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TechnoratiHow the New York Times Won 2004 for Bush
Should the news media be patriotic? When a journalist uncovers a government secret, which comes first--national security or the public's right to know?
In the United States, reporters consider themselves Americans first, journalists second. That means consulting the government before going public with a state secret. "When I was at ABC," James Bamford told Time in 2006, "we always checked with the Administration in power when we thought we had something of concern, and there was usually some way to work it out."
In a new book about the Bush Administration's efforts to expand the president's powers at the expense of the legislative and judicial branches, the assumption that the press shouldn't publish security-sensitive stories is so hard-wired that New York Times reporter Eric Lichtblau accepts it as a given. But it's a very American concept, and one that relies on the presumption that the U.S. government may make mistakes, but is largely a force for good. In other countries, the relationship between rulers and the press is strictly adversarial.
In "Bush's Law: The Remaking of American Justice" Lichtblau unwittingly relates a depressing parable--his seeming obliviousness to conflict of interest is a bummer--describing the nation's most prominent newspaper's willingness to keep secrets for government officials, who turn out to be (shocker alert·) lying. It's a cautionary tale about journalistic nationalism, one of many (Judith Miller, anyone?) in which the Times transformed itself into Bush's political slut.
A whore, at least, would have demanded money.
In 2004 Lichtblau and fellow Times reporter Jim Risen learned that the National Security Agency was spying domestically, on American citizens. The NSA, which uses sophisticated voice-recognition software and computer programs to intercept phone calls, fax transmissions, e-mail and even bank wire transfers, was supposed to limit its activities to foreign countries. Illegally expanding beyond its Congressionally-authorized mandate, Lichtblau writes, "the NSA had essentially gained access to the biggest telecom 'switches' in the country, using the agency's data-mining technology to comb the huge trunks carrying massive volumes of traffic, in order to zero in on suspected dirty numbers and eavesdrop on them without warrants."
It was a big story. Or it would have been, had the newspaper chosen to run it when it learned of it.
Naturally, it triggered alarms in official Washington when another Times reporter called the NSA for comment. Soon the agency's director, General Michael Hayden, was calling the Times, asking it to censor itself. "Don't run this story," Administration honchos begged.
"The Times," Lichtblau says, "had been through many contretemps in its long history over whether or not to publish newsworthy stories involving sensitive national security information and, despite the vitriolic charges from its critics, it was never a decision the paper made with reckless abandon. In more than a few cases, it has decided not to publish anything at all."
Suckers.
For over a year, Lichtblau explains in an apparent attempt to justify himself and his employer to conservative critics, Times editors and reporters met repeatedly with White House officials to ask them why they shouldn't spill the beans on the NSA's domestic spying operation. That the program was illegal was pretty obvious. (Congress acknowledged as much by later voting to retroactively legalize it.) So was the lameness of the government's argument against making the NSA's activities public.
Declaring the Bush Administration "unpersuasive," Lichtblau said: "To me, it was never clear what Osama bin Laden and his henchmen would learn--confirming, really--that the United States spy services were listening to them." But the White House kept calling meetings, playing for time. Meanwhile, every morning, the Times came out without important news that its readers would care about--that their phone calls and e-mails were being monitored.
"Bush and ten senior advisors in the White House and the intelligence community would make personal pleas not to run the story in a series of meetings spanning 14 months, beginning in October of 2004 weeks before the presidential election," Lichtblau says.
Weeks before the presidential election. You'd think the timing of the Administration's pleas for self-censorship might have tipped off the Times' editors that they were being used in order to ensure that Bush and the Republican Party won the election. Moreover, Lichtblau wrote, "We had reason to suspect that the White House was actively misleading us and that its impassioned pleas might have less to do with concern over national security harm than with the legal and political fallout that the story might trigger." Gee, you think? And yet the paper's editors refused to print it.
The Bush Administration, he argues, "had not yet suffered the kind of crippling body blows to its credibility that it would [by late 2005]." Yeah, well, not really.
Remember, this was late 2004. The U.S. had invaded Iraq in March 2003, a year and a half earlier, but the WMDs had never turned up. The paper's own editorial page had been ranting on and on about the Administration's perfidy. Credibility? What credibility? Besides, it wasn't as if Bush was the first First Fibber. All presidents are serial liars. So are their subordinates. Why would the Times, or anyone else, believe them about anything?
By then, of course, Bush had won a second term. To some extent, he owed his victory to the "liberal" New York Times more than to Karl Rove. The Times, Extra! Magazine reported later, had also sat on another late-breaking "October Surprise" story that might have caused enough voters to change their minds to vote for Democrat John Kerry in 2004. That suspicious rectangular bulge in Bush's jacket during his debate with Kerry, a NASA scientist who is an expert on such things had told the Times, was indeed an electronic transmitter that allowed Bush to receive remote coaching from Rove or someone else.
"A Times journalist, who said that Times staffers were 'pretty upset' about the killing of the story, claims the senior editors felt [it] was 'too close' to the election to run such a piece," reported Extra!.
The government doesn't tell the truth to reporters, even on "background." Why shouldn't the media tell the truth to the American people?
Ted Rall is the author of the new book "Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East?," an in-depth prose and graphic novel analysis of America's next big foreign policy challenge.
© 2008 Ted Rall
52 Comments so far
Show AllI'm late to the discussion, but, FWIW, it might be time to consider that journalists ought to take an oath of office as do members of congress. (I hate to capitalize their title, given the dishonor they've brought it).
Or something like it, as part of their hiring process. To support and defend the US Constitution. Not their paper or station. Not their career and income. Not their pals or party in public office.
I'm not calling for the licensing of "journalists," as, for a long time, I were one. But I do think painfully few of them have ever read the US Constitution, with annotations, carefully. I would guarandamntee that it would be an exceptional member of the press who could recite the Preamble to the Constitution. As a "mission statement" for the government "we the people" did "ordain and establish," it's pretty damned good.
If journalists actually took such an oath (and had studied the Constitution before they did so — one can almost guarantee that neither Bush nor Cheney did), they would have a much stronger foundation for doing other than merely going through the tap-dance that is the "he-said/she-said," mindless-conveyor-belt school of journalism. The public NEEDS to hear and read the assessments of those reporters who become expert on their beats (not of the newbies, however, unless they're exceptionally well-informed).
I'm convinced that if we had REAL interaction between the reporters and the people — for whom they're purportedly reporting, at least vis-a-vis government, we'd have better newspapers and news programs. I find Jack Cafferty, Lou Dobbs, Frank Rich, Paul Krugman, even the entertaining but less substantive Mo Dowd, far more informative than "news" stories. (I like Bill Kristol's pieces cuz they're soo stupid — his writing as GOT to be self-parody unless he truly is as dumb as his columns make him out to be.
And by REAL interaction, I mean something like: "President Bush said today that.... '[pick anything he's said, really],' but he's lying. Here's how we know."
