NPR is CIA

Gonsalves wrote: "The study found Clinton and Obama received about the same number of "positive" and "negative" headlines from those paper"

The study shouldn't have counted only headlines, they should have counted ALL references, including the horrendously misogynist off-the-cuff remarks from all of the MSM outlets. Clinton would lead by a landslide.

Racism is taboo, but sexism is condoned. Welcome to our enlightened America where women are despised.

Since the disgust the American people have with the media is generally meant as being aimed at the TV networks (the big 3 and the 24 hours cable networks) and the top newspapers (NY Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal), to pretend that there isn't an enormous bias that tilts right is to intentionally ignore what we've been subjected to as a country for the past 28 years. The Bush administration has unflinchingly and boastfully disregarded for the law, the Constitution, American civil liberties, and the Geneva Conventions, and the media has NEVER treated those as newsworthy, let alone the most serious crimes any administration has committed in our nation's history! The flagrant criminal activity by the Bush administration (spying on the American people, intentionally lying the country into war, outing a CIA Operative, torturing/murdering people, locking people up without due process, and concentration camps!!), has ALL been given a pass by our national media! That is beyond outrageous - we are no longer a nation of laws!

The national news media, particularly on television, ABSOLUTELY REFUSES to cover the Bush Administration's criminal activity! And nothing that comes to light changes that!

AND, aside from the endless litany of flagrant criminal abuses by the Bush regime, can one even imagine if a Democratic administration had presided over 9.11 how they would forever be demonized as being completely unable to protect America? Yet, the media spun Bush's monumental incompetence and lack of leadership on 9.11 as his strong card! Can one even imagine if a Democratic president had deep financial ties to the Bin Laden family, and if that president was setup in his first business venture (as George W Bush was with Arbusto Oil) with the financial help of Salem Bin Laden – Osama's brother? We would be reminded of it over and over and over, yet how many Americans are even aware of the Bush family's ties to the Bin Ladens? That's considered "conspiratorial" and yet the facts are readily available to anyone with even a passing curiousity to find out the truth.

It is 7 YEARS after 9.11 and Osama Bin Laden remains at large, and a victorious hero in the Middle East, because the Bush administration have never been interested in getting Bin Laden. If it was a Democratic administration that had a hands-off policy on the mastermind of the 9.11 attacks, we would be reminded of it over and over and over. Yet, because Bush is a Republican, that gets NO DISCUSSION by the national media – NONE!!

We have an unquestionably far-right tilted national media in the USA! To not acknowledge that incredibly obvious FACT is either pure stupidity or flagrantly lying!

MEGARONIN: The Course in Miracles says there are really only two emotions: Love or FEAR. To Love is to seek unity and find reasons to bond together. To FEAR is to cause separation, artificial divides and demarcations among people(s). This, of course, is a necessity pre-requisite to war, the ultimate "export" of our media-military-industrial state!

The New York Times Liberal?

Where was there coverage of

(a) The Downing St. Memos
(b) The Niger Documents
(c) Why did they wait a year after election to report NSA wiretapping
(d) Why did they kill story about Bush wearing microphone during debate w/John Kerry?
(e) Where are stories about the danger of GM food?
(f) Where's coverage of NSPD 51
(g) Why haven't they reported on Bush family relationship with the Bin Ladins?
(h) Where's their coverage of the stolen elections
(i) where's coverage of purged voter list uncovered by Greg Palast
(j) Where's coverage of depleted uranium in Iraq?
(k) where's coverage of impeachment of Cheney and Bush?

I've got 100 more.

The Time's Liberal? Laughable. The Times is CRIMINAL.

People are a lot more receptive than they give themselves credit. The ability to observe and imitate - is the highest form of intelligence. We observe and imitate everything - even the way we type on the internet is evolving/devolving through this process - from the day we are born and I would argue until the day we day -we are observing and imitating (of course to varying degrees depending - as one gets older we hope they can control and determine by their own merits - what is worth imitating!)

Until we learn and appreciate this. We will forever neglect the immediacy with which our actions affect others. So often the media is designed to manipulate humans in this regard. They will promote imagery that, even if later dismissed or refuted in substance and moral character, will have already done its damage.

