- Today's major media journalism is biased, irresponsible,
sensationalist reporting that distorts, exaggerates or misstates the truth.
It's misinformation or agitprop disinformation masquerading as fact to
boost circulation, readership, viewers, or listeners, and on vital issues
lie about or suppress uncomfortable truths to provide unqualified support
for state and/or corporate interests - to the detriment of the greater
good that's always sacrificed for profits and imperial aims.
-
- As a result, major media sources produce a daily propaganda
diet and what Project Censored calls "junk food news," and get
most people to believe it. In their landmark book, Manufacturing Consent,
Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky explained the "propaganda model"
that controls the public message by "filter(ing)" disturbing
truths, "leaving (behind) only the cleansed residue fit to print"
or air.
-
- Today the media is in crisis and a free and open society
at risk at a time fiction substitutes for fact, news is carefully controlled,
dissent marginalized, and on-air and print journalists support powerful
interests as paid liars, or what famed journalist George Seldes (1890 -
1995) called "prostitutes of the press."
-
- As a result, imperial wars are called liberating ones.
Civil liberties are suppressed for our own good. Major topics go unaddressed
or are misrepresented. Government and business interests are endorsed wholeheartedly.
America is always called "beautiful." Beneficial social change
is considered heresy. The market works best, we're told, so let it, and
patriotism means supporting lawlessness and corporate outlaws by shopping
till we drop.
-
- The New York Times - Its Lead Role in Distorting and
Suppressing Truth
-
- For many decades, The Times has been the closest thing
in America to an official ministry of information and propaganda masquerading
as real news, commentary and analysis.
-
- Its unmatched clout once got media critic Norman Solomon
to call its front page "the most valuable square inches of media real
estate in the USA;" most everywhere, in fact, because its reports
are widely circulated and followed globally.
-
- The Paper of Record has a long history of:
-
- -- supporting the powerful;
-
- -- backing corporate interests;
-
- -- endorsing imperial wars;
-
- -- supporting CIA efforts to topple elected governments,
assassinate independent leaders, prop up friendly dictators, secretly fund
and train paramilitary death squads, practice sophisticated forms of torture,
and menace democratic freedoms at home and abroad. For decades, in fact,
some Times' foreign correspondents were covert Agency assets. Others today
likely are as well as other prominent fourth estate members.
-
- The Times management is also comfortable with:
-
- -- Washington and corporate lawlessness;
-
- -- an unprecedented and growing wealth gap;
-
- -- Wall Street banksters looting the federal treasury;
-
- -- a private banking cartel controlling the nation's
money;
-
- -- unmet human needs and increasing poverty, hunger,
homelessness, and despair for growing millions in a nation run by rogue
politicians who don't give a damn as long as they're re-elected;
-
- -- a de facto one-party state;
-
- -- deep corruption at the highest government and corporate
levels;
-
- -- democracy for the select few alone;
-
- -- sham elections; and
-
- -- a deepening social decay symptomatic of a declining
state, yet The Times management won't use its clout to expose and help
reverse it.
-
- Of course, the same applies throughout the corporate
media, the only variance being audience size, the ability to influence
it, and the special impact of TV news and talk radio to arouse their faithful.
Plus their power of round-the-clock persuasive repetition.
-
- Examples of Journalism, New York Times Style
-
- After a Washington staged February 29, 2004 middle-of-the-night
coup ousted democratically elected Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide,
The Times March 1 editorial lied by:
-
- -- stating he resigned;
-
- -- saying sending in Marines to abduct him "was
the right thing to do;"
-
- -- claiming they only came after "Mr. Aristide yielded
power;"
-
- -- blaming him for "contribut(ing) significantly
to his own downfall (because of his) increasingly autocratic and lawless
rule....;" and
-
- -- accusing him of manipulating the 2000 legislative
elections and not "deliver(ing) the democracy he promised."
-
- In fact, he's a beloved democrat first elected in 1990
with 67% of the vote, ousted by a US-supported coup months later, returned
to Haiti in 1994, then, because he couldn't succeed himself in 1996, ran
in 2000 and was overwhelmingly re-elected with 92% of the vote. Today in
exile, the great majority of Haitians want him back but paramilitary occupiers,
under orders from Washington, won't let him.