Or as to government pronouncements, generally, in this administration: "The Bureau of Labor Statistics (or whoever it is) reported this morning, by press release, that the unemployment rate is NN%." However, by it's own reckoning, the real unemployment rate (U-6, is it?) is about 13%, which more nearly reflects Americans' experience of the economy." (You could amplify with Kevin Phillips' analyses of the other bum figures our government slops into the reporters' and citizens' troughs.) At the VERY least, all government figures and pronouncements — and vocabulary — should be put in quotation marks. Or it should be noted of them, "However, we have not been able to independently verify that these statements are true or false. It would take too much time and energy," you might add.
On vocabulary, for instance, the BBC and Economist magazine (sorry, you Brits; call it newspaper if you will, but it's a magazine over here) virtually always have referred to "the surge" in quotes, or even "the so-called 'surge'…". Even on second and third references. In the "fact-based reality," it's a troop escalation, an escalation, increase. Temporary troop increase, what's planned as only a temporary troop escalation, etc. But it's not a "surge". "Surge" is what the propagandists call it, in their unending use of euphemism, obscurantism, lies and deceit, in order to keep what they're actually doing from the press and Americans. (Everyone else can see with their own eyes what the US is doing; the only ones blind are us Americans. Our best sources of information of late have been 300+ page books. Talk about delayed deadlines and "late-breaking" news!
"War is hard." "George and I suffer more than anyone else about the Americans killed in "harm's way." That's why we never attend any GI funerals, why we block access to Dover AFB and Andrews AFB--don't want anyone to get upset seeing or even thinking about filled coffins and maimed soldiers. That's why we got folks to pile on Nightline for reading the combat deaths roll.
Getting people upset as they saw the real consequences of unnecessary war is why we had to stop the Vietnam war, though we held on as long as we could — for almost another seven (7) years after all the damned "petitions for redress of grievances" and marches on Washington and on the War Department HQ. The damned Americans just saw too much of the death and destruction wrought on Vietnamese children (remember the "iconic" picture of the obviously terrified little girl, running naked from the US napalm attack on her village, her clothes having been burned off her body?), women, old men, and to our 55,000+ soldiers who were killed, a few hundred thousand more maimed and permanently sickened by our own chemicals — what was good for Dow Chemical wasn't so good for our American troops, nor for non-combatant Vietnamese civilians, as it turned out. Nor for their farmlands, food supplies, etc. Of course, punishing non-combatant civilians for the "sins" of their country's armies, trying to starve out the civilian population (as we did for 11 years in Iraq) because they might harbor, though at gunpoint, enemy soldiers. Another one of those consarned Geneva Convention articles. ("And I haven't even BEEN to Geneva," our Shrub — our Unitary Liar-In-Chief — might have added.)
One might wonder why we don't use nukes more often, inasmuch as we can't seem to win wars without them. But then people argue that "payback's a bitch." Or that those chickens of Mother Carey indeed DO come home to roost, to put it another, much older, more nautical manner (Mother Carey's chickens are Stormy Petrels whose return to a ship supposedly foretells a storm), that has recently appeared in popular, seemingly short, Jerimiad.
'Nuff said.
Other than those researching the media or organizations such as FAIR, I can't imagine why anyone would watch any TV news, let alone network news. I mean, it's like listening to Limbaugh every day and saying, "He's full of crap, I really should stop listening to him." Yeah...
Wolfe Blitzer is probably a Mossad operative.
The media is out of control this election has shown us just how far it has gone to dumb-down the public. The recent move by ABC to remove candidates from the debates was outrageous. They are trying to determine the fate of the country and the world being mouth-piece for special interests and the government and to silence dissent.
Media censure is unheard, the FCC should rule for the public but like the EPA its teeth are continually drawn. The media has no right to exclude any politician who is running for office as happened recently with the ABC debate. The only exclusion under the rules used by ABC should apply to a candidate not sitting in public office. The license of ABC would be lifted if the rules were changed but the congress, with the exception of a few pushes for more media conglomeration supported by special interests. I hope that someone picks up on this thought. We have seen the obsession by FOX and CNN, particularly in the form of Wolf Blitzer, and the FOX rabid jouranlists constantly referring to the Rev. Wright controversy.
Blitzer's bias is clear. He is quick to use every possible negative he can against Obama from the Flag Pin to anything else he could get his mouth around. His support for Clinton has been clear and inappropriate, for CNN to call itself a "fair and balanced" news network. I quote Mr. Nichols:
" The media pretense of being a fly on the wall has often been preposterous. In the real world of politics — where power brokers and manipulators proceed with the cynical axiom that perception is reality — the fly on the wall is the wall. The political press corps is not observing reality as much as redefining it while obstructing outlooks and constraining public perceptions."
As usual, few are able to see the stampede of the public sheep created by media. I support the change that Obama represents! He is intelligent and wants America once again to be looked upon as a great nation that it could still be and once was. The present "lack of experience" cry of Clinton is preposterous. Could anyone having been near the White house as long as Bush done as badly for the USA? There is experience! However, the discovery of a job approval rating for him at about 28% of the American people speaks volumes about experience. No one could have been as bad as the Bush team! There is experience!
A flight from entrenched American politics is necessary . . .it has ruined this country and made greed the single value of importance. The young people once again embrace hope as a result of the Obama campaign. The Hillary political group and entrenched politics have virtually destroyed America with its policies and exclusive power clubs. She has believed this form government is America.
Clinton recently morphed to the Obama populist message, it was called, "finding her voice" while at the beginning of her stump showing her Madeline Albright, bomb the children image. 
Can anyone truly think that change is unnecessary? I guess not since all the politicos have adopted his message including McCain? The mistakes that Obama may make as president cannot be greater than those of the past seven years. It is also necessary to give him a democratic congress to make certain that the programs that Americans want can be enacted.
Mr. Gore Vidal, has pointedly criticized mainstream media as one of the major problems, and what is wrong with the USA. The corporate media conglomerates control the message and that message is perversely distorted and panders to its advertising portfolio! Wolf Blitzer one of the glaring examples of this criticism and shows clearly those distorted ideas with his reporting, which is nothing more than partially factual opinion dictated by his bosses.
Blitzer is a person who has no right to shape public opinion far from being the "fly on the wall" he says himself to be. We must remember flies morph from maggots. He displays ignorance as a virtue for the entire world to see, an example of what is considered, by many in America to be news reporting. If Blitzer were billed as a CNN commentator, at least the public would not be hoodwinked to believe his reporting to be the truth, while it is lack of concern for accuracy, rectitude and fairness to be considered to be news rather than opinion.
The people of the USA have been so ill informed as to what a change would really do and mean to this country and the change in leadership that is necessary, they have forgotten that no one could be worse than George Bush. . . No one, not even a dogcatcher, at least the dog catcher has compassion for
animals!
The problems America and the world faces should be discussed by the future leaders, Obama and McCain in debate, should deal with the true issues confronting the world and survival of the human species not only the USA. The problem of public ignorance of the issues caused by the media is serious. In the heat of elections the media panders to voter ignorance. The emphasis, as we see on nightly, so-called news, is constant repetition of candidates miscues. The result of the media sensationalism becomes, the wrong problem and the wrong message at a crucial time in world history. The emphasis on having the politicians address a credible platform of ideas based on an American and global interaction in the world is critical.
