Katrina vanden Heuvel: Dan Rather Won't Take any "Bullshine"

[marmar]

from The Nation:


BLOG | Posted 09/20/2007 @ 11:38pm
Dan Rather Won't Take any "Bullshine"


It was riveting television. There was former CBS news anchor Dan Rather, sitting across from CNN's Larry King, railing against the threat powerful media corporations pose to freedom and journalistic integrity. "You can't have freedom if you're going to have large corporations and government intruding on investigative reporting," Dan told a none-too-happy King. Dan's championing of independent media got me thinking about The Nation's first centerfold. Published twelve years ago on glossy paper, this wasn't your typical centerfold. It was a pull out four- page silky spread depicting the media multinational giants which determined so much of what we saw and heard. There were GE, Disney/Cap Cities, Westinghouse (later Viacom/ CBS) and Time-Warner as octopi.... At that time, the threat media consolidation, hyper-conglomeratization posed to our democracy was not an issue on the national radar for debate, let alone televised conversation. But in these last years, as the line between news and entertainment has been forever obliterated--a media and democracy movement has emerged to challenge corporate control of our publicly-owned airwaves. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut?bid=7&pid=235192