News and Politics | September 16, 2008 | 15 comments

Leading journalists expose major media manipulations

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Conniepae
The riveting excerpts below are from the revealing accounts of 20 award-winning journalists in the highly acclaimed book Into the Buzzsaw. These courageous writers were prevented by corporate media ownership from reporting major news stories. Some were even fired or laid off. They have won numerous awards, including several Emmys and a Pulitzer. Join in building a better world by helping to spread this news across the land.
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Jane Akre—Fox News. After our struggle to air an honest report [on hormones in milk], Fox fired the general manager [of our station]. The new GM said that if we didn’t agree to changes that the lawyers were insisting upon, we’d be fired for insubordination in 48 hours. We pleaded with [him] to look at the facts we’d uncovered. His reply: “We paid $3 billion dollars for these stations. We’ll tell you what the news is. The news is what we say it is!” [After we refused] Fox’s GM presented us an agreement that would give us a full year of salary, and benefits worth close to $200,000, but with strings attached: no mention of how Fox covered up the story and no opportunity to ever expose the facts. [After declining] we were fired. (click for more)

Dan Rather—CBS, Multiple Emmy Awards. What's going on is a belief that you can manipulate communicable trust between the leadership and the led. The way you do that is you don't let the press in anywhere. Access to war is extremely limited. The fiercer the combat, the more the access is limited, [including] access to information. This is a direct contradiction of the stated policy of maximum access to information consistent with national security. There was a time in South Africa when people would put flaming tires around people's necks if they dissented. In some ways the fear [now in the U.S.] is that you will have a flaming tire of lack of patriotism put around your neck. That fear keeps journalists from asking the tough questions. I am humbled to say, I do not except myself from this criticism. (click for more)

Monika Jensen-Stevenson—Emmy-winning producer for 60 minutes. Robert R. Garwood—14 years a prisoner of the Vietnamese—was found guilty in the longest court-martial in US history. At the end of the court-martial, there seemed no question that Garwood was a monstrous traitor. Several years later in 1985, Garwood was speaking publicly about something that had never made the news during his court-martial. He knew of other American prisoners in Vietnam long after the war was over. He was supported by Vietnam veterans whose war records were impeccable….My sources included outstanding experts like former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency General Tighe and returned POWs like Captain McDaniel, who held the Navy’s top award for bravery. With such advocates, it was hard not to consider the possibility that prisoners (some 3,500) had in fact been kept by the Vietnamese as hostages to make sure the US would pay the more than $3 billion in war reparations. [After the war] American POWs had become worthless pawns. The US had not paid the promised monies and had no intention of paying in the future. (click for more)

Read what other journalists have to say:
http://www.wanttoknow.info/008/080916_mass_media_manipulations

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15 comments // Leading journalists expose major media manipulations

  • geneonlbk
    • 0
      geneonlbk  
    • I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight.....

      If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're "exotic, different."
      Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, a quintessential American story.

      If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
      Name you r kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.

      Graduate from Harvard Law School and you are unstable.
      Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.

      If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Envi ronment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.

      If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.

      If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2
      beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.

      If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.

      If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.

      If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.

      If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America’s.

      If your husband is nicknamed "First Dude", with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.

      OK, much clearer now.

    • 3 years ago
  • mariposablanca
  • SDLN
    • 0
      SDLN  
    • I used to enjoy reading those Project Censored books back in the day. "The News That Didn't Make the News".

    • 3 years ago
  • uppityprogressive
    • 0
      uppityprogressive  
    • Time to take over the media, shut them down where they spew. Enough! Peasants did it in Mexico, we should do it here. Just walk in and take the damn cameras, toss Britney to the cutting room floor and broadcast from the people.

      Start with the Republican Hate Machine on the thousands of radio stations throughout the land and move on into the TV stations. Shut down Fox and Rupert Murdock before he calls another election.

    • 3 years ago
  • mariposablanca
  • Conniepae
    • 0
      Conniepae  
    • Kinda explains why Independent Journalists were targeted during the Republican Convention. Too hard to manipulate. Manipulated facts are harder to spin on the Internet and independent forums. If they cant manipulate them, why not scare them. Arrest them? Freedom of the Press? Freedom?

      Intimidation and manipulation kinda go together, like peanut butter and jelly.

    • 3 years ago
  • Soregasim
  • NickerBocker09
  • huntre
  • Jaaaaaaaaaade
  • CharlieG
  • VoyagerFilms
  • kennymotown
  • itdango
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