Free Press? Why the mainstream media kowtows to those in power

Why we can't trust journalists to hold governments accountable.

In 1953,at a New York Press Club, John Swinton,Chief of Staff for the New York Times made the following statement:

"There is no such thing in America as an independent press. You know it,and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions,and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print.I am paid weekly for keepng my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with.Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things,and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job.If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my newspaper,before twenty four hours my occupation would be gone.
The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth;to lie outright;to pervert;vilify;to fawn at the feet of mammon,and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it,and what folly is this toasting an independent press! We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We' re the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents ,our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. we are intellectual prostitutes"

A US Police Action:Operation Vampire Killer,The American Citizens and Laumen Association,pp 18,19

Some of the media's sole purpose is to provide entertainment.
Some of the media are part of the government's intelligence apparatus(Department of Information) whose purpose is to shape public opinion and public perception.
But even the so-called independent mainstream media outlets have co-opted and "toe the line" .They are unwilling to alienate their corporate masters/sponsors/advertizers.
Instead of questioning government policy and holding them accountable ,the media functions to articulate and parrot the gov't storyline as unquestionable truth.
We once imagined the media would guard the hen house.
 Yet that was an anomaly, a freak event around Vietnam and Watergate when it slipped its leash. Since then, sixty independent media outlets have consolidated into five, all retailing the ideology of the powerful, the perpetrators, laundering their lies, covering up the truth, and harassing the truth tellers. The mainstream media have worked to ensure that the people didn't know the truth about the forfeiture of their government, their wealth, their security, and their rights.
It's rather telling that the mainstream media rarely focuses attention upon the motives of the so-called "insurgents".
How do people become radicalized? What desperation makes a person turn as a last resort to violence and even suicide? What makes someone think they are worth more dead than alive? What makes a person willing to sacrifice his own life in order to kill others? Why does someone relinguish the will to live? and what could we do to make them want to live?Why are children taught to hate?
Instead of providing in-depth analysis of the real issues, the media is content with superficial "name-calling" --labelling such persons with stigmatic pejorative words as "evil" or "enemy" or "terrorist" ...as if such labels and hackneyed expressions had some ultimate explanatory power.
Have you ever noticed how the media deliberately avoid discussing the human cost of war.
Sure they keep tabs on the number of American soldiers killed,but they don't mention the far greater number of civilian casualties.They don't care about civilian casualties--.
The media  trumpets the glory and the heroism of war ...not the day-to-day suffering of war.
Where are the monuments to the orphans and the civilian casualties of war?!
Instead of describing such atrocities as "war crimes" ,they use the euphemistic phrase "collateral damage"!
 When people read only what matches their own beliefs ,and alternative views are supressed or go unreported, they are deprived of the Truth.

 If you know anything about how conventional media is being used on a mass scale, you realize that typically someone is trying to sell you on something – an idea, an ideology, a certain mindset, in order to eventually produce a certain behavior.

Beware..., because deception is taking place through coordinated media manipulation.

We are continuously being inundated with commercials,television shows music,books,etc. --telling us what we should believe how we should act, and what we should buy.

To control someone's thoughts is to control their behaviour!

see "Engineering Consent"
It's all a marketing conspiracy!:
see "the manufacture of doubt;the creation of ignorance".
 Also: "Information Management--the manipulation of human thought and belief in the age of persuasion"

Brandwashed: Tricks Companies Use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade Us to Buy --Martin Lindstrom

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Injustice is the soil in wch hatred,violence ,and fanaticism germinate and grow!



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A handful of corporations control nearly all news media.
As the consequences of this monopoly on information become apparent ,
dependence on these outlets for relevant and reliable information becomes unacceptable.
With the developement of the internet it has become possible for anyone to bypass  the monopoly of
big media and get the word out on an endless range of issues.
This technology has ignited  a renaissance in freedom of expression.
The internet provides a forum and a platform for all the news and views  not available in the corporate press.
Open source content generation ensures that no one voice or interest group may use money or undue influence to drown out the others.

After all who knows better what information you should or should not be exposed to: a few monolithic corporations? the government?...or You? (see "freedom of information and  the ethics of information access and management)

http://agoranews.org/

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The mainstream media are "agents/instruments  of the state"  as much as the army,the police,and the judiciary.

In many ways the mainstream media is simply a mirror and a microphone for those who weild the reigns of power.They parrot the official storyline that the government wants the people to believe...rather than informing the people, providing insightful analysis, and above all  holding those in power to account.

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Major media bought up to manipulate voters


To the editor:

In the last federal election, voter-turnout at 58.8-percent was the lowest in history. Only one-in-five first-time-eligible voters even bothered;  a recent survey reports only fifteen-percent of Canadians even follow federal politics.

The media—television, radio and newspapers—is the culprit. Deregulation has allowed our once diverse and independent media to merge into near monopolies—as BCE (Bell) buys CTV.  Your government has entrusted the crucial task of keeping the public informed to the greed and goodwill of a handful of businessmen/corporations.

We’re becoming like the US—“the most entertained but least informed people on the planet.”  Here the media is politics. That’s why General Electric—one of the world’s largest weapons manufacturers—buys NBC.  Not because they feel obliged to inform the public, but to win elections. Media owners have already demonstrated they could elect—then re-elect—a moron as their president.

US media have so confused its audience, eighty-percent still believe the deception of the Iraq invasion—which killed over one-million, men, women and children.

Canadians are a little better off because of our publicly owned CBC—and its mandate for truth and balance. Their great work has been hamstrung by partisan appointments and budget slashes. Senior Harper people have hinted of “getting out of the broadcast business” by outright selling the CBC.

“In the public interest” is the reason the Harper-appointed CRTC granted Sun TV News, aka “Fox News North,” a license. This station is owned by media giant Quebecor, who operate some 54 newspapers, 18 TV stations, film studios and more, nationwide—including the Harper propaganda tabloid disguised as a newspaper: Calgary Sun.

And not surprising, the Quebecor chairman, according to Wikipedia, is former PM Brian (Airbus) Mulroney. And the “Fox News North” station-manager is Harper’s  former communications director Kory Teneycke.

Mainstream camera-crews were suspiciously “not there” when Harper storm-troopers attacked the democratic rights and dignities of Canadians at Toronto’s G20.  This brutality—reported online by independent media and civilians with camera-phones—is still being suppressed by corporate media.  See for yourself,  watch the Fifth Estate documentary: “You Should Have Stayed At Home,” (online at cbc.ca/fifth/).

Before the four-hundred channel universe—when folks still talked to their neighbours and thought for themselves—voter turnout hovered around seventy-five percent. We were better entertained and more informed.  Get informed;... cancel your TV subscription.

Bryan Stawychny,
Edgewater,B.C.