We Need A National Debate On What To Do With The Media

[20score]

As everyone who has been paying the least bit of attention knows, the Bush administration is responsible for myriad crimes. Torture, spying, outing a CIA agent, lying the country into a war; the list goes on and on. The majority in congress are also culpable in most of the crimes, and it’s a safe bet they will never pay any price. But none of these crimes would have been allowed to stand if the media had simply done its job.

The press was given freedom to be a check on the government, not to facilitate war crimes and massive theft of the treasury. And the media we now have is not only a national embarrassment with daily distractions, avoidance of important stories and a general dumbing down of contents, but they have been actively working against the well being of our country for years. And nothing has changed to guard against a repeat of past mistakes. We now have a better congress than we did five years ago; and many in congress have admitted they’ve made a mistake regarding the Iraq War. The change in the executive branch is immeasurable - but the media has yet to even acknowledge a single misstep on their part. “How could we know? The government gave us this information.” With the fact that the majority of the world knew the Bush administration was lying about Iraq, the real question would be – how could you not have known? As a whole of course, you did know, but chose to lie. There were of course individuals who didn’t know, but in general it would have been impossible for the media to be less informed than the people they were informing.

If the major stations and two of the three 24 hour news channels had broadcast a real news show like Democracy Now!, the war would never have happened, and the populace would have demanded trials by now for the crimes that were committed. But in reality, if the media had broadcast real news for the last few years, no one like Bush would have been taken seriously enough to get into office, so the trials would be moot.

There is talk of reinstating the Fairness Doctrine, which may or may not be the answer. But it should at be discussed openly. The least that should be done, in my opinion, is the breakup of the media giants along with strict oversight on the news divisions to guaranty they are serving the public. And we need a national debate on what should be done.

I do know one thing for certain - doing nothing should not be an option.

[20score]

1. Thank you to those who gave me the hearts! You are great people!

[pretzel4gore]

2. the pigmedia MGHT consider doing something

about the liberal media....' might' as in not...lol
actually, let's face the facts. We've been whupped. By sissie draft dodgin nazipoohs who giggle at the sight of babies being buried alive. And our big tough men all wanna go over and kick the peasant farmers' who threaten Olde Glory, right in the face; the same men will DIE to defend the gentlemen who plan to exterminate their children (after raping them all). They will excuse the rapo's actions on the basis that reactionary rapos 'are made, not born'; and these rapos is now 'born agin!' which excuses them from justice...Shee, i thot everybody already knew all this (:shrug:)

[ihavenobias]

3. I think Thom Hartmann has it right when he says

that the answer isn't the bringing back the Fairness Doctrine, rather we should get rid of the media consolidation that took place after Clinton signed the Telecom Act of 1996 into law.

K & R, good topic.

[20score]

10. Thom Hartmann is usually right.

And thanks.

[defendandprotect]

57. The Fairness Doctrine stood for 60 years or more . . . it is part of the remedy we need . . .

And, monopoly is also something for which we have laws ---

anti-trust laws which have not been inforced.

And, true, Clinton also sold us out --

Let's start with Fairness Doctrine which would draw debate and discussion ---

and let's start pushing for enforcement of our anti-trust laws!

We also need to remove corporations from any involvemen whatsoever in our elections!

[gblady]

4. I wholeheartedly agree....

it is a sham as it is...
and needs to be changed.

[annabanana]

5. simple, logically. . near-impossible, politically

I would make it illegal for any company that owns a mainstream media outlet to bid on, or receive no-bid, ANY government contracts.

As it is now, the media outlets are basically "loss-leaders" for the Corporation's "real" businesses.

[loudsue]

17. That has to change...

We have to make it politically imperative....lots of pressure needed.

[Greyhound]

6. K&R

How can we have a national debate without the media?

The fairness doctrine is merely a distraction, breaking up the media conglomerates is one effective strategy and can be accomplished fairly easily through regulation. Getting a Congress addicted to corporate money to do it is another question.

[20score]

7. Thanks!

Through independent media and the internet would be good start IMO. Calling congress. We did stop the media consolidation in 2003, working with no media input.

[lsewpershad]

8. Greyhound

You Have it. Monopoly has never worked for the masses

[Fly by night]

9. Agreed. When we have 2 reporters (Williams and Liasson) drawing checks from NPR & Faux Noos, ...

... we have a serious problem.

I do appreciate President Obama making continuous fun of Faux. By extension, that applies to double-dipping reporters like Williams and Liasson. What a joke.

