Annenberg So Long, You Rotten Bastard,
by Jack Shafer, Slate, October 2, 2002
"Obituaries for Walter H. Annenberg in the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and Washington Post barely scrape the festering keratosis that was his career in crime, journalism, and politics. 'Media Tycoon Gave Fortunes to Others,' soft-pedals the Los Angeles Times. 'Walter Annenberg, Philanthropist and Publisher, Dies at 94,' intones the New York Times. 'Publisher, Philanthropist Walter Annenberg Dies,' echoes the Post. I'd prefer the headline, 'Billionaire Son of Mobster, Enemy of Journalism, and Nixon Toady Exits for Hell—Forced To Leave Picassos and van Goghs at Metropolitan Museum1 ... [Annenberg's father] Moe's bribery, blackmail, and mobstering career ended when he was indicted for tax evasion in 1939. Walter, a company VP, was indicted on charges of 'aiding and abetting.' Moe pleaded guilty, agreeing to pay the $9.5 million in back taxes and fines. Prosecutors offered to dismiss Walter's charges if Moe went directly to jail, which he did. Moe served two years and died 39 days after his release. Assuming control of his father's shattered company, Annenberg launched the phenomenally successful Seventeen magazine in the '40s and TV Guide in the '50s and acquired several radio and TV stations. Annenberg habitually turned his head to the right to obscure the disfigured ear he had been born with. His politics usually followed his ear after his second marriage, to Leonore Cohn Rosenstiel. Like his father, he used the Inquirer and his media empire as his bully pulpit, punishing enemies real and imagined."

Faces Of The Week,
Forbes, Oct. 8, 2002
"[Israeli citizen and] billionaire Haim Saban, looking to invest his newfound wealth, is in talks to buy Muppet-maker Jim Henson Co., at a steep discount to what Germany's EM.TV & Merchandising AG paid for it, according to people close to the situation ... Jim Henson produces movies, such as 'Muppets in Space,' and its world-famous creature shop makes well-known puppets such as Miss Piggy and the Cookie Monster, and creates special effects ... Saban, impresario of the popular and successful children's characters 'Mighty Morphin Power Rangers,' landed a $1.4 billion windfall last year when he and his partners sold cable station Fox Family Worldwide ... Saban is also bidding for insolvent German media group KirchMedia, Leo Kirch's eponymous--and insolvent--German media empire."


Larry Ellison's Golden Age; Profiteers of the Warfare State,
Chronicles Magazine, October 2002
[Jewish mogul] Larry Ellison has an idea. The relentlessly self-promoting CEO of Oracle Corp., a Silicon Valley software company famous for its ability to grab government contracts, envisions post-September 11 America as a country where everyone walks around with a 'smart card.' Days after the terrorist attacks, the opportunistic Ellison was all over the media claiming that 'We need a national ID card with our photograph and thumbprint digitized and embedded in the ID card.' Naturally, it would all be backed up by an Oracle database. And, of course, he will do it for free—at least until the first inevitable 'upgrade.' The only way to protect ourselves from terrorists is to 'ensure that all the information in myriad government databases was integrated into a single national file,' says Ellison. Oh, and we should not worry about the government intruding where it is not supposed to, because privacy is so pre-September 11: 'Well, this privacy you're concerned about is largely an illusion,' Ellison told news anchor Hank Plante of San Francisco's KPIX-TV shortly after September 11. 'All you have to give up is your illusions, not any of your privacy. Right now, you can go onto the Internet and get a credit report about your neighbor and find out where your neighbor works, how much they [sic] earn and if they [sic] had a late mortgage payment and tons of other information.'"

NBC Changes Top Executive at 'Today,'
Yahoo! News (Associated Press), Oct 10, 2002
"NBC's top-rated "Today" show is replacing its top executive, Jonathan Wald, amid reports of behind-the-scenes friction, according to an NBC executive who spoke on the condition of anonymity. A former producer at the competing ABC show, 'Good Morning America,' is one of the top candidates to replace Wald. Wald, former producer of NBC's 'Nightly News,' joined the morning show in May 2001, replacing the highly regarded Jeff Zucker, who was promoted to president of NBC entertainment.

CBS scores lowest grade for TV network diversity,
Yahoo! News, (from Reuters), July 17, 2002
"A multiethnic coalition gave the four major TV networks mediocre to near-failing grades on Thursday for their efforts to boost racial diversity on the air and behind the camera, blasting CBS as the slowest to embrace reforms. Seeking to turn up the heat on CBS, the coalition sent letters to board members of CBS' parent company, Viacom Inc. [Top two executives, Sumner Redstone and Mel Karmazin, are Jewish] , and eight of the network's leading advertisers, including General Motors Corp. and Procter & Gamble Co. , urging them to press CBS to do more for minorities. 'We're asking corporate America to join us in a partnership to make this happen,' said Karen Narasaki, the head of the consortium of civil rights groups, who singled out CBS President Leslie Moonves [also Jewish] for especially scathing criticism. 'Leslie Moonves was never that interested in significantly increasing opportunities for Latinos, Asian Americans and Native Americans. Now he appears to have lost interest altogether,' she said.

Europe Top historian attacks Hollywood over Nazis Films that glamorise the Third Reich distort children's view of the past,
Independent (UK), October 13, 2002
"Antony Beevor, the distinguished military historian and best-selling author of Stalingrad, has warned that Hollywood war movies are so historically inaccurate they could create a new generation of Nazi sympathisers. He believes that 'true story' war films such as U-571 and Enemy at the Gate have made the Third Reich dangerously appealing. Alienated young men could even sympathise with the concentration camp commandant in an openly anti-Nazi film like Schindler's List ... Fellow historians David Starkey from Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge and Niall Ferguson from Jesus College, Oxford told the conference which took place behind closed doors at Dartington Hall in Devon ñ that school history is in now in 'crisis'. According to Professor Ferguson, sixth-formers applying to university know little of the past aside from Hitler and Stalin, thanks to the dominance of the Second World War in the national curriculum, GCSE and A-level courses - which he said should be scrapped. But his suggestion that the Holocaust was too complex an issue to be studied in detail by teenagers met with a hostile reaction from the Board of Deputies of British Jews. 'The lessons of the Holocaust are easily absorbed by children of 13,' said the Board's senior vice president Henry Grunwald QC. 'There is still too much intolerance, bigotry and prejudice in our society to allow the industrialised murder of millions of people to be glossed over.'"

Mitchell slates music industry,
BBC News, October 15, 2002
"Veteran singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell has hit out at the music industry, saying she is 'ashamed' to be part of it. The 58-year-old folk rock artist, who releases her new album Travelogue next month, told American magazine Rolling Stone that she may stop recording altogether. 'I just think it's a cesspool,' Mitchell said of the music business ... 'It's tragic what MTV has done to the world,' Mitchell said ... The musician, once described by her friend David Crosby as being 'about as humble as Mussolini,' has also attacked David Geffen, the head of her former label Geffen Records. She accused him of never paying her any royalties." [Who runs the "music industry," and always has? Do a "Find" search of "Kenneth Kanter" at this link-page; this name starts the music section]

Dell trumps HP for top PC spot,
Earthlink (from Associated Press), October 17, 2002,
"Dell Computer [founded and headed by Jewish mogul Michael Dell] has surpassed Hewlett-Packard to take the lead position in the global PC market, according to a new survey by research firm IDC. Based on unit shipments during the third quarter, the direct PC seller just topped its rival with 16 percent of the global market, compared with HP's 15.5 percent, according to IDC analyst Roger Kay."

Maxwell Killed by Mossad: New Book,
New York Post, October 25, 2002
"'Robert Maxwell, Israel's Superspy,' to be published in December by Carroll and Graf, claims Mossad decided to get rid of Maxwell because he was threatening to expose his knowledge of Israeli secrets unless he received Israeli help in propping up his failing businesses. Maxwell's sudden death at sea in November 1991 off the Canary Islands brought about the collapse of his worldwide publishing empire and triggered theories ranging from suicide, murder or accident. Maxwell - who owned the Daily News at the time - disappeared overboard just as the complex web of financial deals keeping his businesses afloat was beginning to unravel and a few weeks after U.S. investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published a book claiming Maxwell had close ties with the Israeli secret services. The new book, by British thriller writer Gordon Thomas and Irish journalist Martin Dillon, is based on interviews with former Mossad agents and chiefs."

Winona Jury Shocker,
Slate, October 28, 2002
"A Jury of Her Peers: How dumb were prosecutors to let Peter Guber, former head of Sony Pictures, on to the Winona Ryder [both Guber and Ryder, originally Horowitz, are Jewish] shoplifting jury? They must not have read Nancy Griffin and Kim Masters' Hit and Run: How Jon Peters and Peter Guber Took Sony for a Ride in Hollywood. If the lawyers in the D.A.'s office do get hold of a copy, they perhaps should pay special attention to the pages cited in the index entry: 'Guber/Peters ... and greed, 9, 108, 109, 119, 142, 148.' Can the prosecutors seriously think Guber is someone who's about to get all moralistic over a few missing hats and hair bands? ... "

On Eve Of Merger, Comcast Says It Can Play,
Forbes, October 29, 2002
"Comcast stands out as a port of sanity in a sea of mad overbuilding and overreaching. Yesterday, on the eve of closing its massive $46 billion acquisition of AT&T Broadband from AT&T, the company reported a quarterly profit of $75.6 million, or eight cents a share ... The QVC home shopping network, the least glamorous side of Comcast's business, posted a 13% increase in revenue, to $1.01 billion. Beyond QVC, Comcast owns E! Networks, Comcast-Spectacor, the Golf Channel and other channels. Advertising revenue increased nearly 12% to $93.2 million, reflecting in part a stronger local ad market. 'As we prepare to complete the merger with AT&T Broadband in the fourth quarter, we are building from a position of strength. Each of our businesses are financially and operationally strong and we have a solid balance sheet and liquidity position to support our growth,' [Jewish mogul] Brian Roberts, Comcast president, said in a prepared statement. As of today, Comcast is the third-largest U.S. cable company. After it merges with AT&T Broadband, which has seen its subscriber rate declining, it will be the largest."

Paint It Black,
by Max Hastings, Toronto Globe and Mail, October 19, 2002
Focus, p. F3
"For nine years as editor of the [British] Daily Telegraph, Max Hastings had to navigate the politics and personal passions of the paper's Canadian-born proprietor. In this exclusive excerpt from his compelling new book [An Inside Story, by Max Hastings (Macmillan, 2002), he offers an inside look at how [non-Jewish media mogul] Conrad Black does business ...As the years went by, [Black] also developed increasingly strong views on the Middle East question, and thus on our coverage of it. Especially after his purchase of the Jerusalem Post, Conrad showed himself an energetic supporter of the Israeli cause against that of the Palestinians. Conrad and I had several sharp exchanges, after pieces appeared in the Telegraph which he deemed anti-Israel or even anti-Semitic. One of Conrad's favourite terms of approbation was to describe a friend or colleague as 'giving me a high comfort level.' Conversely, when one of our writers erred in his eyes, I knew it was time to hoist storm signals when the chairman declared - with only a nod toward irony or conscious extravagance - that 'this snivelling product of some pinko journalism school administered by the John Pilger/Christopher Hitchens Trust for the propagation of liberal mendacity does not give me a high comfort level, Max.' It was ironic, therefore, when one of the major rows of our time together descended on Conrad because he was accused of publishing anti-Semitic material in one of his own organs. In November, 1994, a Los Angeles 'stringer' for the Telegraph, William Cash, wrote a piece for The Spectator - which the Telegraph had purchased from Algy Cluff in 1991 - suggesting that Hollywood was a Jewish town. In the wake of its publication, the roof fell in. A long roll-call of Hollywood luminaries headed by Tom Cruise, Steven Spielberg, Barbra Streisand and Kevin Costner wrote letters to Conrad and an open letter to The Spectator, and delivered diatribes to anyone who would listen, denouncing the Cash piece as a disgraceful piece of journalism. 'We have seen it all before, from the Inquisition in 13th-century Spain to the Holocaust of 20th-century Germany,' ran one of the less hyperbolic passages of their Spectator letter. 'When, to the editors of magazines like the Spectator, racist cant becomes indistinguishable from thoughtful commentary, it should sound a loud warning that we have not progessed so far after all.' I was sitting in Conrad's office while he took a call from an enraged Jack Valenti, speaking on behalf of the Hollywood Motion Picture Association, about the piece. They were demanding space not only in the Spectator, but also in the Daily Telegraph, to denounce the author. It was one of the few moments in my time with Conrad when I saw him look seriously rattled. I did not think the Cash piece represented memorable - perhaps not even tasteful - journalism, but nor did I believe that it deserved the ludicrous overreaction of the Hollywood community. Their demands, especially for space in the Telegraph, seemed absurd. I urged that they should be given a right of reply in The Spectator, but otherwise told to take a running jump.' Conrad said: 'You don't understand, Max. My entire interests in the United States and internationally could be seriously damaged by this.' The complaints eventually subsided. So too did the row, as I was growing to understand that all rows eventually do. [Note: the assertions by William Cash in The Spectator are, of course, true -- see here for more about the Cash incident, and a long, documented investigation about Jewish hegemony in Hollywood]

'Let's talk about anything but our movie.'An intimate conversation about spirituality and Judaism with Hollywood heavyweights David Levien and Brian Koppelman,
Jewsweek, October 2002
"From the moment the door closes behind me, I know this interview is going to be different. Film director Brian Koppelman, sporting a 'Hoops is religion' t-shirt, escorts me into his suite at the swank Ritz Carlton hotel in midtown Atlanta. Seated at the table, relaxed and drinking a cup of coffee, is his writing/directing partner David Levien. We all sit down and this is the first thing Koppelman says: 'Jewsweek -- now that's a cool name.' The two Hollywood heavyweights, both Jewish, are in town to promote their new film, Knockaround Guys, but it seems like that's the last thing they want to talk about. 'Is there a large Jewish population here?' Levien asks, genuinely interested. A short game of Jewish geography ensues. 'Are you married? Did you grow up religious?' Koppelman asks me. And here I thought I was interviewing them. It seems they've spent the last 24 hours discussing their film, a mob comedy starring A-list stars Dennis Hooper, John Malkovich, and Vin Diesel, cast as perhaps the strongest looking man ever to sport a Star of David tattoo. When a fellow Jew walks into the room, it seems, the last thing they want to do is self-promotion. Koppelman and Levien are proving a point that becomes clear over the next hour: They have their priorities in order. While making movies is how they make a living, it's being Jewish that dictates their life. 'It's a real part of our lives,' Levien says, leaning back in his chair. 'It shapes who you are' ... I tell them about a recent Time magazine article that said that 'show business is a homophobic, anti-Semitic industry dominated by homosexuals and Jews.' I ask if they encounter a lot of self-hating Jews in their business. 'Being a Jew in Hollywood, you're not looked at as scant in any way,' Levien says. 'It's not a handicap. Maybe it's even a help in some ways.'"

