Hacker Cinema
The New Watchdogs
Les nouveaux chiens de garde
2012 · Film · documentary · 100 min
Directed by Gilles Balbastre, Yannick Kergoat
In 1932, the writer Paul Nizan published "The New Watchdogs" to denounce the philosophers and writers of his time who, sheltering behind intellectual neutrality, imposed themselves as true watchdogs of the established order. Today the watchdogs are journalists, editors, and media experts who've openly become market evangelists and guardians of the social order. In a sardonic manner, "The New Watchdogs" denounces this press that, claiming to be independent, objective and pluralist, makes out it is a democratic force of opposition. With forcefulness and precision, the film puts its finger on the increasing danger of information produced by the major industrial groups of the Paris Stock Exchange and perverted into merchandise.
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And they have the (supposedly former) colonies providing nuclear fuel at the cost of protecting their environment and population. [0]
And abundant rivers with to cool down the reactors and destroy their local ecosystems. [1]
And very collaborative national media outlets who mostly don't cover the nuclear scandals due to being owned by Bouygues [2] (french multinational well-known for telecoms but who also does a fair share of public construction including on the famous EPR [3]) or by the french State [4].
Some additions:
- misleading/missing news reports on nuclear topics was covered by the 2012 documentary "Les nouveaux chiens de garde" [5] (the new watchdogs) about media corruption and disinformation: they went through two days worth of news broadcast on two TV channels to compare how was presented (or not) the fact that Bouygues had major engineering failures on the EPR construction
- the french government has a history of repression against ecological/anti-nuclear movements, ranging from the murder in 1977 of Vital Michalon by police forces [6] during an anti-nuclear protest, to the harassment and military (gendarmerie) occupation of Bure (Meuse) and surrounding villages, including dozens of house searches, a bunch of prison sentences, and an ongoing investigation of eco-anarchists for "criminal association" [7]
- and don't even get me started on how to (not) deconstruct those facilities [8]
[0] https://www.pambazuka.org/governance/french-nuclear-power-fed-uranium-niger
[1] http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2019/ph241/clark1/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TF1_Group ; also see previous addition about TF1's non-coverage of EPR-related incidents
[3] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9acteur_pressuris%C3%A9_europ%C3%A9en
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France_T%C3%A9l%C3%A9visions - no specific source about "censorship" of nuclear incidents, however there is a strong and documented history of firing journalists and humorists who are too critical of the french State and corporations, and of self-censorship ; see also acrimed.org (french only sorry)
[5] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Nouveaux_Chiens_de_garde_(film)
[6] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vital_Michalon
[7] https://bureburebure.info/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/EN-Bure-History-and-context.pdf
[8] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29600399
Most journalists working for big outlets are docile when asked politely not to publish on a certain topic (either by their boss, or by government agencies), and that's how they avoid problems. See for example Glenn Greenwald's choice to leave the Guardian in order to publish the Snowden papers. For the french-speaking among us (not sure you can find english subtitles), the documentary "Les nouveaux chiens de garde" (the new watchdogs) goes into detail, interviewing sociologists and journalists, about the ties between the mainstream capitalist media establishment and other circles of power (industry, political parties).
About the no-fly list specifically, you should really check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Fly_List#Notable_cases . Some relevant quotes:
> TSA refused to allow an Air France flight from Paris to Mexico to cross U.S. airspace because it was carrying Colombian journalist Hernando Calvo Ospina
> On August 19, 2009, Air France flight AF-438 was not allowed to cross into U.S. airspace because of the presence on board of one Paul-Emile Dupret, a civil servant at the European Parliament for 18 years, who had written some articles criticizing the EU's policies toward Latin America because they are aligned too closely with those of the United States
> A U.S. citizen, stranded in Colombia after being placed on the No Fly List as a result of having studied in Yemen
> In October 2008, the Washington Post reported that Maryland State Police classified 53 nonviolent political activists as terrorists, and entered their names and personal information into state and federal databases
Seems like it's not hard in practice for psychopaths in uniforms to abuse secretive powers given to them.