The Real Lesson of Watergate

[tech3149]

Robert Parry does it again with this spot-on article. Is it any wonder no one is covering the Downing Street Minutes?

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/060205.html

Indeed, it could be said that today’s U.S. political imbalance – tilting so much in favor of Republicans over Democrats – derived from the simple fact that conservatives learned the real lessons of Watergate while the liberals didn’t.

William Simon and other conservative leaders began pulling together the resources for building the right-wing media infrastructure that is now arguably the most intimidating force in U.S. politics. A key goal was to make sure they could protect future Republican presidents from “another Watergate.”

One consequence was that when Republican officials – including Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush – ran afoul of the Iran-Contra Affair, the newly minted right-wing machine showed it could prevent “another Watergate.”

[LiberalEsto]

1. Great article

Thanks for posting this

I became a journalist the same month and year that the Watergate story broke - June, 1972. Although I never moved beyond local and county news coverage into state or national affairs, I saw the journalistic idealism of the Watergate era fade away during my long career. Publishers began cracking down on unorthodox stories or news angles. Editors lost more and more control over the newsroom as the publishers and ad execs asserted their "right' to kill stories that might offend their powerful pals.

In the late 70s I was pulled off a beat by a publisher because I was investigating zoning violations by a corrupt pal of a corrupt mayor. The mayor was the publisher's golf buddy, and the publisher did what he wanted. I've seen other reporters dressed down or fired for stepping on the toes of the power elite. At my last newspaper job I quit after a right-wing extremist new managing editor started telling me how to cover a beat I'd held for three years. He wanted my coverage directed at embarrassing and destroying liberal elected officials in that town. This freak now works for the Heritage Foundation.

There is no way I would consider working for a newspaper in the climate that exists today. I'm a tech writer, and I get my news from DU, Buzzflash and Raw Story because I feel today's mainstream media are nothing but corporate shills.

[Tigress DEM]

2. What can be done, though?

While I totally understand why you left, anyone who had ethical values wouldn't be able to work in such an environment, but that leaves the mainstream media like this great unmanned battleship plowing through our lives recklessly destroying everything in its path.

I'm getting to the point where I feel we have to shut it down somehow unless a mainstream media "HERO" shows up. Hold them accountable for outright lies and treason against their duty to the American people, but how?

The MSM is now giving "lip service" to in depth investigative reporting, but they still aren't getting to the real stuff in the big political battles. They are going all out on the local issues and always reporting DEM evil at a 3 to 1 rate even if the numbers are something like 23 R and 19 D and 1 I (ie: not reporting their personal trips etc... w/in 30 days as per ethics guidelines.)

I write my paper and tell them how the slant is wrong and in the case of AP saying that VP would simply go in and rule that DEMs couldn't filibuster anymore how that was misleading (as if it were his legal right as leader of the Senate).

I sent them Kennedy's list of all the specific ways that it would be illegal for the VP to do that. I don't know if a retraction was printed, but our local STRIB at least has some appearance of wanting to play ball with the truth.

Ted Turner says he is going to get some of the International CNN news aired on US, but how to trust that it won't be more AP BS?

After all that is happened, can mainstream media be trusted at all or is there any choice? With as much power as these conglomerates have do we HAVE to work with them to get 'er done?

[LiberalEsto]

4. If we all "vote with our feet" and switch news sources

it will make a huge difference. The success of Air America radio and all the progressive websites are already making alternative information available to expanding audiences.

Faux viewership is down, mainstream newspaper circulation is plummeting, and eventually advertisers will start noticing that their ads no longer reach the large media audiences of the past decades.

If it ever dawns on the mainstream media that they are losing readers and viewers and listeners because they have become irrelevant propaganda machines, some of them may decide to try real journalism for a change. (If they remember how that works.) The rest will fade away into oblivion unless they are propped up by the right wing government and right wing corporations. And eventually even that support could become fiscally unfeasible as stockholders begin demanding profits over ideology.

Don't buy corporate-controlled papers, don't buy products advertised on corporate tv and radio stations, and LET THE STATIONS AND SPONSORS know why you're not buying.

[Tigress DEM]

3. Bush family involved from Granpappy to GWII in every awful thing.

The more I look at his family's activities behind the scenes, the more I worry for America.

People think it's over reacting to compare Bush and Hitler, but his Grandfather was a war profiteer on Hitler's side back then. His father tried to make Watergate go away and his family's influence helped cover up Iran-Contra and now the stranglehold on the media is almost complete. Which is another goal right from the reich.

It's just if Hilter could do what he did with the limited resources of Germany at the time and without nuclear capabilities, how much more damage will Bush-Co generate? I mean in 20 years when we look back, will 6 million Jews murdered seem like a paltry sum? Will it be a nuclear winter with only the richest of the rich (and the whitest of the white) safe in their 30 year bunkers waiting for their new eden?