It's not hard to figure out why "media" is dumping on CBS

[Atman]

In any other industry, this would be like "price fixing." But in the media biz, the end of CBS news would mean ONE LESS COMPETITOR for ALL of them. And when CBS news is gone, they'll go after the next weekest link. It is good for everybody...except the next weekest link, and of course OUR COUNTRY.

But then, who the hell ever said the news whores gave a shit about our country? Not since the old Cronkite days. Today, the only concern is for the shareholders.

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. I just read a post on Louis Freeh on DU.

The other reason the media is bashing CBS, is to deflect from other, more pertinent news.

[hector459]

2. Bringing it down for the "take over." CBS was much too independent.

It's losses will signal ripe pickings for a corporate takeover by the RW media moguls.

[SmokingJacket]

3. It was holding everyone else to too-high standards.

Kill the smart kid! Then we'll all look smarter!

:eyes:

[KharmaTrain]

4. A Large Diversion

Wanna bet there are lots of cashed RNC or sheltered group checks lying around "journalist" and "commentator" checking accounts around the Beltway...and we sure don't want that information disclosed. That fool Armstrong Williams shot off his mouth too much...got set up and brought down...but it was also a shot over the bow of "the media", that they too can be outted and brought down virtually overnight.

Thus Whorie Kurtz dedicates a full hour on CNNservative yesterday to the CBS crap and dismissed totally any mention of the Williams fiasco. You know that had this been check from a Democratic group like MoveOn or Soros, Whorie would have done an hour plus on the story, but not when it's just from the Repugnicans, but using taxpayer dollars. Whorie doesn't want this story out and the push is on to whitewash the story. Having that CBS non-story was the perfect cover to push Armstrong onto "yesterdays news" in a hurry.

In the McCarthy days, CBS was run by "Murrows Boys"...the only left are Cronkite and Don Hewitt (Wallace did game shows and commercials in those days). Murrow and Fred Friendly stood up for both their craft and the emerging electronic media and knew how important being a voice of reason in times of national hysteria...and the consequences they face in taking such an "unpopular" stand. History made them heroes. Sadly, today's CBS is long corporately labotomized and has been totally cowarded.

Money and Access trump the truth every time in today's media.

[Octafish]

5. Concern for the Bush Family

In addition to the shareholders, the pressitutes of Corporate McPravda must answer to the Bushes. So instead of actually investigating AWOL Bush, they find some scapegoat - CBS and their sources. Robert Parry understands:

The Bush Rule of Journalism

By Robert Parry
January 17, 2005

“Don’t take on the Bushes” is becoming an unwritten rule in American journalism. Reporters can make mistakes in covering other politicians and suffer little or no consequence, but a false step when doing a critical piece on the Bushes is a career killer.

The latest to learn this hard lesson are four producers at CBS, who demonstrated inadequate care in checking out memos purportedly written by George W. Bush’s commanding officer in the Texas Air National Guard in the early 1970s. For this sloppiness, CBS fired the four, including Mary Mapes who helped break last year’s Abu Ghraib torture scandal.

A painful irony for the CBS producers was that the central points of the memos – that Bush had blown off a required flight physical and was getting favored treatment in the National Guard – were already known, and indeed, were confirmed by the commander’s secretary in a follow-up interview with CBS. But even honest mistakes are firing offenses when the Bushes are involved.

By contrast, journalists understand that they get a free shot at many other politicians who don’t have the protective infrastructure that surrounds the Bush family. Take for example the case of reporters for the New York Times and the Washington Post who misquoted Al Gore about his role in the Love Canal toxic waste clean-up.

'Delusional' 

The misquote in late 1999 prompted knee-slapping commentaries across the country calling Gore “delusional” because he supposedly had falsely claimed credit for the Love Canal clean-up by saying “I was the one that started it all.” But Gore actually had said, “that was the one that started it all,” referring to a similar toxic waste case in Toone, Tennessee.

CONTINUED...

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/011705.html

[Atman]

6. This article should be its own thread

Great, great article. Thanks.