The Media .... whores, sellouts, or cowards?

[Stinky The Clown]

Every now and again, a raft of threads pop up here decrying the media for their failures. The piling on during the Lewinsky thing. The cheer leading for idiot son even before he announced his first run. The covering up of the crimes and scandals of the last five plus years.

They did all that and more. And in many ways, I see them as the single biggest issue we face. Were the media honest (not 'liberal' ... just honest) we would have had outrage after the 2000 election theft. Were the media honest, we may well not have gone off on our little Iraq adventure. Were the media honest, the Swift boaters would have been seen for the scam they were and they would not have been able to attack Kerry so successfully. Were the media honest, paper trail voting would be the law of the land.

But they weren't. And it isn't.

So that leaves me to the question I still ponder to this day:

How is it that not one media person has quit in disgust and stepped forward to tell the truth? Not one.

If there is a media conspiracy against us, where's the proof? Where's the smoke? Where's the fire?

It seems to me simply impossible - as an absolute statement - that at least one person would not have stepped forward and said "I was told to lie."

Where is that one person?

Don't get my question wrong. I am not apologizing for the media. I'm trying to understand.

And don't tell me they get paid too much. That is a cop out and not an answer. So is the fact that media's being run by a very few corporations with only a tiny part of it still 'independent'.

Even if the highly paid media superstars didn't want to pass on the gravy train, there have to be staff reporters, producers, editors, copy writers, proof readers ... shit ... a goddam paper boy .... who is so disgusted that they'd speak up. Where is the media's Sybil Edmonds or Kathleen Rowley? Surely there's a mid-30's journalist who is a second string on-air talent for the CBS affiliate in East Bumfuck who is principled and honest enough to come forward.

But nope .... not a peep?

Why?

[Beaver Tail]

1. Sellouts

Should make this a poll

Much of the Media empires are owned by right wing conservatives selling out their country for capital gain.

IMO I would call the the MSM accessories to the murder of the Iraqi people.

[Stinky The Clown]

3. My question was:

"How is it that not one media person has quit in disgust and stepped forward to tell the truth? Not one."

We know the ownership is both consolidated and rotten. That's a known fact.

Why has no one stepped forward and blown the whistle?

[Clark2008]

6. Bill Moyers is

And Cronkite, too, for that matter.

[rman]

22. "stepped forward" - just who is going to give them a platform?

but there are people who have quit the MSM and do speak out in one way or another:

The docu "Orwell Rolls in his grave" features several of them. One example:

Charles Lewis, Founder of The Center for Public Integrity:
...From 1977 through 1988, Lewis did investigative reporting at ABC News, and at CBS News as a producer for senior correspondent Mike Wallace at 60 Minutes. His stories twice received Emmy nominations in the "Outstanding Investigative Reporting" category by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences...
http://www.openairwaves.org/about/about.aspx?act=clewis

[salinen]

2. David Brook

[Stinky The Clown]

4. David Brock ... wrote a book

He was a commentator and writer ... not a journalist. True enough he covers media issues now, but not from the inside.

Why has not one employee of big media stepped forward, whistle at the ready?

[rman]

23. He was insider to the RW noise machine,

which business it is to create 'news' (aka lies), regardless of them being journalists ot not.

Besides, you can't both quit and report from the inside at the same time.

[Clark2008]

5. Well, first off, they don't get paid enough.

Of course the anchors, talking heads and columnists do, but the average starting pay for a journalist is well less than that of teachers.

I know - I was one for 12 years and had to give it up because I didn't earn enough upon becoming a single mother after my divorce.

But, I digress. The biggest problem is that of media consolidation. There are too few media outlets and those we have are owned by large corporations who support the GOP agenda.

I am reading David Brock's, "Republican Noise Machine" and I'm on the chapter in which he explains that a number of liberal columnists and truthful reporters were fired after 9/11 when they either would support the war in Iraq or reported on the truth about it. It was a management issue, not a reporting issue.

I think the only way to get the media back on track is to continue to push for return of some regulation, ignore the so-called "mainstream" media in favor of foreign media and news blogs and call them on their shit each and every time they lie, fail to present all sides of a case or use information from a right-wing source without identifying that the source *IS* a right-wing source.

So... in answer to your question: I would say some reporters are sell-outs, some are whores and some are just plain scared to lose their jobs in such a lousy economy.

[acmejack]

7. That is an excellent question.

It seems that the only people who will report what is really happening are those in foreign countries. Why? I too am baffled.

I can't accept I am a lunatic, seeing problems where there are none. It is a question that we must find the answer for & the sooner the better.

[EVDebs]

8. All of the above ! Operation Mockingbird strikes again.... eom

[Sparkly]

9. Maybe it's what Judy Miller said: "The government is too powerful."

Remember Cliff Baxter? At the risk of proposing a conspiracy theory, it's the only explanation I can think of. :shrug:

[moondust]

10. Some candidates.

1. Very careful hiring and firing practices. Extensive use of "references": who you know that will guarantee your unwavering loyalty, not what you know or your potential. Plain old politics.

