Key grafs:
I’m a former journalist and a journalism professor, and it seems to me that maybe it’s time that we started impeachment proceedings against the corporate commercial news media. We may recall that journalists were an integral part of the creation of public support for the unlawful invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. These weren’t idiosyncratic failures of a few rogue journalists, but rather reflections of a systemic subordination to power.
Judith Miller, the former New York Times reporter who served as a willing conduit for some of the most fraudulent claims the Bush administration used to build support for the Iraq war, offered this pathetic defense of her failures: “My job was not to collect information and analyze it independently as an intelligence agency. My job was to tell readers of the New York Times as best as I could figure out, what people inside the governments who had very high security clearances, who were not supposed to talk to me, were saying to one another about what they thought Iraq had and did not have in the area of weapons of mass destruction.”
(MG) and as long as people inside the governments with very high security clearances who were not supposed to talk to her KNEW that this was her job, the could in fact talk to her, and manipulate her, and ... oh my, poor poor poor poor Judy. She was only doing her job ... hmmm .. that sounds like a familiar defense.
(MG) and based on the salary she was commanding, and the amount of money the NYT spent in her defense, I'd have to say her employers were well pleased with how she performed her job.
Karen DeYoung, senior diplomatic correspondent and associate editor of the Washington Post, and also author of Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell, was unusually honest in describing this process: “We are inevitably the mouthpiece for whatever administration is in power. If the president stands up and says something, we report what the president said.” She explained that if contrary arguments are put “in the eighth paragraph, where they’re not on the front page, a lot of people don’t read that far.”
(MG) is this what is being taught in journalism school today? The Inevitability of Stenography? Or are things like they were for actuarial students, where, you study from a lot of books and hand outs stuff that you get tested on, tests you must pass (although 50% scores and lower had been known to pass) and then when you get into the "real world", threw most of the text book stuff out the window, and adhered to contemporary standards and practices.
(MG) I'll have to start reading at least as far as the eight paragraph.
When reporters from two of the most authoritative newspapers in the United States concede that in the course of doing their jobs — playing by the commonly understood rules of the game — they will be little more than delivery systems for the propaganda of the powerful, it seems that contemporary corporate commercial journalism should be impeached for its failure to fulfill its role as a check on concentrated power.
(MG) "playing by the commonly understood rules of the game" this game we're discussing here ... uh, what is its name? ... oh, wait, I've got it ... THE COURSE OF DOING THEIR JOBS is the name of the game. Their jobs are a GAME. Fun times. For everybody. Well, maybe not so fun for the up to 500,000 dead Iraqis, or 2,000,000 displaced Iraqis ... maybe not so much fun for dead American troops, wounded American troops, the families of the dead and wounded, the children of serving soldiers(MG) "little more than delivery systems for the propaganda of the powerful" but, let us hasten to add, WELL PAID delivery systems for the propaganda of the powerful.
When one worships the all mighty dollar (pay attention to how much coverage was given the fund-raising efforts of the Democratic front runners -- search high and low to find what platforms these candidates are standing for, or on), it becomes a god before all others. Part and parcel of what one is about. Begotten, not made. One of the Hunt Brothers contended that the problem with the U.S. elections was that it should have been not "one man, one vote" but "one vote for each dollar".
When Nikita Krushchev said "We will be there at your funeral" (far more often wrongly translated as "We will bury you") he was serious.
In Europe and America,
there's a growing feeling of hysteria
Conditioned to respond to all the threats
In the rhetorical speeches of the Soviets
Mr. Krushchev said we will bury you
I don't subscribe to this point of view
It would be such an ignorant thing to do
If the Russians love their children too
How can I save my little boy
from Oppenheimer's deadly toy
There is no monopoly of common sense
On either side of the political fence
We share the same biology
Regardless of ideology
Believe me when I say to you
I hope the Russians love their children too
There is no historical precedent
To put words in the mouth of the president
There's no such thing as a winnable war
It's a lie we don't believe anymore
Mr. Reagan says we will protect you
I don't subscribe to this point of view
Believe me when I say to you
I hope the Russians love their children too
We share the same biology
Regardless of ideology
What might save us me and you
Is that the Russians love their children too