There is not enough time left for civilization to focus on rubbish. The energy and environmental issues for example or food and health care are the problems the media should be focusing upon. But to use the Rev, Wright issue for one week, to try and hurt the candidacy of Obama is a travesty. The issues most pressing are once again avoided, those really important issues that must be put before the congress; the environment, continued funding of Iraq, energy issues, education, health care and so many others not dealt with, all impacting upon the economy, the failure of public dialog is outrageous!
The issue of this election will impact on the environment, economy and the future of the USA as no others. Still, if more than 50% of eligible voters cast their votes it will be a miracle, as a result of regressive US election laws and media obfuscation. It is compulsory for everyone to vote in Australia it should be so in the USA as well. Few of the candidates are really talking about the major points, even those who are the most erudite. The environment in association with the economy or health care and elections reform, to name some, are kept out of public dialog as a result of the nonsense punditry hours on end. The world looks at America and its "star struck reality" in wonder.
The political discussion rests on the complete lack of talking points in isolation, such as, Clinton's health package or the nonsense gasoline tax rebate and it's cost, rather than what is really at stake with energy issues, human survival. The candidates for the US presidency rarely talk about the complete interrelated package of the issues combined. Obama, alludes to this deficiency in the media and public issues. When he asks for this to occur it lands on deaf ears because the media and special interests do not want this to occur.
The media reduces the public debate to its most simplistic level with pundits arguing about one inconsequential issue or another rather than the truly important issues of our time. The American people are kept from hearing and understanding the relationship of the entire package of issues, which a true leader must address and deal with for the very survival of America in the world within a global economy. The costs for the war would pay for every single need from health care to American infrastructure repair and education, as well as the alleviation of world hunger and energy research this is what is what is at stake.
The media deals with Rev. Wright and American Flag lapel pins instead.
The media keeps the public dumbed down for obvious reasons they represent the moneyed people. As a result the public becomes unable to talk about moving radically toward change and the related issues affecting their very life and the future. The issues of climate change, energy issues and the global economy not only American economy is the part of the mortgage crisis created by the "free market" system. All the other issues like people losing their homes as a result of Wall Street manipulation are tied to these fundamental problems. These is the first and major issue which affects all other issues and is completely related to the economic changes which must take place.
The media board rooms instruct their so-called journalists (news/opinion readers) to stay clear of those subjects that would attack advertising, consumption, tied together in the media collusion with special interests to maintain the consumer system killing the world. Media in collusion with government does not want the change that would result in the decline of their hundreds of millions of dollars in profits.
All environmental problems are in one way or another associated with the Western world's consumption based lifestyle led by the USA. These issues are affected by consumer advertising much of it coming from the millions spent on advertising of irrelevant product and campaign advertising. The media should be dealing with true American and global issues in this campaign affecting the very basis of the so-called American Dream, fast becoming the global nightmare. This is what the next president of the USA must address
I haven't watched corporate TV in ten years. I have DISH Network but I only pay for the music channels and the open access channels. This includes LINK TV and Free Speech TV. Even at that, the TV sits black most of the time while I'm reading a progressive nonfiction book or listening to Radio Havana Cuba, short-wave radio or here on the Internet, reading CounterPunch, Common Dreams, antiwar.com, whatreallyhappened and some others. Sometimes while sitting in a doctor's waiting room or visiting someone's house I'll be subjected to corporate TV for a few minutes, and you'd be surprised how easy it is to see right through the indoctrination bullshit when you're not always up to your eyeballs in it.
I cannot help but notice the prominence on TV of non-journalism trained show hosts, including Russert, Mathews, Stephanopolous and Olbermann. And I am beginning to doubt the merits of watching any of the nightly US news broadcasts.
Last night, I watched CBS -- the best of the lot these days, I think. A story on political attack ads featured a spliced Internet ad distorting Michelle Obama's remarks. No mention of made of this fact, or what she really had said.
A segment on John McCain's SNL appearance featured a clip in which McCain indicated he was glad to have the Democrats continue their nomination fight, but the reporter failed to mention that some peple believe this continued fight has actually been good for the Democrats, bringing in more new donors and voters.
Much of McCain's SNL appearance was devoted to his attempt to defuse the age issue. More clips were played, all praised for their humor by the anchor and reporter both. Then the reporter made a reference to Reagan's 1984 debate with Mondale, without noting that McCain today is about the same age as Reagan then (73), and without noting that Reagan is thought to have begun suffering from the early effects of Alzheimer's during his second term. Because Reagan and McCain had both used humor, case closed, as if we had learned nothing since 1984!
As for reporting any evidence of the possible influence of age on McCain's performance during the current campaign (and there are several examples), forget about it!
Back to Chris Matthews ... I am struck by how seldom he delivers on the promise of his show: giving insight into "hardball politics. Yesterday, he had a list of perhaps six possible reasons for which Hillary might be continuing her campaign. The most plausible reason, that she is trying to retire her campaign debt, received not one single mention.
Instead of insight, we get his insulting attempts to play Everyman (circa 1980?), Joe Sixpack; when in reality Matthews is simply the personification Washington culture.
Patriotism is the refuge of the scoundrel. So is journalism. Selling patriotic propaganda is what journalism is about - telling the myths about ourselves that make what we do in anger, fear and greed sound noble and selfless when (in the same breath) we will proclaim it is noble and selfless to look after our own interests first and care nothing about the citizens of other, less powerful countries. Similarly, it is patriotic to proclaim that true freedom can only be found in a system that is truly free only for those with enough money to do just what they like. And patriotic to declare that all men (obviously, not women - go do our washing, you inferior serfs!) are equal, but that this is a christian country and christian values are therefore responsible for the righteousness of our ways. How to sell such breath-taking contradictions? Hire a journalist!
here's another one:
"if you don't like the news, go make some of your own."
---danny schechter, the news dissector
EZEFLYER: thank you for posting those quotations. Excellent!
The new Sulzberger is card-carrying Neocon himself.
He has protected the present regime and furthered its interests not because he's an "American first", but because he's a Neocon first.
He's not protecting Bush, he's protecting the Cabal.
It's been banged into his head that through his property he has a unique role to play, that if he does so the cabal will be successful and if he does not its failure will largely fall upon his shoulders.
He's played his part. The ship is sinking anyway.
rebelnow May 22nd, 2008 3:15 am
Try this sometime, maybe you have already; take some time, at least two weeks, a month is ideal, and go someplace that is remote, with no electronics of any kind, no TV, radio, computer, Ipod, cell phone, etc. Find a place to listen to the ocean, or the forest, or desert silence.
Then, when you go home, turn on the TV and watch a corporate media news channel. It's surreal.
I watch about 30 hours of TV a year - at most - and very little of that is commercial TV. When I do chance to see it, it is indeed surreal.
I second rebelnow's challenge and will do it myself.
