To subscribe, please email request to: chokmoki@yahoo.com . Thank you.

This list was originally floated in May 2000 by a group of Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism students.

The sea change in mainstream journalism today is cause for serious public concerns. We believe it is time we address the concerns in a thoughtful, organized and effective way before the rapid changes alter journalism beyond recognition.

The post-September 11 scenario has turned out to be a nightmare for objective journalism, thanks to U.S. and other Western media. In the name of a never-ending war on terrorism, mainstream media have done their best to project only the establishment's side of news and views. The Left have been even more marginalized. Right-wing tabloid media outlets have taken a more rabid pro-war, pro-repression doctrine, both in U.S. and abroad.

A rampant flay of human rights across the globe has modeled itself after the Bush-Rumsfeld-Ashcroft line. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have noted it; however, the mainstream media have not.

We believe that with the advent of a technological revolution and corporatization of the mass media, an in-depth, people-oriented, independent journalism has been displaced by instant news bytes the sole purpose of the latter being outcompeting and outscooping parallel media monopolies. The traditional values and objectives of journalism -- informing and educating people with unbiased and unfiltered news as well as views from all sides of the socio-political spectrum -- are being largely ignored. Common people, especially the ones at the lower rungs of the society, are bypassed in newsmaking processes and democracy is constantly threatened. Pro-establishment powerful people are taking the seats of media experts and even reputed voices of dissent are being undermined or ignored.

We hope this global mailing list will bring together journalists who have been striving for truth and ethics in media.