Media Watch
Monday, August 22, at noon, protesters stood outside of the Dispatch offices chanting "Dispatch, Disgrace" in anger to what they perceived as a disrespect to the memory of local social crusader Bill Moss. Two days after he unexpectedly passed away, the Dispatch ran a cartoon caricature of him beating a shoe demanding to get into heaven. There has been an uproar in Columbus over what was perceived to be a very disrespectful and unfair portrayal in death of a former school board member and community leader.
Barry Edney of the Ordinary People's Movement, said "This was payback for Bill Moss's telling the truth. The Dispatch spent thousands trying to get him off of the school board and the decision to run the cartoon involved Mike Curtin, an editor and the cartoonist." When Edney was asked what he thought about the comment by Mike Curtin on the radio that Bill Moss would have laughed at the cartoon, he said "Yeah but it would be more of a chuckle at their ignorance."
Barry Edney of the Ordinary People's Movement, said "This was payback for Bill Moss's telling the truth. The Dispatch spent thousands trying to get him off of the school board and the decision to run the cartoon involved Mike Curtin, an editor and the cartoonist." When Edney was asked what he thought about the comment by Mike Curtin on the radio that Bill Moss would have laughed at the cartoon, he said "Yeah but it would be more of a chuckle at their ignorance."
Every fall, Project Censored presents the 25 most censored stories of the past year. The Columbus Institute for Contemporary Journalism (CICJ) is proud to announce that freepress.org Editor Bob Fitrakis and Senior Editor Harvey Wasserman's article "How a Republican election supervisor manipulated the 2004 Central Ohio vote, in black and white," posted November 23, 2004, was rated number three on the list of the 25 most censored stories of 2004-2005.
The censored story focuses on the role of Franklin County Board of Elections Director Matt Damschroder, the former head of the county's Republican Party, and how he failed to put out 76 voting machines on Election Day, all of them in the Democratic city of Columbus and 42 of them in the heavily pro-Kerry majority African American wards on the city's east side. Dr. Richard Hayes Phillips estimates that this may have cost Kerry up to 17,000 votes. Damschroder was recently suspended for a month without pay for accepting a check in his office from a Diebold lobbyist made out to the Republican Party on the day bidding opened for voting machines in Franklin County.
The censored story focuses on the role of Franklin County Board of Elections Director Matt Damschroder, the former head of the county's Republican Party, and how he failed to put out 76 voting machines on Election Day, all of them in the Democratic city of Columbus and 42 of them in the heavily pro-Kerry majority African American wards on the city's east side. Dr. Richard Hayes Phillips estimates that this may have cost Kerry up to 17,000 votes. Damschroder was recently suspended for a month without pay for accepting a check in his office from a Diebold lobbyist made out to the Republican Party on the day bidding opened for voting machines in Franklin County.
For a long time, the last refuge of scoundrels was “patriotism.”
Now it’s “the war on terror.”
President Bush and many of his vocal supporters aren’t content to wrap themselves in the flag. It’s not sufficient to posture as more patriotic than opponents of the Iraq war. The ultimate demagogic weapon is to exploit the memory of Sept. 11, 2001.
The fourth anniversary will provide the Bush administration with plenty of media opportunities to wrap itself in the 9/11 shroud and depict Iraq war critics as insufficiently committed to defending the United States. A renewed attempt to justify the war as a resolute stand against terrorism is well underway.
President Bush and many of his vocal supporters aren’t content to wrap themselves in the flag. It’s not sufficient to posture as more patriotic than opponents of the Iraq war. The ultimate demagogic weapon is to exploit the memory of Sept. 11, 2001.
The fourth anniversary will provide the Bush administration with plenty of media opportunities to wrap itself in the 9/11 shroud and depict Iraq war critics as insufficiently committed to defending the United States. A renewed attempt to justify the war as a resolute stand against terrorism is well underway.
Not published in The New York Times
The only thing more evil, small-minded and treacherous than the Bush Administration's jailing Judith Miller for a crime the Bush Administration committed, is Judith Miller covering up her Bush Administration "source."
Judy, Karl Rove ain't no "source." A confidential source -- and I've worked with many -- is an insider ready to put himself on the line to blow the whistle on an official lie or hidden danger. I would protect a source's name with my life and fortune as would any journalist who's not a craven jerk (the Managing Editor of Time Magazine comes to mind).