Congress and the MSM, brought to you by Shell---Yesterday the big oil executives were in front of Congress "explaining" why oil prices are so high. They listed all their "expenses and investments" etc. for an hour. And that's what the media owned by these fucking pirates reported: "Oh well, back to you Gina! Good job!" Well, guess what: PROFIT means AFTER expenses. So, why are they making record profits? Congress and the MSM: ZZZZZZZZZZZ......Bought and paid for just like our "choices" in this "election"....
Try this sometime, maybe you have already; take some time, at least two weeks, a month is ideal, and go someplace that is remote, with no electronics of any kind, no TV, radio, computer, Ipod, cell phone, etc. Find a place to listen to the ocean, or the forest, or desert silence.
Then, when you go home, turn on the TV and watch a corporate media news channel. It's surreal.
Look, we have religion indoctrinating us, teachers indoctrinating us, politicians indoctrinating us, advertisers indoctrinating us, etc, so why shouldn't the MSM? I mean we shouldn't discriminate against them. It wouldn't be fair!
There is so much indoctrination around that we really don't need our brains. Surely they could clone a brain that is already fully programmed to suit all the ambitions of our rulers, then that brain could be cloned a billion times and put into each newborn child.
That would save a whole lot of time and money, wouldn't it?
P.S. The brain: rubbish in - rubbish out! Check my blog.
This administration has demoted Congress and the courts through brazen and unlawful destruction of records, abuse of classification to conceal wrongdoing, intimidation of whistleblowers and Inspectors General, use of unconstitutional signing statements, and other means. Congress sits impotently as a criminal gang purporting to be the Executive undermines the Constitution as well as domestic and international law. At this point it is only brave journalists who can bring the facts to the public and create enough pressure on Congress that it will finally be forced to arise from its political deathbed and take action.
Well, when comparing today's "news" with yesterday's coverage of the JFK assassination, let's not forget about young Dan Rather, who, as a radio reporter for a local Dallas CBS affiliate, and having been the first journalist to view the Zapruder film, lied to the entire nation by saying that Kennedy's head jerked FORWARD with the final shot as though hit from behind.
And the cover-up continued for decades, even under the watch of such notables as Eric Severeid, Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, John Chancellor, Walter Cronkite, and many others. Let's not praise these vintage media stalwarts too highly. Nor should we look back on the 1950s and 1960s as some "golden age" of ethical journalism. Way back in the 1930s, educator and philosopher John Dewey was railing against the rise of commercial broadcast media:
"...radio is the most powerful instrument of social education the world has ever seen. It can be used to distort facts and to mislead the public mind. In my opinion, the question of whether it is to be employed for this end or for the social public interest is one of the most crucial problems of the present."
Excellent postings: ALEX NOSAL, PROVOICE, HEAVY RUNNER, MIFTIN & MiMiCCs.
Well, given all this covert talk of "Operation Mockingbird," I now understand why all my scripts have been rejected by Hollywood. (Half LOL.)
There's prodigious insight in many of these comments. When I was a "yoot" in NY (I always loved the way Joe Pesci belted that word out of the park in "Cousin Vinny"), the print press dominated, TV was just coming on, and all of it flowed from the illuminating footprints of Ed Murrow, William Shirer, Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, John Chancellor, Charles Collingwood, Eric Severeid and others whose bona fides grew out of brilliant and often courageous WWII and Korean War coverage. There were several hundred large newspapers around the country, and people actually read them...there were several dailies in New York alone...competition was fierce, but compared to the controlled and repressive press of Nazi Germany and then the Soviet Union, American journalism gave off the powerful vibe of truth-telling as a force for good, exposing corruption and malfeasance, and anchoring free expression and personal liberty in the mind of the common man as unassailable rights. There were popular movies made in that era about the press, with stars like Bogart, Gable and Cagney, that dramatically reinforced these values (in my view, the last realistic, thoughtful, uplifting movie about the press was "All the President's Men", 32 years ago!) Cronkite's anchoring of the JFK assassination on CBS is legendary to this day, as was their blunt, disturbing, daily coverage of the Viet Nam war, and their stable of correspondents.
Fast forward to the Disneyesque, "branded" disposable culture we now live in, in which most of the profit-driven, corporate media look, sound and feel like the synthetic atmosphere of a Burger King or Taco Bell, and almost every facet of human experience or real-life drama is commodified for TV broadcast like toothpaste or beer. No amount of touch-screen wizardry can obscure that the content of most "news" sounds like (or may actually be) government or corporate press releases, delivered locally with mock, tone-deaf seriousness by callow, animatronic newsreaders (usually actors by training) as distant from real reportage as I am from flying the space shuttle. National news broadcasts look and sound just a little better, unless its Katie Couric, but there too you get the proverbial sound byte, as useless and unenlightening as teets on a bull.
When it comes to the war in Iraq or Bush foreign "policy" in general, the AP usually reads like the Pentagon morning briefing. We've now discovered--from the NY Times of all places--that many if not most of these retired military "analysts" we've been listening to about the war, on all channels every day for the past 5 years, have taken secret marching orders from the Pentagon spin machine and often have financial interest in the corporate contractors bleeding us dry inside Iraq, on which they're supposedly reporting "objectively". Richard Engel, the courageous young Iraq war correspondent from NBC News, interviewed Bush last week--the most unpopular president in the past 75 years, a man devoid of credibility except for his base of fanatics and morons--in a performance that barely scratched the surface of this man's monumental tone-deafness, hubris and apparent stupidity. Bush tried, and for the most part succeeded, in playing Engel like a fiddle, avoiding his pointed questions as if he wasn't even posing them. At the end of the interview, they shook hands, very cordial, very respectful. Why? Why does NBC in the person of Engel still afford this disastrous failure of a president the same level of regard, even respect, that FDR might have received? Simply because he is the president? So much for media speaking truth to power...in this case, they couldn't even ask about it.
With the notable exception of several independent internet sources, the corporate media have merely cloned their look and feel on their websites, drowning the viewer in commercials, and providing the same level of shallow, highly varnished dreck they broadcast on TV. Look out if they succeed in killing Net Neutrality, and there's no current reason to believe they won't. May Obama deal with this threat sooner rather than later.
I am a full-blown cynic about the corporate press, and no longer seek my news from those sources, unless it's a quick weather report. They even screw that up. The real question, however, is how do you go back? How do you get out from under the likes of Murdoch, Sam Zell, CNN, CBS (a mutation of its former template), Disney, GE, etc.? Should we even bother?
The control of media has always been a priority of the elite. Here are some additional examples.
U.S. Congressman Oscar Callaway informs Congress that J. P. Morgan is a Rothschild front and has taken control of the American media industry. He states,
"In March, 1915, the J.P. Morgan interests, the steel, shipbuilding, and powder interest, and their subsidiary organizations, got together 12 men high up in the newspaper world and employed them to select the most influential newspapers in the United States and sufficient number of them to control generally the policy of the daily press......They found it was only necessary to purchase the control of 25 of the greatest papers...An agreement was reached. The policy of the papers was bought, to be paid for by the month, an editor was furnished for each paper to properly supervise and edit information regarding the questions of preparedness, militarism, financial policies, and other things of national and international nature considered vital to the interests of the purchasers."