Doers and doings in business, entertainment and technology: Michael Eisner says there's no broader strategy with Microsoft,
Forbes, October 24, 2002
"[Jewish mogul] Michael Eisner's Walt Disney and Microsoft's MSN [Microsoft is headed today by Jewish mogul Steve Ballmer] announced they are banding together to launch a family-friendly Internet service in a bid to challenge embattled industry leader America Online, a unit of AOL Time Warner. The new service will offer items such as parental controls and new start-up pages for kids that are filled with Disney characters like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, as well as a separate start page for adults, the companies said in a statement."

The cat's whiskers,
Guardian (UK), February 3, 2002
"As last week's figures show, BBC radio is now drawing in an as many listeners as it ever has, and it's all down to Jenny Abramsky ... But Abramsky is something more than a competent technician. She is credited with a revival in the fortunes of British radio, a medium that doom-mongers insisted 25 years ago might not survive into the new millennium ... Abramsky is untypical of BBC managers, many of whom until recently came from the mould of Lord Reith. She was educated at Holland Park Comprehensive. One of her grandfathers was a rabbi in Moscow, imprisoned by Stalin. Her father, Chimen, was a professor of Jewish studies. Her mother, Miriam, a leading social worker and former communist, was in Brick Lane during Oswald Mosley's fascist marches ... After a university education at East Anglia, Abramsky landed a coveted place as a BBC radio trainee in 1969. In those days, it was considered a Rolls-Royce career opening. 'We just thought it was an incredible privilege to do a job like that and get paid for it,' said Alan Yentob, now in charge of drama and entertainment of the BBC, who joined at the same time ... Jonathan Ross now has an audience of three million younger people on a Saturday morning and 12.3 million people tune in every week."

What's Really Going on In Hollywood,
Film Industry Reform Movement, 1997
[A book-length examination of Hollywood discrimination by John Cones]
"This book is dedicated to all of the African Americans, Hispanic/Latinos, Native Americans, Asian Americans, German Americans, Italian Americans, women, gays/lesbians, Christians, Muslims, Arabs and Arab-Americans, White Southerners and others who have been victimized by Hollywood employment discrimination and patterns of bias on the screen for some 100 years ... Hollywood is, in fact, controlled by a small group of Jewish males of European heritage, who are politically liberal and not very religious; a narrowly-defined group that is either making the kinds of movies its members want to see, and sometimes producing movies it is being pressured into making by various segments of the broader so-called 'Jewish community'".

Who Really Controls Hollywood,
by John W. Cones, Film Industry Reform Movement
[Cones has researched the ethnicity of the power hierarchy of Hollywood. He lists individuals, cites bibliographic sources about their ethnicity, and evidences that Jews overwhelmingly dominate the Hollywood power structure]

American Jews and the Efforts to Reform Motion Pictures, 1933-35,
by Felicia Herman, American Jewish Archives Jounral,
http://huc.edu/aja/Article-FeliciaHerman.pdf
"This concern for the public image of American Jews has always been an essential component of the American Jewish releationship to the film industry. Throughout the twentieth century, various elements of the American Jewish community sought to influence the content and message of American motion pictures ... The Jewish relationship to the film industry is a particularly valuable area in which to understand the Jewish quest for status and concern for appearances, for here Jews were forced to articulate quite concretely -- indeed, even visually -- the way they wanted to be perceived by the outside world ... Between 1930 and 1934, American debates over film content reached a fevered pitch, and would-be film reformers -- primarily Protestant and Catholic clergy and lay leaders -- accused the motion picture industry of intentionally corrupting the morals of the film audiences by foisting a seemingly endless stream of salacious motion pictures on the American people. Because 'Hollywood' had long been synonymous in many film reformers minds with 'Jews,' attacks on the industry in this period often revealed disturbing, antsemitic undertones. Drawing on a rhetoric that stretched back for at least two decades -- and on a much older antisemitic theme associating Jews with sexual immorality -- many reformers argued that immoral films were the result of the inherent immorality of the Jews who made them."

Asper's charges of media bias 'bizarre,'
Globe and Mail (Toronto),by Doug Saunders, November 1, 2002
"After a long, angry speech by Winnipeg media mogul Izzy Asper, which accused most of the world's media of being insufficiently pro-Israeli and implied that reporters are anti-Semitic, bewildered journalists yesterday struggled to respond. Mr. Asper's Wednesday night speech, which was reprinted prominently in his city papers and the National Post, effectively positioned Mr. Asper and his newspapers to the far right of most of the world's major media. As with speeches he delivered last month with former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it repeated the Israeli Likud party's conservative and aggressively anti-Arab views. This time, though, he named names, accusing the CBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Associated Press and Reuters wire services, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, BBC, the British Guardian, Independent, Evening Standard and Daily Mirror newspapers, as well as ITV and Sky News networks, and other outlets of being 'lazy, or sloppy, or stupid . . . [or] plain and simple, biased or anti-Semitic.' He singled out the CBC and its former Middle East reporter Neil MacDonald, accusing them of providing 'the most slanted and biased information' and of routinely practising 'dishonest reporting.' In particular, he demanded that reporters in the Mideast, such as Mr. Macdonald, refer to all Palestinian militants as 'terrorists.' Tony Burman, head of the CBC-TV news division, said yesterday that he considered Mr. Asper's opinions 'bizarre,' and that he would be demanding space to respond to the accusations in the Asper-owned papers. 'To suggest that most of the world's media are involved in a conspiracy against Israel, it's just a totally extreme conception on Asper's part.' ... 'There is something profoundly ironic about being told off about media bias by someone like Izzy Asper,' said Mr. Burman, apparently referring to Mr. Asper's former practice of forcing his city papers to print company-written editorials that expressed the owner's views."

The Secret History of Television Corporate power, patent law, and lone inventors,
Reason, November 2002
"Here’s a story for you. Inspiration strikes a Mormon farmboy, the improbably named Philo T. Farnsworth, as he plows a potato field in Idaho. Armed with his new insight, he moves to L.A., finds investors and assistants, and on a shoestring invents television. A corporate giant tries to steal his creation, and a long, expensive legal fight ensues. Farnsworth wins the battle but loses the war, successfully defending his claim to the patent but nonetheless watching most of the credit -- and most of the profits -- accrue to the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) and its self-aggrandizing chief, [Jewish mogul of RCA and NBC] David Sarnoff. Farnsworth spends his last years chasing the dream of nuclear fusion, then dies poor, depressed, and virtually forgotten. It’s not a bad tale. Drain out the melodrama and sprinkle in some nuance, and you’ll find it’s actually true. The saga of Philo Farnsworth may have a special resonance in the dot-bust era, as battles rage over intellectual property and corporate turpitude dominates the headlines. Or perhaps it’s just a coincidence that two books about Farnsworth have been published this year: Evan Schwartz’s The Last Lone Inventor: A Tale of Genius, Deceit, and the Birth of Television (HarperCollins) and Daniel Stashower’s The Boy Genius and the Mogul: The Untold Story of Television (Broadway)."

The Overachievers: Viacom's Clear Signal,
Forbes, November 5, 2002
"In a year when media companies large and small have been absolutely pummeled by cutbacks in advertising, Viacom is an amazing anomaly. The company, led by Chairman and Chief Executive Sumner Redstone [born Murray Rothstein], has seen sales grow for all of its divisions ... But one of the reasons Viacom has prospered is that it has little exposure to areas where advertising has been hit the hardest--print publications and on the Web. Rather, Viacom has significant television assets that include the CBS network, which is pulling in big audiences with some of its prime-time shows like Everybody Loves Raymond and Survivor. Its cable networks include MTV and the hugely successful reality show The Osbournes and Nickelodeon, whose children's cartoon show SpongeBob SquarePants is emerging as a cultural phenomenon. Viacom's other television properties include UPN, Black Entertainment Television and TV Land, all of which have relatively small but growing audiences. The other gem in Viacom's gold mine is Blockbuster Entertainment , of which it owns 81% ... Next up, Redstone and President Mel Karmazin [also Jewish] say they are on the prowl for cable networks. The Comedy Channel, which Viacom already half owns--AOL Time Warner owns the other half--and the Discovery Channel have been mentioned as potential targets."

The Berman Bill The representative from Hollywood wants to create an online corporate vigilante posse to wipe out peer-to-peer file sharing,
Digital Speech Project
"On 25 July 2002, US Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA) introduced a bill to allow copyright holders to engage in otherwise illegal network vandalism against P2P network users that share copyrighted materials. The copyright holders (such as record companies) would be empowered to act as prosecutor, judge, and jury, and to use familiar cracker tactics such as spoofing and interdiction (also known as 'distributed denial of service') ... Representative Berman's district includes North Hollywood, San Fernando, and surrounding areas near Los Angeles. This area is home to many of the most influential (and wealthy) figures of the movie industry. Furthermore, if you examine the corporate affiliation of Berman's donors, you'll find that the largest group represents Disney, with the top ten including media giants AOL Time Warner, Vivendi Universal, Viacom, Dreamworks, and Sony. Clearly Berman is representing both his district and his donors by introducing a bill that would give media companies the power of law enforcement."

Knight on the wrong horse,
Arab News (Saudi Arabia), November 13, 2002
"The US entertainment industry and media (which we all know is not, cannot be, controlled by Zionists and pro-Zionists — the Aarons to Zimmermans are surely coincidence) stereotype and vilify Arabs and Muslims day-in, day-out, in movies, books, mainstream publications and talk shows, with no regard to history, actuality, or factuality. Spin this way, spin that way, distort, convolute, improvise, bastardize, it’s all there. Let’s not even get into what is said and portrayed in the darling ally, the only regional democracy of democracies, about their neighbors. Heck, they teach their own kids that there was nobody around a few decades ago, right as they sit in the very usurped homes of the ghost people who purportedly were never there. But, then, the Palestinians took a different evolutionary approach. They didn’t evolve the way the rest of us did. It seems that they metamorphose directly from cells in the soil. Darn! Darwin, where art thou? Where do you get off trying to smother the freedom of speech, expression, opinion, and artistic work of a local TV production, whether factual or fictional, while decades-worth of productions demonizing, stereotyping and vilifying “Red Injuns,” “Japs,” “Gerries,” “Vietcong,” “Arab Shieks” and on, and on, live in the memories of millions and are on video shelves for the renting? And please don’t give us the sob story about the Elders of the Protocols of Zion being used as the basis for pogroms and the Holocaust, not when those very events (sad as they were, and promoting of egalitarianism as they should have been) were the pretexts for repeat brutality, eviction, murder, plunder, and apartheid by the Zionists against Palestinians. By perpetuating injustices done to them, Zionists have unwittingly (perhaps not) legitimized original sin. No one is surprised that the Israelis would object to this work. They’re prone to barking. Besides, if they object to something, there’s got to be at least some right in it. But for the US State Department to take it up on their behalf? Especially when it flies in the face of the very freedoms the US purportedly stands for? ... It’s no surprise when Zionists attempt to portray Arabs or Muslims as being 'anti-Semitic.'"

Canada: CanWest 'muzzles' staff, Corporate Censorship, CanWest-owned papers across Canada have pulled and censored not only any articles which criticise the corporation, but also those that simply fail to toe its line, the principal tenets of which are support for Israel and for the government of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien,
Index on Censorship, April 2002
"Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE) published a report on 15 April giving a balanced but firm view of the controversy surrounding allegations of corporate censorship in the CanWest Global media conglomerate. The report made it clear that 'freedom of expression includes the right of proprietors of news organisations to publish what they want in the media they own', but condemned CanWest for trying to 'muzzle its employees'. Since absorbing Hollinger, in the largest media take-over deal in Canadian history, the corporation, run by the Asper family, owns over 130 newspapers in Canada, including 14 major metropolitan dailies and a 50% stake in one of the country's largest national papers, the National Post. CanWest Global also has a television network in Canada and media interests in Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. CanWest-owned papers across Canada have pulled and censored not only any articles which criticise the corporation, but also those that simply fail to toe its line, the principal tenets of which are support for Israel and for the government of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien. CanWest's contempt for editorial independence was formally expressed in December 2001, when it introduced a policy of imposing three centrally-produced editorials a week on all its major publications, through its subsidiary, Southam newspapers ...In January, Halifax Daily News columnist Stephen Kimber resigned (after fifteen years on the paper) when his column criticising CanWest was spiked. Two colleagues followed suit after they were not permitted to report on the resignation. Bill Marsden, an investigative reporter for the Montreal Gazette, has been monitoring CanWest's interference and directives: 'They do not want to see any criticism of Israel. We do not run in our newspaper op-ed pieces that express criticism of Israel and what it is doing in the Middle East. We even had an incident where a fellow, a professor wrote an op-ed piece for us criticising the anti-terrorism law and elements of civil rights. Now that professor happens to be a Muslim and happens to have an Arab name. We got a call from headquarters demanding to know why we had printed this.' Various international Press organisation have condemned CanWest's behaviour. According to Robert Cribb, president of the Canadian Association of Journalists, there have been many other cases of journalists on CanWest papers getting into trouble. He warned though that the real worry is the self-censorship that ensues: 'It's not the four or five we've heard about, it's about the dozens of journalists who self-censor as a result of this very public policy.' The management of CanWest remained defiant. 'I can say to our critics and to the bleeding hearts of the journalist community that it's the end of the world as they know it, and I feel fine,' declared David Asper, publications committee chairman, gleefully misquoting the REM song. The CJFE report said that media companies should defend freedom of expression because they are among its chief beneficiaries, and urged CanWest to cancel all pending disciplinary action against its employees, and to invite those who have left their posts to return to them. It also called for an Independent government enquiry look into the potential impact on free expression of media ownership concentration." [The Canadian Journalists for Free Expression Report about Asper and CanWest is here.