[suede1]

11. "been impossible for the media to be less informed than the people they were informing." How true!

K&R

[20score]

13. Thanks!

[20score]

12. I'm hoping people will get as pissed at the media as I am. To repeat from earlier,

we stopped them in 2003 with no media input.

[punkin87]

14. Nothing more important!!!

[20score]

20. Agreed. If we had an informed public....

[lunatica]

15. Go back to making laws where a few can't own all the media

Break up the big conglomerate packages where one entity owns radio and tv and print. Get rid of corporate monopolies

[keepthemhonest]

16. You are right

although I knew it was a problem, I never thought about trying to get that fixed.The Dan Rather deal scared the heck out of alot of reporters in my opinion.They were setting the stage of no-tolerance law, of course that had alot to do with the Bush administration.Also I think spying on the media and congress by the past administration kept them all in step with them.Tin foil hat off.


I say do what ver we can do while Obama is in to get some order back here.

[20score]

18. Thanks!

And the fact that Obama is in power and the FCC will be in saner hands should help.

[keepthemhonest]

19. true at least we can trust him

We need to somehow bring attention to the elephant in the room I guess.Obama needs to be careful here though because if he attacks the press they will eat him alive.It seems like they are already trying(to eat him alive) and we are only in week 4 of his administration.

[hbskifreak]

21. There you go....

Being all philosophical....

But, without the media, how would the political system function?

Of course, you are right...the system should function, and the media should react. But that is not what happens in the world today.

Every last one of the Mf'ers that supported this war should be culpable. But POS's like Tony Snow (God save his sorry dead ass) and Bill O'Rielly, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and others, will never suffer one minute on this earth as long as there is no fairness doctrine. And although these scumbags will never be called upon to suffer the price that so many Americans and so many Iraqis have had to suffer due to the inept governance of the Bush Administration....dammit, there NEEDS to be some kind of reckoning.

I fear this boil will just continue to fester until it is lanced....with a fuckin machete....or maybe even a goddamn Howitzer.

Great piece as usual..20score...

A.

[20score]

23. Thanks, my man! You rock!

[EFerrari]

22. K&R

[barbtries]

24. i think you

should send this to members of congress in a position to begin hearings and maybe change this sick status quo. and send it to the papers. well done. :thumbsup:

[20score]

29. Thank you very much!

[dysfunctional press]

25. the 'fairness doctrine' ISN'T the answer.

and the biggest problem with a national debate on the media, is that it would have to be carried by the msm.

[20score]

40. We were able to stop the 2003 rule changes using just the internet and independent media.

That's something.

[mentalslavery]

45. We did not stop those rules changes, we lost

they got the new FCC rules if thats what you are referring too. It looked like we were going to win, but we didnt.

[20score]

47. I do remember the Senate and the House voting overwhelmingly against the FCC rules that year.

I'm a bit hazy in my recollection after that. It seems they brought in the rules piecemeal. (Bastards) But we did move congress when it looked impossible.

[mentalslavery]

51. We did move congress. We did show the power of a free and

unrestricted press and speech. But, in the end, we could not block the rules. There is a really good summary of the events that you can download in pdf here

http://freepress.net/resources/ownership

half way down the page under research reports, click on the link

The Politics and Policy of Media Ownership

This link might take you right to it.


http://www.wcl.american.edu/journal/lawrev/53/scott.pdf

[20score]

52. Thanks!

[bdamomma]

26. we need to get them in the pocketbook, boycott their stations.

or keep on sending them e-mails to show our displeasure, our media just sucks.

[snot]

27. K&R'd. Everyone, pls get ACTIVE about this issue.

[ihavenobias]

28. Kick n/t

[Uncle Joe]

30. I totally agree, 20score, the corporate either never learned or don't care for having

enabled a corrupt incompetent like Bush to power, all because he suited their narrow corporate supremacist worshiping ideology.

I believe there is a true, real, fourth estate, free press evolution taking place; that being the growing people power of the Internet, but it's painfully slow and you can count on the traditional yellow journalism style of top down, one way, corporate, oligarch controlled mass media to subvert this dynamic in every and any way they can, either overt or covert.

Giving up power and influence is a difficult thing for them to do, even if the loss of their monopoly on information and communication benefits the nation as a whole.

There may be some enlightened, Renaissance people of good conscious among the owners and upper management of the corporate media, but I believe they're woefully outnumbered using their past twenty years or so track record as evidence. I don't see them as trying to build the American People up so much as tearing them down.

Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, 20score.

[20score]

31. Thanks! Appreciated!

[BlooInBloo]

32. Refs are drawn from the pool of Americans. As long as Americans are stupid, so too will the refs be.

[progressoid]

33. A National Debate...and Charlie Gibson can be the moderator!

[Kablooie]

34. Any way we could drown them in the bathtub?

[blaze]

35. Write to your Representatives

Tell them this is high on your list. The media needs to be regulated to end this corrupting monopoly.

http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW_by_State.shtml

Couldn't hurt to email your Senators as well. :)

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm?OrderBy=state&Sort=ASC

[SmileyRose]

36. End megamedia monopolies or near monopolies IMHO.

the fairness doctrine won't change anything if Rupert owns the world.

[harun]

60. Agree, I don't think you can change a thing w'out breaking up the

monopolies.

[Initech]

37. Stop letting "The View" dictate all our domestic policies!

It pisses me off that all of our arguments seem to stem from a show that is on when most of us aren't even awake yet.

[LeftHander]

38. A new reality series! American Anchor!

Watch aspiring journalists sink or swim for a broadcast news anchor job with a major network.

The 16 week series starts with interviews across the country by top news personalities Bill O'Rielly, Chris Matthews and Katie Couric.

YOu vote and pick the winners as contestants advance.

Now that is TV America can sink it's tooth into.

[20score]

39. Great!

[Usrename]

41. Why are they even allowed to sell some of their products?

I think that *news* should be looked at like any other product.

Why is there no http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/implied+warranty">implied warranty of merchantability, just like there is with anything else that's bought and sold? I really think that if there isn't one, then there surely should be one.

Whenever an outfit that refers to themselves as a newspaper or news network (and sells their product as news) intentionally deceives their customers, then they should have some kind of financial liability exposure to those customers who consumed their product and who may have been harmed by the fraud.

It's like the New York Times suppressing the story that Rove, Libby, and McClellan were all lying about the Plame case and the continued deception of the public until after the election in order to influence the outcome. There were probably many folks who were tangibly harmed by that particular lie, since Kerry would have clearly won had they told the truth as they actually knew it. And also the whole drumbeat for war.

It seems to be this type of intentional propaganda that is the most harmful. Repeating stories that they KNOW are false.

In the case of war crimes, there are some additional responsibilities for the media which are expressed under the Nuremberg Principles, specifically Principle VII: Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity as set forth in Principle VI is a crime under international law.

[20score]

42. That's a damn good suggestion.

[Usrename]

50. Thank you. I think it is too. This is a very serious subject.

I don't know if any case has ever been brought against a news agency on these grounds, but it sure seems like a decent idea to me, and a good case could be made for it in today's atmosphere of disgust at the media lies.

Of course, this particular Supreme Court should not be the ones who would decide such a case. Scalia should be impeached first for refusing to recuse himself in the Cheney case after he went on an overnighter with the defendent. He seems to think this is how all justices should behave. He should be run out of town on a rail.

[mentalslavery]

54. Excellent points. Inciting genocide also. Kill the terrorist!!!!

which became a dehumanizing chant that ultimately translated into anything that moves in the middle east is a terrorist that should be killed. The blood of mothers and children, the blood of mothers and children, thats what they have on their hands. Long-term effects of white phos-were talkin millions.

[fishwax]

43. regulating ownership is one thing, government oversight of news divisions quite another

I'm open to the former; I don't see the latter as a workable solution (and don't think it would be a good idea even if it were).

[20score]

44. It wouldn't be oversight as in looking over the shoulder. That would be terrible. But since

the public owns the airwaves, if a station is found to be not acting within its charter, and being egregious, such as broadcasting provably and known false information as fact and news (like if the KKK ran a station) then their license should not be renewed. But, the process should not be easy and have many safeguards against political abuse.

Or maybe not, it might be too easy to misuse.

[mentalslavery]

46. How about call it what it is, a crime. If this is legal, if this is freedom of

the press and speech-Then I want no part of it-because you know-it does not work. This is exactly what the 1st amendment was supposed to protect us from, obviously, that amendment without criminal sanctions to ensure that the spirit of the amendment is upheld-does not work.

The invisible hand of information is not self regulating!

