Journalists For War
I don't believe I've ever heard of this John Pilger fellow before but he has a nice piece on how the media helps bring about war. While he makes it read like it's deliberate deception on the part of news media, he doesn't mention that media get most of their info from the White House or the Pentagon, at least in our case. The same is most certainly true across the globe.
I see he also has a blog. I've added it to my blog list.
posted by Fred Mangels @ 1:30 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Fairly good article until he starts the usual "liberal media" BS. There is no liberal media. That is a big part of the problem. It is corporate owned and corporate controlled media. These corporations, or their parent corporations almost always have close ties with the government in other sectors. Here's one of the biggest examples that I know of:
In the lead up to the Iraq invasion 3-2003, i only had access to NBC news out of the Eureka station. So, all I got was Tom Brokaw - who is NO liberal, he's a SD Republican - and his merry band of war promoters. One of the only voices at NBC, who was a "liberal" Phil Donahue, actually tried to raise questions about this rush to war. He was subsequently fired. The excuse being that his show got low ratings.
I was sickened by the constant promotion of the Bush/ Cheney agenda, virtually unchallenged by anyone.
Then we learn that GE, the parent corporate owner of Universal/NBC, received Billions in no-bid war contracts just like many other media owning corps did.
Having spent some time working in a corporate setting in NYC myself I know well that corporate opportunities are very much the talk of the office water cooler, as it were. In other words, guys like Brokaw and all the rest knew damn well that there bosses stood to make a lot of money in this game and by being on the right side of things would be very beneficial to themselves too.
Plus, they had the example of Phil Donahue to demonstrate what happens to a contrarian idea. If you recall, Brokaw was the one who got the one on one interview with Bush on board the USS Abraham Lincoln at the time of "Mission Accomplished". It was hard to tell which one had the bigger shit eating grin on their face. Ratings for both were soaring.
I wonder what the size of Brokaw's War Booty Bonus was for his help in selling that war? We'll never know, of course, that's closed, inside information.
Afterwards, when "Mission Accomplished" blew up in their faces, the best Brokaw could come up with as an excuse for not asking more questions and doing his job as a broadcast journalist was: "It was the best (we) could do with the information the Bush Administration gave us."
Isn't that nice.
He was spot on in so many areas, good read! The media has always been corporate ran by the same corporations that sponsored the wars & who lobby congress. If they get their way, they will end all competition.
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