A New Cable Giant. AT&T Comcast will be unprecedented in size and influence--but must win over skeptical investors and sell unproven services, Business Week, November 18, 2002
"You would never know that [Jewish mogul] Brian L. Roberts was about to be catapulted into the media elite. In mid-November, his company, cable operator Comcast Corp., is expected to close its $54 billion acquisition of AT&T Broadband, the biggest deal in the industry since the AOL Time Warner (AOL ) merger in 2001 ... Roberts practically grew up in the cable business (his father, Ralph, founded Comcast in 1963) and has a reputation as one of the best operators and toughest negotiators around, but he has never faced a challenge like this. In fact, no one in the industry has. Roberts' new company, AT&T Comcast Corp., will be unprecedented in size and influence. Before the merger, he could count a respectable 8.5 million customers in four major cities. Now, 21 million customers in 17 of the top 20 cities will be hooked up to his systems. That's nearly twice as many as the next biggest operator, Time Warner Cable. Put another way, it's in one of every five homes in America that has a television. AT&T Comcast could bring in some $24 billion in 2003, more than Time Warner and Charter Communications combined ... Even more daunting for Roberts is that AT&T Comcast will be so big that it is certain to shift the dynamic of power in the media business. Roberts, who likes to say his favorite TV show is the midnight special on his own QVC shopping channel, will effectively be the nation's top entertainment gatekeeper. Think about it: Nobody will have more control over which TV channels, Internet services, and movies are piped into U.S. homes--not News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch, not Sumner Redstone at Viacom Inc. Right from the start, Roberts will have the clout to do what cable executives have wanted to do for years: dictate what shows will reach a mass audience and at what price ... Consumer advocates, though, worry about how thoroughly Roberts will dominate the industry. 'AT&T Comcast will be the single most powerful media company in the U.S.,' says Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a public-interest group that is a staunch critic of the Comcast-AT&T deal. 'They will most certainly determine everyone's digital destiny' ... [Roberts has] bought big stakes in several cable channels, including QVC Inc. and E! Entertainment Television, as well as two Philadelphia sports teams (not for vanity, either--the unassuming Roberts has only met the 76ers All-Star point guard Allen Iverson twice in six years) ... Even Brian's mother, Suzanne, an actress, has a weekly half-hour show about 'living well' that airs on a Comcast channel ... At a recent industry dinner honoring Roberts, AOL Time Warner's Parsons said his ascension to the head of Comcast was his birthright: 'The crown prince has assumed the throne.' Then he joked that the mohel at Roberts' bris [the traditional Jewish circumcision] had used cable splicers."

The one serious subject Hollywood doesn't avoid More than 170 films about the Holocaust have been made since 1989. Six more are out this fall,
Christian Science Monitor, November 22, 2002
"At a time when fantasies, comedies, and frivolous fare dominate the movie marketplace, films on serious subjects often seem like an endangered cultural species. Yet one utterly serious event - arguably the gravest of the past century - retains strong relevance for filmmakers and audiences. This is the Holocaust, with the evidence it contained of a bestial inhumanity lurking at the heart of contemporary life. One sign of ongoing interest in Holocaust films is the arrival of four new movies on the subject in American theaters during the next two months: 1The Pianist' and 'Amen' dramatize true experiences; 'Max' is historical fiction; and 'Blind Spot - Hitler's Secretary' is a documentary. Another sign is the publication of Annette Insdorf's definitive book 'Indelible Shadows: Film and the Holocaust' in a new edition next month. The author discusses no fewer than 170 films that have been made or rediscovered since the last edition in 1989. 'I could have devoted a whole new book to the recent titles alone," said Ms. Insdorf in a recent interview ... Hollywood began tackling the subject in earnest with Stanley Kramer's epic 'Judgment at Nuremberg' in 1961, and Steven Spielberg renewed its impact for a new generation with 'Schindler's List' in 1993, earning his first Oscar for best director. Filmmakers have taken on Holocaust themes for many reasons, including personal ties to the subject or a wish to explore their own Jewish roots ... 'Movies made during or just after the war often show a belief in interfaith solidarity,' she observes. By contrast, Holocaust movies of the '50s and '60s usually focus 'on Jewish victims and Nazi villains, establishing basic facts of deportation and extermination.' Later releases like 'Schindler's List' tend to concentrate on 'resistance and rescue,' in Insdorf's words."

Robert Maxwell Was a Mossad Spy. New claim on tycoon's mystery death,
By Gordon Thomas And Martin Dillon, Mirror, (UK), Decemer 5, 2002
[Robert Maxwell, born Ludwig Hoch, was a Jewish immigrant from Czecheslovakia to Great Britain]
"Eleven years after former Daily Mirror owner Robert Maxwell plunged from his luxury yacht to a watery grave, his death still arouses intense interest. Many different theories have circulated about what really happened on board the Lady Ghislaine that night in May 1991. Some believe the 67-year-old tycoon simply slipped into the sea, perhaps after a few drinks. Others think Maxwell took his own life amid increasing troubles in his business empire - after his death investigators discovered he had been secretly diverting millions of pounds from two of his companies and from employee pension funds in an effort to keep solvent. But now, after two and a half years of investigative journalism, we believe we have unearthed the true story of Maxwell's death and can reveal how he was murdered by the Israeli secret service, Mossad. Our work, supported by documents, including FBI reports and secret intelligence files from behind the Iron Curtain, shows Maxwell had worked as a secret super spy for Mossad for six years. The Czech-born millionaire and former Labour MP died the way he had lived - threatening. He had threatened his wife. Threatened his children. Threatened the staff of this newspaper. But finally he issued one threat too many - he threatened Mossad. He told them that unless they gave him £400million to save his crumbling empire, he would expose all he had done for them. In that time, he had free access to Margaret Thatcher's Downing Street, to Ronald Reagan's White House, to the Kremlin and to the corridors of power throughout Europe. On top of that he had built himself a position of power within the crime families of eastern Europe, teaching them how to funnel their vast wealth from drugs, arms smuggling and prostitution to banks in safe havens around the globe. MAXWELL passed on all the secrets he learned to Mossad in Tel Aviv. In turn, they tolerated his excesses, vanities and insatiable appetite for a luxurious lifestyle and women. He told his controllers who they should target and how they should do it. He appointed himself as Israel's unofficial ambassador to the Soviet Bloc. Mossad saw the advantage in that. Having learned many of the key secrets of the Soviet empire, Maxwell was given his greatest chance to be a super spy. Mossad had stolen from America the most important piece of software in the US arsenal. Maxwell was given the job of marketing the stolen software, called Promis. Mossad had reconstructed the software and inserted into it a device which enabled them to track the use any purchaser made of the it. Sitting in Israel, Mossad would know exactly what was going on inside all the intelligence services that bought it. In all, Maxwell sold it to 42 countries, including China and Soviet Bloc nations. But his greatest triumph was selling it to Los Alamos, the very heart of the US nuclear defence system. The more successful Maxwell became the more risks he took and the more dangerous he was to Mossad. At the same time, the very public side of Maxwell, who then owned 400 companies, began to unwind ... The group of Mossad plotters sensed, like Solomon, he could bring their temple tumbling down and cause incalculable harm to Israel."

Who Owns What,
Columbia Journalism Review
[Lists of which media companies own which others]
"Media companies continue to grow, and a shrinking number of them shape what we view and read. What does that mean for journalists -- and for the nation?"

CURRENTS: POLITICS Can Bloomberg Cover Bloomberg?,
Columbia Journalism Review, January-February 2002
"When the owner of Bloomberg News [Michael Bloomberg] ran for New York City mayor [an election he won], the press reported on the billionaire candidate's unorthodox remarks, his daily calls to his ninety-two-year-old mother, and the $69 million he spent on the campaign. But Bloomberg News ran tepid summaries of these stories, penned by reporters not on Mike Bloomberg's payroll ... On January 1, this short-term ethical dilemma became a way of life. Bloomberg News, which in 2000 assembled a fourteen-member team to cover general New York news, has to figure out how to cover the boss ... 'Are people going to accept that we're not an agent of Mike Bloomberg?' asks one Bloomberg journalist. "After the election a lot of people made jokes like 'Will you be the new press secretary?' It was bothering me. I began to fear that my credibility was going to go down the tubes. These things really have not been addressed' ...Bloomberg News hired Tom Goldstein, dean of the Columbia School of Journalism and former press secretary of Mayor Ed Koch, as arbiter ... The staff, like much of the city, was surprised that Bloomberg won. He had never held office, and he ran as a Republican in a city that is five-to-one Democratic. City hall reporter Henry Goldman, a Bloomberg employee since 1999 who once covered New York for The Philadelphia Inquirer, has grown tired of the mock post-election 'congratulations.' He says he is just eager to get back to the business of covering a mayor, and is confident he can do so fairly. 'I told Bloomberg a long time ago, 'I'm not related to you. I don't owe you anything except honesty and fairness,'" says Goldman. 'I don't feel that I have a conflict.'"

Canada: CanWest 'muzzles' staff, Corporate Censorship, CanWest-owned papers across Canada have pulled and censored not only any articles which criticise the corporation, but also those that simply fail to toe its line, the principal tenets of which are support for Israel and for the government of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien,
Index on Censorship, April 2002
"Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE) published a report on 15 April giving a balanced but firm view of the controversy surrounding allegations of corporate censorship in the CanWest Global media conglomerate. The report made it clear that 'freedom of expression includes the right of proprietors of news organisations to publish what they want in the media they own', but condemned CanWest for trying to 'muzzle its employees'. Since absorbing Hollinger, in the largest media take-over deal in Canadian history, the corporation, run by the Asper family, owns over 130 newspapers in Canada, including 14 major metropolitan dailies and a 50% stake in one of the country's largest national papers, the National Post. CanWest Global also has a television network in Canada and media interests in Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. CanWest-owned papers across Canada have pulled and censored not only any articles which criticise the corporation, but also those that simply fail to toe its line, the principal tenets of which are support for Israel and for the government of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien. CanWest's contempt for editorial independence was formally expressed in December 2001, when it introduced a policy of imposing three centrally-produced editorials a week on all its major publications, through its subsidiary, Southam newspapers ...In January, Halifax Daily News columnist Stephen Kimber resigned (after fifteen years on the paper) when his column criticising CanWest was spiked. Two colleagues followed suit after they were not permitted to report on the resignation. Bill Marsden, an investigative reporter for the Montreal Gazette, has been monitoring CanWest's interference and directives: 'They do not want to see any criticism of Israel. We do not run in our newspaper op-ed pieces that express criticism of Israel and what it is doing in the Middle East. We even had an incident where a fellow, a professor wrote an op-ed piece for us criticising the anti-terrorism law and elements of civil rights. Now that professor happens to be a Muslim and happens to have an Arab name. We got a call from headquarters demanding to know why we had printed this.' Various international Press organisation have condemned CanWest's behaviour. According to Robert Cribb, president of the Canadian Association of Journalists, there have been many other cases of journalists on CanWest papers getting into trouble. He warned though that the real worry is the self-censorship that ensues: 'It's not the four or five we've heard about, it's about the dozens of journalists who self-censor as a result of this very public policy.' The management of CanWest remained defiant. 'I can say to our critics and to the bleeding hearts of the journalist community that it's the end of the world as they know it, and I feel fine,' declared David Asper, publications committee chairman, gleefully misquoting the REM song. The CJFE report said that media companies should defend freedom of expression because they are among its chief beneficiaries, and urged CanWest to cancel all pending disciplinary action against its employees, and to invite those who have left their posts to return to them. It also called for an Independent government enquiry look into the potential impact on free expression of media ownership concentration." [The Canadian Journalists for Free Expression Report about Asper and CanWest is here.

Alleged Jewish 'Control' of the American Motion Picture Industry,
Anti-Defamation League
"For the better part of this century, anti-Semites have alleged that American Jews have conspired with their co-religionists to 'control' the motion picture industry in the United States. The assertion that Jews 'control' Hollywood, the media, banking and finance, among other things ... As late as 1921, [Henry Ford's] the Dearborn Independent still proclaimed: 'The motion picture influence of the United States -- and Canada -- is exclusively under the control, moral and financial, of the Jewish manipulators of the public mind.' The publication asserted that 'the picture business, on its commercial side, is Jewish through and through' and that 'the American Public is as helpless against the films as it is against any other exaggerated expression of Jewish power' ... To the present day, anti-Semites have continued to allege that Jews are engaged in a conspiracy to 'control' Hollywood ... Even a reputable British magazine in 1994 revived the stereotype of Hollywood in which an alleged 'Jewish cabal' controls the industry. The article, in The Spectator, authored by William Cash, a Hollywood correspondent for the conservative British newspaper The Daily Telegraph, contended that Jews have created an 'invidious and protective culture' that denies employment to non-Jews ... In an essay headed 'Who Says Jews Control Hollywood?' published in the February/March 1995 issue of Midstream magazine, Steven G. Kellman, a professor at the University of Texas in San Antonio, wrote: 'Boosters and antisemites agree: Jews have been prominent and predominant in all phases of the [motion picture] business: production, distribution and exhibition.' He noted that, at the time, 'Of the 100 most powerful people in the industry according to a recent survey by Premiere, most, including the top 12, are Jewish,' but observed, 'Though individual Jews control Hollywood, Jewishness does not' ... While statistics and studies on the subject are not readily available, the Anti-Defamation League believes that the recitation of numbers and percentages is not the answer to the false charges of Jewish 'control' of the motion picture industry, or, indeed, of similar accusations involving the media, banking, finance and other businesses. Reliance on statistics alone plays into the hands of anti-Semites."


