symbolism of Saturn conjunct USA Mercury, and the related transits mentioned on this thread.
These items were all listed on the "Jeff Gannon" thread (linked above), but they fit here:
Article entitled "Redefining Jounralism" from today's Hartford Courant:
http://www.courant.com/features/lifestyle/hc-guckert.ar... "Interesting questions all, and the answers are as complex as they are elusive. But perhaps the most lasting effect of the Gannon/Guckert saga will be the outcome of renewed debate over not only how to define a bona fide reporter but who does the defining.
"That's really the key, and it's a fascinating thing - who's a journalist?" said USA Today's Jim Drinkard, who just finished his term as chairman of the Standing Committee of Correspondents, which oversees the issuing of credentials for reporters covering Congress. "
From the DU discussion thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph... ---------------------------------------
Wed Feb-23-05 07:19 PM
Corporate Media Vs. Blogosphere - A Quiz
Let the Battle Begin
Category: CURRENT EVENTS
Round 1: Who falsely told you that there were weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq? Mainstream media or blogs?
Round 2: Who correctly told you that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Mainstream media or blogs?
Round 3: Who falsely claimed that there was a link between Al Qaeda and Saddam? Mainstream media or blogs?
Round 4: Who correctly reported that there was no link between
Saddam and Al Qaeda, and that in fact Al Qaeda opposed Saddam? Mainstream media or blogs?
Round 5: Who falsely claimed that Iraq was behind 9-11? Mainstream media or blogs?
Round 6: Who correctly pointed out the evidence that 9-11 was
actually a false flag operation to start a war? Mainstream media or blogs?
Round 7: Who falsely claimed that both Iraq and Afghanistan would be quick victories? Mainstream media or blogs?
Round 8: Who correctly forecast that both Afghanistan and Iraq
would become quagmires? Mainstream media or blogs?
Let the battle begin? The battle is already OVER!
Source:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph... -----------------------------------
Mon Feb-28-05 07:32 PM
Response to Reply #21
26. Let's toss "Dr." Thompson into this mix, for counterpoint
I feel it's noteworthy that the originator of "gonzo" journalism, Hunter Thompson, has died by "suicide" in the same time frame as the emergence of the vast BushCo propaganda plot. Witness the stories of paid-off "journalists" and squelched science and distorted budget figures. "Jeff Gannon" is but part of this wide pattern.
The death (Saturn) of Thompson (symbolized in this context by the USA Mercury position at 24 Cancer), serves as counterpoint to the rest of the transition that is taking place in national communication forms.
Here's a choice DU post about Thompson that bears directly on these key points:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph... "This was the world Dr. Thompson was born into, and at some point, he had to ask himself, "who are the watchdogs of this great cacophany of thieves and murderers?" and in some likelihood, he would have had to wonder if it weren't in fact, the Press.
"What is the divine purpose behind journalism? Is it to be an unseen fourth branch of government; to keep the people safe from the unchecked power of madmen and would-be kings; men bred for their office through careful selection of mutated genes; chosen for the raw degeneracy that would enable them to make the really big decisions without the unfortunate shackles of conscience, decency or morals?"
(snip) - eom
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Tue Mar-01-05 07:17 AM
Response to Reply #21
27. How the Blogs Broke it open
An interesting discussion on the Emerging Blog Pheonomenon (EBP), featuring lame excuses about limitations (Saturn) from corporate media.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph... madhat (101 posts) Mon Feb-28-05 01:49 PM
Original message
Inside The 'Gannon' Case: How Blogs Broke It Wide Open
Greg Mitchell at E & P gets it just right!!
"For the first time last month, I was able to follow a "blog probe" from the start, and it was amazing to see the resources and skills the larger sites can bring to bear on a single issue or controversy.
...The Jeff Gannon affair has not yet morphed into a full-fledged political scandal, or retreated to the realm of embarrassing footnote, so this may be a good time to pause and reflect. At the center of the controversy: A man with no journalistic (but plenty of sex-site) experience who managed to cover the White House at close range for two years for an obscure online site called Talon News — under an alias — with the avowed aim of simply presenting the administration's case, unfiltered.
