Red Pepper News

George in the House

From the Grapple in the Apple... to boredom in Borehamwood. George Galloway has never been one to shy away from publicity, but his appearance on Celebrity Big Brother certainly raised a few eyebrows on the left.

The MP for Bethnal Green and Bow's constituents were initially shocked to hear that George had entered the House.
 
They weren't the only ones. Senior SWP members were kept in the dark about their Respect comrade's latest exploit and are not exactly best pleased. The Party's Central Committee are apparently fans of rival ITV show I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, if dark rumours that they are organising their own Bushtucker trial for Galloway are to be believed.

Guardian to Chomsky: Sorry!

In case you missed it, here's The Guardian's apologetic response to Noam Chomsky's complaint after they published a fairly muck-raking and highly inaccurate profile of him last week. A MediaLens point-by-point response is here.

Interestingly, the Guardian itself has removed the original article from it's website but Chomsky still has it on his. Perhaps he's making a point about freedom of speech?

Video and TV jukebox

War on Want took Scottish Band Belle and Sebastian to Palastine to raise awareness about the Stop the Wall campaign. The video they made is now online and can be downloaded here.

Meanwhile, if you want to brush up on your Spanish, you could do far worse than watch Telesur, the new pan-South American TV station broadcasting from Venezuela. It is now being streamed on the internet here.

Alternative media for victims of Katrina

Oscar Reyes. Sometimes I think there should be a ban on the phrase ‘grassroots activism’, since its far more said than done. But here’s a great example from the US.

Independent media activists in Texas are launching a community station to serve refugees from Hurricane Katrina. The station will be based in the Houston Astrodome, where thousands of evacuees have been relocated. The Prometeus Radio Project, which is committed to not-for-profit broadcasting and the democratisation of the airwaves in the US, is behind the project, with the help of Houston Indymedia.

Locked out journalists strike back

Journalists locked out of Canadian public broadcaster CBC are striking back by creating their own alternative media source. 5,500 employees have been locked out by the stating, after they rejected management plans to put more staff on temporary contracts. In response, they have launched CBC Unplugged, which gathers dispatches from picketlines and uses blogs to gather lockout-related news and music. The site also raises wider issues about casualisation in the media industry.