2. Other convincing proof that prospective employee X will do absolutely anything for money, power, fame, a career, status, the excitement of being embedded in a tank in a war on national television every day, whatever.

3. Get them by the balls and their hearts and minds will follow. Use of subtle threats, coercion, intimidation.

4. Some combination of the above.

[Stinky The Clown]

11. All good answers, but back to the original question

Why not ONE .... just one ...... who will speak the truth?

Low pay/fear of losing the job? If the pay's that low, they'd likely leave soon enough anyhow?

Fear? For some with lots to lose, perhaps ... but a 20-something or 30-something? Surely there's ONE brave soul.

Surely, in the five plus years the cabal has held this country hostage, people have left the industry for a bazillion reasons. And surely one fo those who left ahs a story to tell.

Again, this is completely baffling.

Lemme paint a picture ...... 1990. A young (let's say) woman is in journalism school. She's caught up in the nobility of the profession. Investigative reporting. Truth to power. She's a lefty, too. Young and idealistic.

She graduates in '92. Covers car wrecks and house fires on weekends for WXYZ in East Bumfuck. She moves to KXYZ in Bigger East Bumfuck. Now its car wrecks on weeknights. She gets a break. Becomes a stringer for one of the networks. Gets a weekend anchor gig at another station. Moves up. You get the idea.

Then, in 2004, she gets pregnant and decides, for her own reasons, to just leave that rat race and raise her kid ... and then maybe teach.

She's been on the inside. She knows shit. She deeply cares.

Why haven't we heard from her?

[Clark2008]

15. LOL! I graduated from J-School in 1992 and quit when I had a kid

(all-be-it in 1999 and then freelanced for two years, so I officially left the profession in 2001).

And, we are hearing from them, but their roars are peeps when it comes to coverage in the corporate media.

As I mentioned above, Bill Moyers and Walter Cronkite have spoken out on this issue - and forcefully, too. It's just we don't hear from them in the media vortex. We have to search for their voices.

[cally]

12. Would we hear or read about it if they did?

The media hates criticism of itself and will not report it. Unless it's a big name, I don't think we would hear about it. Also, those who quit in disgust probably move on to new jobs that requires some references or contacts from their old employers. Most wouldn't want to trash their old employers...the corporate media.

I also recall an editor who quit and wrote a scathing letter on the press today. I forget her name. Also, remember the blond haired woman who made her name on 9/11 and reported while debris were falling. She spoke at a forum on the bias in the news and was not seen again (MSNBC, I think)

[pretzel4gore]

13. there is no answer to this

i think 'subliminal' advertising went underground in the mid/late 70's cuz the ruling elite were already planning on....(though they so dense they cannot see that bush is destroying THEIR kids' futures, they still houdini like in ability to walk through walls, lift hundreds of tons in one hand, see the future and so on...) using subliminal advertising/mass mind control to do certain things and control humanity...in other words, a wide ranging, very well funded program of managed democracy through 'creative destruction', a kind of laboratory experiment by a mass of people who allow the false fronts of elections etc to dazzle the herd, whose fate is decided in secret by this mob...bush sorta represents them, like reagan did before, but both reagan/bush and to some extent clinton are proof that we are held in the utterest of contempt possible to be held in, by men who think of themselves as 'godlike' ...there is some kind of mass psychology/mind control experiment ongoing, it seems, and if this is true, then history needs alot of work to bring common people such as we, up-to-date

[Roland99]

14. 95% of them are all of the above

[XemaSab]

16. Yeeeeeeeeeargh!

n/t

[Independent_Liberal]

17. They're all three...

Whores, sellouts, and cowards. That's exactly what they are.

[poetsdream]

18. Like all people who depend on a paycheck they are afraid.

Think about all the jobs that have gone over to India. How many people are forced into training their replacements under threat by their employers of losing their pensions, severance packages, jobs... We're all fearful when our income is at risk. I'm sure we all know someone who absolutely hates the outsourcing, layoffs, illegal stock activities, etc. of their employer, but they go along out of fear of losing a healthcare benefits, pension investments, or their job.

Also, what 'rewards' are there for journalists who speak out? A few good words in DU or other liberal websites??.. Otherwise, they are left without any kind of legal protection, financial support, etc., are subject to ridicule, blacklisting, and let's face it, maybe even physical harm. And who among us is brave enough to face down our employer (who at this time holds all the winning cards). Sadly, we have been coerced, hypnotized, lulled by material gain - whatever - to go along and not rock the boat.

Maybe if/when the time comes when we have something like the resistance movement in WWII where people develop and use financial and other resources to protect and help those brave enough to speak out, then we will have more journalists come forward.

[mrdmk]

19. Watch this and be sad, from Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/sticksandstones.html

Actually be happy, I don't know why but be happy!

[dajoki]

20. christiane amanpour spoke of administration bullying in 2003

check out this link about tina brown interview with amanpour, al franken and tori clarke. http://www.moderateindependent.com/v1i11mediawatch.htm

[adolfo]

21. The MSM are whores

..I meant no offence toward whores.