We asked for journalism. You gave us Ann Coulter. An open letter to the corporate media.

Dear Corporate Propagandists,

For years you have sat your talking heads in front of the camera to convince us that we were going to get fair and accurate coverage of the issues that matter in our lives. Something soon became clear however, it became clear that you believed the only stories that effected us were Paris Hilton and who Brad Pitt was in a relationship with.

We tried to make it clear to you that we cared about more important issues, so what did you do? You gave us people like Ann Coulter and Bill O'Reilly to "discuss" those important issues. You gave us people who made a living by attacking minority groups, you gave us people who called the bombing killing and maiming of Iraqi civilians, and you gave us lies.

And what did you provide for balance? You provided us with spineless pundits who called themselves Democrats right before they caved into Bush repeatedly. You gave us a balance between status quo and extreme right wing, while consistently ignoring true progressive voices.

You ignored our calls for Universal Health Care while you ran your very profitable pharmaceutical ads. You ignored the consensus that scientists reached on the reality of global warming and told us the facts were in debate, all while never questioning the "facts" that were contained in the multi-million dollar SUV ads you constantly aired. You continuously took money from big corporations while pretending that you could be trusted to report fairly and accurately on the issues that effected the pocketbooks of those corporations.

Yet after all this those talking heads on your network have the nerve to complain that Michael Moore is not covering both sides of the story a balanced manner in his documentary. Tell me this, when did any major television network give equal airtime to proponents of Single Payer health insurance? The biggest challenge to our system it seems you were ever willing to allow were calls for more "affordable health care". It didn't matter how much the costs of health care rose you still thought these politicians calling for more affordable health care costs while keeping the current system in place were credible sources no matter how expensive it got.

I used to feel I needed to watch the news every night, but now I have realized that watching any of your so-called "news" shows only serves to distract me from the truth. There is a reason that millions of us are turning off our televisions and connecting to the internet, because we are sick of being lied to. We are sick of being a fed a false sense of "balanced journalism" by your portrayal of peace being as bad as war. We are sick of being told that advocates of environmental devastation should be given equal airtime with advocates of scientific fact. And we are sick of the people who told us there were Weapons of Mass Destruction being given equal airtime with, well the other people who told us there were Weapons of Mass Destruction.

You may have had our trust at one time, but you do not any more. We have turned our television sets off, and we will keep them off. Adios.

Sincerely,
A citizen for truth

Not even local news. I'm a little ignorant about city matters but they cover too much inconsequential stuff anyway.

Hit it right out of the park you did...

EXCELLENT POST!

Kicked/Recc'd/Nom'd and everything else to get this on the front page.


:hi: :hi: :hi: :toast: :toast: :toast: :hi: :hi: :hi:

Beautifully said, wonderfully done - a right-out-of-the-ballpark home run!

:applause: :applause: :applause:

When the most consistently brilliant writer on DU calls your post "beyond excellent", you know you've written something special. To quote the (intentionally ironic) title of a BBC kids programme from my childhood, "Why Don't You Switch Off Your Television Set And Go And Do Something Less Boring Instead"?

Bam! You hit one out of the park, Messiah!

Ladies and gents, we have a winnah!

Good job. K&R

Huh? :freak: I can't seem to parse that.

"We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war."

"I'm getting a little fed up with hearing about, oh, civilian casualties"; "I think we ought to nuke North Korea right now just to give the rest of the world a warning."

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ann_Coulter

Sadly enough there have been many other cases where they have advocated killing civilians.

You may want to insert "for" after "called" to make it a little clearer.

Great post!

Too bad the editing period is long past or I would change it, sometimes my brain moves faster than my fingers and I miss words when I type.

and forward this to every network and cable channel that purports to offer "news".

than the network CEOs.

Kicked and recommended.

What a joke.

What's wrong with Matthews. We don't want a dogfight we want political discourse, not the reinstitution of gasbag chambers.

I think you hit a home run when you questioned whether their favorable news coverage (or lack of unfavorable coverage) on certain issues is pretty predictable based upon who gives them advertising revenue.

AMEN!

The only person I have seen take heat over the exchange is Elizabeth Edwards. On some morning news show today (can't remember which) she was lambasted with questions about fundraising on Ann Coulter, John Edwards calling poor Ann a name, and how Elizabeth is supposed to be above this thing and only makes Ann stronger. It really got to me how many hard, leading questions Elizabeth was asked on this morning news show. She was made out by the reporter to be an instigator, not a person trying to prevent poison in our political discourse.

What heat has Ann taken?