1891: The British Labour Leader makes the following statement on the subject of the Rothschilds, "This blood-sucking crew has been the cause of untold mischief and misery in Europe during the present century, and has piled up its prodigious wealth chiefly through fomenting wars between States which ought never to have quarrelled. Whenever there is trouble in Europe, wherever rumours of war circulate and men's minds are distraught with fear of change and calamity you may be sure that a Rothschild is at his games somewhere near the region of the disturbance."
Comments like this worry the Rothschilds and towards the end of the 1800's they purchase Reuters news agency so they can have some control of the media.
FDR created FCC in 1934 and used it to control news programs from radio broadcasts (broadcast negativity and stations were threatened with losing their license)
Starting in the early days of the Cold War (late 40's), the CIA began a secret project called Operation Mockingbird, with the intent of buying influence behind the scenes at major media outlets and putting reporters on the CIA payroll, which has proven to be a stunning ongoing success. The CIA effort to recruit American news organizations and journalists to become spies and disseminators of propaganda, was headed up by Frank Wisner, Allen Dulles, Richard Helms, and Philip Graham (publisher of The Washington Post). Wisner had taken Graham under his wing to direct the program code-named Operation Mockingbird and both have presumably committed suicide.
Media assets will eventually include ABC, NBC, CBS, Time, Newsweek, Associated Press, United Press International (UPI), Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps-Howard, Copley News Service, etc. and 400 journalists, who have secretly carried out assignments according to documents on file at CIA headquarters, from intelligence-gathering to serving as go-betweens. The CIA had infiltrated the nation's businesses, media, and universities with tens of thousands of on-call operatives by the 1950's. CIA Director Dulles had staffed the CIA almost exclusively with Ivy League graduates, especially from Yale with figures like George Herbert Walker Bush from the "Skull and Crossbones" Society.
In 1977, Washington Post journalist Carl Bernstein (exposed Watergate with Bob Woodward) declared that over 400 US journalists were CIA employees "who have secretly carried out assignments according to documents on file at CIA headquarters, from intelligence-gathering to serving as go-betweens." A high-level source told Bernstein, "One journalist is worth twenty agents." [xxxii] CIA media assets include ABC, NBC, CBS, Time, Newsweek, Associated Press, United Press International (UPI), Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps-Howard, and Copley News Service.
1985: Eustace Mullins publishes, "Who Owns The TV Networks," in which he reveals the Rothschilds have control of all three major U.S. Networks, which are: NBC; CBS; and ABC. The New York Times reports the FBI is aware of at least a dozen incidents in which American officials transferred classified information to the Israelis, quoting (former Assistant Director of the F.B.I.) Raymond Wannal. The Justice Department does not prosecute.
1987 The Fairness Doctrine (1949) [ix] allowed equal time to opposing opinions. Mark S. Fowler, a communications lawyer appointed to head the FCC by President Ronald Reagan, aggressively opposed the Fairness Doctrine as well as the First Amendment. "He set about pruning, chopping, slashing, eliminating, burying and deep-sixing fifty years of regulations that guarded against monopolistic practices and excessive commercialism and protected the public interest standard." The Fairness Doctrine, along with diversity, fairness, equal time and objectivity was rescinded in 1987.
Television and radio stations were no longer required to neither present both sides of important or controversial issues nor give equal time to candidates. [x] Networks have since called early election results affecting western voters and a whole plethora of issues. Elite-selected candidates are promoted while constitutional candidates are ignored or ridiculed.
1991 At the Bilderberg Conference on June 6 to 9 of this year, in Baden-Baden, Germany, David Rockefeller (a Rothschild) made the following statement,
"We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time Magazine, and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost 40 years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world, if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The super-national sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practised in past centuries."
2008 On February 14, a Florida Appeals court ruled there is absolutely nothing illegal about lying, concealing or distorting information by a major press organization. The court reversed the $425,000 jury verdict in favor of journalist Jane Akre who charged she was pressured by Fox Television management and lawyers to air what she knew and documented to be false information. The ruling basically declares it is technically not against any law, rule, or regulation to deliberately lie or distort the news.
This country did not get messed up by accident. It was by design, a conspiracy of the elite. When we start prosecuting for war crimes, lets not forget the jounalists. They were prosecuted at Nuremberg for their role in aiding Hitlers propaganda.
Corporate media = Neocon propaganda
That the supposed "gold standard" of American journalism (two words that are now contradiction in terms when the media is corporate owned) was complicit in aiding another four years of the Dubya, Cheney, & Co. nightmare is not surprising. After all, they were the media outlet for Judith Miller's lies in the run-up to Iraq. They now join the Hearst newspapers (which was the midwife for the Spanish-American War) in historical infamy.
Back in the late 1800s, the U.S. press got together and convinced the American public that Filipinos were a bunch of sub-human monkeys deserving of being invaded and murdered by the U.S. Marines. Woodrow Wilson's Creel Commission later orchestrated a massive U.S. media disinformation campaign that successfully whipped the American public into a war frenzy. During the 1920s, the U.S. media spoke glowingly of eugenics programs meant to cull "inferior" people from the population, as promoted by the leading families of the economic elite. During the 1950s the U.S. press was lying constantly about everything from the benign effects of atmospheric nuclear bomb testing to whether the Soviets were putting mind-control substances in our water supply. None of this is new. The U.S. media has always been an elite media and it has always been a pack of carefully constructed, ongoing lies meant to preserve the status quo of the day. U.S. media eventually turned against the Vietnam War because its advertisers and parent companies realized they were losing money on the effort. Even Walter Cronkite just spent 99% of his time reading from the teleprompter. Edward R. Murrow of CBS tried in vain to steer U.S. television media away from this corporate profit/propaganda model. He went head-to-head with Joe McCarthy on national TV. I'm not saying the U.S. media haven't had their shining moments, but it has ALWAYS been the power elite who have called the shots according to what they considered to have been in their best interests. The real fight nowadays should be to save the Internet. Newspapers and broadcast media were a lost cause a century ago.
"News Chain" (Long post, but not a rant.)
I want to discuss to discuss an idea about how to break the Corporate Media blockade on the news.
In recent years, most especially since Kucinich 04 when I became a reader of sites such as this, I have been increasingly impressed by the brazenness and frequency with which the Major Media kills and buries what should be major news stories. This is a very old problem, as the new revelations about the Korea massacres of 1950 remind us, but either I am just becoming more aware or it is getting worse. The extent and thoroughness of this suppression of the news is such that it can only be explained by assuming that somehow it is organized, coordinated and enforced at a very high level.
For example, in just the past ten days or so, the ILWU strike that shut down the West Coast ports, the exhibit of arms captured from "insurgents" which turned out to not include a single item traced to Iran, and the US House of Representatives voting to kill the war funding measure, all received little or no notice in the media, and most members of the public remain unaware of them. And I still keep meeting people who don't know who Kucinich is, or know just enough to snicker! It's just mind-boggling!
