BY DAN
KENNEDY
Notes and observations on
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For information on Dan Kennedy's book, Little People: Learning to
See the World Through My Daughter's Eyes (Rodale, October 2003),
click
here.
Friday, October 10, 2003
The end of Narco News.
Today is a sad day for independent media. The Narco
News Bulletin, produced
by my former Phoenix colleague Al Giordano, will
soon be no more.
For the past three and a half
years, Narco News has offered an idiosyncratic, comprehensive
look at the misguided US "war on drugs," told from a Latin American
perspective. It's an issue that's not on all that many radars --
indeed, it's not on mine as much as it should be. But I always knew
that Al and his "authentic journalists" were out there telling the
truth.
Giordano writes:
It's been quite a ride. In
these 1,275 days that shook América, we've witnessed,
reported, translated, and participated in the growth of a visible
drug legalization movement in Latin America where there previously
was none. We've blown the whistle on attempted coups d'etat in
Venezuela. We've walked side by side with, and reported from the
fronts of, the growing social and indigenous movements that, from
Argentina, to Bolivia, to Brazil, to Ecuador, to México, to
Perú, to Venezuela, and elsewhere, have reawakened
Simón Bolívar's dream of a Latin America united
against impositions from above.
In December 2001, Giordano and
Narco News won a precedent-setting First Amendment case when a
New York judge threw out a libel suit brought by the head of Banamex,
a powerful Mexican bank. Here is a piece I wrote on Giordano's
victory; and here's an
earlier
piece that discusses the
lawsuit in detail.
Giordano will continue to write his
weblog, Big,
Left, Outside, "Al
Giordano's countercoup for authentic journalism, democracy and a free
press."
Narco News will be missed,
but I suspect Giordano will continue to be heard from, soon and
often.
posted at 11:28 AM |
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Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
