<http://www.narconews.com/hazenstory1.html>
Ethics Problems at Alternet "Alternative" Media Can Be Corrupted, Too By Al Giordano
"He (Bob McChesney) suggests that I was flailing around with tin cup in hand. This kind of thinking is very destructive and makes me apoplectic."
-- Don Hazen, Alternet, February 2002
News organizations have a special duty to abide by basic ethical practices. That is just as true, perhaps moreso, for those of us who claim an "alternative" status.
That's why Narco News and I have, from our first day of publication, publicly disclosed any and all relationships, financial or otherwise, that could create even the appearance of conflict of interest. That information appears on our links page and is been regularly updated when necessary.
Alternet, an "alternative" news organization, which according to statements by its own director has received an estimated million dollars for editorial product, has been less forthcoming. Some of Alternet's ethical lapses have entangled Narco News, and so we feel duty bound to clear the air.
This is not a critique of the many good writers whose work has been syndicated by Alternet. Au contraire. Alternet has systematically abused its writers. Today, we publish this information in defense of writers, readers and other publications that, like ours, have been swept up in events regarding Alternet without our knowledge and beyond our control.
For more than a decade, I have been one of Alternet's syndicated writers. My work in the Boston Phoenix and, in years prior, the Valley Advocate, has occasionally been resold through Alternet to other periodicals. But the Alternet medium has begun to contaminate the message and tars anyone associated with the same corrupted brush.
Today I explain for our readers why Narco News and I will no longer allow Alternet to republish our work.
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