Reply #159: That is a very good idea. Bill Moyers has been fighting for real

[Trevelyan]

accountability for journalists.

Bill Moyers, host of PBS's NOW, delivered a stellar keynote address to a crowd of over 1700. Read it here http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1112-10.htm

Which brings me to the third powerful force – beyond governmental secrecy and megamedia conglomerates – that is shaping what Americans see, read, and hear. I am talking now about that quasi-official partisan press ideologically linked to an authoritarian administration that in turn is the ally and agent of the most powerful interests in the world. This convergence dominates the marketplace of political ideas today in a phenomenon unique in our history. You need not harbor the notion of a vast, right wing conspiracy to think this more collusion more than pure coincidence.

Conspiracy is unnecessary when ideology hungers for power and its many adherents swarm of their own accord to the same pot of honey. Stretching from the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal to the faux news of Rupert Murdoch’s empire to the nattering nabobs of no-nothing radio to a legion of think tanks paid for and bought by conglomerates – the religious, partisan and corporate right have raised a mighty megaphone for sectarian, economic, and political forces that aim to transform the egalitarian and democratic ideals embodied in our founding documents.

Authoritarianism. With no strong opposition party to challenge such triumphalist hegemony, it is left to journalism to be democracy’s best friend. That is why so many journalists joined with you in questioning Michael Powell’s bid – blessed by the White House

– to permit further concentration of media ownership. If free and independent

journalism committed to telling the truth without fear or favor is suffocated, the oxygen goes out of democracy. And there is a surer way to intimidate and then silence mainstream journalism than to be the boss.

****

Published on Wednesday, November 12, 2003 by CommonDreams.org
Keynote Address to the National Conference on Media Reform
by Bill Moyers
Founding Director, Public Affairs Television
President, The Schumann Center for Media and Democracy
November 8, 2003
Madison, Wisconsin

{much more}

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Mike Whitney: 'War crimes on Nightline?'
Posted on Monday, December 06 @ 10:07:57 EST
By Mike Whitney

Nightline's Dec. 3 program featured a segment with an "embedded" journalist and camera team moving with a Marine unit through Falluja on a routine mission. Doors were kicked down, homes were blown up and insurgents were confronted wherever they were found. In one chilling scene the unit forced their way into a home only to find a dead Iraqi sprawled out on the living room floor. The Marine sergeant made a cynical remark about how the man had been killed because he was a suicide bomber. The dead man had what looked to be a bombers belt
thrown across his waist (unfastened).

The camera panned to the man's face.

There was one single bullet hole in the very center of the man's forehead right above the eyes.

Nightline's reporter made no comment, but it was clear that the man had not been killed in combat; his wounds suggest that he was executed.

Far from what we read in the daily news, there appears to be an epidemic of Iraqis who have met a similar fate. (Do we need to mention that these executions are war crimes?)The News Standards Dahr Jamail has interviewed numerous Iraqis (particularly from Falluja) who give eyewitness testimony of "indiscriminate killings" by American soldiers. "Many refugees tell stories of having witnessed US
troops killing already injured people, including former fighters and noncombatants alike."