To my knowledge, no one in a position to know has stepped forward to explain how this works – the picture in my mind is of agreements reached through routine conversations between owners, top editors and other members of the elite at exclusive golf courses - but it is nonetheless clear that it must be happening, and not just under special circumstances. The evidence suggests that pressure from the public will not greatly alter the behavior of the Media Barons; they have a fundamental commitment to what they are doing.
I have been racking my brains trying to think of a way to deal with this dilemma. We have alternative weeklies, community radio stations, sites such as CommonDreams, lists such as Democrats.com and MoveOn.Org, The Nation and numerous blogs. Thousands of people spend their lives struggling to create and sustain these alternatives, but even taken all together, they reach only a very small fraction of the population, and have so far been unable to shake the power of the Major Media to control the "national conversation".
Somehow we have to dramatically increase our reach, but how?
One potential tool is to spread news stories across the Internet. If each person who became aware of an important story that was not being reported were to pass it on to 10 or 25 or 100 email contacts via the Internet, and if a sizeable fraction of the recipients were to do the same, the story would spread like wildfire. My own experiments with this however have produced no results; I have no evidence that any alert I have sent to my contact list has spread very far, certainly never far enough to come back to me from someone else, and - like most people I'm sure - I have felt very inhibited about sending alerts to any but the people that I know generally agree with me, for fear of damaging my relationships. But the need to break the media stranglehold on the news is urgent.
Suppose we could start a movement, which perhaps we could call "News Chain", to get this kind of Internet chain mail working. This would be a movement of people who are fed up with being "treated like mushrooms", and its sole purpose would be to make sure that important stories which the Media tries to bury get disseminated quickly and widely.
As I conceive of it, the participants would commit to a simple set of rules for a class of emails called News Chain communications.
The first would be that the content of a "News Chain" message should include only a headline, a url pointing to an article, and a standard statement of the purpose and rules of the "news chain" movement. Period. No commentary allowed, so that this does not become a forum for arguments, is not limited to communication between people who already agree with each other, and does not become personal or nasty.
The second would be that the article referenced should be a news story - not an opinion or analysis piece - from a credible source, that is not being carried by the Major Media, one which the poster believes to be important to everyone.
Perhaps an alliance of progressive and libertarian writers and bloggers could take on the job of recognizing and discussing what appear to be developing coverups, and initiating the "news chain" communications through such sites as Common Dreams and Antiwar.com.
To do something like this will require a cultural shift, a big change in the willingness of millions of people to consider that there is a world of news out there that they need and aren't getting, and a willingness to stick their necks out and pass news on to their contacts. Perhaps this movement can grow slowly and spread, but I think not. There is a kind of "potential barrier" that has to be broken through to get it rolling, an idea about the need and possibility for this that has to be out there widely for it to fly. If no one else is emailing news stories to everyone they know, the one who does is an obtrusive, annoying and presumptuous oddball for doing so (to put it nicely), but once this becomes normal then the floodgates will open, and short of shutting down the Internet as we know it, the news will start to flow freely and the blockade of the Media Barons will be broken.
What do you think? And what do you suggest? Please post if you're interested.
Why did the Saudis give Bill Clinton $10,000,000 ??
kent shaw,
"provoice, 2:48 pm —
I have long thought that members of the house and senate are either in on the take or victims of blackmail."
I am almost certain of it.
Okay, we've now been told that NSA began its warrantless spying on terrorists (and nonterrorists) by culling US domestic telecommunications switches, using highly sophisticated voice recognition technology to "zero in on suspected dirty numbers and eavesdrop...."
We've also been told this secret program began on both the west coast and the eastern seaboard shortly after Bush took office - early in 2001, months before the 9/11 attacks.
If we put these facts and the time line together finally obtained from the nation's so-called paper of record, and we credit the Bush administration with at least telling us the truth about how the major ostensible purpose of NSA's clandestine operations on American soil was monitoring al Qaeda, what does this suggest?
That just perhaps, just maybe, General Michael Hayden (head of NSA at the time of the illegal 2001 surveillance, current head of the reorganized CIA within the Department of Homeland Security) was the primary guy tasked with keeping the surveillance tabs on Muhammed Atta and his merry band of henchmen while the hijackers moved about the country doing their "test runs" in the run-up to the 9/11 attacks. Makes sense to me.
When Richard Clarke and Sandy Berger and the hold overs from Clinton national security team brief Condi Rice as the new presidential national security advisor during the transition that Osama is the biggest imminent terrorist threat on the horizon, why not assign the real pros at the National Security Agency to handle the surveillance team? Why not cut those old foggies from Mr. Hoover's FBI and Roy McGovern's CIA out of the stove pipe?
Cheney and Rummy are making the big Pentagon power grab anyway, so why not give them and the No Such Agency this critical, urgent piece of the anti-terrorism turf responsibility too?
Gee, if that's what happened, why it would mean the 911 Commission's basic narrative - that how the CIA's left hand wasn't properly coordinated to know what the FBI's right hand was doing - was all a big fat red herring.
And heaven forbid, if that's what happened, then it would mean that the hi tech spooks and black ops clowns who actually dropped the ball on the morning of September 11th not only came out smelling like a rose, but now they're running the entire store.....
Food for thought, anyway.
Bill from Saginaw
One lesson the managers of the military/industrial complex took from the Viet Nam war was that they should own the popular mass media companies, so they bought them in the interim.
That is one of the biggest differences in our culture between then and now.
One reason the Republicans in power want the NSA eavesdropping in place is that it is useful to listen in on all the Democrats' strategy conversations so they can be one step ahead of them.
The Republican policies are so anti-human they need things like ownership of the mass media and total information to level the playing field.
Even all that may not be enough this year though. People are really pissed off about paying $200 to fill the tank on their pickup trucks and a vote for a Republican is seen as a vote for more of the same.
Big Money/Business owns and controls NYT and the rest of the Media.
It also set in motion the policies of the country both domestic and foreign. The president, congress and supreme court are selected to impliment these policies. So, naturally the NYT and the rest of Media are nothin but mouthpieces in service of these policies. They do that by
either falsifying or concealing or fabricating the news.
That is the basic facts and anything else is nothing but make belief and theatrics to further bullshit the public.
It's as simple as this, journalists have surrendered their allegiance to the constitution and have replaced it with allegiance to money. The business of words is not journalism.
@karlof1: I have to admit that I haven't read Friendly Fascism myself, but I will if I can find it.
Interestingly, despite describing the current managed democracy system as "shot through with corruption and awash in contributions primarily from wealthy and corporate donors", Professor Wolin seems to believe that the problem can be overcome. He suggests "... rolling back the empire, rolling back the practices of managed democracy; returning to the idea and practices of international cooperation rather than the dogmas of globalization and preemptive strikes; restoring and strengthening environmental protections; reinvigorating populist politics; undoing the damage to our system of individual rights; restoring the institutions of an independent judiciary, separation of powers, and checks and balances; reinstating the integrity of the independent regulatory agencies and of scientific advisory processes; reviving representative systems responsive to popular needs for health care, education, guaranteed pensions, and an honorable minimum wage; restoring governmental regulatory authority over the economy; and rolling back the distortions of a tax code that toadies to the wealthy and corporate power."
