“Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.

And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell.”
- Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, 1971, regarding the release of the Pentagon Papers.
http://www.journalism.wisc.edu/~drechsel/j559/readings/PentagonPapers.html

Too many Americans don't learn easily.

Captive and restrained...........the polar opposite of "Free and unrestrained"

But hey, we're still #1 in number of citizens jailed.

And hypocrisy. We've been #1 at that for a long time.

or tragedy?

very dangerous for us.

The true role of the modern media is to keep our attention long enough to make us buy whatever the commercials are offering.

Admitting they were duped would result in fewer viewers and fewer people watching commercials. so the story is buried.

Thank god for the internet.

our country cannot be free!

a journalism booklet/paper I got from the UC Berkeley School of Journalism bookstore in 1997.
*sigh* when I was an editorial assistant and still thought activism could be achieved through the press. I have been 'freelancing' for years and recently did a gig in my old newspaper. I had been diggin out my old stories and came across this quote.
You beat me to posting it here!This is a good topic to discuss...

I still enjoy a newsroom, and love a good story, but more and more the passion around me has faded.
(and I guess I got labeled as a liberal radical along the way, too...oops! Though the publisher and ME are questionable in their political leaning...most around me are some variance of Liberal. They just don't care if they are doing anything for the cause...)

I see new journalists who see it as nothing more than a 'trade' rather than a important gateway to integrity in a society.

If we stop reporting on thses issues, if we stop giving the everyday person a voice, then how can we be informed?
If the voices are all the same and saying the same thing, how can that be TRUTH?

thanks for this post... I love a good rant about the state of Journalism!


EDIT to add: I think that though the media may be very corporate, Journalism is a diferent animal. We stil have out outlets, and it is ultimately the INDIVIDUAL who makes the choice to tell the story as they find it, or as they are told to tell it