Yasha Levine - FishbowlLA

The Alyona Show Will Come to a Close This Week

Matthew Fleischer — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 09:55:15 +0000

Yesterday we reported that RT’s Alyona Minkovski would be joining HuffPost’s fledgling video network HuffPost Live as a producer and host. What we didn’t know is if she’d be bringing her popular online news show The Alyona Show with her. Well, we have an answer for you: no. As of the close of this week, the DC-based Alyona Show will be put to rest as its host heads to LA to start work for HuffPost Live.

“She’s working on something completely new,” says HuffPost spokesperson Tiffany Guarnaccia. “She’ll be 100% on HuffPost Live, which will reflect the all-encompassing tastes of the Huffington Post itself.”

We here at FishbowlLA were big fans of The Alyona Show, in part for her willingness to have edgy guests like Mark Ames and Yasha Levine of The eXiled on. Here’s hoping she’ll continue to showcase great alternative voices at HuffPost Live.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The eXiled’s Yasha Levine Contracted Scabies During Occupy Arrest

Matthew Fleischer — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 16:42:05 +0000

eXiled editor Yasha Levine still has a host of legal woes hanging over his head from being arrested while covering last November’s LAPD crackdown of OccupyLA. Turns out, those are the least of his worries at the moment. During his two-day stay in Los Angeles Metro Jail, Levine says he contracted a wicked case of scabies.

Until a few days ago, I thought my scabies was just a gnarly poison oak rash that I had picked up in the Santa Monica mountains after losing the trail and having to cut through the overgrown backyards of multimillion dollar mansions. For weeks the rash kept getting worse and worse, and I finally went to a doctor to get some relief. But it turned out that poison oak was the least of my worries.

“You have scabies,” said the doc, sucking in his breath through his teeth and shaking his head. It took him no more than 30 seconds to diagnose my condition. “The track marks are a dead giveaway,” he said, and pointed out a couple of elongated welts about a half-inch long creeping up the side of my right ring finger. These “tracks marks” were actually burrows made by mother-parasites as they tunneled right below the surface of my skin and laid eggs in the process. I had dozens of similar track marks of all shapes and sizes on both hands. As I stared at my hands in disgust, the doc moved to the sink and violently scrubbed his hands with medical soap. Our contact was minimal, but he wasn’t taking any chances…

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The eXiled Gives a Preview of Its Media Transparency Project

Matthew Fleischer — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 11:50:16 +0000

The eXiled is on the verge of launching its new media transparency project, aimed at exposing the “conflicts-of-interest and corruption in the media and among our major ‘thought leaders’ and ‘independent voices.’” They’re calling the site S.H.A.M.E–Shame the Hacks who Abuse Media Ethics. The eXiled’s Yasha Levine put up a preview dossier of The Atlantic‘s resident Randian Meghan McArdle–who, incidentally, just got into a bizarre argument in the comment section of Julian Sanchez‘s blog, in which she essentially argued that prosecutors shouldn’t bring charges against George Zimmerman in the Trayvon Martin case because they might lose. Wouldn’t want to squander taxpayer money in pursuit of justice, now, would we?

Anyway, Levine claims he has the goods on dozens of prominent U.S. journalists who take money from various think tanks and corporate sponsors in exchange for slanted coverage. Can’t wait to see who makes the list. Although we have a few guesses who might be on there.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Journalist Yasha Levine Plans to Fight OccupyLA Arrest Charges

Matthew Fleischer — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 16:51:20 +0000

Journalist Yasha Levine was arraigned late last week on “failure to disperse” charges for attempting to cover the police crackdown on OccupyLA. He was sent home with “no charges filed.” But that doesn’t mean his case was dismissed.

Writes Levine:

According to my attorney, “no charges filed” was shorthand for “no charges filed today.” Which means that there is no reason that charges couldn’t—and wouldn’t—be filed a little while later, like next week or next month. And judging by the threatening letter I received from the City Attorney’s office, that looks like a definite possibility.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Journalist Yasha Levine Reports on His Legal Situation in Wake of OccupyLA Arrest

Matthew Fleischer — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 09:15:54 +0000

Journalist and eXiled editor Yasha Levine may have been freed last week after getting arrested while covering the LAPD crackdown on Occupy Los Angeles. But, as he wrote over the weekend, the repurcussions of his arrest are far from over.

