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This is why Moyers is so pissed off.
May 17, 2005
A Battle Over Programming at National Public Radio
In one of several points of conflict in recent months, the chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which allocates federal funds for public radio and television, is considering a plan to monitor Middle East coverage on NPR news programs for evidence of bias, a corporation spokesman said on Friday.The corporation's board has told its staff that it should consider redirecting money away from national newscasts and toward music programs produced by NPR stations.
So, basically, after the republicans are done killing public television, they will kill us all with their godawful taste in music.
An impressive strategy.
Bill Moyers...will you marry me?
May 17, 2005
Speech at Conference Assails Right Wing
Moyers said he has come to understand that "news is what people want to keep hidden and everything else is publicity."He said that kind of reporting has never been tougher to do:
"Without a trace of irony, the powers that be have appropriated the news speak vernacular of George Orwell's '1984,' giving us a program, no child will be left behind, while cutting funds for educating disadvantaged children.
"They give us legislation calling for clear skies and healthy forests" while "turning over public lands to the energy industry."
He said the public shares the blame:
"An unconscious people, an indoctrinated people, a people fed only partisan information and opinion that confirm their own bias, a people made morbidly obese in mind and spirit by the junk food of propaganda is less inclined to put up a fight - ask questions and be skeptical."
Moyers compared Tomlinson and other conservatives to Richard Nixon, who he said was another president who tried to take control of public television.
"I always knew Nixon would be back," Moyers said. "I just didn't know that this time he would ask to be chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting."
Even though David Brancaccio (or however you spell it) is dream-a-licious, Bill Moyers definitely has a much sexier brain.
Echoing Adam
May 25, 2004
Jeffrey Veen: Ringtones and Torture Pictures Want to be Free
In the face of the atrocities committed by US Soldiers guarding prisoners in Iraq, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has banned cameraphones. Banned cameraphones! This harkens directly to his testimony before Congress last week when he lamented the new digital world that allows anyone to effortlessly beam information from where ever they are. Restated: We're very truly sorry we got caught. We'll take steps to ensure we get away with this from now on.
[link via Randomwalks]
More on "free" press
March 31, 2004
Tom Tomorrow reports on how urban legends are so easily spread around the news:
As a reader suggested, Friedman probably feels justified in not correcting his t-shirt anecdote because he's simply relaying what someone else heard. If I write, "A man on the street told me that Tom Friedman's columns are written by a team of trained monkeys," then the only factual assertion is that this is what some guy on the street told me, and I guess I have no obligation to set the record straight. Even if it is repeatedly pointed out to me that Tom Friedman actually does write his own columns, and doesn't even own a single trained monkey.
I guess my theme for the day is pisspoor reporting, and how it fucks with our perceptions. I'm sure it's always existed, but I've noticed the insidiousness of it since the war began. Someone will report a half-truth or an outright lie as fact or opinion, and that story carries, but the correction does not. Items are omitted and quotes are taken out of context. And the casual news-listening public doesn't hear the whole story.
I'm sure I can load this up with more links, and perhaps I will later when I'm not busy feeling stressed and overburdened over here.
Bloggin is, after all, my HOBBY, not a paying profession like it is for the goobers who are fucking things up in the media.
Meanwhile, back in the US, the "free press" reigns supreme.
March 31, 2004
ZNet | Mainstream Media | Clarke and Media Failures
You have heard this politicizing of his testimony aided and abetted by virtually every show on the air. He has been on 15 or more news programs and on most of them the questions were the same, as commentator Harry Browne noted on HarryBrowne.org: "Providing their usual support for big government, TV and press reporters repeated and discussed statements Clarke made in 2001 and 2002 -- statements that seemed to back up the charge that Clarke was an opportunistic hypocrite. "But did you notice that every reporter showed us exactly the same statements from Clarke? Some of the apparent 'statements' weren't even complete sentences. Why did everyone who commented on Clarke's apparent flip-flop focus on exactly the same fragments? "They did so because those were the only fragments they had to work with. The quotes were all provided by the Bush administration -- and they're the only quotes available. If the reporters had possessed the original documents, some of them would have picked out other statements or fragments from those documents.