Coincidentally there are newsweek articles depicting the "survival necessity of a scared expression." This article does not introduce the hypothesis or purpose of these studies it simply presents the imagery - and then tells you why you should care. The imagery of scared expressions speaks directly to the aforementioned intelligence - one of immediate imitation. The so called puppet scientists know this study is a farce however, the damage once visualized and interpreted is already done.

The images of scared expressions therefore immediately create fear within the human being. This is fear advocation at its finest - under the guise of a "scientific experiment."

Fear is not the enemy. It is the reality with which they would so have you chained and shackled. It is the reality that directs and dictates so much of nature. We have as human beings the opportunity with which to live without fear. And so our greatest fear, should not be the fear of death or survival, it should be the fear of doing the best we can for one another.

Please beware of these new fear inciting articles. Thank you.

The MSM as well as the parties are set up to keep the people divided. Divided we do not stand a chance. United we could get somewhere. While America quibbles over meaningless details, it's business as usual for the tyrants. Were bush or clinton guilty ? Yes, hand in hand, they both are guilty of crimes. Were fox or cnn guilty, Yes, hand in hand, they both are guilty. Beware of anyone, whose agenda is to divide the people.

I'm paying attention - and I'm not, as Mr. Gonsalves suggests, "Overstating" the fact. After an email alert from opednews.com last Monday night, I immediately tuned in to C-Span for the last two hours of Dennis Kucinich's thirty-five, well-mandated resolutions for IMPEACHMENT AGAINST GEORGE BUSH. No prior notice of this broadcast was provided by C-Span.
I felt elated that the case had been laid out so thoroughly, and eloquently, that it was certain to be widely publicized. The almost five hours of resolutions were also read into the House Official Record on the following day.
Unfortunately, the "clarity" must have been remiss as I could not find this history-making news item in any major newspaper last week or on any of the syndicated radio talk shows.
I guess with Bush's huge popularity ratings there must have been a concern that this story would be less than "satisfying" to the general public. And exactly how does one have a "meaningful conversation about national issues" if the most vital are withheld?
Oh yes, that little Bilderburg meeting, of the political and industrial elites, held earlier this month in Chantilly, Virginia, I read about that in a Portuguese newspaper.
US Media Facism - not a chance!

The Corporate Media is little more than a propaganda delivery system. Turn them off. Don't listen to them. Stop reading their papers and magazines. They are mocking you.

PJD: Mr. Gonsalves is writing for a more "centrist" readership. WE know about Chomsky and so does he, but he is not throwing everything at his audience. He's spoon-feeding them the "what if's" to help dispel the lies that have become part of their lopsided intellectual diets thanks to the pervasiveness of hate radio types.

CHRIS HORTON: Your post is right on! The politics of excluded alternatives speaks volumes! I am not computer savvy enough to POST on U-tube, but the concept is a solid one. As for building alternative media, that is certainly taking place. I, too, have noticed that my friends are so burned out from the health issues and fiscal pressures of their own lives, that they have sort of reached a "bad news" threshold. One said to me, "How do you LIVE with what you KNOW?" Good question... makes one wonder how the good Germans who did know what was going on did what they could to stop the machine... I've taken to self-publishing books with themes considered too abstract, mystical, lofty or "not commercial enough" by the often dreary editors and agents I've connected with. We ARE in an information age and if we consider the air waves as currency, the vast majority is polluted with the intellectual equivalent of detritus.

"For example, the survey found that Americans described... NPR as "mostly or somewhat liberal" "

"Kevin Klose, the (current) president of NPR, was previously the director of all CIA propaganda dissemination broadcast media including VOA, Radio Liberty, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, Worldnet Television and the anti-Castro Radio/TV Marti." [1]."

He also must have had something to do with Radio Free Iraq, and Radio Free Afghanistan.

Now tell me how in the world is that liberal??? Oh, by the way- I thought it was illegal for the government to spend money on propagandizing the home audience.

