Alternet brouhaha

[Doug Henwood]

[this is long, and probably too inside baseball for most, so just a 
lead an URL]

<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.

[...]