Bill Moyers at the National Conference on Media Reform - "You're not alone"

from videofreepress... forty minutes and worth every second spent watching...

Legendary journalist Bill Moyers address the National Conference for Media Reform in Minneapolis, June 7, 2008.

extraordinarily powerful stuff...

p.s. have i mentioned lately that bill moyers is one of my very few personal heroes...?

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When the progressive blogosphere doesn't walk its talk

A recurrent theme in the progressive blogosphere is the lack of context offered by traditional news outlets in their news reporting. It is remarkable, therefore, that, given General Ricardo Sanchez' testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on May 19, 2004, in which he perjured himself by denying that he authorized enhanced interrogation techniques for use in Iraq, that fact was completely ignored by both progressive bloggers and the traditional news media in the coverage of Sanchez' recent speech decrying the Bush administration debacle that is Iraq.

The memorandum written and signed by General Sanchez on September 14, 2003, contained as an enclosure the specific interrogation techniques authorized to be used in Iraq, and also noted those that were potentially in contravention of Geneva.

General Sanchez was asked if he ordered or approved those techniques by U.S. Senator Jack Reed in testimony given before the Senate Armed Services Committee on May 19, 2004.

On May 19, 2004, General Ricardo Sanchez testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing on Iraq Prison Abuse.

U.S. SENATOR JACK REED (D-RI): General Sanchez, today's USA Today, sir, reported that you ordered or approved the use of sleep deprivation, intimidation by guard dogs, excessive noise and inducing fear as an interrogation method for a prisoner in Abu Ghraib prison.

REED: Is that correct?

LIEUTENANT GENERAL RICARDO SANCHEZ, COMMANDER, MULTINATIONAL FORCE-IRAQ : Sir, that may be correct that it's in a news article, but I never approved any of those measures to be used within CJTF-7 at any time in the last year.

General Sanchez' perjury was not mentioned in any of the following weblogs or news outlets.

Think Progress

AMERICAblog (here and here)

Talking Points Memo

Atrios

Daily Kos

Juan Cole

Raw Story

Washington Post

Associated Press

The missing context is crucial information regarding General Sanchez' credibility. Its inclusion would allow readers to potentially draw different conclusions about General Sanchez' purpose in speaking out against the Iraq debacle and the Bush administration. The progressive blogosphere has prided itself on holding public figures and the traditional media to account, and has never hesitated to excoriate the vast noise machine of the right for overlooking inconvenient facts. We should not allow ourselves to fall into the same trap.

Even more interesting is that I have posted comments about General Sanchez' perjury on all of the above weblogs, including the relevant links, and still no mention has been made. Trust me, I'm not looking for recognition here, I just believe that a very important fact regarding this story has been omitted, and WHERE that omission has taken place bothers me greatly.

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Normalizing the unthinkable

do yourself a favor and go read the transcript, watch the video or listen to the mp3 of this john pilger speech during the Socialism 2007 conference in Chicago...

here's a teaser, thanks to democracy now via co-blogger tobymandrake...

John Pilger - the eminent investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker - is a harsh critic of the corporate media. Pilger began his career in journalism close to half a century ago. He has made over 50 documentaries and is the author of numerous books, his most recent is titled "Freedom Next Time: Resisting the Empire."

[M]edia clichéd language ... is designed to normalize the unthinkable; of the degradation of war, of severed limbs, of maimed children, all of which I've seen. One of my favorite stories about the Cold War concerns a group of Russian journalists who were touring the United States. On the final day of their visit, they were asked by the host for their impressions. "I have to tell you," said the spokesman, "that we were astonished to find after reading all the newspapers and watching TV day after day that all the opinions on all the vital issues are the same. To get that result in our country we send journalists to the gulag. We even tear out their fingernails. Here you don't have to do any of that. What is the secret?"

What is the secret? It is a question seldom asked in newsrooms, in media colleges, in journalism journals, and yet the answer to that question is critical to the lives of millions of people. On August 24 last year the New York Times declared this in an editorial: "If we had known then what we know now the invasion if Iraq would have been stopped by a popular outcry." This amazing admission was saying, in effect, that journalists had betrayed the public by not doing their job and by accepting and amplifying and echoing the lies of Bush and his gang, instead of challenging them and exposing them. What the Times didn't say was that had that paper and the rest of the media exposed the lies, up to a million people might be alive today. That's the belief now of a number of senior establishment journalists. Few of them—they've spoken to me about it—few of them will say it in public.

there's plenty more, much of which confirms the complicity of our two political parties' and our media in keeping us from learning the truth...

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Alternative Media

Gore Vidal on the media, from TheRealNews.

C&L has an excellent video clip of Amy Goodman interviewing Glenn Greenwald on FISA and Domestic Wiretapping.

Serious concern over the issue of the FISA Amendment does not appear to be simply rolling over, belly up, for the convenience of the Administration.

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CNN starts what I hope will be a trend

i subscribed to cnn pipeline in the middle of bush's announcement of rumsfeld's resignation... i was in buenos aires at the time and realized how much i needed to have immediate, reliable, live news streaming... i'm not a big fan of cnn, particularly cnn u.s. domestic service... cnn international is significantly better, but even that's not saying a lot...

now, cnn pipeline is dropping it's subscription charges and converting to free service... that's a good thing and i'm wondering when other services like msnbc will do the same... without a doubt, video streamed directly to your computer screen is the wave of the future... i've long anticipated everything going into one pipe and this is a step closer to that reality...

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Ron Paul gave an answer THIS voter wanted to hear

over at the huffpo, linda milazzo seizes on a very important moment in last week's repub debate, something i haven't seen picked up elsewhere...

The resounding moment of truth during Thursday's Reagan-raptured debate came when Texas Congressman Dr. Ron Paul said he preferred Internet reporting to mainstream media, then strongly defended the need for Internet freedom and independence.

When asked the question, "Do you trust the mainstream media?" Dr. Paul instantly replied:

"Some of them [mainstream media]. But I trust the Internet a lot more. And I trust the freedom of expression and that's why we should never interfere with the Internet. That's why I've never voted to regulate the Internet even when there's the temptation to put bad things on the Internet. Regulation of bad and good on the Internet should be done differently. But there's every reason to believe we have enough freedom in this country to have freedom of expression and that's what's important..."

Bravo!!

What a welcome relief to hear a Presidential candidate willing to take on New Media, where establishment rules of "off limits" and "quid pro quo" no longer apply. Where predictable questions which candidates rehearse are replaced with relevant questions 'we-the-people' want to know.

i will echo the "bravo...!" not a day passes that i don't think about bushco efforts that are undoubtedly underway to restrict the free flow of information on the internet as has happened to our other supposedly free-speech media outlets...

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