It's the oldest trick in the book. Make a conservative station... then bash yourself for being 'mostly liberal' thereby allowing you to move the discussion even further to the right under the disguise of fake lefties. This is a real false flag operation. Don't believe it? Examine NPR's stories at decisive times- their stories will always be inline with administration policy. Like in the run-up to war when they aired 0% anti-war coverage, and 100% pro war coverage. Also note, NPR's new mirroed production facilities on the West Coast... by their own words 'to keep NPR on the air in the event of a national catastrophy' (i.e. an attack on the East Coast).

duquesne epitomizes the tone of most of this discussion with "I've always found the "liberal" media description too simplistic. More accurately I think, the majority of the media are liberal on social issues and conservative on fiscal issues." What are you *talking* about? This is superficial stuff, my friend, the stuff the shock-jocks try to focus us on. You want to talk about *bias*? Then explain what was done to the Kucinich campaigns! There was nothing subtle about that. It was a total, complete, organized and coordinated hatchet job, from the get-go. It had nothing to do with what the reporters themselves believed or thought. That wasn't bias, that was major tilt.

I heard a revealing commentary on NPR. A reporter was describing one of the debates late last year, as seen from the press room. She described a background din of whirring electronics and clicking keyboards, until Kucinich started speaking. Then the press room went dead silent. The note-taking and recording stopped. Everyone stopped what they were doing - and listened. They did not take a break and start chatting. They took a break and listened!

Were they all liberals or all conservatives? Impossible. But they all stopped to listen. Did they know news when they heard it, and did they know the rules about what not to touch? Clearly yes to both.

Our troubles with the press are simply not coming from the news staff. They are most likely coming from conversations and decisions that are being made at the most exclusive country clubs, the ones that it costs a fortune to join but that money can't buy your way into. Your small-city editor or star reporter or star anchor or even your major metro editor apparently has nothing to say about it.

That's why I'm urging us to think about how to go around the major media. Now who's going to talk about *that*?

More nuanced reporting said a poll? Who is the mainstream media suddenly? Sean took things personal as a reporter and says not all reporting and reporters are the same. Um, thanks Sean.

Media consolidation... odd that aspect of the mainstream media never came up. That mainstream media Sean... is it's own definition.

Actually, a lot of current media criticism is aimed very precisely at Fox. And then there is the abundant attention we are giving to the ties between the multi-nationals, the "American" media, and the joke called the U.S. government. And then we are giving lots of attention to every little move that the multi-nationals make to restrict our use of the internet, which continues to grow as a source of news and related opinion, while other media wane in this area.

The worst aspect of MSM outlets is not that they are biased but that they spend untold hours on trivial issues and hardly ever go for the jugular. Has anyone reported on the wannabe's positions on the national debt, the budget deficits, the Dept. of Defense's next budget, the size of the armed forces, the impending demise of our neo-colonial empire in an ocean of expensive oil, the average wages of workers? Has anyone asked them yet? These are the principal factors that govern our economy, not taxes. Obama and McCain piddle about taxes because they know that they must avoid at all cost to talk about real stuff. Big change, huh?

I've always found the "liberal" media description too simplistic. More accurately I think, the majority of the media are liberal on social issues and conservative on fiscal issues. This directly reflects their class interests. Reporters and commentators,especially in TV, are well paid placing them in the upper middle class and higher. They support most liberal issues if they don't cost them anything (abortion, same sex marriage) and marginally if it will cost them in higher taxes or fees. They have no issue with health care system because they are well-paid and have universally good health care plans. So universal health care is never talked about without mentioning having to raise taxes to pay for it. No one ever mentions that these taxes would be offset by a consequent elimination in payments to private insurance companies and co-pays for medical services (assuming a Canadian style single payer system).

And, for a well paid journalist, there is no upside. Their medical care in a single payer system might, in fact, be perceived as worse because wait times for them might increase but cost would not change or maybe even rise. In a system like Canada's, medical care is paid through a progressive tax system where the more you earn the more you pay in taxes. Therefore, indirectly, the rich are paying more for their medical care and get the same level of service as a poor person (a system based on need rather than the ability to pay). I get the feeling though that most journalists are unaware of this bias probably because the successful ones are the ones who internalized the class interests of their bosses. It irritates me when main stream journalists talk about their objectivity and that they have never been censored, completely unaware that maybe they are where they are because they didn't need to be censored.

