Faking the ‘Truth About Trayvon’

Fake photographs of Trayvon Martin are being used to diminish public concern about his killing; emails and other documents of the Department of Homeland Security reveal that the hacktivist group Anonymous was investigated as a dangerous security threat; Egyptian women are finding ways to express their revolutionary voices through music. These discoveries and more below.

On a regular basis, Truthdig brings you the news items and odds and ends that have found their way to Larry Gross, director of the USC Annenberg School for Communication. A specialist in media and culture, art and communication, visual communication and media portrayals of minorities, Gross helped found the field of gay and lesbian studies.

The links below open in a new window. Newer ones are on top.

When in Doubt, Smear the Dead Kid A fake photo of Trayvon Martin has become popular because it’s part of a new cottage industry of “truth about Trayvon” content, calibrated to convince people that they really shouldn’t worry about the implications of this killing.

DHS Investigated Anonymous and Kept Tabs on Political Hackers The Anonymous hacker movement was seen as a serious security threat during the first few months of Occupy, according to internal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) documents and emails released to Truthout last week.

U.S. healthcare — by the numbers While the Affordable Care Act is debated in the U.S. Supreme Court, Reuters conveniently provides some of the relevant numbers about the U.S. healthcare system.

Anti-Gay Marriage Group’s Leaked Docs Reveal Divide and Conquer Racial Plans The National Organization of Marriage (NOM) is best known for its looney anti-gay “gay marriage storm” commercial (over 1 million views), but new documents outlining the organization’s clunky strategy to widen racial divides in order to defeat gay marriage may be their new claim to fame.

The GOP’s woman problem is that it has a serious problem with women At the time, back in January in New Hampshire, it didn’t seem like that big a deal, certainly nothing to rival previous debate flash points like “9-9-9” and “Oops!”

Empowering Egyptian Women Through Music “I entered this competition because I wanted to represent the generation that witnessed the revolution, and let people know what’s happening,’ explained 14-year-old Zain Abed before she launched into a robust rendition of James Morrison’s “Up,” her entry into the “Sing Egyptian Women” contest.

Israeli Peace Marchers Protest Iran War Talk in Tel Aviv Haaretz reports that hundreds of Israeli peace activists marched in Tel Aviv on Saturday to protest all the talk of striking Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities. Their placards demanded “No to War with Iran,” and “Talks, not Bombs.”

How your data will fuel the coming digital/biological convergence The secret thread running through the SXSW Interactive conference is one that, once noticed, is seen propagating throughout everything from politics to comedy, social media strategies to street parties, all the way to the very laws of thermodynamics.

Are the Media Ready to Stop Letting Politicians Lie? In a recent story on Mitt Romney and the auto bailouts, a National Public Radio reporter did something unusual—she called out the candidate’s blatant lie.