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was like Bill Moyers's PBS show: informative, didn't talk down to the audience, insightful, objective, about real events and people, honest, fair, hard-hitting when it came to corruption and exploitation, and relatively free of tampering and White House-dictated "talking points." Journalism that was trying to fulfill a sacred trust, as the Fourth Estate and the guardian of our democracy from potential tyrants from within. We didn't have PBS. We had COMMERCIAL stations whose owners and journalists felt a duty to the public good!
What we have now are war profiteering corporate news monopolies and government propagandists--not just on TV but also in newsapers, and, of course, on the radio. The newspapers have been the latest to be corrupted. The NYT coverage of the leadup to the Iraq war--and 'reporter' Judith Miller's role as chief war progagandist, and her role in this junta's treason--were just immensely shocking to me. Granted, I knew their coverage of global trade issues, for instance, was slanted toward the corporate rulers, but what they did on the war was just mind-boggling. And I knew that the Washington Post sucks up to whoever's in power, and supports the military-industrial complex against the interests of the people--they've been doing that since Reagan--but Woodward, their star reporter, running around after Bush like a little lapdog, and licking his toes--and his withholding of information on Traitorgate from the prosecutor--these things were beyond the beyond. This was the man who exposed Watergate!
Novak's column being used as a conduit for treason wasn't all that surprising--an indication of the depths to which our expectations have sunk. But I just don't see the old rightwing columnists like William Buckley committing such a crime. They may have been pricks, but they weren't traitors and lapdogs.
As for AP, and what the news monopolies did together on election night, 2004--DOCTORING their exit polls (Kerry won) to FIT the results of Diebold's and ES&S's secret, proprietary programming code (Bush won), thus denying the American people major evidence of election fraud--this was the worst journalistic crime I have ever witnessed, and hardly any Americans know about it, to this day. The news monopolies--all of them--were themselves complicit in the Bush Cartel stealing a second election.
Now, rightwing investors are going after Knight-Ridder, the only remaining decent news service in the country (good investigative reporting about Iraq), and the Los Angeles Times just fired Robert Scheer (a truth-teller about Iraq).
What's left? The Lone Star Iconoclast! (Crawford, TX.) Great little paper! Real journalism, on major issues. Of course there are others--mostly independent, or allied with Knight-Ridder (f.i., the Miami Herald).
So much for the corporate news. You can't trust a word they print or broadcast any more. Not one word.
A large part of this vast and dramatic change for the worse in American journalism can be attributed to corporate influence on the "Fairness Doctrine" (they got rid of it--no more "equal time for opposing views")--the FCC and the Telecommunications Act--and the lack of political will (bought and paid for) for busting up the monopolies. There is little we can do about any of this directly until we restore our right to vote. Once our elections are transparent again, and not controlled by rightwing corporations, we can take back control of our airwaves (they are the property of the public), and outlaw monopolies and information conglomerates (one corporation owning too many newspapers, TV stations, etc., or one corporation totally controlling all news media in one city or region). Just remember, for the future: We have the right to regulate this (or any) business in the public interest! We've done it in the past. We can do it even more so in the future. And, boy, do they deserve to be busted up and denied licenses!
The Good News:
There are many positive developments--and the rebellion is gathering steam every day. As is often said in this forum, thank God for internet! Where would we be without DU and Truthout.org and Bradblog and the rest. Yeoman work! Saved the nation!
And Air America and Democracy Now--and, of course, Jon Stewart's the Daily Show--in the broadcast media.
Newspaper circulation is way down. So that "stovepipe" of corporate rule is over. People do read them on line, but once on-line, they have access to much alternative information and opinion. If corporate forces them to register, they can go elsewhere--and many do. They are not locked into the narrow corporate presentation. If they don't trust what the NYT says about Hugo Chavez, they can immediately google him and find out the truth.
And there is Google itself--an excellent on-line news service, which draws from all kinds of newspapers all over the world. It's fun to visit! And Google's googling service has, of course, transformed news and information. In one search, you can find everything relevant to Huge Chavez printed everywhere in the world, including in Spanish--and German, and French, and Chinese (with translation services provided by Google!). (Bless that company!)
The times they are a-changing! It's true! Good-bye corporate news monopolies! Hello, democracy!
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