To me, that looks like a very tall order for a people caught up in observing the established rules laid down by USA Incorporated for continuing their pseudo-democratic fantasy and obsessed with "trivial pursuits" in the most literal sense of those words. Nothing would please me more, however, than to be proven wrong.
Like Arvy, I too posted the following comment elsewhere but it does seems to belong here as well...
How many people know about Operation Mockingbird?
The US media has been an asset of the CIA and its affiliates for a very long time.
Please see this excellent article (http://www.prisonplanet.com/analysis_louise_01_03_03_mockingbird.html ) from which the following quote was taken:
"Personally, I have come to the conclusion that the media is not only influenced by the CIA.....the media is the CIA. Many Americans think of their supposedly free press as a watchdog on government, mainly because the press itself shamelessly promotes that myth. One of the first tenets for the control of a population is to control all sources of information the population receives and mostly because of the pervasive CIA and Operation Mockingbird, the mainstream American Press is a controlled multi-national corporate/government megaphone."
Lichtblau said: "To me, it was never clear what Osama bin Laden and his henchmen would learn–confirming, really–that the United States spy services were listening to them."
Er, asshole - the point is that the United States spy services were listening to US, not "them." Or are you so over-kool-aided that you think Big Telecom needs blanket immunity because they allowed the NSA to listen only to "them?"
Oh, right, and meanwhile, it all started BEFORE 911 changed everything:
"In the months before 9/11, thousands of American citizens were inadvertently swept up in wiretaps, had their emails monitored, and were being watched as they surfed the Internet by spies at the super-secret National Security Agency, former NSA and counterterrorism officials said."
Seeing as how Bush and the cult were wholly disinterested in, and disengaged from, anything Osama bin Laden related before their much wished for "new Pearl Harbor," isn't it crystal f**king clear who was being illegally spied upon and why?
Just pathetic.
provoice, 2:48 pm --
I have long thought that members of the house and senate are either in on the take or victims of blackmail.
Arvy--Thanks for the exceprt. It provides the same message of Friendly Fascism, albeit in a more updated manner, FF being published in 1980. Nor are these the only two books on the subject. Unfortunately, they never seem to get read by other than a small group of people who already have an idea about how topsy-turvy things are. It's too bad Clinton wasn't found guilty by the Senate as it's possible subsequent events would be different.
They can't protect us from lead in childrens toys or poisoned medicine from China but at least they're keeping us safe from harmful information.
Your News. Government Approved.
The people must have the information to make true: A government by the people, for the people. If those who learn some information that the public needs to make decisions, but do not give this information, then that is treason.
I always thought that the journalist's mission and duty was to inform the public of their government's actions. Since when did this duty conflict with being an American citizen and our right to know what is being done in our name? The journalist have lost their way; mainly, I think, do to the profit motive, desire for ratings, to curry political favor and just plain laziness. How sad that American journalism and journalist are thought less and less of daily, by not only Americans, but the world at large.
Has no one considered the advantages an administration would have by spying on it's POLITICAL OPPONENTS (in the name of national security)?
It is sad to know that Bush and Company could be documenting all of the skeletons in their opponent's closets and our so-called "Free Press" would be too cowed and intimidated to tell the public.
Frankly, this could be the ONE THING that might explain why our so-called "representatives" in Congress have given Bush and his cronies virtually everything they have asked for, no matter how badly it damaged the country.
Journalists have long known that the U.S. media is no longer a beacon of truth in the world... in 2004, one international journalism group voted the U.S. the THIRTY-SEVENTH IN THE WORLD for honesty of the Press... BEHIND both France and the U.K.
This wouldn't be as big of a problem if it wasn't the judgement of the Bush administration that was being deferred to. Journalists should consider the health and wealth of the nation, as should ALL people.
However, its not easy when the health and wealth of the nation are NOT on the president's lists of concerns!
I hope I may be forgiven for posting this under two topics, but it seemed to belong in both places.
USans need to understand that these and many other particular issues that come under discussion here are merely observable symptoms and manifestations of their much larger systemic problem of managed democracy. The following excerpts are from Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism by Sheldon S. Wolin, Professor of Politics Emeritus at Princeton University:
Our thesis is this: it is possible for a form of totalitarianism, different from the classical one, to evolve from a putatively 'strong democracy' instead of a 'failed' one. [...] Democracy is about the conditions that make it possible for ordinary people to better their lives by becoming political beings and by making power responsive to their hopes and needs. [Existence of a demos depends on] a politically engaged and empowered citizenry, one that voted, deliberated, and occupied all branches of public office.
[...]
The American political system was not born a democracy, but born with a bias against democracy. It was constructed by those who were either skeptical about democracy or hostile to it. Democratic advance proved to be slow, uphill, forever incomplete. The republic existed for three-quarters of a century before formal slavery was ended; another hundred years before black Americans were assured of their voting rights. Only in the twentieth century were women guaranteed the vote and trade unions the right to bargain collectively. In none of these instances has victory been complete: women still lack full equality, racism persists, and the destruction of the remnants of trade unions remains a goal of corporate strategies. Far from being innate, democracy in America has gone against the grain, against the very forms by which the political and economic power of the country has been and continues to be ordered.
[...]
[Inverted totalitarianism] emerged imperceptibly, unpremeditatedly, and in seeming unbroken continuity with the nation's political traditions. [... Its genius] lies in wielding total power without appearing to, without establishing concentration camps, or enforcing ideological uniformity, or forcibly suppressing dissident elements so long as they remain ineffectual. A demotion in the status and stature of the 'sovereign people' to patient subjects is symptomatic of systemic change, from democracy as a method of 'popularizing' power to democracy as a brand name for a product marketable at home and marketable abroad. The new system, inverted totalitarianism, is one that professes the opposite of what, in fact, it is. The United States has become the showcase of how democracy can be managed without appearing to be suppressed. [Emphasis added.]
[...]
[Managed democracy aims at] selective abdication of governmental responsibility for the well-being of the citizenry. [...] The privatization of public services and functions manifests the steady evolution of corporate power into a political form, into an integral, even dominant partner with the state. It marks the transformation of American politics and its political culture from a system in which democratic practices and values were, if not defining, at least major contributing elements, to one where the remaining democratic elements of the state and its populist programs are being systematically dismantled. [...] Democracy represented a challenge to the status quo, today it has become adjusted to the status quo.
The American press/media isn't free, it's very expensive. However, once you own it, you get the government (and controlling interest in the country) at no added cost. On that basis, it's quite a value.
First, please use the words "monopoly media" and stop using the term "mainstream media" (MSM) There is nothing mainstream about our media other than the fact that it is the monopoly media.
Second, the equation is not patriotism vs. journalism. The profit motive is a huge factor for the monopoly media. The monopoly media didn't want to risk their ratings and advertising revenue by questioning or appearing to doubt the Commander in Chief during a time of war. They subjected their journalism to the profit motive.