Giving the media a free pass to print or say whatever under the guise of the 1st amendment is a complete bastardization of amendment. But don't take it from me, look into what the founders wrote about what a free press and speech do for the public. And no, I'm not going to give you a link for something that is your duty as a citizen to be informed about! Use the google! Use the library! Don't defer to the supreme court for an understanding of what the 1st amendment is, bc when you do, then you are engaging in the highest form of mentalslavery. You are deferring to the government for an interpretation of an amendment that was specifically written to keep the government out of blocking press and speech rights. Maybe, they should not be the ones to tell you how to interpret that amendment, ya think?

So maybe, when a news organization reaches a certain threshold of being grossly inaccurate on major issues then we could vote to dissolve that organization? Maybe, democracy can play a role in dealing with these crooks? Then, and this is just a crazy idea, maybe we could conduct specific trials and investigations to determine if we were feed crap on purpose. I wonder which one of these little chicken shit reporters would sing to save their own ass, I bet they would be lining up around the block. "Murdock made us do it! Please, don't put my pansy ass in jail. I'm a shill, not a criminal, I can't do time, there's no make-up lady in jail!"

Can you hear it, it sounds like sweet justice to me!!

[mentalslavery]

48. And one more thing!

To the author of this post. On-point, brother or sister, completely and totally fuckin on-point. History shows that a nation goes the way of the quality of its informational resources. There is no bigger issue than this. It must be addressed!!!!!!!!!

[20score]

49. Thank you! And your point about a crime. Spot on!

Edited because I made a dumbass typo mistake.

[nc4bo]

53. We need to keep the pressure on one of Pres. Barack Obama's campaign promises

Barack Obama and Joe Biden's Plan
Ensure the Full and Free Exchange of Ideas through an Open Internet and Diverse Media Outlets

* Protect the Openness of the Internet: A key reason the Internet has been such a success is because it is the most open network in history. It needs to stay that way. Barack Obama strongly supports the principle of network neutrality to preserve the benefits of open competition on the Internet.
* Encourage Diversity in Media Ownership: Barack Obama believes that the nation’s rules ensuring diversity of media ownership are critical to the public interest. Unfortunately, over the past several years, the Federal Communications Commission has promoted the concept of consolidation over diversity. As president, Obama will encourage diversity in the ownership of broadcast media, promote the development of new media outlets for expression of diverse viewpoints, and clarify the public interest obligations of broadcasters who occupy the nation’s spectrum.

[Lorien]

55. Without reinstating the Fairness Doctrine breaking up media monopolies

will do next to nothing. They'll just be bought up by other conservative leaning corporations and it will be business as usual. If you are old enough to remember news reporting pre-Reagan, then you know what the real problem is. When Reagan killed the Fairness doctrine he took away the voice of the left and made "free speech" available only to the far Right on the public's airwaves (and yes, ALL airwaves belong to the public).

[earcandle]

56. Wikipedia on The Fairness Doctrine and how it lost its value.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine

[The_Commonist]

58. Stop giving them your eyeballs...

Stop buying products from their advertisers.
Do it loudly.
Then they shrivel and die.
Problem solved!

(of course it's not that simple, and the question here is how to get the millions of people who don't understand the situation to do the same... but that's what it comes down to, in a nutshell. starve them out of business.)

[BlancheSplanchnik]

59. SUCCINCT!!: if the media had broadcast real news for the last few years,

if the media had broadcast real news for the last few years, no one like Bush would have been taken seriously enough to get into office.

Puts everything into perspective!

I would R this, but I'm too late.

I AM bookmarking, though

[20score]

63. Thank you!

[The Wizard]

61. The CEOs of the major media outlets

should be forced to divest through legislation. If they refuse or are caught skirting the law they should be horse whipped. With pain comes awareness.

[olegramps]

62. An independent Fourth Estate is essential to maintain a Democracy.

The Press is no longer the watchdog of our Republic. It is completely under corporate control and as a consequence their sole function is to generate revenue. Anything that detracts from the corporate bottom line is outlawed. Their total lack of objectivity is why the nation was easily taken into a disastrous war. Every major news source was determined not to question since it could result in alienation and resulting loss of revenue.

As far as I can determine the situation is beyond repair and will not be corrected. However, these corporate rags and propaganda talk radio shows are becoming increasingly marginalized by the internet which is rapidly becoming a major source of information. This is especially true among younger citizens most of whom don't even subscribe to newspapers and wouldn't be caught dead listening to the likes of Limbaugh.

The blogs are like the early newspapers that were independent and took strong positions on issues and generated intense discussion of issues. I see real hope in this since major issues today,if they don't meet corporate guidelines, are relegated to a few lines on page 34 or 15 seconds on news programs.