CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—Reporters might not always be consciously aware of all the pro-establishment guidelines they’re expected to follow in order to advance their careers, but they know how the reporters who’ve ascended to the top of the media ladder conduct themselves, and they see how the journalists who win the accolades behave. With the help of editors and peers you quickly learn where all the third rails and sacred cows are, and when to shut your mouth about the elephant in the room. And for those rare times that all these filtration devices fail to adequately filter out dissident ideas, you see the example that gets made of those few who slip between the cracks, like CNN contributor Marc Lamont Hill for his defense of Palestinian human rights or Phil Donahue for his opposition to the Iraq invasion.
READ ONCategory: MEDIA SCOUNDRELS
How Big Brother Grips Americans’ Minds to Support Invasions
ERIC ZUESSE—Only if the population boycott lying individuals and organizations, is democracy even possible to exist in a nation. Democracy can’t possibly exist more than truth does. In political matters, deceit is always treachery; and its practitioners, whenever the evidence for it is overwhelming and irrefutable, should experience whatever the standard penalty is for treachery. Only in a land such as that, can democracy possibly exist. Elsewhere, it simply can’t. The only basis for democracy, is truth. Deceit is for dictators, not for democrats. And deceit reigns, in the U.S. and in its allied countries. Is this really tolerable? Americans, at least, tolerate it.
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Sully at George H.W. Bush’s funeral: Washington goes to the dogs
ERIC LONDON—The political establishment is using the Bush funeral media hype to serve a broader political purpose. As with the funeral of John McCain in August, the official canonization of leading political figures is not primarily to humanize the deceased themselves, but to legitimize the state, its institutions and the authority of the ruling class. Like coronation ceremonies and royal weddings in a monarchy, the official mourning periods are intended to poison the atmosphere with nationalism and paper over social tensions arising from gaping levels of social inequality with phony calls for “unity.”
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War Whores Revisited
PHILIP A. FARRUGGIO—Isn’t Amerika great? I mean, look at the world of (so called) television journalism. The more these characters ‘ lay down’ for the masters of empire, the more they get compensated. Let’s look at what transpired in March 2003 via our infamous ‘ boob tube’. Before we get to that motley crew, we did have one of the unique and authentic (for those times) television news talk journalists, Phil Donahue and his daily show. His producer at the time, Jeff Cohen ( of Fairness and Accuracy in Media), told this interviewer ( on my internet radio show) that NBC, owned at the time by General Electric.
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