But the weasel who whispered "Valerie Plame" in Miller's ear was no source. Whether it was Karl Rove or some other Rove-tron inside the Bush regime (and no one outside Bush's band would have had this information), this was an official using his official info to commit a crime for the sole purpose of punishing a REAL whistleblower, Joseph Wilson, Plame's husband, for questioning our President's mythological premise for war in Iraq.
The only thing more evil, small-minded and treacherous than the Bush Administration's jailing Judith Miller for a crime the Bush Administration committed, is Judith Miller covering up her Bush Administration "source."
Judy, Karl Rove ain't no "source." A confidential source -- and I've worked with many -- is an insider ready to put himself on the line to blow the whistle on an official lie or hidden danger. I would protect a source's name with my life and fortune as would any journalist who's not a craven jerk (the Managing Editor of Time Magazine comes to mind).
But the weasel who whispered "Valerie Plame" in Miller's ear was no source. Whether it was Karl Rove or some other Rove-tron inside the Bush regime (and no one outside Bush's band would have had this information), this was an official using his official info to commit a crime for the sole purpose of punishing a REAL whistleblower, Joseph Wilson, Plame's husband, for questioning our President's mythological premise for war in Iraq.
Is there ever anyone luckier than Judy Miller? All last year she was pilloried as the prime saleslady for the imaginary WMDs that offered the prime pretext for the invasion of Iraq. Although it refused to denounce her by name, the New York Times publicly castigated itself for poor reporting, and Miller's career seemed to be at an end, except for the occasional excursion to CNN studios for tete-a-tetes with Larry King.
But then came a glimmer of hope. With unexpected zeal, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was pressing his investigation of who exactly outed Valerie Plame as a CIA officer. Plame, as the world knows, is the wife of Joe Wilson, who had incurred the displeasure of the Bush White House by discrediting the phony Nigerian yellowcake story, part of their vast propaganda operation to sell the Iraq attack to Congress and the American people.
But then came a glimmer of hope. With unexpected zeal, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was pressing his investigation of who exactly outed Valerie Plame as a CIA officer. Plame, as the world knows, is the wife of Joe Wilson, who had incurred the displeasure of the Bush White House by discrediting the phony Nigerian yellowcake story, part of their vast propaganda operation to sell the Iraq attack to Congress and the American people.
Media activism has achieved a lot. But I don’t believe there’s
anything to be satisfied with -- considering the present-day realities of
corporate media and the warfare state.
War has become a constant of U.S. foreign policy, and media flackery for the war-makers in Washington is routine -- boosting militarism that tilts the country in more authoritarian directions. The dominant news outlets provide an ongoing debate over how to fine-tune the machinery of war. What we need is a debate over how to dismantle the war machine.
When there are appreciable splits within or between the two major political parties, the mainstream news coverage is apt to include some divergent outlooks. But when elites in Washington close ranks for war, the major media are more inclined to shut down real discourse.
War has become a constant of U.S. foreign policy, and media flackery for the war-makers in Washington is routine -- boosting militarism that tilts the country in more authoritarian directions. The dominant news outlets provide an ongoing debate over how to fine-tune the machinery of war. What we need is a debate over how to dismantle the war machine.
When there are appreciable splits within or between the two major political parties, the mainstream news coverage is apt to include some divergent outlooks. But when elites in Washington close ranks for war, the major media are more inclined to shut down real discourse.
Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman was one of several distinguished guests, including Seymour Hersh, Rep. Bernie Sanders, Phil Donahue, Naomi Klein and other prominent media professionals.
...Hersh claimed the Iraq War was increasingly being conducted “off the books” by mercenaries, retired military personnel, and private contractors beyond the scope of accountability.
... “Body bags aren’t going to stop him,” Hersh said, referring to Bush.
...According to...Congressman (Sanders), this media distortion is no accident; as fewer and fewer corporations control more and more media outlets, viewpoints are increasingly channeled and contrived to benefit narrow commercial interests at the expense of the public good.
...Klein defined the obsessive prominence of the Michael Jackson and Terri Schiavo cases in the media as “spasms of collective mourning.” University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was the site of a conference entitled “Can Freedom of the Press Survive Media Consolidation?” on May 10th and 11th, 2005. The Conference focused on the impact of media conglomeration and corporate control on the dissemination of news in the United States.
...Hersh claimed the Iraq War was increasingly being conducted “off the books” by mercenaries, retired military personnel, and private contractors beyond the scope of accountability.