A Call for Media Democracy FAIR,
Bankindex (from FAIR), December 8, 2002
"As the country reels from some of the biggest business scandals in U.S. history, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is getting ready to give big media a big gift-- the rollback of some of the last regulatory checks on media consolidation. As part of its 2002 Biennial Review, the FCC is 'reconsidering' many of the rules that have preserved at least some vestige of media diversity ... Among the public interest protections under threat: Newspaper/Broadcast Cross-Ownership Rule. Prevents the owners of a broadcast station from owning daily newspapers in the same market, and vice versa. National Broadcast Ownership Cap. Is meant to prevent one company from owning broadcast stations that reach more than 35 percent of U.S. households. The courts have asked the FCC to provide a fuller justification of the rule, but the FCC seems ready to give it up. Local Radio Ownership Rule. Caps the number of radio stations a company can own in a single listening area to eight or less, depending on the area's size. Duopoly Rule. Limits a company to owning two broadcast TV stations in a given market. Dual Network Rule. Bars the major TV networks-- ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC-- from merging with each other. If these rules are scrapped, big media's gain will be the public's loss. For example, without the newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership ban, many communities may find their only local daily paper has been bought by one of the TV networks." [Who rules the Mass Media?]

[NOTE: USC is one of the top film schools in the country]
Day of the Jewish Trojan. USC's recruitment effort makes significant gains, countering the school's embarrassing history of sometimes alienating Jews,
by Stuart Silverstein, Los Angeles Times, December 11, 2002
"In the University of Southern California admissions office, Jessica F. Pashkow works alongside colleagues who specialize in bringing Latino and black undergraduates to campus, a goal of many universities around the country. Pashkow's job is a rarer sort: She recruits Jews. She urges co-workers — only half jokingly — to alert her to top prospects whose last names end, for example, in 'berg,' 'baum' or 'bloom.' She makes the rounds of college fairs at high schools in Southern California's Jewish neighborhoods. Wherever she goes, she strategically places 'Jewish Life at USC' brochures on the edge of her display table. If someone picks up a copy, Pashkow discreetly mentions her role in Jewish recruitment. Often, parents 'pull back a little bit and say, 'Really'?' said Pashkow, who is Jewish. 'They want to make sure we're doing it for a kosher reason' ... Many people with USC ties privately say the university is trying to win over more Jewish donors too. USC has a long and embarrassing history of offending Jews. Its past includes a longtime president who was rumored to be a Nazi sympathizer, a cross-burning incident on a Jewish fraternity house lawn and an uproar in the dentistry school involving alumni accusations that a dean was 'pro-Jewish' ... One of its important initiatives was to court Jewish Los Angeles, a community known for its success in education, not to mention the arts, sciences, professions and business ... In fact, USC sits amid the second largest Jewish population in the nation — Jews number about 600,000 in Southern California. Sample had an assessment done of USC's Jewish resources, and found they were surprisingly vast: One-third of the faculty was Jewish, as were one-third of the deans and up to 2,000 of the campus' more than 27,000 students, although many were in graduate or professional schools. USC officials knew, too, that a good portion of the university's major donors through its 122 years have been Jewish. And although USC leaders say their outreach isn't intended as a fund-raising ploy, they acknowledge that Jews are giving more money to the university than ever. Sample also determined that USC had an unheralded asset in Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, which is next to USC and offers courses in Jewish studies that USC students can take for credit ... Today, a Jewish touch is evident all over campus. USC's dean of religious life, Susan Laemmle, is a reform rabbi. A cooler in the student center is stocked with kosher food. The campus is home to the 4-year-old Casden Institute for the Study of the Jewish Role in American Life, which organizes academic lectures and conferences, as well as public forums on issues affecting the local Jewish community ... According to the university's informal polling, the percentage of Jews in this year's freshman class is 8.2%, up from 4.6% a decade ago. That's still far below the 20%-plus level estimated for some Ivy League schools, but comparable with UCLA, where the latest available survey showed that 7% of freshmen were Jews. Jews also have become more influential in the leadership of USC. A symbolic breakthrough came in September, when businessman Gold became chairman of the board of trustees. (A Jewish newspaper, Forward, headlined the story: 'Once-WASPy USC Names First Jew as Board Chair.') .... [M]any Jews in Los Angeles were angered by USC's plan to house a Middle East Center that, at the urging of Saudi Arabian officials, was to be funded by American corporations doing billions of dollars of business with the Saudis. The American Jewish Committee charged that the unusual deal threatened the academic integrity of the university, and later the faculty senate and a USC advisory council both condemned the idea. USC ultimately backed away from the deal ... As a lighthearted reminder, Pashkow circulates around the admissions office a three-page memo called 'Jews Clues.' The first piece of advice is to spot names ending in 'baum,' 'berg,' 'burg,' 'bloom,' 'man,' 'stein,' 'thal,' 'vitz' or 'witz.' Another dead giveaway mentioned in the memo: If applicants mention that they have had a bar or bat mitzvah. Her co-workers 'think it's cute, they laugh at it,' Pashkow said. But the memo also prompts her colleagues to put a 'JWSH' coding on applications from Jewish students."

Fascists hijack Lord of the Rings,
Birmingham Post (UK), Dec 18 2002
"Fascists have hijacked Tolkien's Lord of the Rings as propaganda to further their cause. As the second film of the trilogy, The Two Towers, comes out on general release today, a Midland academic has expressed concerns that neo-Nazi groups are interpreting the Birmingham author's epic for their own ends. One Internet website urges 'every white nationalist' to watch the films, which it claims promote white supremacy over ethnic minorities living in the West. Dr Stephen Shapiro, an English expert at the University of Warwick, said the adoption of the literary masterpiece by far right groups was worrying. Tolkien lovers also expressed horror that the books were being used to promote extremism 'There is not a grain of truth in their interpretation and I would ask people to read it for what it is - a very good story,' she said. Dr Shapiro said he could understand why Tolkien's works had been adopted by the far right but he called for loyal fans to confront the extremists' views."

From celluloid to synagogue: Do film fests build Jewish identity?,
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, December 24, 2002
"[A]ccording to a new report by the Jewish Outreach Institute in New York ['Can Watching a Movie Lead to Greater Jewish Affiliation?'] ... the burgeoning Jewish film festival scene holds not only big box-office potential but the possibility of moving unaffiliated Jews 'along the continuum of Jewish involvement.' The institute examined 46 festivals. One-quarter of them are independently run, while the others have some kind of sponsorship Jewish institutions or organizations, such as Jewish community centers or federations. 'Film festivals serve as an entryway into the Jewish community,' institute spokesman Paul Golin says ... The pioneering Jewish film fest, launched in 1980 in San Francisco, has spawned more than 60 similar events annually in the United States, from Fairbanks to Philadelphia. Another half dozen are held in Canada, and about two dozen globally, from London to Hong Kong to Sao Paulo, Brazil. In one sure sign that the festivals have arrived, the National Foundation for Jewish Culture sponsors an annual Jewish Film Festival conference. The third such conference, set for San Diego this February, will explore issues such as curating films about Israel in the Diaspora. The foundation also receives up to 70 applicants each year for the $150,000 it awards annually for Jewish documentary film making. ... In Boston, Rubin says festival officials screened 450 films before picking this year’s selections."

Rudeness wins all the marbles. In Hollywood, moguls' bad behavior is rarely punished,
by Patrick Goldstein, Los Angeles Times, December 24, 2002
"Personally, I think most of the people at Endeavor could use a three-week sojourn to charm school," says [DreamWorks marketing chief Terry] Press. 'But this is Hollywood, the only business in the world where people seem to confuse rudeness with power. People think that being rude and demeaning is somehow a show of importance when, to me, it just suggests that you're dealing with a lot of spoiled brats whose mommies didn't give them enough time-outs.' Getting into the Christmas spirit, the industry has been buzzing -- perhaps chortling would be a better word -- over Ken Auletta's barbed New Yorker profile of Miramax czar Harvey Weinstein. The piece that ran in the Dec. 16 issue was highlighted by accounts of Weinstein's nasty showdowns with producer Scott Rudin, Universal Chairman Stacey Snider, filmmaker Julie Taymor (who made "Frida" for Miramax) and volcanic-tempered Vivendi Universal chief Barry Diller, who called Weinstein 'a bully,' which is sort of like Trent Lott attacking David Duke for being a bigot. Of course in Hollywood, a town so competitive that people routinely root for friends to fail, many players thought Weinstein got off easy. Several executives I spoke to last week dismissed the profile as 'a puff piece.' Translation: The Miramax boss is even a worse ogre than portrayed in the story. Only a death sentence would fit his crimes. In fact, the 'hip' Hollywood insult of the moment is for someone, just before slamming down the phone in a fit of rage, to bellow, 'You should die!' The trash talk may have changed, but the sentiments are older than talking pictures. Bad behavior is permanently embedded in showbiz DNA. Since its wild 'n' woolly early years, Hollywood has been a briar patch of feuding moguls, narcissistic movie stars and egomaniacal directors ... Rudin's tantrums with agents are the stuff of legend; many people believe a Rudin showdown with Endeavor's imperious Ari Emanuel would draw a bigger crowd than a Tyson-Holyfield fight. But the hot-tempered producer dotes on his favored writers and actors; he throws potted plants only at his lowly assistants. When Viacom Entertainment Chairman Jonathan Dolgen was an exec at 20th Century Fox, assistants were forbidden to say hello to him in the hallways, since a cheery 'Good morning, Mr. Dolgen!' might disrupt the great man's train of thought ... Everyone has a pet theory about why Hollywood is such a hotbed of boorishness. One explanation: Showbiz is teeming with unhappy, insecure people with a lethal combination of big egos and low self-esteem. 'Show business attracts a lot of borderline narcissists who had unhappy childhoods,' says Arnold Stiefel, a film producer and manager who handles crooner Rod Stewart. 'These are the people who were bullied in school but, now that they've become powerful, they've become the school bully themselves." It's no wonder people describe Hollywood as high school, except with money. But is it money that corrupts? Or were the scariest showbiz monsters just as devilish when they were 22-year-old nobodies? People say Diller was equally fearsome in his youth. 'When Scott Rudin was a young executive at Fox, he'd return my phone calls at 8 p.m.," recalls veteran manager Bernie Brillstein, who was the first person in Hollywood to blow the whistle on ex-power agent Michael Ovitz's noxious behavior ... 'This is a business where, if you succeed, people will allow you to behave badly,' says Revolution Studios founder Joe Roth. 'There are no rules, other than winning' ... The analysts' couches must get quite a beating in this business. I was surprised by how many industry-ites I spoke with -- people with reputations for being mild-mannered -- acknowledged having been in therapy for anger management issues. 'No matter how corporate Hollywood has become, it's still a very emotional business,' says Variety editor Peter Bart, who as a production executive in the 1970s fired a director in mid-argument' ... 'People are often tough on their staff because you're so frustrated by your lack of control of everything else in the filmmaking process that you obsess on the few things you can control,' says Jersey Films partner Michael Shamberg."

Kings of Hollywood in epic battle to film. Alexander Luhrmann and Stone lead race for frank take on conqueror,
Guardian (UK), December 30, 2002
"As armies mass again on the borders of Mesopotamia, film-makers are fighting to be first over the top with a movie about the original and most rapacious western imperialist of them all - Alexander the Great. Four of Hollywood's most prodigious talents have long wanted to measure themselves against the upstart Macedonian who conquered nine-tenths of the known world in his 33 years. But for decades film-makers have shied away from fully portraying the complex personality of the most feared and revered leader in history. Now at last the time seems to have come for the first bisexual action hero - with Alexander hopping, in one script, from the bed of his boyhood friend and lover Hephaestion, to that of the Queen of the Amazons and onward through a host of eunuchs and catamites. Oliver Stone, Martin Scorsese and Ridley Scott have all laboured on pet projects about the messianic king who led a modest army out of his father's Balkan kingdom and brought it to the borders of India, demolishing empires and civilisations in his wake ... Some Greek nationalists have already protested at the mention of Alexander's supposed homosexuality, describing it as a 'disgrace' and a 'slur on Greece' - although the ancient Hellenes had a more relaxed view of these things. [Oliver] Stone has blamed the Greek government for orchestrating the outrage, and its culture minister, Evangelos Venizelos, has withdrawn support from the project. But he has stopped short of condemning it outright. Faced with protests from opposition MPs, he said: 'We cannot censor Hollywood. I don't know what I can do.'"

The Balance of Media Power Is Poised to Change,
New York Times, December 30, 2002
"F.C.C.'s Chief Seeks to Remove Restraints: If all goes according to plan, 2003 will be the most important year in the tenure of Michael K. Powell as head of the Federal Communications Commission. Mr. Powell is preparing to unleash a set of proposals in the next few months that will unshackle the nation's largest broadcasters and telecommunications conglomerates from restraints that have prevented them from growing. He is armed with a broad deregulatory agenda and a series of court opinions that have questioned or struck down some of the agency's most pivotal and longest-lasting rules ... At the top of Mr. Powell's list is his plan to relax or eliminate a variety of restraints on the size of the nation's broadcasters and cable owners. The ownership rules that the commission will reconsider restrict a newspaper from owning a TV station in the same city. They prevent a media conglomerate from owning two television networks. They prohibit a network from owning stations that broadcast to more than 35 percent of the nation's homes. They restrict a broadcaster from owning two television stations in the same market unless there are at least eight other competitors. They restrict a company from owning more than eight radio stations in the same market. And they prohibit a cable company from owning more than 30 percent of the national market."

