---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: ddbriones <dave@...>
Date: Fri, Apr 18, 2008 at 8:34 PM
Subject: [narconews] Narco News to Hold 8th Anniversary Celebration in Seattle, Friday, April 25
To: narconews@yahoogroups.com


April 18, 2008
Please Distribute Widely

Dear Colleague,

Today marks eight years since I posted a little website on the
Internet – www.narconews.com - to publish my reporting on the drug war
and democracy from Latin America. The project quickly grew and grew
and now includes more than 100 graduates of the Narco News School of
Authentic Journalism, 326 co-publishers, and hundreds of thousands of
readers around the world in seven languages.

Just think: We've now been online longer than George Bush or Bill
Clinton or Ronald Reagan or Dwight Eisenhower had been presidents of
the United States.

We began publishing just as the bubble had burst on the "dot-com
boom," when hundreds of commercial online newspapers and magazines
went out of business. Our mission was different: not to make a profit,
but to break the information blockade by commercial media that ignore
or distort the news across international borders in our América.

We built it, and they came. Our reporting on drug war corruption got
us sued in our first year by the National Bank of Mexico (Banamex, now
part of Citibank). The readers jumped to support our defense fund, we
went to the New York Supreme Court, and won the first-ever
precedent-setting decision that extends First Amendment protections to
Internet journalists everywhere.

We've investigated and blown the whistle on corrupt government
agencies, officials, money launderers, simulator journalists with
conflicts-of-interest, an attempted coup in Venezuela, a US military
intervention in Colombia, and the rampant corruption among US law
enforcement agencies along the United States-Mexico border.

And in doing so we've walked side by side with the indigenous and
social movements from Chiapas, Oaxaca and 32 Mexican states to the
coca growers of Bolivia to the harm reduction movements of Brazil to
the pro-democracy movements across the hemisphere.

And through the Narco News School of Authentic Journalism we've
trained a new generation of honest and talented journalists of conscience.

This year, we'll be holding our anniversary celebration in the Pacific
Northwestern city of Seattle, Washington. And even if you don't live
or work nearby, you're invited to participate by being a sponsor of
the event:

Narco News 8th Anniversary Celebration
Friday, April 25
6 p.m.
Waid's Haitian Lounge
http://waidsplace.com/wp/
1212 E. Jefferson Street
(Near The Seattle University, between 12th & 13th streets)
Seattle, Washington

Special Guests:

Jill Freidberg, documentary filmmaker
Ron Smith, documentary filmmaker, professor, Narco News School of
Authentic Journalism
Amber Howard, graduate, Narco News School of Authentic Journalism
Laura Carlsen, director, Americas Project
Al Giordano, publisher, Narco News

Make your reservation now, online, via The Fund for Authentic
Journalism, a 501c3 tax exempt corporation that supports our work:

http://www.authenticjournalism.org/

Admission $10

Students $5

Sponsors $50 or more

Sponsors will be listed on Narco News and on the event program.

If you have friends and family in Seattle, you can purchase tickets
for them (just send me an email at narconews@... so we can make
sure to put them on the list).

Your contribution also entitles you to a free account on The
Narcosphere, to comment on Narco News story and post notebook entries
of your own. (Stay tuned: On our birthday, we also give presents, and
the new Narcosphere design and features will be unveiled before next
Friday's event.)

Whether you can be there in person or not, we hope you will join in
the celebration and help keep this vital work of authentic journalism
going even longer.

Please join in the celebration via The Fund's website:

http://www.authenticjournalism.org

Or by sending a check to "The Fund for Authentic Journalism" at:

The Fund for Authentic Journalism
PO Box 241
Natick, MA 01760 USA

Thanks for your eight years of readership and support. We'll keep
doing our job as long as you think it needs to be done.

From somewhere in a country called América,


Al Giordano
Founder, Narco News
narconews@...
http://www.narconews.com/

Narco News is supported by:

The Fund for Authentic Journalism P.O. Box 241 Natick, MA 01760
http://www.authenticjournalism.org

The Fund receives online donations at this web page:

http://www.authenticjournalism.org

Apply for your co-publisher's account, here:

http://www.narconews.com/copublisher/application.php

Subscribe for free alerts of new reports:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/narconews

Suscribete gratis para alertas de nuevos reportajes en espanol:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/narconewsandes

Inscreva-se para alertas gratuitos de reportagens do ultimo minuto em
portugues brasileiro:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/narconewsbrasil



------------------------------------