The San Francisco Bay View newspaper has been forced to stop printing its weekly paper due to financial strain. The last printed copy went out on July 2nd, marking the 697th issue the Ratcliffs have published since starting the paper in 1992.

One of the only Black-owned radical publications in the U.S., the SF Bay View newspaper has provided a public platform of communication and solidarity between U.S., African, Latin American, and Caribbean activists and incarcerated people who are challenging imperialism throughout the world and from both sides of prison walls. On its last run, the paper was printed and delivered to thousands of homes in Bay View Hunter's Point and Oakland, dozens of locally owned businesses in the Mission District of San Francisco, and hundreds of people in prison.

The Bay View has maintained itself as an individually-funded free paper through a trickle of advertising revenue, national prisoner and resident subscriptions, and a small pool of donors, which has included the staff itself. Its printed, weekly format has been key to bridging the ‘digital divide’ in more ways than one, as many of its subscribers have no or very little access to the internet and few sources of trusted, current, community and activist-oriented news.

Read more | The end of an era, the dawn of a new day | Interview with Willie Ratliff | Aug. 9: Community Forum & Party

SF Bay View website

For ten months Bay Area News Group (BANG) executives threatened journalists with pay freezes and cuts in benefits if they organized a unit for collective bargaining on pay, benefits and work conditions. Despite an anti-union campaign by management, non-supervisory news workers voted in June to form a unit of the Northern California Media Workers Guild.

Less than one month later, at least 20 journalists who had been visibly supportive of organizing a union were summarily terminated.

Last week the Guild filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board, calling the firings retaliatory and citing other anti-union actions against the newly formed unit.

The 230-member Bay Area News Group East Bay (BANG-EB) bargaining unit includes the Oakland Tribune and other East Bay papers, as well as the San Mateo County Times on the peninsula. Among those terminated was Sara Steffens, newly elected chair of the unit and one of the main Guild organizers.

"I think they wanted me out of the newsroom," Steffans said. "They wanted to keep me from continuing to engage co-workers as we push for our first contract and they hoped this would send a message to scare people away from further union activity. But they made a big mistake -- so far it's only made our newsroom understand why it's important to have a contract to protect us."

Read More | Bay Area Guild Unit Files NLRB Charge Over Layoffs | One Big Bang (Union Website)

Indymedia Newsreal, a monthly television series, brings progressive grassroots organizing, going on in your backyard, to a national television audience. Newsreal is a longstanding collaboration between the Independent Media Center and Free Speech TV. Newsreal is shown on Free Speech TV every first Thursday at 5pm PST and sent on disc to community screening groups who show it during public screenings or include it on public access shows.

Each program covers actions taken in local communities, by ordinary people, to address critical issues like air and water pollution, war, reproductive rights, homelessness, for-profit prisons, sweatshops, racism, police brutality, indigenous struggles, and more. Newsreal is comprised of segments submitted by video-makers throughout the world. Read More

July 2008 Indymedia Newsreal

Free Speech Radio News (FSRN) is facing closure after its major supporter substantially reduced funding.

FSRN broadcasts a half-hour, worker-run daily newscast on more than 100 stations nationwide. It has regularly highlighted the voices of marginalized communities most affected by social and economic policy changes. Headlines editor Shannon Young says that FSRN is an unmatched model. "Our international network of community-based reporters is unique for a US-based news outlet."

FSRN has been given notice by the financially-strapped Pacifica Foundation that its funding will be cut by more than $13,500 a month - effective immediately. The reduction represents about a 25% cut in income for the grassroots news collective. Since FSRN is barred from on-air fundraising, it must seek to offset the cut with income from affiliates, foundations and individuals.

A massive cut in funding from Pacifica on a moment's notice will make it impossible for Free Speech Radio News to produce a daily half-hour newscast.


Read More | Free Speech Radio News | Pacifica

danielsan writes, "This news show airs weekly on Freak Radio, Friday mornings 10-12 noon, broadcasting news and opinion from independent media worldwide, focused on indymedia sites but also drawing from other websites. On the 5.9.08 indynewswire:

"An interview with Katherine Redmond of the National Coalition Against Violent Athletes (NCAVA) on the De Anza Rape Case, closed last week by the CA attorney General Jerry Brown's office, citing lack of evidence. An extremely disturbing case, and an even more disturbing response from the Santa Clara County DA and the state AG. More than a year later, Katherine Redmond discusses this and other cases nationwide.

"Lakeside Organics: yes, local and organic, but labor exploitative. Detention Centers are the new Indian Schools. Eric McDavid was sentenced to nearly 20 years. A look at the calendar: today is John Brown's 208th Birthday! Celebrate with a weekend of direct action." Read More and Listen to Audio

On Thursday May 1st, Al-Jazeera reporter Sami al-Haj was released after six and a half years at Guantanamo. Upon his arrival in Sudan early on Friday, Al-Hajj was carried off a US air force jet on a stretcher and immediately taken to a hospital. His brother, Asim al-Hajj, said that he did not recognise the cameraman because he looked like a man in his 80s. Al-Hajj told reporters at the hospital that "rats are treated with more humanity" than the inmates at Guantanamo, whose "human dignity [is] violated".

Al-Haj, 38, was detained in December 2001 by Pakistani forces along the Afghan-Pakistani border while covering the U.S. led-offensive to unseat the Taliban. He was later transported by the U.S. military to Guantanamo Bay in June 2002. He began a hunger strike in January 2007 to protest his continued incarceration. In a letter from 2007, Al-Haj reported that throughout the 130 interrogations to which he has been subjected in Guantánamo, “the interrogations were all about al-Jazeera and alleged relations between al-Jazeera and al-Qaeda". he also reported that teh US military tried to induce him to work as a spy for American intelligence in return for US citizenship for him and for his family.

"Sami al-Haj is the latest journalist to be freed by the U.S. military after spending years behind bars on the basis of secret evidence and without formal charge or trial," says Committee to Protect Journalists Executive Director Joel Simon. "We are delighted that Sami al-Haj can finally be reunited with his family and friends. But his detention for six years, without the most basic due process, is a grave injustice and represents a threat to all journalists working in conflict areas."

Al-Haj, who is Sudanese, is the second journalist to be freed by the U.S. military in the last month after being held for a prolonged period without due process. On April 16, Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein was released from U.S. custody in Iraq, ending a two-year ordeal in which he fended off unsubstantiated accusations from the U.S. military that he had collaborated with Iraqi insurgents. All told, 10 journalists have been held for extended periods by the U.S. military and then released without charge.

The U.S. military continues to hold Jawed Ahmad, a journalist for Canada's CTV, at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Ahmad has been held without charge since October 26, 2007, according to CTV.

Read More | Prisoner345.net | Journalist released from Guantánamo details abuse | Sami al-Hajj Hits Out At US Captors | Democracy Now | Committee to Protect Journalists | Reporters Without Borders | Al Jazeera You Tube Report On Al-Hajj release

Sami al-Haj…Guantanamo Nightmare | Previous Coverage From Democracy Now: Sami Al-Haj and Bilal Hussein | Brother of Jailed Cameraman Says Imprisonment Part of U.S. “Political Operation Against Al Jazeera” | Al Jazeera Director Demands More Information on Secret Memo | Al Jazeera in the Crosshairs