Whatever the merits of the uproar over this episode, it has proved extremely instructive for me, making possible my first immersion in the new world of blog-generated controversy."
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressin ...
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Wed Mar-02-05 08:13 AM
Response to Reply #21
28. Top journalist quits - Trashes mass media on way out
Prize-winning reporter resigns and pens scathing exit manifesto
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_di ...
Laurie Garrett of 'Newsday' Rips Tribune Co. 'Greed' in Exit Memo
By E&P Staff
Published: March 01, 2005 11:00 AM ET
“The deterioration we experienced at Newsday was hardly unique," she wrote in the memo, describing the past few years.
"All across America news organizations have been devoured by massive corporations, and allegiance to stockholders, the drive for higher share prices, and push for larger dividend returns trumps everything that the grunts in the newsrooms consider their missions.
"Long gone are the days of fast-talking, whiskey-swilling Murray Kempton peers eloquently filling columns with daily dish on government scandals, mobsters and police corruption. The sort of in-your-face challenge that the Fourth Estate once posed for politicians has been replaced by mud-slinging, lies and, where it ought not be, timidity.
<snip>
”Honesty and tenacity (and for that matter, the working class) seem to have taken backseats to the sort of 'snappy news', sensationalism, scandal-for-the-sake of scandal crap that sells. This is not a uniquely Tribune or even newspaper industry problem: this is true from the Atlanta mixing rooms of CNN to Sulzberger's offices in Times Square. Profits: that's what it's all about now. But you just can't realize annual profit returns of more than 30 percent by methodically laying out the truth in a dignified, accessible manner. And it's damned tough to find that truth every day with a mere skeleton crew of reporters and editors.
”This is terrible for democracy. I have been in 47 states of the USA since 9/11, and I can attest to the horrible impact the deterioration of journalism has had on the national psyche. I have found America a place of great and confused fearfulness.”
Garrett lamented “Judy Miller's bogus weapons of mass destruction coverage, the media's inaccurate and inappropriate convictions of Wen Ho Lee, Richard Jewell and Steven Hatfill, CBS' failure to smell a con job regarding Bush's Texas Air Guard career and, sadly, so on.” But she added: “It would be easy to descend into despair, not only about the state of journalism, but the future of American democracy. But giving up is not an option. There is too much at stake."
<snip>
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SpiralHawk (1000+ posts) Sat Mar-05-05 08:39 AM
Response to Reply #21
29. US shoots Italian journalist in Iraq. UN to investigate
More on the theme of transiting Saturn opposite the US Mercury...Some are speculating that the US actually wanted to assasinate this journalist, because she had written many articles describing the slaughter of civilians by US soliders in Fallujah.
---------------
UN asked to investigate US shooting of Italian journalist and military intelligence officer
Reporters Without Borders today called for a UN investigation to shed light on the circumstances in which the US military fired on a vehicle carrying the newly freed Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena yesterday in Baghdad, injuring Sgrena and killing an Italian military officer accompanying her.
"A thorough investigation must be quickly carried out by the United Nations into this blunder with tragic consequences," Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Robert Ménard said.
"It is clear that his enquiry cannot be conducted just by the US army which in the past, especially in the case of the Palestine Hotel shooting that killed two journalists, produced reports aimed solely at exonerating the military," Ménard said, adding, "we demand to know the full truth about this distressing affair."
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=12761 ----------------------------
Sat Mar-05-05 06:15 PM
Response to Reply #21
30. White House Misses Deadline on PR Contracts
Broadcasting&Cable: White House Mum on (Dem request for)
propagandagate indeed.
White House Mum on PR Contracts
By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 3/4/2005 5:35:00 PM
At press time, the White House had not responded to the request by a couple dozen high-profile House Democrats for information on all PR and advertising contracts with government agencies.
According to the office of Rep. George Miller, ranking minority member of the education committee, the administration has not responded to the Jan. 28 letter, which asked for the information by March 1.
The request cited "secret publicity campaigns to promote administration priorities" including an investigation that "revealed that the Department of Education paid a conservative commentator (Armstrong Williams, though the letter did not name him) to support the No Child Left Behind Act in television and radio appearances," plus another contract with a commentator unearthed following the Williams revelation.
