The Fear in the U.S. Media

[JohnyCanuck]

May 30. 2005
The Fear in the U.S. Media


Sam Hamod, Ph.D.

We have seen enough of the media cowering before the Bush administration to realize that they are totally cowed. When Dan Rather was deserted by his journalistic colleagues, when they and he knew he had spoken the basic truth of the draft dodging and lying by GW Bush about his National Guard service—it was clear that Dan caved in and so did his professional colleagues and organization. Fear overrode any sense of ethics, courage or anything else in their lives—they were afraid the Bushies would come after them with anger and zeal.

Actually, if Dan and the others had stood up, they could have defeated the Bushies—but they lacked the courage to stand up. That is the present failure of our media and our society—people have lost the courage to stand up and demand their freedom of speech and the freedom to speak the truth—they’d rather bow to the Bush team’s lies.

Then you have the National Press Club feting one after another of the Bush team, and allowing such ignorant imbeciles as Joe Scarborough to be host of important events. Scarborough is nothing but a name-calling, swilling pig at the trough of big money, right-wing zealots and a person with a mouth that won’t stop making a fool of itself trying to act intelligent. The other night he invited a man who had criticized him—and then proceeded to keep hammering him, not letting him talk and then made more and more ad hominem attacks on him. Finally, the man said, “Joe, we took your show off our station because your ratings were so low, no one wanted to listen to your rantings.” I agree, we’ve had enough of the bullying by the Bush regulars and their media supporters; it is time others stood up as some of us in the internet ezine world have done.

<snip>

So, even NPR, and PRI are running with fear, CNN, and others have long since capitulated, as has the NY Times and Washington Post—so all we have left are we few on the internet, and at some point, we’ll be shut down, and some of us will probably be “persons of interest” and possibly arrested for sedition and speaking out—as happened in Nazi Germany as the Hitler Nazis took away more and more rights, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and every other human thing of value before WWII and during that war. Bush has an “endless war” going on, with his slippery use of “terrorism”, so that this open-ended war will eventually lead him to be able to impose “martial law,” for the “sake of safety of our country.” It is coming, and there is no major media outlet in the US to speak against it, just as there was none courageous enough to speak against Hitler as he took more and more power and abused the German nation more and more.

<snip>

http://www.todaysalternativenews.com/index.php?event=link,150&values%5b0%5d=&values%5b1%5d=2374

[pretzel4gore]

1. there was an article last year

someone who knows washington was saying it's like moscow during the brezhnev years...people are very careful to not express themselves too liberally....i assumed the article was just overblown

[in_cog_ni_to]

2. Think "ANTHRAX"

It was a warning to Congress and journalist to watch their p's and q's. In other words, keep your mouth shut or THIS will be delivered to you and your family/friends.

[zanne]

3. But there are so many news sources to choose from now!

I've heard this contorted logic coming out of the mouths of mainstream reporters so often now. I watch C-Span's Washington Journal every morning, and whenever a caller comments on propaganda or censorship, you can bet they'll respond with this excuse. I'm tired of being told I don't have the right to the truth unless I go online. And they always seem personally offended whenever somebody brings it up!

[cally]

4. And the response of the MSM is to

try to discredit and limit blogs.

I think some of the problem is fear but most of the problem is the promotion of beauty queens and kings instead of intelligent reporters. The MSM is all about entertainment. As a result, corporate media is losing viewership and readers and has lost the trust of Americans. I'm not sure they will ever recover.