I would be happy if the media in general just stuck to reporting the story in as factual manner as possible and take the time to do a good job (such as PBS/News Hour). The news and talk show outlets need to stop all the opinion based reporting and the talk show host need to stop shouting at each other, belittling each other, disrespecting their guest and the public at large.
It might also be helpful if there was more diversity in the hosts themselves (as in not all white males of the shrill, women-hating boys' club variety), more diversity in the guests invited to speak and it would definitely be advantageous to have lots more women on the news and in the host and guest chairs.
The women should definitely be dressed appropriately (as in suits, clothes that are not tight, too short - PROFESSIONAL).
Try increasing the variety of topics discussed. Less name calling and forgo all the sexist comments, labels and derision in general.

Thanks, PJD, for the vote of confidence regarding newspapers and local issues.

I'll return the favor by agreeing with you that local media -- especially TV -- sensationalizes violent crime, and all news media favor the concerns of wealthy over poor. In fact, the latter points toward a blindspot -- not a bias, but a blindspot -- that's common among journalists. That nearly all of us are college educated and from solid middle or upper-middle class backgrounds (more typically among national media outlets) tends to result in us overlooking the plight of the poor who largely are less educated and have different backgrounds. Absolutely this is a problem.

On this whole topic of media bias, I simply think that if people would define their terms carefully and avoid sweeping generalities, it would further dialogue and foster problem solving.

Pattmarty, someone above mentioned Chomsky and Herman's book. I would take a look, you'd be surprised how little things have changed. Chomsky went into detail showing that the Vietnam war, despite what is told, was NOT morally challenged by the "anti-war" people at places like the NY Times. The Times supported the war, thought the war was fought for good reasons (despite the fact that we supported the French's colonial massacre and refused to allow Vietnam to hold elections because the "right" people would lose in a landslide), what they objected to was how the war was fought, they thought we couldn't win. Our intentions were "noble" (when they weren't), our strategies just didn't work. Cambodia is another example. Tons was said about the horrors of Pot, rightfully. Virtually nothing was said about the fact that we dropped more bombs on Cambodia than all those dropped on the Allies during WWII before Pot took over and, according to our own intelligence and Pot himself, his forces would have never have come to power without our violence. Pot had support from about 1% of Cambodians and, again even according to him, there were nothing more than a few thousand of his fighters loosely connected throughout the country with little to no central strategy. A US Aid study at the time said that because of the US bombing that Cambodia would have to go through a few years of slave labor just to get back to the point it was at before the US bombing, and it was a poor country to start with. Find the newspaper reports at the time which said any of this. Find some articles now that talk about the horrors of the CPA's policies in Iraq, our cancellation of the elections in Iraq so those policies could be rammed through, the constant attempts at privatizing Iraq oil (supported by both parties here) even though the vast majority of Iraqis disagree, Saudi Arabia's support for Iraqi insurgents vs. Iranian support (again even acknowledged by this government), etc.

Or about the fact that our own government acknowledged in the late 1970's that "hundreds" of journalists here were on the CIA's payroll and were spreading around government propaganda. Things are no better now than they were then, they're probably better. The labor based papers of the previous and earlier part of the 20th century were largely gone and there was no internet to communicate like we are now.

Scholar,

I agree that (aside from the sensationalism of violent crime while never addressing the root causes, and, yes, a tendency to disporportionatley cover the concerns of the wealthy over the poor), newspapers do a reasonable job on local issues.

But on national and global issues, theie pro-big business, and pro-US-interventionist bias is glaring. Their memory-holing of critically important stories every day is apalling.

"People talk about the media as if it were a single entity"

Actually, the media is a rich and diverse amalagmation, it is just owned and told what to say by a single entity, its corporate owners.

My honest opinion on this is if the "media" (print, radio, or TV) reports the "truth", ie deaths in Iraq, ANY governments handling (or mis-handling) of an event/disaster it seems always to be branded "liberal". With the upsurge of conservative radio and cable TV in the last 20 years has pressured the so called MSM to lean right. That's why the liberals out there are screaming bias now and I believe rightly so.

Sean Gonsalves Wrote:

These seemingly intractable, polarized, news-views show no sign of abating. In fact, there's every reason to expect it to get worse. With the internet and the ability of news consumers to pick and choose what news they want to engage, I wonder how America will ever have a meaningful conversation about any national issue when we're all living in our own individual media bubbles, clinging to news that affirms our individual world view while rejecting any information that doesn't fit neatly into our political philosophy as worthlessly "biased."

