Mass Media Cover-up
Leading Journalists Expose Major Cover-ups by Mass Media
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This is a 10-page summary of revealing accounts by 20 award-winning journalists from the book Into the Buzzsaw, compiled Kristina Borjesson. All of these courageous writers were prevented by corporate mass media ownership from reporting major news stories. Some were even fired or laid off. These journalists have won numerous awards, including several Emmys and a Pulitzer. Join in building a better world. Spread this news across the land.
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Greg Palast writes for the Guardian and Observer newspapers of London and reports for the BBC’s Newsnight. Palast abandoned hopes of working in America when mainstream press failed to report on his groundbreaking exposes known for stripping bare abuses.
In the months leading up to the November <2000> balloting, Florida Governor Jeb Bush and his secretary of state, Katherine Harris, ordered local elections supervisors to purge 58,000 voters from registries on the grounds they were felons not entitled to vote in Florida. As it turns out, only a handful of these voters were felons. The voters were
African Americans, and most of the others were white and Hispanic Democrats. Three weeks after the election, this extraordinary news ran on page one of the country’s leading paper. Unfortunately, it was in the wrong country: Britain. In the USA, it was not covered. It was given big network TV coverage. But again, it was on the wrong continent—on BBC TV, London. (pp. 195, 196)
The office of the governor illegally ordered the removal of felons from the voter rolls—real felons—but with the right to vote under Florida law. As a result, 50,000 of these voters could not vote. The fact that 90% of these voters were Democrats should have made it news because this maneuver alone more than accounted for Bush’s victory. (pp. 197-200)
In February 2001, I took my BBC film crew to Florida, having unearthed a page marked “secret” and “confidential” from the company the state had hired to make up the list of names to purge from voter rolls. I took my camera crew into an agreed interview with Jeb Bush’s director of the Department of Elections. When I pulled out the confidential sheet, Bush’s man ripped off the microphone and did the fifty-yard dash, locking himself in his office, all in front of our cameras. It was killer television and wowed the British viewers. We even ran a confession from the company. Newsworthy for the USA? Apparently not. (pp. 202, 203)
A group of well-placed sources told my BBC team that before Sept. 11th the US government had turned away evidence of Saudi billionaires funding bin Laden’s network. We got our hands on documents that backed up the story that FBI and CIA investigations had been slowed by the Clinton administration, then killed by Bush Jr.’s. The story made top of the news—in Britain. In the US, one TV reporter picked up the report. He was called, he says, by network chiefs, and told to go no further. He didn’t. (p. 205)
For Mr. Palast’s website, see http://www.gregpalast.com.