One of many major ailments afflicting the United States these days is a flaccid mainstream media. Rather than being rigid, strongly standing up to the political establishment and asking the tough questions, reporters too often blithely roll over and let our government get away with whatever the crime of the day is. The illegal invasion of Iraq, the steady erosion of constitutional liberties, the violation of human rights through torture and illegal detention, and the numerous other abuses of power carried out by the Bush administration and a compliant Congress were all enabled by a mainstream media unwilling to challenge authority.
The alternative media, of course, has no such qualms. They just don’t always get the same access granted to the corporate-driven media. Former constitutional law and civil rights lawyer Glenn Greenwald takes the mainstream media to task after Tucker Carlson made an ass of himself by claiming the British media’s journalistic standards “are so much dramatically lower than they are [in the United States]”. In reality, the British media has proven to be much more reliable in trying to get to the truth when interviewing US officials. Greenwald includes some videos in the article that demonstrate just that.
Credit to Tucker Carlson for being so (unintentionally) candid about the lowly, subservient role of the American press with regard to “the relationship between the press and the powerful.” A journalist should never do anything that “hurts” the powerful, otherwise the powerful won’t give access to the press any longer. Presumably, the press should only do things that please the powerful so that the powerful keep talking to the press, so that the press in turn can keep pleasing the powerful, in an endless, symbiotic, mutually beneficial cycle. Rarely does someone who plays the role of a “journalist” on TV so candidly describe their real function.
In April of last year, Bill Moyers put together a special called Buying the War that examines in detail the failure of the mainstream media to do what they were supposed to do in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq. Rather than challenging the Bush administration on the information being put out, the media instead became an administration mouthpiece that allowed government officials to repeatedly market the invasion to the public through lies and deceptions. Media organizations that did try to get to the truth often backed down once the “Patriot Police” branded them unpatriotic. If you still live under the illusion that the government never lies and that the media is fair and balanced, you really need to watch this documentary. Moyers can go for the truth because his program is broadcast on PBS and funded through charitable donations, free of the corporate strings binding mainstream media organizations.
It’s the alternative media, the blogs and independently operated news web sites, that we have to turn to for the truth. Sure, there is a great deal of junk littering the net, opinions and conspiracies reported as fact and some things just outright made up. But there have emerged a number of legitimate sites that verify and cross check the information they publish. These sites, like Bill Moyers, are not beholden to corporate or political interests and are free to challenge the truth. Their collective voice is steadily growing and will hopefully become a solid alternative to mainstream media outlets, reaching a larger number of citizens, in the future. This is one of many reasons why net neutrality needs to be preserved. Open the door for independent internet news sites to be silenced and they most certainly will be. This isn’t your grandfather’s America.
Americans are involved in a struggle that most aren’t even aware of. It’s not the perpetually hyped “War on Terror”, but a war on truth. The Bush administration skillfully used the media to dupe the public. It’s no longer a secret that they lied and stretched the truth on numerous occasions in order to win support for an illegal invasion on a sovereign nation that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. It is not in the interest of the American people, nor of the future of our once great country, to let this tomfoolery continue. Mainstream media organizations need to be held accountable for their lack of journalistic morality and failure to report the truth. We need to actively support alternative media organizations that aren’t afraid to ask the tough questions, to challenge blind assertions, and are not willing to be a mouthpiece for a government that has no qualms about lying to the people it is intended to serve.
Technorati Tags: politics, media, news, journalism
Post a Comment