I am beginning to think that this whole "put Ann on for an hour" on MSNBC was designed specifically to generate a political sideshow that can be used to trash a Democratic Presidential candidate and distract from the serious news at the same time. If the call didn't come in, Ann would have been sure to generate another Edwards-specific comment to get the media in a tizzy.

I refuse to believe that the media's endless monkeywrenching of Democratic efforts is the effect of coincidence or blindly following ratings. Any idiot would know that an hour of Ann Coulter is good for a week of "OMG smart Ann said something and look at the Democrats over-react!! They're having a meltdown!!!"

Then there is the false-equivalency of Bill Mahr = Ann Coulter, which obfiscates the definition of political lines in this country (intentionally-so). Bill Mahr is not a Democrat and he is not a liberal....not even close on either count. But Ann certainly is Republican, and she certainly is conservative, and I would wager partially-funded by Republicans (probably through front-companies).

This media event, to me, was staged to give opportunity for all of these things. As long as we don't talk about Iraq and we don't talk about the lawlessness and the results of the on-going investigations on the Hill they'll put on whatever the hell they damned-well please. Like "Network", if they want controversy, they'll whip some up. And if Democrats get smeared and liberals get made the equivalent to hate-speechers and infantilized comedians, then that is a bonus. After all, it only costs the reputation of an obviously moribud hag who drinks too much, eats too little, and cannot help but to spew bile whenever she thinks anyone is playing attention.

is funded by Richard Mellon Scaife who buys her books in bulk quantities and then donates them to libraries to be used as door stops. Annie gets the spot on the best seller list and appears to lend credence to the right wing position that they have popular support. Because the books are donated to libraries, Scaife gets a tax write-off. Most of Annie's crap winds up in Scaife's mulch pile.
Scaife has an inherited fortune to burn. He was the guy who funded the Clinton witch hunt in the 90s.
The question is: Would all those sexually depraved right wing boys still be jerking off to Annie if they saw the pictures of Annie as Andy having hot man on man sex with Michael Jackson and George Bush?
If Aryan Annie can say anything about anybody, anybody can say anything they want about Aryan Annie.
I wouldn't piss in her/his mouth if her/his throat was on fire.
Sowing the seeds of hate reaps hatred.
The rumor is that Annie is terminally insane and will not be heard from in the near future.

http://www.democracynow.org/">Democracy Now!
The Exception to the Rulers.

They air on dishnetwork 9415 and 9410, direct TV on Link TV, and on some PBS stations.
If you have broadband you can watch online, they have years worth of shows archived too, some real treasure in there.

I stopped somewhere along about the time they started promoting the illegal attack on Iraq.
I will probably never tune in again. They have lost my confidence.
I would like to add Chris Mathews to your list of media propagandist. Following his little enabling act with coulter and then grilling of John Edwards, he confirmed my thoughts concerning his agenda.

Liberal N Proud said:

"I stopped somewhere along about the time they started promoting the illegal attack on Iraq.
I will probably never tune in again. They have lost my confidence.
I would like to add Chris Mathews to your list of media propagandist. Following his little enabling act with coulter and then grilling of John Edwards, he confirmed my thoughts concerning his agenda."

And I agree with you wholeheartedly but MOST Americans do watch the corporate media and this is where we lose.

and all that. But, it should be clear that the corporate media isn't likely to give a rat's ass about letters/editorials like this. They have an excellent racket going. Just look at the obscene amount of money the pharmaceutical, insurance, arms manufacturers etc are making. Do you think these greedy fucks are going to give that up simply to do the right thing? I don't think so.

Let's all celebrate the Fourth of July this year by saying, "Oh shit, we're fucked!"

maybe not. But formatted, this letter could work on a LTTE page or an op-ed page. As someone up-thread said, even if we've had it with the MSN, the majority of the people out there have not. Couldn't hurt to try planting seeds...

Nicely done! :thumbsup:

In some ways, the networks like NBC are WORSE that Faux Noise. Faux Noise is what it is and makes no pretense otherwise. NBC stands behind Keith Olbermann and says, See! See! WE'RE FAIR!!! Don't look at the fact that we gave AN ENTIRE HOUR OF AIR TIME TO ANN COULTER! Then we'll have David Gregory call her "conservative firebrand" while sniping at Elizabeth Edwards and hinting that she was calculated to make money for the campaign. He'll sing back up for Karl Rove. Tim Russert will give Dick Cheney a free ride all the way to Iraq. :grr:

We never miss the opportunity to give her the attention she craves and, without which, she would simply disappear.

You want to blame someone for Ann Coulter? Look in the mirror.

Ignore her.