Inter Press Service

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Inter Press Service was founded in 1964 and is a non-profit news content provider based in Rome, Italy that seeks to "act as a communication channel that privileges the voices and the concerns of the poorest" and brings them to the attention of those in the West.[1] IPS claims to be the World's fifth-largest news agency.[2]

Early spread/problems

After its establishment in 1964 as an "information bridge" between Latin America and Europe, Inter Press "developed an extensive network of bureaus and correspondents in 60 countries, primarily in the Third World. By the 1980s , it had over a hundred correspondents and "links with some 30 Third World or non-aligned national news agencies.

But not all went well for Inter Press, for as James Lobe acknowledged to an IPS class on the New International Information Order, Inter Press correspondents have occasionally been deported from countries for their political activism.

By the early 1980s, mmong its four hundred fifty subscribers worldwide, Inter Press feeds major European outlets, including the Financial Times and the Guardian of Great Britain, Le Monde Diplomatique of France, Neue Zuricher of Switzerland, Der Spiegel and Die Welt of West Germany, and El Pais of Spain. In North America Inter Press was carried by Uno Mas Uno of Mexico, and the Globe and Mail of Canada.[3]

Radical connections

KGB agent and one time director of the Transnational Institute, Orlando Letelier , was a personal friend of Inter Press Service founder Roberto Savio.

Cuban/KGB agent Philip Agee was connected with Inter Press Service through his friend and anti-CIA collaborator Phil Kelly, who served as Inter Press's London bureau chief. Inter Press, like Institute for Policy Studies/Transnational Institute , was involved in a global effort to create a New International Information Order (NIIO), a sister project to the New International Economic Order (NIEO).[4]

New International Information Order

In the 1980s Roberto Savio sought a key role in the New International Information Order process. Washington Inter Press bureau chief, James Lobe frankly stated that the position of his boss Savio is that "everything that Inter Press has done is the New International Information Order. Savio created networks of third world press agencies which are anti-U.S. and generally critical of the Western world, such as ASIN (Accion de Sistelnas Infornlativos Nacionales) in Latin America and FANA in the Arab world. But he failed to differentiate between news and state-controlled political propaganda. For instance, Inter Press put JANA of Libya, AIM of Mozambique, INA of Iraq, WAFA of the Palestinians, ANN of Nicaragua, and Prensa Latina of Cuba on an equal footing with privately owned news agencies such as CRI of Costa Rica.[5]

El Salvador propaganda

In 1982 Inter Press succeeded in placing an article in the New York Tilnes by one of its correspondents who used a pseudonym because he "feared being denied readmission to EI Salvador for Interlink" (the U.S. branch of Inter Press).

The article, based on an interview with Cayetano Carpio. Marxist leader of the Salvadoran FMLN guerrillas, was thinly veiled propaganda:

One of the biggest dangers of the elections proposed by President Jose Napoleon Duarte and supported by the Reagan Administration is that they will serve as a smokescreen for a stepped-up offensive and for asking for increased logistical support from the Pentagon. . . .
But weapons are not the only factor in this conflict ... you can't make such calculations in a popular war that has been going on for over 10 years, pitting the army against the people....[6]

That the guerrillas have never been able to muster support of more than ten thousand from a population of 4.5 million, and that over 80 percent of the population went to the polls, were facts that carried little weight with Inter Press as Carpio touted the guerrillas as representing the "people" in a "popular war. "

Grenada propaganda

When the United States undertook the Grenada rescue mission, the first stories that came over the Inter Press wire were from Havana.

Inter Press correspondent Claude Robinson did his best to call into doubt the joint actions in Grenada of the United States and the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS). Datelined New York, October 28, 1983, Robinson wrote:

The treaty which the United States and its Caribbean allies have been relying on to support the claims of legality did not, in fact, meet the requirements of the U.N. Charter and hence, its validity has been cast into serious doubt.... At a time when the U.S. Congress has begun to raise questions about the way in which President Reagan was using the U.S. War Powers act in the Grenada

case, the sponsors of the invasion l11ay be stepping on some slippery legal ground.