That doesn't facilitate conversation. It encourages us to continue shouting past each other.

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

Sean -

I was most disappointed to find this worn out chestnut cluttering up your column this morning.

It has become fashionable for right-wing reactionaries and guilty liberals to hearken back to a fictitious golden age of informed and well rounded citizens. This carefully crafted reactionary myth holds that, in the days when one third of all Americans tuned in to hear Walter Cronkite, and one third tuned in to watch Huntley-Brinkley, and the other third took their daily dose of truth serum from the hand of some ABC talking toupee' (whomever that was), then we Americans were all exposed to new and challenging points of view which we could debate around the water cooler the next day.

Huh? Which planet was that?

Presumably, the tiny minority who forsook the easy enlightenment of TV news in order to spend more time digging through the Nation, The New Republic, The Cape Cod times, or the Wall Street Journal were the same sort of uninformed bozos whom you now dismiss as being unable to bring any new and useful ideas to the national conversation. We, that cloistered minority, were, in your words, choosing what news we wanted to engage, " rejecting any information that doesn't fit neatly into our political philosophy . . ." and missing our nightly dose of diversified opinions, as dished up by the three networks.

Perhaps you should rethink your embrace of the new journalists' right-wing cliché about how we "liberals" are all "shouting past each other" because we take the time and effort to examine viewpoints that are only available via the internet, in the dangerous ground out beyond the boundaries of "appropriateness" as set by the major "news" corporations.

I ask you to consider the fact that I, one of your narrow-minded internet junkies, read Sean Gonsalves on the internet because my hometown papers ignore my pleas to include his "radical" and "inappropriate" points of view on their opinion page, and the network news directors are blind to Sean's possibilities because he is not as "diversified" and worldly in his outlook as Katie Couric and Tim Russert.

I agree that it is nearly impossible to hold a conversation with my neighbors about any subject of national concern, but it is because we live in different Americas. They live in the world where, their TVs tell them, America is still pure and innocent. Having never been exposed to such things as America's floating torture prison ships, as reported in the Guardian, they feel a patriotic duty to shout me down, lest I besmirch the beautiful truth they all share, thanks to the homogeneity of assumptions underlying all network "news".

"The media is advertiser-biased and that's all. When they deem the national mood swinging right, they go right. If they perceive that listeners, viewers and readers are tilting left, they go left."

Nonsense. The media is owned by investors, is controlled by advertisers. If CNN receives advertising money from, say, Coca Cola and they get information about massive labor abuses at their plants, connections to death squads in Colombia or the monopolization and abuse of water in India, do you think they'll go forward with that information? Of course not. The owners of the media do what is in their best interest, what is in their best interest is to make the advertisers money and to not expose them. It would be best for the public to know, but those are conflicting interests that is determined by the economic self interest of the owners of the media.

When you say "left" you mean the Democrats, "right" means the Republicans. These are different sides of the same coin. Does the "left" want leftists policies and does the media analyze their policies from a leftist perspective if the public is calling for it? Again, of course not. The country wants universal healthcare by a wide margin even if it raises taxes. The media has done ONE in depth program on universal healthcare. When did they do that? When Moore's movie forced them to, on CNN, and it was a hit piece by an insurance industry insider. Does this have anything to do with the massive amounts of money CNN gets from insurance and drug companies? Of course. Same goes for the profits in war or any other issue.

Look at the elite media in Latin America, look at the reactionary forces the US is aligned with these forces and the coverage is obviously biased in the elites favor. We can, from afar, see this. Light skinned well paid elites talking about elite culture in countries filled with starving poor people.

It isn't any different here, the difference lies in the general public's economic standing vs. places like Latin America, where the difference is more pronounced.

Basically, the media might move a bit left, but will be constrained by its economic well being. The reporters there also are constrained by their institutional role vs. their private lives. If I worked for Ford, for instance, and personally objected to their labor practices, I couldn't just print in the open the abuses while working there. My job as an employee of the company, despite my personal feelings, is to make the company money. US corporate law says as much. If I do something to cause the company to lose money, like expose their abuses, I will be replaced by someone who will. The media is no different. If a journalist's story is in opposition to his company's or an advertisers interest guess who comes out on top?

