The Myth of a Free Press

[Darren Dirt]

The Myth of a Free Press - not just a speculative theory; Kristina Borjesson has spent many years demonstrating its very real existence.


www.paraview.com/features/free_press.htm



Stories get "spiked" -- but journalists who exceed the status quo limits of subjects safe to be reported, get placed Into The Buzzsaw...


www.amazon.com/Into-Buzzsaw-Leading/dp/1591022304/


www.buzzflash.com/interviews/05/01/int05002.html

With respect to sensitive stories, the buzzsaw is a sophisticated system consisting of myriad elements, including self-censoring journalists, reporters who pander to powerful people and institutions, major media conglomerates with specific business and political agendas, propaganda machines both inside and outside of government, etc., which ensure that the American public remains virtually ignorant about how this nation's--and the world's--arenas of power really function. The buzzsaw system ensures that stories lifting the veil on what powerful institutions and people really do, and how their activities affect the nation and its citizens, never hit the mass public consciousness.

...mainstream media is big business and big business and the government are so tightly interwoven that they're really just two aspects of one system. The mainstream press is the arena of power's megaphone. People really need to stop expecting it to be more than that.

...the White House press corps makes its living off of official sources and depends on them for leaks. Harper's publisher John MacArthur said it best to me in an interview: "They can't operate without being part of the system. Or they feel they can't operate without being part of the governmental system of leaks. And nobody in top management encourages them to think otherwise."

There's a damage control component of the buzzsaw system that kicks in after a story is out. This component engages people, including other journalists, as well as resources, to discredit the story and the journalist who reported it, and gets the executives at the media outlet that released the story to turn around and disown it. In Gary [Webb]'s case, the buzzsaw was brutal and has lasted up to now, which gives you an idea of how big his story actually is.

What happened to Gary would definitely put a chill on average reporters thinking of doing these types of stories, but they usually avoid them anyway. Big, sensitive stories are done by a small elite group of journalists who will always go for them because that's what they live to do, even though the work can become a terrible, even deadly, burden.

www.paraview.com/borjesson/

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NOTE: I first heard of her and the book from this disturbing article about the failure of "reporters" to actually "report" certain things:
www.disclosureproject.org/mediaplay.htm

[Darren Dirt]

Wow, knowing the above, the following makes a whole lot more sense -- i.e. "why" it happens:

The Dynamic of a Bush* Scandal: How the Spying Story Will Unfold (and Fade)

* of course, this would be equally as true with any administration at any government level, if the scandal was focused on the "untouchable areas" hinted in the above posting.

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The Dynamic of a Bush Scandal: How the Spying Story Will Unfold (and Fade)
by Peter Daou

December 20, 2005
[Updated version posted on 2.5.06]

The third button on the Daou Report's navigation bar links to the U.S. Constitution, a Constitution many Americans believe is on life support - if not already dead. The cause of its demise is the corrosive interplay between the Bush administration, a bevy of blind apologists, a politically apathetic public, a well-oiled rightwing message machine, lapdog reporters, and a disorganized opposition. The domestic spying case perfectly illuminates the workings of that system. And the unfolding of this story augurs poorly for those who expect it to yield different results from other administration scandals.


Here's why: the dynamic of a typical Bush scandal follows familiar contours...


1. POTUS circumvents the law - an impeachable offense.

2. The story breaks (in this case after having been concealed by a news organization until well after Election 2004).

3. The Bush crew floats a number of pushback strategies, settling on one that becomes the mantra of virtually every Republican surrogate. These Republicans face down poorly prepped Dem surrogates and shred them on cable news shows.

4. Rightwing attack dogs on talk radio, blogs, cable nets, and conservative editorial pages maul Bush's critics as traitors for questioning the CIC.

5. The Republican leadership plays defense for Bush, no matter how flagrant the Bush over-reach, no matter how damaging the administration's actions to America's reputation and to the Constitution. A few 'mavericks' like Hagel or Specter risk the inevitable rightwing backlash and meekly suggest that the president should obey the law. John McCain, always the Bush apologist when it really comes down to it, minimizes the scandal.

6. Left-leaning bloggers and online activists go ballistic, expressing their all-too-familiar combination of outrage at Bush and frustration that nothing ever seems to happen with these scandals. Several newspaper editorials echo these sentiments but quickly move on to other issues.