Poland Examines Media Bribe Allegation,
WIBC (Indiana) (from Associated Press), January 7, 2002
"Prosecutors questioned a newspaper editor Monday about published allegations that a leading film producer sought a $17.5 million bribe to lobby the government for more media-friendly laws. The allegations against Lew Rywin were carried last month by the newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza. It reported he approached its chief editor with the offer last July, claiming he represented Prime Minister Leszek Miller. Rywin, 57, is one of Poland's most prominent media entrepreneurs. His company, Heritage Films, co-produced Steven Spielberg's 'Schindler's List,' which won a 1993 Academy Award for best film. 'The Pianist, [by fellow Jewish filmmaker Roman Polanski] which featured Rywin as an actor, won the Palme d'Or top prize at last year's Cannes Film Festival. Rywin has refused to comment on the bribery allegation ... Warsaw prosecutors began their investigation Monday by questioning Gazeta chief editor Adam Michnik [also Jewish], a communist-era dissident and leading critic of a proposed measure to change to media laws. Private media have protested the bill, saying it would strengthen the monopoly of state television with restrictions on private ownership of television and radio stations."

[Israel Asper is clearly Hell-bent upon giving, all by himself, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion credibility]
Rumours of war Conflict in the Middle East has come to Canada, with Izzy Asper's National Post criticizing the CBC's coverage of the battle between Israelis and Palestinians,
Ottawa Sun, January 12, 2003
"The relentless Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a deep quagmire, and Canadians fear it. A recent polling of readers by the Globe and Mail [in Toronto] named Israel, not Iraq or North Korea, the world's most dangerous hot spot by a goodly margin. Such an apprehension helps explain the federal government's reluctance to discuss it, much less deal with it: Why jump into bottomless antagonism? But the Liberal government, and the other political parties, may be dragged into it if the Asper media empire has its way. In a recent, frank epistle in his National Post, Canwest Global chairman Israel Asper wrote of his love for his namesake. To him, Israel is a moral beacon to the world. So it is not surprising that since he took control of the Post from Conrad Black the paper has taken an ever-tougher line against Israel's enemies and, accordingly, the CBC [Canadian Broadcasting Company] has become one of them. The Post now regularly harries the CBC for its 'biased' Middle East reporting. Leading the charge is Norman Spector, a former chief of staff to Brian Mulroney who was rewarded for this service with Canada's ambassadorship to Israel. Spector's attachment to the Jewish state seems every bit as strong as his employer's, and if his columns are a guide, the Asper campaign against the corporation will continue to escalate. Last Wednesday Spector implied the CBC coverage fuelled anti-Semitism of the sort voiced by David Ahenakew, the former First Nations chief. Asper, Spector, and the Post accuse the CBC of mollycoddling terrorists by refusing to use that word to describe the organizations which back attacks on Israelis ... Asper has previously called for the Chretien government to rein in the CBC, arguing the PM himself was being treated unfairly by the Mother Corp. The Post has just been in front of a successful campaign to have the government ban Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based radical party that sponsors attacks on Israel. If the CBC does not back down, can a demand for Ottawa to make it do so be far behind? ... While Asper is a lifelong Liberal, his agitating on this issue is far from welcome. Hezbollah had few friends here, yet the government was reluctant to act. Why? Because it feared the issue might generate a national concern over the rights and wrongs of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with who knows what consequences for our vaunted multicultural diversity. Support for Israel in Canada seems to have been slipping in the last few years as its military might, including nukes, and televised images from the intifada -- slingshots vs. tanks -- have undermined the notion Israel is simply a noble little nation surrounded by relentless, powerful enemies. Those who accuse the CBC are further undermined by their very staunch support for the Bush administration's plans to topple Saddam Hussein -- which Canadians seem to favour less and less. And it seems to me the notion that Canada must support Israel because it is the front lines of the global war on terror is being more and more rejected in Canada as simplistic, and bullying. Finally, and vitally, the CBC, unlike Hezbollah, has many friends. The anger voiced and pressed by Asper and Spector is no sham. For them the issue truly is black and white. In taking on the CBC and insisting theirs is the only legitimate interpretation in line with history and democratic values, they seem to be overreaching. And it may rebound on them and on Israel."

[Aspiring Jewish mini-mogul alienates whole small town by turning its newspaper into his attack base.]
Newspaper for sale at online auction,
Cleveland Plain Dealer, January 12, 2003
"Pssst. Over here. Wanna buy a newspaper? Not a single copy. The whole thing. The Rapids Record in Wood County is for sale on eBay for a suggested opening bid of $35,000. Alan Abrams and his wife, Nancy, bought it last year and want out, he said, because they are being harassed by village officials and local business people who don't like their muckraking attitude. Mike Marsh, solicitor for this village of 900, says it's the officials and business people who view themselves as the victims of harassment. He said that before the Abramses got hold of the paper, 'it was really more of an advertising circular. . . . It became more like a newspaper after. The tone changed, also.' Mayor Judy Keifer said last week that one official in particular, village administrator Chad Hoffman, has been harassed. Keifer believes Hoffman has done a good job and said that in the year she has been mayor, she has received three complaints about him. Two were unfounded, and one had to do with a snow-covered street that wasn't plowed fast enough for one resident, she said. In a telephone interview, Alan Abrams characterized Hoffman as 'a Boss Hogg,' after the town boss on the old 'Dukes of Hazzard' TV series. Hoffman declined comment. Abrams said there was such a backlash against the way he and his wife ran the paper that the Chamber of Commerce even folded ... LaRoe also said he and others shifted their advertising away from the Record after Abrams acquired it because they wanted to be associated with something that was more positive ... Abrams also said his phone line has been cut at least five times and his tires slashed at least that often. Also, he said he has received a threatening anti-Semitic letter, and he accuses Hoffman himself of removing a petition from a bulletin board that had called for the administrator's ouster. Abrams and his wife suspended publication in June."

[Here we have the merger of Jewish preeminence in pornography, Jewish dominance of the movie world, and Jewish celebration of both realms, all rolled into one. ]
Jewish Films To Watch at Sundance,
[Jewish] Forward, January 17, 2003
"Andrew Jarecki brings to this year's Sundance [Film Festival] a new kind of legend — an indie who has already made a million ($388 million, to be exact, which is what AOL paid for his company, Moviefone, in 1999, keeping him on as CEO). The multitalented mogul, who has also penned and performed songs for the WB's late, lamented 'Felicity,' is showing his documentary 'Capturing the Friedmans,' one of several offerings topping the list of must-see films with Jewish themes ... Buzz for 'Friedmans' is strong. In 1987, New York Newsday broke the story of Arnold Friedman, an upper-middle-class high school teacher from Great Neck, Long Island, who was arrested as part of a federal sting operation against mail-order pornography. Friedman's wife ran a childcare center from their home; Friedman was also a buyer of child pornography. As detailed in 'Capturing the Friedmans,' during the arrest agents began to suspect that children who came to the Friedmans' home for day care and after-school computer classes were being abused. Jarecki was given surprising access to the family's home videos, which he uses to sort through the various versions of the truth regarding the charges. The filmmaker also examines the Great Neck community that turned against the Friedmans and the legal system that baffled them. A Friedman figures in another Sundance documentary — Andrei Friedman, who dropped his Hungarian-Jewish name for the more dashing moniker Robert Capa when he immigrated to Paris from Budapest. In 'Robert Capa: In Love and War,' acclaimed filmmaker Anne Makepeace re-creates the life and work of this legendary war photographer. When Friedman first arrived in Paris, 'Robert Capa' was wholly imaginary — a rich American photographer that he and his collaborator girlfriend invented to gain credibility. The ruse was quickly uncovered, but his work was so good that the young photographer took on the persona of Capa and went on to document the Spanish Civil War, the Sino-Japanese War, World War II and Israel's War for Independence."

First 'Jewsploitation' film to debut at Sundance festival,
Jewish Bulletin, January 17, 2003
"At one point in Jonathan Kesselman's 'Jewish exploitation' comedy, 'The Hebrew Hammer,' Mordechai Jefferson Carver strides into a seedy skinhead bar wearing a long leather coat, a black fedora, payot, a tallit and an oversized gold chai. A chalkboard advertises beer on tap, such as Old Adolf, but the titular superhero orders 'Manischewitz, straight up.' Then he crashes a bottle over the bartender's head, whips out two sawed-off shotguns and shouts, 'Shabbat Shalom, Motherf- - - - -s!' In this outrageous world of the Hammer (Adam Goldberg), the Orthodox Jewish hero must battle the evil son of Santa (Andy Dick) to save Chanukah. Call it the Jewish 'Shaft.' The farce is Kesselman's homage to 1970s 'blaxploitation' films ... 'The movie is a love letter to being Jewish,' said the writer-director ... The film -- which also features an organization called The Worldwide Jewish Media Conspiracy -- is part of a new trend of in-your-face ethnicity touted by hip Jewish artists (think Heeb magazine and New York's 'Jewsapalooza' music festival) ... I rented a whole bunch of blaxploitation films to figure out how the genre worked [said Kesselman] I learned that what I needed was some twist on the source of oppression. I asked myself, 'What as a Jew really pisses me off?' It hit me when I was walking around a mall in December: I hate Christmastime ... 'The Hammer celebrates being Jewish,' he said. 'It's a bad-ass Jew kicking ass for the tribe.'"

Media Has Ron Lauder Lost His Touch?,
Forbes, January 24, 2003
"[Ronald Lauder's Central European Media] saga is rife with great ambition, but also greed and betrayal. Lauder grew acquainted with Eastern Europe while serving as U.S. ambassador to Austria in 1986-87. After the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, most post-communist governments were still holding on fast to their airwaves. But Lauder saw an opening when the Czech Republic, one of the wealthier Soviet bloc countries, decided to privatize a TV broadcasting license. However, the government said it would sell only to a Czech citizen. So Lauder teamed up with former Czech dissident Vladimir Zelezny [also Jewish] and put his money behind the man's bid. They won in 1994. The same year Lauder started CME, which provided capital and programming for the new television channel, called TV Nova. Lauder owned 99% of Nova, but Zelezny held the actual permit to broadcast. Nova was glitzy station, serving Czechs with Baywatch and Beverly Hills 90210 in prime time and sex on weekend nights. Lauder put $140 million behind the venture. Nova was soon booking $1 million per week in profit. Lauder's appetite grew, and CME soon expanded to TV markets in Romania, Slovakia, Ukraine and elsewhere. But Lauder's timing was off. Those markets were too green to generate sufficient ad sales. Nova's profit was soon bailing out its sister stations. In 1999, with CME's losses mounting, Lauder decided to merge the company with Sweden's SBS Broadcasting. But old friend Zelezny became Lauder's foe. He wouldn't let go of Nova's profitable broadcasting license. Without Nova, the SBS deal was off. A flurry of international lawsuits and appeals followed, against both Zelezny and the Czech Republic, which Lauder said breached an international treaty by allowing the license to be taken from CME. Lauder bought full-page ads in The New York Times and The Washington Post urging business to 'think twice' about investing in the Czech Republic, where practices 'fall woefully short of international standards.' (Strangely, Estée Lauder, the cosmetics firm, of which Lauder owns 35% and is a director, kept its Prague store open and recently launched a second one.) ... CME has sued the Czech government for over $500 million, the assumed fair market value of TV Nova in 1999. Courts in the Netherlands, London and Sweden agreed with CME and released a 'partial finder of order' that held the Czech government responsible for the loss of Nova. The damages award should be announced by March 2003. The company also won a $28 million award from Zelezny. The Czechs appealed, but Zelezny, who was elected to the Czech Senate and whom the Czech police reportedly investigated on charges of tax evasion, paid up last fall."

The News the Jews Thought Fit to Print,
by Al Ellenberg, Jerusalem Report, May 22, 2000
[ADOLPH SIMON OCHS: Review of The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind the New York Times by Susan E. Tifft and Alex S. Jones]
"A college friend once remarked to me that my father talked like a New York Times editorial with a Yiddish accent. There was also a touch of pride. Even though this 'shul' looked like a very big church, my father did after all call it a shul, which meant there was something Jewish about the Times. But what was it that I detected in my father’s voice, what distance, what pained irony? Well, over the years, the broad answers became evident to me. Those answers encompassed the gulf between the assimilationist Jews of German origin who invented the Reform movement in America and the rough-edged Jews from Eastern Europe, my father’s kind. And, specifically in the case of the Times, the answers included the early reluctance to acknowledge that Jews were explicit targets of Hitler’s death machine; the answers also included the early editorial opposition of the Times to a Zionist state in Palestine. My father was not only a Zionist, he was a Zionist in the Jabotinsky mold. I have spent pretty much all of my working life in the newspaper business and, to borrow a suspect self-exculpation, some of my best friends work at the Times, but as much as I find the daily appearance of this publication vital to my psychic well-being (particularly the crossword puzzle), I have always felt a bit of an inherited chill about the institution of the Times. It was never my family. But, of course, The New York Times is a family, one of the most powerfully dynastic in American history, up there with the Cabots and Lodges, Rockefellers and Kennedys. The Ochses and Sulzbergers have owned the Times enterprise, now a multi-billion dollar operation, for more than a hundred years, and in all that time the family has maintained day-to-day control of this most prestigious of all daily newspapers ... Adolph Simon Ochs, a Cincinnati-born son of Bavarian Jewish immigrants ... bought the comatose Chattanooga Times with a borrowed $250 ... [H]e bought The New York Times for a patchworked $75,000 by conning its stockholders into believing that he had the money and the expertise to revive the 45-year-old paper ... [H]is wife ... Effie herself was a rather extreme embodiment of Germanic Jewish American anomalies ... Ochs’s achievements were shadowed by two major sieges of depression, both tinged by his struggle with his Jewish identity. The first was set off by the appalling case of Leo Frank in 1914; the second was occasioned by the rise of Adolf Hitler in 1933 ... Ochs, always reluctant to play the role of crusader, particularly on behalf of Jews, was persuaded to rally to Frank’s defense ... AFTER OCHS’S DEATH, IN 1935, he was succeeded by his son-in-law, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, who was married to the Ochses’ only child, Iphigene. Sulzberger was the scion of a wealthy merchandising family with both German and Sephardi roots; his mother, in fact, was extremely proud of the fact that her Sephardi ancestors, themselves descended from Iberian Jews who fled to Holland in 1492 and then immigrated to the New World in the early 1700s, had fought in the American Revolution. Arthur’s father Cyrus was very active on behalf of Jewish causes and had served as president of United Hebrew Charities ... Under subsequent publishers, the Times’s policy toward Israel has become considerably more accepting and its coverage of Jewish matters far less tentative. Most significantly, the last three executive editors of the paper have been overtly and unapologetically Jewish, a development that Ochs himself would likely have found rankling."