So now that most of the detained protesters have been released, what is our legal status? Are we going to be prosecuted? Well, that’s not very clear.

I’ve been charged with misdemeanor# 409PC: failure to disperse (or, as my booking officer put down on my prisoner’s receipt, it’s “fail to disclose”). My court date is set for early January, so I guess I’ll find out then. But apparently I shouldn’t expect the city to drop the charge.

Levine is referring to a recent LA Weekly story which reports that in lieu of prosecution, OccupyLA arrestees may be allowed to enroll in a 90-day Alternative Prosecution Program–aimed, ironically, at giving the protesters lessons in the First Amendment.

Says Levine of that prospect: “Ha! So there you have it, folks. Not only does the City of Los Angeles arrest those who exercise their constitutional right to peacefully protest (or in my case simply to report on a peaceful protest), apparently it now requires anyone caught exercising that right to enroll in a political reeducation camp.”

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Journalist Yasha Levine Released from Jail After OccupyLA Arrest

Matthew Fleischer — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 09:24:50 +0000

After posting a $5,000 bond and spending two nights in jail, eXiled editor and journalist Yasha Levine is finally free after being arrested while covering LAPD’s Occupy Los Angeles crackdown at City Hall. Levine says that prior to being booked, arrested protesters were stuck on an LA County Sheriff’s transport bus for upwards of seven hours–forced to use the bathroom in their seats if they had to go. Levine says his plastic cuffs were so tight, and were on for so long, that he still lacks sensation in one of his hands.

Writes Levine:

[D]on’t believe the PR bullshit. There was nothing peaceful or professional about the LAPD’s attack on Occupy LA–not unless you think that people peacefully protesting against the power of the financial oligarchy deserve to be treated the way I saw Russian cops treating the protesters in Moscow and St. Petersburg who were demonstrating against the oligarchy under Putin and Yeltsin, before we at The eXiled all got tossed out in 2008. Back then, everyone in the West protested and criticized the way the Russian cops brutally snuffed out dissent, myself included. Now I’m in America, at a demonstration, watching exactly the same brutal crackdown.

Levine says he’s still dazed and dehydrated after being denied food and water for the majority of his time in custody. He promises to write a lengthy piece on his experience in the coming days after he recovers.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

eXiled Editor Yasha Levine Arrested While Covering OccupyLA Raid

Matthew Fleischer — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:30:51 +0000

eXiled editor Yasha Levine was arrested late Monday night while covering the Los Angeles Police Department’s purge of the Occupy Los Angeles encampment at City Hall. As we wrote yesterday, any journalist who attempted to report from inside the police cordon during the crackdown–where the real action was taking place–was threatened with arrest by the LAPD. Levine, who also writes for The Nation and has appeared on Dylan Ratigan‘s MSNBC show, is definitely the type of journalist to take such risks. He clearly paid the price.

From The eXiled:

Exiled editor Yasha Levine was arrested late last night during the savage and unconstitutional police crackdown on Occupy LA. We call on the police and authorities to release Yasha, and release all protesters and media illegally arrested at the Occupy LA encampment and illegally imprisoned merely for exercising constitutionally-guaranteed rights. (Update: Latest word is that Yasha is going to have to spend another night in the Los Angeles County jail, and will be brought before a judge tomorrow and hopefully released, as bail is currently set at an incredible $5,000.) …

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Once Again, The eXiled Exposes Koch Hypocrisy

Matthew Fleischer — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 13:52:04 +0000

eXiled editors Mark Ames and Yasha Levine were on the Dylan Ratigan Show yesterday, talking about their latest scoop for The Nation. The pair uncovered a series of letters from billionaire libertarian robber baron Charles Koch to the free-market economics guru Friedrich Hayek, urging the latter to come to America and take advantage of America’s generous Social Security and Medicare programs–the same programs that Koch and his brother are now pushing to obliterate for the rest of us.