It also cited Government Accountability Office conclusions that video news releases issued by Health and Human Services and the Office of National Drug Control Policy violated anti-propaganda rules, though the Justice Department concluded differently.
The letter-writers, which included House Democratic Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi and the ranking minority members of a slew of committees from Appropriations and Commerce to Science and Transportation, want copies of all contracts, subcontracts and related documents.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA508851.html ?...
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Sun Mar-06-05 08:36 AM
Response to Reply #21
31. US Soldieers killing journalists? CNN - Eason Jordan
OK, the transiting Saturn (Grim Reaper) conjunct US natal Mercury sub-theme is taking on a life of its own, even with the context of the "Jeff Gannon" story.
By rights, it should be the other way around. Which is to say that the "Jeff Gannon" story is but a part of the overall Saturn to Mercury transit.
Nonetheless, this story adds immensely to the overall picture.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph... NEW YORK Feb 11, 2005 — CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan quit Friday amid a furor over remarks he made in Switzerland last month about journalists killed by the U.S. military in Iraq. Jordan said he was quitting to avoid CNN being "unfairly tarnished" by the controversy.
During a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum last month, Jordan said he believed that several journalists who were killed by coalition forces in Iraq had been targeted.
He quickly backed off the remarks, explaining that he meant to distinguish between journalists killed because they were in the wrong place when a bomb fell, for example, and those killed because they were shot at by American forces who mistook them for the enemy.
"I never meant to imply U.S. forces acted with ill intent when U.S. forces accidentally killed journalists, and I apologize to anyone who thought I said or believed otherwise," Jordan said in a memo to fellow staff members at CNN.
But the damage had been done, compounded by the fact that no transcript of his actual remarks has turned up. He was the target of an Internet and Web site campaign that was beginning to rival the one launched against CBS's Dan Rather following the network's ill-fated story last fall about President Bush's military service....
Link:
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=492860 ------------------------------
Tue Mar-08-05 07:41 AM
32. GAO - EPA Distorted Mercury Data In Order To Pimp "Clear Skies"
Wow - Saturn conjunct natal Mercury -- GAO offers reality (Saturn) about BushCo propaganda on Mercury (Mercury) !
GAO - EPA Distorted Mercury Data In Order To Pimp "Clear Skies"
"The Environmental Protection Agency distorted the analysis of its controversial proposal to regulate mercury pollution from power plants, making it appear that the Bush administration's market-based approach was superior to a competing scheme supported by environmentalists, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office said yesterday.
Rebuking the agency for a lack of "transparency," the report said the EPA had failed to fully document the toxic impact of mercury on brain development, learning, and neurological functioning. The GAO urged that these problems be rectified before the EPA takes final action on the rule.
The analysis follows a critical report by the EPA's inspector general that suggested that agency scientists had been pressured to back the approach preferred by industry. "The administration is showing a blatant disregard for the health of children, the health of women of childbearing age, but they are also showing a blatant disregard for the law," said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), who had asked for the analysis. "To not change would be the height of arrogant disregard."
Cynthia Bergman, an EPA spokeswoman, said the agency is on track to issue the mercury rule by March 15. She said the final rule would provide comparisons between the competing options that the GAO said were missing.
EDIT
The administration said the cap-and-trade plan would reduce more pollution, in part because it would invite less litigation, and blend nicely with a cap-and-trade proposal to control sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, called the Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR).
But the GAO report said the EPA had tipped the scales to favor the market-based plan. For example, the EPA found that capping pollution at every plant would result in savings of $13 billion -- the difference between the estimated savings in health costs and the pollution control costs.
The EPA said the cap-and-trade approach provided a much larger benefit of $55 billion to $68 billion, but the GAO said yesterday that this analysis included the benefits from implementing the CAIR rule. The report also suggested that the EPA had used dubious methods to assess the monetary value of mercury reductions. Although the approach was "quick and low-cost," the GAO said the method was characterized by great uncertainty and should have been treated "as a last-resort option."
EDIT
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15244-20 ...
- eom -