[Note: Joe Farah is THE Arab Zionist sell-out.]
Joe Farah's Impending Insanity and the Demise of WorldNetDaily,
Karen De Coster, February 2, 2003
"I discovered WND on the web in 1998. There were not a lot of good websites out there at that time, other than organization, foundation, or think tank websites, so it certainly became - and quickly so - one of the better sites on the web. When WND was relatively new it was part conservative, part libertarian, part libertarian sympathetic, and included only a smattering of neocons. But one could just ignore the crazy, neocon stuff, and pay attention to what was useful and interesting. All in all, it was a valuable place on the web, for the folks over there tackled PC, relativism, multiculturalism, anti-Westernism, and all the other horrors of left society. Farah always seemed willing to take on all issues without regret. Sometime in about 2000 it started to change. Joe Farah - WND's big kahuna - searched for means of financing the existence and growth of his home on the web. WND, at about this time, started to crack. By paying close attention, you could see the focus shift from libertarian theory, private property defense, and unPCism, to Israel, Israel, Israel, war, war, war. Folks were passing around e-mails, pasting over the WND headlines of the day, where 14 out of the first 16 headings would deal with: Israel good, Arabs bad; Israel this-Israel that; military this-military that; the glory of war; Bush does this-Bush says that; and well, you get the picture. WND had become a neocon, warmongering, statist hell. Following 9/11, WND had become a shill for the government and the U.S.-Israel alliance. After 9/11, Farah and his site jumped on the Bandwagon for War, and kept up a relentless stream of Republican worshipping and 'if you ain't with us, you're against us' horseshit. They dumped Lew Rockwell - one of their few remaining sane columnists - and brought on the pro-war bunch."

Shoah for Sale. Roger Kumble’s ends his edgy trilogy with a look at how Hollywood abuses the Holocaust,
Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, February 7, 2003
"In 'Turnaround,' the third play in Roger Kumble’s sardonic trilogy about Hollywood, Jewish hack Jeff Pelzman gushes over a sure-fire hit movie. Compiled by combining the plots of Oscar-winners, the fictional script opens as the camera pans down through the worried faces of Jewish Poles 'until we find Moishe, a 12-year-old mentally challenged boy, skipping through the ghetto.' 'A retard in the Holocaust,' Pelzman says. 'That’s f—king brilliant!' The cringeworthy scene is typical of the hysterically mordant play, starring 'Friends' star David Schwimmer as a leech who’d swindle his mom (or trivialize the Holocaust) for a 'go' film or a hot babe. Jonathan Silverman, Schwimmer’s old pal from Beverly Hills High, plays the equally depraved Jewish producer, Richie Tolchin. Kumble wrote the black comedy for the two actors, who each portrayed Pelzman in the trilogy’s first two plays, which have been called a Generation X take on a subject addressed in more mature plays, such as David Rabe’s 'Hurlyburly.' Although staging the satire at the Coast Playhouse has been a labor of love for the Jewish artists, each feels nervous about the provocative subject matter. Schwimmer warned underage 'Friends' fans to stay away; Silverman begged a Journal reporter, 'Don’t hate me!' while Kumble said he was 'terrified' his motivations could be misconstrued. At a Larchmont Boulevard cafe recently, the edgy but convivial writer-director ('Cruel Intentions,' 'The Sweetest Thing') said he conceived the 'Moishe' script partly as an homage to Mel Brooks’ Holocaust spoof, 'Springtime for Hitler,' in 'The Producers.” Another motivation was 'noticing that every Holocaust-themed film seemed to get nominated for an Oscar,' he said. 'But I wanted to comment on people who use the Holocaust as a means to an end, not to skewer my own people.” Kumble also wanted to continue skewering a real-life, reformed Hollywood creep: himself. He said he invented Pelzman — 'definitely an alter-ego of mine'— for his 1993 comedy-drama 'Pay or Play' (starring Silverman) after a friend suggested, 'write what you know' ... 'Opening night was a little uncomfortable,' said Silverman, whose character calls Steven Spielberg 'Mr. Holocaust.' 'But our parents understand that this is a morality tale. I mean, these kinds of people actually exist. There are people in this town who would kick their grandmother in the tooth to make a movie. I don’t think it comes across as a smear of Jews in Hollywood so much as it does on certain people who have just lost their perspective.'”

Report: Zeta-Jones may convert to Judaism,
CNN, Janary 31, 200
"Pregnant actress Catherine Zeta-Jones is considering converting to Judaism before marrying Michael Douglas, according to a report in British newspaper The Mail on Sunday. The British tabloid reports the 30-year-old Welsh beauty is 'fascinated' by her future husband's Jewish faith and has spoken to a rabbi about converting. 'Michael and his family are very proud of their Jewish heritage,' an unnamed source said to be close to Zeta-Jones told the paper. 'In Judaism, the mother pays a pivotal role in raising the children to honor their faith.' The Mail on Sunday reported that the couple, who announced their engagement on January 6, had agreed to raise their child Jewish. Douglas's father, movie legend Kirk Douglas, last month reaffirmed his faith with a second bar mitzvah ceremony."

Vivendi suitor Davis beckons Bronfman,
New York Daily News, February 20, 2003
"Marvin Davis wants Edgar Bronfman Jr. The oil tycoon who's made a $20 billion bid for the show biz assets of hobbled media empire Vivendi Universal recently tried to hire Bronfman to run the show. But the Seagram scion turned him down, sources told the Daily News. Davis called and told him he could 'play any role,' at Vivendi Universal Entertainment, sources close to Bronfman said. But Bronfman, who is vice chairman of Vivendi and whose family is its largest shareholder with a nearly 5% stake, said he'd stay 'on the Vivendi Universal side of the table,' sources said. Davis already has hooked up with ex-Universal exec Brian Mulligan, but he's been scouring the market for a marquee Hollywood name to help bolster his bid for the entertainment divisions, which include Universal Pictures and Universal Music Group. Bronfman ran these units before selling Seagram to Vivendi - watching his family lose billions in the process. Sources said Bronfman, a one-time songwriter, is eager to get back to the front lines of the entertainment business. In September, he offered to 'help' Vivendi out of its cash crunch by acquiring Universal Music. Vivendi chief Jean-Rene Fourtou said he wasn't ready to sell. Industry sources said they expect Bronfman to make a run at AOL Time Warner's Warner Music Group, which appears to be in play as the troubled media giant looks to pare down its $26 billion debt load "

[Walt Disney, declared by the Jewish community to have been an "anti-Semite," is probably rolling over in his grave because of what the Disney "world" has become" from Disney's Jewish CEO, Michael Eisner, on down.]
Disney's Shamrock mulls $100 mln Israel fund,
Forbes, Feberuary 24, 2003
"Shamrock Holdings of California Inc, the investment arm of Disney heir Roy Disney, is examining the possibility of setting up a $100 million investment fund in Israel, a financial sector source said on Monday. The fund could eventually reach $250 million with part of the money coming from abroad, the source said, adding that Shamrock Chairman Stanley Gold was planning to meet Israeli institutional investors this week. Potential investors include insurers Migdal Insurance Holdings , which is controlled by Italy's Generali , and Israel's Phoenix Insurance ... . Shamrock's other main investments in Israel are mobile phone service provider Pelephone and Tadiran Communications."

Georgia senator lashes out at proposed hillbilly reality television show,
Yahoo! News, (from Associated Press), February 25, 2003
"A proposed hillbilly reality show has struck a nerve with Sen. Zell Miller, who hails from the North Georgia mountains and contends poor rural residents are America's last acceptable target of bigotry. Miller lashed out at CBS executives in a Senate speech Tuesday for their plans to air 'The Real Beverly Hillbillies,' which would chronicle a rural, lower-middle-class family that moves into a luxurious Beverly Hills mansion. The program is modeled after the hit 1960s sitcom. The Georgia Democrat, a former two-term governor, called the proposal a 'minstrel show' and 'Cracker Comedy' at the expense of hardworking Americans. He said he doubted CBS Television chief executive Leslie Moonves [Jewish] would dare try such a spoof featuring a black or Latino family. 'I plead with you to call off your hillbilly hunt,' Miller said. 'Make your big bucks some other way. Appeal to the best in America, not the worst. Give bigotry no sanction.' As criticism built in January over the prospect of such a show, Moonves apologized and said the network meant no offense. On Tuesday, CBS spokesman Chris Ender also stressed the network wasn't trying to offend anyone and said it's not clear when — or even if — the proposed show, which did offend Miller, will air."

Disney Company. A Grim Shadow Of Walt's Dream,
rense.com, March 3, 2003
"It was brought to my attention, in the course of a recent exchange, that the 'Disney' Company has come out with a 'new and improved' telling of the story of the Alamo... one that is 'multicultural' in tone, and not 'offensive to Mexican-Americans'. I almost lost my supper. You know, it's hard for me to see even an old Disney movie, when they play on television... and they do, here, quite a bit ... They used to be so good. I remember the pre-Eisner Disney [Michael Eisner, the Jewish CEO of Disney] with a certain fondness, and it's hard for me to watch what that company has become. Walt Disney devoted his life to making films that were clean, positive and wholesome. I know that sounds 'preachy', and that's not typical of me, at all, but it's true. They were, when I was growing up, and well into my adulthood, one of the only 'sure bets' for a film that you could take your kids to see, without any concern over the 'content' or language used ... That is what is lacking in the 'Disney' Company now: a conscience...or 'soul' (or whatever word you chose to call it). People like Eisner...to me, the Anti-Christ incarnate...do nothing but pervert, corrupt and destroy. I won't waste the price of a ticket to see any Disney movie, now. I won't even rent the old ones. It simply makes me ill to see what has happened to the Company, but more importantly, to the ideals and standards that Walt Disney spent his life to develop."

Michael Jackson Put 'Curse' on Spielberg-Magazine,
Reuters, March 3, 2003
"Embattled pop star Michael Jackson wears a prosthetic nose and once paid $150,000 for a 'voodoo curse' to kill director Steven Spielberg despite being deep in debt, Vanity Fair magazine reported on Monday ... Vanity Fair reported in the article that in 2000 Jackson attended a voodoo ritual in Switzerland where a witch doctor promised that Spielberg, music mogul David Geffen and 23 other people on the entertainer's list of enemies would die ... In addition to the lawsuit by Lee, Jackson is also enmeshed in a $21 million court battle with German concert promoter Marcel Avram over canceled Millennium concerts and has been sued by Sotheby's auction house for $1.6 million."

[The careful Jewish monitoring of history. For years Jewish groups have lobbied against any examination of Adolf Hitler, except as a demonic mass murderer of Jews. The issue is not just that Jews -- functioning always as a censorship board -- have total control of the boundaries in analyzing/depicting Adolf Hitler, it is that they truly control the history of World War II (Holocaust, Holocaust, Holocaust) and -- for that matter -- ANY history that has anything to do with Jews. All contexts that don't fit the complete Jewish victimization model and the social and political reasons -- per Jews -- for the rise of an Adolf Hitler are categorically discarded.]
Moonves: No Sympathy for Hitler,
Virtual Jerusalem
"President and CEO of CBS Television Leslie Moonves came in for a good deal of flak last year following news that the network was planning to make a two-part miniseries from British history professor Ian Kershaw’s book, 'Hitler: 1889-l936: Hubris' (W.W. Norton & Company, 2000), which covers the prewar life and times of the Führer. Some Jewish leaders worried that a too-sympathetic portrayal of the early life of the man responsible for the murder of 6 million Jews would feed into today’s current wave of anti-Semitism and that a prime-time portrait of the youthful Hitler might paint him as a misunderstood youth rather than an evil madman to millions of young viewers with scant knowledge of Hitler’s terrible legacy. This month, CBS, along with the producers, Alliance Atlantic, began shooting the miniseries in Prague and might air the show as early as the May sweeps. Scottish actor Robert Carlyle — best known for 'The Full Monty' and 'Trainspotting' — plays Adolf Hitler, while Stockard Channing (first lady Abby Bartlet on 'The West Wing') portrays his mother. The cast also includes Julianna Margulies, Peter O’Toole, Liev Schreiber and Matthew Modine. The Jewish Journal read an early script — which CBS now says has been totally junked in favor of a completely new version by Jewish playwright-screenwriter John Pielmeier ('Agnes of God') ...
Leslie Moonves: Clearly the whole thing ends when Hitler has taken over total power of the country in 1938 on the eve of World War II. We will also be showing a postscript. That’s very important. Once again, we do take some of the comments we’ve received very seriously. And one comment I took to heart: if you are showing the rise to power — and part of why we’re doing this is that everybody knows how the story ended but few people know how it began — some people said, 'Well you’re not showing the atrocities that this man committed. And you may be giving an incorrect impression of him.' So it’s important to know where this led seven or eight years later ...
Jewish Journal: We heard CBS is making a donation to a Holocaust charity? Moonves: Yes, to the Shoah Foundation or something like that. It’s not quite pinned down yet ...
Jewish Journal: Many critics worried that Hitler as the protagonist of the story has to be shown as a human being. But by doing that you automatically make him sympathetic.
Moonves: In no way, shape or form is this man in this film a sympathetic figure. He is a monster. And it’s how he got to be that way. At no point do you feel sympathy for this man and just say, 'Oh, I understand, I feel bad this is why he did what he did.' That emotion should never occur.
Jewish Journal: Has Rabbi Harvey Fields from Wilshire Boulevard Temple vetted the script?
Moonves: He read the first two hours and gave us extensive notes. Those notes have been incorporated into some of the changes and he’s reading the second part as we speak. He’s an unofficial friend in court, but once again, certainly he’s amongst the most widely respected religious leaders in ours or any community ...
Jewish Journal: Wasn’t your own wife opposed to the project?
Moonves: I don’t want to talk about my personal situation. There has been a lot of discussions with friends and relatives. It certainly is a lightning rod for a lot of people.
Jewish Journal: Did you lose family members in the Holocaust?
Moonves: I lost many relatives on both sides of the family. My grandparents are both from Poland and they lost a number of siblings and cousins, a great many family members during the Holocaust. They escaped from Poland before the war began. But there were some who did not escape ... I really want your readers to know that this is something we are not treating lightly. It’s one of the most important projects we’ve been involved in and we are trying to do it with great care and great thought."