The letters are an amazing find, revealing once again just how morally and ethically bankrupt the philosophy of the ruling elite truly is.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Big Government Picks a Fight With The eXiled

Matthew Fleischer — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 13:47:23 +0000

Andrew Breitbart seems to have fully recovered from his Shirley Sherrod scandal. But he just helped pick a fight that has the potential to get a whole lot uglier. Former Illinois Tea Party candidate Joel B. Pollak just published a lengthy “investigation” on Breitbart’s Big Government site into eXiled founder and editor Mark Ames. At the heart of the piece is the contention that Ames and his fellow eXiled editor Yasha Levine are the ones who originated the anti-Koch brothers meme so prevalent in the media these days. Which is true. However, since Pollak is a huge fan of the Kochs, the piece is mainly a rhetorical strategy to deflect attention away from the Koch brothers–by dismissing the critiques against them as originating from the degenerate Ames. Ames, you see, unapologetically uses drugs and has solicited prostitutes, which automatically makes him unreliable–or so the thinking goes.

Ames and The eXiled were at the forefront of the anti-Koch movement. It would seem logical for those looking to turn the rhetorical tide against the brothers to target Ames. But Pollak and Breitbart should have let this one go.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Was Malcolm Gladwell in the Pocket of Big Tobacco?

Matthew Fleischer — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 09:38:16 +0000

The eXiled’s Yasha Levine seems to think so. And he puts forward a pretty convincing case. Levine tracks Gladwell’s career back to the Washington Post, where he dug up a number of unquestionably pro-tobacco pieces. One of those pieces from 1990 essentially made the argument that curbing smoking would bankrupt social security–by causing people to live longer. Yikes.

But more damning, Levine traced Gladwell’s name back to a tobacco industry “THIRD-PARTY MESSAGE DEVELOPMENT CONTACT LIST.”

For those not familiar with public relations industry lingo, “third-party” refers to a PR technique in which corporate propaganda is funneled through seemingly independent journalists, academics, non-profits, think tanks and other respected “third parties” in order to bolster the credibility of “the message” with the public. Here’s how a Burson-Marsteller PR expert described the third-party technique in 1995:

“For the media and the public, the corporation will be one of the least credible sources of information on its own product, environmental and safety risks. Both these audiences will turn to other experts … to get an objective viewpoint.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

SoCal-Based eXiled Editor Yasha Levine Wins New York Press Association Award

Matthew Fleischer — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 09:53:11 +0000

LA/Victorville-based reporter Yasha Levine just picked up a 2010 Better Newspaper Contest award (sponsored by the New York Press Association) for his piece “The Making of Manhattan’s Elite Welfare Farmers” in the New York Press. Levine, who also co-edits The eXiled, took second place in the contest for “Coverage of Business, Financial & Economic News.” Read his excellent piece here.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The eXiled Finally Given Props for Uncovering Koch Brothers/Tea Party Connection

Matthew Fleischer — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 14:55:12 +0000

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Back in February of 2009, eXiled editors Mark Ames and Yasha Levine wrote a piece for Playboy.com that uncovered the connection between the Tea Party and a previously quiet, shadowy pair of billionaires known as the Koch brothers. Almost immediately after publication, the piece was slammed by the mainstream press and Playboy wound up pulling the piece–although they never ran a correction. More than two years later, after a popular New Yorker piece shed light on the Koch brothers and the full extent of their political undertakings, Ames and Levine are feeling a might peeved about their treatment. The pair went on The Dylan Ratigan Show yesterday to talk about the backlash they received when they initially published the story, and how their reporting has since been vindicated.

Ames also wrote this blistering piece calling out The Atlantic‘s Megan McArdle, among other journalists, who trashed Ames and Levine’s reporting while failing to disclose the full extent of their personal and financial connections to the Koch brothers. Worth the read.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.