Intelligence Vs. Journalism

"About Stratfor: Intelligence vs. Journalism is republished with permission of Stratfor."

Intelligence means three things to us. First, it is our method for gathering and processing information, which includes open-source publications in countries and languages all over the world and a large network of contacts.

Second, intelligence is how we critically examine and evaluate the context and predictive value of information, and it is how we connect our higher-level, strategic geopolitical framework to current events and breaking developments. We do not simply report what other articles or contacts say; rather, we evaluate their information for bias, agenda and context and only pass on what we find important and credible.

Third, we maintain a disciplined methodology and net assessments oriented toward forecasting -- explaining not only why something has happened but also what will happen next.

Empathetic Analysis

We seek to understand a country and its leaders in their own right, without bias or agenda. We maintain a fresh perspective and continually challenge preconceived notions. Because of this approach, we frequently depart from the conventional wisdom of the Western media. To reinforce this discipline, we have set up deliberate intellectual tensions to maintain a healthy level of interaction and rigorous debate among our entire team, so that no assumption or piece of information goes unchallenged.

Read more: Methodology | Stratfor 

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By their definition, STRATFOR GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE doesn't just collect the who, what, when, where, and how, of a story's past, but also analyze WHY, and infer "What's next?", to effectively predict the future.

I'm impressed with their model, and it may lead to a new form of business, to replace or perhaps supplement the traditional business model. Imagine, if a journalist can tell you the facts, but you will not pay for them, except by your attention and subject yourself to embedded advertising, but then that same reporter offers you an additional service, one that you must pay for, but is independent, expert, timely, and unique. Will you pay for their intelligence, analysis, and predictions? I believe that I would, and will.

With today's information technology, and the ability to collect revenue online, to bid and auction things of value, it may become possible to gain financially based upon your reputation for honest, accurate analysis and the educated forecast of upcoming events. Just as weathermen and stock-brokers were once trusted and valued moderators of information, in a world of increasing and accelerating uncertainty, having access to better intelligence focused minds, may increase the probability of success (survival), just as it always has.

The key will be to build a reputation worthy of trust.

Vigilance after the death of Newspapers

The end of newspapers was yesterday, now we need to find a new journalism, a way to produce the watchdog product of the press without the resources of big media. We have never had a profit motivation for investigative journalism, in fact it's not NON-PROFIT, investigative reporting is ANTI-PROFIT. Journalistic Ethics are not public knowledge, the line between Public Relations and 'Journalism' is gone. The survival of diverse journalism is non-profit, and we must be transparent to earn trust.

Journalists need not apply: The Fall of the Union Tribune Newspaper

The following exerpts come from The AWL article:

What Became Of San Diego's Newspaper

Thomas Larson | January 18th, 2013

Plutocrats once courted positive press coverage with their advertising dollars. Now they buy the means of producing such coverage and produce it with themselves as headlines. The way a newspaper sells its products with less footwork than they did in days of yore is to become the news you cover.

To find how the self-interest of news works, we have only to listen to Lynch's crowing about his and Manchester's tendentiousness. In an interview with KPBS, he said that as owners, we "have the right to express our core values. We are pro-family, pro-military, and [have] pro-conservative business values. We believe those things have always fired the engine of development in San Diego and the entire country." His comments ring with evangelical conviction: "I don't know anybody who is not for those things." They also ring with a touch of McCarthyism. With the Associated Press, he changed the line to, "Anybody who isn't"—pro-family, pro-military, pro-conservative—"shouldn't be living here."

Manchester-style media has ushered in another new news tack—socializing the content. In TV and online formats, what is being delivered, in addition to the commercial-rich environment, is less about the news and more of what the source or personality who's delivering it thinks about the news—better yet, what the source or personality says about the news as he/she conveys it. It's talk radio applied to TV and streaming video.

Related:
• One Town, Two Newspapers: Will the Real Digital Innovators Please Stand Up?
• The Tiny Newspaper In North Carolina That Scooped Up Journalism's Big Prizes

"Newspaper as Business Pulpit," in The New York Times, and Joe Strupp's overview, "The Fall ofThe San Diego Union-Tribune," at Media Matters.

Corporate Profits hidden in the USA (untaxed)

NPR Marketplace Business reveals a secret tax loophole used by US Corporations to avoid tax liability and cheat the system, by keeping the profit 'invested' in the USA by foreign subsidiaries of US Companies. There is no Foreign Cash, it's all a scam. We need corporate tax reform, NOW!

Anabell Park of the Coffee Party: The Debt Distraction

"A clever and sinister way to dismantle the Roosevelt social safety-net."

What this video DOESN'T say is that the NATIONAL DEBT is borrowed from our future (AT INTEREST). It is money that we owe to ourselves, a debt we leave to our children. If we invest it wisely they win, if not they suffer, but if we don't invest well and leave them with jobs, and a working economy; if we don't invest in their education and a sustainable future, then we fail to seed their growth.

We borrowed $800-Billion (AT INTEREST) from the Federal Reserve (an international banking cartel) for the BUSH TARP, to bail out the banks that created the recession (for free, no interest, no taxes). Does that make any sense?

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)

Black Panther Activist turns out to be an FBI informant.

If the release of just one informant’s file could generate these kinds of questions, imagine what could be learned by the release of all FBI domestic intelligence files after a half-century. As the 1960s turn 50, the time seems ripe for the public to demand a full accounting of the role that its government took in monitoring and repressing social movements during the Cold War.

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has in the past decade acquired hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of pages of historic FBI files that it does not have the resources to declassify in our lifetimes. These include civil rights investigations from the 1950s and 1960s (44 classification files), investigations into the New Left and Black Power movements (located partly in 157 classification files), anticonspiracy investigation and trial materials (176 classification files), and, most importantly, the main domestic security files of the Hoover era from the 1940s-70s (100 classification files). We should demand the release of all these files in unredacted form. This is more than a demand for an historical reckoning. It is a challenge to a national security state whose ongoing use of informants depends on historical erasures.

Under the Perfect Sun

A history of class and power in San Diego, an anti-tourist guide that debunks the sunshine myth for locals and visitors alike.
Let's just say there was good liaison between city government and business.—Ex-mayor of San Diego, Frank Curran, on the 1960s

For fourteen million tourists each year, San Diego is the fun place in the sun that never breaks your heart. But America's eighth largest city has a dark side. Behind Sea World, the Zoo, the Gaslamp District, and the beaches of La Jolla hides a militarized metropolis, boasting the West Coast's most stratified economy and a tumultuous history of municipal corruption, virulent anti-unionism, political repression, and racial injustice. Though its boosters tirelessly propagate an image of a carefree beach town, the real San Diego shares dreams and nightmares with its violent twin, Tijuana.

This alternative civic history deconstructs the mythology of "America's finest city," exposing its true undergirdings of militarism, racism and economic inequality. Acclaimed urban theorist Mike Davis documents the secret history of the domineering elites who have turned a weak city government into a powerful machine for private wealth. Jim Miller tells the story from the other side: chronicling the history of protest in San Diego from the Wobblies to today's "Globalphobics." Kelly Mayhew, meanwhile, presents the voices of paradise's forgotten working people and new immigrants. The texts are vividly enhanced by Fred Londonier's photographs.