Friday, August 5, 2011

Jonathan Holmes, Matchmaker

SHOULD a media watchdog really be referring publicists for activist organizations to journalists likely to be sympathetic to their cause – especially if the query concerns an upcoming “media regulation” campaign that, given the group's activities in the UK, will almost certainly be aimed at News Ltd?

Media Watch’s Jonathan Holmes appears to think it is just fine.

@amyabarry Amy Barry
@BernardKeane Hi Bernard Jonathan Holmes suggested I get in touch to talk about media regulation for possible @avaaz campaign in Oz.. DM me?

More on Avaaz here, here, here, and here.

UPDATE: How Avaaz works (scroll down to Hilton Hotels vs. The Rape Trade):
24 hours after 317,000 Avaazers called on the Hilton CEO to sign a code of conduct on the rape trade or face hard-hitting ads in his hometown, we got a frantic call from his vice-president. 'You're going to WHAT?', she asked. Hilton had dragged its feet for months. We gave them four days, and they signed. Now 180,000 hotel employees will be trained to spot and prevent the horror of of sex slavery of women and girls.
Why a hotel chain should be held accountable for rape is not immediately clear. Perhaps Jonathan Holmes can explain the connection next week on Media Watch.
Posted by at
Labels: , ,

4 comments:

  1. Boy on a bikeAugust 5, 2011 at 3:27 PM

    Interesting thing about Avaaz is that Simon Sheikh's predecessor at ThrowUp! left ThrowUp! a few years ago to take a plum position at Avaaz.

    The linkages between these ginger groups are well worth exploring.

    From the 2008/2009 annual report (nothing later has been published by this group that are so taken by "disclosure"):

    "In June 2008, GetUp’s Executive Director of two years, Brett Solomon, announced his resignation to move on to work with international
    organisation Avaaz.org. Simon Sheikh took up the position of GetUp National Director in September 2008"

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousAugust 5, 2011 at 6:57 PM

    Jesus, Holmes is referring leftwing political activists to the plonker from Crikey? What kind of addled brain thinks Bernard can deliver anything at all?
    ... wait, maybe Holmes is secretly a genius steering the avaaz plonker to a lamer so as to thwart their aims. Hmmm.

    ReplyDelete
  3. DaveAugust 5, 2011 at 11:14 PM

    "Now 180,000 hotel employees will be trained to spot and prevent the horror of of (sic) sex slavery of women and girls."

    In related news the UN has removed the Hilton Group from its list of preferred providers.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Boy on a bikeAugust 6, 2011 at 6:54 AM

    One good thing about the US is that organisation like Avaaz have to file disclosure reports like this one:

    http://avaazimages.s3.amazonaws.com/Avaaz%20990_12-31-09_PUBLIC.pdf

    Then us plebs can find out that in 2009, the President - Ricken Patel - was paid $US120,000.Nice gig if you can get it. Pity we don't have this sort of thing in Australia - if we do, it's not readily available publicly. Maybe GetUp! could campaign for that?

    And check out the location of their offices - just off Central Park in NY - really nice.

    http://www.faqs.org/tax-exempt/NY/Avaaz-Foundation.html

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)