Also, do the Republicans and Democrats FUNDAMENTALLY disagree? Have the Democrats called for a cut in military funding? Are they, as a party, calling for universal healthcare? Are they calling for alternatives to "free trade", which do exist? Do the Democrats and Republicans differ in their war policies? No, they fundamentally agree on basically everything. They have superficial differences and are, according to polls, to the right of the general public, and increasingly so. The media might sway a bit, but not much. Less even so than the parties, since the media doesn't have to get elected.

This is a pretty stunning piece to come from a journalist that I had thought to be a little bit enlightened.

I thought Mr. Gonsalves would have at least read Herman and Chomksy's Manufacturing Consent, or perhaps the works of Robert McChesny, Danny Schecter, et.al. I mean, he used to be a regular contributor to Znet/Zmagazine.

So, my dear Mr. Gonsalves please consider the following:

1. There is no liberal media, there is only a media that does all it can to please it's paying customers. And who are it's paying customers? The customers are big corporate buyers of their advertizing, and with it, programming whose content doesn't clash in any way with happy, upbeat advertizing. But also:

2. The corporations that advertize increasingly own the media too.

3. The "polarization" of opinion is largely Republicrat flack. In few places in the world is there such uniformity of opinion and such a stunning degree of self-censorship.

It looks like you have internalized the values of the people who sign your paycheck very well, Mr. Gonsalves.

The rolling of their eyes is their incredible arrogance! Look at how they treat ALL third party candidacies that are underfunded! ALL they care about is $$$. No sympathy for anything other than alternative medias.

Media bias really exists, but it isn't the bias most people think it is.

I've spent 20-plus years as a reporter/editor at a mid-size daily newspaper in the Midwest. I can tell you the wall of separation between advertising and the newsroom is real. I can tell you our corporate owners exert no influence on news content. They really are shrewd enough to know that if they don't live in the community, they probably don't have a working knowledge of what the community is interested in reading.

The daily agenda in a typical newsroom is figuring out what people want to read in their newspaper tomorrow and then struggling to deliver it hours later. When you live in a Metropolitan Statistical Area of more than 1 million, as I do, and have to consider all of their interests, tastes, motivations and desires, that's a huge hurdle to overcome.

Journalist's bias isn't toward left or right or toward rich or poor. Rather, our bias is toward conflict. On the national scene, the election process is like Monday night football to us. We focus too much on who's up and who's down, what the gaff of the day is, and not enough on the details of policy and platform. Quite a lot of reporters and editors in the Midwest would call themselves conservative, however hard that may seem to believe.

"Media" is a troublesome and useless word because it blends broadcast and print and includes entertainment as well as news. People who talk about media bias generally are thinking about pundits and not reporters who cover city council meetings.

The problem all of us in the news business face is that more and more people feel they're entitled, not only to their own personal opinions, but also to their own personal facts. That's a problem that none of us in the so-called "media" can solve on our own.

This is a pretty stunning piece to come from a journalist that I had thought to be a bit enlightened.

One would have thought that Mr. Gonsalves would have at least read Herman and Chomksy's Manufacturing Consent, or perhaps the works of Robert McChesny, Danny Schecter, et.al.

My dear Mr. Gonsalves:

1. There is no liberal media, there is only a media that does all it can to please it's paying customers. And who are it's paying customers? The big corporate buyers of their advertizing, and with it, programming whose content doesn't clash in any way with happy, upbeat advertizing.

2. Of course, in the corporations that advertize increasingly own the media too.

The "bias" of the major news organizations shows up most startlingly not so much in how stories are covered but in which stories are "*not* covered! When they are not, the silence is impressively unanimous, right across the board, NPR and PBS right alongside FOX, The New York Times right alongside the Tribune and the Wall Street Journal. In more cases than not these are stories carried by the European wire services and picked up by European papers and stations. My cousins in Germany, who are not news junkies, know more about what is really going on in the US than do most Americans!