Frank Rich: Operation Iraqi Infoganda
This phenomenon [of faux news broadcasts] has been good news for the Bush administration, which has responded to the growing national appetite for fictionalized news by producing a steady supply of its own. Of late it has gone so far as to field its own pair of Jayson Blairs, hired at taxpayers' expense: Karen Ryan and Alberto Garcia, the "reporters" who appeared in TV "news" videos distributed by the Department of Health and Human Services to local news shows around the country. The point of these spots - which were broadcast whole or in part as actual news by more than 50 stations in 40 states - was to hype the new Medicare prescription-drug benefit as an unalloyed Godsend to elderly voters. They are part of a year-plus p.r. campaign, which, with its $124 million budget, would dwarf in size most actual news organizations.
Of course, you will never see THIS reported in the major media.
I'm listening to Public Enemy this morning, making lunch, reading the news, and contemplating Canada.
[I'm sure most of these links were ripped from the comments at Eschaton, which is what occupied the better part of my news reading this AM, and which is where I also found THIS surreal gem:
It is "deeply offensive and contemptible" to hear "elites and intellectuals on the campaign trail" dismiss progress in Iraq since last year's overthrow of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein (news - web sites), the elder Bush said in a speech to the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association annual convention.]
Democracy in Iraq, at last!
March 31, 2004
For the most part, the US isn't leaving the Iraqi media to Iraqi's. Shortly after the start of the occupation, the Pentagon announced it was founding a new TV station, al-Iraqiyia, which would be run by Americans. Then, last month, the State Department launched a new Arab satellite channel, al-Hurra, the Freedom, broadcast from a federal building in Virginia. Imad al-Khafagi, al-Hurra's Bureau Chief in Baghdad, literally came to Iraq with the American military.
[link swiped from discussion at atrios]
Palast on the BBC
February 1, 2004
I'm having a difficult time understanding how Tony Blair was vindicated in spite of the fact that he propagated misinformation (um, lied.) Greg Palast explains it in simple terms for others who are likewise confused:
So M'Lord Hutton has killed the messenger: the BBC. Should the reporter Gilligan have used more cautious terms? Some criticism is fair. But the extraordinary import of his and Watts' story is forgotten: our two governments bent the information then hunted down the questioners.And now the second invasion of the Iraq war proceeds: the conquest of the British Broadcasting Corporation. Until now, this quasi-governmental outlet has refused to play Izvestia to any prime minister, Labour or Tory.
As of today, the independence of the most independent major network on this planet is under attack. Blair's government is "cleared" and now arrogantly sport their kill, the head of Gavyn Davies, BBC's chief, who resigned today.
Covert Action Quarterly.
May 18, 2003
I like reading old issues of conspiracy theory magazines, because you get to find out that it wasn't actually a theory after all. It's EXACTLY the opposite of reading old issues of mainstream newspapers, because, you know, with the mainstream newspapers it's always later revealed to be UNtrue.
Anyway, I have this back issue of Covert Action Quarterly in my bathroom, and I'm slowly working my way through it. It's their post 9/11 issue, and it has tons of interesting stuff. I'll probably write about more of it once I'm done reading it and have time to research some of the articles further.
I added the Covert Action website to my information roll, though. There's an interesting article about the Congo up, and I haven't had a chance to read the whole thing yet, because it's LENGTHY...but I would like to when I am more clear-headed.
Now, where did I leave that FREE PRESS?
May 17, 2003
Ah, yet another story that was inaccurately reported during the war, but is now coming to light after the fact. I think most of us were suspicious of the events surrounding the "rescue" of Jessica Lynch. It was just too "made for TV movie" for me - particularly the part where the helpless woman is saved by heroic male soldiers.
"We heard the noise of helicopters," says Dr Anmar Uday. He says that they must have known there would be no resistance. "We were surprised. Why do this? There was no military, there were no soldiers in the hospital."It was like a Hollywood film. They cried, 'Go, go, go', with guns and blanks and the sound of explosions. They made a show - an action movie like Sylvester Stallone or Jackie Chan, with jumping and shouting, breaking down doors." All the time with the camera rolling. The Americans took no chances, restraining doctors and a patient who was handcuffed to a bed frame.
Anyway, yeah. I'm finding it difficult to read about/write about the current occupation. It's all such a fucking sham.
I know this topic is tiresome for David Nunez (who I certainly hope is not wasting his precious time reading my babble) and it's not news to anyone, but I thought I'd mention that the media, particularly the television and radio news, are supposed to serve the people, not the corporate interests that control our government.
sigh.
Excellent Resource
May 1, 2003
The Freedom Forum is a nonpartisan foundation dedicated to free press, free speech and free spirit for all people. The foundation focuses on three main priorities: the Newseum, First Amendment freedoms and newsroom diversity.