... “Body bags aren’t going to stop him,” Hersh said, referring to Bush.
...According to...Congressman (Sanders), this media distortion is no accident; as fewer and fewer corporations control more and more media outlets, viewpoints are increasingly channeled and contrived to benefit narrow commercial interests at the expense of the public good.
...Klein defined the obsessive prominence of the Michael Jackson and Terri Schiavo cases in the media as “spasms of collective mourning.” University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was the site of a conference entitled “Can Freedom of the Press Survive Media Consolidation?” on May 10th and 11th, 2005. The Conference focused on the impact of media conglomeration and corporate control on the dissemination of news in the United States.
Sadly, it has come to this. Two years after the invasion of Iraq, the
online powerhouse MoveOn.org -- which built most of its member base with a
strong antiwar message -- is not pushing for withdrawal of U.S. troops from
Iraq.
With a network of more than 3 million “online activists,” the MoveOn leadership has decided against opposing the American occupation of Iraq. During the recent bloody months, none of MoveOn’s action alerts have addressed what Americans can do to help get the U.S. military out of that country. Likewise, the MoveOn.org website has continued to bypass the issue -- even after Rep. Lynn Woolsey and two dozen cosponsors in the House of Representatives introduced a resolution in late January calling for swift removal of all U.S. troops from Iraq.
With a network of more than 3 million “online activists,” the MoveOn leadership has decided against opposing the American occupation of Iraq. During the recent bloody months, none of MoveOn’s action alerts have addressed what Americans can do to help get the U.S. military out of that country. Likewise, the MoveOn.org website has continued to bypass the issue -- even after Rep. Lynn Woolsey and two dozen cosponsors in the House of Representatives introduced a resolution in late January calling for swift removal of all U.S. troops from Iraq.
Without his make-up, Dan looked like hell warmed over: old, defeated, yet angry. And he told our television audience something that just blew me away. Dan Rather said that American reporters may not ask tough questions about George Bush or his wars.
"It's an obscene comparison," Rather said, "but there was a time in South Africa when people would put flaming tires around peoples' necks if they dissented. In some ways, the fear is that you will be neck-laced here, you will have a flaming tire of lack of patriotism put around your neck."
Talking to another reporter, Dan told it straight about the careerism that keeps US journalists in line. "It's that fear that keeps [American] journalists from asking the toughest of the tough questions and to continue to bore-in on the tough questions so often."
"It's an obscene comparison," Rather said, "but there was a time in South Africa when people would put flaming tires around peoples' necks if they dissented. In some ways, the fear is that you will be neck-laced here, you will have a flaming tire of lack of patriotism put around your neck."
Talking to another reporter, Dan told it straight about the careerism that keeps US journalists in line. "It's that fear that keeps [American] journalists from asking the toughest of the tough questions and to continue to bore-in on the tough questions so often."
When I think of newspaper journalists who became authors and had
enormous impacts on media criticism in the United States, two names come to
mind.
One is George Seldes. As a young man, he covered the First World War and then reported on historic events in Europe for the Chicago Tribune from 1919 until 1928. Seldes quit the paper and went on to blaze a trail as an independent journalist -- ready, able and eager to challenge media business-as-usual. Naturally, he earned hostility from the kind of media magnates he skewered in “Lords of the Press.” The renowned historian Charles A. Beard called that 1938 book “a grand job.”
Forty-five years later, another emigre from newsrooms wrote a book that turned out to have profound effects on critical thinking about media. When “The Media Monopoly” first appeared in 1983, the media establishment and many of its employees shrugged; if they paid any attention, it was usually just long enough to dismiss Ben Bagdikian’s warning about consolidation of media ownership as alarmist.
One is George Seldes. As a young man, he covered the First World War and then reported on historic events in Europe for the Chicago Tribune from 1919 until 1928. Seldes quit the paper and went on to blaze a trail as an independent journalist -- ready, able and eager to challenge media business-as-usual. Naturally, he earned hostility from the kind of media magnates he skewered in “Lords of the Press.” The renowned historian Charles A. Beard called that 1938 book “a grand job.”
Forty-five years later, another emigre from newsrooms wrote a book that turned out to have profound effects on critical thinking about media. When “The Media Monopoly” first appeared in 1983, the media establishment and many of its employees shrugged; if they paid any attention, it was usually just long enough to dismiss Ben Bagdikian’s warning about consolidation of media ownership as alarmist.