April begins Friday. To get a jump start, I've added four links. These aren't the panel's decisions on blogs (they're still deciding).
Inter Press Service (IPS) is a news source that I hope many of you will find useful. Two stories from IPS were noted Sunday and the e-mails were favorable so it's one of the links added for April.
From IPS's "about" page:
IPS, civil society's leading news agency, is an independent voice from the South and for development, delving into globalisation for the stories underneath. Another communication is possible.
CounterPunch is a link that was intended to be added in March but time ran out. (Which is why I've added four links today -- in case that repeats.) It's a bi-weekly that we frequently highlight here. If you haven't checked it out yet, please do. This is from the "about us" section at CounterPunch:
CounterPunch is the bi-weekly muckraking newsletter edited by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair. Twice a month we bring our readers the stories that the corporate press never prints. We aren't side-line journalists here at CounterPunch. Ours is muckraking with a radical attitude and nothing makes us happier than when CounterPunch readers write in to say how useful they've found our newsletter in their battles against the war machine, big business and the rapers of nature.
We're in our sixth year now and have exceptionally loyal readers, who have delighted in our irreverent and biting approach. Time and again they tell us they're sick of dull, predictable writing. They want fresh facts, a newsletter that they can enjoy rather than just endure--and we give it to them. Barbara Ehrenreich says, "CounterPunch makes me think. It makes me laugh. Above all it tells me things I didn't know."
Here at CounterPunch we have many friends and all the right enemies. And, guaranteed, you'll never see any of us on the pundit line up at MSNBC. We try to stay beyond the pale.
The third link added is to Free Speech Radio News. A number of members have been e-mailing regarding programming they can listen to in addition to Democracy Now! so this (and the fourth link) have been added. From the history page of Free Speech Radio News:
FSRN is the only daily half-hour progressive radio newscast in the U.S. It is owned and managed by news reporters. FSRN is an independent broadcast news organization born in January 2000 as the result of a strike by 43 reporters who formerly worked for Pacifica Network News (PNN). It was created in defiance of the Pacifica Foundation's former Board of Directors and staff who had censored PNN staff for reporting on the Pacifica conflict, and who were attempting to "mainstream" the news at Pacifica. Since that time, FSRN has expanded to over 200 journalists who report from 40 states within the U.S. and 57 countries around the world-including Israel/Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Argentina, Mexico and Nigeria. Any journalist may pitch a news story to FSRN and every reporter who produces a story gets paid. FSRN actively recruits and trains people throughout the U.S. and around the world resulting in an ever-expanding and broadened reporter base.
FSRN supports peace and social justice. It emphasizes decentralized production, and the collective input of Pacifica stations, affiliates and other community media. The FSRN steering committee strives for diversity in ethnicity, gender, class and sexual orientation in the staff and reporting pool. FSRN is administered by Pacifica Reporters Against Censorship (PRAC), a newly incorporated not-for-profit, 501(c)3 tax-exempt corporation. FSRN is negotiating for union affiliation.
Our fourth link is also an audio link, Air America Place. We link to that site often when referencing The Laura Flanders Show, The Majority Report, (in the past) Unfiltered, etc.
A number of members have written in requesting that this may be a permanent link so that they don't have to use a search engine or track down an entry to find the site.
Cedric: I would say it should be linked to because people can pick and choose from it on what to listen to. If a guest or topic or show is boring me on Air America, I like to shoot over to Air America Place and grab an episode that I missed or relisten to one that I enjoyed.
There are many features at Air America Place: "Daily Blog," "Message Board," "News" and, the feature Cedric was referring to, the audio archive. In the archive, you can find various archived episodes of Air America programming.
None of the new links may be for you. If they're not, don't utilize them. If you're unfamiliar with them and you have the time, please consider sampling them.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