James Lobe, ridiculed the legitimacy of the U.S.-OECS action by pointing out that "the invasion was justified at the time through an obscure treaty among eastern Caribbean states and an alleged threat posed by the situation on the island to some 1,000 U.S. citizens.' Lobe also charged, erroneously, that President Reagan's assertion that "Grenada was a Soviet-Cuban colony being readied as a major military bastion" was in no way sustained by Grenadan documents."[5]

All dispatches from Inter Press cast doubt on U.S. statements concerning the geopolitical role of Grenada. Another dispatch, for instance, said, "To the Grenadan People's Revolutionary Government (PRG) the new airport being built at Pointe Salines with Cuban assistance represented a potential economic salvation"-rather than "a potential Cuban base," as the Reagan administration asserted.[5]

Global Personnel

Board of Directors

The IPS Board of Directors is comprised of distinguished journalists, academics, communications experts and specialists in international cooperation. The following were members of the board as at March 4, 2010:

Board of Trustees

Interlink Press Service

Interlink Press Service, exclusive U.S. distributor of Inter Press Service, the world's sixth largest wire service at the time, was founded in 1981 by Brennon Jones, a former anti-Vietnam War activist with the American Friends Service Committee and the National Council of Churches . Jones was captivated by Inter Press founder Roberto Savio's concept of creating an alternative to networks like UPI, AP, and Reuters.[4]

Interlink Press Service was located at 777 U.N. Plaza in New York City, a few floors down from the Rubin Foundation, which funded it.

By 1984, under the leadership of Brennon Jones, Interlink had contracts servicing such prestigious media outlets as the New York Times, the Baltimore Sun, the Wall Street Journal's Los Angeles bureau, the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, the San Francisco Examiner, the Christian Science Monitor, the Long Island Newsday, CBS News, National Public Radio, Cable Network News, and Metromedia's Channel 5 in New York City.

Under a board of directors that included Peter Weiss of Institute for Policy Studies , Richard Falk of Princeton, Sen. Tom Harkin, Herbert Schiller of the University of California and ILET's academic committee, Steve Hayes of the American Field Service, and Dwain Epps of the World Council of Churches, Interlink developed far beyond merely providing an outlet for Inter Press in the United States.

It also serviced university libraries, businesses, international financial institutions, and foundations such as the World Bank, the Ford Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation.[3]

Interlink maked a concerted effort to expand, exploring ways to add material from such publications as The Nation, Mother Jones, and The Progressive. Pacific News Service subscribed to Interlink.[3]

IPS North America

IPS North America was founded in July 1997 in New York. The organisation aims to enhances the free flow and dissemination of information between developing nations and the North American media, non–governmental organisations, policy–makers at the United Nations, educational institutions and other organisations involved in social, economic, and educational issues affecting primarily developing countries. IPS North America was set up by the IPS International Association and is a founding member of the IPS International News Agency. On their website they state their goal,

"As part of what is known as "development journalism", IPS North America aims to help correct the imbalance of mainstream media news by providing contextualised content that focuses less on specific news events and more on processes, institutions and trends that make those events understandable to readers."[7]

Thalif Deen, UN Bureau Chief serves as IPS Regional Director for North America.[7]

IPS North America journalist network

As at March 4, 2010, the following were listed as members of the IPS North America journalist network:[8][7]

The following write for the IPS, however have not been listed as journalists working for the organization:[9]

Supporters

The following have been financial supporters of the IPS:[10]

2005

As well as these organizations, the following governments supported the IPS: Belgium, Brazil, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Norway.

2006

As well as these organizations, the following governments supported the IPS: Belgium, Brazil, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Norway.

2007

As well as these organizations, the following governments supported the IPS: Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Finland, Brazil and Germany.

External Links

References

  1. ↑ IPS website: Our Mission
  2. ↑ IPS website: Roberto Savio biography
  3. ↑ Jump up to: 3.0 3.1 3.2 Covert Cadre, S. Stephen Powell, page 142
  4. ↑ Jump up to: 4.0 4.1 Covert Cadre, S. Stephen Powell, page 139
  5. ↑ Jump up to: 5.0 5.1 5.2 Covert Cadre, S. Stephen Powell, page 140
  6. ↑ Covert Cadre, S. Stephen Powell, page 141
  7. ↑ Jump up to: 7.0 7.1 7.2 IPS website: IPS North America
  8. ↑ IPS website: North America Journalist network
  9. ↑ Jump up to: 9.0 9.1 9.2 Lobelog.com
  10. ↑ IPS website: Supporters
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