[The never-ending theme of growing Jewish dominance of the major means of public communication may be found echoed in Canada, the U.S., Russia, Great Britain, Poland, Brazil, and on and on.]
Anti-semitism fear as Italian TV chief under attack,
Guardian (UK), March 10,. 2003
"Jewish leaders in Italy have expressed concern at an outbreak of anti-semitism after a rightwing newspaper yesterday made a thinly-veiled attack on the state broadcaster RAI days after a distinguished journalist of Jewish origin was chosen to lead its board of directors. Paolo Mieli, the former editor-in-chief of Italy's leading daily Corriere della Sera, was chosen for the job on Friday. Yesterday a front-page editorial in the rightwing Rome daily Il Tempo said that Italian television was being dominated by 'non-Catholic culture and sensibility', making direct reference to Mieli and two other journalists of Jewish origin. 'The entire TV system is dominated now by professionals of excellent quality, but with non-Catholic culture and sensibility, like the new president of RAI and the directors of the two major news programmes,' the editorial said."

[Gil Cates is Jewish, as is the war against Iraq.]
Oscars blacklist stars in bid to prevent peace protest speeches,
The Scotsman (Scotland), March 11, 2003
"The backlash against prominent stars opposing any attack on Iraq has impacted on this year’s Oscars, with organisers drawing up a blacklist of people who will not be allowed a platform to air anti-war views. Meryl Streep, Sean Penn, Vanessa Redgrave, George Clooney, Dustin Hoffman and Spike Lee are among those who will not be speaking, amid fears they could turn the ceremony into an anti-war rally. In a move denounced by some as a return to McCarthyism, star presenters have been ordered to stick to scripts, while winners, who the producers have no control over, could find their acceptance speeches cut if they say anything much more than a brief thank you. Officially, executives say that politics is a turn-off for the show’s television audience. But in the wake of a public backlash against actors such as Martin Sheen, from the West Wing, who have voiced opposition to war, producers do not want to upset advertisers who have paid more than £50 million for adverts ... Gil Cates, one of the ceremony’s producers, wants the ceremony, which takes place on 23 March, to celebrate the Oscars’ 75th anniversary rather than the anti-Bush/Blair movement. And he admitted he thought it 'inappropriate' for stars to use their slots to spotlight world problems. But Tom O’Neil, an Oscar historian, said: 'Political tantrums are inevitable. You’re dealing with a class of people who have unchecked egos and who are invited on talk shows to be experts on everything from high art to pop culture.' Top of the loose-cannon list this year is the Bowling for Columbine director, Michael Moore, a favourite to win the documentary feature award. Last month, Moore thanked the French for not supporting the proposed Iraqi invasion while accepting an award in Paris. And on Saturday, he used the Writers Guild of America awards in Los Angeles to voice his opinions of George Bush, the US president. Worryingly, for the Oscar producers, Moore won loud applause after telling the audience: 'What I see is a country that does not like what’s going on. Let’s all commit ourselves to Bush removal in 2004.' If Moore does not win an Oscar, insiders claim Hollywood will be reverting back to the witch-hunting 1950s, when Senator Joseph McCarthy and his cohorts destroyed the careers of supposed Communist sympathies."

[Incredible! Jewish domination returns to Germany. Israeli-American Haim Saban is set to take over Germany's largest media conglommerate! This article doesn't mention the fact that Saban is both Jewish and Israeli -- and THAT is the real news. And look who's banking both ends of the deal -- the Jewish German Rothschild-Warburg banking firm, big time survivors of Hitlerism.]
KirchMedia hopes to ink Saban deal by Monday,
Reuters, March 14, 2003
"Insolvent German media group KirchMedia said on Friday it hoped to sign a deal to sell its television assets to U.S. billionaire Haim Saban by Monday at the latest, ending a year-long auction. Saban has arrived in Munich to help put the final touches to a two-billion-euro ($2.2 billion) deal that would open up Germany's clubby media industry to a Hollywood figure -- teamed up with French TV group TF1 -- for the first time ... After a year of sometimes high drama, Saban has trumped an offer by German publisher Heinrich Bauer Verlag for a stake in Germany's largest commercial broadcaster ProSiebenSat.1 Media and a vast library of film rights. Saban, who made his fortune with children's TV figures such as the 'Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers" is now the sole contender for KirchMedia after Bauer, teamed up with Germany's No. 2 bank HVB Group, pulled out of the deal on Wednesday. ... Saban jumped back into the bidding this year, overtaking Bauer with a spruced-up offer. N.M. Rothschild & Sons is advising Saban. UBS Warburg is advising KirchMedia."

[Hollywood IS politics. Who runs Hollywood? And who runs American foreign policy?]
Hollywood and politics have been in bed for a long time,
New Zealand Herald, March 31, 2003
"Go Michael Moore, the maker of Bowling for Columbine, who on Oscar night took his first statue and his umpteenth risk with the words 'Shame on you , Mr Bush, shame on you'. The awards crowd was astir, the orchestra struck up, Titanic-like, with a chirpy ditty amid the booing, and Michael waved, smiled warmly and took his golden man off stage. His 55-second speech included an accusation that Bush was a fictitious president who had brought his country to war for fictitious reasons. Go Michael Moore. That speech was never going to go down easy, and Moore knew it. He would have walked to that podium with the same relish most of us walk into a chocolate shop. Controversy is his fix. It's why he gets up in the morning ... We're talking about Hollywood here. The idea that the film industry isn't about politics is exactly the sort of deceptive myth-making Moore loves to rip wide open. Hollywood and politics have been in bed together since Adam and Eve. Well almost. Since the late 1890 ... During World War II, Germany made 1300 films commissioned by the Nazis. Hollywood was in on the same game and made 300 World War II movies that were essentially propaganda films. They showed bold and brave American soldiers fighting a heinous enemy. Every note the government wanted hit was struck on cue ... The White House had a meeting with movers and shakers in Hollywood in November 2001 asking their co-operation in the message that needed to go out post-September 11. Remember Laura from Little House on the Prairie? In real life she's Melissa Gilbert [also Jewish], the president of the American Screen Actors Guild, and according to E! Online she was at that meeting, with the chiefs at Paramount and Walt Disney among others ... So for someone to say the Oscars are no forum for politics is just another of those grand deceits on which Hollywood prides itself, and our only defence is to be smarter than they think we are. They think we believe Punch hits Judy, but we know Punch doesn't hit Judy, the puppeteer does."

[The compiler -- Jeffrey Blankfort of the material below -- is Jewish. Note: this list is just a fraction of the full story of Jewish influence in the mass media. But note also: there are a few mistakes in this list.]
JEWS IN THE MEDIA,
(Appendix to Invading Iraq: Converging U.S. and Israeli Agenda)
Compiled by Jeffrey Blankfort, Demographic, Environmental and Security Issues Project, April 2003
MORTIMER ZUCKERMAN, owner of NY Daily News, US News & World Report and chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish American Organizations, one of the largest pro-Israel lobbying groups.
LESLIE MOONVES, president of CBS television, great-nephew of David Ben-Gurion, and co-chair with Norman Ornstein of the Advisory Committee on Public Interest Obligation of Digital TV Producers, appointed by Clinton. JONATHAN MILLER, chair and CEO of AOL division of AOL-Time-Warner
NEIL SHAPIRO, president of NBC News
JEFF GASPIN, Executive Vice-President, Programming, NBC
DAVID WESTIN, president of ABC News
SUMNER REDSTONE, CEO of Viacom, "world's biggest media giant" (Economist, 11/23/2) owns Viacom cable, CBS and MTVs all over the world, Blockbuster video rentals and Black Entertainment TV.
MICHAEL EISNER, major owner of Walt Disney, Capitol Cities, ABC. RUPERT MURDOCH, Owner Fox TV, New York Post, London Times, News of the World (Jewish mother)
MEL KARMAZIN, president of CBS
DON HEWITT, Exec. Director, 60 Minutes, CBS
JEFF FAGER, Exec. Director, 60 Minutes II. CBS
DAVID POLTRACK, Executive Vice-President, Research and Planning, CBS
SANDY KRUSHOW, Chair, Fox Entertainment
LLOYD BRAUN, Chair, ABC Entertainment
BARRY MEYER, chair, Warner Bros.
SHERRY LANSING. President of Paramount Communications and Chairman of Paramount Pictures' Motion Picture Group.
HARVEY WEINSTEIN, CEO. Miramax Films.
BRAD SIEGEL., President, Turner Entertainment.
PETER CHERNIN, second in-command at Rupert Murdoch's News. Corp., owner of Fox TV
MARTY PERETZ, owner and publisher of the New Republic, which openly identifies itself as pro-Israel. Al Gore credits Marty with being his "mentor." ARTHUR O. SULZBERGER, JR., publisher of the NY Times, the Boston Globe and other publications.
WILLIAM SAFIRE, syndicated columnist for the NYT.
TOM FRIEDMAN, syndicated columnist for the NYT.
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, syndicated columnist for the Washington Post. Honored by Honest Reporting.com, website monitoring "anti-Israel media."
RICHARD COHEN, syndicated columnist for the Washington Post
JEFF JACOBY, syndicated columnist for the Boston Globe
NORMAN ORNSTEIN, American Enterprise Inst., regular columnist for USA Today, news analyst for CBS, and co-chair with Leslie Moonves of the Advisory Committee on Public Interest Obligation of Digital TV Producers, appointed by Clinton.
ARIE FLEISCHER, Dubya's press secretary.
STEPHEN EMERSON, every media outlet's first choice as an expert on domestic terrorism.
DAVID SCHNEIDERMAN, owner of the Village Voice and the New Times network of "alternative weeklies."
DENNIS LEIBOWITZ, head of Act II Partners, a media hedge fund KENNETH POLLACK, for CIA analysts, director of Saban Center for Middle East Policy, writes op-eds in NY Times, New Yorker
BARRY DILLER, chair of USA Interactive, former owner of Universal Entertainment
KENNETH ROTH, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch
RICHARD LEIBNER, runs the N.S. Bienstock talent agency, which represents 600 news personalities such as Dan Rather, Dianne Sawyer and Bill O'Reilly.
TERRY SEMEL, CEO, Yahoo, former chair, Warner Bros.
MARK GOLIN, VP and Creative Director, AOL
WARREN LIEBERFORD, Pres., Warner Bros. Home Video Div. of AOL- TimeWarner
JEFFREY ZUCKER, President of NBC Entertainment
JACK MYERS, NBC, chief….NYT 5.14.2
SANDY GRUSHOW, chair of Fox Entertainment
GAIL BERMAN, president of Fox Entertainment
STEPHEN SPIELBERG, co-owner of Dreamworks
JEFFREY KATZENBERG, co-owner of Dreamworks
DAVID GEFFEN, co-owner of Dreamworks
LLYOD BRAUN, chair of ABC Entertainment
JORDAN LEVIN, president of Warner Bros. Entertainment
MAX MUTCHNICK, co-executive producer of NBC's "Good Morning Miami"
DAVID KOHAN, co-executive producer of NBC's "Good Morning Miami" HOWARD STRINGER, chief of Sony Corp. of America
AMY PASCAL, chair of Columbia Pictures
JOEL KLEIN, chair and CEO of Bertelsmann's American operations ROBERT SILLERMAN, founder of Clear Channel Communications
BRIAN GRADEN, president of MTV entertainment
IVAN SEIDENBERG, CEO of Verizon Communications
WOLF BLITZER, host of CNN's Late Edition
LARRY KING, host of Larry King Live
TED KOPPEL, host of ABC's Nightline
ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN Reporter
PAULA ZAHN, CNN Host
MIKE WALLACE, Host of CBS, 60 Minutes
BARBARA WALTERS, Host, ABC's 20-20 .
MICHAEL LEDEEN, editor of National Review
BRUCE NUSSBAUM, editorial page editor, Business Week
DONALD GRAHAM, Chair and CEO of Newsweek and Washington Post, son of CATHERINE GRAHAM MEYER, former owner of the Washington Post
HOWARD FINEMAN, Chief Political Columnist, Newsweek
WILLIAM KRISTOL, Editor, Weekly Standard, Exec. Director Project for a New American Century
RON ROSENTHAL, Managing Editor, San Francisco Chronicle
PHIL BRONSTEIN, Executive Editor, San Francisco Chronicle,
RON OWENS, Talk Show Host, KGO (ABC-Capitol Cities, San Francisco) JOHN ROTHMAN, Talk Show Host, KGO (ABC-Capitol Cities, San Francisco)
MICHAEL SAVAGE, Talk Show Host, KFSO (ABC-Capitol Cities, San Francisco) Syndicated in 100 markets
MICHAEL MEDVED, Talk Show Host, on 124 AM stations
DENNIS PRAGER, Talk Show Host, nationally syndicated from LA. Has Israeli flag on his home page.
BEN WATTENBERG, Moderator, PBS Think Tank.
ANDREW LACK, president of NBC
DANIEL MENAKER, Executive Director, Harper Collins
DAVID REZNIK, Editor, The New Yorker
NICHOLAS LEHMANN, writer, the New York
HENRICK HERTZBERG, Talk of the Town editor, The New Yorker SAMUEL NEWHOUSE JR, and DONALD NEWHOUSE own Newhouse Publications, includes 26 newspapers in 22 cities; the Conde Nast magazine group, includes The New Yorker; Parade, the Sunday newspaper supplement; American City Business Journals, business newspapers published in more than 30 major cities in America; and interests in cable television programming and cable systems serving 1 million homes.
DONALD NEWHOUSE, chairman of the board of directors, Associated Press.
PETER R KANN, CEO, Wall Street Journal, Barron's
RALPH J. & BRIAN ROBERTS, Owners, Comcast-ATT Cable TV. LAWRENCE KIRSHBAUM, CEO, AOL-Time Warner Book Group