-
- Following Hugo Chavez's December 1998 election, The Times
Latin American reporter, Larry Roher, wrote:
-
- Regional "presidents and party leaders are looking
over their shoulders (concerned about the) specter (they) thought they
had safely interred: that of the populist demagogue, the authoritarian
man on horseback known as the caudillo (strongman)" taking power.
-
- Ever since, Times writers consistently:
-
- -- turned a blind eye to Venezuelan democracy;
-
- -- bashed Chavez as "divisive, a ruinous demagogue,
provocative (and) the next Fidel Castro;"
-
- -- said he "militarized the government, emasculated
the country's courts, intimidated the media, eroded confidence in the economy,
and hollowed out Venezuela's once-democratic institutions:" common
conditions during decades of pre-Chavez rule that columnist Roger Lowenstein
falsely said exist now in:
-
- -- calling him anti-capitalist for sharing his nation's
oil wealth with the people by providing essential social services, and
for lifting the most needy out of poverty; and
-
- -- denouncing his making foreign investors pay their
fair share.
-
- Lowenstein backed the aborted April 2002 coup by calling
Chavez's ouster a "resignation," then saying Venezuela "no
longer (would be) threatened by a would-be dictator."
-
- Post-/911, the Times played the lead role in taking the
nation to war by highlighting the "day of terror" and saying
the "President Vows to Exact Punishment for 'Evil.' "
-
- In the run-up to the Iraq war, Judith Miller was a weapon
of mass deception with her daily front page Pentagon press release columns
masquerading as real news, later exposed as manipulative lies, but they
worked.
-
- Following the September 15, 2009 Goldstone Commission
report, a same day Neil MacFarquhar column suggested that Israel's "disproportionate
attack" followed Hamas provocations, so perhaps it was justified.
While The Times gave Judge Goldstone op-ed space, it:
-
- -- published scathing letters denouncing his "one-sidedness"
and a September 18 piece saying "the Obama administration said (today)
that a United Nations report accusing Israel of war crimes in Gaza was
unfair to Israel and did not take adequate account of 'deplorable' actions
by the militant group Hamas in the conflict last winter."
-
- The paper then imposed a near-blackout on its news and
editorial pages to bury the story and kill it through silence - never mind
its importance in documenting clear evidence of Israeli war crimes against
a civilian population.
-
- National Public Radio (NPR) and Public Broadcasting (PBS)
-
- Founded in 1970 as an independent, private, non-profit
member organization of US public radio stations, NPR promised to be an
alternative to commercial broadcasters by "promot(ing) personal growth
rather than corporate gain (and) speak with many voices, many dialects."
-
- Having long ago abandoned its promise, and given its
substantial corporate and government funding, NPR is indistinguishable
from the rest of the corporate media, just as corrupted, and consider its
former head, Kevin Klose.
-
- He was president from December 1998 - September 2008
and CEO from 1998 - January 2009. Earlier he was US propaganda director
as head of the Voice of America (VOA), Radio Liberty, Radio Free Europe,
Radio Free Asia, Worldnet Television, and the anti-Castro Radio/TV Marti,
so he fit easily into his new role.
-
- On January 5, 2009, Vivian Schiller succeeded him as
president and CEO. Her official bio says she was previously with "The
New York Times Company where she served as Senior Vice President and General
Manager of NYTimes.com."
-
- She'll oversea "all NPR operations and initiatives,
including the organization's critical partnerships with our 800+ member
stations, and their service to the more than 26 million people who listen
to NPR programming every week." Most don't know they're getting the
same corporate propaganda and "junk food news" or that
- NPR calls itself "public" to conceal its real
agenda, and why critics call it "National Pentagon or Petroleum Radio"
with good reason.
-
- Created by the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, the Corporation
for Public Broadcasting (CPB) calls itself "a private, nonprofit corporation
created by Congress...and is the steward of the federal government's investment
in public broadcasting. It helps support the operations of more than 1,100
locally-owned and-operated public television and radio stations nationwide,
and is the largest single source of funding for research, technology, and
program development for public radio, television and related online services."
-
- Like NPR, it's heavily corporate and government funded
and provides similar services for them. Under George Bush, former Voice
of America director Kenneth Tomlinson was chairman of CPB's Board of Governors
until an internal 2005 investigation forced him out for repeatedly braking
the law.
