Monday, August 03, 2009

War Of The O'ses

War Of The O'ses

Glenn Greenwald - Salon:

Does anyone need it explained to them why it is so dangerous and destructive to have our political debates controlled by GE executives, sitting in their offices censoring the journalism of our leading media outlets in the name of "civility," code for: you will respect those who can harm us?
Our entire political culture is already designed to ensure corporate control of our political institutions. Their lobbyists literally write the laws enacted by Congress and control their implementation. The reason the journalism industry insisted for so long on the ludicrous fiction that corporate parents never violated the sanctity of journalistic independence is precisely because everyone understood why that would be so dangerous.
Apparently, they no longer feel a need to maintain that fiction.


It's not that we didn't see it coming. Absorption of an inconveniently independent media as a means of controlling the message is a strategy as old as the hills, irrespective of the ideology espoused.

Right-wing eradication (including such acts performed under the Clinton administrations) of laws covering media ownership and a contrasted balance of viewpoints merely hastened an inevitable process in America...The shaping of public perceptions into a form congruent with corporate dictates, the replacement of objective truth with subjective nuance, and the marginalization of contrary information.

Now, what can be done about it?

8 comments:

moeman said...

They were 'mediated' by charlie rose. Isn't he supposed to be a journalist?

darkblack said...

This Charlie Rose, moeman?

'ROSE: I don't know what "independent" means - "independent" in contrast to what?

AMY GOODMAN: It means not being sponsored by the corporations, the networks -- like NBC, CBS, ABC: NBC owned by General Electric, CBS owned by Viacom, or ABC owned by Disney -

ROSE: My point in response to that would be that we do need you ...Having said that, I promise you, CBS News and ABC News and NBC News are not influenced by the corporations that may own those companies. Since I know one of them very well and worked for one of them.'


Apparently, he's one of life's innocent bystanders, no doubt shocked - SHOCKED - to find undue influence being exerted.

;>)

Phil said...

Charlie Rose is a fuckling chump too.

I saw hi interview Rove and he just sat their and let that motherfucker lie his ass off without even bothering to point out that he WAS
Zero credibility.
Olbermann and Maddow are our only weapons against these bastards and this bullshit of GE trying to quash Olbermann's tiff with that dickhead O'Reilly is disgusting.
I unplugged my television three months ago and finally gave it away yesterday.

Fuck them.

Randal Graves said...

Your question is moot because nothing will be done. If there's one thing America does better than any other nation on the planet - putting aside blowing up brown people for a moment - it's easy acceptance of creepy shit like this.

s. douglas said...

People need to smoke more weed. That way even if they wanted to pay attention to the media, they couldn't because the shiny things would distract them.

darkblack said...

I've been mooted, Randal...I'm crushed.
;)

Yes, rapid evasion of unpleasant reality and subsequent transcontinental amnesia is an unfortunate American trait, but I'll continue to hope my little hopes for a tiny bit of dialog.

...

Chemically induced addlepatedness is certainly preferable over the ideologically organic version, fairlane...As long as they don't scare the dinosaurs.

;>)

Larue said...

"Does anyone need it explained . . ."

Nope.

NEXT!!!!!

*G*

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