[Media monster Comcast is controlled by the Jewish Roberts family.]
The Comcast shakedown. Flush with its purchase of AT&T Broadband, the biggest cable company on the block intends to make size matter,
by Chishen Wei, Salon.com, April 8, 2003
"Now that the Comcast-AT&T Broadband merger has wrapped up its final stage of system migration, Comcast cable subscribers are beginning to feel the weight of the FCC-approved 800-pound gorilla. The acquisition of AT&T Broadband last November gave Comcast control over 21 million cable homes (roughly one in five TV homes). The media-communications giant wasted little time flexing its newfound market muscle. On April 1, Comcast forced its cable Internet subscribers to adopt a new pricing scheme that toes the boundary of antitrust law. Current customers face a $15 (33 percent) monthly increase -- unless they subscribe to Comcast's cable TV service. Reaction to the move has been sharp, especially in California, where former AT&T Broadband cable subscribers have found themselves bombarded in recent weeks by a ubiquitous Comcast marketing campaign aimed at boosting Comcast's cable Internet subscriber numbers. Before the price hike was even official, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., sent a letter to Michael Powell, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, decrying what she called Comcast's 'monopolistic practices./"

Breaking News: Seinfeld to honor Israel,
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, April 10, 2003
"Jerry Seinfeld and Tony Bennett will highlight next month’s celebration in Washington for Israel’s 55th anniversary. The 'Israel@55 'gala, scheduled for May 19, also will feature singer Norah Jones and Israeli singer Achinoam 'Noa' Nini. Other performers will be announced soon, and both Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and President Bush are expected to attend."

[Head of CBS: Jewish mogul Leslie Moonves].
'Hitler' Exec Producer Fired Over Remarks Thu,
TV zap2it.com, Apr 10, 2003
"The executive producer of a CBS miniseries about Adolf Hitler's rise to power has been fired after giving an interview in which he compared the current mood of Americans to that of the Germans who helped Hitler rise to power. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Ed Gernon was fired Sunday (April 6) from Alliance Atlantis, the production company making 'Hitler: The Rise of Evil' for CBS. He had worked there 11 years and was head of the firm's long-form programming division. Neither Gernon nor Alliance Atlantis is commenting on the matter. 'Hitler' has caused controversy ever since CBS announced its intentions last summer. In an interview with TV Guide about the four-hour film, scheduled for May, Gernon compares many Americans' acceptance of a war in Iraq to the fearful climate in post-World War I Germany, of which Hitler took advantage to become its ruler. 'It basically boils down to an entire nation gripped by fear, who ultimately chose to give up their civil rights and plunged the whole nation into war,' Gernon said in the interview. 'I can't think of a better time to examine this history than now.' Gernon's remarks reportedly didn't go over well at CBS, which has tried very hard to frame 'Hitler' as a historical piece that in no way sensationalizes or offers excuses for Hitler's actions."

[Unspoken context: Jewish dominance of Hollywood and the omnipresent Jewish Lobby:]
Shooting the Arabs. They're the studio's villains of choice when comes to depicting terrorists, arms dealers or torturers. And after September 11, it looks like getting worse. Author Jack Shaheen escorts Sean Clarke through the shabby history of the Hollywood Arab,
The Guardian (UK), April 17, 2003
"If Hollywood does take up the story of blonde, blue-eyed Private Jessica Lynch, there's at least one man who won't be optimistic about the film's treatment of her Iraqi captors. Professor Jack Shaheen has spent 20 years cataloguing Tinseltown's portrayal of Arabs in over 900 movies. He's found that, with very few exceptions, Arabs are presented in the movies as 'subhuman' and destable to a degree that the studios would no longer dare with any other ethnic group. Shaeen's new book, Reel Bad Arabs, compares the case of Pocahontas - Disney's Native American animation, on which Native American groups were widely consulted in order to produce an acceptable portrait - with that of Aladdin, one of the Arab and European world's most cherished folk tales, which features 'hook-nosed Arabs' singing of their milieu: 'it's barbaric, but hey, it's home.' This, as Shaheen doesn't point out, in a story set in the Baghdad Caliphate, the most culturally powerful and one of the most enlightened polities of its time. 'The tragedy' he admits, 'is that we've begun to unlearn other stereotypes' - about Blacks, Jews, Native Americans. 'But we haven't with this one. And 9/11 took it to another level' ... Shaheen even thinks the dehumanisation of Arabs in Hollywood can affect the US public's attitude to war in Iraq. 'For instance,' he says, 'we hardly ever see Arab suffering. Look at the war coverage - it's almost invisible. It's almost as if the bombs are falling on empty buildings. And that's been true historically, when every news report that comes out of Israel rightly shows Israeli suffering, but wrongly passes over Palestinian suffering. We have not allowed ourselves to empathise with Arabs or see them as being like us' ... But when asked who's to blame for Hollywood's prejudices, he identifies a less obvious culprit: the Arab American community itself. 'Hollywood can villify anything and everything Arab without getting any pressure not to do that. There's no lobby in Hollywood. There are two power centres in the US; Washington DC and Hollywood. One influences policy, and the other influences perception. No Americans of Arab heritage have recognised the importance of lobbying those who impact perception.'"

Our Humanity in the Balance,
By Carel Moiseiwitsch, Gordon Murray and Drew Penland, Winnipeg Free Press, May 4, 2003
"We recently returned from the Occupied Territories of the West Bank and Gaza where we volunteered with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). Upon returning to Vancouver, we were shocked by the disconnection between our experience of Palestine and its portrayal in the Canadian media. During our stay there, we accompanied and supported people whose daily lives were being interrupted, interfered with and strangled by the Israeli military. We saw humiliation, pain and death inflicted on ordinary Palestinians. Back in Canada, we saw newspaper stories about the heroic Israeli victims of barbaric Palestinian terrorists. Our point is not that Israeli suffering is irrelevant or that Israeli deaths are inconsequential, but that the North American media treat Palestinian suffering and death as irrelevant and inconsequential. In the West Bank and Gaza, we observed soldiers beating medical personnel and using them as human shields, taunting young children to throw rocks at their tank so they could respond with live ammunition, forcing women with infants to stand for hours in the cold a few metres from their homes, destroying food and water systems, and firing heavy machine guns into residential streets and buildings. In short, the Israeli military did not seem to view Palestinians as human beings. Soldiers at checkpoints gave us dire warnings that all Palestinians would kidnap or murder us. On the contrary, the Palestinians we met were incredibly warm, hospitable and generous, and many Israelis work bravely to uphold human rights, including some who join ISM in Palestine. The Israeli military claims many Palestinians they kill are "armed militants" or at least "suspected militants". The vast majority have not been tried or convicted of anything, but we are expected to trust this instant justice. The logic seems to be that since the army doesn't target civilians, all dead Palestinians somehow deserved their fate -- even a kid throwing stones at a tank that could withstand an artillery shell. According to human rights groups, 85 per cent of the Palestinians killed in the Occupied Territories are civilians ... The Israeli army is killing and wounding obvious non-combatants such as medical workers, journalists and international human rights activists with increasing frequency ... The Israeli occupation army's "policing" has killed more than 2,000 Palestinian civilians (including more than 450 children) and demolished more than 3,000 Palestinian houses since September, 2000. That's taking police brutality to a whole new level. A stunning media imbalance is revealed by studies of U.S. coverage of the Palestinian uprising. Analysis of the San Jose Mercury News by Alison Wier, a former Sausalito editor, showed that it covered 73 per cent of Israeli deaths on its front page from April to September, 2001, compared to just five per cent of Palestinian deaths. Cursory readers of the paper would be left with the impression that 500 Israelis -- but only about 100 Palestinian civilians -- had been killed in the current uprising, when the real figures are 700 Israelis and 2,000 Palestinian. According to the media watchdog organization, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), National Public Radio (NPR) in the U.S. fared somewhat better, reporting 34 per cent of Palestinian deaths and 81 per cent of Israeli deaths in the first six months of 2001. However, the distortion was much worse in the emotionally-charged category of dead children. Only 20 per cent of the killings of Palestinian children were reported, compared to 89 per cent for Israeli children. In other words, being less than 18 years old makes your death more newsworthy to NPR if you are Israeli, but less newsworthy if you are Palestinian. Our experience in the Occupied Territories bears this out ... Portraying one side's suffering as more tragic or important than the other's -- or some deaths as justified by a simplistic "truth" that serves one side -- just facilitates violence. The media must support the search for shared truths and not merely reiterate the formulas of fundamentalist ideologues -- on either side of the Mideast conflict -- that serve a single interest. All of us are responsible for helping find a humane solution. To be silent is to be complicit in the ongoing oppression."

[The Executive Producer of "Hitler: The Rise of Evil" is Jewish: Peter Sussman. So is the head of CBS (which is running the mini-series): Leslie Moonves.]
Peter Sussman,
CBS
"Peter Sussman is the Chief Executive Officer of the Entertainment Group at Alliance Atlantis Communications Inc. and an Executive Producer on HITLER: The Rise of Evil. Alliance Atlantis's extensive body of work includes several films dealing with stories and events in connection with the Holocaust and World War II. Many of these films were executive produced by Mr. Sussman and they include the mini-series "Nuremberg" for TNT, nominated for four Emmy Awards (winner of one) and three Golden Globe Awards and the mini-series "Haven" for CBS, nominated for three Emmy Awards and winner of the 2001 Humanitas Award. Mr. Sussman was also an Executive Producer of the award winning feature film "The Quarrel," based on the celebrated Yiddish short story by Chaim Grade entitled "My Quarrel with Hersh Rasseyner." Other Alliance Atlantis feature films on subjects relating to the Holocaust include "Sunshine," nominated for three Golden Globe Awards, including Best Film, as well as "Prisoner of Paradise," nominated for an Academy Award in 2003 for Best Feature Documentary. In addition, Mr. Sussman executive produced the mini-series "Joan of Arc" for CBS, which was nominated for 13 Emmy Awards (winner of one), four Golden Globe Awards, and won the Television Critics Award for Best Movie, Mini-Series or Special."

TED TURNER.Gone With the Wind Ted Turner is a worried man,
by Patricia Sellers, Fortune, May 26, 2003
"No matter how immersed he gets in the Turnerverse, he cannot completely escape the debacle of AOL Time Warner. One reason is legal: He is named in several lawsuits, along with other senior executives, as a party to alleged accounting violations. Another is psychological: Turner is obsessed with Jerry Levin, AOL Time Warner's former CEO. As Turner's friends note, he'll be conversing on any subject--restaurants, bison, ex-wives, whatever--and find a way to lash out at Levin. 'The biggest mistake I made was trusting Jerry too much,' Turner says. Turner and Levin had a long association, dating back to the late '80s. At that time Turner, overleveraged from his MGM acquisition, brought in a consortium of cable investors, including Time Inc., where Levin was a top executive. Turner says that Levin tried 'to keep me small' by twice denying him the chance to buy NBC. The worst affront, the one that makes him bilious to this day, occurred in 2000, a few months after Time Warner agreed to merge with AOL. Levin told Turner he'd have to give up running CNN and his other beloved cable properties. Turner could stay as vice chairman, but he'd have no operating role. 'I should have left the company,' says Turner, 'but I loved everybody. I was a hero.' (Levin declines to comment.) Pushed aside, Turner took on the role of the angriest AOL Time Warner shareholder ... The dumbest deal of all, in Turner's view, was the AOL/Time Warner merger. "A total disaster!" he says. But Turner did nothing to stop it. He says now that he didn't really understand the Internet."

'The Producers' Premieres in L.A.,
Earthlink (from Associated PRess), May 30, 2003
"Mel Brooks brought his singing Broadway bandits West as a new production of his show-business satire 'The Producers' premiered with Jason Alexander and Martin Short starring as the conniving theater impresarios. Alexander took over Thursday night as Max Bialystock, a lowlife theater producer who convinces the meek accountant Leo Bloom, played by Short, to help him cheat elderly investors by creating a surefire flop called 'Springtime for Hitler.' 'We had a great time tonight, we really did,' Alexander said after the show. 'Sometimes it's like climbing a mountain but tonight it was walking on air.' The story started as a 1968 movie with Zero Mostel as Bialystock and Gene Wilder as Bloom, but is perhaps best known as the Broadway stage show that won a record 12 Tony Awards in 2001 with former stars Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick. ... The story, Brooks has said, was inspired by a real-life experience he had working for a producer who would sleep with elderly women as a pretext for talking them out of their wealth."