In just the past six weeks or so, the blocked stories include: A major victory for tomato pickers who won an agreement from the MacDonalds Corporation; a one-day strike of all the dock workers on the entire West Coast to protest the war in Iraq; Ron Paul getting 26% of the vote in the Oregon Primary, his high-water mark; Nader declaring for Impeachment on the White House lawn; the anti-war platform of the new Libertarian nominee Barr; Obama's declaration that he would immediately review all of Bush's fiat laws and strike down any that are unconstitutional; the removal by the Army of a respected judge from an important Guantanamo prisoner's trial after he ruled against the prosecution; Putin's declaration that Iran is not building nuclear weapons; the vote by Congress to prohibit Pentagon propaganda; and Kucinich's filing of 35 Articles of Impeachment against President Bush. (The vote by Congress to send that bill to committee got a bit more coverage, but not much!)

Now, this weekend, we have this item, carried by Reuters wire service, and picked up by Yahoo News, the Sarasota Herald Tribune and ABC (that's the *Australian* Broadcasting Corporation!):

*Democrats to back down on Iraq war conditions*
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080616/pl_nm/iraq_usa_funding_dc_1

Sure, in their coverage, most news outlets try to maintain an appearance of fairness, balance, and normalcy. Editors and reporters appear have great freedom within constraints and learn to internalize the messages about where they dare not go, while maintaining their belief in their own decency and integrity. But which stories aren't covered has a huge impact on the national consciousness, the "national conversation". Gonsalves' "... intractable, polarized, news-views shows..." are indeed a problem, but they are being offered as a substitute to a malnourished public for the news that isn't there, which is an even deeper problem. The appearance of fairness and normalcy helps keep the missing news problem invisible.

The matter is urgent. Our country is pretty far down a slippery slope to Hell, and only an aroused and informed public can turn it around. But what to do?

Alternative media such as CommonDreams are part of the solution, but we aren't reaching the tens of millions. Pressure on the media, letters, sitdowns with boards, picketing and lobbying to change rules and laws on ownership and public responsibility are important and must be pursued, but will not quickly remedy the control that the media barons have over what we see and hear. In the short term we need ways to bypass the Major Media.

One step might be a mass marketing campaign to promote readership of CommonDreams and other alternative journals. Good clips on YouTube can have phenomenal reach. Another might be networks of activists to respond to news alerts by putting out leaflets, including web links to sources. (This which would be good preparation for the eventuality of our Internet access being restricted or disrupted.)

The one that I am exploring now is the use of person-to-person forwarding of news alerts across the Internet. If this were to catch on it would be devastatingly effective, but resistance to the idea of burdening friends and associates with more forwarded stuff is pretty high now. For this to take off, the idea needs to be out there in peoples' minds - eventually millions of peoples' minds - that this is important and necessary and something they should be participating in. I have registered the domain name newschain.org for exploring and promoting this idea, and will look for replies to this column with your suggestions.

As a start, you, the reader, might consider cutting and pasting the headline and link above to the story about Democrats to Back Down, and forwarding that to your address list with the subject line "News Chain Alert, please forward".

Not only is our "media" corporate-owned and corporate-biased --- it has now completely attached itself to
neo-con right-wing government!

War is a big seller --- hard to stand up against it ---
the profiteers work diligently, but always under cover of the flag . . . with the aid of "fixed" intelligence.

My view is that the media is definitely bias toward corporate power. Look at the ownership and management of the "corporate" media. As DD states above, the media is "advertiser-biased", so what will bring in the most eyes and ears. We're talking mainly broadcast media now. War and imperial agression are very profitable, especially for the big corporations (media corporations included), so the Bush gang got the green light from media for his program of endless warfare and aggression. Look at the salary of Rush Limbaugh. Millions a year for being a big blowhard for the administration. That's not normal journalism. And look at Ken Tomlinson cleaning up public broadcasting, putting the news staff's heads on straight. And would someone please tell me how much they pay Charlie Rose to regularly have corporate imperialists on the program. Is Charlie Rose a person or an institution?

The media is advertiser-biased and that's all. When they deem the national mood swinging right, they go right. If they perceive that listeners, viewers and readers are tilting left, they go left.

You want a left-leaning media? PROVE to them their current audience make-up is going that way by electing a left-leaning government by a large margin. If you do, you can expect such changes as Sean Hannity being told to actually defer to the views of his little liberal buddy Alan Colmes over at the Fix News Channel. It really is that simple.

Even Rupert Murdoch senses Obama coming.