-
- On September 16, 2009, a CPB press release announced
that "The board of directors (of the CPB) today elected Dr. Ernest
Wilson III (as) chairman and re-elected....CEO Beth Courtney (as) vice-chair."
-
- Wilson previously held senior policy positions as Director
of International Programs and Resources on the National Security Council.
He was also Policy and Planning Unit Director for the US Information Agency
and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).
-
- Beth Courtney is a George Bush appointee, a past chairman
of the board of America's Public Television Stations and present CPB vice
chairman. Currently she also serves on the boards of Satellite Educational
Resources Consortium, the Organization of State Broadcasting Executives,
the National Forum for Public Television Executives, and the National Educational
Telecommunications Association along with other appropriate credentials
for her re-appointment.
-
- In its May/June 2004 "Extra" report, FAIR (Fairness
& Accuracy in Reporting) asked "How Public Is Public Radio? Writers
Steve Rendall and Daniel Butterworth quoted past head Kevin Klose saying:
-
- "All of us believe our goal is to serve the entire
democracy, the entire country."
-
- Not according to FAIR on "every on-air source quoted
in June 2003 on four of (NPR's) news shows: All Things Considered, Morning
Edition, Weekend Edition Saturday and Weekend Edition Sunday." Each
guest was classified "by occupation, gender, nationality, and partisan
affiliation." Combined, 2,334 sources from 804 stories were quoted.
-
- FAIR found that NPR relies on the same dominant sources
as the major media that include government officials, professional experts,
and corporate representatives nearly two-thirds of the time.
-
- Spokespeople for public interest groups accounted for
7% of total sources, and ordinary people appeared mostly in "one-sentence
soundbites."
-
- Male guests outnumbered women about 4 - 1, and those
quoted most often came from the same elite categories as men.
-
- Overall, NPR represents the same dominant interests as
the major commercial media - conservative, pro-business, pro-war, pro-Israel,
and very much against the public interest while pretending to support
it.
-
- FAIR analyzed PBS's flagship NewsHour guest list and
drew similar conclusions. Like NPR, it's ideologically right and usually
censors progressive content and public interest programming. In a 1990
NewsHour evaluation, FAIR compared its content to ABC's Nightline and found
that it presented "an even narrower segment of the political spectrum."
It then conducted an October 2005 - March 2006 analysis of all of its programs,
got similar results, and determined that NewHour is even more ideologically
right than NPR that tilts far in that direction itself.
-
- FAIR concluded that NPR and NewsHour content "overwhelmingly
represent those in power rather than the public" they're obliged to
serve. While masquerading as public programming, they betray their listeners
and viewers by offering the same propaganda and "junk food news"
as the dominant corporate media. Considering their funding sources, what
else would they do.
-
- An October 6 NPR story is typical of most others. It
charged Hugo Chavez with "Targeting Opponents For Arrest." Reporter
Juan Forero claimed "dozens of university students" went on hunger
strike outside OAS headquarters in Caracas on September 28 along with others
"across the country....in support of Julio Cesar Rivas, a student
who was arrested during an anti-government demonstration in August...."
-
- Rivas is the coordinator and founder of Juventud Activa
de Venezuela Unida (United Active Youth of Venezuela - JAVU). Earlier,
he was part of a staged, violent street protest against Venezuela's new
Education Law. The government says JAVU acts as "shock troops"
in opposition protests and is liberally funded by the National Endowment
of Democracy (NED), International Republican Institute (IRI), and US Agency
or International Development (USAID) to disrupt internal Venezuelan affairs.
It's a familiar scheme, repeated numerous times in the past, to discredit
and disrupt the Chavez government in hopes of eventually ousting it.
-
- JAVU has about 80,000 members in most Venezuelan states,
and its blog site calls for bringing down the government and supporting
the Honduran military coup.
-
- Rivas was released on September 29, but must appear for
trial. He's a Washington-funded provocateur, charged with resisting arrest,
instigating crime, conspiracy, inciting rebellion, damaging public property,
and using "generic" weapons.
