The System Is Broken. Late last year, I blogged about Dan Rather’s accusations about corporations running the newsrooms. Now Bill Moyers echos that sentiment with a piece called “Is The Fourth Estate a Fifth Column?” and even goes so far to blame the media of “colluding with the powers that be in a culture of deception that subverts the thing most necessary to freedom, and that is the truth.”
When you have two respected veterans in network news saying something’s fubar in the newsroom, there’s something REALLY fubar in the newsroom.
Case in point: While trying to get information about HR6304 (aka the “telecom immunity bill”) being passed and made into “law,” I don’t remember any of the major news outlets reporting anything of the bill’s progress. That might be my bad; I don’t bother to watch the news anymore, except for the weather. But unless one had access to an insider’s blog or a government site that tracks bills in Congress, one would not know of the HR6304’s progress or passage. Without coverage from the mainstream news outlets, virtually nobody knew of the bill’s passage. It was like the corporate newsrooms didn’t want the public to know that the fourth amendment was being revoked. (You can LART me on the lack of mainstream news coverage if I’m wrong. I was expecting something more than just a quick on-screen scroll.)
What could be worse than getting no information? Maybe getting the wrong information:
Democracy without honest information creates the illusion of popular consent at the same time that it enhances the power of the state and the privileged interests that the state protects. And nothing characterizes corporate media today more than its disdain toward the fragile nature of modern life and its indifference toward the complex social debate required of a free and self-governing people.
Need more proof that corporate control of information is dangerous? Moyers references incidents with Comcast’s shills at a net-neutrality meeting being exposed by SaveTheInternet.com and Verizon trying to censor NARAL text-messages. Information control = mind control.
How to reclaim democracy. Moyer’s solution to the lies dispensed by the corporate board-newsroom is quite simple… and dare I say… a bit of punkish DIY (!):
But we’re not alone and we know what we need to say. So let us all go tell it on the mountains and in the cities. From our websites and laptops, the street corners and coffeehouses, the delis and diners, the factory floors and the bookstores. On campus, at the mall, the synagogue, sanctuary and mosque, let’s tell it where we can, when we can and while we still can.
Like starting your own newspaper… or maybe a blog…