We solve this by creating more media outlets such as CommonDreams. We solve this by pushing for the convergence of the internet and our televison sets. We need more choices on our televisions instead of just accepting and paying for a monopoly controlled lineup. We need to move to a more digital world and we need to make sure the digital world remains one of choice and openess instead of being hijacked and corrupted by the monopoly media.
The Washington Post . . . The Washington Post . . . every time I hear that name I think how they helped expose Watergate . . . well, that was in a different United States that no longer exists. The Washington Post recently ran an op-ed by some reactionary bimbo whose name (I think) is Kathleen Parker, which picked up the Anne Coulter John Edwards-is-a-faggot theme. She said that when Edwards endorsed Obama they should have kissed. This was in the Washington Post. The MSM, all of it, is now a hopeless corporate and reactionary sewer. They hire an army of Pentagon coached General Pattons who pose as independent "analysts", shill for Bush on Iraq and when they're exposed, nothing is said about it. Most Americans get what they think is news from one or another outlet of the MSM. Slavery takes many different forms and the MSM is one of the new class of slavemasters in this nation.
I agree with Rall's article and his point that a journalist will choose the country's national security over the public's right to know. The article is also correct that it places the blame squarely on the Bush Administration and the editors decision not to print relevant information. However the article makes no mention of one other inconspicuous culprit in the censorship of the MSM; the corporate sponsors!
Bush (or any corporate financed official) can also rely on a segment of corporate America to strong arm the media into publishing or not publishing a story. When companies like Exxon, GM and General Electric (all major players in the Military Industrial Complex) spend billions of dollars a year advertising their wares through the MSM, they exert considerable influence over the content of the shows. So while the media might at first ignore a request from some Neo-con in Washington to kill a story, the next phone call from their corporate sponsors requesting the same thing will more likely be the deciding factor.
The power that these corporations exert over the MSM is obvious to anyone who can see the trees through the forest. Hours and hours of political talk shows each day for example manage to avoid a single mainstream issue (poverty, withdrawal from Iraq, alternative energy sources, minimum wage, universal healthcare, cracking down on corporate crime, reducing the incarceration rate, etc.) that matters to the general populace. This is not by accident but by design as we are subjected to endless polls, rhetoric and empty analysis ad naseum of the candidates.
Unfortunately if someone polled the average American who subscribed to Time or Newsweek magazine, read the local paper each day and watched the 11:00 news every night, that pollee would consider themselves to be politically well informed. Yet in reality that person would be very 'misinformed' and probably unaware that they have been fed news that corporate America deems non-threatening to the status quo.
Examples range from the MSM telling us that a candidate is unelectable (not if people voted for them!) to airing stories about missing white girls in the Mid-West or tricks that a three legged dog performs. The sophistication of this national campaign of misinformation is unprecedented and contributes more to the erosion of democracy than any other factor in our society today.
If nobody ever bought for the next 12 months "The New York Times" through 'its people' would operate as normal and tess everyone its sales are actually rising. It's worth it. What a piece of rubbish it is? Its a disgrace to a once free nation. God Bless all you lost.
The liberal, fair and balanced MSM is one of the most egregious, myths foisted on the American people. There are 3 reasons why: $ $ $.
The MSM, is now Amerika's version of Pravda. But the newspapers are still great for cleaning fish, and lining the birdcage!
And as for the dog not barking, well then who's the thief?
Fourth Estate? Hah. Get more information via a bunch of tame lackeys than you would from people... who...always...run with the hounds.
Oh silly me -- they ARE a bunch of tame lackeys running with the hounds. And to think this theoretically gets constitutional protection.
The media is MEANT to be the watchdog: time for a new dog.
Someone once said, "It is not that he tells lies, it is that each word he speaks is a lie."
Many people get the lie, most don't see the set-up accomplished in each word.
Example:
You know that what mainstream media tells you about the war in Iraq is lies.
What you are missing is that it is not a war, it is a genocide and the funding on all sides is originating from the same sources.
Look-- This all comes down to sophisticated public relations. Average Joe Blow on the street can't name even one large public relations firm, let alone explain what they do and how they operate. Most have heard the term "corporate spokesperson" but that's just some well dressed, nice looking person who looks right into their eyes and smiles and really has their best interests at heart. Journalism school graduates go into public relations because there's more money in it. You're going to be a sell-out to the interests of your employer anyway, so why bother having to work for an actual news outlet and have to pretend to some level of objectivity that hasn't existed in the U.S. media since the days of Abraham Lincoln?
"Reporters are puppets. They simply respond to the pull of the most powerful strings."
Lyndon Johnson
*****
"[The American press has] at least as much power in determining the course of the republic as the executive, legislative, and judicial branches set forth in the Constitution."
Walter Annenberg, publisher
*****
"The American press exercises perhaps the greatest power there [is] in politics: the power to define reality."
William Rusher, publisher
"The job of the President is to set the agenda and the job of the press is to follow the agenda that the leadership sets."
Lawrence Grossman - longtime head of PBS and NBC News
*****
"War allows us to rise above our small stations in life. We find nobility in a cause and feelings of selflessness and even bliss. And at a time of soaring deficits and financial scandals and the very deterioration of our domestic fabric, war is a fine diversion... War gives us a distorted sense of self; it gives us meaning."
Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for New York Times
*****
"War, we have come to believe, is a spectator sport. The military and the press ... have turned war into a vast video arcade game. Its very essence- death - is hidden from public view."
Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for New York Times
*****
" The news and truth are not the same thing. "
Walter Lippmann
I have the greatest admiration for your propaganda. Propaganda in the West is carried out by experts who have had the best training in the world -- in the field of advertising -- and have mastered the techniques with exceptional proficiency ... Yours are subtle and persuasive; ours are crude and obvious ... I think that the fundamental difference between our worlds, with respect to propaganda, is quite simple. You tend to believe yours ... and we tend to disbelieve ours."
Soviet correspondent based five years in the U.S.
*****
A good part of the U.S. public, astonishingly ignorant about everything beyond its shores, fears and disdains all that it does not understand. The country that has done more than any other to develop information technology, produces television news that barely touches on world events except to confirm that foreigners tend to be terrorists and ingrates.
Eduardo Galeano - Upside Down
" The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western world. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity - much less dissent."
Gore Vidal
*****
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it."
"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."
Joseph Goebbels
*****
"The most esteemed journalists are precisely the most servile. For it is by making themselves useful to the powerful that they gain access to the 'best' sources."
Walter Karp
*****
"The timidity of Congress in challenging administration big lies ... rises in no small part from the fear of contradiction and criticism from the powerful establishment media, whose interests all too frequently parallel those of the administration. "
Peter Dale Scott
*****
It is awfully tough to ignore propaganda and disinformation. Evidently, most people can't do it, and they get swept away in the lies and distortions.
While propaganda happens at all levels, many of us have figured out what the deal is and approach ALL media with a healthy dose of skepticism. That's good. We intuit that we are being lied to, because we are. We must keep relying on our intuition. We will be necessary soon.