-
- While in custody, Venezuela Public Defender Gabriela
Ramirez assured him in person that his full constitutional rights will
be protected. Street protests still continue and have been countered by
pro-Chavez ones calling for "peace and tolerance." According
to the Federation of Bolivarian students' Carlos Sierra:
-
- Opposition "students are being used and manipulated
by the top leadership of the irrational opposition, which, via the (dominant)
media, send them to generate violence and terrorism in the country"
much like on previous occasions.
-
- But according to NPR's Forero, Rivas was "sent to
one of Venezuela's most infamous prisons" where other government opponents
are held as political prisoners. Chavez "has been jailing dozens of
key opponents - some of them students, some of them veteran politicians"
in citing unnamed "human rights groups and constitutional experts
(claiming) Venezuela is increasingly singling out and imprisoning its foes
in politically motivated witch hunts."
-
- Forero didn't mention that Rivas fomented violence. Others
arrested also broke the law. No one is a political prisoner, and all Venezuelans
get fair and equitable trials, unlike in America where real political arrests,
prosecutions and convictions happen regularly against innocent targeted
victims - a topic NPR and PBS won't touch except to vilify them publicly
on-air.
-
- Nor do they report truthfully on Occupied Palestine.
On October 12, 2009, on NPR's Morning Edition, reporter Renee Montagne
practically extolled Israeli racism in stating:
-
- "There is a new enemy for some Israelis: romance
between Jewish women and Arab men, (so) vigilantes have banded together
to fight it." She means from "Jewish settlements" that "have
sprung up (in) traditionally Arab" East Jerusalem, but won't admit
they're on stolen Palestinian land.
-
- NPR's Sheera Frankel joined a patrol, implied Arabs are
inferior to Jews, and suggested they pose a danger to Jewish women and
girls. She described vigilantes on the lookout for "Arab-Jewish couples
(to) break up their dates," suggesting it's the right thing to do,
but never questioning the legitimacy of settlements, vigilante violence
in East Jerusalem, its lawless disregard for the law, or great harm to
innocent people. Instead she called "mixed couples a growing epidemic"
of miscegenation - typical of NPR's racism and one-sided support for Israel.
-
- The Wall Street Journal (WSJ)
-
- The WSJ is Dow Jones & Company's flagship publication,
now a News Corp. one since Rupert Murdoch bought it in August 2007. Stating
its ideology up front, it says it supports "free markets and free
people" as well as "free trade and sound money; against confiscatory
taxation and the ukases (edicts) of kings and other collectivists; and
for individual autonomy against dictators, bullies and even the tempers
of momentary majorities."
-
- In October 2007, FAIR bemoaned the Murdock takeover because
of his "penchant for using his holdings as vehicles for his personal
(views) and business interests." Earlier FAIR and the Columbia Journalism
Review criticized its editorial page for inaccuracy, extreme bias, and
dishonesty.
-
- The Journal is unapologetic in saying its philosophy
"make(s) no pretense of walking down the middle of the road. Our comments
and interpretations are made from a definite point of view....We oppose
all infringements on individual rights, whether (from) private monopoly,
labor union monopoly or from an overgrowing government.(We're) not much
interested in labels but if we were to choose one, we would say we are
radical."
-
- Radical can be revolutionary and beneficial when it backs
fundamental progressive change and reform. Webster defines it as:
-
- "marked by a considerable departure from the usual
and traditional: extreme; tending or disposed to make extreme changes in
existing views, habits, conditions, or institutions; of, relating to, or
constituting a political (or perhaps business) group associated with views,
practices, and policies of extreme change; (or) advocating extreme measures
to retain or restore a political state of affairs" such the radical
right represented by the WSJ's management and editorial writers.
-
- Critics agree that they're on the far right extremist
fringe, a supporter of voodoo economics, tax cuts for the rich, a staunch
defender of executive privilege, and disdainful of anything to the left
of their views as witnessed daily by some of the most outlandish, one-sided,
pro-business commentaries countenancing no alternatives, with the rarest
of rare exceptions showing up to make the paper look fair, which it's not.
-
- Consider editorial board member Mary O'Grady in her weekly
Americas column on "politics, economics and business in Latin America
and Canada." Her extremism is unmatched. Her style is agitprop; her
space a truth-free zone; her language hateful and vindictive; her tone
malicious and slanderous; her style bare-knuckled thuggishness; and her
material calculating, mendacious, and shameless. Yet she's a WSJ regular
and an award-winning op-ed writer, but surely no journalist according to
Webster's definition:
-
- "writing characterized by a direct presentation
of facts or description of events without an attempt at interpretation."