7. A few reliable Dems, Conyers, Boxer, et al, take a stand on principle, giving momentary hope to the progressive grassroots/netroots community. The rest of the Dem leadership is temporarily outraged (adding to that hope), but is chronically incapable of maintaining the sense of high indignation and focus required to reach critical mass and create a wholesale shift in public opinion. For example, just as this mother of all scandals hits Washington, Democrats are still putting out press releases on Iraq, ANWR and a range of other topics, diluting the story and signaling that they have little intention of following through. This allows Bush to use his three favorite weapons: time, America's political apathy, and make-believe 'journalists' who yuck it up with him and ask fluff questions at his frat-boy pressers.

8. Reporters and media outlets obfuscate and equivocate, pretending to ask tough questions but essentially pushing the same narratives they've developed and perfected over the past five years, namely, some variation of "Bush firm, Dems soft." A range of Bush-protecting tactics are put into play, one being to ask ridiculously misleading questions such as "Should Bush have the right to protect Americans or should he cave in to Democratic political pressure?" All the while, the right assaults the "liberal" media for daring to tell anything resembling the truth.

9. Polls will emerge with 'proof' that half the public agrees that Bush should have the right to "protect Americans against terrorists." Again, the issue will be framed to mask the true nature of the malfeasance. The media will use these polls to create a self-fulfilling loop and convince the public that it isn't that bad after all. The president breaks the law. Life goes on.

10. The story starts blending into a long string of administration scandals, and through skillful use of scandal fatigue, Bush weathers the storm and moves on, further demoralizing his opponents and cementing the press narrative about his 'resolve' and toughness. Congressional hearings might revive the issue momentarily, and bloggers will hammer away at it, but the initial hype is all the Democratic leadership and the media can muster, and anyway, it's never as juicy the second time around...


Rinse and repeat.


It's a battle of attrition that Bush and his team have mastered. Short of a major Dem initiative to alter the cycle, to throw a wrench into the system, to go after the media institutionally, this cycle will continue for the foreseeable future.

Written 9 months ago, updated in February... painfully accurate.



this quote, proven all the more true the more you look deeper at things

[Darren Dirt]

HOW FREE* IS THE PRESS?
Check out the Worldwide press freedom index

...and it's only gonna get worse, cuz the above is mainly *government* restrictions on access/truth, but now we're also seeing increased control imposed by mega-corps (who [will] have a vested commercial interest in silencing negative "press" against "their" interests...)

[Darren Dirt]

LT. LOCKHART: "Not While We're Eating--N.V.A. learn marines on a search and destroy mission don't like to be interrupted while eating chow."Search and destroy. Uh, we have a new directive from M.A.F. on this. In the future, in place of "search and destroy," substitute the phrase "sweep and clear." Got it?

PVT. JOKER: Got it. Very catchy.

LOCKHART: And, Joker... where's the weenie?

JOKER: Sir?

LOCKHART: The Kill, JOKER. The kill. I mean, all that fire, the grunts must've hit something.

JOKER: Didn't see 'em.

LOCKHART: Joker, I've told you, we run two basic stories here. Grunts who give half their pay to buy gooks toothbrushes and deodorants -- Winning of Hearts and Minds -- okay? And combat action that results in a kill -- Winning the War. Now you must have seen blood trails... drag marks?

JOKER: It was raining, sir.

LOCKHART: Well, that's why God passed the law of probability. Now rewrite it and give it a happy ending -- say, uh, one kill. Make it a sapper or an officer. Which?

JOKER: Whichever you say.

LOCKHART: Grunts like reading about dead officers.

JOKER: Okay, an officer. How about a general?

LOCKHART: Joker, maybe you'd like our guys to read the paper and feel bad. I mean, in case you didn't know it, this is not a particularly popular war. Now, it is our job to report the news that these why-are-we-here civilian newsmen ignore.

JOKER: Sir, maybe you should go out on some ops yourself. I'm sure you could find a lot more blood trails and drag marks.

- Full Metal Jacket


...the times, they haven't been a-change-ing all that much...

[Darren Dirt]

Lewis Black talks about war and left/right spin... and that annoying "crawl" at the bottom of the TV news stations

(language warning -- after all, it *is* Lewis Black )

www.youtube.com/watch?v=joYqaUe00D8



Lewis doesn't like the crawl.