The Newspaper Guild: Patriotism's 2-Edged Sword
The Newspaper Guild is an unit of the Communications Workers of America,a labor organization for "Media Workers in the Information Age." Here's what they say about their work.

The Newspaper Guild-CWA, representing men and women employees in the newspaper industry throughout the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico, has long championed the unique role of a free press in a democracy. That role includes the right, obligation and necessity of free inquiry, of the uncensored exchange of news and information, and of vigorous debate and the exchange of conflicting views and opinions-the very essence of democratic self-governance. The importance of this role does not diminish in times of national crisis: indeed, because such crises may result in the expenditure of huge sums of money, national effort and human lives, it becomes even more critical that those who speak with a different voice be heard.

Therefore, it is with great concern that The Newspaper Guild-CWA notes these situations where those in the mass media whose views don't agree with the conventional wisdom have been punished. We believe such a reaction is un-American; it threatens to transform us into precisely the kind of zealots whose intolerance for other values and ways of life resulted in the deaths of more than 6,000 people on Sept. 11.

This link takes you to a version of their page that's USA based. They also have Canadian version.

Victory Coffee
Another blog that evolved out of a guy's inundating friends with email references to news stories. Differs from this one in that it focuses on individual stories rather than on links to other news sources. No comment on the stories. There are just titles and links. Excellent. Well worth spending some time at.

ThePaperboy.com | Online Newspaper Directory
In 1997, Ian Duckworth, then a law student in Western Australia, started compiling a page of newspapers with online editions. It's grown to include 5,339 papers around the world. Papers from all the places you'd expect are here so I thought I'd put the site to a test and try something difficult and/or exotic.

Although not every obscure local paper I looked for was in the collection I did find 29 local Montana papers ranging from the Bigfork Eagle to the Wolf Point Herald News.

On the international side of things I checked several papers from China and from Taiwan. I went for the most obscure place I could think of and found myself reading the one listed paper from Burkina Faso. There were 3 Mongolian papers (in English) but only 1 from Ascencion Island (English) and 2 from the Faroe Islands (both in Faroese.)

The news stories on this page are international but you can also link to pages that focus on Canadian or U.K. content.

The site is free but for $2.95 a month (that seems to be US rather than Australian, as far as I can tell) the page becomes ad free and you get the following:
* Customised Homepage
* Select Your Own Headline Feeds, Search Panel, Paper Picks
* Bookmark Your Favourite Newspapers
* Translate Newspapers
* Write Letters to the Editor
* View More Papers Per Page (100 instead of 40)

The only flaw I can find with this site is its design. When you first log in the connection is slow. Once your browser caches some of the graphics on the front page subsequent visits go faster. As for the speed of each of the 5,339 papers' individual sites... you're on your own

BuzzFlash World Media Watch
Every day Gloria Lalumia of BuzzFlash selects a few major stories from the world's press. She posts them them at BuzzFlash with a little bit of editing ( you see the word ....snip where she's ... well, where she's snipped.) She also posts links to the original articles. This is a helpful site if you want a quick check on the international press. You won't get complete coverage, of course, but you can find that back on BuzzFlash's main page.

Foreign Policy In Focus Home Page
They say of themselves,

Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF), established in 1996, seeks to make the U.S. a more responsible global leader and global partner. It is a "think tank without walls" that functions as an international network of more than 650 policy analysts and advocates. Unlike traditional think tanks, FPIF is committed to advancing a citizen-based foreign policy agenda--one that is fundamentally rooted in citizen initiatives and movements.
FPIF is a collaborative project of the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC) and the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS).

Since their concern is with foreign policy you'll find issues other than the war here but, of course, it's all interwoven.

Democracy Now! In Exile - The War And Peace Report With Amy Goodman
A daily radio report. You can read transcripts or listen on line.The site's self description:

"Democracy Now! In Exile" features the ideas and voices of some of the best minds of this generation (and previous ones), including activists, muckrakers, visionaries, artists, risk-takers, academics and "just folks" who share a commitment to truth, democracy, justice, diversity, equality and peace. ... The Team includes some of this country's leading progressive journalists who've garnered dozens of awards for their ground-breaking work in radio and print journalism.

The "In Exile" part of their name comes from some of their staff's involvement with Pacifica Radio. Note for those who might not know the story. Pacifica is the oldest public broadcasting entity in the US. It was founded in 1946 with the mission statement:

To promote cultural diversity and pluralistic community expression...To contribute to a better understanding between individuals of all nations, races, creeds, and colors...To promote freedom of the press and serve as a forum for various viewpoints...To maintain an independent funding base.

The broadcast of December 12, 2001 includes an important report by Prof. Marc Herold of the Economics Department, University of New Hampshire, on the number of Afghan civilian deaths from the bombing. As of December 7 the number of civilian casualties killed in the US bombing of Afghanistan was over 3700. His report is at the following link: A Dossier on Civilian Victims of United States Aerial Bombing of Afghanistan: A Comprehensive accounting.

Herold has also compiled a day by day accounting of civilian deaths at this link.It's in the form of an Excel Spreadsheet. In hard copy it's about 50 pages long.

To listen to the news on Democracy Now you'll need to have RealPlayer. It's a free download. If the above link doesn't work try this one. You'll have to look around the page for the link to the free version. It's small and has no graphics to call your attention to it.It's usually on the left side of the page near the bottom.

Federation of American Scientists
(from their mission statement)

The Federation of American Scientists conducts analysis and advocacy on science, technology and public policy, including national security, nuclear weapons, arms sales, biological hazards, secrecy, education technology, information technology, energy and the environment. FAS is a privately-funded non-profit 501c3 organization whose Board of Sponsors includes 58 of America's Nobel laureates in the sciences.

This link takes you to their starting page. Has links for many topics among which are: The War Against Terrorism; Fewer Nukes But Looser; The Search for Proliferation Resistant Nuclear Power; News Archive; Arms Control; Space Policy; Emerging Technologies. And that's just for starters.

The Integration of Theory and Practice: A Program for the New Traditionalist Movement
This one is a bit off topic in that it's neither a news source or a report. Still, it belongs here. A truely astounding document from the Free Congress Foundation, a conservative group. It's long but worth reading. Buzzflash has excerpted the essence of it here. Better yet, read the original. Scary.Very scary.

History News Network
This site focuses on the historical background of current issues. Its advisory board consists of people with solid academic credentials. It also has a teachers edition ... actually more of a page of related links than an edition. The discussion threads seem thoughtful and well presented..at least the few I looked at did. My guess is that this site could be very useful for high school classes.

Here's what they say about themselves:

Among the many duties we assume are these: To expose politicians who misrepresent history. To point out bogus analogies. To deflate beguiling myths. To remind Americans of the irony of history. To put events in context. To remind us all of the complexity of history.

Because we believe history is complicated our pages are open to people of all political persuasions. Left, right, center: all are welcome.

Internet Samizdat Releases Suppressed Voices, History
From today's CommonDreams. As Paul Harvey (is he still alive and on radio?)...used to say, "And now.. for the REST of the story."

The internet functions much like the samizdat press in the Soviet Union. Contains an interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski which sheds more light on the role of the U.S. in Afghanistan. Makes it pretty clear why Bush wants to block the release of all presidential papers Unfortunately, the people who most need to read this stuff are unlikely to see it. It certainly isn't going to appear in the mainstream press.