-
- O'Grady fails on both counts. She's a kind of print version
of Fox News' Glenn Beck, who promotes himself on glennbeck.com looking
arrogant in a uniform reminiscent of the Nazi SS.
-
- Consider O'Grady's support for the Washington-backed
June 28 Honduran coup ousting a democratically elected president. It was
followed by months of mass arrests, disappearances, killings, targeting
the independent media, suspending the Constitution, declaring martial law,
and threatening the Brazilian embassy's sovereignty where President Manuel
Zelaya took refuge after returning.
-
- In one of her many pro-coup articles, O'Grady (on July
13) headlined "Why Honduras Sent Zelaya Away." In a "perfect
world," according to her, he "would be in jail in his own country
right now, awaiting trial. The Honduran attorney general (part of the coup
regime) has charged him with deliberately violating Honduran law and the
Supreme Court (stacked with pro-coup justices) ordered his arrest in Tegucigalpa
on June 28," the day of the coup.
-
- "But the Honduran military whisked him out of the
country, to Costa Rica," to save itself the embarrassment of jailing
a democratically elected leader whose lawful actions were endorsed by the
majority of Hondurans wanting progressive constitutional change and a president
willing to give it to them.
-
- Yet according to O'Grady, "Mr. Zelaya's detention
was legal, as was his official removal from office by Congress....Besides
eagerly trampling the constitution, Mr. Zelaya had demonstrated that he
was ready to employ the violent tactics of 'chavismo' to hang onto power.
The decision to pack him off immediately was taken in the interest of protecting
both constitutional order and human life."
-
- In fact, Zelaya neither espoused or practiced violence,
and his call for a public June 28 vote on whether to hold a referendum
for a new Constitutional Convention at the same time as the November elections
lawfully asked for a "yes" or "no" on one question:
-
- "Do you think that the November 2009 general elections
should include a fourth ballot box (the other three were for candidates)
in order to make a decision about the creation of a National Constitutional
Assembly that would approve a new Constitution?"
-
- According to Article 5 of the 2006 Honduran "Civil
Participation Act," government officials may hold non-binding inquiries
(referenda) to determine popular support for proposed measures. Gauging
sentiment for a National Constituent Assembly for a new Constitution is
legal.
-
- Yet in her June 28 article titled, "Honduras Defends
Its Democracy," O'Grady falsely claimed Zelaya planned "a constitutional
rewrite (following) a national referendum" only the Congress can approve.
In fact, Zelaya called for a vote to assess public sentiment, pro or con,
on whether Hondurans want a Constitutional Convention, an act no different
from a public opinion poll that's perfectly legal or should be anywhere.
But according to O'Grady, Zelaya "decided he would run the referendum
himself." It's typical O'Grady truth reversal that earns her weekly
space on the WSJ's op-ed page.
-
- The BBC's Long Tradition As An Imperial Tool
-
- State-owned and funded, it's tradition is long, unbroken,
and disturbing as the world's largest and most influential broadcaster
reaching global audiences in 32 languages. From inception in 1925, it's
been reliably pro-government and pro-business, or as its founder Lord Reith
wrote the establishment: "They know they can trust us not to be really
impartial." Neither he or his successors disappointed on topics mattering
most, including war and peace, corporate crimes, US-UK duplicity, labor
rights, democratic freedoms, human and civil rights, social justice, and
Western imperialism.
-
- They're consistently distorted, suppressed, marginalized
or ignored throughout decades of misreporting despite claiming "honesty
(and) integrity (is) what the BBC stands for (because it's) free from political
influence and commercial pressure."
-
- As a propaganda service, its record is uncompromisingly
anti-union, pro-business, and dependably safe for Whitehall and its allies.
It moralizes Western aggression, bashes independent democratic leaders,
and cheerleads for the powerful at the expense of providing real news and
information for millions believing BBC is credible. For over eight decades,
it's record is solid and predictable - betraying the public trust to reliably
serve the powerful. The tradition continues.
