Heresy: The Press Getting Better?

[chaumont58]

Armando, on the Daily Kos, has a thread about the press that is worth reading. Its title: Heresy: the press getting better?

some snippets:


his take regarding Howell Raines and Clinton:

"The other critical factor? The New York Times and its Editorial Page Editor Howell Raines, may he burn in hell. Raines HATED Clinton. I still have no idea why. Raines' hatred spilled into the news pages, Jeff Gerth anyone, and from there to the whole of the Establishment Media. The endless investigations began and voila Ken Starr replaces Robert Fisk. The rest is history."

his take on the press' performance on this war in Iraq:

"For the Iraq Debacle the press was nothing but cheerleaders for a trumped up war with a toothless dictator who had threatened NO ONE, much less invaded a country. No coverage of protests. No fair view of those who opposed the war. Indeed, war opposers, even in Congress were basically sneered at. As disgraceful a performance as I have ever seen in my life. They should be filled with shame. Was it 9/11? Maybe a little. But mostly it was the beatdown the Right had given them for 30 years and the Wurlitzer. And yes, The New York Times and that bastard Howell Raines."

link:

http://dailykos.com/

I'm a senior. I've been watching politics for a lot of years. I don't think anything in my memory comes up to compare with the performance of the current beltway whores. I don't think we have a free press, not inside the beltway. These SOBs are not much different from the propaganda mill that served Hitler.
I also direct a good portion of my hatred toward the congressional Dems that are enablers for chimpie's misadventure. The Daily Kos had a thread on the DCCC's response to Paul Hackett's close loss. Kos was irate that a memo from the DCCC made no mention of Hackett's anti-war stance. Kos is wasting his energy. The congressional Dems, with some exceptions, are not going to be anti this war for one god damn instance. Too many DLCers.

[Nite Owl]

1. Amen

It isn't even so much what the press does say it's what they don't say. It seems pretty clear to me anyway that they don't dare tell us the real news, it all goes in some black hole. We have a few dems on our side but isn't it strange that none of the others joins them? Whether it's the DLC or they are being blackmailed in some way or both we might never know. But most of the time it's like we are fighting this administration, we are fighting for our country out here all alone.

[GOPFighter]

2. Armando makes some good points

I'm also a senior and lived through the Watergate scandal, the fight for civil rights, and the anti-war movement. All this conflict sold papers and sold advertising. I honestly believe the press was fairly liberal during these years, but not because the press was made up of effete elites, but because the press recognized the conservatives were horribly wrong on these issues. Nixon's administration was made up of fascist thugs, the discrimination against blacks in the South was breathtaking mean and ugly, and the Army was lying about the war in Vietnam while the number of American kids dying over there just kept growing. The press sided with the Left, the left prevailed, and the country was better off for it.

During this time conservatives were held up to public scrutiny and came off as mean-spirited, ignorant low-life bigots. They never got over the bashing they took and realized they could never win the war of ideas so they took the low road. They learned how to lie convincingly, how to muddy the truth, and how to manipulate the press. The press helped by becoming lazy, and incompetent, more interested in being seen than being right. The Right played them like a fiddle during the Clinton years, with the crowning blow administered by the Bush Administration when he mislead the press into supporting the invasion of Iraq.

The press is finally getting wise. Many are truly pissed and embarrassed that the President lied to them. The press is also being seriously humiliated by writers and bloggers on the left. I believe in the past year the press hs gotten better, but the Bush Administration is still playing hardball, and the reporters and news organizations who don't toe the Administration's line are still being punished, but that just makes some reporters work harder. I think the Washington Post in particular has shown courage in much of their coverage lately.

Still, the MSM is owned and controlled by large corporations and they can control the spin. That's why the Internet is so important. We have got to keep the pressure on them to report news fairly (and by fairly I don't mean 100% liberal - we are not always right on all issues.)

[chaumont58]

3. Where would we be without the internet?

"The Right played them like a fiddle during the Clinton years, with the crowning blow administered by the Bush Administration when he mislead the press into supporting the invasion of Iraq."

Some thoughts about the invasion: Only the brain dead could really believed Iraq was a threat to the US, much less to countries in the Middle East. Some of the stuff reported as evidence of the threat was ludicrous. Balsa wood drones carrying WMDs were going to attack the continental US? That's funny! Mel Brooks wouldn't use that in one of his movies.

Where would we be without the internet? If the left-leaning blogs didn't exist, what would be the state of news? I read some figures that say that not that many people really read the blogs, but I wouldn't want to be without them. I wouldn't want to depend on Chris Matthews for the state of anything.

Howell Raines did a column on presidential smartness called the Dumb Factor. He was comparing the intelligence factor in certain presidents to chimpie. I copied it from the WaPo website, in August, 2004. He managed to write maybe a 1000 words about presidents and never mentioned the brightest president in recent years: Bill Clinton. So much for unbiased reporting.

[GOPFighter]

5. "...and never mentioned the brightest President in year..."

I agree that Clinton was the smartest President we've had for years. I will never forgive the extreme RW for tying him up in faux-scandals and legal knots and preventing him from governing, as the people wanted him to do.

As a liberal I didn't agree with much of his agenda, but he had the ability to bring our country together to work for a better world, and the professional haters couldn't let that happen.There's nothing a Republican fears more than a happy, united country with common goals.

I suspect history will treat Clinton kindly and the Republicans will be equated with the Vandals of old.

[thebigidea]

6. yeah, the WP is showing tons of courage in helping to coverup torture

they are still sitting on hundreds of images that apparently only Bob Woodward is entitled to see. He knows best!

[wli]

4. don't believe it for an instant; if they temporarily are it's pure CYA

They are nothing but hired guns of propaganda. We've been burned far too badly to EVER trust them again.

never trust the MSM, ever, ever again

never forgive, never forget what happened during Bushler's Reich

In fact, some serious investigations as to what the Hell happened are in order. Were they bribed? Threatened? Are there soldiers or CIA agents pointing guns at them to ensure they never breathe a word that isn't a reich wing talking point? Are they themselves CIA/DIA/ONI agents?

Nothing they do matters until it's revealed precisely how and why what happened to the MSM happened, and transparency and accountability into the workings of the MSM in addition to extremely strict, rigid measures to ensure it can never happen again are set up.

Until then, boycott ALL MSM. I already do.