-
- Prominent TV Demagogues
-
- Among the many, consider a select few. For example, CNN's
Lou Dobbs, "Mr. Independent" he calls himself. Critics use more
descriptive terms, yet according to his loudobbs.tv.cnn.com bio:
-
- He's "anchor and managing editor of CNN's Lou Dobbs
Tonight (and also anchor of) a nationally syndicated financial news radio
report, The Lou Dobbs Financial Report...." In addition, he writes
a weekly CNN.com commentary, is an author and award-winning "journalist,"
most recently in 2005 when "the National Academy of Television Arts
and Sciences awarded (him) the Emmy for Lifetime Achievement" for
serving the usual special interests nightly on prime time TV.
-
- In June 2004, he also won "the Eugene Katz Award
for Excellence in the Coverage of Immigration from the Center for Immigration
Studies for his ongoing series 'Broken Borders,' which examines US policy
towards illegal immigration." Little wonder in an August 2006 article,
this writer called him CNN's Vice President of Racism. He's also a paid
liar and in America wins awards.
-
- In May 2008, a Media Matters Action Network report titled,
"Fear & Loathing in Prime Time: Immigration Myths and Cable News"
highlighted undocumented Latino hatemongering by Dobbs, Bill O'Reilly,
and Glenn Beck, each claiming:
-
- -- an alleged connection between undocumented Latinos
and crime; in fact, clear evidence shows they're no more likely to break
laws than American citizens;
-
- -- how they exploit social services and don't pay taxes;
in fact, undocumented immigrants are ineligible, without proof of legal
status, for Medicaid, food stamps, State Children's Health Insurance (SCHIP)
and welfare; they do pay income, payroll, property, sales and other taxes
and are entitled to public education; according to the National Academy
of Sciences, immigrants provide a net annual gain of up to $10 billion
to US GDP; according to Rand Corp. economist James P. Smith, the "net
present value of the gains from those immigrants who arrived since 1980
would be $333 billion."
-
- -- the "reconquista" myth about a supposed
Mexican plot to take over the US Southwest; and
-
- -- an epidemic of Latino voter fraud that, according
to Dobbs' incessant drumbeat, puts America's "democracy absolutely
in jeopardy."
-
- He also propagates the myth that undocumented Latinos
caused an increase in US leprosy (or Hansen's disease). In an on-air April
2005 report (among others), correspondent Christine Romans quoted "medical
lawyer" Dr. Madeleine Cosman saying:
-
- "We have some enormous problems with horrendous
diseases that are being brought into America by illegal aliens (including)
leprosy...." Romans added that, according to Cosman, "there were
about 900 (US) cases of leprosy for 40 years. There have been 7,000 in
the past three years."
-
- According to a May 2007 "60 Minutes" report,
the National Hansen's Disease Program (NHDP) of the Department of Health
and Human Services (HHS) reported that "7,000 is the number of leprosy
cases over the last 30 years, not the past three, and nobody knows how
many of those cases involve illegal immigrants." NHDP added that from
2002 - 2005 (the timeline of Cosman's claim), only 398 cases occurred.
To that, Dobbs responded: "If we reported it, it's a fact."
-
- Founded in 1971, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)
is internationally known for its activism against hate groups and scoring
legal victories against white supremacists. It says Dobbs regularly features
inaccurate racist reports and features anti-immigrant hatemongers like:
-
- -- Glenn Spencer, head of the anti-immigration American
Patrol, whose web site highlights anti-Mexican vitriol and the idea that
Mexico plans a secret takeover of the Southwest;
-
- -- Joe McCutchen, head of the anti-immigration Protect
Arkansas Now group, that Dobbs calls "a terrific group of concerned,
caring Americans;"
-
- -- Paul Streitz, co-founder of Connecticut Citizens for
Immigration Control, who once denounced Mayor John DeStefano, Jr. for "turning
New Haven into a banana republic;"
-
- -- Barbara Coe, leader of the California Coalition for
Immigration Reform who routinely calls Mexicans "savages;" and
-
- -- Chris Simcox, co-founder of the Minuteman Project
and a leading anti-immigration figure.
-
- SPLC explains that Dobbs "doggedly explores and
supports the anti-immigration movement (and) won't report salient negative
facts about anti-immigration leaders he approves of...."
-
- Instead, he falsely claims that:
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